Hacker News Reader

Comment by blawson | Hacker News Reader

Sure, but what's the alternative, especially in a case like this?

Your manager is engaging in harassment, HR is where you "should" raise this. Her following protocol also makes her case stronger I would argue. You gave your company the chance to make things right. After that I'd say the gloves could come off if that's the route you want to go.

View on HN

In countries where unions do work, that is another door to go search for help.

> In countries where unions do work, that is another door to go search for help.

That assumes your union rep is inclined to help you. In practice (not principle), they have the same incentives as the other managers and HR do in this story. The union rep could decide that the harasser is more important to their union, politically, than you are, and decide not to take action.

Plus, the union can simply terminate your membership as retaliation. For a closed shop, that's equivalent to firing you, but without many of the legal protections that come against wrongful termination.

Yeah my Union (even researchers and engineers were union members until we became "managers") had its ranks filled with senior folks who were rotating in from corporate. There was more collusion than conflict I think.

Which is why I added the remark "do work", not when they are just yet another way to take vacations.

> Which is why I added the remark "[in countries where unions] do work", not when they are just yet another way to take vacations.

That's not a matter that's specific to a particular country, though. It's inherent in the nature of a union structure (and arguably inherent in the nature of any hierarchical human structure, which is a superset of "unions").

You can find situations like the one I described in any country, not just the US.

Inherent in hierarchical structures, yes, but unions don't have to be hierarchical. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism There are numerous such functioning unions throughout the world. Small compared to bureaucratic unions, most under various forms of state repression, but very successful and effective in labour struggles they participate in.

> what's the alternative

Contact your state's labour commissioner. If you received stock or stock options, contact your state securities commissioner. Otherwise, suing is tried and true.

Suing is a surefire pathway to being made a pariah, case in point Ellen Pao. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pao_v._Kleiner_Perkins

That article doesn't support anything about her being a pariah.

Anecdotally, I can confirm that most mentions of her on Reddit that I've seen are very pejorative toward her.

I thought that was because the closed the subreddits focused on harassment. e.g. r/FatPeopleHate. Talking shit about her law suit was just a wedge issue to get under her skin by people predisposed to abusing others.

Not sure if your anecdote applies here: as Reddit CEO, she made a number of decisions that were unpopular with mods and users alike - entirely not related to her court action.

At which point people decided to use her court action as part of their "proof" that she's a "SJW" and therefore to be hated.

And you are a case in point; spez (Steve Huffman, CEO) actually made those decisions and used Pao as a fall-woman.

> And you are a case in point

I wasn't aware that spez was co-CEO with ekjp... I thought he only became CEO afterwards. Even if the board/spez forced her to make all of the unpopular decisions (there were many), the buck still stopped with her as the CEO[1], fall-woman or not. Also, why did spez want Victoria gone? He made Ellen Pao fire her too, right?

1. https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cbo4m/we_ap...

Actually kn0thing/co-founder Alexis Ohanian fired Victoria, but Ellen Pao ended up taking the blame for that too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3d2hv3/kn0t...

Note, I'm not affiliated with Pao, I just thought her treatment by the reddit community was extremely disappointing.

Yeah I can't find it either. All I can find is this bit that says she sued her employer, alleging gender discrimination, but the jury found in favour of her employer (10-2 and 9-3). I suppose people might be a bit wary of her after that...

> ...pa<>...

I understand that English has absorbed that word and its meaning in the current sense. But please don't use that word. That is like the n-word in south india. It is specifically used to refer to people in a derogatory way.

I didn't intend it to be offensive, just to illustrate her persona non grata status after suing for discrimination. My dictionary says the offensive racial use is historical, not current.

Don't think you are right on this...

PS : putting this here for those who may be misinformed

"Pariah" might be "like the n-word in south India" because in India the relevant castes and ethnic groups are still there and applying the term to an Indian is an actual insult, but for everyone else it's a purely metaphorical reference to a specific and remote historical instance of people treating other people with extreme contempt or worse.

Pariah is a perfectly valid and non-offensive word.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com