5 ms·

For anyone experiencing workplace harassment, this article is a great example of what not to do. Instead, document everything happening to you with evidence,

For anyone experiencing workplace harassment, this article is a great example of what not to do. Instead, document everything happening to you with evidence, speak with HR about incidents as they arise, and if they don't take action, seek legal counsel. Doing anything else will paint you in a bad light.

smoldesu 6y ago
It seems like that's what she was doing? At the end, she mentions that she has documented these events, and is asking Apple to step forward now and take responsibility or she'll take it to the press.
tooltower 6y ago
This person was not a US citizen, and needed to remain on the only path to a green card. Your options feel more limiting when that happens. They clearly didn't want to rattle the cage.
- andrewmcwatters 6y ago
  Attorneys will happily take your money and fight for you. Use what options you have.
  - xvector 6y ago
    This is easy to say but very difficult to actually do. Immigrants are typically more desperate and companies take advantage of that.
    - bdowling 6y ago
      > Immigrants are typically more desperate and companies take advantage of that. An immigrant non-citizen employee who is harmed by an employer has just as much of a right to sue the employer as a citizen employee.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
        Have you paid attention to the behavior of USCIS employees over the last 4 years, notably towards people with backgrounds in predominantly Muslim countries (as the author of TFA appears to be)? It's not so much that you're wrong, more that it doesn't matter that you're right.
        bdowling 6y ago
        An employer-employee dispute will usually be litigated in either a state court or a US District Court (Article III court). USCIS, a federal Article II agency, has no influence over either court.
        PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
        The influence of USCIS over the court doesn't matter much if the (ex)employee has been detained and removed by the time the court hears the case. And it's not that companies have to be particularly malicious for this to happen: if they terminate an H1* employee, they are required to notify USCIS. And then there's the bigger picture: living in a country knowing that the only legal basis for your presence here is a visa tied to you being employed by your current employer, and now considering whether or not to launch legal action against that employer. p.s. I'm a former H1B immigrant, Green Card holder, and now US Citizen.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    How many hundreds of thousands of dollars would it take to lose against Apple? Obviously there's a chance but this is literally like taking on Oceania from 1984 - Apple's apple-isms and the famous reality distortion field really do make the comparison slightly alarming, thinking about it.
specialist 6y ago
IDK. I've tried it every which way. None have worked out well for me. Me now thinks only winning move is to suck it up while finding a new gig. For H1B prisoners like this OP, well, it's tough to win a rigged game. The core problem, IMHO, is not having a baseline model for what good management looks like. In my 30s, I finally stumbled into a high mutual trust situation. It was heaven. We got so much done, had so much fun. Once you get a taste of trust, it's hard to suspend disbelief, kinda ruins you for future relationships. After earning my PhD in failure, I'm still no wiser, have no prescriptive advice. The only "skill" I got was tuning my spidey sense.
- sdoering 6y ago
  I hear you. I stumbled into a situation of high mutual trust as well. And I saw it go down the drain over few years. One is burned after experiencing what work could be like. But what to do - I have so no idea.
Apocryphon 6y ago
Doesn't exactly work when HR is toothless and one is seeking legal action against literally the richest company in the world and already inundated in lawsuits. Not to mention the author was on a student OPT visa- how is someone being sponsored by a company going to risk their status by suing that company?
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  The flip side is that Apple cannot afford to lose such a case because it would shine a very dark light on them. If you have anywhere near a solid case they will probably settle for a handsome amount.
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    Apple is constantly being sued at all times. I recall a manager saying that they could not delete any work emails because of possible subpoena orders. Most cases likely get lost among it all, and get no outside publicity.
- onepointsixC 6y ago
  Even if she did, would she have been able to even stay while the lawsuit plays out over months to years? Unlikely.
  - bdowling 6y ago
    > Even if she did, would she have been able to even stay while the lawsuit plays out over months to years? Unlikely. It is not necessary for a plaintiff to be a U.S. resident for a lawsuit to proceed in a U.S court. I'm not an expert on immigration law, but if a foreign resident needs to appear as a witness at trial in a U.S. court, then they can usually enter on a tourist visa or some other visa.
CivBase 6y ago
According to the article, the person was documenting things. They even included a picture of a meeting invite. They also went to HR many times. Only thing they didn't do was seek legal council, but that's probably a hard step to take when you're on a work visa - especially when Apple is your legal opponent.
- bdowling 6y ago
