UploadVR sued over ‘rampant’ sexual behavior in workplace, wrongful termination
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Talking about female coworkers? Sure, that happens.
Talk about sex at work? Sure. Not at my workplace, but ok.
Talk about rubbing one out because a coworker gave you boner? Eh.... O_o
Hell, my parents are still surprised to hear I can show up at whatever time in the morning and leave whenever I feel like it! That's what they consider outrageous.
But fuck. How fuck can you have a sex room in the office ? How can someone have sex in the office ?
I'm seriously speechless.
It's a workplace, not a frat house.
I don't know enough to have an opinion one way or the other but if any company behaves like this the deserve to be sued out of business and should be fined for stupidity.
In that case the 60% figure seems spot on. Of course the issue here is what we define as a sexual advance. It wouldn't surprise me if some propositions to a date were miscategorized as sexual advances. Not that it makes the others OK.
Here's a question for you people directly in tech: do you think the other industries are better or worse in this regard? Has there been any studies or polls or anything even remotely scientific to study this?
The purpose of HN is to gratify intellectual curiosity. There's nothing to learn from this, and it's not interesting. Bad things exist.
We might want to try to flag this.
Understanding company culture and sexual harassment are important issues to be educated about.
EDIT: I am not implying that Peter Thiel would condone this behavior.
I would definitely say I am socially awkward/inept, but I don't think that necessarily correlates with being socially maladapted/unaware of societies norms. The sort of "bro" culture that exemplifies UploadVR's, Uber, and many other "hot" tech companies right now is the culture that myself and most other high-school nerds that I knew rejected... we were not the popular kids that drank, had sex, and partied. I think all of this is a symptom of technology being a much more attractive jobspace for the general public (which includes a lot of "bros") compared to just for "nerds" that it was decades ago, and your conclusion is the exact opposite of this.
Granted it is an anecdote with a relatively small sample size, but I have not seen this sort of behavior/ideas from anyone who never went to college or dropped out, but I see it from plenty of folks in their late 20s/early 30s that never grew up from their college fraternity experiences.
I should also note that some never seem to "grow up" - appropriateness simply eludes them permanently. If you look at Uber you have a founder that could, in theory, be a grandfather but doesn't seem to have a sense of what society condones.
This is not how socially inept high school nerds behave; its how VC funded frat bros (who include their fraternity on their linkedin profile) do.
Not sure why I am defending Peter Thiel, but I don't think this has anything to do with him or any of his bad ideas.
We're all fine with ping pong tables and other forms of entertainment that aren't work related, so I don't buy the "professional environment" bullshit. But somehow sex, or just talking about sex in an office has become taboo.
Instead of being open and progressive it's back to code words and using the disabled toilet.
You really don't understand the difference between ping-pong and sex?
Either you really like ping-pong, or you really don't like sex.. ;-)
Listen, you may have somewhat of an academic point here, but you're ignoring the fact that way more people - men and women - would be uncomfortable with open discussion of co-workers' sexual activities, much less knowing or condoning that it happens in the workplace, than having a ping pong table in the break room.
Is this a good or a bad thing? it actually doesn't matter, because it is what it is. It is a social norm.
Can it be changed? Sure, maybe.. But you will only present yourself poorly if you think that telling people their concerns don't matter, or are "bullshit" is the way to change this.
It's a good technique to evaluate of your poisition is rational or not, you should try it sometime. "That's how it's always been done" is an awful argument for anything.
So basically "that's how we've always done things". That's a terrible justification for anything, particularly anything to do with sex and it's history of persecution. It wasn't long ago that being openly gay went against the social norms.
> Can it be changed? Sure, maybe.. But you will only present yourself poorly if you think that telling people their concerns don't matter, or are "bullshit" is the way to change this.
What concerns? I don't see anyone listing concerns or discussing the consequences of being more open about sex in the workplace, just a lot of statements that you can't or shouldn't do it.
Also comparing sex in the workplace with gay persecution makes you look like an idiot. Sorry to be so blunt, but that's a completely unreasonable comparison. Are you going to compare it to slavery next?
We're done here.
1.Sex is not ping pong. It is much more personal and intimate. There is a reason sex in public is an offense and playing ping pong in public is not. It is not yet another way to blow off some steam. It can come with baggage. It does not belong in a professional environment like an office. Go have sex at home, at a hotel, at a friend's place or in a sex dungeon (if that's your scene).
2.Talk about sex at work with someone who doesn't mind it or infront of someone who doesn't mind it. Personally I am not interested in hearing about your bondage fetishes or your "conquests". Be respectful of other's wishes. If you talk about your sexual life or someone else's in front of people who do mind that creates an uncomfortable working environment.
3. If you say sex is allowed in the office who's to say what kind of sex allowed vs. not allowed? There are infinite fetishes from the mundane to the unbelievable. If you are saying, but well sex in office isn't going to happen in an open setting but in a closed room so what does it matter what fetish is being enacted, well then my friend don't be cheap, just rent a hotel room for those activities instead of asking your employer to provide you with a sex room to indulge your sexual needs. Next you'll ask them to provide you with "companions", after all your employer did provide that ping pong table right?
4. Now you may say well the "puritanical" attitudes of your coworkers creates an uncomfortable work environment for you so how about they conform to your social beliefs? Well you see the majority dictates the social norms. It is a fact of life whether you think it is fair or not. Till a majority's attitude towards openly LGBTQ work colleagues hadn't shifted towards acceptability, having them as colleagues was uncomfortable for people. Then the majority attitude changed and it became acceptable.
Now the LGBTQ community worked hard to change that mindset and my friend in our democracy you too have that option to change people's minds.
But till you have changed a majority's mind you are stuck with our rules. Deal with it.
