Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

I'm not going to get into what is right or wrong.

With that being said, in the US HR is not your friend as an employee. Their job is to protect the company. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/20-job-tips-hr-exec/story?id=...

Any way you look at it you have a bad situation. This sounds like a clash of personalities. While the behavior is not right, the fact is that a lot of companies will 'manage out' people unfairly etc.. Politics and personality clashes are never fair. In a capitalistic society money tends to trump social justice. It sucks, but it would take some pretty large structural changes to the economy to really fix that.

If the founders wife is causing issues with other employees then that could be an issue. The question is would this cause enough of a legal liability for the company to do something? Will edging out the founder be beneficial to the company, the investors and the profit of the company or not? Be it right or wrong, that is the question that is going to be asked in the board room if that option is even on the table with Github.

While I like to see justice and fairness in these situations something tells me that it is probably not likely to happen any time soon. Similar scenarios to this have been playing out in many different industries and many different countries for years.....and unfortunately will continue to.

If it is true and clear that the developer tampered with the codebase because of a personal issue with another developer, I am not even sure that is an issue to let HR resolve; I would want that developer fired immediately. Intentionally fucking with the product, or any other sort of company property, is inexcusable in my mind. Tanking the reputation of that developer is putting it nicely.

> "but isn't it to be expected that employees of a tech company will be somewhat socially awkward?"

Reverting people's commits and stripping their code out of vengeance isn't social awkwardness, it's completely unacceptable and unprofessional conduct. It doesn't matter what gender anyone is, or that it's being done out of romantic rejection, it's unacceptable. Full stop.

Author's complaint is evidently less about being hit on inappropriately (something that we could charitably attribute to "social awkwardness", maybe) and more about how the rejection was allegedly handled (read: by professional retribution). You don't get to hand-wave the latter allegation as some sort of social incompetence.

This borders on the "boys will be boys" argument. No, we don't get to excuse deplorably unprofessional behavior because someone is awkward. It's an injustice to those of us who are actually socially awkward but still know how to behave like decent fucking humans at work.

The bad actor in this version of the story seems to be the founder's wife. And the founder certainly dropped the ball by not keeping his wife in line.

For whatever reason, the wife acted crazy, intimidating, and creepy toward Horvath. Why? Who knows? Maybe because of jealousy or concern that her husband was interested in this (admittedly reasonably attractive) female employee?

The founder needed to do the professional thing and keep his wife in check, separating business and personal affairs, and not allowing this weird behavior to continue. He needed to act like a leader, taking charge in both his workplace and his home when it looked like things were getting out of hand.

And the romantically inclined co-worker is guilty of two things: (1) slightly clueless behavior toward a person who was already involved in a relationship with someone else (2) extremely bad timing. He's not the worst offender in this whole drama. (Edit: I forgot (3) taking revenge by reverting code commits. That is far worse than (1) or (2) - it is unprofessional behavior and calls for some form of workplace discipline.)

(Disclaimer: everything I wrote assumes that the article is telling the complete truth)

No examples so you can garner maximum support? What is this umbrella term 'victim blaming', anyways? Is there in this black and white view that you subscribe to no room for dual-guilt in setting up problems/crimes?

Can't you understand that at many times both parties are at fault for escalation? This is one actually useful thing that police manage to understand and accomplish, they understand that "Victims" often play a role. This is why screaming "self-defense" at every violence case does not work.

You will probably jump to rape as your first defense of victim blaming and examples, because that is the one to garner most backing off quickly.

To see what you're pissed off at, let's survey your comment history. I don't see anything particular to this case except getting pissed off, so i'll take your comment towards the website, calm. Hmm, A website towards meditation. Seems peaceful .

Let's not forget the website that was made to be only nice to people and to send encouragement only very recently. Seems like this community is trying. But one occasion with 2 sides to a story, and it's all said and done it your book? See you later.