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Roy Wildstein
- gavanwoolery 13y agoI would rewrite this blog post and use "Roy's" real name...he deserves to be shamed. Edit: I don't mind the downvotes, but as usual I appreciate any reasoning behind them...I don't think what I said was irrelevant? This guy is apparently dangerous and his real name should be exposed.
- sp332 13y agoDave's point was to avoid a lawsuit, not to attract one. The article is using a single incident to warn about a whole class of people. It's not just about one guy.
- gavanwoolery 13y agoAh I see - thanks. But shouldn't this guy's real name be used? He is clearly a scam artist if he joins a company, produces nothing, then sues over a completely valid firing...regardless of his age.
- sp332 13y agoPossibly, but that would probably lead to him suing Dave, which Dave already spent a lot of money to avoid!
- gavanwoolery 13y agoGood point again :)
- jotux 13y ago>he deserves to be shamed. You heard one side of a story about a contentious situation between two people and you want to publicly shame someone based on this? What if the older guy has a completely different story that explains why he had trouble working there? Just don't dox people -- and if you really think it's necessary to try to publicly shame someone make sure you have truly irrefutable evidence to back you up.
- gavanwoolery 13y agoAlso a good point - thanks I did not really think of that -- just a gut reaction to lawsuits. That said, if this guy really did what he did, I hope that real justice eventually prevails.
- shill 13y agoThis happened 29 years ago.
- aaronpk 13y agoThe particular sentence that most people are reacting to is this: "But every time a company hires someone who is not a young male, they run the risk that the new hire isn't there to work, rather is there to scam you." http://scripting.com/2014/03/17/royWildstein.html#aIDKIT http://scripting.com/2014/03/17/royWildstein.html#aIDKIT
- spindritf 13y agoAnd those reactions... I don't even see anyone telling him he's not correct, just that it will/could/should be used against him legally. the best part about this article is how it will be used against him in court http://scripting.com/2014/03/17/royWildstein.html http://scripting.com/2014/03/17/royWildstein.html https://twitter.com/codeslinger/status/445665523632984064 https://twitter.com/codeslinger/status/445665523632984064 And if anyone needed any evidence to back up a discrimination lawsuit against @davewiner, they certainly have it now. http://scripting.com/2014/03/17/royWildstein.html http://scripting.com/2014/03/17/royWildstein.html https://twitter.com/Mickipedia/status/445665545514668032 https://twitter.com/Mickipedia/status/445665545514668032 No, don’t worry everything is fine with startup culture http://scripting.com/2014/03/17/royWildstein.html http://scripting.com/2014/03/17/royWildstein.html (side note, pretty sure roy might want to sue over this too) https://twitter.com/whatidoissecret/status/445662928499650560 https://twitter.com/whatidoissecret/status/44566292849965056...
- polemic 13y ago> "I don't even see anyone telling him he's not correct..." If you've only got 140 characters, do you really need to spend any saying that he's wrong, because I certainly don't need that spelled out for me.
- johnsimon 13y agowork with people like yourself. there is no benefit to diversity; unless you are a loser.
- polemic 13y ago> "But every time a company hires someone who is not a young male, they run the risk that the new hire isn't there to work, rather is there to scam you." Old white male, having accrued all the benefits of the privilege of his position, proceeds to use his power to make sure that only People Like Him can continue to succeed. Rather than fix problems, he'd rather tell you all that Everything is OK, being Agist and Sexist isn't our problem, it's their problem.
- gatehouse 13y agoYeah, the day you have a dollar is the day someone shows up with their hand out. From what I've seen of the legal system it is just a proxy for brute force, the only thing it really accomplishes is to keep everyone from killing each other, beyond that it is pretty much the law of the jungle. I think software development actually has an easier time than most professions to weed out freeloaders. You can make someone program right in the interview. Programming ability is an extremely perishable skill. EDIT: also, obviously, REAL reference checking.
- benched 13y agoI haven't actually done this, not to this extent. Still, I absolutely see myself morphing more in Roy's general direction as I get older. I see it a little like extracting karma from the world on my own terms. That is, in my youth, some companies got a slice of my brilliance at a deep discount, because of my young age. Now, having lost much of the naivety of youth, particularly with regard to what companies and executives want to tell me the "deal" is, I take advantage any way I can, at every turn. It goes without saying that you shouldn't hire me, but you won't know any better.
- sp332 13y agoIt's too bad companies and employees don't have loyalty to each other anymore. You could have been respected for having paid your dues.
