
Leaked Apple emails reveal employees' complaints about toxic work environment - apu
https://mic.com/articles/154169/leaked-apple-emails-reveal-employees-complaints-about-sexist-toxic-work-environment#.zw8upJ7sg
======
anon54321
Absolute BS. She sent an email to the entire company about this "incident",
which I'll include here (names redacted).

> 8:53:41 AM Person1: so am I the only one who thinks of the Bed Intruder
> auto-tune song everytime Person2 warns us of undisclosed persons in the
> building?

> 8:54:47 AM Person3: hide yo wife?

> 8:54:57 AM Person1: and yo kids

> 8:56:02 AM Person3: well, you're not any more

> 8:56:13 AM Person1: #winning

> 9:02:13 AM Person5: hilarious. Now the song is stuck in my head!

> 9:08:08 AM Person4: -_-

> 9:09:43 AM Person4: No

> 9:11:10 AM Person4: Could do without having songs referencing sexual assault
> mentioned.

> 9:12:04 AM Person1: fair enough

> 9:13:39 AM Person4: Especially joking about it. -_-

> 9:18:25 AM Person4: Does not exactly endear me to working during the day
> when the first thing I see is someone joking about rape in work chat.

> 9:18:46 AM Person1: my appologies

> 9:33:18 AM Person4: It's completely unacceptable, and creates a very toxic
> atmosphere.

> 9:36:45 AM Person1: obviously that wasn't my intention. it won't happen
> again.

> 9:37:24 AM Person4: Compounded by the fact I am the only woman in the [org],
> and I have several guys joking about it as well, in work chat.

> 9:37:32 AM Person4: It would be unacceptable even if that weren't the case.

And then claims to still not feel safe coming back to work after taking a
month off due to PTSD from the above incident.

There is undoubtedly sexism in the tech industry, and we should all strive
towards eliminating it. This, however, is stirring up drama in response to a
joke made in poor taste.

~~~
tanqueray
Person 4's fascist solipsism is astounding. She has transferred the "toxicity"
and "unacceptability"in her own mind onto the whole team.

A song was referred to but there was no actual mention of sexual assault. The
song is not "completely unacceptable" as it is obviously commonly known and
legally sold. It is therefore acceptable in the workplace, referred to as it
actually was.

~~~
flukus
It's also clear that she has listened to the song enough to know the words
too. So she was happy offending herself.

~~~
eli
I'm aware of lots of offensive things that don't belong at work.

~~~
tanqueray
The question here is was what was written in that email offensive and not to
be written in the workplace...

~~~
zaroth
Well, this was a chatroom. I do think it's important to recognize the level of
planning which goes into what someone is saying and adjust expectations
accordingly.

Now that our communication tools are capturing everything we are saying in
real-time, do we truly expect 30,000 people to never make a comment that could
possibly offend someone else?

I do wonder if just reading a comment like this in a company chatroom (along
with an immediate apology) requires taking a month off, if perhaps there isn't
a reasonable accommodation that could be made here to help Danielle be
successful at Apple.

------
zaroth
The time that I worked at Apple was brutally hard work. If we're talking about
work environment, I think many people reading that article have no concept of
how difficult a job it is, how high are the expectations, and how many hours
the average engineer is putting in there.

This is a _very difficult job_ which can be extremely stressful for a long
duration of time. As a society we tend to laud grueling hard work rather than
recognize that it's probably the worst aspect of the work environment by far.

As far as TFA goes... it appears to be reporting on "leaked" emails telling a
one-sided narrative with no attempt to validate the claims. Not to diminish
the claims being made, but I think this is technically called "storytelling".

Taking it a face value though, it seems tame in comparison to other
'scandals'. I simply do not expect that people will constantly remain
professional. They will need to blow off steam, and sometimes the way they do
that will not be fully inclusive, or necessarily politically correct. Yes,
sometimes men actually complain about their wives at work -- this is not
shocking to me. I don't like that employee complaints seem to be poorly
handled; all employees should be valued and listened to at least.

None of what I read in TFA I really understand to be a hostile work
environment, as the term is defined. Is "toxic" supposed to be a new term to
describe feeling uncomfortable or not getting the promotion you wanted?
Apple's work environment is certainly extreme, but I think for reasons very
much apart from gender.

