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A Difficult Situation

blog.sendgrid.com

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Re: A Difficult Situation

#311

Post by seivan »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #294
taligent wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People like that are hard to be around, constantly tip toe. It really isn't. Most of us that actually work in a professional environment aren't making crude jokes about sexual topics. And we sure as hell are on our best behaviour at offsite events. Clearly this is a foreign concept to you.

Best behavior at offsite events... There's nothing inherently wrong with this and perhaps hard to argue with; however, it just seems like something a cog in a wheel would say ... nothing mean spirited intended, just rubs me the wrong way. :)

I'm with you there, was sorta dronish.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#312

Post by rdtsc »

runarb wrote: post #245
powertower wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure she has grounds for a lawsuit. SendGrid received quite allot of customer complaints about her. Customers were quitting them, and/or making threats of going to a competitor. Then they got DDoSed over this. Also, if I'm not mistaken, they are located in a - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment - state.

At-will employment don't allow the employer to engage in unlawful discrimination. See exceptions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment#Statutory_ex... Not at all saying that any unlawful discrimination happened her, just that this may be the base for a lawsuit, eave if she was on a at-will contract.

Actually it does they just can't say it ;-)

Don't like someone's race -- nod-nod-wink-wink => "restructuring"

Don't like their sexual orientation -- nod-nod-wink-wink => "tough economic times"

Don't like the color of their shoes -- nod-nod-wink-wink => "pivoting"

And so on. It can just never be in writing or said explicitly. As long as there is a non-verbal or codified protocol between the owners (managers).

To prove anything is an uphill battle -- have to really establish a pattern, as in "20 people were laid off, last year, 25 were hired, all those laid off were of this race". Stuff like that.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#313

Post by powertower »

drhayes9 wrote: post #282
runarb wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> http://imgur.com/5tbXR2c My first thought was that this quote must be something made up by 4chan users to smear her or something, but it appear to be for real: https://twitter.com/adriarichards/statuses/6039856858

Argh, Jesus, I'm sick of people misrepresenting this tweet! She's not saying that black people can't make racist statements and that they get a completely free pass when it comes to being racists. She's not. Stop saying that she is. She's defining racism with a particularly sociological bent. She's saying that racism is an act by an oppressor towards the oppressed. When an oppressed person insults an oppressor they a…

> When she says "black people can't be racist towards white people" she is saying "the oppressed cannot, themselves, oppress their oppressors". That's why they're called "the oppressed".

Then why didn't she just say it like that?

Because that re-definition is always used to attempt to silence or de-rail whoever points out that racism is not exclusive to the white race.

The word racism is already clearly defined. There is no need to enhance it, or re-target it. Use another word, or just state the concept/idea you have.

And on your logic -

Can women be sexist towards men? By your train-of-thought, since men have had that power traditionally, then absolutly the answer is - no. Which is absurd.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#314

Post by newnewnew »

matthuggins wrote: post #232
powertower wrote: post #98

They need to update that statement with the fact that the joke was not about her, nor directed at her. Their statement leaves that very important part out, making the reader think otherwise - that she was the victim. At the same time (or around that time) this was happening, here is a conversation she was having - http://i.imgur.com/nRC5J7f.png Another gem from years ago - http://imgur.com/5tbXR2c I'd imagine she was…

> http://imgur.com/5tbXR2c Wow. I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks that minorities in any group can't be racist/sexist/____ist is more than likely a racist/sexist/____ist him/herself and doesn't realize it. All it takes is discrimination against that other group because they are a member of that group.

It's pretty standard Marxist race theory. It's sadly mainstream. You'll find it well-represented on HN.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#315

Post by eridius »

devcpp wrote: post #253
eridius wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is about lack of consistency, then where's the lack of consistency? Did Adria go to a conference (or other professional space) and start telling lewd jokes? I don't think so. Your argument is basically akin to saying that, because I told some dirty jokes to my friends in private, I'm never allowed to complain when someone tells a dirty joke in public.

>Your argument is basically akin to saying that, because I told some dirty jokes to my friends in private, I'm never allowed to complain when someone tells a dirty joke in public. Ah, Twitter is now considered private but two devs speaking in their chairs are pretty much delivering a speech. Besides, you're putting words in my mouth. I never said you're not allowed to do these things, but you shouldn't be allowed to…

No, Twitter isn't private, but neither is it forcing anyone to read it. Those two guys forced the people around them to listen to a lewd joke, whether or not they intended to.

There's also a matter of context. A personal twitter stream is a very different context than a professional event. If I'm friends with my coworkers, I may hang out with them after work, and a dirty joke then is perfectly acceptable. But with the exact same people, at the workplace, a dirty joke is inappropriate. Exact same people. The difference is context.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#316

Post by dinkumthinkum »

taligent wrote: post #191
shock-value wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same twitter account she used to "shame" the two guys who made the joke. It's relevant.

