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SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas
- seivan 14y agoGithub sells "fork you" shirt. http://shop.github.com/products/fork-you-shirt-mens-medium http://shop.github.com/products/fork-you-shirt-mens-medium Can someone please fire whoever is responsible for that? I am offended.
- zivir 14y agoThe voluminous Internet reaction is an example of bike shedding, I think. We don't have strong opinions on a given topic that we don't know much about, but we all know what it's like to be ourselves in social and professional situations, and we all have strong opinions about that.
- gregd 14y agoDid not expect this outcome. Live by the sword...die by the sword.
- DannoHung 14y agoWhy were the three previous HN items about this deleted?
- zopticity 14y agohttp://imgur.com/5tbXR2c http://imgur.com/5tbXR2c
- liquidise 14y agoNow that is a truly impressive case of special pleading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading
- newnewnew 14y agoActually, that is what they teach at university nowadays in race and gender studies departments, sociology, and other mushy social-sciences. My friends who went to places like Harvard all believe it.
- StevenRayOrr 14y agoCare to elaborate? I think that's a misrepresentation of critical gender and race studies, because I happen to be in one of those very programs. I won't deny that it's a "mushy social science", but I think you're radically simplifying the field.
- shardling 14y agoIt's not a "belief". It's just predicated on an alternate definition of the term. (Unfortunately, many people on learning an exciting new definition of a word forget it has a more general meaning; confusion and stupid internet arguments ensue.)
- drivebyacct2 14y agoI'm willing to bet a large amount of money that you misunderstood the point of that lesson/class.
- untog 14y agoThat tweet was posted in 2009, way before her employment with SendGrid.
- 14y ago
- Joeboy 14y agoGiven the way this has escalated I'm expecting it to have engulfed the entire civilized world by the end of the week. You Americans are crazy.
- mkr-hn 14y agoWe didn't invent sensationalist media.
- antirez 14y agoHowever trust me that this stress on politically correctness and the way people feel the right to be offended by whatever shit, is really hard to understand from our side of the sea.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- mkr-hn 14y agoI don't really see it living here. There's stories like this that go global, but each one is surrounded by thousands of little instances with people responding with arguments that anyone should be able to say whatever they want because of the first amendment.
- natrius 14y agoThere's only five things we do better than everyone else: music, movies, microcode, high-speed pizza delivery, and sensationalist media.
- tomp 14y agoAlthough this would seem to be another knee-jerk, exaggerated reaction, and I personally believe that she shouldn't have been fired (and that the first guy shouldn't have been either), we should also consider the SendGrid CEO's position; his company is under attack, might fail, so getting rid of the person whom this attack is targeting seems like the obvious thing to do. I'm guessing that SendGrid will loose some other customers now, as a result of this last action. Suspending her would be more reasonable.
- sblom 14y agoIt's possible (although unlikely) that this _is_ a suspension. "Tell the DDoS clowns that she's no longer employed there, they move on, after the Internet recovers from its non-linear response to this whole situation, reinstate her with a profuse apology to everyone." I'm not sure that's better than just muscling through the DDoS, but when you can't deliver service to your customers, some folks get creative.
- darxius 14y agoI think that would make the company look even worse. Announcing they're going to fire someone then retracting that statement when things die down? Sounds childish and unprofessional (much like this whole situation).
- masklinn 14y agoI'm pretty sure the most professional behavior right now as far as SendGrid was concerned was being able to do their job and provide their service to their customers at all. And I can neither fully agree nor disagree: there are people specialized in handling and diverting DDOS, but they cost money and they take time, during which customers relying on SendGrid get no service and get frustrated.
- danielweber 14y agoRetain her as a consultant, maybe?
- 14y ago
- kjackson2012 14y agoThis entire incident has snowballed from ridiculous to insane. However, I find it interesting that Playhaven wasn't DDOS'ed for firing the guy. If they had acted rationally and didn't fire him, this wouldn't have been the unmitigated clusterfuck that it has turned into.
