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I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination whistleblowing

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Re: I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination whistleblowing

#121

Author doesn't present any evidence to back up claims that I saw. I don't understand why people make posts like this and don't back it up with exact and specific instances?

I mean, at most employers you literally can't publicly share any material produced on a work computer or context, unless you feel like being sued (for violating a non-disclosure agreement). When it comes to law-violating stuff, of course in that case the NDA won't apply to sharing stuff with law enforcement etc. .. but that doesn't mean the stuff can be shared publicly (unless it becomes part of a public court case of course). It's not all that easy to blow the whistle on something and "provide receipts" to the general public (unless you don't mind having lawsuits filed against you I guess). This is why you generally give such people the benefit of the doubt -- they basically have no other option but to make their case as fairly and reasonably as they can, while still protecting themselves to at least some basic degree. If it really came to it, the claims _can_ be verified, for example in a court case, where the process of discovery would reveal all the HR records and whatever else.

Re: I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination whistleblowing

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without taking any position on this post itself or flagging of it: flagging has just become abusive. It needs serious reform, @dang. I can't speak for the original rationale, but it seems like the intent must be to remove posts or comments that are clearly offensive on some semi-legal grounds (obscene, advocating violence, etc.) Now it's become just "I don't like this." There are many possible reforms, but off the to…

I flagged it because it's exhausting sociopolitical drivel that has nothing to do with tech. If the company discriminated against this person, then prove it in court. Nobody here has sufficient information to make a determination one way or another. And none of us has an obligation to take the author at their word.

If you don't like it, don't read it. It's on-topic and worth discussing -- maybe not for you, but this story is absolutely not within the criteria of flagging, which is why despite people flagging it, the link remains and will continue to be present on the site.

Re: I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination whistleblowing

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> This isn't really a comparable issue that comes up with employees who have particular religious beliefs Ah yes, because we all know the famous bible verse "Thou shalt misgender transgender individuals because the lord thy god thinks they are icky". There aren't religious beliefs around transgenderism, only bigotry using religion as a shroud. And, it's an old trick. We seen slave owners use religion to justify slave…

The parent didn't say the hypothetical employee objected to transgenderism on religious grounds. Plenty of atheists object to transgenderism too.

As a broader point, there seems to be this strange argumentative move I see where contemporary Western progressives assume that their particular ethical stances are universal, or that only Abrahamic religionists disagree with them.

Re: I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination whistleblowing

#125
post #61
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've met more than one hiring manager who tacitly refuses to hire anyone who is transgendered. Of course this is only revealed in confidence, and they'll deny it if asked. The reason is typically one or more of: - they don't want the rest of the team to have to walk on eggshells regarding pronouns and so on, or - they don't want to have to deal with any fallout from female employees getting pissed about males using t…

> Kind of sucks for the transgendered applicants, but understandable I suppose, given the circumstances these days. Yikes. That's true in exactly the same way that segregation kinda sucked for the black kids, but was understandable given the circumstances of the postbellum south. Discrimination against a minority solely for the social conveniences of the majority is a terrible sin. Haven't we had this fight a thousan…

I mean, this kind of "fight" is basically what society is about, and it is unfortunately always hard earned to get anywhere, but i'm also honestly not sure there is a way around this.

The principle you give is essentially limitless - your "social convenience" part is doing all the work here - but you can't just define away the things you like but the majority doesn't currently accept [1] as "social convenience" whether the causes happen to be "good" or not.

Because everyone who is part of a group that is discriminated against thinks they are in the right and that the majority doesn't accept them for, essentially, social convenience reasons.

And people in the majority don't see it as social convenience reasons.

If the two "sides" didn't have this disagreement, the minority wouldn't be discriminated against in the first place!

You are essentially arguing that the right things should just take hold immediately, without any work, and people shouldn't fight about it, but they would if people agreed they were the right things in the first place.

You can't just pre-define people as wrong and then say "why are they fighting about things when they are so wrong, and are always so wrong about these things"?

Humans as a group are slow to accept, and fairly wary of acceptance of new social things - it's incredibly rare for significant social change to take less than a generation to take hold overall, or to gain acceptance across all living generations simultaneously.

