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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

#141

Post by throwestfaraway »

wiredone wrote: post #7
jesterman wrote: post #5

This is an incredible piece. The fact that the 20% of the company laid off were all minority groups is absolutely insane. LinkedIn says they have at minimum 50 employees, meaning at least 10 people were laid off. Here is their LinkedIn post (linked on their website), https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7058845... " It is estimated that one in five transgender people will experience homelessness. Unfo…

… but you have to ask - why can’t this person find a job? Surely not every employer is non-inclusive. There’s smells of a partial story all through this.

Probably because they sound absolutely insufferable to work with.

Who demands extensive requirements docs in organizes ERGs in that context? Who spends all their time obsessing over process, planning, and identity instead of actually building stuff?

It's amazing they had a job this long.

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

#142

Post by pcthrowaway »

throwestfaraway wrote: post #141
wiredone wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

… but you have to ask - why can’t this person find a job? Surely not every employer is non-inclusive. There’s smells of a partial story all through this.

Probably because they sound absolutely insufferable to work with. Who demands extensive requirements docs in organizes ERGs in that context? Who spends all their time obsessing over process, planning, and identity instead of actually building stuff ? It's amazing they had a job this long.

According to the article she was actually moving up the ranks and getting promoted, so it sounds like the company did in fact think she was doing something right.

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

#143

Post by lliamander »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #118
lliamander wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this a perfectly on-topic post and worthy of discussion (in part because it was well written). I was just countering the claim/insuation that people were flagging the story because of their own prejudice against trans people (or whatever). > But the silence from Rune, and dialogue suppression tactics by mystery parties honestly just make me more inclined to believe there is at least a grain of truth in t…

They could point out the inaccuracies or misrepresentations. For example, the claim that 20% of the staff were let go, but 100% of the laid off folk were "of historically marginalized groups. Women, people of color, queer folks, and multiple people on disability and even maternity leave" They could respond with information. Maybe this is a broad enough group and their workforce is unusually diverse, and 90% of their…

> the claim that 20% of the staff were let go, but 100% of the laid off folk were "of historically marginalized groups. Women, people of color, queer folks, and multiple people on disability and even maternity leave"

Even if that claim is true, it's far from sufficient to assert discrimination is at play:

- Disparate impact != discrimination. IIRC, the idea that disparate impact could be penalized without explicit intent to discriminate was a judicial fabrication that contradicts the plain text of the Civil Rights Act.

- There are so many ways one could qualify as belonging to a "historically marginalized group". That's not really unrealistic to think that something like this could happen by chance.

- Sounds like the author's own marginal status wasn't a driving factor in being fired or even a barrier to promotion. If anything it sounds like the problem was retaliation, not discrimination.

- There does appear to be a decent amount of demographic diversity at the leadership level. It doesn't seem likely that they would have a plan to get rid of minority employees simply because of their minority status.

Whether as an individual or a company there plenty of reasons to hold your tongue admist public controversy. That doesn't mean the company is making the right move by being silent, but interpreting that silence as guilt seems unwise.

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

#145

Post by lliamander »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #107
wintogreen74 wrote: post #55

This workplace sounds like a scary environment; this person presents themselves as someone who takes a lot of effort to try and make happy. Frankly it sounds exhausting. I don't get it; I manage 15-20 people and this stuff never comes up. They're visibly quite a diverse group and the rest of it has just never has been an issue, or any of my concern. I advocate for them against their goals and desires and have never c…

I’m not in a position to evaluate your management, but I do think it’s important to point out that you and/or your org may have biases which make it harder for you to see issues, and which may discourage people from raising concerns. Discrimination is only extra work if it’s a conscious goal, and it’s easy to miss if your effort avoidance signals the bias as “normal”. It’s entirely possible you’re totally unbiased an…

Unconscious bias is a completely overblown concept, and some of the science that supports it (such as Implicit Association Tests) is hogwash.

Note that I am not saying that we do not have cognitive biases (in the general sense of the term) or blind spots, but the idea that people are systematically biased against certain racial or other identity groups in ways they are not aware of just isn't well supported.

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

#146

Post by busterarm »

yamtaddle wrote: post #43
wiredone wrote: 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…

> 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 vindicated and live on happily ever after… it’s a fairytale. Go work somewhere that makes you happy. Leave toxic environments - it’s not your job to fix them/right wrongs. Know where it's not a fairytale? Unionized workplaces. Source: I know several…

I've been in three different unions and never saw anything like that happen.

Mostly I saw things like rampant sexual harassment and nepotism at every level. Anyone who so much as squeaked about things being wrong saw management and the union reps team up to screw the person for fucking with the status quo. Heck, at my last job like that, they were cousins/roommates.

Unionized workplaces can be just as toxic as any other workplace.

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

#147

Post by throw491 »

rendang wrote: post #124
cogman10 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Indeed, I found it quite an eye-opener to learn what the left-wing radical feminists think about this whole topic of gender, and their reasons for doing so.

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

#148

Post by faxma »

fafqg wrote: post #40
frob wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that 20% of those laid off were from minority groups. It's that 20% of the company was laid off and they're all from historically underrepresented groups in tech.

Since when are trans underrepresented in tech? If anything they are overrepresented

Makes sense considering both the correlations between being an autistic spectrum male and adopting a sex-incongruent gender identity, and being an autistic spectrum male and working in tech.

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

#149

Post by nyanpasu64 »

One observation is that retaliation against morally-driven whistleblowers on better-connected groups, is that it takes a form similar to complex trauma, resulting in gaslighting, repeatedly lying and contradicting actions and memories, to the point of creating self-doubt, questioning whether what you experienced or the stories being fed are true, and feelings of hopelessness and helplessness to follow your morals and effect change. I don't know whether it's personally worthwhile to fight against perceived wrongs when (her and myself) facing health and gender discrimination, somehow create legal or social changes to prevent future incidents, or just do the minimum to stay financially afloat (if possible) and with whatever leftover money try to support individual friends I care about.
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