- sirrocco 14y agoRight now it looks like SendGrid fired her because of the DDoS they suffered a few hours ago. Once you can blackmail a company into firing someone like this .... I think it's dangerous for the company.
- dutchbrit 14y agoProbably one of the reasons, but mainly bad PR? It's stupid that Playhaven fired a person and that Sendgrid fired a person over this, adds even more bad PR. They might of been better off switching employees?
- fatjokes 14y ago> Right now it looks like SendGrid fired her because of the DDoS they suffered a few hours ago. Do you have evidence for this? If it were me, I'd fire her because she caused a huge wave of negativity toward the company. I don't know what an "evangelist" does, but I'm pretty sure this is the opposite of it.
- sirrocco 14y agoI don't have evidence but the timing speaks for itself - in the middle of a DDoS because of recent events they fire her. I'm not saying they weren't right in doing so, but it looks like they cave to blackmail.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- burntsushi 14y ago> but it looks like they cave to blackmail I'm sorry, but there is zero reason to believe this over other plausible explanations given in this thread.
- redthrowaway 14y agoThe timing is, "the story isn't going anywhere, people are still pissed off, and she continues to make an ass of herself on twitter while all eyes are on her". I'd have fired her, too.
- drivebyacct2 14y agoI'm guessing it was related to her invoking her employer publicly and saying they support her.
- uncoder0 14y agoI suspect the same thing. I appears that the DDoS started after she claimed they supported her. This could be a coincidence though.
- gkoberger 14y agoWhether you agree with what she did, she was their "developer evangelist", and there is no chance she'll ever be able to effectively do that job for them ever again.
- meritt 14y agoOr any company for that matter. She's alienated herself among the developer community at this point.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- adamnemecek 14y agoOr for anyone else for that matter. Regardless of what anyone thinks about the situation, I feel like any company would have to be pretty crazy to willing attach their name to hers.
- knowtheory 14y agoSo, you'd rather see her name totally vilified and run out of the industry instead? Where's the understanding and tolerance for questionable conduct that was offered to the two guys making jokes now?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- niggler 14y agoThe problem with this line of argument is that she didn't intend to get him fired. The most that should have happened was a larger discussion. The fact that he was fired was an overreaction by the employer, not her.
- 14y ago
- zshprompt 14y agoI feel that all the threats and horrible comments she received are disgusting. I didn't find their joke offensive. But thats irrelevant. She had a right to complain. But not by posting their picture on twitter. Posting that picture was a really rotten thing to do. Its an act of bullying. I can take a picture of anyone and they would have said whatever I put on the caption. And its up to them to prove to the internet that they didn't do it.
- dutchbrit 14y agoAmen.
- seivan 14y agoShe had a right to complain, but not like that, not with a smug attitude, the oddity of taking a photo of two guys having a private conversation (although she heard them, does not make it a open conversation). Those two guys could easily be and my partner making silly phallus jokes because we fucking like to. You have no right to be offended. Which is why KKK and Westboro has freedom of speech. What she did was beyond that, it was publicly hang two guys who did not even speak to her, or about her. For her own amusement and branding. Good riddance. People like that are scum.
- maxerickson 14y agoEverybody and anybody has a right to be offended by whatever they want. I think you mean that the mere fact they are offended does not entitle them to some redress regarding whatever it was that offended them. If you actually mean that people have no right to take displeasure in your actions, good luck with that.
- darxius 14y agoShe has a right to be offended, but it doesn't actually entitle her to have anything done about it. "Being offended" is weak. It means nothing to others. You can't expect the world to stop because someone gets offended.
- blindhippo 14y ago
- kailuowang 14y agoIMHO, this is another perfect example of communication failure. If Adria communicated her feeling when she heard the joke to the joker he would've apologized immediately and nothing would've happened afterwards. Many more people would've remained a calmer and more pleasant mood.
