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Damore laid out the timeline pretty clearly: * He attended a voluntary HR run seminar on diversity, and feedback was solicited. * He wrote the memo and submit

Damore laid out the timeline pretty clearly: * He attended a voluntary HR run seminar on diversity, and feedback was solicited. * He wrote the memo and submitted it to HR * HR sat on the memo without response for a month, after which he started sharing it on some internal mailing lists

wpietri 6y ago
In which case, the "request for feedback" bit, which Damore's defenders here are making a big deal about, was irrelevant. Him sharing it internally was not anything people asked for; it was something he decided to do on his own.
- lliamander 6y ago
  One of the criticisms made of Damore when this first broke was "he should have expressed his concerns to HR first". Like pretty much all of the criticisms of Damore, this one was based on ignorance (or a lie). He in fact did initially submit his concerns to HR, and not merely of his own initiative but in response to their request. If HR had an objection to Damore's memo, the appropriate time to address that would have been when he initially submitted it. They had a whole month to respond before he shared it with other people. They could have had a private conversation with him and resolved any disagreements or misunderstandings without it ever becoming a fiasco. By inviting his comments but then failing to address them, Google HR bears most of the blame for the fallout. His decision to share the memo with his colleagues was his, sure, but he wrote initially it in response to a request from HR. If management asks for your feedback about something but then ignores it, seeking validation from your colleagues is a perfectly logical next step. Especially so at a place like Google, where open discussion was supposed to be a hallmark of it's internal culture.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    One, we don't know that he submitted this to HR. Two, even if he did, they had no obligation to reply, let alone within a month. Three, we do not know that they didn't reply. Four, whether or not they did, it was his decision to publish broadly; he is responsible for his own actions. Five, after he received negative feedback, he just adjusted it slightly and kept going (and in fact kept going until he dropped this suit.). And six, he knew or should have known that an explicitly political attack on Google's culture and D&I practices was not the average thing you might pass along for feedback. He wanted a big reaction. He got it. He didn't get the outcome he wanted, but that was never his to control.
    - lliamander 6y ago
      If you think he's lying about the sequence of events, that's your choice. But unless you have a better reason than that you disagree with his opinions, you're not going to convince anyone. Is it not the job of HR to address employee concerns? Is it not the job of HR to manage the liability incurred by employees? I fail to see how HR does not bear responsibility here. Had HR said "sharing the contents of the memo at work will get you fired" then whether he shared the memo or not at least he would know what to expect. However, it's pretty clear that at most he expected a heated discussion, not termination. And he did not publish it "broadly". He posted it to some sort of internal "skeptics" discussion group. The idea being that this would be the normal venue for employees to discuss controversial ideas in good faith and with an open mind. It was others who published it "broadly". Damore's disagreement (which was not even necessarily a disagreement about values, but about facts and policy) was not an attack. The failure to make that distinction on the part of Google leadership and the media is why this became such a big issue, nor was this failing Damore's fault. Fortunately, it seems that most people (if not necessarily the loudest people) are able to make that distinction.
      - wpietri 6y ago
        I don't think he has to be lying. I think we've only heard one side of the story. It's the job of employees to manage their own behavior. It's HR's job to do their best to contain the problems when employees fail to do that. The dude created a go link, the purpose of which is to make something available to the entire company. Publishing it into an open internal group fits my definition of "broadly". It's not like he handed it to his manager or a couple colleagues and said "I'd like your feedback on this." He intentionally put it out to a wide audience. If you don't see it as an attack, I guess that's your prerogative. That's certainly how it was received. And given that the go link was titled pc-considered-harmful, it's clear that Damore saw it as a shot in the broader culture war. Something confirmed by his post-firing behavior, where the first people he talked to were strident antifeminists: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/09/james-damore-google-memo-youtube-interviews https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/09/james-dam...
        6y ago

wpietri 6y ago

In which case, the "request for feedback" bit, which Damore's defenders here are making a big deal about, was irrelevant. Him sharing it internally was not anything people asked for; it was something he decided to do on his own.

lliamander 6y ago
One of the criticisms made of Damore when this first broke was "he should have expressed his concerns to HR first". Like pretty much all of the criticisms of Damore, this one was based on ignorance (or a lie). He in fact did initially submit his concerns to HR, and not merely of his own initiative but in response to their request. If HR had an objection to Damore's memo, the appropriate time to address that would have been when he initially submitted it. They had a whole month to respond before he shared it with other people. They could have had a private conversation with him and resolved any disagreements or misunderstandings without it ever becoming a fiasco. By inviting his comments but then failing to address them, Google HR bears most of the blame for the fallout. His decision to share the memo with his colleagues was his, sure, but he wrote initially it in response to a request from HR. If management asks for your feedback about something but then ignores it, seeking validation from your colleagues is a perfectly logical next step. Especially so at a place like Google, where open discussion was supposed to be a hallmark of it's internal culture.
- wpietri 6y ago
  One, we don't know that he submitted this to HR. Two, even if he did, they had no obligation to reply, let alone within a month. Three, we do not know that they didn't reply. Four, whether or not they did, it was his decision to publish broadly; he is responsible for his own actions. Five, after he received negative feedback, he just adjusted it slightly and kept going (and in fact kept going until he dropped this suit.). And six, he knew or should have known that an explicitly political attack on Google's culture and D&I practices was not the average thing you might pass along for feedback. He wanted a big reaction. He got it. He didn't get the outcome he wanted, but that was never his to control.
  - lliamander 6y ago
    If you think he's lying about the sequence of events, that's your choice. But unless you have a better reason than that you disagree with his opinions, you're not going to convince anyone. Is it not the job of HR to address employee concerns? Is it not the job of HR to manage the liability incurred by employees? I fail to see how HR does not bear responsibility here. Had HR said "sharing the contents of the memo at work will get you fired" then whether he shared the memo or not at least he would know what to expect. However, it's pretty clear that at most he expected a heated discussion, not termination. And he did not publish it "broadly". He posted it to some sort of internal "skeptics" discussion group. The idea being that this would be the normal venue for employees to discuss controversial ideas in good faith and with an open mind. It was others who published it "broadly". Damore's disagreement (which was not even necessarily a disagreement about values, but about facts and policy) was not an attack. The failure to make that distinction on the part of Google leadership and the media is why this became such a big issue, nor was this failing Damore's fault. Fortunately, it seems that most people (if not necessarily the loudest people) are able to make that distinction.
    - wpietri 6y ago
      I don't think he has to be lying. I think we've only heard one side of the story. It's the job of employees to manage their own behavior. It's HR's job to do their best to contain the problems when employees fail to do that. The dude created a go link, the purpose of which is to make something available to the entire company. Publishing it into an open internal group fits my definition of "broadly". It's not like he handed it to his manager or a couple colleagues and said "I'd like your feedback on this." He intentionally put it out to a wide audience. If you don't see it as an attack, I guess that's your prerogative. That's certainly how it was received. And given that the go link was titled pc-considered-harmful, it's clear that Damore saw it as a shot in the broader culture war. Something confirmed by his post-firing behavior, where the first people he talked to were strident antifeminists: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/09/james-damore-google-memo-youtube-interviews https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/09/james-dam...
      - 6y ago