There are lots of reasons for this, most (AFAIK) to do with our survival over the long term. That sucks, for sure, in the short term. But i'm not sure what the better answer is.

I certainly wish there was a way to ensure society reaches a reasonable fixpoint on good ideas faster, if for no other reason than the obvious pain to people living it, but if there is, we haven't found it so far, and attempts to reach faster fixpoints have not .. always led to good paths, and attempts to legislate away resistance has never worked ...

[1] I honestly don't know if being inclusive of transgender folks falls into the category of what the majority of folks accept or not, i'm just presuming it doesn't based on your statement. The surveys i see seem .. complex and varying IE https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/06/28/america...

Re: I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination whistleblowing

#126
post #6

Honestly, while I believe a lot of the perspective shared, there always seems to be a huge lack of objective assessment of options for these folks. In tech there are many incredibly high paying jobs - taking control over your situation has a low bar. if you don’t like your manager, taking the view that if you escalate a formal complaint to HR (in doing so lose all trust you manager and HR may have in you), you’ll be…

Yeah, tech is fortunate enough (for now… note how company ”gratefulness” to employees seems to be dependent on stock price) to the point that most everyone in the industry can switch jobs land on their feet and be better off.

I guarantee you that will change in about 10 years, if not sooner.

Ironically, as a collective bargaining unit we have the most negotiating power right now — when we don’t need it.

It seems foreign to us in the US, but being an employee should be no different than a tenant at a nice apartment building: both types of corporations extract value from the individual. Both find a way to make profit. However, as a tenant you have some legal rights (Europeans would still laugh at them in comparison). As a tenant you’re legally entitled to some basic day-to-day guarantees (though maybe not always in practice): a light breaks, plumber is needed, common areas kept in order, tenant disputes? A landlord has to fix that. I’m not saying a corporation needs to hold our hand, but it absolutely should be responsible for providing a comfortable environment, work-life balance, etc.

It’s really not too crazy to demand the bare minimum from our jobs, considering how much of our lives are spent working on them.

Re: I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination whistleblowing

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I flagged it because it's exhausting sociopolitical drivel that has nothing to do with tech. If the company discriminated against this person, then prove it in court. Nobody here has sufficient information to make a determination one way or another. And none of us has an obligation to take the author at their word.

If you don't like it, don't read it. It's on-topic and worth discussing -- maybe not for you, but this story is absolutely not within the criteria of flagging, which is why despite people flagging it, the link remains and will continue to be present on the site.

It's not really on topic. It's a personal grievance of the variety that anyone might have at their job. There's nothing about it that satisfies intellectual curiosity, and as demonstrated by the comments here, it's a topic likely to devolve into a flamewar. This shouldn't be surprising since it's impossible to make any argument from a logical basis. There is simply not enough information available from this one-sided blog post to have a meaningful discussion about it that isn't unfair to one side or the other.

Re: I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination whistleblowing

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without taking any position on this post itself or flagging of it: flagging has just become abusive. It needs serious reform, @dang. I can't speak for the original rationale, but it seems like the intent must be to remove posts or comments that are clearly offensive on some semi-legal grounds (obscene, advocating violence, etc.) Now it's become just "I don't like this." There are many possible reforms, but off the to…

I flagged it because it's exhausting sociopolitical drivel that has nothing to do with tech. If the company discriminated against this person, then prove it in court. Nobody here has sufficient information to make a determination one way or another. And none of us has an obligation to take the author at their word.

The purpose of flagging is to indicate that a story does not belong on HN. Frivolous flagging—e.g. flagging a story that's clearly on-topic by the site guidelines just because one personally dislikes it—eventually gets an account's flagging privileges taken away.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173836

Re: I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination whistleblowing

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I flagged it because it's exhausting sociopolitical drivel that has nothing to do with tech. If the company discriminated against this person, then prove it in court. Nobody here has sufficient information to make a determination one way or another. And none of us has an obligation to take the author at their word.

The purpose of flagging is to indicate that a story does not belong on HN. Frivolous flagging—e.g. flagging a story that's clearly on-topic by the site guidelines just because one personally dislikes it—eventually gets an account's flagging privileges taken away. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173836

GP is arguing that it does not belong on HN.
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