- blhack 14y agoI really wish that this whole thing could have ended amicably (perhaps with Adria apologizing to the devs [by the way, the guy who was fired has already publicly apologized]). It's too bad that sendgrid had to fire her, I would never wish that somebody had their livlihood taken from them like that, but her job was to be a developer evangelist, which is a job she isn't realistically capable of performing anymore. I would feel really uncomfortable if I was in the same room as this person. What if I accidentally say something that she finds offensive? Am I next? And honestly, she can't even function as a sort of "women's tech evangelist" anymore. Most [all, actually] of the women I've talked to about this are furious with her over how badly this portrays women. It sucks...but this is on par with firing a dev who can't program.
- monksy 14y agoWhen you double down you stand to lose even more. She played the game, she knew the rules, and she lost.
- danilocampos 14y ago> (perhaps with Adria apologizing to the devs). What, exactly, has she to apologize for? The people in question were speaking like they were in a frat house in direct contravention of a code of conduct they'd agreed to. They had the right to speak. And Adria had the right to tweet. If they didn't like being publicly outed for saying this stuff, guess what? All they had to do was shut their mouths. > What if I accidentally say something that she finds offensive? Am I next? Really? How does that work? You trip over a garbage can and a lewd joke reflexively pops out? How does accidental immature behavior work?
- niggler 14y agoPeople want Adria to apologize for actions that were outside of her control (like the guys getting fired). If anything, the overreaction by everyone involved merely proves that the issue of gender in the industry is still significant.
- WalterSear 14y ago
- themartorana 14y agoStatement on their website: http://blog.sendgrid.com/sendgrid-statement/ http://blog.sendgrid.com/sendgrid-statement/
- m4re 14y agoThe way heads are rolling, I wonder if I'm next? I'm the guy in green in the center of the photo (completely oblivious to this whole situation).
- wilfra 14y agoDid you notice this whole thing going on while it was happening? Did you hear the jokes? Where these guys obnoxious etc? Or was she?
- m4re 14y agoI didn't hear a thing. The keynote and/or lightning talks that were happening during this were pretty loud, and I was paying attention to those (although it certainly doesn't look it from this snap, heh).
- jessaustin 14y agoYeah, maybe it's because I'm hard of hearing, but I find that I never hear inside-voice comments from the audience when I'm listening to a presentation. I actually have some pity for those whose hearing is so acute that they suffer from such distractions.
- jrs235 14y agoGood safe reply. ;)
- jrs235 14y agoI don't anticipate him replying to you in a public forum... he's a marked man!
- RexM 14y agoMight want to quit just in case, prevent yourself from getting the axe.
- danielweber 14y agoI was wondering what about the other guys in the picture. If she had posted the pic but with all identity blurred out, I think she would have achieved 99% of what she wanted to accomplish, and everyone would still be employed.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- windexh8er 14y agoWell played SendGrid, well played. Evangelist she was not.
- danso 14y agoThis post contains no more information than did the other deleted threads. The past threads were deleted because HN mods think that the announcement is fake. This Mashable story adds no new reporting.
- anigbrowl 14y agoYeah, a verbal confirmation seems justified under the circumstances.
- militiaman21 14y agoFrom SendGrid's Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SendGrid/posts/10151502570463967 https://www.facebook.com/SendGrid/posts/10151502570463967 Effective immediately, SendGrid has terminated the employment of Adria Richards. While we generally are sensitive and confidential with respect to employee matters, the situation has taken on a public nature. We have taken action that we believe is in the overall best interests of SendGrid, its employees, and our customers. As we continue to process the vast amount of information, we will post something more comprehensive.
- anigbrowl 14y agoBy verbal I meant spoken, in person or over the telephone. there was some confusion earlier about the authenticity of the FB posting.
- callmevlad 14y agoSince that time, SendGrid has posted multiple outage status updates on their Twitter feed, pretty much debunking the theory that their Twitter account was compromised.
