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>I think it is possible that there is some sexism here in that I'm not confident a male employee at Github would ever be challenged over failing this communicat

>I think it is possible that there is some sexism here in that I'm not confident a male employee at Github would ever be challenged over failing this communication standard. What leads you to this conclusion? Sexism may have been at play, or she may have been rude to the wrong person (or perceived as rude). I don't think it is appropriate to draw broad conclusions with only one side of a story and zero evidence. > Also, I have never, ever heard of a PIP being used as anything other than a strategy for building a case for firing someone. Agreed on this point, as soon as she had a phone call with manager + HR they had already decided to fire her.

ivraatiems 9y ago
> Sexism may have been at play, or she may have been rude to the wrong person (or perceived as rude). I don't think it is appropriate to draw broad conclusions with only one side of a story and zero evidence. It comes back to that implicit expectation. Something I've been bringing up a lot in this thread as I read the comments throughout it is that whether we consider somebody rude or not seems to depend a lot on a) who they are, and b) whether we agree with them. We are more charitable to people who are more like us and whose ideas we find more correct. We're all human, so that's part of life. However, as an organization, Github can and should do better than that, and I think here that it did not. The sexism here, if it exists, is implicit in the way problems with this person were handled and in the expectations (mostly unwritten, at least at first) about how she'd behave.
- rndmwlk 9y ago
  >However, as an organization, Github can and should do better than that, and I think here that it did not. Consider if the situations were reversed. What if some white male engineer was simply being terse in an email to her. Might she attribute it to rudeness, sexism, or transphobia? If the company fired the engineer would you be arguing that she should be a bit more charitable in her interpretations? It can be very hard to capture the subtleties of spoken word in text form. The onus has pretty much always been on the individual to ensure they are being professional. I definitely think something is fishy here. It may very well be that Github has some serious issues, but the flip side of that coin (and Occam's razor) is that she sent out some rude emails and was fired.
  - ivraatiems 9y ago
    > Consider if the situations were reversed. What if some white male engineer was simply being terse in an email to her. Might she attribute it to rudeness, sexism, or transphobia? If the company fired the engineer would you be arguing that she should be a bit more charitable in her interpretations? These are good questions, and I don't know the answers. I'd like to tell you how I'd react, but I think given the current context it'd be hard for me to do so without my opinion of this whole thread coloring my answer. > It can be very hard to capture the subtleties of spoken word in text form. The onus has pretty much always been on the individual to ensure they are being professional. I definitely think something is fishy here. It may very well be that Github has some serious issues, but the flip side of that coin (and Occam's razor) is that she sent out some rude emails and was fired. What I'll say is this: I can see how her comments could be perceived as rude, or "unempathetic." I cannot see how - especially at Github, a place not known for cultural sensitivity - they were firable. I think there is a double/triple/quadruple standard going on here where people are, without even realizing it, passing their opinions of somebody through ideological blinders. I think this issue may be part of a core problem with Github's culture.
    - rndmwlk 9y ago
      >I can see how her comments could be perceived as rude, or "unempathetic." I cannot see how - especially at Github, a place not known for cultural sensitivity - they were firable. I agree, I think this is where the "fishy"-ness I spoke of earlier comes in. Giving the benefit of the doubt to Coraline, there is definitely more at play than being rude in a few emails. I just feel uncomfortable jumping from an individual account to broadly concluding an organization is sexist.
      - ivraatiems 9y ago
        I respect that. Personally, I feel that Github has a long enough history of mismanagement and poor culture that sexism and the kinds of issues this post describes aren't difficult to imagine at all.
        9y ago

ivraatiems 9y ago

> Sexism may have been at play, or she may have been rude to the wrong person (or perceived as rude). I don't think it is appropriate to draw broad conclusions with only one side of a story and zero evidence. It comes back to that implicit expectation. Something I've been bringing up a lot in this thread as I read the comments throughout it is that whether we consider somebody rude or not seems to depend a lot on a) who they are, and b) whether we agree with them. We are more charitable to people who are more like us and whose ideas we find more correct. We're all human, so that's part of life. However, as an organization, Github can and should do better than that, and I think here that it did not. The sexism here, if it exists, is implicit in the way problems with this person were handled and in the expectations (mostly unwritten, at least at first) about how she'd behave.

rndmwlk 9y ago
>However, as an organization, Github can and should do better than that, and I think here that it did not. Consider if the situations were reversed. What if some white male engineer was simply being terse in an email to her. Might she attribute it to rudeness, sexism, or transphobia? If the company fired the engineer would you be arguing that she should be a bit more charitable in her interpretations? It can be very hard to capture the subtleties of spoken word in text form. The onus has pretty much always been on the individual to ensure they are being professional. I definitely think something is fishy here. It may very well be that Github has some serious issues, but the flip side of that coin (and Occam's razor) is that she sent out some rude emails and was fired.
- ivraatiems 9y ago
  > Consider if the situations were reversed. What if some white male engineer was simply being terse in an email to her. Might she attribute it to rudeness, sexism, or transphobia? If the company fired the engineer would you be arguing that she should be a bit more charitable in her interpretations? These are good questions, and I don't know the answers. I'd like to tell you how I'd react, but I think given the current context it'd be hard for me to do so without my opinion of this whole thread coloring my answer. > It can be very hard to capture the subtleties of spoken word in text form. The onus has pretty much always been on the individual to ensure they are being professional. I definitely think something is fishy here. It may very well be that Github has some serious issues, but the flip side of that coin (and Occam's razor) is that she sent out some rude emails and was fired. What I'll say is this: I can see how her comments could be perceived as rude, or "unempathetic." I cannot see how - especially at Github, a place not known for cultural sensitivity - they were firable. I think there is a double/triple/quadruple standard going on here where people are, without even realizing it, passing their opinions of somebody through ideological blinders. I think this issue may be part of a core problem with Github's culture.
  - rndmwlk 9y ago
    >I can see how her comments could be perceived as rude, or "unempathetic." I cannot see how - especially at Github, a place not known for cultural sensitivity - they were firable. I agree, I think this is where the "fishy"-ness I spoke of earlier comes in. Giving the benefit of the doubt to Coraline, there is definitely more at play than being rude in a few emails. I just feel uncomfortable jumping from an individual account to broadly concluding an organization is sexist.
    - ivraatiems 9y ago
      I respect that. Personally, I feel that Github has a long enough history of mismanagement and poor culture that sexism and the kinds of issues this post describes aren't difficult to imagine at all.
      - 9y ago