111–120 of 514 posts
"We didn't do anything illegal, or that would leave us vulnerable to a lawsuit" is about the only content that this blog post contains. While Horvath characterized much of her woes as being gender-related [1], the investigation could have classified most of them as either unprovable or terrible-but-not-provably-sexist (in particular, the behavior of the Preston-Werners). I doubt it will ever be clear what actually ha…
You're right. It will never be clear what actually happened. I think Internet message boards create the perception that outcomes like that are rare. They're not: they're the norm. That's how it's supposed to be. We don't get to know everything and we need to work within the limits of our knowledge.
"You have a hostile work environment."
is
"We don't have a provably illegal hostile work environment."
then that doesn't inspire great confidence when evaluating it as a place to work.
Julie Ann Horvath has posted a bunch of interesting tweets about it starting here https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/458340919721197568
Also, the question[1] in her current github background appears to represent a suggestive joke that I would have never guessed she'd be comfortable with. Not saying this is any kind of evidence of anything; just interesting that apparently there is a side to her that finds jokes like that funny.
So, guy who wrote GitHub and a ton of open source stuff is ousted from his own company and sacrificed for a person whos biggest accomplishment in open source is JavaScript for Cats? https://github.com/nrrrdcore/javascript-for-cats
What an embarrassment if you ask me. Why should he leave if he's been found of no legal wrong-doing by a third party? These tumblr-twats warriors only break communities.
Because you can do your job badly and be unsuitable to continue in it by exhibiting poor judgement without breaking the law.
It sounds like Mrs. Preston-Werner was a regular presence at the GitHub office and, according to Horvath, had extensive access to private information throughout GitHub's systems despite the fact that she wasn't an employee. If true, that should certainly be a privacy and security concern to any GitHub customer or user.
This is incredibly troubling. How can anyone trust GitHub, knowing that non-employees regularly had access to private information?
I don't even know what to make of this. They say there was no evidence but he is still resigning.
TOTALLY MADE-UP EXAMPLE: 1. Employee makes sexual harassment claim. 2. Outside HR consultant brought in. 3. Consultant asks "where is your anti-sexual harassment training course?" 4. CEO says o_o. 5. HR consultant establishes a policy for the company. 6. Board asks CEO to resign for not having the thing asked for in #3. Not having a training course isn't illegal -- it's not even evidence that anyone was sexually hara…
In my company that was a mandatory all company meeting where a lawyer made a powerpoint presentation for a couple of hours. Then there was some sort quiz and us signing something as far as I can remember.
Kicked out of his own company? Reminds me of Apple and SJ... Hopefully Tom will see a great future and make some out of the blue return.
Unfortunately people who can write inspirational and innovative code like that are not always the most perceptive to the complexities and risks of HR in a large organisation.
I really hope mojombo gets back to building awesome again ... a VR coding environment - shut up and take my money ...
There appear to have been weirdnesses around the investigation, such as Julie Ann Horvath (and other ex-employees) remaining uncontacted until it was wrapping up: https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/453298152569720832 So I don't know how much stock you can place behind the idea that the investigators GH hired, who did not contact ex-employees competently, found them blameless. The resignation probably speaks for mor…
So, remember that what Julie says about them not contacting her is itself, and allegation. Her picture proves nothing, after all. Your conclusion about "how much stock to place" does not follow, since this allegation has not been proven true. Having been involved in this sort of thing before, both on the "asked to investigate" and "asked to play witness for an employee side", i'd say the truth always lies somewhere i…
In my experience, the truth usually lies very strongly to one side of the spectrum, and sometimes beyond an extreme (as reasonable people often bend over backwards in giving their version of events, while unreasonable people do not), but you'll never find out for sure.
E.g. in the Techcrunch piece Horvath says that the founder's wife spoke of having spies, and influencing HR decisions, and so on. I can easily imagine the conversation taking place over drinks, and it could be horribly sinister or it could be someone's not-very-well-judged attempt at humor. But this doesn't mean that "the truth is in-between".
This makes me sad. My interpretation of these events was that a toxic employee instigated a witch hunt and was successful. By simple observation of numbers here, you probably disagree with this. But for the few of you that do agree with this point of view, take it as a reminder of the crucial role of hiring. You can easily hire the person who ruins your company's culture and causes your downfall.