- peripetylabs 14y agoThere is a statement on the SendGrid blog confirming: http://blog.sendgrid.com/sendgrid-statement/ http://blog.sendgrid.com/sendgrid-statement/
- dutchbrit 14y agoPG, please don't delete this submission.
- rburhum 14y agoPlease let's just let this topic die. I think I have seen 4 high-ranking HN threads about this already. Probably, this comment of mine is not helping the situation either. sigh.
- andyl 14y ago"@SendGrid supports me" Goodbye Adria. Welcome to your new career as a blogger/muckraker.
- onemorepassword 14y agoIn events like these I'm glad I'm living under protective labor laws and not in the US. That would have forced all parties involved to talk it out like grown-ups instead of resorting to terminating those involved. Now there is no kind of resolution, but two people are unemployed and two companies are damaged. Nice going.
- davedx 14y agoAgreed. It always makes me shiver with how casually people are fired from their jobs in the US. Some aspects of US society still seem like the wild west to me. Not that where I live is perfect (Netherlands) but at least I know I'll get a fair chance.
- andyl 14y agoWhen I lived in Holland, we'd have problems with employees that would linger for months, sometimes years, wasting tons of time/money/effort, damaging morale of the team. And the outcome was always the same: the employee left. I came to believe that its better to bring things to resolution very fast, for both the employer and employee. YMMV.
- onemorepassword 14y agoVery true. Which is why I preface my comment with "in events like these". Getting rid of a dysfunctional employee can be an nightmare for everyone involved. We usually try to buy their resignation, it's expensive and a bit dirty, but relatively painless.
- jakejake 14y agoThis is the second post I've read recently about the US having no labor laws. Is that what everybody outside the US thinks? There's tons of laws and certain types of jobs are very difficult to fire people (unionized industries and govt. jobs). And there are laws and lawsuits for wrongful termination. Private companies still have labor laws they have to obey. Except for certain types of issues employees can be fired. Depending in the size of the company things may be more or less formal.
- aheilbut 14y agoAll of this absurdity is why we have a legal system, not mob rule.
- knowtheory 14y agoExcept that what we really have is like 50/50 legal system / mob rule. The legal system isn't protecting Sendgrid from having the awesome day they're enjoying right now.
- aheilbut 14y agoAnd that's why there's the computer fraud and abuse act...
- gregd 14y agoDoes it really matter why she was fired? I don't understand why these two companies, SendGrid and PlayHaven couldn't have gotten together, with these two employees, and communicated about the entire incident and publicly come to an amicable resolution over it. It seems that knee jerk reactions from everyone has done little to foster workable environments for anyone. I will say this though, it's out of control. Firing employees on either side just screams of "we don't know how to deal with this..." All of this has descended from a fucking private dongle joke amongst peers.
- zimbatm 14y agoThis is bad. How many people really care about the story ? The culprits aren't either parties but the people who helped to blow that story out of proportion and the companies who doesn't have the guts to stand behind their employees. We should be allowed to express ourselves and to make mistakes in the process. More tolerance please. I don't want to live in a world where we can be threatened by a virtual mob for 140 characters that we wrote.
- zshprompt 14y agoThe worst part is that she will now become a spokesperson or write a book because of this. There is a #teamadria on twitter. So sad...
- emailandeggs 14y agoSure its sad. But certainly expected.
- angular 14y agohahahahahaha
- anonfunction 14y agoLet's not forget she wasn't the only one who lost her job because of this whole debacle. http://blog.playhaven.com/addressing-pycon/ http://blog.playhaven.com/addressing-pycon/
- salman89 14y agoSmart move by SendGrid. The short term windfall for having ditched her is easier to swallow than having your brand name attached to this whole fiasco. After the DDoS attacks I am sure they lost paying customers, and as a startup they cannot afford to continue to take a hit like this.
- zozu 14y agoI followed the whole thing and however I am sad that this stuff still happens, it was inevitable that she was fired. I do hope people got more aware what social media can do now..
