SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas • Hacker News Board

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#251

Post by RougeFemme » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 7:42 PM UTC

blindhippo wrote: post #136

canttestthis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DDOS attack on SendGrid's web and mail servers stopped about an hour and a half after they announced that they were firing Richards. Also the community backlash against Richards was huge, while there weren't many supporting her actions. From SendGrid's point of view, this was a good business decision.

No, it sure as hell was not a "good business decision". They got attacked by errant children expressing sad rage at something that while bad, was not deserving of retaliation against the company. So the result: the company ditches one of their employees for very dubious reasons. Basically they caved to internet bullying and validated every sexist moron on the internet. Well done Sendgrid. Well done.

Maybe not a "good" business decision, but an "understandable" one. If the "errant children" are among the group she was evangelizing to, she clearly could not have been effective in her job, especially since the "errant children's" peers were not coming to her defense - at least not in large numbers, as far as Sendgrid was concerned. I do hate that they caved to bullying/blackmail. I would like to see both fired parties re-hired after the dust settles, but I know that's very unlikely.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#252

Post by onemorepassword » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 7:42 PM UTC

andyl wrote: post #232

davedx wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. It always makes me shiver with how casually people are fired from their jobs in the US. Some aspects of US society still seem like the wild west to me. Not that where I live is perfect (Netherlands) but at least I know I'll get a fair chance.

When I lived in Holland, we'd have problems with employees that would linger for months, sometimes years, wasting tons of time/money/effort, damaging morale of the team. And the outcome was always the same: the employee left. I came to believe that its better to bring things to resolution very fast, for both the employer and employee. YMMV.

Very true. Which is why I preface my comment with "in events like these".

Getting rid of a dysfunctional employee can be an nightmare for everyone involved. We usually try to buy their resignation, it's expensive and a bit dirty, but relatively painless.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#253

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 7:43 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #184

blhack wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it wasn't inappropriate for the event. Adria notified the goons [or whatever pycon calls them], they came by, talked to everybody, and then nothing happened. They even amended their code of conduct to prevent what Adria did from happening in the future. And the CoC is pretty obviously directed at presenters, not people having a pseudo-private conversation with one another.

> But it wasn't inappropriate for the event. It was absolutely inappropriate, even if not expressly specified so in the (since amended) CoC. It's easy to know that it was not appropriate to the event: mob justice never is an appropriate first-order response. And no, it was no more appropriate a response to Adria's behavior. The whole clusterfuck is a direct result of recursive mobbing. > Adria notified the goons [or…

[deleted]

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#254

Post by blhack » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 7:43 PM UTC

ericabiz wrote: post #217

blhack wrote: post #20

I really wish that this whole thing could have ended amicably (perhaps with Adria apologizing to the devs [by the way, the guy who was fired has already publicly apologized]). It's too bad that sendgrid had to fire her, I would never wish that somebody had their livlihood taken from them like that, but her job was to be a developer evangelist, which is a job she isn't realistically capable of performing anymore. I wo…

> "Most [all, actually] of the women I've talked to about this are furious with her over how badly this portrays women." Okay, time to speak up! Hi, I'm a woman in tech. And this upset me, but not for the reasons you think. I agree that Adria went too far in publicly Tweeting and "name and shaming" these guys. But the vitriol and hate that has spewed forth online to her is what takes my breath away. Comments calling…

By the way, this isn't exclusive to tech. Women [unfortunately] face this in every male dominated field. It sucks, I know.

My girlfriend works in a traditionally male dominated field, and she has to deal with this sort of thing constantly.

But that interaction where the person assumed you weren't a dev[1] is only made worse by things like what has happened here. The signal to the dev community from Adria's reaction to this joke about dongles is that "women are different".

Obviously I can't speak for you, but I can speak for the other women that I know. They HATE that. They don't want to be looked at as different.

[1]: I see this interaction ALL the freaking time, and we usually just make a point of embarrassing the guy that does it. I should clarify, I mean "embarrassing" as in: making a point of demonstrating how wrong the guy who assumed the girl wasn't an engineer is, not trying to publicly shame them on twitter.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#255

Post by qzxt » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 7:43 PM UTC

danilocampos wrote: post #159

beachstartup wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does accidental immature behavior work? "let's check out this pitch and then grab a beer" at a startup VC pitch event sensitive woman in front of you hears: "let's check out of this bitch and grab a beer" turns around, pics, tweets, gets you fired on the spot. HOW IS THIS OKAY? public shaming is NOT the right response. IT'S JUST NOT. what a stunning lack of imagination.

