Hacker News Reader

Comment by knaik94 | Hacker News Reader

Her personal beliefs aren't something that changes how Apple handled this situation.

Edit: I'm not arguing that she hasn't made the situation worse, I'm only arguing that her behavior doesn't excuse Apple's.

View on HN

Firing people that actively stir controversy and attract bad press to the corp in question seems obviously like the logical thing to do. This individual clearly desires to advance their personal situation and cultivate controversy almost explicitly at the expense of their employer.

Sorry if I'm being insensitive but it just seems inappropriate to handle this via social media vs. going through internal mechanisms, and then escalate to local PD/LE. I mean I feel like if I was in a position to run a megacorp, I'd try to cultivate a culture of innovation and curiosity. If there are bad actors that are abusing other colleagues, I'd want to fire them (i.e. her alleged abuser) and do my best and make sure the abuser can't engage in any retributive behavior to the individual or anyone else (going even further than just the org) - even so far as to potentially recommend the incident be investigated by the police.

EDIT: I truly sympathize with her situation. It sucks to be bullied, abused, etc. I just don't feel like airing dirty laundry, even if it feels useful in the moment, is an effective way to force organizational change. I know of several cases against major banks that involved sexual harassment and I can't image the hammer of God force of nature damage the legal team at some of the megabanks would cause against this person (as an example), so you have to be realistic and careful. I just don't think in any professional capacity I'd ever say "wow my coworkers looked at my genatalia and I am extremely offended at this - isn't this terrible?" Yes, of course it is terrible. However, is the manner by which you are conducting your counter-offensive truly effective?

If you have cause, take notes, collect as much explicit documented evidence and then go to a lawyer. Airing out your dirty laundry will literally never end well and makes you radioactive in terms of future employment opportunities - except in this case, it's on the person - not the employer. Build your case, move slowly, strike - don't just start tweeting about your grievances. Am I crazy or what?

I think the sad reality is that the only way to have some sort of power and support against a megacorporation is by showing a controversy to the public. I don't know how many threads I've read about people just being locked out of their account and they've had to use HN or Reddit to get in contact with a person. From the point of view of the corp, it's bad press, but they really don't seem to act unless there is bad press.

I don't give Apple the benefit of the doubt when their entire company culture is about secrecy and forcing decisions on its users.

> I've read about people just being locked out of their account and they've had to use HN or Reddit to get in contact with a person

Not really the same thing. She was an employee, and Apple was already willing to investigate the issue twice. She wasn't facing indifference, and "showing a controversy to the public" involved leaking confidential documents.

They should have either fired her if she was completely in the wrong way back when it first started, or acknowledge and own up to her complaints. Instead they resisted her allegations in an indefensible manner and let it become what it is now, firing her when they realized she wouldn't back down.

I don't agree with that at all. Opening an investigation after a complaint is reasonable. If you find the complaint to not be relevant, the right response is to fire the employee who made the complaint? That doesn't seem useful, it will just up the cost of complaints for employees by a lot, so you get fewer complaints and have fewer chances to fix issues.

Firing someone who has become oppositional, doesn't seem to have any interest in "patching things up", discloses confidential information and trash talks you on Twitter? That seems perfectly reasonable. There's no point in keeping them on the pay roll.

From your comment, it's very clear that you've never been in a situation like this.

Have you ever had to report misconduct of a higher-up to HR? HR exists first and foremost to protect the company and they're only helpful insofar as it's in the company's interest. And do you really think the police would be at all interested in getting involved in something like this?

And taking Apple, one of the most well-funded corporations in the world, to court? To spend years and large chunks of savings on litigation for the chance that someone will get a slap on the wrist?

Whew, I'm just saying - maybe people who don't have experience in this area should chill.

> HR exists first and foremost to protect the company and they're only helpful insofar as it's in the company's interest.

This is not true. There are good people in HR who actually believe what they say.

HR. its in the name. Human Resources. Theyr job is to provide human resources to the company, not to defend employee rights. Thats what unions are for.

Though comprised of many good people, HR is just the de facto surveillance apparatus of management. This has been shown to be the case many times over.

> I just don't feel like airing dirty laundry, even if it feels useful in the moment, is an effective way to force organizational change.

Ever heard of Edward Snowden? You think what he did was totally ineffective?

He's on the run living in Russia and we still have NSA spying on people and parallel construction is still widely used so pretty much, yeah, totally ineffective.

it certainly sped up Google's internal project to encrypt its between-datacenter (cross-countries) communications. "SSL added and removed here" indeed.

They do if most of our knowledge of how Apple handled this situation comes from her accounts.

The comment you're responding to describes her actions more than her personal beliefs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com