- benched 13y agoI agree it's too bad. I also think the problem is many orders of magnitude larger than I am. That is, the ol' "being the change I want to see in the world" will most likely end with me getting shafted. Until the day pigs fly, and managers and executives stop lying, milking plausible deniability for all it's worth, wasting everyone's time with re-orgs and resets, surprise-laying people off two days after telling them they're doing great, generally playing shady politics, etc, etc...
- gavanwoolery 13y agoMore people seem to care about one sentence in the article than the rest of it. In fact, many people are missing this sentence: "I don't know if there's any solution to this. I certainly don't advocate not hiring people Roy's age -- I'm now older than he was then." ...and thus taking the following sentence out of context: "But every time a company hires someone who is not a young male, they run the risk that the new hire isn't there to work, rather is there to scam you." Edit: that said, the author really needs to rephrase his words or he is going to piss more people off.
- danso 13y agoI think people seem to care more about that sentence because it is an honest summary of Dave's takewaway here: non-status-quo groups have a greater risk of screwing you over because they have this legal loophole they can exploit. Which hey, I could see why that'd be controversial.
- gavanwoolery 13y agoI agree :)
- mahyarm 13y agoThis is the real takeaway here. Statistically any class of people who have a 'special power' to use against you will eventually have a person who will use it against you if your exposed to enough of them. Applies to police, protected employment classes, a wild bear attacking you, etc.
- jessedhillon 13y agoI've also noticed that a lot of people complain when the statement immediately following "I'm not racist but..." is given more emphasis than the preceding disclaimer. /s
- gavanwoolery 13y agoYep, or worse yet the disclaimer just hits the beehive harder. Sort of an inverse poising of the well, I guess? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well
- blatherard 13y agoThis isn't much different from someone getting mugged by someone from a different class or race and then concluding that "those people" can't be trusted. Sad.
- gavanwoolery 13y agoI think that what the author is saying is that every person who can sue for discrimination might (and by "might", I mean there is a very small chance of it). This is valid, I guess, (assuming the author's story is the whole truth of the incident) -- but like I said the author should rephrase his words.
- protomyth 13y agoActually, it is different. The "normal" mugger gets caught and goes to jail, this one has a loophole that allows hum to walk off with your wallet without being arrested. It's a basic scam created by a law. You see it with some injury cases[1] and many of the lawyers suing businesses based on the ADA. The law is meant to protect people from an injustice done, but can be used in the opposite manner. Chilling affects like these are often mitigated by documentation by HR. Specifically, performance reviews and performance improvement plans. He was not equipped to provide the documentation. This is just a reality and cold logic. You can say he is "Sad", but he is expressing the "stick hand in fire" learning of the situation. The sadness should be expressed to the folks who fit into the spirit of the law that has been abused. 1) often with headlines "X who collects disability enters a triathlon" or similar sensationalist stuff.
- blatherard 13y agoThere's plenty of ways for people to take advantage of their employers and the law does effectively nothing for the aggrieved. One case I directly encountered was a young, white male who was responsible for procurement for a small company I was working for. It turned out he was ordering all kinds of stuff for himself (the one thing I remember is he bought a game console with it). He was fired and the police were called. Their response was basically, since he had permission to order stuff, they weren't going to pursue it. The law failed here, too! But let me tell you what didn't happen: nobody decided to use that as a reason to not hire young, white males. What did happen, correctly, was some additional controls were put in to prevent abuse.
- gojomo 13y agoIf you make it harder and more costly (on average) to fire people, companies will be more reluctant to hire. This goes for employees in general, and subgroups ("protected classes") that public policy may be trying to help. Housing anti-discrimination law can backfire in a similar way.
- rabino 13y agoNot really. Companies need to hire to make money, and that's a hell of a good motivator to hire anyway.
- gojomo 13y agoMore precisely, they want to make profits. Increasing the cost of new employees – compared to, say, overtime, outsourcing, automation, or other kinds of employees – decreases the hiring of the more-costly employees.
- troebr 13y agoIn France it's very hard to fire. What ends up happening is that consulting companies are popping up left and right, the result is that salaries are lower for employees (less leverage when negociating, no room for promotion, company cut, smaller term contracts, terrible perks), and for the company "renting" the consultant: higher costs and less commitment. It's tough to find the right balance: at will employment can lead to unfair situations for the employee, and strong regulations can lead to people abusing the system (like that guy I worked with who had been there for so long that he was cheaper to pay than to fire).
- harrystone 13y agoPeople that are looking to scam you are a class by themselves, and they can belong to any other class.
- kennywinker 13y agoHonestly, this! I feel like almost every person in the world, white males included, could come up with a reason for a bogus wrongful dismissal suit if they so desired.
