8 ms·

Statement from Playhaven CEO

58 points by tapan_pandita 14y ago

CallingIit 14y ago
As told in the prophesy, forever more Playhaven became known as the 'Dongle' joke guys rather than whatever they do. And for every conference they attend in the future they shalt be asked by the lowly what was said and if they over reacted.
senthilnayagam 14y ago
thorough investigation and firing within 24 hours, did it happen over phone, email or face 2 face?
- bioinformatics 14y ago
  SMS pobably, and twitter like the original incident.
claudius 14y ago
> dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior Linking a sexual comment (‘big dongles’, possibly forking) to gender equality implies the assumption of a necessary link between sexuality and different genders since ‘gender equality’ wouldn’t make sense otherwise. You are hence grossly discriminating against homosexuals and dismissing the efforts of the gay community not to be oppressed at the workplace. In other words, you are not only against freedom of speech in private circles, but also utterly homophobic. If you find slight exaggerations, please feel free to reuse and recycle them :-)
- mtrimpe 14y ago
  I find it very hard to find the link between this and homophobia. Could you try to explain it in more detail perhaps?
  - rmc 14y ago
    There is none. They are trying to cast themselves as the liberal and progressive ones. "What about lesbians?" is not an uncommon response, here's some details on why this isn't such a great justificiation: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/What_about_lesbians%3F http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/What_about_lesbians%3F
  - claudius 14y ago
    I also find it very hard to find the link between this and sexism. Nevertheless, the reasoning goes as follows: If a sexual joke is classified as sexism, it necessarily requires a link between sexuality and gender[1], since otherwise, a joke about sexuality could not have any effect on gender, hence could not be sexist[0]. But by linking sexuality and gender, you imply that there is no sexuality within one gender, since otherwise you could not make the leap from ‘sexual’ to ‘gender’. By assuming that all sexuality is inter-gender, you ignore intra-gender sexuality, i.e. homosexuality. Yes, this is an exaggeration and I usally don’t care at all what you think/say of/about my sexuality and would furthermore prefer a society where everybody can say whatever the hell they want and if people find that offensive, it would be their own fault rather than the fault of those on whom they eavesdropped. But this whole sexism debate really annoys me, so apologies for that. [0] Where I use ‘sexist’ in the meaning of ‘generally treating different genders differently and/or specifically dismissive of one gender’. [1] I hate the word ‘gender’, but saying that you imply a link between sex (the activity) and sex (the property) might be slightly confusing.
    - mtrimpe 14y ago
      I initially thought you were trolling but it's clear that your response, although one I strongly disagree with, does have solid reasoning behind it. If you're looking for actual counterpoints; I'm an LGBT man and I support Adria for her right to be offended about these statements, which I feel is all that's truly at stake here.
      - claudius 14y ago
        The difference between sarcasm and trolling might sometimes be rather subjective, sorry. I agree with you that people are allowed to be offended, but I also think that people should be allowed to offend – if we tried to never offend anybody, we wouldn’t get anywhere[0]. I take it it depends on your personal values whether you think that free speech is more important than feeling well, but I hope we can nevertheless agree that it is neither possible to never offend anyone nor is it wise to always offend everybody. Things are unfortunately rarely as black and white as we would like them to be. [0] http://abstrusegoose.com/47 http://abstrusegoose.com/47
- rmc 14y ago
  What? No. Treating women as sexual objects rather than sexual actors ("men do the fing, women are fed") is a large attitude problem in tech and many places. This is the attitude that harms women who want to get into tech (or other fields). Quite often this "women as sexual objects" attitude is actually quite homophobic. It equates men who are fed as women or "not real men". (a la "you're only gay if you take it"). "Men must be the one fing, if you're the one being fed, then you're not a man". Stopping that sort of attitude is actually good* for LGB people in the workplace. Sorry for the crude language, but I can't think of a good verb that has an active and passive form like that
  - claudius 14y ago
    So by talking about ‘big dongles’ you treat women as sexual objects? Could you elaborate slightly on that?
    - StavrosK 14y ago
      If anything, aren't you treating men as sexual objects?
      - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
        Actually... isn't it the dongle that is being treated as a sexual object? Dongle manufacturers should be deeply offended
        claudius 14y ago
        Or you’re treating men as technical hardware cheaply manufactured in China.
xcasex 14y ago
bollocks.
kayoone 14y ago
I know many guys (including me) that could possibly have said the same things joking around. I also know alot of girls that like to joke around in similar ways about guys. Is that sexcism ? Should people loose their job about stuff like that ? Absolutely not. I get that it might be hard to draw the line, but come on, we're all human after all, this clearly didnt overstep the border and the guy apologized.
- thibaut_barrere 14y ago