~~~
mthoms
Not to diminish any of the other claims but I found this one to be a bit of an
eye roller -

 _Describing another incident, she wrote, "I was walking back to my cube from
the break room and passed a group of managers exiting a meeting. The Area
Manager told me to smile as I walked past."_ _" While this is a small thing,
it was notable as this is one of the most commonly reported forms of subtle
sexism."_

No matter how hard I try, I can't fathom how that could possibly be construed
as sexist.

~~~
eor
Would you ever say that to a male colleague? Would anyone?

~~~
forgottenpass
_Would anyone?_

Yup. Back when I was dealing with depression, I heard it all the time.

"Smile" and "Cheer up" are still two of the most rage-inducing things anyone
can say to me. It's just one of those things about appearance I have to roll
with. I also don't get to show up barefoot, with no t-shirt and just wearing
boardshorts. So I play along and part of that is acting much happier and more
amenable than I really am.

The main difference is that I don't have people constantly telling me this is
caused by an oppressive societal structure pushing me to conform. (I mean, it
is, but it's not treated as one. I'm certainly not constantly told I need to
be to rejecting. By media that makes me weaker to it, and teaches me to suffer
even harder when effected by those social structures.)

~~~
justin66
> "Smile" and "Cheer up" are still two of the most rage-inducing things anyone
> can say to me.

I'm not dealing with clinical depression but I can see what you mean. If I'm
upset enough about something that it is visible, the last thing I want is
someone telling me to "cheer up."

I guess I'm fortunate never to have worked with the kind of people
(commissioned sales people? politicians? child molesters? I mean, I can't even
imagine) who would notice I'm upset and tell me to "smile."

~~~
forgottenpass
_I guess I 'm fortunate never to have worked with the kind of people [...] who
would notice I'm upset and tell me to "smile."_

It's not only some demanding command to modify your mood, it can be a good
natured suggestion to try and keep your chin up. The person who said it to me
most was my mother.

~~~
justin66
> The person who said it to me most was my mother.

Wow. If you're curious as to why some view it as a condescending thing to say
to a colleague you really could start there.

edit: I'm surprised by your reply... only because it seems incongruous with
the statement I replied to. interesting.

~~~
forgottenpass
_edit: I 'm surprised by your reply... only because it seems incongruous with
the statement I replied to. interesting._

Just because people were well-intentioned didn't make it any less infuriating.
I've gotten it in the "cheer up" sense and the "be more presentable" sense and
the "comply with norms" sense. Not a huge difference in how it feels, non
family ones are a bit easier though.

------
applethrow2
I'm risking a lot here...

Apple employee here:

I only want to provide context. None of us want a toxic environment. We, at
Apple, pride ourselves on the fact that we are accepting of all backgrounds,
nationalities, genders, religions. I, personally, have struggled with ensuring
a diverse set of folks on my team or all backgrounds. We love the fact that
we're helping to lead the industry with regard to diversity. And "Danielle's"
case is unfortunate.

Danielle is of course an alias to protect the original identity. And I
sincerely thank Mic for doing so. In an internal chat, someone made a
reference to the "Hide Your Kids Hide Your Wife" meme about something
technical. But this wasn't the intention of the sender. Danielle, a gay
transgender male, explained that this was an inappropriate reference, the
offender apologized immediately and said that this comment was not to make fun
of rape.

Danielle in this case had a unique set of circumstances that made her
especially sensitive to this kind of comment. And we should all be careful
about what we say. And I completely agree with her that this kind of content
has no place at Apple.

This thread was meant to be forwarded to Tim Cook, but was accidentally sent
to a large internal group. This is how it was leaked.

I wish Mic would release the full emails with names redacted so that you all
would see what was actually said.

The lesson here is: think about what you're saying. Sexual assault destroys
humans.

~~~
huhtenberg
> We, at Apple, pride ourselves on the fact that we are accepting of all
> backgrounds, nationalities, genders, religions.

Reads like a PR boilerplate.

~~~
daughart
Right? Like no one could actually be proud to work in an inclusive
environment.

------
jay_kyburz
Is it just me or is this ultra-political correctness a new and intresting
phenomenon? I'm really interested to watch where it's all going.

Pretty much all jokes are going to offend somebody. You can't ask people to
smile, comment on thier clothes or belongings. You can't interact causally in
the workplace at all.

Perhaps we'll see workplaces where all communication is in writing and on
topic.

Do we want our workplaces where people gather together as friends as they
work, or do we want our workplace relationships to be strictly professional?

I think I would prefer to work in a culture where, if you don't like the
people you work with, you go find a new job. You don't complain, you get over
it or you leave.

(Because even telling me my jokes are offensive is a form of harassment
itself.)

I don't want to work in an office where I can't make friends, tell jokes, or
laugh and enjoy life. Life is too short to sit in a room full of people you
dont' know, don't like, or don't care about.

~~~
dingaling
I spent nearly 20 years working in a Northern Irish company in which in-office
discussion of politics, religion and most sport was banned, on pain of
disciplinary action. On occasion people were asked to stop bringing their
choice of newspaper into the office, too, as this could be construed as a
subtle political signal.

After a few months one adapted to restricting the domain of conversation
without much effort, and the main problem was when we had visits from overseas
staff who would stray into the verboten topics. One became adept at moving the
conversation to safer ground.

~~~
flukus
Politics and religion were particularly touchy in Northern Ireland, but why
sport?

~~~
dnh44
I'm not familiar with the situation in Ireland but in Scotland the Celtic /
Rangers rivalry has a strong religious element to it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Firm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Firm)

------
guessmyname
Why are most of these articles about harassment in the office associated with
American companies? Are women from other countries afraid to speak about this?
Or are American women just overreacting?

In this specific case I understand that insinuating a rape scenario — which by
the way is not against women but _" everybody"_ — in a work environment is
bad, but without knowing what other toxic comments or behavior happened in the
same department where this woman was working, I cannot sympathize. Knowing how
sensitive are people nowadays (specially in the United States) I wouldn't be
surprised if the previous comments were things like _" Man, did you see
[female name]'s dress today? It's so ugly"_. They are probably worse than
this, but again, without knowing the alleged previous incidents I cannot
sympathize with this specific woman.

Also, why did she quit? Why not stay and fight for the rights of her other
female co-workers? If what I understand from this story is correct, the other
women do not report these incidents either because they are afraid of
retaliation, or because they learned how to take (or ignore?) a _(very
stupid)_ joke.

EDIT: On a side note, imagine if the genders were switched. If the people
making the bad _" joke"_ were women, and the person reporting the incident was
a man. He could have reported this to the CEO but do you think the story would
have been published in this website or other? I don't think so. I am glad to
have worked remotely for several years, to avoid these incidents with my co-
workers.

~~~
Blackthorn
> Why are most of these articles about harassment in the office associated
> with American companies? Are women from other countries afraid to speak
> about this? Or are American women just overreacting?

There's some other possibilities too, like it's worse in America than in other
countries.

~~~
smnscu
As someone who's spent a fair bit of time in Germany and Switzerland, lol no.

~~~
Razengan
How bad is it there? Care to share?

~~~
chris_7
Nothing to share on companies, but women couldn't even _vote_ everywhere in
Switzerland until _1991_.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appenzell_Innerrhoden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appenzell_Innerrhoden)

------
Bootbyte
Anonymous throwaway. I believe that more context for the rape joke is
warranted.

At Apple, it's important to cover confidential materials when undisclosed
persons are present. An employee wrote that this process reminded them of the
viral song Bed Intruder [1]: "hide yo wife, hide yo kids."

"Danielle" objected to the joke because the song references sexual assault.
The person apologized and promised to not let it happen again.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_Intruder_Song](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_Intruder_Song)

~~~
daughart
In that case, Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me" seems like a funnier joke
while simultaneously avoiding the whole rape thing.

------
akshayB
Problems like this can happen in any company and this includes Apple as well.
Since Apple is one of the biggest Tech companies people are going to make a
big deal about it.

But it is a big failure if managers/management fail to take actions. The
immediate manager should be fired in this case since he or she failed to take
any action or involve HR or upper management

~~~
rjdagost
Why does it seem like every time someone gets offended about something there
are calls for people to get fired? There are other ways to address workplace
conflicts than to put heads on sticks. As reported in this article, none of
these incidents are grounds for termination- not even close.

~~~
jfoster
I like how Atlassian handled an incident that was different, but also included
calls to fire the engineer:

[http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/06/failing-values-team-
indus...](http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/06/failing-values-team-industry/)

> I know the engineer responsible well. I hired him. I know the slide does not
> reflect his values any more than it reflects Atlassian’s, and he is as
> deeply sorry as we are. It was an error in judgment, but one the company
> shares responsibility for making.

> As Atlassian, we don’t stand behind the slide – but we stand as a team. When
> we do good, and when we do bad. Today, we failed as a team. We will help him
> learn from this, as we all must. Our engineer, our event, our issue, our
> learning, our growing – as a team.

~~~
back_beyond
What was wrong with that slide?

It specifically mentioned "[his] girlfriend". Although potentially cringe-
worthy, there was no generalization. The contents could have been entirely
factual.

------
ManlyBread
Danielle doesn't seem like a person I'd like to work with.

~~~
whamlastxmas
After reading the chat transcript, I would probably quit my job if I had to
work with someone like her. Mentioning a song, get accused of harassment and
promoting rape culture, having coworker take medical leave for a month for
PTSD? Over someone mentioning a song? Wow.

------
e40
Reading stuff like this always feels weird to me. I'm the founder of a 30+
year company and, to my knowledge, this has never happened at my company. It's
possible it happened and no one told me, but given my position, I would think
it would eventually come around to me (I'm the COO now).

I have to wonder if behavior like this follows from bad leadership. I'm not
saying Tim Cook, given the case of Apple, but middle managers. I just cannot
believe that a person above the woman in TFA didn't know about this, and just
let it ride, because it was just "boys being boys" or some BS like that.

I can tell you if I ever saw or heard of anyone doing this in my company, I
would crack down very quick and hard. But more than that, I think the people
we have lead by example and I just can't believe anyone would ever do
something like TFA outlines.

~~~
Pyxl101
The actual transcript of the discussion that "Danielle" objected to has been
posted in this thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12503157](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12503157)

I'd be interested to understand your take on this situation. Does it really
warrant more than the apology that was already provided? It sure seems to me
from the transcript that "Danielle" was going out of her way to find offense.
("Danielle" since not her real name)

~~~
e40
I agree. From the TFA it seemed like it would be way worse than that. To me,
that doesn't rise to the level of creating a hostile work environment.

One thing we don't know about Person4: what led up to this? Was it the last
straw? Was it the first incident (she alleges it's not in the transcript, but
who knows)?

------
redorb
Telling someone to smile feels closer to trying to cheer them up than any
harassment.

~~~
Blackthorn
Don't ever do this to a woman. It's not going to cheer them up. They've been
putting up with that crap their whole lives, and all you accomplish by telling
them that is to add to the load of crap.

~~~
protomyth
Don't do it to a guy either. I've put up with this crap and frankly you are
just another brick in the wall.

People often have resting faces that look unhappy.

------
forthefuture
> Fed up, the woman quit her job at Apple, trading her position at one of the
> world's most iconic companies in favor of a job riding a bicycle.

At least it has a happy ending.

------
MrLeftHand
It's like the penny-arcade d __kwolf joke over again. Or the spiderwoman
crawling pose.

From the article feels like they were joking about everyone getting raped,
including men.

Anyway, rape is a serious crime, no doubt about that and the joke might have
crossed a line.

But were do we draw a line by getting offended or not? These lines are pushed
further out every time and sometimes limiting freedoms.

Also, men can be sexist, that's true, but we are still in a position where
women have an advantage, a powerful tool to call out someone being sexist and
inconsiderate and get that said person into trouble and brand him so his
future prospects are completely destroyed.

Is being offended about a joke enough to cripple someones future and life?

Looks like men always have to be extra careful about what they say and what
they do. I wonder when this whole gender gap won't spill over to become from a
male dominant society to a female dominant one.

It's hard to find equal grounds apparently.

~~~
eli
Rape jokes should not be told at work, period.

~~~
MrLeftHand
Rape goes both ways. Men and women can get raped. Someone telling rape jokes
can be disgusting and inappropriate, but it will stay as a joke.

Agree, a workplace is not a good place to tell these. In fact there might not
be a good place for it.

Also, if we go further down the rabbit hole and say that rape jokes promote
rape, then we can start saying that video games promote violence, etc...

My concern is to have someone getting fired or prosecuted for a joke. Getting
his career broken because of a stupid joke.

You can feel disgusted or even violated, but with the counter actions you can
do more damage to the other person compared to the one you received.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
If you don't want to get fired for making a rape joke at work, there's a
pretty easy solution to that. (Spoiler: it's "don't make a rape joke at
work.")

~~~
MrLeftHand
Ah, now you ruined it for me. I was just in the middle of telling one to
everyone.

------
jsmith0295
"The running joke is Foxconn has nothing on Apple."

Because joking about modern day slavery is so much better! _Especially_ when
they're your slaves.

~~~
exBarrelSpoiler
You'd be surprised what people are willing to put up with, even when they're
not literal slaves. Ben Farrell was just the tip of the iceberg. AAPL is just
AMZN with better press and intra-organizational warfare that puts Ballmer-era
MSFT to shame.

~~~
snarf
Doesn't this sort of stuff happen at every big company? Or is Apple in a
different league?

------
santaclaus
> theoretical foundations of design patterns

There are theoretical foundations of design patterns?

~~~
zaroth
Well, yes, of course there are. A design pattern you just pulled out of your
ass wouldn't make for much of a pattern.

So, that form of expression I just used, I'm just wondering if that one is
still allowed? It seems pretty colloquial, but these things do change over
time.

------
sandworm101
>>> "But this rape joke was the final straw: The next day, Danielle escalated
her complaint about the offense to the very top: Apple CEO Tim Cook."

That isn't the route. In such a large organization, even a very very good and
proper one, such issues are not to be accelerated to the CEO. If you have
thousands, tens of thousands of employees, then complaints like this will and
should be a daily issue (not always a rape joke, but similarly serious
complaints). That's why you have HR and legal departments.

And the next day? Workplace complaints take days or weeks to evaluate. Do not
ever expect answers on the order of a day. In a really horrific situation you
can ask your immediate supervisors for help, such as by transferring the
alleged offenders elsewhere temporary, but do not ever expect heads to roll by
next business day. The more serious the complaint, the more time one must
expect before action is taken.

~~~
ones_and_zeros
What? If you have a grievance HR or legal is the last place you should turn to
as an employee. No matter what your position is it basically starts the
process of getting yourself fired.

~~~
skandl
HR's primary mission is to protect the company from its employees.

~~~
rjdagost
No- HR's goal is to protect the company's best interests. Sometimes this
coincides with an employee's own best interests, and sometimes this goes
against it.

------
cpks
If someone, of either gender, whom I was hiring as a designer, went into
"advanced learning theory and the use of metaphor and semiotics along with the
theoretical foundations of design patterns," my response would be to consider
them non-technical and not hire them.

And "technical," for a designer, means CSS, JavaScript, HTML, and similar.

Most of the examples in the article seemed baked.

------
Eric_WVGG
I know three ex-Apple employees, they all describe it as akin to the film
Office Space.

My theory is that the whole point of the new UFO campus is to jolt the working
environment out of the 1980's. Sort of like replacing, rather than updating,
the Mac Classic OS, in a way.

[am I getting downvoted for knowing people who worked at Apple, or for having
a theory?]

------
daughart
It's almost hard to read the comments on here.

"It's a stressful environment---people have to blow off steam."

"Is X comment really that offensive?"

"Joking around is important to office culture."

"The real damage is punishing people who said the offensive thing when he/she
didn't mean anything by it."

It's really not that complicated. Act professionally at work. Working at a job
isn't easy, but part of the responsibility of work is to _act_ professionally,
and delivering genius code doesn't give anyone a pass to act unprofessionally.
When you feel an impulse to talk or joke about physical appearance, politics,
religion, sex, gender, rape, racial issues, nationality/ethnicity, etc., just
hold your tongue! Or write it in a little book and save it for when you're at
the bar with friends. If you do say something, and inevitably get that little
"I shouldn't have said that" prickle in the back of your brain---simply
immediately apologize and move on! If you don't get that prickle, and a co-
worker or manager says something, just take it at face value that what you
said was not professional, because professional actions never raise the
possibility of personal offense. That is the bare minimum you are required to
do.

If you're a little more social justice oriented, you might even become aware
of the ways women and minorities are treated unfairly, and take special
actions to fix this. Take notice the next time you're in YAAMM -- "yet another
all male meeting" \-- and think about whether there are any women who could
contribute but were not invited. If you hear a good idea, give credit to the
originator when you repeat it. It's actually not that hard.