- kennywinker 13y agoI'd just like to point out the last time Dave Winer weighed in on a similar topic: http://scripting.com/2013/08/19/whyArentThereMoreWomenProgrammers http://scripting.com/2013/08/19/whyArentThereMoreWomenProgra... > Programming is a very modal activity. To be any good at it you have to focus. And be very patient. I imagine it's a lot like sitting in a blind waiting for a rabbit to show up so you can grab it and bring it home for dinner. > There is specialization in our species. It seems pretty clear that programming as it exists today is a mostly male thing. Which also raises the obvious question that perhaps we can make it so that it can better-use the abilities of the other half of our species?
- gavanwoolery 13y agoThis is probably pretty easy to label as sexism - not to jump to the author's defense again (I don't know him at all). I wouldn't say women can't program (they can, obviously) or do anything else males can, but there is definitely a different set of interests between males and females (generally speaking). I don't think its because of market manipulation or brainwashing, I just think the two sexes are wired differently (psychologically and physically). So, I don't know if his point is valid, but I do know that males and females have different traits (we don't need to be equal to be treated as equals, I guess).
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- gavanwoolery 13y agoOne parallel I would point out is sexes in other species. If you look at many other species, sometimes females play dominant roles, sometimes males do, but very often males and females have different roles. Even though we are an intelligent species, many of our primal traits still shine through. I'm not saying a male or female should be forced to any given role, but rather let people choose the roles they want and don't force diversity for the sake of diversity.
- 13y ago
- Chromozon 13y agoIgnoring the ageism here, can we discuss why this would not be an open-closed case and cost thousands of dollars just to lose?
- greenyoda 13y agoThat had me puzzled too. If the CEO would have documented every interaction with the employee in writing (e.g., "on 3/17/85 I gave him job #1, explained what I wanted done, and he failed to do this, and said..."), he would have had a pretty solid case for having fired him for incompetence. It's what any competent HR person or employment lawyer would have advised him to do, especially since the employee was a member of a protected class. What really surprised me is that the same guy could have later been hired at Apple. This whole story is a bit scary, since I'm over 40 (the age at which U.S. age discrimination laws kick in) and I wouldn't want bad experiences like this to deter an employer from hiring me.
- danielweber 13y agoIt was too much work to write all that stuff up. But Dave could have just given him severance instead. "Here's a week's pay, go away." It seemed that Roy was there for several weeks, so one more week to make Roy go away forever is money well spent.
- joshvm 13y agoIt is extraordinarily difficult to fire people, at least in some countries. This is perhaps for good cause, it stops managers being able to boot people out of the door like you see in movies. It's very easy to 'discriminate' against someone without realising. You need to make sure that the terms of employment are very well defined in the contract. If terms are hazy then they may well turn back and say that they were doing nothing wrong. If you don't record absolutely everything that happens, the employee could turn around and say this is the first time they heard of the problem. In some jurisdictions you need a second opinion that would be considered impartial before letting someone go; don't have that? Instant discrimination case. Didn't have a disciplinary meeting so they could have their say? Unfair dismissal. You have to jump through all the hoops to keep things above board.
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- cdent 13y agoSetting aside the larger issues I find it's curious that Dave doesn't even take a moment to consider that perhaps "Roy" just didn't like working in the style that Dave demanded. Some people do need to think a lot before pooping out the golden gem or perhaps just need some reflection before they can move on. Some people are hard to collaborate with, maybe Dave was, for Roy? Dave's position seems to have been "there's one way to work, you can't do it with me on these big things so let's try the same method on these smaller things. Oh that doesn't work either, let's try the same method with a different person." Never any critique of the methods used by the authority structures. I reckon this does, in fact, have great bearing on the larger issue.
- kennywinker 13y agoNot liking the working style, or being unproductive because of it, isn't a reason to sue on being let go. Not saying we're hearing the whole story and this "Roy" guy is totally wrong... it could easily be that Dave WAS discriminating against "Roy" because of his age. Or the firing was done in such a way that it seemed that way to "Roy".
- tptacek 13y agoWhy can't I have 3 flag buttons? Even if they all registered the same single flag signal, it would be gratifying to be able to mash them all in this case. This is less a blog post than an elaborate, carefully timed troll.
- usea 13y agoI agree with you, and I regret posting this now. I found the article shocking, and I wanted to elicit some comments from this community. But now I see that it's better to leave articles like this out than to thrust them on others.
- yummyfajitas 13y agoDo you believe the facts claimed are incorrect? Or that the analysis of the incentives is flawed? What's your specific objection? I'd normally ignore comments like this. But coming from you I feel like there might be some substance to the criticism that I simply don't recognize. Can you explain?
- tptacek 13y agoHappily, this story appears to have been buried shortly after I wrote that comment, sparing us both any incentive to hash out the merits of Winer's post.