

Statement from Playhaven CEO - tapan_pandita
http://blog.playhaven.com/addressing-pycon/

======
flyinglizard
Playhaven did the cowardly thing by destroying the guy's career as a
preemptive measure for any bad PR they may receive over this. It would take a
very sure minded employer to hire him now, considering the nasty ways this can
be spun by the blogs/media ("Notorious PyCon Attendee Lands A Job With X,
Where Sexual Jokes Are Apparently OK").

Sorry but I don't like it one bit. If PH's CEO had any balls at all he'd make
this guy publicly apologize. Firing someone like this is the easiest solution.
I'm sure Playhaven employees take note of how one of their own has been had a
summary execution. And for the rest of us, Playhaven is now "the company that
fired that guy over a joke".

~~~
rmc
If only there was some way he could have prevented this miscarriage of
justice! Hint: Don't make dick jokes in a professional conference when the con
has a "code of conduct" saying: "don't make dick jokes".

As a more extreme example, The Onion can be too accurate sometimes: "Athlete
overcomes raping someone"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zWLJZw9Ws-g)

~~~
flyinglizard
There are numerous ways this employee could have disciplined without
destroying his career, each and every one of them would have made Playhaven
actually look good coming out of this incident. They could have sent that guy
to volunteer at a woman's shelter or could have donated a part of his salary
for a similar cause (even making a dollar for dollar contribution, it's
pittance and excellent PR) or just put up a public apology.

Instead of taking meaningful action, they've distanced themselves as quickly
and as crudely from this situation, while destroying this man's career without
giving it a second thought.

I'm not defending this man - although I belong to the part of the population
that's more likely to make such jokes at a professional convention than to be
bothered by them - I am condemning Playhaven.

And you know what, it's not even about Adria. She's taking undue fire here;
she's a social person with a job focused around social media, and as such it
is understandable why she uploaded this picture in the first place. Some
people shoot their food, some others take photos what they deem as bad
behavior in public (after all if she pictured someone acting lewdly at Walmart
no one would have said a thing). She's not the bad person here, although I
don't think I'd get along very well with her.

Nope, the only one I can blame squarely at the unneeded escalation of this
story is Playhaven CEO, for choosing the easiest way out. How very corporate
America.

~~~
rmc
_They could have sent that guy to volunteer at a woman's shelter_

"Hey women who were abused! We'd like this guy who thinks dick jokes are OK in
professional contexts to come and help all those rape and violence victims you
have. That's cool, right?" Yeah. not going to happen. Think your suggestions
through.

We don't know the full situtation, perhaps all these responses have already
been done? Maybe there are other reasons at play aswell?

~~~
jiggy2011
To be fair, a woman who had been beaten by an abusive husband or whatever
might not think a guy who likes dick jokes is such a monster in comparison.

~~~
rmc
_Highly_ unlikely. You're just saying things without doing any research.

Have you ever read feminist blogs / writings? They'll often prefix text with a
"trigger warning" (or TW) to alert readers if this text needs to talk about
violence or sexism or racism etc. This is because some people might be
"triggered" and have strong negative emotional reactions to some things. (cf.
<http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Trigger_warning> )

Given that, it's highly likely that making dick jokes and especially claiming
"It's OK, I'm not as bad as the man who beat you!" to excuse said dick jokes,
is a sure fire way to get your head kicked in in some places.

~~~
jiggy2011
People will kick your head in because you made a dick joke once?

~~~
rmc
Context!

If you go to a battered women's shelter, make lots of demaning-to-women jokes,
and then say it's OK because, "hey! at least you didn't beat them!", then yes,
you might get some people really annoyed.

I mean, it's like the start of Die Hard, with the "I hate N __ __*s" sign in a
black area. What do you think'll happen?! Imagine going into a gay bar and
making jokes about gay people. What do you think'll happen?

~~~
jiggy2011
The guy made a fairly tame dick joke to his mate at a programming conference,
it doesn't logically follow that he would walk into a woman's shelter and
start making misogynistic remarks.

~~~
rmc
I never said he would, and I doubt he would people aren't that stupid. But I
didn't bring it up

------
loudin
This is a very silly situation. Someone made a joke about a dongle and got
fired. Another person posted that she was offended about the said dongle joke
and it's flared up into a massive discussion about gender in tech.

Here's the bottom line - if such a tame joke can have this large an effect and
warrant this type of a knee-jerk reaction from the tech community, our
conception of gender equality is seriously fragile.

Better discussions about sexism in the workplace could revolve around the lack
of female leadership, sexist working environments, an overabundance of male
developers, company roles that appear to be gender-specific, etc.

We are so wrong on the major issues that we want to make the full situation as
easy to digest as a dongle joke and a tweet.

It's far more complex than that. And this is the only thing I'm going to say
about the situation because we all look like children for addressing this.

~~~
rmc
One problem is that for every joke like this that was reported there are often
many many more that aren't.

~~~
claudius
Many more unreported jokes would only be a problem if said jokes were a
problem. So far, I have not seen a conclusive argument why such a joke would
be a problem.

~~~
rmc
Listen to women. Some of them talk about feeling uncomfortable when there are
loads of dick jokes.