- Aloisius 14y agoI can't help but feel that if I, as a male, had posted the same tweet in response to some obnoxious guys behind me making situationally inappropriate comments and I was in her shoes as an evangelist at the time, no one would have batted an eye. Granted, I probably wouldn't have written a long blog post about it, but I've certainly talked to event organizers in the past about obnoxious people before and had them ejected.
- joshdotsmith 14y agoTalking to event organizers is an order of magnitude different from what happened here. I'd like to believe the same outcome would have happened in this instance even if it were you.
- ceol 14y agoIt most certainly wouldn't have. There are legions of morons shouting about feminists in almost every discussion about these events, even when Adria said she doesn't identify as one. After this whole debacle, I've given up hope for both the self-proclaimed "hacker" community and the tech industry at large. The response to a woman posting a photograph of two people and reporting them to convention staff should not be "send her death and rape threats," "dig up every bad thing she's ever done in an attempt to discredit her," and "DDoS her employer." It's disgusting, and I'm not going to cop-out and say, "Well both sides were at fault!" No, the side that stirred this non-story into a full-on witch hunt resulting in her harassment and termination is the side at fault.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- emailandeggs 14y agoI find the word 'threat' is played a little fast at loose. A joke or aggressively charged comment can still have some wiggle room. Sometimes comments are just mean spirited and malicious. Sometimes its important to remember the context of anonymity. Her firing was not uncalled for. A quick trip through her twitter feed is all one needs to see how her motivations tend to be political. Her response was sensationalist. She has a bad sense of humor and no respect for free speech. Its sad to see others take up for her just because they find a second-hand conversation a little too crude. The world can be crude and those of us who can take it do not have to shut up so you can feel good. I wont suggest SendGrid anymore because of this. They can keep her on staff or fire her -- I won't forget that she made it there in the first place. Like the poster above says. This comment was posted in 2009: http://imgur.com/5tbXR2c http://imgur.com/5tbXR2c. That is before her employment at SendGrid. Does the SendGrid hiring department not know how to research?
- plainOldText 14y agoI think the end result is so dumb. People from both sides got fired, a lot of angry tweets and comments, DOS attacks, etc. I think the whole thing could have been avoided by 1) Not making a private conversation public 2) Solving any issues privately between the involved parties.
- sanli 14y agoNone of them could have got fired in Sweden. Do you think as an american that US should have stronger protection for the employer?
- craigyk 14y agoIs that true? I recently listened to a story about one of the Nordic countries, it may have been Denmark?, and how employers can easily fire employees. They argued that this, along with really good unemployment benefits, actually helps the economy by making the work force more fluid.
- p0ppe 14y agoProbably Denmark. They call it flexicurity.
- blindhippo 14y agoOne thing that I haven't seen anyone here comment on: so much for company loyalty. Say or do something wrong and your company will not even remotely try to get your back. You will be dumped as soon as feasibly possible. Both companies involved here are disgusting.
- epoxyhockey 14y agoso much for company loyalty The notion of company loyalty flew out the window 10+ years ago.
- fatjokes 14y agoOn the upside, this means that employees don't owe their companies any loyalty either. Fair play, and all.
- HiroProtaganist 14y agoI wonder if you could re-create this whole debacle in 3 months with fake people; you could use your post-mortem to tell people that you faked them out and announce your startup PR firm.
- niggler 14y agoI for one am glad that everyone overreacted and the situation blew up. If this was swept under the rug or if there was an apology, this would have been a one-off event. The fact that people are overreacting, I hope, forces the community to have a larger discussion regarding gender issues.
- edgesrazor 14y agoI think Playhaven owes everyone involved with this a better explanation on exactly why this employee was fired. Were they just looking for a reason to get rid of him in the first place, or did what happened at PyCon really justify his termination? Let's not forget - there's a lot of Sendgrid customers who have become collateral damage in this fiasco who have nothing to do with any of it, and probably still have no idea what's going on.
