5 ms·

Even if I agree with the decision, this is incredibly hard to read. I hate to see someone lose their job over something like this. Yet I can't disagree with any

by nilkn 14y ago

Even if I agree with the decision, this is incredibly hard to read. I hate to see someone lose their job over something like this. Yet I can't disagree with anything he wrote. I personally hope she will learn from this and another company will give her a new chance. The odds of that are slim given how big this has become--it's front-paging repeatedly on HN and /r/programming. But I'd hate to see her whole career ruined over a mistake she could learn from. (Though, to be fair, she has not seemed too eager to admit to any mistakes online so far.)

blantonl 14y ago
You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Social media is an incredibly powerful tool - especially when you are good at "it" and you wield influence. Trip up on your own shoelaces and you run tremendous risk of social media backfiring on you.
Proleps 14y ago
According to this article[1] this was not a single mistake, but a pattern of how she handles things. [1] https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/ https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  That added some much needed back story to this very sad chapter.
- enjo 14y ago
  That blog post is the single most reasonable thing I've read on the entire subject. Good on the author.
- vivin 14y ago
  Wow! What a well-written post. I had no idea that this was a pattern of behavior. It kind of makes sense now. She seems to be extremely touchy and looks for issues where there are none, or simply creates issues out of thin air. Thank you for that link.
- dinkumthinkum 14y ago
  I'll say this adds a very different dimension to story. Interesting!
- cynwoody 14y ago
  An established pattern of action, indeed! That Adria would object publicly[1] to a fun little talk by Danielle Morrill on Getting the Money Shot[2] is what we need to know to understand this case. [1]http://butyoureagirl.com/5004/wordcamp-boston%E2%80%99s-ignite-session-turns-to-porn-pitch-for-votes/ http://butyoureagirl.com/5004/wordcamp-boston%E2%80%99s-igni... [1 cached]http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qahkOwfNZtoJ:butyoureagirl.com/5004/wordcamp-boston%E2%80%99s-ignite-session-turns-to-porn-pitch-for-votes/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qahkOwf... [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V6vNEDMzgw#t=3m5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V6vNEDMzgw#t=3m5s
ritchiea 14y ago
I'm sure there are jobs out there for her, though I'd be shocked if her title at her next employer is "developer evangelist."
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
yogo 14y ago
At the end of the day no one really cares. They could rehire her once everyone is consumed by the next big distraction. A couple people will make noise but the majority of people won't care. People make mistakes everyday and usually learn from them. Now if you had someone habitually doing this kind of thing then it would create a problem.
- tdfx 14y ago
  https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/ https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/ Apparently she does things like this frequently, they just never hit the front pages of news sites before.
  - yogo 14y ago
    Ah then that's a problem. Looks like it caught up with her this time :)
GhotiFish 14y ago
Yah. One common factor in everybody involved is that they're incredibly human. Pride, self-righteousness, and immaturity are a few of the qualities on display, but since they're human I accept that a few of these qualities are tolerable, as should we all. No one committed any action that was overtly horrible on it's own. In a vacuum: Two guys were making childish jokes, and a woman was offended and told her friends about it, with a picture of who. The only reason this is on anyone's radar at all is that people made a fuss of the message due to the issues of gender segregation of women, and the feelings of oppression from men. Combined with rash action on the part of one company. this was a non-event, turned fiasco, turned tragedy.
- MartinCron 14y ago
  No one committed any action that was overtly horrible on its own That's the remarkable thing about this whole mess. Lots of people are making what appear to be bad choices, but only mildly bad choices. Nobody needed to be crucified here. Until you get into the whole DDOS and threats of violence business, those are truly bad choices.
  - vacri 14y ago
    I think there was a significant bad choice - Playhaven firing the guy instead of retraining him. It says 'make the slightest misstep and we will abandon you'. If they were interested in maintaining developers, the response would instead be 'please do some sensitivity training; we can grow together' - showing the company's interest in developing the developer. Unless of course he was already on notice and this was the last straw, although reading his apologies he seems like he is receptive and willing to respond to constructive criticism. Besides, without Playhaven's overly-strong response, the hackles of the antifeminists wouldn't have been raised, and we wouldn't be talking about this right now. The keystone of this story is actually Playhaven's response, not Richards'.
- jarjoura 14y ago
  I have the pleasure of knowing Adria and she's an awesome person, so sure, in a vacuum these events are super silly. However, in this instance, she is a public figure and used her public forum to promote an issue that was personal to her. Developers who make business decisions who rely on SendGrid follow her on Twitter and need to work with her. It's no different than a reporter for the NY Times who covers White House news, and supposed to be unbiased starts, bad mouthing Obama on Twitter. Would you want read NY Times anymore?
vivin 14y ago
She was vociferously unapologetic. She firmly believed that she was in the right, and even worse, that she was on some sort of gender-equality "crusade". The hubris is palpable when you see the comments she made in her post, where she said things like "Yesterday the future of programming was on the line and I made myself heard.", and even compared herself to Joan of Arc (http://i.imgur.com/JnZLsju.jpg http://i.imgur.com/JnZLsju.jpg). Even worse, she went off the deep-end by claiming that people disagreeing with her were all trolling, or worse, somehow being racist. She also posted comments where she discounted other people's opinions simply because of their race. There was not an ounce of remorse on her part for what she did. She firmly believed that she was some sort of holy warrior for feminism, and that she was standing up for future women programmers, or something like that. It's also odd considering that she doesn't even have a programming background; her background seems to be in HR and marketing. She basically hangs around programmers, but is not really a part of the programming community. What was also bad is that she implied that SendGrid supported her in all of this (http://i.imgur.com/eHOC3tA.jpg http://i.imgur.com/eHOC3tA.jpg), thereby dragging them into her personal crusade. As a tech evangelist it is her job to build goodwill and she did anything but that. She took advantage of her huge listener base and used her platform as an evangelist as a personal soapboax for her own holy war. Hopefully she learns from her mistakes. The best thing she can do at this point is to issue a public apology. Another company may give her a chance then. The problem is HR issues like these are very touchy and toxic and most companies would sooner not deal with it. This is because people who display this kind of attitude can be extremely toxic. I read many comments from women programmers who completely disagreed with what she did, and they said that she completely overreacted. Does any company really want to have a person who will scream "Sexism!" at the drop of a hat? Sure, the guys may have been immature, but nothing they said or did was even remotely sexist. Most of the people who I've seen defending her are either white knights, or other women who share her "brand" of feminism and who also, unsurprisingly, share her lack of technical background or experience with the programming community. The irony is that one of the guys shamed on twitter, who lost his job, has had a much easier time finding a new job. I don't think Adria will have a same luxury. The biggest irony in all of this, of course, is that what she perceived to be a morally-righteous stance has completely backfired and bit her in the ass, causing her to lose her job.
- 14y ago
dbecker 14y ago
I think her odds of getting a new job quickly are good. There are thousands out there vehemently supporting her. She only needs to find one to offer her a job. Thought of another way, her name has become a cause. Many love the cause, many hate it. But that cause has enough support that you could run a profitable business just serving a fraction of her devotees.
- ohsnapman 14y ago
  And that's probably why this was written: https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/ https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/

