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

61–70 of 209 posts

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

#61

Post by ajross »

begno wrote: post #29
throwaway202351 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As another trans person that's been in a similar position before, it's really frustrating how many loops I've gone through where the moment I'd get to some part where it wasn't voice only anymore, you could just hear the tone shift and get rejected shortly after. Combine that with the current tech market being on a downswing and it's not unreasonable that this would take a while to find a new place.

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…

> Kind of sucks for the transgendered applicants, but understandable I suppose, given the circumstances these days.

Yikes. That's true in exactly the same way that segregation kinda sucked for the black kids, but was understandable given the circumstances of the postbellum south.

Discrimination against a minority solely for the social conveniences of the majority is a terrible sin. Haven't we had this fight a thousand times already? Why do it again?

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

#62

Post by surgical_fire »

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…

One other thing that is great for your mental health in any job, is treating it as a job and nothing else. Something you do for 40h per week to get a salary to pay your bills.

You're not there to make the world a better place, to belong to a family, to improve anything. Just do your job and go back to your life at the end of the day. When you're off work, do your best to forget about it. In fact, always prepare yourself for interviews, so leaving your current job it is easier when the time comes, and it always comes.

This detachment always served as protection from toxic workplaces, and I worked in a few of them. Don't let anyone fool you that it will harm your career, the only thing that will harm your career is not putting effort to learn skills that are in demand.

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

#63

Post by AlbertCory »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #2

I noticed this submission had become "dead" due to flagging, and retaliation for whistleblowing seems like exactly the type of thing that a coordinated group would try to bury. I vouched for it. I don't have feelings one way or another on who is being wronged, but I thought the information was well-presented and coherent, and deserves consideration without being flagged. If the other party believes this is inaccurate…

Without taking any position on this post itself or flagging of it:

flagging has just become abusive. It needs serious reform, @dang.

I can't speak for the original rationale, but it seems like the intent must be to remove posts or comments that are clearly offensive on some semi-legal grounds (obscene, advocating violence, etc.) Now it's become just "I don't like this."

There are many possible reforms, but off the top of my head, changing "flag" to be nothing but a suggestion to the mods might fix it. It would do nothing unless a mod agreed. And the flagger's id should be public and it should cost them something (karma points, maybe).

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

#64

Post by throwaway202351 »

kevinventullo wrote: post #59
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.

I saw some CA employment lawyer [1] on youtube, and something he says a lot on his talks is "Don't call me if your manager is mean or not following some legal requirements, instead, here's how to best document and complain about it so it'll look good for you if they ever retaliate against you. Once they retaliate, then you should call me."

[1] https://www.youtube.com/@braniganrobertsonlaw/

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

#65

Post by throwawaylinux »

I've worked with a couple of people in tech who were very worker solidarity, unionize, labor movement, discrimination everywhere, etc.

They must have been tiring for management to work with. And I go in to bat for my colleagues, and it has not always made me popular with management and executives, but there are better and worse ways of approaching things.

If you are unwilling to accept that a decision has been made for a reason other than discrimination, bullying, or retaliation, it's no longer a good faith dialogue. Expecting other parties to continue talking and negotiating as though it were, whether or not they are guilty of these things, is silly. That's the point where you need a lawyer, or an exit plan, or to read through a lot of statute and case law, or all of the above. By all means try to get them to keep talking and collect evidence, but the fact they don't want to deal with you any more isn't exactly evidence of anything by itself.

I'm not saying this person is wrong or did the wrong thing. I really don't have enough information. But this is a company that investigated their co-founder and CTO and kicked him out for harassing two trans employees, more than half their "leadership team" appear to be minorities or women, they have hired several trans people including at least one who got spectacular performance reviews and was being promoted. On its face I would have to entertain the idea that they are not engaged in wide scale discrimination of anybody who is not a straight white male.

This is also quite a serious step for the person to make, whether or not there are legal ramifications (and I hope they got very good advice about breaking their NDA). But what would an employer think about hiring this person after reading this? What would be the best outcome for them? The worst?

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

#66

Post by dec0dedab0de »

kbenson wrote: post #30
ketzu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people referring to different things with the same terminology. Management is not an area I would want someone to be aggressive, as in confrontational, in. But in business aggression, as in ambition, is often seen as positive. My understanding was that the author refers to "peers" as males in the same role, i.e., the arguments are made differently for people not based on their role, but based on their sex. They eve…

Possibly? She was making a lateral move to a new discipline, and that ended up being a junior manager. Depending on how hands on a junior manager is with the position being managed in that company and department, that could mean little management work and lots of non-managerial work, or the exact opposite. To me, lots of managerial work in the new position would imply it was not so in the prior position. In any case,…

The new position was junior project manager. That is a lot different than a manager.

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

#67

Post by biomcgary »

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…

My first job was at a unionized workplace. I ended up doing more work to cover the guy that was loafing around under the protection of the union. Who protects you from the protectors? Rational or not, since that time, I am suspicious of the personal work ethic of those arguing for unions.

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

#68

Post by Manuel_D »

Waterluvian wrote: post #12
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.

While it’s unrealistic to believe that every bad thing that happens to you is because of discrimination, being part of a commonly discriminated group has an effect of making everything harder. Lots of people struggle to find a job. Now imagine if on top of that, some additional percentage of jobs are off the table to begin with. In a way, this reminds me of climate change. You can’t usually point to any one event and…

San Francisco and Seattle aren't exactly hotbeds of intolerance. The large-scale studies on discrimination in tech companies did find slight gender discrimination, in favor of women: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3672484

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

#70

Post by no_wizard »

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 have a different take:

Be the change you want to be. Everyone just says "leave" but what if you have no where to go, and inversely, if everyone is just leaving, then there is no incentive for organizations to change.

You can argue its "futile" but the truth is, its not, these things compound, the more people do it, the less it can be swept up and hidden away. Real change is thousands and thousands of people doing small things to increment in a better direction. Its not always easy, but its the right thing to do. Thats how as a society can do better.

The idea of shifting it to "some other person" is why I think we have some of the issues today with reform and general societal polarization: everyone wants someone else to fix the problems

Post reply on HN