[HN Gopher] I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discriminatio...
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I was laid off in retaliation for anti-discrimination
whistleblowing
Author : kistaro
Score : 125 points
Date : 2023-05-01 20:31 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (evhaste.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (evhaste.com)
| nurettin wrote:
| A person who knows what they are doing versus someone who has
| difficulties learning the given tasks have two very subjective
| views of the workplace situation.
|
| One is at the mercy of their colleagues, constantly and
| rightfully interrupted to correct their mistakes, while the other
| is chugging away in the zone.
|
| We need the viewpoints of both levels of expertise to make sure
| that there is a whistle to blow.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| 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 they
| should present their side here.
| repeekad wrote:
| Seems it was flagged again, and then was unflagged again? How
| common are these kind of seemingly coordinated attempts to
| manipulate HN (assuming there is indeed nothing actually wrong
| with OP)?
| floatingatoll wrote:
| Thank you for doing so; it led me to see this post, and I
| appreciate that. I'll vouch next time if I see it go back to
| [dead].
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Your time to shine. Or can we get a ruling/override @dang ?
| transRfagz wrote:
| [dead]
| saulrh wrote:
| It's really telling that the frontpage post on the tech-
| industry forum about coordinated discrimination in the tech
| industry is being brigaded, yeah. Disappointing, too. I hope we
| learn what happened here and things are made better.
| transRfagz wrote:
| [dead]
| Buttons840 wrote:
| This reminds me of a paragraph I recently read on another blog:
|
| > I've been writing for a long time. In 2010, I started a blog,
| focused on the technology industry--topics included programming
| languages, organizational practices, and development
| methodologies--that reached a daily view count of about 8,000
| (some days more, some days less) with several essays taking the
| #1 spot on Hacker News and Reddit (/r/programming). I quit that
| kind of writing for many reasons, but two merit mention. _One:
| Silicon Valley people are, for lack of a better way to put it,
| precious about their reputations. My revelations of unethical
| and illegal business practices in the technology industry put
| me, literally, in physical danger._ Two: since then, my work
| has become unnecessary. In 2013, my exposures of odious
| practices in a then-beloved sector of the economy were
| revelatory. Ten years later, tech chicanery surprises no one,
| and the relevant investigative work is being done with far more
| platform, access, and protection. The world no longer needs me
| to do that job. And thank God.
|
| Source: https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/
| packetslave wrote:
| oh boy...
| transRfagz wrote:
| [flagged]
| amatecha wrote:
| Go cry about your bigoted, pathetic worldview elsewhere.
| desuforever wrote:
| [dead]
| jesterman wrote:
| It appears it was flagged again? I can't see it on the first 5
| pages of the front pages of HN..
| [deleted]
| kbenson wrote:
| > who asserted that Person A was "too aggressive" to succeed in
| the new role. Behaviors that were regularly rewarded in white,
| male peers, such as taking initiative to perform needed duties
| outside the scope of their role, were instead framed as negative
| indications of focus.
|
| > I provided written guidance to Ram, who was also my supervisor,
| on the ways in which this "vibes based" determination of
| inadequacy constituted sex bias and workplace discrimination, and
| asked him to please speak with Person A and HR jointly.
|
| To me, without any additional context, this seems like it might
| be 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.
| Aggressiveness is often used to describe both types of behavior,
| and I think it's easy for people to misinterpret what is trying
| to be communicated because of that.
|
| Is being confrontational a male trait? Is being ambitious?
| Perhaps one or both are, but certain positions work with those
| traits better than others, and if that's indeed part of what was
| being communicated, that may not be a matter of a male trait
| that's valued being devalued when expressed in a women as much as
| a trait being a bad fit for the position.
|
| I don't know it was actually meant or the full context in this
| situation, but as someone that has a coworker that is often
| confrontational, sometimes in disruptive ways, but also was
| interested in a management position, that's what came to mind
| when I read this. I do not believe his particular way of
| interacting with people would work well in a management position,
| and I could definitely see myself calling it "aggressive". That
| said, I do personally like this person and consider them a
| friend, I just don't think they would do well in a position such
| as that.
|
| Edit: I haven't completed the article, so the above is from
| reaching that point in the piece, and should be taken mostly as a
| _general_ discussion point and not a specific assessment of an
| event in this article.
| ketzu wrote:
| > 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
| even reference specific arguments applied in opposite ways in
| the part you cite.
| kbenson wrote:
| 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, I was trying to keep it abstract because I
| wasn't trying to be pro or con about this article, but
| instead make a point about communication, which is an
| interest of mine.
