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A Difficult Situation

blog.sendgrid.com

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Re: A Difficult Situation

#91

Post by yogo »

nilkn wrote: post #26

Even if I agree with the decision, this is incredibly hard to read. I hate to see someone lose their job over something like this. Yet I can't disagree with anything he wrote. I personally hope she will learn from this and another company will give her a new chance. The odds of that are slim given how big this has become--it's front-paging repeatedly on HN and /r/programming. But I'd hate to see her whole career ruin…

At the end of the day no one really cares. They could rehire her once everyone is consumed by the next big distraction. A couple people will make noise but the majority of people won't care. People make mistakes everyday and usually learn from them. Now if you had someone habitually doing this kind of thing then it would create a problem.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#92

Post by midge1b »

arrrg wrote: post #68

So she was actually fired because of the DDoS: “In the end, the consequences that resulted from how she reported the conduct put our business in danger. Our commitment to our 130 employees, their families, our community members and our more than 130,000 valued customers is our primary concern.” Firing someone because of the criminal activity of someone else seems very weird. At least he is opening himself up to that…

No, she was fired because "she can no longer be effective in her role at SendGrid". Which makes sense, considering her role was to strengthen developer relations...

Re: A Difficult Situation

#93

Post by fingerprinter »

Who didn't see this coming?

And when she pulled SendGrid, her employer, publicly into the fray via her twitter feed, who didn't know it was simply a matter of time?

I mean, what else could SendGrid possibly do? She basically forced them to fire her. Her value to the company is being a public face to developers. She very publicly destroyed that value. Further, she pulled SendGrid in with her tweet about them "supporting" her. Had she not done that, she might have had a fighting chance, but it almost seems like she wanted to get fired.

Not to mention that a company wants to employ people with impeccable judgement, particularly for public facing positions. She showed incredibly horrid judgment in how she initiated the situation and continued to display horrid judgement in her handling of it. Do you want someone with horrible judgement being your public face and voice?

I don't put much stock in the DDoS talk, FYI. No reputable company fires someone b/c they are being blackmailed. Though, perhaps I'm giving too much credit here, I don't know.

Either way, it should not comes as a surprise to anyone that this is the outcome.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#94

Post by blantonl »

julesie wrote: post #62

In the end we have two people out of a job. It is a sad outcome but Adria's position had simply become untenable. Personally I know who seems the more employable of the two. I do hope Adria gets the time to step back and learn something from this sorry incident. There are no winners here.

There are no winners here.

Most powerful statement I've seen yet about this issue. Literally no one can walk away and claim "victory" on this issue.

The worst part is that 130,000 customers + 2 job holders were impacted by something so insignificant in the whole grand scheme of things. Ah, the power of social media....

Re: A Difficult Situation

#95

Post by enjo »

bmj wrote: post #66
subsystem wrote: post #18

In my opinion he's a coward that doesn't stand behind his employees and that goes for PlayHaven too. They've set a terrible precedent for the industry.

Perhaps a better solution would have been to ask Ms. Richards to take a different position at the company, perhaps one that was less public? The crux for SendGrid was that Ms. Richards was a developer evangelist, and, as Mr. Franklin pointed out, if a majority of the community which she serves is upset and/or against her, how could she actually do her job?

The whole point of employing her is that she is public. They hired her specifically for her social presence. That lost a lot of value in the last 48 hours.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#96

Post by phillmv »

rdl wrote: post #3

This is the most reasonable statement I've seen so far in this whole fiasco. It's a shame he took so long to post it; it should have been the first SendGrid comment this morning.

I thought it was totally spineless.

Compare: http://braythwayt.com/2013/03/21/evangelism-pr.html

Re: A Difficult Situation

#97

Post by Shivetya »

onemorepassword wrote: post #86

I'm still missing something. Although it's obviously the right conclusion that she can no longer function a evangelist, I find it hard to believe that she now has zero value for the company. You don't completely discard a previously valued employee over one fuck-up. Unless either that person is utterly useless in any other capacity, there is previous history or they are completely unwilling to accept that they made a…

there is a might big difference between one "fuck-up" and one royal of a "fuck-up". This falls in the later camp.

Perhaps they were hoping the person in question would have realized they should have taken that action on their own. Considering the past activities of this person I highly suspect they will feel wronged on many counts.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#98

Post by powertower »

They need to update that statement with the fact that the joke was not about her, nor directed at her. Their statement leaves that very important part out, making the reader think otherwise - that she was the victim.

At the same time (or around that time) this was happening, here is a conversation she was having -

http://i.imgur.com/nRC5J7f.png

Another gem from years ago -

http://imgur.com/5tbXR2c

I'd imagine she was looking for any excuse she could find to be offended, and play the victim card.

And then bringing her employer into this mess -

> @SendGrid supports me.

https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/314452708549603328

...should have been the firable offence IMO.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#99

Post by mtrimpe »

robotmay wrote: post #41
subsystem wrote: post #18

In my opinion he's a coward that doesn't stand behind his employees and that goes for PlayHaven too. They've set a terrible precedent for the industry.

He is standing behind his employees; by protecting the jobs of those not involved in the drama. Any CEO who would stand behind an employee to the death of their company would not be CEO for very long.

Why did they feel the need to very publicly post this dismissal (and withdraw, and then reissue) in the heat of the moment while under a DDoS attack though, rather than sooner or later?

It very much feels like a cowardly act of throwing someone under a bus.

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