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Comment by jmcgough | Hacker News Reader

I've read some of her writings about superfund sites, her battle with apple where she publicly shared every mildly problematic or offensive email / communication she'd ever received, etc.

I don't blame Apple at all for getting rid of her. She comes across (even while giving her side of the story) as unhinged and awful to work with. I have to wonder if maybe this is an ongoing mental health crisis or something.

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Or maybe apple is actually toxic? I don't hear googlers or Microsoft employees do this, but multiple people report toxicity at apple.

Both of these things can be true. Having followed this story for a while, I do agree with the parent comment's analysis.

I agree both can be true, I can understand reserving judgement but I disagree with the analysis that because something else unrelated the person did in the past, their current claim is invalidated.

If Apple is known toxic and you still go to work there, I don't know what to tell you.

Do you think we have a responsibility towards people who aren't in the know, or who might have circumstances that make it hard to leave (for example, immigration processing)?

Victim blaming at its finest

Victim implies it was outside of their control, and without forewarning, while knowing what you're engaging in ahead of time would negate that designation.

This is no different from "you shouldn't have been wearing that if you didn't want to get sexually assaulted"

It's more like if you get into a boxing ring and complain about getting hit. If you knew what was going to happen and you chose to do it...

Didn't realize it was ok for any employer to fight with their employee as a norm.. you're saying the boxing ring is apple right? And the shit treatment is what anyone should expect going in? Ok, well I don't see why you would think she knew, it sounds like she is alerting potential employees and any government labor regulators of the work conditions so they can avoid the boxing ring as you put it and have a referree make sure the boxing match was fair and legal.

I think you're extending the metaphor a bit beyond what is useful. The original comment says "If Apple is known toxic and you still go to work there". Other comments then criticize this as victim blaming, but it's not. If you know a company is toxic and you choose to work there then you are not a victim, you are willingly exposing yourself to a toxic company the same way a boxer exposes himself to the blows of another boxer.

My comment doesn't say it's okay for Apple to be toxic, fighting with employees is a norm, or that she did know. My comment is differentiating the hypothetical "If you know it is toxic and you work there you are not a victim" from the victim blaming "You shouldn't have been wearing that".

Have you considered that toxic workplaces shouldn't exist and should probably be shut down? What makes you think they're entitled to keep their business operating?

So if someone warns you that you could get raped walking down a road and you did get raped, you're not a victim? After all you could have taken a different road? Would your logic translate that way? I know rape is a hyperbole but it serves to make my point and make it easy for you to prove me wrong.

Do you have a reason to believe they already knew it was toxic? (If you meant me, I don't work or worked for apple). If you read the thread, they had significant investment in apple making it hard for them to leave.

If you’re doing well at apple making good money, you can achieve the same elsewhere.

It depends. Some of Apple’s internal systems are very specialized. People who have been there for a long time could grow dependent on its idiosyncratic systems and processes. This isn’t exclusive to engineering.

Of course, the same could be said of other large corporations.

Everything I can find suggests she was a product manager. Not an engineer. These skills translate to other companies.

Further I’d suggest if you’re an engineer where only one company in the world can employ you, and you’re not getting fuck you money from it, you’ve done it wrong.

BadRabbit, you seem to be very invested in this topic, judging by your reply to my comment and now this one, so I must ask: Are you the person depicted in this topic, or in some way related to them?

I am not the person nor in any way related to them other than a common employer at one point and I say claims of Apple’s toxicity should be investigated, reflexive paranoid suspicion of critics of Apple’s company culture be damned.

It looks like you have responded from wrong account .

I'll admit, I had this same suspicion about this poster and one other in this thread.

Are you Global Security or something? What makes you so invested in defending the wealthiest company on earth?

What amount of wealth makes a company inherently guilty of all accusations? As Ive expressed in other posts, I don't hold Apple in high regard as a company at all, I merely find her claims to give me an impression that counters what she is asserting.

