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> I work at a fairly liberal software company in SoCal, and if I scrolled down to the bottom-most picture with the hand-drawn fully-naked chick and someone happ

> I work at a fairly liberal software company in SoCal, and if I scrolled down to the bottom-most picture with the hand-drawn fully-naked chick and someone happened to glance at my screen, I would most likely be fired. If that would be grounds for firing, even after describing the context of the article, then you decidedly do not work at a fairly liberal software company.

saalweachter 13y ago
Definitions of 'liberal' differ. It seems perfectly consistent to me to be 'liberal' and have a 'no (non work related) naked pictures at work' policy under the auspices of a zero-tolerance sexual harassment policy. No one needs to look at naked pictures at work, and they could plausibly make someone uncomfortable in a sexual way. Now, you could argue that the modern liberal hippie philosophy is that sex is natural and no one should be offended by it and it is just our Puritanical baggage which makes it otherwise, and maybe I'd agree with you. But you could also argue that in the context of our Puritanical baggage, our slut shaming, our last fifty-plus years of Madmen-esque workplace sexual discrimination, we need a period of overly desexualized workplaces before we can shed our Puritanical baggage.
Millennium 13y ago
That depends on what makes it grounds for firing. Any sufficiently left-wing policy is indistinguishable from a right-wing policy, and the reverse is also true. Anti-pornography movements present one of the clearest modern illustrations of this phenomenon. The right-winger complains of personal morality, while the left-winger complains about demeaning and objectifying the subjects, but they wind up at basically the same conclusions. Alcohol prohibition showed something very similar around the turn of the century.
falcolas 13y ago
Something similar - a hand drawn picture of a woman in a fantasy equivalent of a bikini (lots of skin, no nipples, no groin) - has actually gotten me fired from a very large internet company, so... It's basically considered a fireable offense under the sexual harassment policy.
- jessedhillon 13y ago
  I doubt that such a firing is defensible as a sexual harassment claim. If you are creating a hostile work environment, someone first has to complain about it and you have to be given a warning and instructions on how to remedy the situation. However, of course, you can always be fired for demonstrating questionable judgement.
  - falcolas 13y ago
    All that it takes is one person to complain that they were offended, irregardless of the work environment, and a company with "zero tolerancy" towards sexual harassment will toss you out on your ass. Frankly, it would have been easy to remedy - I was browsing a game forum with image signatures, which is where this image appeared. Of course, at the time, the HR person didn't like me (I mistook her for my bosses personal assistant when I was hired), so that didn't help. Learned a lot of lessons from that situation - the biggest being "make the HR employees like you".
    - marshray 13y ago
      So it took more than "one person to complain" - it took that and the HR person not liking you.
      - falcolas 13y ago
        Which, in an ideal world, shouldn't have had any impact. Of course, it's not an ideal world, etc etc. However, the original point stands - even "liberal software companies" will fire people for less than nudity on your screen.
    - jessedhillon 13y ago
      No, you're wrong. A firing on the grounds that sexual harassment took place has to go through a specific sequence of events, and a number of lines have to be crossed. If you were actually told that you are being fired under a sexual harassment claim, and none of these intermediate events took place, then you may have been improperly terminated. Sexual harassment isn't just "someone did something that made me feel uncomfortable" -- it's a set of specific and defined offenses, with measurable impacts. You have to have done something which created a hostile environment for your peers, they have to report to management that you are making the environment threatening for them, management has to raise this to your attention and instruct you to stop the offending behavior, and you have to have failed to remedy the situation when you were instructed to. A zero tolerance policy like you describe would just be a reiteration of the nature of your at-will employment agreement, as what they're saying is that they reserve the right to fire you for doing anything that is questionably dumb. But if you were told that there is a sexual harassment claim against you, you have rights too.

saalweachter 13y ago

Definitions of 'liberal' differ. It seems perfectly consistent to me to be 'liberal' and have a 'no (non work related) naked pictures at work' policy under the auspices of a zero-tolerance sexual harassment policy. No one needs to look at naked pictures at work, and they could plausibly make someone uncomfortable in a sexual way. Now, you could argue that the modern liberal hippie philosophy is that sex is natural and no one should be offended by it and it is just our Puritanical baggage which makes it otherwise, and maybe I'd agree with you. But you could also argue that in the context of our Puritanical baggage, our slut shaming, our last fifty-plus years of Madmen-esque workplace sexual discrimination, we need a period of overly desexualized workplaces before we can shed our Puritanical baggage.

Millennium 13y ago

That depends on what makes it grounds for firing. Any sufficiently left-wing policy is indistinguishable from a right-wing policy, and the reverse is also true. Anti-pornography movements present one of the clearest modern illustrations of this phenomenon. The right-winger complains of personal morality, while the left-winger complains about demeaning and objectifying the subjects, but they wind up at basically the same conclusions. Alcohol prohibition showed something very similar around the turn of the century.

falcolas 13y ago

Something similar - a hand drawn picture of a woman in a fantasy equivalent of a bikini (lots of skin, no nipples, no groin) - has actually gotten me fired from a very large internet company, so... It's basically considered a fireable offense under the sexual harassment policy.

jessedhillon 13y ago
I doubt that such a firing is defensible as a sexual harassment claim. If you are creating a hostile work environment, someone first has to complain about it and you have to be given a warning and instructions on how to remedy the situation. However, of course, you can always be fired for demonstrating questionable judgement.
- falcolas 13y ago
  All that it takes is one person to complain that they were offended, irregardless of the work environment, and a company with "zero tolerancy" towards sexual harassment will toss you out on your ass. Frankly, it would have been easy to remedy - I was browsing a game forum with image signatures, which is where this image appeared. Of course, at the time, the HR person didn't like me (I mistook her for my bosses personal assistant when I was hired), so that didn't help. Learned a lot of lessons from that situation - the biggest being "make the HR employees like you".
  - marshray 13y ago
    So it took more than "one person to complain" - it took that and the HR person not liking you.
    - falcolas 13y ago
      Which, in an ideal world, shouldn't have had any impact. Of course, it's not an ideal world, etc etc. However, the original point stands - even "liberal software companies" will fire people for less than nudity on your screen.
  - jessedhillon 13y ago
    No, you're wrong. A firing on the grounds that sexual harassment took place has to go through a specific sequence of events, and a number of lines have to be crossed. If you were actually told that you are being fired under a sexual harassment claim, and none of these intermediate events took place, then you may have been improperly terminated. Sexual harassment isn't just "someone did something that made me feel uncomfortable" -- it's a set of specific and defined offenses, with measurable impacts. You have to have done something which created a hostile environment for your peers, they have to report to management that you are making the environment threatening for them, management has to raise this to your attention and instruct you to stop the offending behavior, and you have to have failed to remedy the situation when you were instructed to. A zero tolerance policy like you describe would just be a reiteration of the nature of your at-will employment agreement, as what they're saying is that they reserve the right to fire you for doing anything that is questionably dumb. But if you were told that there is a sexual harassment claim against you, you have rights too.