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The worst HR case I ever got involved in was a semi-onshore (Indian) development team who couldn't deal with having a female (Indian) tech lead. She was eminent

by jl6 2y ago

The worst HR case I ever got involved in was a semi-onshore (Indian) development team who couldn't deal with having a female (Indian) tech lead. She was eminently qualified for the role, but they would attempt to undermine her at every turn, speak over her, hold meetings without her, always going over her head... Caste did not appear to be a factor; it seemed to be good old fashioned sexism.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Rinzler89 2y ago
[flagged]
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  sexism and non-egalitarian behavior is pretty common across the globe. I'd argue that the west, esp. N America, is the exception, not the rule. and even there, there are pressures working against it.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    [flagged]
- dang 2y ago
  Nationalistic/racial/ethnic/religious/whatever-this-is slurs will get you banned here. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. Please don't post anything like this again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    Read my comment again please. Where did you see me posting any nationalistic slurs? Perhaps you're mistaken and wanted to reply to someone else.
    - dang 2y ago
      "Backwards cultures have people who act backwards" is obviously a slur. That's not a close call.
ErigmolCt 2y ago
That situation is unfortunately all too familiar and it speaks to deeply ingrained gender biases that exist not only in some Indian cultural contexts but also in many other parts of the world
kylehotchkiss 2y ago
Caste is not the driving factor in Indian culture.
- odux 2y ago
  As an Indian, this, unfortunately, is not true. Within India caste is very ingrained with the culture and in some aspects it is very difficult to separate culture from caste.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    Would you say it is more or less important than gender?
- Saline9515 2y ago
  Why are skin lightening products sales increasing every year? It's expected to double in the next 10 years. https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2021/11/health/skin-lightening-india-health-risks-intl-cmd/ https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2021/11/health/skin-ligh...
  - KwisatzHaderack 2y ago
    I thought caste was unrelated to skin color. Is this not true?
    - sumedh 2y ago
      It depends, some "higher" caste people have light skin compared to others.
- bsoles 2y ago
  These documented cases even in the US would like to disagree: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_discrimination_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_discrimination_in_the_...
aitchnyu 2y ago
Who are "they"? How did the complaint move forward? I'm Indian and seen too many cases of this and the bad guys always win.
- jl6 2y ago
  They = an all-male dev team, and it wasn't a complaint. The lead never complained. Probably considered herself very lucky to have landed in a lead role and didn't want to rock the boat. They were all working for an outsourcer who we (the client) had engaged. However, it became apparent to us (the client) that this was happening, in our offices, even if it wasn't to our employees. We did an immediate soft intervention of placing a permanent (non-Indian) colleague into the team in a scrum master type role, who did a great job of facilitating meetings fairly and basically telling the men (boys, frankly) to shut up once in a while. We probably broke a rule by unspokenly deciding that the scrum master had to be non-Indian. Meanwhile, HR cogitated and came to the conclusion that we had no contractual right to invoke any process on the men as they weren't our direct employees. However, we did have the right to ask that people be replaced if we were not satisfied with performance. Cue debate on what constitutes performance. Cue debate on whether the project could take the hit of losing its whole dev team all at once. This all took a long time, as we believed there was a chance that the intervention would work if given time. Maybe this was a teachable moment? And aside from the appalling attitude, they were decent devs with a lot of difficult-to-replace knowledge. Not gonna lie, we hoped the problem would go away if we did the bare minimum "fix". Communication improved, but it was an uphill battle. As it happened, fate intervened, and wider organizational spasms caused the project to be mothballed. We had to give notice to the whole dev team, including the lead. Fortunately, this was a megacorp, and other projects swiftly moved in, and new work orders were drafted. This gave us an opportunity to approve the team sheet for the outsourced roles. The female tech lead was waved on through. The troglodytes were rejected. The reason was stated. We received a duly grovelling "this will never happen again" response from the account manager. They never worked for us again under my watch, but I believe they were simply rotated on to another client rather than receiving any material comeuppance. So, they kind of got away with it - but also kind of didn't.
formerlurker 2y ago
If you read TeamBlind you will see a large quantity of misogynistic thoughts from Indian men. They are so unashamed they do not even hide where they are from.