Well this is the most ridiculous logic I've seen for a while. Just because I send two emails from my Gmail account doesn't mean they are related and/or relevant.

That's even worse logic. So if a political candidate posts on their personal public twitter, hateful messages against the US, no one should even worry about that because they are on a personal twitter?

Do you know what a developer evangelist is or even what is expected of someone taking a representative role at a company? I don't know what this has to do with sending two letters from gmail. Sounds like argument from irrationality or grotesquely inappropriate analogy.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#317

Post by ricardobeat »

_delirium wrote: post #52
X-Istence wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to both is "Yes". When their service is down, companies can't send their email, when companies can't send their email using SendGrid they look for alternatives...

It would be weird to fire someone over other people's criminal activity. That reason would be akin to what Eugene Volokh has referred to as the "heckler's veto": when you e.g. cancel a controversial speech because thuggish opponents have threatened to cause trouble (call in fake bomb threats, etc.), and you blame the speaker for having drawn the thuggish behavior, rather than the people actually engaged in criminal a…

Here's a better analogy: you work at a clothing store; you're standing at the door and shout "hey niggers, what you looking at? dirty motherf*ers. come get me" at some passers-by. They proceed to tear down the store with the help of an angry mob. Should the store not hold you accountable and only "blame the people actually engaged in criminal activity"?

Re: A Difficult Situation

#318

Post by cletus »

I'm honestly surprised that anyone is attacking Sendgrid, defending Ms Richards, attacking PyCon or defending Playhaven in this incident.

The fact is that what you do reflects on your employer to a degree. If you're a developer evangelist, that's quite a high degree, particularly if you drag them into your public spat.

Most people in the media (news readers and so forth) have a "morals clause" in their contract because they publicly represent the company. This situation is much the same.

I, for example, am just a software engineer. I pretty much stay away from any thread involving Google directly as I don't want anything I say to be misconstrued as representing the company's view. We have a media relations department for that. Those defending Ms Richards might say "on your personal time you can do what you want" (to me). Well, yes and no. It's certainly at my peril. Also, in Ms Richard's case, at PyCon she was on official (or at least semi-official) duties so the "personal time" argument doesn't even apply.

This whole incident reads like two guys making jokes to themselves. She overheard and decided to make an issue of it by naming and shaming them in a very public way while waving her employer's flag. Nevermind that this wasn't called for (IMHO), I don't believe for a second that the comments were directed at her or intended for her to hear.

The fact that Playhaven fired this engineer over this is disappointing. A public statement about supporting diversity and a warning from HR really should've been sufficient (again, IMHO). It makes me wonder if they wanted to fire him anyway.

Some other commenters suggest Ms Richards can sue. I tend to disagree but IANAL. I do however think the fired engineer may have a case. He can show damages (losing his job) and argue that Ms Richards (and her employer had they not fired her) had acted with reckless disregard. I'm not sure it's a strong case but I bet it's an arguable case.

Sendgrid's statement is (IMHO) excellent. It is measured, factual and has a great tone. This is not a position they wanted to be in (from reading the post). They've deliberated. They state a great bottom line that this issue and the subsequent fallout endangers their business. They don't want to be the story here and Ms Richards made them the story. That's on her.

Let this be a lesson to all reading this: what you do can affect your employment. Act with care and restraint. Once something is said or done it can be very difficult to roll it back.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#319

Post by fingerprinter »

rooshdi wrote: post #276
fingerprinter wrote: post #93

Who didn't see this coming? And when she pulled SendGrid, her employer, publicly into the fray via her twitter feed, who didn't know it was simply a matter of time? I mean, what else could SendGrid possibly do? She basically forced them to fire her. Her value to the company is being a public face to developers . She very publicly destroyed that value. Further, she pulled SendGrid in with her tweet about them "support…

She didn't force them to fire her. People are just blowing this way out of proportion. Everybody needs to chill out, especially the corporate management of both companies.

> She didn't force them to fire her.

What would you have done in the situation? You're the CEO of a company. You have someone in a glorified PR position. That same person has caused massive blowback by not once, not twice, but multiple times showing extreme poor judgement. This person then makes a public statement saying your company "supports" that person thereby ostensibly pulling the company into the fight. What would you do?

It would take all of five seconds for me to ship that person out.

Even if you are working on a three strike position; all three strikes came in the last few days.

This has nothing to do with the DDoS. This has to do with having someone in a position representing the company to your target audience and not just doing a poor job of it, but doing such a trainwreck of a job that the company's PR needs to spin up to defcon 1.

Doesn't that person seem unfit for the job?

Re: A Difficult Situation

#320

Post by alan_cx »

arrrg wrote: post #213
Yver wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

named that? Which part? I think you're perceiving things that are not there.

I quoted the segment where I think the statement makes reference to the DDoS. It is open to interpretation, but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable interpretation.

The bit you quoted makes no reference to the DDoS. You decided that the quoted text implied that. You then talk about interpretation, having claimed a specific reference that doesn't exist.
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