
Google ‘bro culture’ led to violence, sexual harassment, lawsuit alleges - kiyanwang
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/02/23/google-bro-culture-led-to-violence-sexual-harassment-against-female-engineer-lawsuit-alleges/
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dawhizkid
Anyone who has worked at a large company knows that a company with almost 100k
employees could not possibly have a single unified "culture." At that size,
the "culture" you feel on a day-to-day basis is mostly a function of your
manager, the specific team you are on, the office you're in, the floor you're
on, etc., than the company you work for.

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the-dude
I have only just read the Damore legal filing : Google is much crazier than I
had imagined. Keep in mind this is not the regular 100k company : it is a
highly networked company with its own 'Facebook'.

No conservative views allowed.

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gkya
There are no conservative views in that memo, but just mere observations. Then
we watched mob justice in effect, people, some furious some frightened, make
wrong decisions and act in rage. Hopefully one day the peoples of the modern
world will succeed at growing up.

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gkya
I only skimmed the article, so sorry if I'm mistaken, but it's weird that
under such conditions she remained there from 2008 to 2016. Other than that,
if even some of these claims are true, then this is not merely sexual
misconduct, there's something broken about the company's way of working, and
the kind of people it tends to hire. Most of these probably qualify as sexual
harassment, but also are very childish, immature kind of behaviours. Work must
be serious and professional, it doesn't work otherwise, and more so as the
scale of the company grows. Throwing things at coworkers or putting whiskey in
their drinks for a prank? What's Google, a kindergarten?

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Barrin92
>but also are very childish, immature kind of behaviours

the tech industry and many other sectors of the 'knowledge economy' actively
push for this. By removing rules and management from the workplace in an
attempt to muddle people's work and private lifes they are bringing
inappropriate behaviour into the workplace.

This ranges from general lack of oversight to 'clique building' to even
drinking at work, and people who are in a minority have a hard time fitting in
in that environment because it often turns into an informal boys club.

The same thing can be seen in open source communities where testosterone
charged rants on mailing lists seem to be encouraged rather than discouraged.

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gkya
The "work is fun" way of working has diminishing returns, working
professionally and for less amount of time is the way to go. And sack the
adults with an adolescent's brain already. The fun part of the work can only
be the actual satisfactory stuff you're doing, not fucking around like 90's
music videos (but then again in an organisation with upwards of a hundred
thousand people, how much value can an individual produce?).

I believe having people of different genders share the same workspace is very
important. If a given department has too few or no people from one gender,
their space should be merged with one that has some. Add to that a healthy
amount of professionalism and formalism, that's a healthy workspace. In places
where one gender is dominant or the only one, thing can easily get from a bit
too comfy to disgusting (and that holds for women as much as men really).

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blunte
My several year stint with high tech finance (HFT and asset management)
illustrated just how much of a "boys' game" it was. I was never aware of
physical aggression, but there was absolutely a hedonistic power-driven male
culture.

Also, as an American, I was shocked at what was apparently "allowed" in Dutch
culture. They don't suffer from the severity (and frequency?) of lawsuits as
in the US, so there are few things you cannot say out loud to or in front of
colleagues. Or at least that was my experience.

OTOH, I know that more than one of the women who made up a very small minority
at the company appeared to trade their charms for benefits. Not saying this is
good or right, but it did seem there was an exchange of sorts.

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the-dude
I agree we are not sugar coating much : but what was your beef ?

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blunte
My beef is with the mentality that often goes along with money. For some
reasons, people making a lot or handling a lot of money often act superior -
above the law, above the rest of society, and basically above anyone else who
is not in their "echelon". And since most companies, esp finance and tech are
largely run by men, it ends up promoting power and dominance over others -
especially women they desire.

You can look at the current state of global wealth and politics to see the
superiority complex and the above-the-law behavior.

So when dotcom happened, and when it had its resurgence in the Google era,
this bro-culture developed partly due to the money and exclusivity that went
with being a west coast "engineer".

As for Dutch behavior in the office, it's definitely more entertaining and
amusing. But I would not want to be an attractive AND brainy woman in fintech.
Their actual achievements would be inseparable from their looks, perhaps in
the way that a decent rich person has difficulty knowing if the friends
circling around are friends for good reasons or for potential financial
benefits.

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SilverSlash
If the claims are true, I hope she gets tens of millions of dollars as
compensation. The alleged incidents were not only sexual harassment they were
also egregious psychological harassment.

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I_Know_Why
> Lee is seeking unspecified damages in excess of $25,000

This sounds a bit odd to me. I've definitely heard of much bigger settlements
than this for just a single incident, not something that went on for 8 years.
I'm not a fan of the sue-happy culture in this country, and TBH 25000 sounds
more like it ought to be the right ballpark. But standard legal practice is to
have another zero there at the end, isn't it? I guess there are multiple
possible interpretations for this number, some charitable, others less so.

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SilverSlash
I think it just means the author is saying the amount is > $25k

That could very well be 25 million. Correct me if I'm mistaken.

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I_Know_Why
I read it as: somewhere in the $25k-$30k range. If they (the reporter) know
it's >=$25M, then why wouldn't they say that? It makes for a better story the
more money is involved...

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smsm42
Probably because some legal procedure or regulation has a limit of $25K and
treats lawsuits under and over it differently. So if you don't want to
disclose the actual amount, you still will have to disclose the fact it goes
into pile A and not pile B.

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Vosporos
Oh god…

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raister
'Cause I use Ad blocker, I am not entitled to read the piece.

