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You are referring to people being slavish and excessively subservient to authority figures? I wasn't looking at it that way. I was merely thinking she would lik

You are referring to people being slavish and excessively subservient to authority figures? I wasn't looking at it that way. I was merely thinking she would like to work somewhere else again. The way she publicly played this makes her look unprofessional. If you have a feeling you're being fucked over, make a case, collect the evidence and by all means, break the news. But don't go all emotional and start posting on Quora and then keep quit about the whole case. The way she handled this does not make her case stronger, only weaker.

michaelochurch 14y ago
Having seen whistle-blowing cases play out, there's never a socially "acceptable" to raise this sort of issue. No matter when you do it, people will say that you were "emotional", blew the whistle "too soon" (oblivious to the failed negotiations they didn't see) and "bit the hand". In Hollywood movies, people like whistleblowers. Unfortunately, in real life, whistleblowers almost always get a negative reception, even from people who are supposed to be neutral because they have no obvious interest. (People just don't like bad news, full stop.) And the discussion usually gets to a smear against how they are saying it (status reduction) rather than what they are saying. The goal is to create the appearance that: (a) this person didn't go through proper channels, and (b) therefore isn't worth listening to, and (c) deserves various unrelated adverse consequences (such as being blacklisted from future employment) that will make it harder to concentrate from the case at hand. You're right that her employment opportunities in the future are damaged by this. That's the reality of the world we live in. It shouldn't be that way, but powerful people tend to protect their own.
- digitalengineer 14y ago
  You are absolutely correct. Ive seen local whistle blowers get seriously mangled for decades... The info user "michaelochurch" (top) just provided makes me think the company she used to work for is a huge bag of dicks. Her claims might well be relevant. At the end of the day her reputation (and future) could well be seriously damaged. You could ask yourself if that was worth it...
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    The danger of he-said/she-said contests is that peoples' perceptions (myself included) end up being biased heavily by their own attitudes toward power. This can be described as an emotional left/right that may or may not correlate with economics. (Many libertarians are emotionally leftist-- they despise centralized power-- but economically toward the right. They just happen to see governments as more of an enemy than corporations... and I disagree with them, but that's another story.) This whole mess is probably the result of a failed negotiation and we have no way of knowing who failed, miscommunicated, or did wrong. If there isn't much hard evidence (and in this case, there's not) then people will tend to side with power if they're emotionally rightist and against power if they're emotional leftists. (I'm an emotional leftist, as you can probably tell.) What you discover when you become a whistleblower is that about 70 percent of people are on the emotional right. They think they're in the center because they don't reject the whistleblower out of hand (instead, they complain that "she may be right, but she didn't use proper channels and I certainly want nothing to do with this matter.") That's not always a bad thing; the powerful entity is known, and the whistleblower is a total unknown, and people tend to be afraid of unknowns. It does, however, make it very difficult to be an effective whistleblower. Worse yet, an even larger percentage of people in positions of power (such as future employers) are on the emotional right. White-collar employment culture is emotionally rightist in the extreme; if your ex-company says you weren't a leader and you say you were, they're often taken to be right and you're wrong. It's extremely unfortunate and wrong that it's this way, but I don't see how it could be any different (surprise: high-ranking people in powerful institutions tend to side with power) but it is something one needs to be aware of.
    - digitalengineer 14y ago
      Thanks! I learned something today. (The reason why I interact in these comments).
    - ryanmolden 14y ago
      >if your ex-company says you weren't a leader and you say you were, they're often taken to be right and you're wrong This is true, the best solution is normally to go elsewhere and succeed. Whether that means at another company or on your own. People tend to have a lens through which they understand the world, once they have slotted you it is over (see: bozo bit, various cognitive biases, etc...)
vijayr 14y ago
Who is right or wrong (she or the firm), it is hard for outsiders to decide without knowing the facts. But what is very very sad is the fact that much of the "civilized" society accepts that: 1. Employers can treat their employees like crap, not many people seem to be bothered by it. But when a employee says anything even remotely bad, suddenly he/she is unprofessional, immature etc 2. In the case of whistle blowers, we spend more time arguing the behavior of the whistle blower (aka the "correct" way of whistle blowing) than actually looking into the allegations. So in short, even if I (the whistle blower) have a legitimate case (racism, ageism, sexism...whatever), then I am expected to act totally "professional" if I ever expect to be taken seriously.
- Surio 14y ago
  I know what you mean. There was another article yesterday about racism in a company (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4603611 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4603611 Note: The OP itself returns a 404 now!), and AFAIR most of the comments seems to debate and revolve around those two points for a very long time. It would have been hilarious if it wasn't sad. :-/