- saurik 14y agoIf PlayHaven had reasons to fire someone, that is private between them and that person: just because it affects you does not mean it suddenly that person should have to lose their privacy. PlayHaven should not divulge any more information than they already have on this matter: it would be up to the person fired to authorize that and provide an explanation.
- davidrudder 14y agohttp://blog.playhaven.com/addressing-pycon/ http://blog.playhaven.com/addressing-pycon/ Not a lot of detail there, but it's better than nothing.
- marcusfrex 14y agoI think she got the "evangelist" word wrong since the beginning. And well deserved at the end. Congrats sendgrid.
- pagade 14y agotragedy of overreactions?
- supergirl 14y agoas someone else said, they better call their lawyers. if adria is really the stereotypical hyper-feminist she seems to be, she's gonna sue them soon.
- pbreit 14y agoIf SendGrid did not offer to let Adria resign, shame on it. If she refused, shame on her. Shame on her for not apologizing immediately when the firestorm broke out. I suspect this would have preserved two jobs.
- dobbsbob 14y agothis is exactly why I dont use any social media in my real name, and I especially dont ever reveal who I work for. the moment you stick your company name on your twitter/fb profile you are now their spokesman and they can legally fire you for just about anything. media will make this a womens rights false argument and she will get a book deal plus her 15mins. glad my 3 contractors i hired are remote, degenerate neckbeards who dont use anything besides degenerate filled IRC channels. media doesnt give a shit about IRC
- pclark 14y agoThe internet does a lot of good but times like this it can be scary – or just plain wrong. Once the wheels of motion are turning there is nothing anyone can do, even the way Hacker News behaved with it's mob mentality was absurd – two people got fired, SendGrid was brought offline, some poor lady received death threats, everyone was humiliated in some capacity, and by the looks of the comment thread on the SendGrid facebook page, equality in tech has been notched back a few decades. Talk about blowing something out of proportion: some guy made a dongle joke to a friend of his at a conference. It's kind of terrifying if you think how easily you could have been one of the characters in this. You see so many times when some poor person has his personal details spread over the internet based on a rumour. What do you even do when this happens? Mountain. Mole hill.
- beebs93 14y agoWhen the dust settles, all that will have really changed is male workers being even more overly-sensitive to every syllable they utter when a female colleague is within earshot. I've personally said "Just fork her" many times at work in front of my female co-workers without an afterthought. While I will continue to do so, if a new female employee starts after today I may just wait for her to make a penis joke before I feel comfortable enough to suggest copying someone's repository to their personal one for the sake of code contribution and/or modification. Sweet cake-frosting-Christ - this all could have been avoided with a head turn and a "Hey, do you guys mind not speaking like that here? It's making me uncomfortable".
- gaoshan 14y agoShe could have simply turned around and told them that she found what they were saying offensive and that would have been the end of it. Instead she choose to publicly humiliate and shame them, at the cost of one man's job, and that was going to far. Frankly, she acted like a bully. When I saw some other post she'd made on Twitter where she joked about telling a guy to stuff a sock in his pants for TSA searches I really felt like she was the bad actor here... it made her seem more than a little hypocritical.
- djd 14y agoI don't understand why this whole issue is being looked at from a feminist Angle. What would the reaction be if a guy has tweeted the same thing? I am not sure if what she did was right/wrong. deciding if she is right or wrong considering it a action of a women saddens me.
- lifebar 14y ago>What would the reaction be if a guy has tweeted the same thing? He would have been fired for being misogynist. Thanks to feminism.
- edderly 14y agoThis reminds me why I hate real names on public social networking when talking about these types of issues. Whatever this woman's original motive was got immediately lost in the shallow exchanges which follow, but the commentary becomes important because it is now personal. I feel more contempt for the real name trolls now gloating over her firing too. None of whom I assume were present at the original event. The internet is full of bile, but I'm happier with anonymous bile.
- subsystem 14y agoIt does work fairly well as a honeypot though.
- Mahn 14y agoThis thing is completely ridiculous. Dear PlayHaven and SendGrid, hire both of your ex-employees back, publically apologize, and start making sense.
