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Comment by akshayB | Hacker News Reader

Problems like this can happen in any company and this includes Apple as well. Since Apple is one of the biggest Tech companies people are going to make a big deal about it.

But it is a big failure if managers/management fail to take actions. The immediate manager should be fired in this case since he or she failed to take any action or involve HR or upper management

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Why does it seem like every time someone gets offended about something there are calls for people to get fired? There are other ways to address workplace conflicts than to put heads on sticks. As reported in this article, none of these incidents are grounds for termination- not even close.

I like how Atlassian handled an incident that was different, but also included calls to fire the engineer:

http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/06/failing-values-team-indus...

> I know the engineer responsible well. I hired him. I know the slide does not reflect his values any more than it reflects Atlassian’s, and he is as deeply sorry as we are. It was an error in judgment, but one the company shares responsibility for making.

> As Atlassian, we don’t stand behind the slide – but we stand as a team. When we do good, and when we do bad. Today, we failed as a team. We will help him learn from this, as we all must. Our engineer, our event, our issue, our learning, our growing – as a team.

What was wrong with that slide?

It specifically mentioned "[his] girlfriend". Although potentially cringe-worthy, there was no generalization. The contents could have been entirely factual.

It reminds me of any number of apocryphal-but-true-enough stories I've heard over the years, which always take the same form: (1) young engineer / machinist / programmer gets rare and unfamiliar task, and makes judgement call; (2) young engineer fucks up spectacularly, causing huge loss / damage / embarrassment, to the point of fully expecting to be fired; (3) young engineer is not fired; (4) boss / manager explains "well, either way I have to pay for the damage -- I could do that and fire you, but then I'd just have to hire someone else who could do the same thing you did next week. Or I could pay for the damage and keep you, and know you'll never make the same mistake again."

Somebody who messed up but acknowledges it as a mistake, and is therefore unlikely to repeat it, may be more valuable as an employee than a random new hire who may or may not make the same mistake again in the future.

Of course, someone who makes a 'mistake' that is in fact indicative of an underlying personality flaw or tendency towards bad judgement, is a liability and best gotten rid of. The job of a manager is to decide when a person is one versus the other.

Step one: execute the manager.

Are there any intermediate disciplinary steps that could occur? People make mistakes all the time, should we hang them out to dry on the first instance?

People make mistakes all time but having said that there are level of how bad things can be.

Personally I feel this is the worst thing you can do to co-worker.

I'm not clear on what you think the worst thing you can do to a co-worker is.

I just skimmed the article again, and it says something about the lady being in a room for meeting with a bunch of men and them all joking about being "dismissive about their wives" and that a manager told her to "smile as I walked past".

I must have missed a memo somewhere along the line. When did saying "smile" to someone become "one of the most commonly reported forms of subtle sexism."

Perhaps you were referring to something else, in which case I apologise.

> Personally I feel this is the worst thing you can do to co-worker.

How about actually raping them?

How would you know what action they took?

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