| transRfagz wrote:
| [dead]
| jesterman wrote:
| 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. Unfortunately, it's my turn. After six
| months of searching, I was not able to find a new role in time,
| and I have lost my home."
| wiredone wrote:
| ... 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.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| 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 definitively say "this was
| caused by discimination," but you're quite aware it's
| happening overall.
| throwaway202351 wrote:
| 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.
| begno wrote:
| 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 their
| bathroom, or
|
| - they've had a bad experience hiring a transgender
| previously (typically due to the previous two reasons) and
| don't want to repeat it with another.
|
| Kind of sucks for the transgendered applicants, but
| understandable I suppose, given the circumstances these
| days.
| refulgentis wrote:
| It's not understandable. Some things you don't let
| yourself do and speak up when other people do.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| [flagged]
| jesterman wrote:
| As frob said, given the size of the company and the statistic
| they gave that 20% of the company was laid off. The company
| laid off at least 10 people, and as she said in the article,
| they were ALL minorities. This feels statistically unlikely
| to be random chance.
| danbolt wrote:
| In reference of the HN Guidelines, I'd suggest assuming a
| little more good faith here.
| frob wrote:
| It's not that 20% of those laid off were from minority
| groups. It's that 20% of the company was laid off and they're
| all from historically underrepresented groups in tech.
| fafqg wrote:
| [dead]
| ketzu wrote:
| My reading of that claim is 10 out of 10 people laid off were
| from marginalized groups. Not 20% of 10.
|
| > 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.
| jlawson wrote:
| Interesting quote. Statistically, if you add up all these
| 'historically marginalized groups', it seems like you end
| up with the overwhelming majority of the population.
|
| Women are a bit over half. Then add on all non-straight
| people, all non-white people, all people with some serious
| health (mental or otherwise) diagnosis. Globally this
| covers like 95% of the human population. Even in America
| these 'historically marginalized groups' are like 75-85% of
| the population.
|
| I suspect the complainant is casting a wide net when they
| try to define who counts as 'historically marginalized
| groups', to the point where this could happen by random
| chance. Though it's hard to know without knowing the full
| profiles of everyone at the company.
|
| Also we can note that these 'historically marginalized
| groups' tend to concentrate in certain types of jobs; if a
| company were to downsize their HR department for example,
| they'd be firing nearly all women even without targeting
| women, just as if they were to downsize programming they'd
| be firing nearly all men.
| Hitton wrote:
| Problem is that when you have with so many marginalized
| groups and increasing number of people claiming their
| membership in them, majority of the company could belong to
| at least one group. So it could easily be just a chance
| that no non-disabled white straight male was laid off. As
| for firing people on disability and maternity leave, it's
| kind of understandable - when you have a choice of firing 2
| roughly equally productive people and one of them has
| additional needs that you must accommodate, it's obvious
| who will you choose. With maternal leave it's similar.
| wiredone wrote:
| 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 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.
|
| There are certainly real victims in these environments.
|
| There are also in my personal experience a lot of people who make
| noise/complain about immaterial incidents in the hope of claiming
| some group control over their situation or with some sense of
| justice around fixing things. This thrashing can create a toxic
| environment for those around in itself.
| saulrh wrote:
| "Cut and run" doesn't work if you're on a visa, if you've
| already had to do that once or twice in the last couple years,
| if you don't have enough of an emergency fund. "Cut and run"if
| also doesn't work if you're not a tech worker - remember that
| discrimination affects HR reps and program managers and
| mechanical engineers and fabrication technicians and research
| scientists just as much as it affects SWEs.
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| Yeah, as someone who has been in one of these situations
| before and was unable to speak out, I am incredibly grateful
| for those of my coworkers that _did_ speak out.
|
| I try to pay the favor forward by speaking out and supporting
| folks who are treated badly by shitty leadership whenever I
| can.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > 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 people who work at such places--raising all
| sorts of issues and having them addressed reasonably-fairly is
| downright _normal_ at them, and a manager trying to retaliate
| for that kind of thing is likely in for a bad time.
| glitchc wrote:
| People should absolutely call out toxic work environments as
| just that. What's lacking is legislation protecting employee
| rights. Your approach is to cut and run, but ultimately people
| need to raise their voice for legislation to exist.
| [deleted]
| advisedwang wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| nunuvit wrote:
| You somehow connected human resources to legislation without
| explaining why that was a necessary step, which is exactly
| the lack of assessment that OP mentioned.
| amatecha wrote:
| This is really well-written. Thank you for shining the light on
| this and sharing it with the community. Sorry you and your
| colleagues were subjected to this unfair treatment. <3
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(page generated 2023-05-01 23:01 UTC)