  This story comes a bit as a shock to me - but being french, maybe there's a fair bit of cultural difference here. I can say that here, women in my circle of friends are way more likely to issue the "big dongle" joke than men o_O (even between girls alone).
  - mtrimpe 14y ago
    There is a very big cultural difference there indeed. The French are quite famous for the degree to which sexuality is (respectfully) integrated into the workplace. The US on the other hand didn't manage to do that, so has a general policy of keeping sexuality out of the workplace altogether.
    - acangiano 14y ago
      It is definitely cultural. For example, in Europe it's totally acceptable for people to have wine or beer during their lunch break at work.
  - kayoone 14y ago
    Exactly...i am german and when i am around my girlfriend and her friends, well if i would shed a tear on every sexcist comment i would be crying all day...
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- rmc 14y ago
  Is that sexcism ? Yes. Stop sexualising professional conferences.
jamespo 14y ago
"We're hiring" link to the right
- alexlarsson 14y ago
  They should change it to "We're firing".
- mijustin 14y ago
  Sad, sad irony. Screenshot: http://d.pr/i/8WgF http://d.pr/i/8WgF
RobertHoudin 14y ago
Well that was a circumlocutory way of saying, "We got scared by the prospect of negative press and our knee-jerk reaction was to fire someone."
thegyppo 14y ago
I dunno, seems like the firing is more to seem like they are "doing the right thing" I personally don't think someone should be let go over comments that are part of a private conversation. It was fine for Adria Richards to make sexist jokes on Twitter yet SendGrid firmly stand by her as a company. Playhaven should have done the same.
nodata 14y ago
This statements leaves more questions open than it answers, it's also self contradictory. "This employee was not Alex Reid, who is still with the company and a valued employee." - why was the other guy not a valued employee? "..we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways.." - or "you can't have all the facts" "we hope to move forward with a civil dialogue based on the facts." - which is not possible because we don't have them all.
- kaoD 14y ago
  It reads to me like "we just wanted to fire the guy, this was the perfect opportunity, keep walking, nothing to see here".
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  To be fair, it's right that they keep the public information relatively light. If I was fired by an employer I wouldn't want them writing blog posts about why they did it. Especially when it's just some random dude who got fired.
  - nodata 14y ago
    True, but it's wrong to state that they are open to discussion only amongst people who hold all the facts, which they also state they are not going to give out.
- mtrimpe 14y ago
  If I'm reading it correctly this is what this statement really says: "Alex Reid might've been involved, but he's a good guy in general and we're keeping him. The other guy however, it turned out after an internal investigation, wasn't exactly spot clean and for him this was the straw that broke the camel's back."
newDate 14y ago
I fail to see what "gender equality" has to do with what happened. What I do see however is a company that will fire their own over the slightest chance of not being deemed 'sexist' by the deluded few with a saviour complex in our community.
- rmc 14y ago
  One problem with many conferences is sexualised content that treats women as passive objects in sex. Only one form of sex is shown, and it's the man conquring the woman. As a result many tech conferences have started out to outright ban sexual content at events like this to counter that.
mootothemax 14y ago
If you're at a conference, you should behave professionally; you're not down the pub, or out with your friends. It's as simple as that. Hearing stories like this is both tiresome (what do you mean this is still happening?!) and embarrassing; it makes male IT workers look like a bunch of poorly-socialized teenagers.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  That's true, but OTOH I used to work for a very conservative bank with all kinds of policies on diversity, sexual harassment etc but people would still make remarks like "tee hee, he said dongle" without worrying about being fired or posted all over the internet.
  - mootothemax 14y ago
    people would still make remarks like "tee hee, he said dongle" without worrying about being fired or posted all over the internet. I'd like to emphasize I'm not a fan of public naming-and-shaming. That said, just because something was accepted elsewhere - or barely tolerated - does not mean that it is acceptable behaviour.
csmattryder 14y ago
Doesn't the American Constitution have that 'freedom of speech' amendment? I'm British, so American culture is alien to me, but I've always had the view that you can say whatever you want. People have shouted how Hitler did no wrong, and people have cried how x, y and z people should be put on a plane to another country, but when someone overhears a private conversation containing technical terms (that if you're pedantic enough to take as a joke) you get persecuted; professionally shot by firing squad at dawn. This is super surreal, you'd get laughed out of the room if the same events happened in the UK (and probably most of Europe).
- rmc 14y ago
  US Constitutionly free speech refers to the government making laws banning things. That's not what happened here. This is super surreal, you'd get laughed out of the room if the same events happened in the UK (and probably most of Europe). Same thing can happen in Europe too. There was some ruby conference in scotland which cancelled itself for sexism reasons.
  - regularfry 14y ago