- scotty79 14y agoIt would be extremely cool if now it turned out that Adria and this guy were actually friends who came up with a plan how to troll everyone who has stick up their ass and/or is afraid of his/her own shadow when it comes to gender.
- mladenkovacevic 14y agoThis is a situation where somehow EVERYONE managed to over-react.
- SODaniel 14y agoI just hope this 'story' ends here. Both parties having learned a lesson and walking away a little bit humbler and thoughtful. I would absolutely HATE to see this become a drawn out legal battle comedy. And I would hate it even more to see Adria end up playing the victim and become some sort of 'women's advocate' showing up in some morning show couch crying and blaming 'the male tech industry'. Then again, no high hopes on it being over.
- vertis 14y agoI'm late to the party, but I feel the need to put my voice on the other side of what seems to be prevailing opinion. She was not wrong to mention inappropriate jokes. Anyone that has done sexual harassment training will know that ANYTHING that can be taken the wrong way in not acceptable. Because of the nature of sexism and sexual harassment you have to have a zero tolerance policy. Going out with pitchforks regarding this incident is sending an absolutely terrible message to current and future generations of women in tech.
- kunai 14y agoWhile misogyny has gone on for centuries and needs to be stopped, obsessing over two (relatively) harmless jokes that aren't sexual in the slightest pales in comparison to the genuine problem, which is verbal abuse and sexism, as clearly evidenced on Richards' blog. Sorry to say, but forking and dongles are just bad jokes. Not sexual or inappropriate ones. If Richards wished to take action against sexism in the technology field, she could have spoken out against it with proper evidence, because getting fussy over harmless fun is not the way to deal with it. I understand her predicament. Sometimes you have just had enough to deal with, and you can't stand it. You have to release. But reason triumphs over emotion. You can't just go completely nuts over the wrong problem. Calculate your objective and create a plan; if you can't do that, honestly you don't deserve to be in the software field.
- Irregardless 14y agoAfter reading her full explanation of the "incident" and the PyCon code of conduct, I have to disagree completely with what Adria did. Two guys were making some silly, completely non-sexist jokes between themselves that mixed 'dongles' and 'forking' with a bit of innuendo. Despite the fact that they weren't directed at her -- or anyone, for that matter -- she took personal offense and decided the best course of action was to publicly shame them (picture and all). Her reaction was far more immature than the humor that triggered it. If you're 30-something years old and still can't handle overhearing a bit of lighthearted middle school humor, it's probably time to move into a cave and cancel your internet service.
- peripetylabs 14y agoKeep in mind that Adria Richards was acting in an official capacity as a representative of SendGrid at PyCon. SendGrid's business is transactional email, and one of their public spokespersons happily outs private conversations on social media, even distributing photographs of people without their permission -- as a SendGrid customer who takes privacy very seriously, I found this concerning, and I have been looking at alternatives since this fiasco.
- obviouslygreen 14y agoIt is concerning, but it's concerning about Adria and people like her, not about SendGrid. It's irresponsible to assume that, because someone has represented a company poorly, that that is a poor company. People mess up, and in this situation either Adria messed up or whoever hired her did. That's not to say either party is stupid or a "bad person" or any such thing... it's to say that Adria did something that most of us consider clearly wrong/unprofessional, and if there was a clear indication that she'd do such a thing, the hiring manager should not have brought her on. I'm inclined to think there was no such indication and this is just her personally doing something irresponsible, but then we don't know. Immediately making that a reflection on her employer is invalid and makes things worse than they already are.
- ternaryoperator 14y agoOne over-reaction lead to another, which lead to another.
- davidrudder 14y agoWe had some emails delivered yet. While the drama was fun to watch, I'm a little annoyed with the kiddies who decided a DDOS was a good idea.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- nigglet 14y agoI don't get what all this forking fuss is about.
