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That employee sparked potential controversy by bringing in gender & sexism into a thread that didn’t need it; and such a sensitive topic could lead to a huge fa

That employee sparked potential controversy by bringing in gender & sexism into a thread that didn’t need it; and such a sensitive topic could lead to a huge fallout for the company. This entire argument should’ve ended with a “you are wrong” reply or simply ignoring (and potentially blocking).

detaro 8y ago
And you just gave anyone with an agenda against your company or individual employees a perfect tool to worsen that: they'll just need to provoke "potential controversy" and you'll damage yourself and them by firing people. You told your employees that you won't back them up if the make a misstep. This seems like a surefire way of making such things worse the next time it happens, instead of presenting your company as one entity that can face problems without much drama. People are going to make mistakes, especially in industries where it is kind of encouraged they talk to the public, companies should some some loyalty to them.
js8 8y ago
If you want to argue that the employee has so much responsibility that it can cause huge fallout, you better pay them a lot better. But that's not the truth, is it? One employee's rant doesn't make company fail. No, this is just a status-reinforcing exercise of people in the company hierarchy.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  Frankly, this “much responsibility” shouldn’t exist in a sane world, but the issue is that in today’s world pretty much anything you say can & will be considered offensive by someone and they’re gonna try and shame your brand. > One employee's rant doesn't make company fail I have yet to see a case like this, but despite that all marketing & executive-level people seem to believe that, and are happy to fire people in order to save face and reiterate that this behaviour is not approved by the company. But again, in this case I think the outcome was deserved. I’m tired of people bringing up the gender & sexism card for a simple problem of “someone is wrong on the internet”.
  - js8 8y ago
    "Frankly, this “much responsibility” shouldn’t exist in a sane world" Exactly, that's why employees should organize and the society at large should determine where the sanity lies. "But again, in this case I think the outcome was deserved. I’m tired of people bringing up the gender & sexism card for a simple problem of “someone is wrong on the internet”." So you disagree in general but here you think it was deserved, because you happen to disagree with her? That's not fair, I think, and is "end justifies the means" argument.
    - Rjevski 8y ago
      I think it’s deserved in this case because people often bring up gender, sexism, etc to their advantage with often disastrous results for the victim (that only committed the “crime” of being wrong on the internet), so I’m glad this didn’t go according to plan and backfired. Besides this case I agree with you, people shouldn’t be fired for something they do on their personal social media (although this case also blurs the line on that front, as she was discussing her job as a game developer).
DanBC 8y ago
But gender was relevant. You're failing to understand the relentless toxic entitlement shown by many young adult male gamers. That's toxic to everyone, but it's more severe and frequent for women.
- 0xBA5ED 8y ago
  You're failing to understand the relentless toxic entitlement shown by many female game devs. See how I can turn that around and it's just as "true" as your statement, yet doesn't do anything whatsoever for the conversation?
- Rjevski 8y ago
  I don’t think I’m failing to understand anything. I perfectly know the gamer community is toxic, having been a victim of their awful behaviour before. But in this case this doesn’t even have to do anything with gamers - it’s just a developer explaining something and another person politely disagreeing and thinking they can do the job better, which frankly happens to everyone in every industry (junior person arrives and thinks they’re better than everyone else and know everything).

detaro 8y ago

And you just gave anyone with an agenda against your company or individual employees a perfect tool to worsen that: they'll just need to provoke "potential controversy" and you'll damage yourself and them by firing people. You told your employees that you won't back them up if the make a misstep. This seems like a surefire way of making such things worse the next time it happens, instead of presenting your company as one entity that can face problems without much drama. People are going to make mistakes, especially in industries where it is kind of encouraged they talk to the public, companies should some some loyalty to them.

js8 8y ago

If you want to argue that the employee has so much responsibility that it can cause huge fallout, you better pay them a lot better. But that's not the truth, is it? One employee's rant doesn't make company fail. No, this is just a status-reinforcing exercise of people in the company hierarchy.

Rjevski 8y ago
Frankly, this “much responsibility” shouldn’t exist in a sane world, but the issue is that in today’s world pretty much anything you say can & will be considered offensive by someone and they’re gonna try and shame your brand. > One employee's rant doesn't make company fail I have yet to see a case like this, but despite that all marketing & executive-level people seem to believe that, and are happy to fire people in order to save face and reiterate that this behaviour is not approved by the company. But again, in this case I think the outcome was deserved. I’m tired of people bringing up the gender & sexism card for a simple problem of “someone is wrong on the internet”.
- js8 8y ago
  "Frankly, this “much responsibility” shouldn’t exist in a sane world" Exactly, that's why employees should organize and the society at large should determine where the sanity lies. "But again, in this case I think the outcome was deserved. I’m tired of people bringing up the gender & sexism card for a simple problem of “someone is wrong on the internet”." So you disagree in general but here you think it was deserved, because you happen to disagree with her? That's not fair, I think, and is "end justifies the means" argument.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    I think it’s deserved in this case because people often bring up gender, sexism, etc to their advantage with often disastrous results for the victim (that only committed the “crime” of being wrong on the internet), so I’m glad this didn’t go according to plan and backfired. Besides this case I agree with you, people shouldn’t be fired for something they do on their personal social media (although this case also blurs the line on that front, as she was discussing her job as a game developer).

DanBC 8y ago

But gender was relevant. You're failing to understand the relentless toxic entitlement shown by many young adult male gamers. That's toxic to everyone, but it's more severe and frequent for women.

0xBA5ED 8y ago
You're failing to understand the relentless toxic entitlement shown by many female game devs. See how I can turn that around and it's just as "true" as your statement, yet doesn't do anything whatsoever for the conversation?
Rjevski 8y ago
I don’t think I’m failing to understand anything. I perfectly know the gamer community is toxic, having been a victim of their awful behaviour before. But in this case this doesn’t even have to do anything with gamers - it’s just a developer explaining something and another person politely disagreeing and thinking they can do the job better, which frankly happens to everyone in every industry (junior person arrives and thinks they’re better than everyone else and know everything).