    You're thinking of britruby, not scotruby.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  Well freedom of speech legislation just guarantees that the government cannot prosecute you as a criminal for saying something. It doesn't mean that a private company cannot fire you or a conference cannot ask you to leave etc. Ironically in the UK we actually do have laws that can potentially make you a criminal because you insulted someone. http://reformsection5.org.uk/ http://reformsection5.org.uk/
  - csmattryder 14y ago
buro9 14y ago
There's a difference between going on your own, paying for your ticket, and being anonymous... and going on the company's dime, as an ambassador for the company, wearing the company T-shirt. I saw the photo (as I'm guessing most have), and it was very obvious that they were representing the company. I'd have been pissed too... they shouldn't be sailing so close to the wind that there was even potential for the kind of "he-said, she-heard" that has happened. I don't fault Playhaven for firing someone who hasn't represented them in the manner they expect when that staff member is on their dime and acting on their behalf.
thepumpkin1979 14y ago
So Alex wasn't fired, was mr-hank fired? I wonder, they don't disclose the name of the guy who was fired.
loudin 14y ago
This is a very silly situation. Someone made a joke about a dongle and got fired. Another person posted that she was offended about the said dongle joke and it's flared up into a massive discussion about gender in tech. Here's the bottom line - if such a tame joke can have this large an effect and warrant this type of a knee-jerk reaction from the tech community, our conception of gender equality is seriously fragile. Better discussions about sexism in the workplace could revolve around the lack of female leadership, sexist working environments, an overabundance of male developers, company roles that appear to be gender-specific, etc. We are so wrong on the major issues that we want to make the full situation as easy to digest as a dongle joke and a tweet. It's far more complex than that. And this is the only thing I'm going to say about the situation because we all look like children for addressing this.
- rmc 14y ago
  One problem is that for every joke like this that was reported there are often many many more that aren't.
  - claudius 14y ago
    Many more unreported jokes would only be a problem if said jokes were a problem. So far, I have not seen a conclusive argument why such a joke would be a problem.
    - rmc 14y ago
      Listen to women. Some of them talk about feeling uncomfortable when there are loads of dick jokes. I mean this isn't the 1960s anymore. The rest of the professional world has moved on and knows that dick jokes are bad for a professional environment. Why is this such a hard thing for people in tech?
      - claudius 14y ago
        I feel uncomfortable around openly religious people. I also tend to feel uncomfortable around people engaging in meaningless chitchat or when people ask meaningless questions (‘How are you?’ being one of my favourites in this regard). I don’t try to get people fired for wearing a crucifix, nor do I burn chatting people at a stake.
mortov 14y ago
Sounds like a canned damage limitation quote and not even remotely sincere (and doubt it is really an accurate reflection of reality either). Anyway, where is the Sendgrid statement ? Their silence seems to be an endorsement of Adria's bad behavior (eavesdropping and then public humiliation via twitter). I'm astonished that Sendgrid are OK with this. There are 2 companies here I want to make sure I have no dealings with.
- jcc80 14y ago
  Saw this mentioned in another thread and it's a great point. SendGrid is going to back her 100%. They now realize, if they didn't before, that they have a risky employee on their hands - the type that would sue them and make a huge public spectacle (comparing herself to Joan of Arc, etc). They need to keep that bomb from going off and eventually she'll move on to focus fully on what she's passionate about. @adriarichards Black people CANNOT be racist against White people. Racism is a position of the oppressor who has the power - http://i.imgur.com/ou8JZVu.jpg http://i.imgur.com/ou8JZVu.jpg
jcc80 14y ago
In other news, productivity begins to pick back up at Playhaven as employees are just about finished scrubbing their social media accounts. Rest assured, all references to forking repo's, dongles and other "gender equality" issues have been removed. The biggest losers here are Playhaven & SendGrid. The dev who made the silly joke will get another job and Adria successfully raised her profile and will get more speaking gigs.
fatihdonmez 14y ago
this is personal privacy violation? Two people're just making joke and someone just listen them and publish on media and then messed up their life!
_pmf_ 14y ago
> We believe in the importance of discussing sensitive topics such as gender and conduct Is that so? Because judging from your concrete actions, one would be led to presume that the preferred course of action is to do anything to prevent such a discussion. > as a company that is dedicated to gender equality So, I noticed your leadership list (10 people) does not mention any females. I don't assume you are sexist; there probably just aren't that many competent ones that are fit for the break-neck business of peddling templated casual games. > In that spirit, I would personally like to hear your thoughts and concerns. I, too, like to judge people based on hearsay; fortunately for the general public, I don't have the power to let my fear of public opinion affect the lives of those who depend on my rational judgement of situations. It's too bad that a CEO position does not come with a spine and a pair of testicles.
steve19 14y ago