So, here's the problem with your little fantasy: These guys were actually making sexual jokes . This wasn't a single mis-heard phrase.

no they weren't making sexual jokes. (a) the man has said that his statement about forking was taken out of context, which I'll grant your sensibilities the benefit of the doubt and say maybe he's not telling the truth on that, but then again we shouldn't assume andria is telling the truth, either. so we'll make that one a toss-up then.

Now (b) noting that the word dongle sounds like dong is not a sexual joke. it is a joke, many would say in poor taste, but it isn't sexual in anyway unless your understanding of sexuality didn't evolve beyond age 12 and you still laugh every time the guy at the hot dog stand says wiener.

neither of them should have lost their jobs and this issue has evolved into something else completely. However, there is no denying that what she did was a gross abuse of whatever influence she had and was little more than playground pettiness on her part. They said something that was not in her taste and rather than be an adult and point out to them or to pycon that she was uncomfortable, she decided to publicly shame him. that's just the truth of the matter.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#256

Post by paranoiacblack » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 7:43 PM UTC

josh-j wrote: post #191

paranoiacblack wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what's wrong with this. This is quite literally the definition of racism in a sociological context: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism#Sociological . You're going to need to disprove a lot of social science before you tackle this definition.

That's all a bit silly. We have a common understanding or definition of what racism is and it connotes something immoral. _Some_ sociologists define racism as something else which also connotes something immoral. The common thread is that both definitions connote immorality, and so if something falls under either definition, it's still bad and so the whole arguing over which definition to use is moot. For example, if…

No, you're missing that racism is a systematic oppression of a certain group or people. HN isn't the best place for speaking about social issues, so I won't write you an essay about what's wrong about what you're saying. I'll just say I believe you and others are conflating the terms prejudice and racism. I'm guessing that's what you're describing by "common-usage-racis[m]." Indeed, black people can be prejudiced against white people, and that prejudice can be because of race. Racism, however, needs a little bit more than that. Particularly, institutionalization.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#257

Post by fatjokes » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 7:43 PM UTC

blindhippo wrote: post #116

One thing that I haven't seen anyone here comment on: so much for company loyalty. Say or do something wrong and your company will not even remotely try to get your back. You will be dumped as soon as feasibly possible. Both companies involved here are disgusting.

On the upside, this means that employees don't owe their companies any loyalty either. Fair play, and all.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#258

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 7:43 PM UTC

raganwald wrote: post #219

blhack wrote: post #20

I really wish that this whole thing could have ended amicably (perhaps with Adria apologizing to the devs [by the way, the guy who was fired has already publicly apologized]). It's too bad that sendgrid had to fire her, I would never wish that somebody had their livlihood taken from them like that, but her job was to be a developer evangelist, which is a job she isn't realistically capable of performing anymore. I wo…

I would feel really uncomfortable if I was in the same room as this person. What if I accidentally say something that she finds offensive? Am I next? People say the same things all the time in companies where women complain about inappropriate sexuality. "What if I say something that offends her?" Most of us are good, inoffensive people. We are saddled with growing up in a world that is changing. It used to be accept…

[deleted]

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#259

Post by camus » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 7:44 PM UTC

ericabiz wrote: post #217

blhack wrote: post #20

I really wish that this whole thing could have ended amicably (perhaps with Adria apologizing to the devs [by the way, the guy who was fired has already publicly apologized]). It's too bad that sendgrid had to fire her, I would never wish that somebody had their livlihood taken from them like that, but her job was to be a developer evangelist, which is a job she isn't realistically capable of performing anymore. I wo…

> "Most [all, actually] of the women I've talked to about this are furious with her over how badly this portrays women." Okay, time to speak up! Hi, I'm a woman in tech. And this upset me, but not for the reasons you think. I agree that Adria went too far in publicly Tweeting and "name and shaming" these guys. But the vitriol and hate that has spewed forth online to her is what takes my breath away. Comments calling…

You think women are having hard time in tech ? then you sure dont want to be black like me ,with people refusing to work with "niggers" ...

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#260

Post by niggler » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 7:44 PM UTC

MBlume wrote: post #215

niggler wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read your article: "we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways." I still suspect this was a firing for many reasons, not just this incident.

If they didn't essentially fire him for making a dongle joke, they'd probably have tried harder to make that clear in the announcement

You have to walk a fine line as an employer -- you don't want to be sued for wrongful termination.