Hacker News Reader

Comment by slickdork | Hacker News Reader

Thoughts from tale 1:

- I would have guessed that the person who greeted me, showed me where to sit, and asked if I needed anything before leaving was a receptionist regardless of gender. That seems like an unfair strike/test.

- I'm always surprised by how stupid people are. Being nice to the receptionist isn't just good standard human behavior, but it's also obvious that a receptionist will have input on the hiring process.

Unspecific thoughts:

- I'm always bummed when writing about sexism is laden with sexism ("Tech bros" being thrown around like an insult a lot here -- maybe don't use a gender pronoun in your insults?).

- I'm always bummed that sexism exists at all, because I'm so naively un-maliciousness that I forget some people are the exact opposite. When I read stories like this, I have a hard time believing them because they're so out side the realm of how I would act/behave, but I definitely believe it all.

View on HN

> I would have guessed that the person who greeted me, showed me where to sit, and asked if I needed anything before leaving was a receptionist regardless of gender. That seems like an unfair strike/test.

I had the exact same thought and then immediately realized it was bullshit. If it was a man I think I would question their role and I think that’s true of most people. It’s hard to say after the fact.

Some people don’t have these biases but most people who think they don’t are just full of shit.

It doesn’t matter. Orgs should not play stupid games with candidates like this. Might as well have someone pretend they are having a seizure and see how they react and base hiring on their reaction.

What is the stupid game, exactly? Filtering if the candidate is an asshat towards women?

Not having a schedule with the people candidates are supposed to speak with which includes their titles/roles and not introducing yourself to the candidate. Then complain if a candidates makes the wrong assumptions about people’s roles and ignore the right assumptions candidates make when meeting and greeting strangers.

When cops do this it’s entrapment but when a hiring manager does it... it’s good. I guess the police should go out and entrap as many people as they can I’m sure they’ll find a few criminals among the population.

Why not have the CEO role play a custodian with a mop and flip out when candidates make assumptions?

In 15 years of interviewing (both sides of the table) at FAANGs, universities, startups, hedge funds, and the us federal government, I can think of exactly one time I was given an itinerary outlining who I'd speak with, and zero when one of my candidates was provided with one.

No, when cops do what's described, it's called an undercover assignment. Entrapment is when the police encourage the forbidden behavior. In no way shape nor form is having a woman greet you coming near entrapment.

As for having a CEO play custodian, sure, it's a poor use of my time in leadership, but at the end of the day, I don't care who is carrying a mop around the office. I do care about keeping out the shitheads who feel they're entitled to disrespect someone because they're carrying a mop.

I am reminded of an old story from back in the day when banking did not involve the internet. Some guy in paint-spattered work clothes went to the bank and some new hire bank teller was terribly rude to him so he threatened to close his account.

She was all "Feel free" and didn't budge an inch on her awful behavior so he did, in fact, close his account. For which I believe she was fired because he was the owner of a construction company and his accounts were worth millions.

These kinds of tropes are in old movies. The 49er whos struck gold and looks like a vagrant. Tuco in the Good the Bad and the Ugly who mistakes a union soldier for a confederate soldier, etc.

And if you read Hacker News enough you've probably heard the one about the homeless woman that everyone kept mistaking for a tourist.

I said make assumptions I didn’t say be a shithead. If they saw you and alerted you to a spill over by the elevator don’t flip out when they made the presumption given you role played a custodian/janitor. If she asked you to go clean her car, sure by all means she’s stupid to do that but not for going for your ruse.

There literally is no ruse.

The "test" is "are you shitty toward women".

Making assumptions and then acting on those assumptions (particularly in a hiring scenario) is, indeed, shitty shithead behavior.

You're not going to filter out people well, the "cons", that way. They are not going to give you tells. You'll get a nice gotcha to brag about from a tired idiot who wasn't on their game that day. Cool, bravo, you win.

Just for your information: indenting a comment like this renders the indented text as block of code. It might look formatted or more readable on desktop but on mobile it looks broken and requires horizontal scrolling. Maybe there is a different way of structuring the comment that you might like as well?

Thanks! Updated.