~~~
forgottenpass
_When you feel an impulse to talk or joke about physical appearance, politics,
religion, sex, gender, rape, racial issues, nationality /ethnicity, etc., just
hold your tongue!_

Going to such extremes to guarantee never offending anyone is a great way to
wind up unhappy and alone at work. It's fine if that's what you want - when I
don't like talking to my coworkers in the first place I happily implement that
strategy.

Chances are that anyone using that strategy and isn't also miserable has a
fair number of unspoken assumptions about acceptable behavior, and isn't
actually using that strategy. They're just slightly more guarded than in their
normal behavior.

~~~
daughart
Don't see how it's going to extremes. I sit at a table with 6 others and
manage a team of 8, have followed this for years and enjoy constant
conversations and have good relationships with all my co-workers. Maybe I just
have a richer personal life than others, and have plenty of other things to
talk about?

~~~
MrLeftHand
OK, sorry but this part...

This was such a self-promoting bs.

Richer life then others? You can't be serious! This is literally offensive to
others. You just contradicted yourself right here.

Good job!

~~~
mwfunk
As crazy as it sounds, yes, it's possible to have positive interactions in
professional settings without making jokes about people's
race/religion/gender/appearance/etc. That's not being PC, that's literally
just being a grown-up.

~~~
MrLeftHand
Oh god, being a grownup. Yeah because grownups are immaculate. They never do
or say anything stupid.

If this were true we would live in a perfect world and we couldn't make any
rape jokes, because rape as a crime wouldn't exist in the first place.

From the article, who was the grown-up? The guy making a mistake by telling
the rape joke and apologizing afterwords, or the lady who literally had a rage
fit about the whole situation and ran directly to Tim Cook and because she
didn't got her way left the company?

So tell me then? Who was the grownup?

And the comment I replied to?

@daughart bragging about having a richer life and acting with a 'holier than
thou' attitude? Literally being offensive! And lecturing us about how not to
be offensive in an office environment?

Really? I bet this is a fun person on parties. Also I would love to talk to
that team of 8. Just asking them how fun it is to work together with a person
like this.

------
chillacy
This stuff happens at almost every tech company. Seems like they're focusing
on Apple to draw pageviews.

~~~
huckyaus
Can you really blame them? The article is a net positive for the industry, and
Mic has covered sexism issues at plenty of companies less prestigious than
Apple.

In any case, I feel that there's little to be gained by questioning their
intentions.

------
zepto
Seems very likely to be true, since it is part of the wider culture.

~~~
jsmith0295
I highly doubt people are frequently being promoted on the basis of gender at
Apple. Whoever was quoted as saying they were didn't really provide any
evidence other than people being selected directly for the job without it
being opened for applications were men, and then used a bunch of buzzwords to
make it sound more dramatic than that.

------
helthanatos
Rape jokes certainly are not appropriate and should not be so common, but that
language is toxic? Side note: women are always wanting to be more "equal" with
men. Maybe they were talking about it so much as a twisted way to include her.