  > ... especially when Apple is your legal opponent. If the facts are on the employee's side, then many lawyers would take such a case on contingency because Apple (or any large, successful company) has very deep pockets to pay a judgment or settlement. Conversely, finding a lawyer to sue a small employer on contingency would be more difficult because the small employer could declare bankruptcy, making collecting a judgment difficult or impossible.
  - KittenInABox 6y ago
    Do you actually have significant case filing you can point to about this? Genuinely asking, because it's always spoken to me that workplace abuse is extremely hard to sue over because you'll be outgunned (financially), lawyers will never work contingency because the money payout isn't worth the effort, and the employee in trying to legally defend themselves have now permanently ruined their career prospects.
    - bdowling 6y ago
      > ...lawyers will never work contingency because the money payout isn't worth the effort... This is probably true in a lot of cases. So, whether or not suing is worth it will depend on the specific facts of a case. > ...the employee in trying to legally defend themselves have now permanently ruined their career prospects. I agree this is a significant issue.
zcw100 6y ago
You've clearly never had this happen to you. Go ahead, document everything, it's not going to matter. That's not how this works. If you do that they'll either say, "Ok, I see what you've got there. But that's not what we're here to discuss. We're here to discuss your negative attitude" or they can look at your documentation and say, "So what were you charging the time you were doing all this documentation to?", or, "So this is why you're not getting your work done. You're spending all this time on this paranoid documentation instead of doing your work". Go to HR? Are you kidding me? First, HR is not your friend. They're there to protect the company. Perhaps sometimes your interests align with the company but that's just an accident. Second, there is no way these people are engaging in abusive behavior without HR having their backs so going to HR just risks exposing HR to accusations of abuse so now you've got an even bigger target on your back.
- andrewmcwatters 6y ago
  I have. I don't know why you presume to know my work history. The fact that I can provide succinct actionable advise on the matter should be evidence in itself. You don't need to tell people you're documenting events. Do I need to spell that out for you? Where I live, employment is "at-will," so it would be good to establish acting in good faith first--taking an issue to HR--before taking legal action.
- meekrohprocess 6y ago
  I think they mean that you should document everything, then express your concerns to HR in a non-confrontational way, then quietly bring your documentation to a lawyer if nothing changes. The documentation is your "plan B" which HR doesn't need to know about.
  - andrewmcwatters 6y ago
    Yes.
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    Documenting everything is good advice, but it can give false hope to people in these situations. Hiring a lawyer is never as easy, cheap, or as quick as it sounds from internet comments. It's easy to armchair quarterback these situations and talk about hypothetically lawyering up, but what's the endgame? Suing your company won't suddenly convert a toxic job into a happy job, regardless of the outcome. Settlements, if they ever arrive, are rarely significant enough to make a financial difference unless someone has a truly home-run protected class harassment case with hard evidence (not just verbal conversations recited from memory). Good lawyers won't take cases that don't appear winnable from the start. However, there are plenty of bad lawyers who will happily give people false hope about their chances and then bill as much as they can get away with before the client gives up. "Plan B" should always be to find another job ASAP, if possible. (Not easy in the author's case).
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
In Part 3 the author explains attempts to schedule a meeting with HR: > I was worried and I scheduled a meeting with HR and described what had happened. It's easy to armchair quarterback these accounts from the internet, but let's not pretend it's as simple as walking over to HR and then calling up a lawyer who will take your case for free. These cases are much harder to win than the internet would suggest, especially when much of the claimed harassment (threatening to punch the author, joking about deportation threats) occurred verbally.
aspaceman 6y ago
There’s nothing to do. Documenting wouldn’t help. Criticizing them is the exact type of navel gazing commentary I hate about this place. You must think you’re oh so intelligent. You read a Reddit comment that said to make sure to document and email everything and now you’ll pompously make that comment under anything. You’re not actually helping. “You see Oedipus, if you had only asked that man if he was Laius before killing them for attacking you, none of this would have ever happened.” Tragedy is about empathy and shared experience, not an instructional guide for how to live life.
praptak 6y ago
Seek legal advice BEFORE speaking to HR. Seriously. If you are at the "document everything" stage, it's not the time to speak to HR.
alpb 6y ago
You’re absolutely correct but missing out on a major point. If you are an immigrant, especially on a soon-expiring visa, especially from a country with export restrictions (I’m guessing Iran), you are unlikely to pursue a legal battle. Most likely you won’t even be able to attend to any court hearings on time. This is also why many immigrants on H1b and OPT visas at FAANGM companies (often their first job) bow down to abuse, get their work done, and do their time until they receive a Green Card so they can freely roam the job market.

