Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination whistleblowing

evhaste.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 209 posts

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

#51

Post by CoastalCoder »

refulgentis wrote: post #36
begno wrote: 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…

It's not understandable. Some things you don't let yourself do and speak up when other people do.

Perhaps parent and GP comments are using different definitions of "understandable".

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

#52

Post by Manuel_D »

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…

This is the relevant section:

> Approximately 20% of the company was laid off, and to the best of my knowledge 100% of them were members of historically marginalized groups. Women, people of color, queer folks, and multiple people on disability and even maternity leave were specifically and disproportionately targeted. In the aftermath I could not find even one single person who did not belong to a protected class.

So bear in mind that this is very expansive group of people. This is not referring to "minority groups" as the parent comment wrote (women are the majority of the population). The author did not provide the denominator - that is, how many people at the company fit this group of people she's referring to - so it's hard to discern any significant discrimination without that piece of information. San Francisco and Seattle (where Rune labs and the author are located, respectively) are very diverse places, so it's not inconceivable that most of the company is comprised of "minority groups". A quick glance at the company's page shows that these "minority groups" comprise about 2/3rds of its leadership [1].

Furthermore, I don't think the author understands the term "protected class" [2]. Race, age, religion, gender, and disability are all protected classes, workplace discrimination on the basis of these is illegal. Everyone belongs to several protected classes (age, race, and gender, at minimum), so I'm not sure what she means when she writes, "I could not find even one single person who did not belong to a protected class".

1. https://runelabs.io/about-us

2. https://www.archives.gov/eeo/terminology.html#:~:text=Protec....

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

#53

Post by just3ws »

advisedwang wrote: post #31
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 we just accept that abusive managers are unassailable and move around, pretty soon we'll find no place free from abuse. Not to mention that not everyone has the luxury of being able to move around easily.

I'm dealing with this at my currently. It is a fairly large org and has good people and not so great people like any large enough group will have. What they don't have in my estimation is someone who actually knows how to engage with individual contributors in a meaningful way so struggles with issues of communication and direction, again, not atypical. I've invested into building an internal "meet up" for dev+adjacent folks to hold a weekly tech talk session, and am slowly building trust in what was a relatively low-trust environment. I do all this and some more within approximately the normal amount of working hours as if I weren't doing this with some very careful scheduling. My philosophy is that if we need to be here then might as well find a way to enjoy it and get something more than a paycheck. The effort is also slowly paying of in getting the attention of recruiting and hr, in that they are trying to learn how to engage with technology more effectively. It is slow growing but has been a joyful experience getting people to come out of their shell and give their, sometimes first, presentation at a meet up.

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

#54

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#55

Post by wintogreen74 »

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 considered their personal positions/beliefs/values/identity from a positive or negative perspective. This isn't because I'm some sort of amazing manager, it's because I'm lazy. It seems like so much extra work to discriminate against in these situations.

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

#56

Post by wombatpm »

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…

You have a problem with work.

I know I'll get HR involved, they will help me.

You now have two problems with work.

Unless your goal is to get someone fired, I've never seen HR getting involved to be a positive action.

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

#57

Post by refulgentis »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #51
refulgentis wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not understandable. Some things you don't let yourself do and speak up when other people do.

Perhaps parent and GP comments are using different definitions of "understandable".

“It depends on what the meaning of is, is”

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

#58

Post by refulgentis »

0xcde4c3db wrote: post #50
refulgentis wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not understandable. Some things you don't let yourself do and speak up when other people do.

And frankly, my experience has been that people with such "concerns" tend to also have corresponding ones for other minorities.

100%, I learned this early via that in a comanager.

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

#59

Post by kevinventullo »

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…

I mean it depends. If you document your communications thoroughly and the company is sufficiently sloppy, then backlash from HR could set you up for a lucrative lawsuit.

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

#60

Post by [deleted] »

wombatpm wrote: post #56
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…

You have a problem with work. I know I'll get HR involved, they will help me. You now have two problems with work. Unless your goal is to get someone fired, I've never seen HR getting involved to be a positive action.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN