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Comment by niggler | Hacker News Reader

She is not sorry for what she said, and that's fine. That's her prerogative. I take issue with people blaming her for the company firing the guy. She didn't accuse them of a felony or other crime. She pointed to what she thought was inappropriate and the employer overreacted.

I'm frankly saddened that the discussion about the employment circles her and not the employer. Few are asking why, if the joke were so trivial (I also happen to think the joke was rather silly and personally didn't take offense), the employer decided to fire him.

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> I'm frankly saddened that the discussion about the employment circles her and not the employer.

This definitely shows that PlayHaven does not have their employees backs, but for me at least:

1. PlayHaven is in a tough spot. If they defended their employee, it might look as if they're not being tough on sexism, which the industry is heavily focusing on right now. Perhaps they figured it would be safer to be heavy-handed. Perhaps some form of light punishment (suspension? demotion?) would've been the best approach, but too late for that now.

2. I don't know about others, but I don't expect employers to have my back. The upside of this is that I owe them no loyalty either. In a way, this is already the case. Most employees will leave when a better job comes along. It's certainly to some employers' credit that they protect their own, but it's not expected. (At least not in America. In Japan, this use to be the case, but even so, it's becoming less and less so).

I think the negativity has focused on Adria because she turned a minor complaint into a witch hunt.

>>>> it might look as if they're not being tough on sexism, which the industry is heavily focusing on right now.

Which translates as "we have a political campaign, sorry, little guy, you have to go under the bus, because it is politically expedient to us, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs, you know?". Sounds pretty despicable to me. Then again, no reason to expect them to be an island of virtue in the world, they are no worse and no better than many others.

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