smoldesu 6y ago

It seems like that's what she was doing? At the end, she mentions that she has documented these events, and is asking Apple to step forward now and take responsibility or she'll take it to the press.

tooltower 6y ago

This person was not a US citizen, and needed to remain on the only path to a green card. Your options feel more limiting when that happens. They clearly didn't want to rattle the cage.

andrewmcwatters 6y ago
Attorneys will happily take your money and fight for you. Use what options you have.
- xvector 6y ago
  This is easy to say but very difficult to actually do. Immigrants are typically more desperate and companies take advantage of that.
  - bdowling 6y ago
    > Immigrants are typically more desperate and companies take advantage of that. An immigrant non-citizen employee who is harmed by an employer has just as much of a right to sue the employer as a citizen employee.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
      Have you paid attention to the behavior of USCIS employees over the last 4 years, notably towards people with backgrounds in predominantly Muslim countries (as the author of TFA appears to be)? It's not so much that you're wrong, more that it doesn't matter that you're right.
      - bdowling 6y ago
        An employer-employee dispute will usually be litigated in either a state court or a US District Court (Article III court). USCIS, a federal Article II agency, has no influence over either court.
        PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
        The influence of USCIS over the court doesn't matter much if the (ex)employee has been detained and removed by the time the court hears the case. And it's not that companies have to be particularly malicious for this to happen: if they terminate an H1* employee, they are required to notify USCIS. And then there's the bigger picture: living in a country knowing that the only legal basis for your presence here is a visa tied to you being employed by your current employer, and now considering whether or not to launch legal action against that employer. p.s. I'm a former H1B immigrant, Green Card holder, and now US Citizen.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  How many hundreds of thousands of dollars would it take to lose against Apple? Obviously there's a chance but this is literally like taking on Oceania from 1984 - Apple's apple-isms and the famous reality distortion field really do make the comparison slightly alarming, thinking about it.

specialist 6y ago

IDK. I've tried it every which way. None have worked out well for me. Me now thinks only winning move is to suck it up while finding a new gig. For H1B prisoners like this OP, well, it's tough to win a rigged game. The core problem, IMHO, is not having a baseline model for what good management looks like. In my 30s, I finally stumbled into a high mutual trust situation. It was heaven. We got so much done, had so much fun. Once you get a taste of trust, it's hard to suspend disbelief, kinda ruins you for future relationships. After earning my PhD in failure, I'm still no wiser, have no prescriptive advice. The only "skill" I got was tuning my spidey sense.

sdoering 6y ago
I hear you. I stumbled into a situation of high mutual trust as well. And I saw it go down the drain over few years. One is burned after experiencing what work could be like. But what to do - I have so no idea.

Apocryphon 6y ago

Doesn't exactly work when HR is toothless and one is seeking legal action against literally the richest company in the world and already inundated in lawsuits. Not to mention the author was on a student OPT visa- how is someone being sponsored by a company going to risk their status by suing that company?

tinus_hn 6y ago
The flip side is that Apple cannot afford to lose such a case because it would shine a very dark light on them. If you have anywhere near a solid case they will probably settle for a handsome amount.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  Apple is constantly being sued at all times. I recall a manager saying that they could not delete any work emails because of possible subpoena orders. Most cases likely get lost among it all, and get no outside publicity.
onepointsixC 6y ago
Even if she did, would she have been able to even stay while the lawsuit plays out over months to years? Unlikely.
- bdowling 6y ago
  > Even if she did, would she have been able to even stay while the lawsuit plays out over months to years? Unlikely. It is not necessary for a plaintiff to be a U.S. resident for a lawsuit to proceed in a U.S court. I'm not an expert on immigration law, but if a foreign resident needs to appear as a witness at trial in a U.S. court, then they can usually enter on a tourist visa or some other visa.