Its quite a world we live in isn't it? The things that people accuse me of sometimes baffle me. And then I have to remember, oh yeah that's the kind of world that they live in, filled with malicious intent , backstabbing, jealousy etc.

Likewise, with an attitude like this:

> Before I begin the infamous “cola punching” story, I should point out that I am quite short, and sport curly ringlets atop my short head. It’s been a constant battle to be taken seriously in the workplace; I detest the word “cute,” and woe betide anyone who perceives me as such.

...she's just setting herself up for disappointment- repeatedly. I'm also rather short and baby-faced and clients and coworkers are often surprised when I tell them I'm nearing 30 when I could just as easily be the fresh intern not a day older than 18. People aren't necessarily going to be malicious with behaviors like those. Could it be internalized misogyny/ageism or something along those lines and that no matter what it'd be out of the line? Maybe, but it wouldn't come from a place of genuine malice.

> it's also obvious that a receptionist will have input on the hiring process.

That's a stretch.

The greeter/receptionist in the lobby can be a source of information for both parties.

But, as always, once to step into an office treat it like the police. Anything you say or do is taken note of and observed. If you have two equally qualified candidates (from either POV) most will opt for the more favorable one.

The author has legit gripes but the one about the greeter is just playing gotcha and it’s immature not of the woman as much as the org.

A more professional organization will send the candidate a schedule with the people they’ll speak with and their titles to avoid stupid guessing games.

If you aren't provided with a schedule, ask for one.

I'm disappointed the best she could do summing up her 20-year experience as a woman in tech is high baseline agression, cynicism, two examples of violence on her part, one genuinely off-colour remark and one piece of unacceptable behaviour by a colleague.

I would have preferred to see some analysis of how she has had to and did adjust to the way men think, some tips for colleagues welcoming women, something she appreciated in working with men, some area she uniquely shone because she was a woman in a male environment, etc.

What we got was a thinly veiled foregone conclusion of "anything I don't like is discrimination because I'm a woman" and "the problem is men". As usual, she is merely the victim, has no agency and no interest in a non-gynocentric perspective. As it stands, there is little to be gained from her post besides discouraging women from joining up and demonising men.

Punching a bully in the chest seems like agency to me. I liked the way that worked out.

That punch, that was tech-bro language. Good on her. And it worked.

yep. worked. Good for her. In the symmetrical situation (man punching a woman in workplace) i cant imagine it would ever work. The guy would have been fired on the spot, and then have his ass beaten some more by lawyers. Bye bye career. The author of the article paints herelf here as a poor victim and i really consider this wrong.

You really might want to reflect on your own biases as your last paragraph is entirely your editorial and is not present in the article at all. To the contrary she had mutual respect with her team, and was found to be justified in punching someone by higher ups, which would definitely not be the case if she was the one with an unreasonable chip on her shoulder.

Also, your suggestion about presenting analysis of "the way men think" would be an absolute minefield, not to mention inherently reductive and problematic. The insidious thing about experiencing prejudice is that it can be very difficult for a reasonable person to be sure whether it's real or whether it's in their head—by being very specific and factual she gives us more to chew on.

> not present in the article at all

Did you find any evidence of sexism in her first example? Is it unreasonable to say she jumped to her own conclusions there?

Do you think there might have been more going on in her second example than "sexism" when she got seated in a supply closet? Is it reasonable to assume no one went to lunch with her just because she was a woman?

> presenting analysis of "the way men think" would be an absolute minefield, not to mention inherently reductive and problematic

As opposed to her one-sided anecdotal "evidence" of a sector structurally ill-adapted to women that she somehow stuck with for 20 years anyway? The fact she stuck with it so long is indicative that there must be upsides, none of which she mentions because she wasn't interested in providing a measured or constructive account - she wanted to write about sexism.

> by being very specific and factual she gives us more to chew on.

That's precisely it: her account isn't factual, it's anecdotal with all the inherent biases and one-sided interpretation that go along with that.

What nutritional value are you deriving? What did you find actionable or insightful? What are reasonable men to take away from her post? What are women, aside from "don't join up"?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com