> The suit also claims that the company paid male employees more despite sharing the same roles and responsibilities.
This is horrible and illegal in a lot of ways. And what were management thinking? How can anyone be productive at work with such a toxic environment? I would just be ashamed of working in such a place. And that is part of the problem, employees that do not fit in the company "culture" usually leave or are fired. So the toxic environment gets perpetuated.
I work in a company with a lot of diversity, and I like it. We have only a few female developers, as there is not so much female software engineers graduating from university, but we have better parity in all other roles. We have people from a lot of different nations, and English is our shared language even that is the native tongue for just a few. I like the open, friendly environment where people get the respect they deserve. It boosts productivity and collaboration. I wouldn't like it any other way.
It's something.
Assuming it can be corroborated well enough, I would guess a very large verdict or settlement. Sounds like a hellish place to work.
It's effectively giving kids that haven't grown up a large sum of money.
A well-known American described its appeal thus:
"Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything."
Not that being 19 is an excuse, but the founders of UploadVR are closer to 30 than to 19.
I was 19 once.. it really wasn't that difficult.
I mean, being told to be the 'mommy' of the male workers, not being supplied with equipment in contrary to the others, having to hear directly of mentions to threesomes and disapproval of sexual appearance, being kicked out of your room for your boss to have sex with someone in it, being ostracized by not using drugs at work.
Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction so I would not doubt that is true, I am just having great difficulty to understand how such scenario would be feasible. I mean, how could someone continue to work in a place like this for almost a year?
Money. The same attitude that leads to this also means six figure salaries for "social media experts".
It sounds like wall street executive culture is leaking through and through silicon valley.
I'm not gonna even expect the accused to clean up their acts. Only way they will learn, and teach other younger ones not to copy their acts, is for the investors to hammer this down hard.
They only understand the all mighty dollars so they need to be dealt with accordingly.
Shitheads gonna shit.
Sort of like the Abhishekh Guttani case. Sites like crunch base should give them a "DO NOT FUND ASSHOLES" stamp.
> But I'll add one more new sign: "if your social media team leaves your company is f*ed."
It's worth noting the plaintiff of this case was the head of the UploadVR social media team.
Joel Spolsky being down on aquariums seems rather quaint now.
"If your executive team is mostly white guys I'm staying away too"
Um, what? Why does the race or ethnicity of the exec team have anything to do with anything? Insert any race into that sentence. Completely ridiculous. This guy is a nutball, and so is the company culture.
https://www.facebook.com/RobertScoble/posts/1015527865493465...
"If your executive team is mostly white guys [which indicates that you're mining from the same labor pool as everyone else, and shows you're not willing to do basic legwork,] I'm staying away too."
The post others are linking to from a few days ago seems to be referencing Rackspace, as UploadVR has not lost its CEO.
I'm not even hung up about the sex at all, if it's consensual you do you and or whomever you like, but it's a matter of hygiene.
If you are reserve a room for sex, you(boss) are simply saying to all your employees that they can do whatever they wants in office and imho is not good for culture neither.
In your office there is a room for sex ?
Well, yes, but if people are going to anyway, might as well have a place for it.
>In your office there is a room for sex ?
I work at an Amazon fulfillment center. If there were a room for sex, it wouldn't be allowed in my process path due to insufficient rate.
Sounds like the future to me!
Also, it's weird that of all the things you could have compared sex to, you picked "being an asshole" and, apparently, racism.
You know sex is a good thing, right?
Sexual intercourse is a fundamental human drive, whereas watching television is not. That said, many employers do, in fact, have HDTVs in a breakroom or somewhere similar.
Despite it being banned in every workplace in the western world, sex at work is commonplace. When people want to do it, they're going to do it - that's what makes it inevitable.
If it's rampant at my company, then call me rather remaining blissfully ignorant.
(I'll just buy Purell in bulk to be sure)
If you do you should be immediately terminated. End of story.
Assuming you agree they don't, things become a matter of where and why you draw the line.
https://labor.ny.gov/workerprotection/laborstandards/employe...
Federal law mandates a different set of documents to be posted in the work place: https://www.dol.gov/general/topics/posters/
How is going going to a car around the corner fundamentally different to a sex room in the office?
I am not playing down the possible harassment of any employee but let us not be blinded by the allegations alone either.
But harassment and abuse? Do not pass go. Go directly to court and liquidation.
If they want have sex is better for them that they don't get caught or they do at home.
Have a room/bed for sex in office is something really stupid if you want have a sane culture(imho).
This does not mean harassment is okay. It is never okay.
If you abuse, harass, or coerce someone, you should be shown no mercy. Otherwise, leave consenting adults to themselves if they're discrete.
Honestly, it is not that difficult to leave that stuff outside the office.
There is NOTHING discreet about what you are suggesting. "Oh, excuse us while we go fuck in the designated fucking place at work while y'all keep working. Be right back for the next meeting in 20 minutes."
That is the exact opposite of discreetness and discretion.
Unless the sex is a bona fide part of the core business function, rather than an extra-curricular workplace activity.
Sorry but what on earth is wrong with you ?
Having sex at the workplace is both an Occupational Health & Safety and a Sexual Harassment issue. It is completely and utterly unacceptable in any normal workplace and in most countries it is illegal. The idea that it is part of a company's culture and therefore something people should just tolerate is downright offensive.
You clearly never understood the phrase 'hostile work environment'.
Well, yes.
In other words, two consenting adults can create a toxic work environment, which is why sex in the office is pretty much verboten.
Workplace should be for work. If people want have sex, they can go at home or at a motel.
[0] http://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/miller-v-dept-corrections...
With whom?
Instead of 'he said, she said', companies will have detailed records of everything said by most employees.