- Ensorceled 14y agoOne thing I'm really trying to fathom here is that people really think the dongle joke, in this context, was sexist and not just mildly so. Let's say a presenter put up a slide where Florida was pink and and somebody said to their buddy, "Ok, now it really looks like a penis." Are large numbers of us really taking the side that this joke would be incredibly offensive, abusive and oppressive to women and should result in the pair being ejected from the conference. Because that seems to be the stance many are taking. And I'm bewildered. To be clear, it's juvenile. I'd personally say "Are you guys 12? Cut it out." Can we reserve our moral outrage for the people saying "That's so gay." or "She wants the 'D'" or "At least it's not black" in the same situation? You know, things that are actually offensive and problematic.
- pla3rhat3r 14y agoA joke that gets 3 people fired and blows up the internet!?! I GOTTA HEAR THIS JOKE!!
- noonespecial 14y agoLets play my favorite game: How should it have happened? Acceptable case: Adria turns around to the guys in question and politely lets them know that she is not cool with middle-school humor at a professional event. They are embarrassed, and think twice about it next time. Best case: The guys around them do this first. What actually happend: A chain-reaction of explosive over-reactions.
- shawn-butler 14y agoCan you imagine how bad this is going to get when Google glass is on every nose? I'm usually the guy seeing opportunity in every "doomsday" prediction but, I really see no upside for most people in being recorded all the time. This is going to compound cyber-bullying effects by orders of magnitude. I find the focus on her gender irrelevant. Is the story any different if it is a man vilifying and excoriating women he overhears? No. She is/was basically incompetent. A tech evangelist is basically a salesperson, her job is to create goodwill. You don't report your customers as offensive even when you think they are. And you especially NEVER bring bad will on your company brand. You deal with it and move on.
- jetsnoc 14y agoI shared this on a previous thread that was removed: Wow, just wow. Five wrongs don't make a right. 1. Two men make crude jokes to one another at conference. 2. Adria shames them. 3. PlayHaven fires one of them. 4. Internet goes berserk and threatens her. 5. SendGrid fires Adria. I bet all parties wish that either these men didn't joke around like this or that she would have simply turned around and said "Y'know, boys, I'm trying to watch this lightning talk can you keep it down or keep your jokes to yourself for now?" Or, even kept her twitter posting to simply asking Pycon to take care of it. Sad. This is a net negative.
- imallforfair 14y ago1) Dongle, penis, vagina, balls, etc are NOT SEXIST JOKES. "Get in the kitchen and make me a pie." is an offensive and sexist joke. 2) She was not fired for standing up, she was fired for dragging her employer into the fight on twitter. 3) What can you tell me about her before this incident? 4) She sensationalized the incident in ways that Fox News couldn't even top. 5) SHE IS AN EVANGALIST/communicator. Are you telling me she is intimidated or doesn't know how to converse with people? "Yesterday the future of programming was on the line..." In the end, everyone lost here, but she did start the fire.
- jagermo 14y agoSo, both companies lost valued employees. All over a penis joke - i think it is just stupid.
- foohbarbaz 14y agoHuh? WTF? My impression is that inappropriate jokes were specifically targeted at a woman seated nearby. In an all male company (of 13-year old youths) it just does not happen. The people that did this deserved to be reminded that it was not acceptable (although not by firing). Now, firing Adria Richards is entirely beyond my understanding. Seriously, WTF? Well, this whole story is sad. Blame the messenger now?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- hawkharris 14y agoThere seems to be a massive trend of people getting in hot water because of Tweets, then going into damage control mode to provide context for their remarks. Part of the problem is the medium itself. Arguments, especially those that are interesting and meaningful, aren't always meant to be condensed into 140-character snippets. Take this story, for example. While I'm not taking anyone's side, I think that if Adria had been able to provide context for what happened (i.e. saying more about the nature of the employee's comments and why it offended her), this discussion would have been more meaningful from the get-go. Maybe it wouldn't devolve so quickly into speculation.
- slake 14y agoThat is just wrong.