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Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

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Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#151

Post by retox »

mthoms wrote: post #58
zaroth wrote: post #48

The time that I worked at Apple was brutally hard work. If we're talking about work environment, I think many people reading that article have no concept of how difficult a job it is, how high are the expectations, and how many hours the average engineer is putting in there. This is a very difficult job which can be extremely stressful for a long duration of time. As a society we tend to laud grueling hard work rathe…

Not to diminish any of the other claims but I found this one to be a bit of an eye roller - Describing another incident, she wrote, "I was walking back to my cube from the break room and passed a group of managers exiting a meeting. The Area Manager told me to smile as I walked past." "While this is a small thing, it was notable as this is one of the most commonly reported forms of subtle sexism." No matter how hard…

If the comment comes from someone they find attractive it's charming, otherwise it's a sexual assault.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#152

Post by dx034 »

keithnz wrote: post #70
1024core wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of what I read in TFA I really understand to be a hostile work environment, as the term is defined. Your colleagues joke that someone is coming to rape you, and you're supposed to laugh? I'm not a woman, but I can imagine a woman being really hurt by such a joke. Given the fact that 1 out of 6 women in this country are victims of sexual assault[1], I think it's a joke in poor taste, and does not belong in a wo…

someone coming to rape everybody.... she wasn't singled out. Still, rape jokes are not acceptable.

It wasn't even one, they just related to a song (which she obviously knew as rape wasn't mentioned): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12503157

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#153

Post by zaroth »

anon54321 wrote: post #63

Absolute BS. She sent an email to the entire company about this "incident", which I'll include here (names redacted). > 8:53:41 AM Person1: so am I the only one who thinks of the Bed Intruder auto-tune song everytime Person2 warns us of undisclosed persons in the building? > 8:54:47 AM Person3: hide yo wife? > 8:54:57 AM Person1: and yo kids > 8:56:02 AM Person3: well, you're not any more > 8:56:13 AM Person1: #winni…

Thanks for posting the actual event so we can draw our own conclusions.

This reminds me of how you read a story in the news about something you know, and you just shake your head and are shocked about how wrong every single piece of it is... then you go on reading all the other articles on topics you don't know about and genuinely believe they are informative.

Really, shame on Mic for their terrible reporting on this story. There is an interesting phenomenon going on here, but I think it has nothing to do with inappropriate jokes causing a toxic atmosphere.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#154

Post by tdkl »

DanBC wrote: post #149
tdkl wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why are most of these articles about harassment in the office associated with American companies? From my other comment : This is a western syndrome of "our lives aren't in imminent danger, we don't have to think about harvesting food and information is at reach" boredom.

People who've survived sexual assault may well be experience the fear that humans have when their lives are in danger.

There are people who survived sexual assault and those who have PTSD from a joke.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#155

Post by zaroth »

tanqueray wrote: post #144
eli wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware of lots of offensive things that don't belong at work.

The question here is was what was written in that email offensive and not to be written in the workplace...

Well, this was a chatroom. I do think it's important to recognize the level of planning which goes into what someone is saying and adjust expectations accordingly.

Now that our communication tools are capturing everything we are saying in real-time, do we truly expect 30,000 people to never make a comment that could possibly offend someone else?

I do wonder if just reading a comment like this in a company chatroom (along with an immediate apology) requires taking a month off, if perhaps there isn't a reasonable accommodation that could be made here to help Danielle be successful at Apple.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#156

Post by forgottenpass »

eor wrote: post #65
mthoms wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to diminish any of the other claims but I found this one to be a bit of an eye roller - Describing another incident, she wrote, "I was walking back to my cube from the break room and passed a group of managers exiting a meeting. The Area Manager told me to smile as I walked past." "While this is a small thing, it was notable as this is one of the most commonly reported forms of subtle sexism." No matter how hard…

Would you ever say that to a male colleague? Would anyone?

Would anyone?

Yup. Back when I was dealing with depression, I heard it all the time.

"Smile" and "Cheer up" are still two of the most rage-inducing things anyone can say to me. It's just one of those things about appearance I have to roll with. I also don't get to show up barefoot, with no t-shirt and just wearing boardshorts. So I play along and part of that is acting much happier and more amenable than I really am.

The main difference is that I don't have people constantly telling me this is caused by an oppressive societal structure pushing me to conform. (I mean, it is, but it's not treated as one. I'm certainly not constantly told I need to be to rejecting. By media that makes me weaker to it, and teaches me to suffer even harder when effected by those social structures.)

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#157

Post by scott_s »

dalerus wrote: post #83
shepardrtc wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually a common thing that women experience from men that are trying to passively hit on them. Except most of the time its not from coworkers, so when it does happen in the workplace, its blatantly obvious what the underlying meaning is.

Wow, I had no idea people would interpret this as sexual harassment. I say this to both men and women on my teams that look like they are having a rough day. I'll remove that from things I say. Edit: I don't just say "Smile", usually there is more context to the conversation and usually ends with me trying to see if I can help fix the problem(if it's work related).

If you want to help, empathize: ask questions, indicate that you understand them. But statements about how they should feel will not help.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#158

Post by forgottenpass »

keithnz wrote: post #104
flukus wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not a woman, but I can imagine a woman being really hurt by such a joke. So we have to treat women differently than men? Sounds a bit sexist.

No, not differently, you just need a base level of respect that allows for diversity. Various groups of people don't face the same issues as other groups of people. It's easy to be in one group, and say something that is a lot more offensive to another group due to real fear and/or discrimination, and vice versa. So no matter what group/s you belong to you need to be respectful of other groups and their challenges.

No, not differently, [...] you need to be respectful of other groups and their challenges.

So, be accommodating in a way that means people are treated differently, but just don't call it treating them different?

10-4 loud and clear, good buddy.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#159

Post by whamlastxmas »

ManlyBread wrote: post #136

Danielle doesn't seem like a person I'd like to work with.

After reading the chat transcript, I would probably quit my job if I had to work with someone like her. Mentioning a song, get accused of harassment and promoting rape culture, having coworker take medical leave for a month for PTSD? Over someone mentioning a song? Wow.

Re: Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment

#160

Post by [deleted] »

huhtenberg wrote: post #122
applethrow2 wrote: post #96

I'm risking a lot here... Apple employee here: I only want to provide context. None of us want a toxic environment. We, at Apple, pride ourselves on the fact that we are accepting of all backgrounds, nationalities, genders, religions. I, personally, have struggled with ensuring a diverse set of folks on my team or all backgrounds. We love the fact that we're helping to lead the industry with regard to diversity. And…

> We, at Apple, pride ourselves on the fact that we are accepting of all backgrounds, nationalities, genders, religions. Reads like a PR boilerplate.

[deleted]
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