My point is that regardless of the validity of her claims, this is a good opportunity for society to draw closer inspection towards Apple. It’s similar to how Susan Fowler’s revelations finally provided the opportunity for society to turn its attention towards Uber.

No one is saying Apple is inherently guilty, but it has assumed a societal perception of inherent innocence, skating by with lack of inspection while other tech giants have not. And all that wealth correlates to power and influence, does it not? And generally it should behoove us to inspect the powerful and influential.

For too long any criticism of Apple has been easily shut down, even though they’re not even the plucky underdog on the verge of bankruptcy they once were!

No, that was intentional. I don’t know the previous account, I am simply sick of people trying to shut down discussion of Apple criticism.

Are you people seriously brigading?

Not invested in the topic at all but somehow people are trying ad-hominem against me to protect apple. You know, this only reinforces my suspicion that apple is beyond toxic, likely crossed over the criminal boundary!

@dang , if you see this, please look into these people's behavior on this post.

I am in no way related to this person or apple. I read about the post here, not even on twitter. I just happen to have a pet peeve for victim blamers and people jumping to conclusions too early, almost as if they are conspiring or have an ulterior motive. Check my post history if you want proof.

“A lot of people are saying”. We can do better than this on HN.

> I don't hear googlers or Microsoft employees do this,

Is this a joke? Google has been on the front page here a few times for questionable behavior alleged by (former) employees

Not driving people near suicide and breaking into homes type of a thing. I must have missed it, care to share a link?

> maybe this is an ongoing mental health crisis or something.

Assuming you are right (a big assumption) cutting off her health insurance is one poor way of handling the situation. This is a very dark side of employer provided health insurance in systems that don’t really have socialised healthcare.

I do not see how US voters’ representatives not voting for taxpayer funded healthcare, or at least not removing the tax advantage for employer subsidized health insurance is under Apple’s purview.

It’s not, it’s the systems fault. Cutting off access to healthcare is potentially devastating and it seems incredible to me that an employment dispute could end up preventing someone getting healthcare.

True, this isn't caused by Apple per se, but the threat of terminating someone's health insurance coverage is coercive, and companies can choose how to play that card.

In the organization I work with, we commonly offer to pay COBRA premiums for several months for employees whose behavior appears to be in the context of a mental health crisis, yet they persist in engaging in threatening behaviors and would rather separate than take medical leave.

This unfortunately is related to the lack of insight that is common during symptom exacerbations of serious mental illness, but we feel it is our last option to try to A) help the person recover even if they don't work with us anymore and B) hopefully help attenuate any threat they may pose to themselves or our organization.

> we commonly offer to pay COBRA premiums for several months for employees whose behavior appears to be in the context of a mental health crisis

How often is this happening? Or are you in a massive organisation?

Approx 20K employees, and I think this probably only happens <10x a year. "Commonly" is in the context of employees that are subjects of our formal threat assessments. These are individuals that we have recommended that they take medical leave in lieu of separation, but opt not to.

She's a sociopath.

Source: she thinks it's okay to take a creep-shot of a colleague's computer screen and post it on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1426572384736202758

Ashley "caught" her officemate doing something naughty, y'all.

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In the OP thread she complains the Superfund site hasn't been tested for 6 years. What such sociopaths conveniently leave leave out is whether it's a legal requirement to test it within 6 years. It's not. Such tests cannot be conducted on the whim of an employee.

Oh noes, he has ammo at his desk. Come to my state lady, pretty sure everybody but one of the people in my last office open carried.

Look at the window title bar and alignment in that picture. It's photoshopped, and badly.

Worse, the image is clearly photoshopped into the screen.

Look at the scrollbar on the right. It is vertical in the picture, but not parallel to the edge of the screen, defying perspective.

Great detective work! But wait, the scrollbar is parallel to the edge of the screen. Hmm, did you somehow think that edge of the blacked out portion is the edge of the screen?

You can see that the scrollbar is at angle to the text of a background window.

Huh.

Interesting that she chose to be upset about them looking at a diagram of a very old single-shot rifle or shotgun.

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