Here is one of the rare situations where my virulent leftism is overridden by another factor (in this case, my nerd-centric bro mindset):
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes-sexism-and-intimidation-behind-her-github-exit/Julie Ann Horvath, one of the senior software engineers at GitHub (a programming network for Open Source software) has resigned amid claims of a sexist internal culture. In a nutshell, she alleges that she was repeatedly intimidated and harassed by the founder's wife (who is not an employee), which then escalated to an HR meeting with the founder; the founder accused Horvath of being a liar and told Horvath that it was bad judgment to date a co-worker (Horvath was in a relationship with another GitHub employee). According to Horvath, she cried during the meeting, and was left "crying and shaking uncontrollably." The founder also had a conversion with Horvath's significant other and asked him to resign (he did not).
During this time, another employee asked himself over to “talk,” and then professed his love, and “hesitated” when he was asked to leave. Horvath was in a committed relationship at the time, something this other employee was well aware of, according to Horvath. After this rejection, on several occasions said employee removed Horvath's code from various projects with no comments or explanation (in open source development, this is a Bad Thing).
Horvath also alleges that after this and other HR meetings, when HR had made it clear that the founder's wife (again, not an employee!) was not to to be on the same floor as Horvath, the wife still repeatedly sat near and around Horvath, and directly confronted her.
The final straw for Horvath came when she saw men gawking at women who were hula-hooping at the office. She called the episode “a really ugly and inappropriate scene.” Her words:
"Two women, one of whom I work with and adore, and a friend of hers were hula hooping to some music. I didn’t have a problem with this. What I did have a problem with is the line of men sitting on one bench facing the hoopers and gawking at them. It looked like something out of a strip club. When I brought this up to male coworkers, they didn’t see a problem with it. But for me it felt unsafe and to be honest, really embarrassing. That was the moment I decided to finally leave GitHub."After Horvath had arranged an exit with HR, someone posted a disparaging message to a social networking site about her departure; that post is what led Horvath to “speak up.” Instead of seeking attention, Horvath says she wants someone to be finally held accountable.
---
My thoughts:
- The founder's wife has no business being at the company or telling people what to do; it is not a family business and she is not an employee
- Reverting someone else's code without explanation or commentary (
especially after you have been exposed with ulterior motives) is Not OK
- You should not ask someone to resign over a personal relationship unless that has been clearly prohibited before-the-fact
But:
- Crying during an HR meeting doesn't make you right (and Horvath is the one that repeatedly mentioned the crying)
- Dating people at work means you lose the right to complain about
normal dating drama (including: being propositioned by people you aren't interested in) at work
- If you are hulahooping (or dancing, or doing pushups, or other physical recreational activity) at work during business hours, then you shouldn't be complaining about co-workers looking at you
While I agree with Horvath on the broad strokes, some of her complaints strike me as wanting to have her cake and eat it too. Furthermore, I simply cannot endorse
I was crying as a indicator for anything of value; such an evaluation inherently favors those with the least emotional stability. To be clear, I'm not bashing her for getting upset and crying (you can't necessarily always control your emotions); I'm bashing her for pointing that out as support for her position.
Author