A great way to destroy company moral. I would never work for a company or ceo like that. Even if this was "the straw that broke the camels back", I don't see how this incident was a straw let alone a feather. I wish this ceo and the blogger would just admit they overreacted.
flyinglizard 14y ago
Playhaven did the cowardly thing by destroying the guy's career as a preemptive measure for any bad PR they may receive over this. It would take a very sure minded employer to hire him now, considering the nasty ways this can be spun by the blogs/media ("Notorious PyCon Attendee Lands A Job With X, Where Sexual Jokes Are Apparently OK"). Sorry but I don't like it one bit. If PH's CEO had any balls at all he'd make this guy publicly apologize. Firing someone like this is the easiest solution. I'm sure Playhaven employees take note of how one of their own has been had a summary execution. And for the rest of us, Playhaven is now "the company that fired that guy over a joke".
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  I'd never heard of any of these companies or people before today. Maybe this could be a promotion technique for new startups? Create some internet drama to get people to hit your site. I'm sure people at these respective companies are looking at the extra traffic they got and tracking conversion rates etc.
- rmc 14y ago
  If only there was some way he could have prevented this miscarriage of justice! Hint: Don't make dick jokes in a professional conference when the con has a "code of conduct" saying: "don't make dick jokes". As a more extreme example, The Onion can be too accurate sometimes: "Athlete overcomes raping someone" https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zWLJZw9Ws-g https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...
  - flyinglizard 14y ago
    There are numerous ways this employee could have disciplined without destroying his career, each and every one of them would have made Playhaven actually look good coming out of this incident. They could have sent that guy to volunteer at a woman's shelter or could have donated a part of his salary for a similar cause (even making a dollar for dollar contribution, it's pittance and excellent PR) or just put up a public apology. Instead of taking meaningful action, they've distanced themselves as quickly and as crudely from this situation, while destroying this man's career without giving it a second thought. I'm not defending this man - although I belong to the part of the population that's more likely to make such jokes at a professional convention than to be bothered by them - I am condemning Playhaven. And you know what, it's not even about Adria. She's taking undue fire here; she's a social person with a job focused around social media, and as such it is understandable why she uploaded this picture in the first place. Some people shoot their food, some others take photos what they deem as bad behavior in public (after all if she pictured someone acting lewdly at Walmart no one would have said a thing). She's not the bad person here, although I don't think I'd get along very well with her. Nope, the only one I can blame squarely at the unneeded escalation of this story is Playhaven CEO, for choosing the easiest way out. How very corporate America.
jessaustin 14y ago
I think it's relevant that when I examine Playhaven's site, the "Leadership" sidebar features twelve different individuals in various leadership positions, none of whom are women. Balanced recruiting in this industry is difficult of course, but they don't appear to have made much of an effort in this area. They probably know they've allowed themselves to be vulnerable not just to public criticism but also to concentrated advocacy and perhaps even legal action. Their rash actions concerning their former employee don't require any complicated explanation like "what else has this bastard done to deserve getting fired?"; they're probably just praying no one notices what a culture of discrimination they've created. How many of the mosaic of "United Colors" pictures they imply are employees are actually stock photos? Why has a games company handicapped itself so much in developing products for half of the games-playing population? When will Playhaven promote its first woman to a leadership position? Would a woman have made the same stupid firing decision this sausage-party of an executive team made? [edit: http://www.playhaven.com/team http://www.playhaven.com/team is the page I'm referencing. In case it changes, I see the following names listed under "Leadership": Andy Yang, Michiel Frishert, Jason Liu, Charles Yim, Ville Heijari, Brian Doxtator, Brian Howell, John P. Joseph, Sutton Trout, Zach Phillips, Thomas Gieselmann, and Hany Nada]
- ktsmith 14y ago
  > they're probably just praying no one notices what a culture of discrimination they've created. You are trolling right? Or did you really infer all of that from a web page.
  - jessaustin 14y ago
    It's not about what I infer. It's about what is inferred by disadvantaged parties and their advocates, especially once the stupid remarks of an employee have focused the attentions of those on the company. Ten different personnel decisions have been made, for a set of mostly-business-oriented executive positions (seriously, VPs of Ad, Mark, Biz Dev, and "Pub" Dev plus a single non-S VP of "Product and Engineering"? what kind of tech company is this?) and in no case could a suitable woman be found? Your Honor, we rest our case. Besides, this page is the public face of the company, which they choose to show the public. The semiotics of the "United Colors of Benetton" mosaic is clear, but it is undermined by the "Leadership" sidebar, under even the most generous possible reading.

58 points by tapan_pandita 14y ago

As told in the prophesy, forever more Playhaven became known as the 'Dongle' joke guys rather than whatever they do. And for every conference they attend in the future they shalt be asked by the lowly what was said and if they over reacted.

senthilnayagam 14y ago

thorough investigation and firing within 24 hours, did it happen over phone, email or face 2 face?

bioinformatics 14y ago
SMS pobably, and twitter like the original incident.

claudius 14y ago

> dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior Linking a sexual comment (‘big dongles’, possibly forking) to gender equality implies the assumption of a necessary link between sexuality and different genders since ‘gender equality’ wouldn’t make sense otherwise. You are hence grossly discriminating against homosexuals and dismissing the efforts of the gay community not to be oppressed at the workplace. In other words, you are not only against freedom of speech in private circles, but also utterly homophobic. If you find slight exaggerations, please feel free to reuse and recycle them :-)

mtrimpe 14y ago
I find it very hard to find the link between this and homophobia. Could you try to explain it in more detail perhaps?
- rmc 14y ago
  There is none. They are trying to cast themselves as the liberal and progressive ones. "What about lesbians?" is not an uncommon response, here's some details on why this isn't such a great justificiation: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/What_about_lesbians%3F http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/What_about_lesbians%3F
- claudius 14y ago
  I also find it very hard to find the link between this and sexism. Nevertheless, the reasoning goes as follows: If a sexual joke is classified as sexism, it necessarily requires a link between sexuality and gender[1], since otherwise, a joke about sexuality could not have any effect on gender, hence could not be sexist[0]. But by linking sexuality and gender, you imply that there is no sexuality within one gender, since otherwise you could not make the leap from ‘sexual’ to ‘gender’. By assuming that all sexuality is inter-gender, you ignore intra-gender sexuality, i.e. homosexuality. Yes, this is an exaggeration and I usally don’t care at all what you think/say of/about my sexuality and would furthermore prefer a society where everybody can say whatever the hell they want and if people find that offensive, it would be their own fault rather than the fault of those on whom they eavesdropped. But this whole sexism debate really annoys me, so apologies for that. [0] Where I use ‘sexist’ in the meaning of ‘generally treating different genders differently and/or specifically dismissive of one gender’. [1] I hate the word ‘gender’, but saying that you imply a link between sex (the activity) and sex (the property) might be slightly confusing.
  - mtrimpe 14y ago
    I initially thought you were trolling but it's clear that your response, although one I strongly disagree with, does have solid reasoning behind it. If you're looking for actual counterpoints; I'm an LGBT man and I support Adria for her right to be offended about these statements, which I feel is all that's truly at stake here.
    - claudius 14y ago
      The difference between sarcasm and trolling might sometimes be rather subjective, sorry. I agree with you that people are allowed to be offended, but I also think that people should be allowed to offend – if we tried to never offend anybody, we wouldn’t get anywhere[0]. I take it it depends on your personal values whether you think that free speech is more important than feeling well, but I hope we can nevertheless agree that it is neither possible to never offend anyone nor is it wise to always offend everybody. Things are unfortunately rarely as black and white as we would like them to be. [0] http://abstrusegoose.com/47 http://abstrusegoose.com/47
rmc 14y ago
What? No. Treating women as sexual objects rather than sexual actors ("men do the fing, women are fed") is a large attitude problem in tech and many places. This is the attitude that harms women who want to get into tech (or other fields). Quite often this "women as sexual objects" attitude is actually quite homophobic. It equates men who are fed as women or "not real men". (a la "you're only gay if you take it"). "Men must be the one fing, if you're the one being fed, then you're not a man". Stopping that sort of attitude is actually good* for LGB people in the workplace. Sorry for the crude language, but I can't think of a good verb that has an active and passive form like that
- claudius 14y ago
  So by talking about ‘big dongles’ you treat women as sexual objects? Could you elaborate slightly on that?
  - StavrosK 14y ago
    If anything, aren't you treating men as sexual objects?
    - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
      Actually... isn't it the dongle that is being treated as a sexual object? Dongle manufacturers should be deeply offended
      - claudius 14y ago
        Or you’re treating men as technical hardware cheaply manufactured in China.

xcasex 14y ago

bollocks.

kayoone 14y ago

I know many guys (including me) that could possibly have said the same things joking around. I also know alot of girls that like to joke around in similar ways about guys. Is that sexcism ? Should people loose their job about stuff like that ? Absolutely not. I get that it might be hard to draw the line, but come on, we're all human after all, this clearly didnt overstep the border and the guy apologized.

thibaut_barrere 14y ago
This story comes a bit as a shock to me - but being french, maybe there's a fair bit of cultural difference here. I can say that here, women in my circle of friends are way more likely to issue the "big dongle" joke than men o_O (even between girls alone).
- mtrimpe 14y ago
  There is a very big cultural difference there indeed. The French are quite famous for the degree to which sexuality is (respectfully) integrated into the workplace. The US on the other hand didn't manage to do that, so has a general policy of keeping sexuality out of the workplace altogether.
  - acangiano 14y ago
    It is definitely cultural. For example, in Europe it's totally acceptable for people to have wine or beer during their lunch break at work.
- kayoone 14y ago
  Exactly...i am german and when i am around my girlfriend and her friends, well if i would shed a tear on every sexcist comment i would be crying all day...
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
rmc 14y ago
Is that sexcism ? Yes. Stop sexualising professional conferences.

jamespo 14y ago

"We're hiring" link to the right

alexlarsson 14y ago
They should change it to "We're firing".
mijustin 14y ago
Sad, sad irony. Screenshot: http://d.pr/i/8WgF http://d.pr/i/8WgF

RobertHoudin 14y ago

Well that was a circumlocutory way of saying, "We got scared by the prospect of negative press and our knee-jerk reaction was to fire someone."

thegyppo 14y ago

I dunno, seems like the firing is more to seem like they are "doing the right thing" I personally don't think someone should be let go over comments that are part of a private conversation. It was fine for Adria Richards to make sexist jokes on Twitter yet SendGrid firmly stand by her as a company. Playhaven should have done the same.

nodata 14y ago

This statements leaves more questions open than it answers, it's also self contradictory. "This employee was not Alex Reid, who is still with the company and a valued employee." - why was the other guy not a valued employee? "..we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways.." - or "you can't have all the facts" "we hope to move forward with a civil dialogue based on the facts." - which is not possible because we don't have them all.

kaoD 14y ago
It reads to me like "we just wanted to fire the guy, this was the perfect opportunity, keep walking, nothing to see here".
jiggy2011 14y ago
To be fair, it's right that they keep the public information relatively light. If I was fired by an employer I wouldn't want them writing blog posts about why they did it. Especially when it's just some random dude who got fired.
- nodata 14y ago
  True, but it's wrong to state that they are open to discussion only amongst people who hold all the facts, which they also state they are not going to give out.
mtrimpe 14y ago
If I'm reading it correctly this is what this statement really says: "Alex Reid might've been involved, but he's a good guy in general and we're keeping him. The other guy however, it turned out after an internal investigation, wasn't exactly spot clean and for him this was the straw that broke the camel's back."

newDate 14y ago

I fail to see what "gender equality" has to do with what happened. What I do see however is a company that will fire their own over the slightest chance of not being deemed 'sexist' by the deluded few with a saviour complex in our community.

rmc 14y ago
One problem with many conferences is sexualised content that treats women as passive objects in sex. Only one form of sex is shown, and it's the man conquring the woman. As a result many tech conferences have started out to outright ban sexual content at events like this to counter that.

mootothemax 14y ago

If you're at a conference, you should behave professionally; you're not down the pub, or out with your friends. It's as simple as that. Hearing stories like this is both tiresome (what do you mean this is still happening?!) and embarrassing; it makes male IT workers look like a bunch of poorly-socialized teenagers.

jiggy2011 14y ago
That's true, but OTOH I used to work for a very conservative bank with all kinds of policies on diversity, sexual harassment etc but people would still make remarks like "tee hee, he said dongle" without worrying about being fired or posted all over the internet.
- mootothemax 14y ago
  people would still make remarks like "tee hee, he said dongle" without worrying about being fired or posted all over the internet. I'd like to emphasize I'm not a fan of public naming-and-shaming. That said, just because something was accepted elsewhere - or barely tolerated - does not mean that it is acceptable behaviour.

csmattryder 14y ago

Doesn't the American Constitution have that 'freedom of speech' amendment? I'm British, so American culture is alien to me, but I've always had the view that you can say whatever you want. People have shouted how Hitler did no wrong, and people have cried how x, y and z people should be put on a plane to another country, but when someone overhears a private conversation containing technical terms (that if you're pedantic enough to take as a joke) you get persecuted; professionally shot by firing squad at dawn. This is super surreal, you'd get laughed out of the room if the same events happened in the UK (and probably most of Europe).

