Comment by wccrawford | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wccrawford | Hacker News Reader

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I once reported something that my boss said to the heads of the company. They sent HR in to take care of it instead. My boss said, "I could get fired for what you said I did." He didn't deny it, just that I could cause him to get fired. I said, "Yeah!" or something similar.

The company's response? I was to talk to my boss first next time before going above his head. For something he did that was (I think) illegal, and clearly not okay. I assume that was so he could sweep it under the rug.

That year, I didn't get a raise, when I normally got rather large raises. I went somewhere else 6 months later and immediately earned 40% more.

I'm not at all surprised that 75% say they faced retaliation.

Give us a hint: was it legal pre-1965?

I’ve heard “HR said we can’t hire any more white men”.

Was that exactly what HR said? Who knows. But it affected that hiring round.

I’ve had friends told that by recruiters.

I worked at a place where the person in charge of hiring for that department passed on a great candidate that was black, not because he didn't like black people IMO, but because he said "if were wrong about him being great, black people are way too hard to fire". That was the only openly crazy racist statement I've really ever heard in a corporate environment.

It may be useful to separate fact and ideology here. I.e.:

(1) Does such a dynamic exist?

(2) If so, what's the right way to deal with that fact during hiring?

It's harder to have a meaningful discussion if those two things are conflated.

The only black person I've ever seen get 'fired' in my work life, actually got paid $20k to leave after threatening to kill two coworkers. When corporate security came down to interview everyone, he started saying he was driven to these extreme feelings because he was passed up for promotions because he was black. In all honesty, he was well below average at his job and was lucky to even remain working let alone get a promotion. But still, he got $20k to leave.

It's definitely unrelated to that, and I'm not even 100% sure it is illegal now.

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