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A Difficult Situation

blog.sendgrid.com

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Re: A Difficult Situation

#71

Post by cheald »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #19

I have little to no knowledge of laws in this area. However my gut tells me that Sendgrid is opening themselves up to a hell of a lawsuit. Can anyone who actually does know about such matters comment?

Her job was developer-oriented PR. Her actions resulted in a loss of trust in SendGrid by proxy, as well as direct negative impact on SendGrid's operations.

By any reasonable measure, that's grounds for termination; her actions harmed the company's reputation and cost them financially. If you can't fire someone for that, I'm not sure what you could fire for.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#72

Post by CurtMonash »

It's obvious that she had to go, because in her primary job -- popularize SendGrid -- she now has negative value.

If you believe she was blamelessly in the right, that's an argument for giving her a massive severance package. Even at that kind of expense, however, the severing was necessary.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#73

Post by courtewing »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #19

I have little to no knowledge of laws in this area. However my gut tells me that Sendgrid is opening themselves up to a hell of a lawsuit. Can anyone who actually does know about such matters comment?

What in particular do you think makes them vulnerable to a lawsuit? I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that in the US, it is legal to fire most non-contract employees at any time, without any notice, and for pretty much any reason (or even lack of a reason) other than outright discrimination based on nationality/gender/religion/etc.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment and specifically the "Statutory exceptions" section.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#74

Post by jlgreco »

jerrya wrote: post #61
jlgreco wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious what you make of this portion of the response in particular: "A SendGrid developer evangelist’s responsibility is to build and strengthen our Developer Community across the globe. In light of the events over the last 48+ hours, it has become obvious that her actions have strongly divided the same community she was supposed to unite. As a result, she can no longer be effective in her role at SendGrid."

I consider that to be fluff and nonsense. 48 hours is not the right interval to be making that judgment. And firing her in response to correct the situation was about the worse and most extreme of actions. (And please note, I think Richards made a mistake and showed terrible judgment.)

In the sense that you don't think it was a valid conclusion, or in the sense that given that conclusion, it was a nonsense reason to fire her?

This aspect of the situation seems exceedingly clear to me.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#75

Post by ritchiea »

nilkn wrote: post #26

Even if I agree with the decision, this is incredibly hard to read. I hate to see someone lose their job over something like this. Yet I can't disagree with anything he wrote. I personally hope she will learn from this and another company will give her a new chance. The odds of that are slim given how big this has become--it's front-paging repeatedly on HN and /r/programming. But I'd hate to see her whole career ruin…

I'm sure there are jobs out there for her, though I'd be shocked if her title at her next employer is "developer evangelist."

Re: A Difficult Situation

#77

Post by [deleted] »

makeramen wrote: post #57
forrestthewoods wrote: post #19

I have little to no knowledge of laws in this area. However my gut tells me that Sendgrid is opening themselves up to a hell of a lawsuit. Can anyone who actually does know about such matters comment?

Why do you think this? Most employment in California (at least from my personal experience) is "at-will". Either party can terminate at any time with no notice and with no cause. Also in this case the reasons have nothing to do with her gender, but more that she failed at her job at being a developer evangelist.

[deleted]

Re: A Difficult Situation

#78

Post by Proleps »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #19

I have little to no knowledge of laws in this area. However my gut tells me that Sendgrid is opening themselves up to a hell of a lawsuit. Can anyone who actually does know about such matters comment?

If you make a big mistake that costs a lot of money a company is allowed to fire you in most cases.

Re: A Difficult Situation

#79

Post by kirp »

THE BITCH IS DOWN!

She's defeated, annihilated, crushed, destroyed, eliminated, pulverized, eradicated, downed, nullified, smashed, obliterated, felled, wrecked, finished, demolished, suppressed, shattered, exterminated!

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