rmc 14y ago
US Constitutionly free speech refers to the government making laws banning things. That's not what happened here. This is super surreal, you'd get laughed out of the room if the same events happened in the UK (and probably most of Europe). Same thing can happen in Europe too. There was some ruby conference in scotland which cancelled itself for sexism reasons.
- regularfry 14y ago
  You're thinking of britruby, not scotruby.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
jiggy2011 14y ago
Well freedom of speech legislation just guarantees that the government cannot prosecute you as a criminal for saying something. It doesn't mean that a private company cannot fire you or a conference cannot ask you to leave etc. Ironically in the UK we actually do have laws that can potentially make you a criminal because you insulted someone. http://reformsection5.org.uk/ http://reformsection5.org.uk/
- csmattryder 14y ago

buro9 14y ago

There's a difference between going on your own, paying for your ticket, and being anonymous... and going on the company's dime, as an ambassador for the company, wearing the company T-shirt. I saw the photo (as I'm guessing most have), and it was very obvious that they were representing the company. I'd have been pissed too... they shouldn't be sailing so close to the wind that there was even potential for the kind of "he-said, she-heard" that has happened. I don't fault Playhaven for firing someone who hasn't represented them in the manner they expect when that staff member is on their dime and acting on their behalf.

thepumpkin1979 14y ago

So Alex wasn't fired, was mr-hank fired? I wonder, they don't disclose the name of the guy who was fired.

loudin 14y ago

This is a very silly situation. Someone made a joke about a dongle and got fired. Another person posted that she was offended about the said dongle joke and it's flared up into a massive discussion about gender in tech. Here's the bottom line - if such a tame joke can have this large an effect and warrant this type of a knee-jerk reaction from the tech community, our conception of gender equality is seriously fragile. Better discussions about sexism in the workplace could revolve around the lack of female leadership, sexist working environments, an overabundance of male developers, company roles that appear to be gender-specific, etc. We are so wrong on the major issues that we want to make the full situation as easy to digest as a dongle joke and a tweet. It's far more complex than that. And this is the only thing I'm going to say about the situation because we all look like children for addressing this.

rmc 14y ago
One problem is that for every joke like this that was reported there are often many many more that aren't.
- claudius 14y ago
  Many more unreported jokes would only be a problem if said jokes were a problem. So far, I have not seen a conclusive argument why such a joke would be a problem.
  - rmc 14y ago
    Listen to women. Some of them talk about feeling uncomfortable when there are loads of dick jokes. I mean this isn't the 1960s anymore. The rest of the professional world has moved on and knows that dick jokes are bad for a professional environment. Why is this such a hard thing for people in tech?
    - claudius 14y ago
      I feel uncomfortable around openly religious people. I also tend to feel uncomfortable around people engaging in meaningless chitchat or when people ask meaningless questions (‘How are you?’ being one of my favourites in this regard). I don’t try to get people fired for wearing a crucifix, nor do I burn chatting people at a stake.

mortov 14y ago

Sounds like a canned damage limitation quote and not even remotely sincere (and doubt it is really an accurate reflection of reality either). Anyway, where is the Sendgrid statement ? Their silence seems to be an endorsement of Adria's bad behavior (eavesdropping and then public humiliation via twitter). I'm astonished that Sendgrid are OK with this. There are 2 companies here I want to make sure I have no dealings with.

jcc80 14y ago
Saw this mentioned in another thread and it's a great point. SendGrid is going to back her 100%. They now realize, if they didn't before, that they have a risky employee on their hands - the type that would sue them and make a huge public spectacle (comparing herself to Joan of Arc, etc). They need to keep that bomb from going off and eventually she'll move on to focus fully on what she's passionate about. @adriarichards Black people CANNOT be racist against White people. Racism is a position of the oppressor who has the power - http://i.imgur.com/ou8JZVu.jpg http://i.imgur.com/ou8JZVu.jpg

jcc80 14y ago

In other news, productivity begins to pick back up at Playhaven as employees are just about finished scrubbing their social media accounts. Rest assured, all references to forking repo's, dongles and other "gender equality" issues have been removed. The biggest losers here are Playhaven & SendGrid. The dev who made the silly joke will get another job and Adria successfully raised her profile and will get more speaking gigs.

fatihdonmez 14y ago

this is personal privacy violation? Two people're just making joke and someone just listen them and publish on media and then messed up their life!

_pmf_ 14y ago

> We believe in the importance of discussing sensitive topics such as gender and conduct Is that so? Because judging from your concrete actions, one would be led to presume that the preferred course of action is to do anything to prevent such a discussion. > as a company that is dedicated to gender equality So, I noticed your leadership list (10 people) does not mention any females. I don't assume you are sexist; there probably just aren't that many competent ones that are fit for the break-neck business of peddling templated casual games. > In that spirit, I would personally like to hear your thoughts and concerns. I, too, like to judge people based on hearsay; fortunately for the general public, I don't have the power to let my fear of public opinion affect the lives of those who depend on my rational judgement of situations. It's too bad that a CEO position does not come with a spine and a pair of testicles.

steve19 14y ago

A great way to destroy company moral. I would never work for a company or ceo like that. Even if this was "the straw that broke the camels back", I don't see how this incident was a straw let alone a feather. I wish this ceo and the blogger would just admit they overreacted.

flyinglizard 14y ago

Playhaven did the cowardly thing by destroying the guy's career as a preemptive measure for any bad PR they may receive over this. It would take a very sure minded employer to hire him now, considering the nasty ways this can be spun by the blogs/media ("Notorious PyCon Attendee Lands A Job With X, Where Sexual Jokes Are Apparently OK"). Sorry but I don't like it one bit. If PH's CEO had any balls at all he'd make this guy publicly apologize. Firing someone like this is the easiest solution. I'm sure Playhaven employees take note of how one of their own has been had a summary execution. And for the rest of us, Playhaven is now "the company that fired that guy over a joke".

jiggy2011 14y ago
I'd never heard of any of these companies or people before today. Maybe this could be a promotion technique for new startups? Create some internet drama to get people to hit your site. I'm sure people at these respective companies are looking at the extra traffic they got and tracking conversion rates etc.
rmc 14y ago
If only there was some way he could have prevented this miscarriage of justice! Hint: Don't make dick jokes in a professional conference when the con has a "code of conduct" saying: "don't make dick jokes". As a more extreme example, The Onion can be too accurate sometimes: "Athlete overcomes raping someone" https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zWLJZw9Ws-g https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...
- flyinglizard 14y ago
  There are numerous ways this employee could have disciplined without destroying his career, each and every one of them would have made Playhaven actually look good coming out of this incident. They could have sent that guy to volunteer at a woman's shelter or could have donated a part of his salary for a similar cause (even making a dollar for dollar contribution, it's pittance and excellent PR) or just put up a public apology. Instead of taking meaningful action, they've distanced themselves as quickly and as crudely from this situation, while destroying this man's career without giving it a second thought. I'm not defending this man - although I belong to the part of the population that's more likely to make such jokes at a professional convention than to be bothered by them - I am condemning Playhaven. And you know what, it's not even about Adria. She's taking undue fire here; she's a social person with a job focused around social media, and as such it is understandable why she uploaded this picture in the first place. Some people shoot their food, some others take photos what they deem as bad behavior in public (after all if she pictured someone acting lewdly at Walmart no one would have said a thing). She's not the bad person here, although I don't think I'd get along very well with her. Nope, the only one I can blame squarely at the unneeded escalation of this story is Playhaven CEO, for choosing the easiest way out. How very corporate America.

jessaustin 14y ago

I think it's relevant that when I examine Playhaven's site, the "Leadership" sidebar features twelve different individuals in various leadership positions, none of whom are women. Balanced recruiting in this industry is difficult of course, but they don't appear to have made much of an effort in this area. They probably know they've allowed themselves to be vulnerable not just to public criticism but also to concentrated advocacy and perhaps even legal action. Their rash actions concerning their former employee don't require any complicated explanation like "what else has this bastard done to deserve getting fired?"; they're probably just praying no one notices what a culture of discrimination they've created. How many of the mosaic of "United Colors" pictures they imply are employees are actually stock photos? Why has a games company handicapped itself so much in developing products for half of the games-playing population? When will Playhaven promote its first woman to a leadership position? Would a woman have made the same stupid firing decision this sausage-party of an executive team made? [edit: http://www.playhaven.com/team http://www.playhaven.com/team is the page I'm referencing. In case it changes, I see the following names listed under "Leadership": Andy Yang, Michiel Frishert, Jason Liu, Charles Yim, Ville Heijari, Brian Doxtator, Brian Howell, John P. Joseph, Sutton Trout, Zach Phillips, Thomas Gieselmann, and Hany Nada]

ktsmith 14y ago
> they're probably just praying no one notices what a culture of discrimination they've created. You are trolling right? Or did you really infer all of that from a web page.
- jessaustin 14y ago
  It's not about what I infer. It's about what is inferred by disadvantaged parties and their advocates, especially once the stupid remarks of an employee have focused the attentions of those on the company. Ten different personnel decisions have been made, for a set of mostly-business-oriented executive positions (seriously, VPs of Ad, Mark, Biz Dev, and "Pub" Dev plus a single non-S VP of "Product and Engineering"? what kind of tech company is this?) and in no case could a suitable woman be found? Your Honor, we rest our case. Besides, this page is the public face of the company, which they choose to show the public. The semiotics of the "United Colors of Benetton" mosaic is clear, but it is undermined by the "Leadership" sidebar, under even the most generous possible reading.