by jl6 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Rinzler89 2y ago

[flagged]

red-iron-pine 2y ago
sexism and non-egalitarian behavior is pretty common across the globe. I'd argue that the west, esp. N America, is the exception, not the rule. and even there, there are pressures working against it.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  [flagged]
dang 2y ago
Nationalistic/racial/ethnic/religious/whatever-this-is slurs will get you banned here. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. Please don't post anything like this again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  Read my comment again please. Where did you see me posting any nationalistic slurs? Perhaps you're mistaken and wanted to reply to someone else.
  - dang 2y ago
    "Backwards cultures have people who act backwards" is obviously a slur. That's not a close call.

ErigmolCt 2y ago

That situation is unfortunately all too familiar and it speaks to deeply ingrained gender biases that exist not only in some Indian cultural contexts but also in many other parts of the world

kylehotchkiss 2y ago

Caste is not the driving factor in Indian culture.

odux 2y ago
As an Indian, this, unfortunately, is not true. Within India caste is very ingrained with the culture and in some aspects it is very difficult to separate culture from caste.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  Would you say it is more or less important than gender?
Saline9515 2y ago
Why are skin lightening products sales increasing every year? It's expected to double in the next 10 years. https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2021/11/health/skin-lightening-india-health-risks-intl-cmd/ https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2021/11/health/skin-ligh...
- KwisatzHaderack 2y ago
  I thought caste was unrelated to skin color. Is this not true?
  - sumedh 2y ago
    It depends, some "higher" caste people have light skin compared to others.
bsoles 2y ago
These documented cases even in the US would like to disagree: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_discrimination_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_discrimination_in_the_...

aitchnyu 2y ago

Who are "they"? How did the complaint move forward? I'm Indian and seen too many cases of this and the bad guys always win.

jl6 2y ago
They = an all-male dev team, and it wasn't a complaint. The lead never complained. Probably considered herself very lucky to have landed in a lead role and didn't want to rock the boat. They were all working for an outsourcer who we (the client) had engaged. However, it became apparent to us (the client) that this was happening, in our offices, even if it wasn't to our employees. We did an immediate soft intervention of placing a permanent (non-Indian) colleague into the team in a scrum master type role, who did a great job of facilitating meetings fairly and basically telling the men (boys, frankly) to shut up once in a while. We probably broke a rule by unspokenly deciding that the scrum master had to be non-Indian. Meanwhile, HR cogitated and came to the conclusion that we had no contractual right to invoke any process on the men as they weren't our direct employees. However, we did have the right to ask that people be replaced if we were not satisfied with performance. Cue debate on what constitutes performance. Cue debate on whether the project could take the hit of losing its whole dev team all at once. This all took a long time, as we believed there was a chance that the intervention would work if given time. Maybe this was a teachable moment? And aside from the appalling attitude, they were decent devs with a lot of difficult-to-replace knowledge. Not gonna lie, we hoped the problem would go away if we did the bare minimum "fix". Communication improved, but it was an uphill battle. As it happened, fate intervened, and wider organizational spasms caused the project to be mothballed. We had to give notice to the whole dev team, including the lead. Fortunately, this was a megacorp, and other projects swiftly moved in, and new work orders were drafted. This gave us an opportunity to approve the team sheet for the outsourced roles. The female tech lead was waved on through. The troglodytes were rejected. The reason was stated. We received a duly grovelling "this will never happen again" response from the account manager. They never worked for us again under my watch, but I believe they were simply rotated on to another client rather than receiving any material comeuppance. So, they kind of got away with it - but also kind of didn't.

formerlurker 2y ago

If you read TeamBlind you will see a large quantity of misogynistic thoughts from Indian men. They are so unashamed they do not even hide where they are from.