michaelochurch 14y ago

Having seen whistle-blowing cases play out, there's never a socially "acceptable" to raise this sort of issue. No matter when you do it, people will say that you were "emotional", blew the whistle "too soon" (oblivious to the failed negotiations they didn't see) and "bit the hand". In Hollywood movies, people like whistleblowers. Unfortunately, in real life, whistleblowers almost always get a negative reception, even from people who are supposed to be neutral because they have no obvious interest. (People just don't like bad news, full stop.) And the discussion usually gets to a smear against how they are saying it (status reduction) rather than what they are saying. The goal is to create the appearance that: (a) this person didn't go through proper channels, and (b) therefore isn't worth listening to, and (c) deserves various unrelated adverse consequences (such as being blacklisted from future employment) that will make it harder to concentrate from the case at hand. You're right that her employment opportunities in the future are damaged by this. That's the reality of the world we live in. It shouldn't be that way, but powerful people tend to protect their own.

digitalengineer 14y ago
You are absolutely correct. Ive seen local whistle blowers get seriously mangled for decades... The info user "michaelochurch" (top) just provided makes me think the company she used to work for is a huge bag of dicks. Her claims might well be relevant. At the end of the day her reputation (and future) could well be seriously damaged. You could ask yourself if that was worth it...
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  The danger of he-said/she-said contests is that peoples' perceptions (myself included) end up being biased heavily by their own attitudes toward power. This can be described as an emotional left/right that may or may not correlate with economics. (Many libertarians are emotionally leftist-- they despise centralized power-- but economically toward the right. They just happen to see governments as more of an enemy than corporations... and I disagree with them, but that's another story.) This whole mess is probably the result of a failed negotiation and we have no way of knowing who failed, miscommunicated, or did wrong. If there isn't much hard evidence (and in this case, there's not) then people will tend to side with power if they're emotionally rightist and against power if they're emotional leftists. (I'm an emotional leftist, as you can probably tell.) What you discover when you become a whistleblower is that about 70 percent of people are on the emotional right. They think they're in the center because they don't reject the whistleblower out of hand (instead, they complain that "she may be right, but she didn't use proper channels and I certainly want nothing to do with this matter.") That's not always a bad thing; the powerful entity is known, and the whistleblower is a total unknown, and people tend to be afraid of unknowns. It does, however, make it very difficult to be an effective whistleblower. Worse yet, an even larger percentage of people in positions of power (such as future employers) are on the emotional right. White-collar employment culture is emotionally rightist in the extreme; if your ex-company says you weren't a leader and you say you were, they're often taken to be right and you're wrong. It's extremely unfortunate and wrong that it's this way, but I don't see how it could be any different (surprise: high-ranking people in powerful institutions tend to side with power) but it is something one needs to be aware of.
  - digitalengineer 14y ago
    Thanks! I learned something today. (The reason why I interact in these comments).
  - ryanmolden 14y ago
    >if your ex-company says you weren't a leader and you say you were, they're often taken to be right and you're wrong This is true, the best solution is normally to go elsewhere and succeed. Whether that means at another company or on your own. People tend to have a lens through which they understand the world, once they have slotted you it is over (see: bozo bit, various cognitive biases, etc...)

vijayr 14y ago

Who is right or wrong (she or the firm), it is hard for outsiders to decide without knowing the facts. But what is very very sad is the fact that much of the "civilized" society accepts that: 1. Employers can treat their employees like crap, not many people seem to be bothered by it. But when a employee says anything even remotely bad, suddenly he/she is unprofessional, immature etc 2. In the case of whistle blowers, we spend more time arguing the behavior of the whistle blower (aka the "correct" way of whistle blowing) than actually looking into the allegations. So in short, even if I (the whistle blower) have a legitimate case (racism, ageism, sexism...whatever), then I am expected to act totally "professional" if I ever expect to be taken seriously.

Surio 14y ago
I know what you mean. There was another article yesterday about racism in a company (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4603611 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4603611 Note: The OP itself returns a 404 now!), and AFAIR most of the comments seems to debate and revolve around those two points for a very long time. It would have been hilarious if it wasn't sad. :-/