by nilkn 14y ago

blantonl 14y ago

You live by the sword, you die by the sword. Social media is an incredibly powerful tool - especially when you are good at "it" and you wield influence. Trip up on your own shoelaces and you run tremendous risk of social media backfiring on you.

Proleps 14y ago

According to this article[1] this was not a single mistake, but a pattern of how she handles things. [1] https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/ https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/

ChuckMcM 14y ago
That added some much needed back story to this very sad chapter.
enjo 14y ago
That blog post is the single most reasonable thing I've read on the entire subject. Good on the author.
vivin 14y ago
Wow! What a well-written post. I had no idea that this was a pattern of behavior. It kind of makes sense now. She seems to be extremely touchy and looks for issues where there are none, or simply creates issues out of thin air. Thank you for that link.
dinkumthinkum 14y ago
I'll say this adds a very different dimension to story. Interesting!
cynwoody 14y ago
An established pattern of action, indeed! That Adria would object publicly[1] to a fun little talk by Danielle Morrill on Getting the Money Shot[2] is what we need to know to understand this case. [1]http://butyoureagirl.com/5004/wordcamp-boston%E2%80%99s-ignite-session-turns-to-porn-pitch-for-votes/ http://butyoureagirl.com/5004/wordcamp-boston%E2%80%99s-igni... [1 cached]http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qahkOwfNZtoJ:butyoureagirl.com/5004/wordcamp-boston%E2%80%99s-ignite-session-turns-to-porn-pitch-for-votes/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qahkOwf... [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V6vNEDMzgw#t=3m5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V6vNEDMzgw#t=3m5s

ritchiea 14y ago

I'm sure there are jobs out there for her, though I'd be shocked if her title at her next employer is "developer evangelist."