CivBase 6y ago

According to the article, the person was documenting things. They even included a picture of a meeting invite. They also went to HR many times. Only thing they didn't do was seek legal council, but that's probably a hard step to take when you're on a work visa - especially when Apple is your legal opponent.

bdowling 6y ago
> ... especially when Apple is your legal opponent. If the facts are on the employee's side, then many lawyers would take such a case on contingency because Apple (or any large, successful company) has very deep pockets to pay a judgment or settlement. Conversely, finding a lawyer to sue a small employer on contingency would be more difficult because the small employer could declare bankruptcy, making collecting a judgment difficult or impossible.
- KittenInABox 6y ago
  Do you actually have significant case filing you can point to about this? Genuinely asking, because it's always spoken to me that workplace abuse is extremely hard to sue over because you'll be outgunned (financially), lawyers will never work contingency because the money payout isn't worth the effort, and the employee in trying to legally defend themselves have now permanently ruined their career prospects.
  - bdowling 6y ago
    > ...lawyers will never work contingency because the money payout isn't worth the effort... This is probably true in a lot of cases. So, whether or not suing is worth it will depend on the specific facts of a case. > ...the employee in trying to legally defend themselves have now permanently ruined their career prospects. I agree this is a significant issue.

zcw100 6y ago

You've clearly never had this happen to you. Go ahead, document everything, it's not going to matter. That's not how this works. If you do that they'll either say, "Ok, I see what you've got there. But that's not what we're here to discuss. We're here to discuss your negative attitude" or they can look at your documentation and say, "So what were you charging the time you were doing all this documentation to?", or, "So this is why you're not getting your work done. You're spending all this time on this paranoid documentation instead of doing your work". Go to HR? Are you kidding me? First, HR is not your friend. They're there to protect the company. Perhaps sometimes your interests align with the company but that's just an accident. Second, there is no way these people are engaging in abusive behavior without HR having their backs so going to HR just risks exposing HR to accusations of abuse so now you've got an even bigger target on your back.

andrewmcwatters 6y ago
I have. I don't know why you presume to know my work history. The fact that I can provide succinct actionable advise on the matter should be evidence in itself. You don't need to tell people you're documenting events. Do I need to spell that out for you? Where I live, employment is "at-will," so it would be good to establish acting in good faith first--taking an issue to HR--before taking legal action.
meekrohprocess 6y ago
I think they mean that you should document everything, then express your concerns to HR in a non-confrontational way, then quietly bring your documentation to a lawyer if nothing changes. The documentation is your "plan B" which HR doesn't need to know about.
- andrewmcwatters 6y ago
  Yes.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  Documenting everything is good advice, but it can give false hope to people in these situations. Hiring a lawyer is never as easy, cheap, or as quick as it sounds from internet comments. It's easy to armchair quarterback these situations and talk about hypothetically lawyering up, but what's the endgame? Suing your company won't suddenly convert a toxic job into a happy job, regardless of the outcome. Settlements, if they ever arrive, are rarely significant enough to make a financial difference unless someone has a truly home-run protected class harassment case with hard evidence (not just verbal conversations recited from memory). Good lawyers won't take cases that don't appear winnable from the start. However, there are plenty of bad lawyers who will happily give people false hope about their chances and then bill as much as they can get away with before the client gives up. "Plan B" should always be to find another job ASAP, if possible. (Not easy in the author's case).

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

In Part 3 the author explains attempts to schedule a meeting with HR: > I was worried and I scheduled a meeting with HR and described what had happened. It's easy to armchair quarterback these accounts from the internet, but let's not pretend it's as simple as walking over to HR and then calling up a lawyer who will take your case for free. These cases are much harder to win than the internet would suggest, especially when much of the claimed harassment (threatening to punch the author, joking about deportation threats) occurred verbally.

aspaceman 6y ago

There’s nothing to do. Documenting wouldn’t help. Criticizing them is the exact type of navel gazing commentary I hate about this place. You must think you’re oh so intelligent. You read a Reddit comment that said to make sure to document and email everything and now you’ll pompously make that comment under anything. You’re not actually helping. “You see Oedipus, if you had only asked that man if he was Laius before killing them for attacking you, none of this would have ever happened.” Tragedy is about empathy and shared experience, not an instructional guide for how to live life.

praptak 6y ago

Seek legal advice BEFORE speaking to HR. Seriously. If you are at the "document everything" stage, it's not the time to speak to HR.

alpb 6y ago

You’re absolutely correct but missing out on a major point. If you are an immigrant, especially on a soon-expiring visa, especially from a country with export restrictions (I’m guessing Iran), you are unlikely to pursue a legal battle. Most likely you won’t even be able to attend to any court hearings on time. This is also why many immigrants on H1b and OPT visas at FAANGM companies (often their first job) bow down to abuse, get their work done, and do their time until they receive a Green Card so they can freely roam the job market.