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

yogo 14y ago

At the end of the day no one really cares. They could rehire her once everyone is consumed by the next big distraction. A couple people will make noise but the majority of people won't care. People make mistakes everyday and usually learn from them. Now if you had someone habitually doing this kind of thing then it would create a problem.

tdfx 14y ago
https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/ https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/ Apparently she does things like this frequently, they just never hit the front pages of news sites before.
- yogo 14y ago
  Ah then that's a problem. Looks like it caught up with her this time :)

GhotiFish 14y ago

Yah. One common factor in everybody involved is that they're incredibly human. Pride, self-righteousness, and immaturity are a few of the qualities on display, but since they're human I accept that a few of these qualities are tolerable, as should we all. No one committed any action that was overtly horrible on it's own. In a vacuum: Two guys were making childish jokes, and a woman was offended and told her friends about it, with a picture of who. The only reason this is on anyone's radar at all is that people made a fuss of the message due to the issues of gender segregation of women, and the feelings of oppression from men. Combined with rash action on the part of one company. this was a non-event, turned fiasco, turned tragedy.

MartinCron 14y ago
No one committed any action that was overtly horrible on its own That's the remarkable thing about this whole mess. Lots of people are making what appear to be bad choices, but only mildly bad choices. Nobody needed to be crucified here. Until you get into the whole DDOS and threats of violence business, those are truly bad choices.
- vacri 14y ago
  I think there was a significant bad choice - Playhaven firing the guy instead of retraining him. It says 'make the slightest misstep and we will abandon you'. If they were interested in maintaining developers, the response would instead be 'please do some sensitivity training; we can grow together' - showing the company's interest in developing the developer. Unless of course he was already on notice and this was the last straw, although reading his apologies he seems like he is receptive and willing to respond to constructive criticism. Besides, without Playhaven's overly-strong response, the hackles of the antifeminists wouldn't have been raised, and we wouldn't be talking about this right now. The keystone of this story is actually Playhaven's response, not Richards'.
jarjoura 14y ago
I have the pleasure of knowing Adria and she's an awesome person, so sure, in a vacuum these events are super silly. However, in this instance, she is a public figure and used her public forum to promote an issue that was personal to her. Developers who make business decisions who rely on SendGrid follow her on Twitter and need to work with her. It's no different than a reporter for the NY Times who covers White House news, and supposed to be unbiased starts, bad mouthing Obama on Twitter. Would you want read NY Times anymore?

vivin 14y ago

She was vociferously unapologetic. She firmly believed that she was in the right, and even worse, that she was on some sort of gender-equality "crusade". The hubris is palpable when you see the comments she made in her post, where she said things like "Yesterday the future of programming was on the line and I made myself heard.", and even compared herself to Joan of Arc (http://i.imgur.com/JnZLsju.jpg http://i.imgur.com/JnZLsju.jpg). Even worse, she went off the deep-end by claiming that people disagreeing with her were all trolling, or worse, somehow being racist. She also posted comments where she discounted other people's opinions simply because of their race. There was not an ounce of remorse on her part for what she did. She firmly believed that she was some sort of holy warrior for feminism, and that she was standing up for future women programmers, or something like that. It's also odd considering that she doesn't even have a programming background; her background seems to be in HR and marketing. She basically hangs around programmers, but is not really a part of the programming community. What was also bad is that she implied that SendGrid supported her in all of this (http://i.imgur.com/eHOC3tA.jpg http://i.imgur.com/eHOC3tA.jpg), thereby dragging them into her personal crusade. As a tech evangelist it is her job to build goodwill and she did anything but that. She took advantage of her huge listener base and used her platform as an evangelist as a personal soapboax for her own holy war. Hopefully she learns from her mistakes. The best thing she can do at this point is to issue a public apology. Another company may give her a chance then. The problem is HR issues like these are very touchy and toxic and most companies would sooner not deal with it. This is because people who display this kind of attitude can be extremely toxic. I read many comments from women programmers who completely disagreed with what she did, and they said that she completely overreacted. Does any company really want to have a person who will scream "Sexism!" at the drop of a hat? Sure, the guys may have been immature, but nothing they said or did was even remotely sexist. Most of the people who I've seen defending her are either white knights, or other women who share her "brand" of feminism and who also, unsurprisingly, share her lack of technical background or experience with the programming community. The irony is that one of the guys shamed on twitter, who lost his job, has had a much easier time finding a new job. I don't think Adria will have a same luxury. The biggest irony in all of this, of course, is that what she perceived to be a morally-righteous stance has completely backfired and bit her in the ass, causing her to lose her job.

14y ago

dbecker 14y ago

I think her odds of getting a new job quickly are good. There are thousands out there vehemently supporting her. She only needs to find one to offer her a job. Thought of another way, her name has become a cause. Many love the cause, many hate it. But that cause has enough support that you could run a profitable business just serving a fraction of her devotees.

ohsnapman 14y ago
And that's probably why this was written: https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/ https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/