I mean this isn't the 1960s anymore. The rest of the professional world has
moved on and knows that dick jokes are bad for a professional environment. Why
is this such a hard thing for people in tech?

~~~
claudius
I feel uncomfortable around openly religious people. I also tend to feel
uncomfortable around people engaging in meaningless chitchat or when people
ask meaningless questions (‘How are you?’ being one of my favourites in this
regard). I don’t try to get people fired for wearing a crucifix, nor do I burn
chatting people at a stake.

------
nodata
This statements leaves more questions open than it answers, it's also self
contradictory.

"This employee was not Alex Reid, who is still with the company and a valued
employee." - why was the other guy not a valued employee?

"..we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting
ways.." - or "you can't have all the facts"

"we hope to move forward with a civil dialogue based on the facts." - which is
not possible because we don't have them all.

~~~
jiggy2011
To be fair, it's right that they keep the public information relatively light.
If I was fired by an employer I wouldn't want them writing blog posts about
why they did it. Especially when it's just some random dude who got fired.

~~~
nodata
True, but it's wrong to state that they are open to discussion only amongst
people who hold all the facts, which they also state they are not going to
give out.

------
kayoone
I know many guys (including me) that could possibly have said the same things
joking around. I also know alot of girls that like to joke around in similar
ways about guys. Is that sexcism ? Should people loose their job about stuff
like that ? Absolutely not.

I get that it might be hard to draw the line, but come on, we're all human
after all, this clearly didnt overstep the border and the guy apologized.

~~~
rmc
_Is that sexcism ?_

Yes. Stop sexualising professional conferences.

~~~
mootothemax
_Yes. Stop sexualising professional conferences._

Exactly. If you're in a professional environment, behave professionally.

~~~
kayoone
It was a private conversation that somebody happened to listen to though.

~~~
rmc
It's not that black and white. They were at a public conference surrounded and
within earshot of many people they may not have known.

If you're at home, then that's private and you can get naked. But you can't do
that _anywhere_ at a conference. The conference is 'mostly public'.

------
csmattryder
Doesn't the American Constitution have that 'freedom of speech' amendment?

I'm British, so American culture is alien to me, but I've always had the view
that you can say whatever you want.

People have shouted how Hitler did no wrong, and people have cried how x, y
and z people should be put on a plane to another country, but when someone
overhears a private conversation containing technical terms (that if you're
pedantic enough to take as a joke) you get persecuted; professionally shot by
firing squad at dawn.

This is super surreal, you'd get laughed out of the room if the same events
happened in the UK (and probably most of Europe).

~~~
jiggy2011
Well freedom of speech legislation just guarantees that the government cannot
prosecute you as a criminal for saying something. It doesn't mean that a
private company cannot fire you or a conference cannot ask you to leave etc.

Ironically in the UK we actually do have laws that can potentially make you a
criminal because you insulted someone. <http://reformsection5.org.uk/>

~~~
rmc
_Well freedom of speech legislation just guarantees that the government cannot
prosecute you as a criminal for saying something._

Which is funny because some US states have laws that criminize you for saying
something about someone, even if it's true!
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#Criminal_defamation_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#Criminal_defamation_3)

------
RobertHoudin
Well that was a circumlocutory way of saying, "We got scared by the prospect
of negative press and our knee-jerk reaction was to fire someone."

------
jcc80
In other news, productivity begins to pick back up at Playhaven as employees
are just about finished scrubbing their social media accounts. Rest assured,
all references to forking repo's, dongles and other "gender equality" issues
have been removed.

The biggest losers here are Playhaven & SendGrid. The dev who made the silly
joke will get another job and Adria successfully raised her profile and will
get more speaking gigs.

------
steve19
A great way to destroy company moral. I would never work for a company or ceo
like that. Even if this was "the straw that broke the camels back", I don't
see how this incident was a straw let alone a feather.

I wish this ceo and the blogger would just admit they overreacted.

------
claudius
> dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior

Linking a sexual comment (‘big dongles’, possibly forking) to gender equality
implies the assumption of a necessary link between sexuality and different
genders since ‘gender equality’ wouldn’t make sense otherwise. You are hence
grossly discriminating against homosexuals and dismissing the efforts of the
gay community not to be oppressed at the workplace. In other words, you are
not only against freedom of speech in private circles, but also utterly
homophobic.

If you find slight exaggerations, please feel free to reuse and recycle them
:-)

~~~
mtrimpe
I find it very hard to find the link between this and homophobia. Could you
try to explain it in more detail perhaps?

~~~
claudius
I also find it very hard to find the link between this and sexism.
Nevertheless, the reasoning goes as follows:

If a sexual joke is classified as sexism, it necessarily requires a link
between sexuality and gender[1], since otherwise, a joke about sexuality could
not have any effect on gender, hence could not be sexist[0]. But by linking
sexuality and gender, you imply that there is no sexuality within one gender,
since otherwise you could not make the leap from ‘sexual’ to ‘gender’. By
assuming that all sexuality is inter-gender, you ignore intra-gender
sexuality, i.e. homosexuality.

Yes, this is an exaggeration and I usally don’t care at all what you think/say
of/about my sexuality and would furthermore prefer a society where everybody
can say whatever the hell they want and if people find that offensive, it
would be their own fault rather than the fault of those on whom they
eavesdropped. But this whole sexism debate really annoys me, so apologies for
that.

[0] Where I use ‘sexist’ in the meaning of ‘generally treating different
genders differently and/or specifically dismissive of one gender’.

[1] I hate the word ‘gender’, but saying that you imply a link between sex
(the activity) and sex (the property) might be slightly confusing.

~~~
mtrimpe
I initially thought you were trolling but it's clear that your response,
although one I strongly disagree with, does have solid reasoning behind it.

If you're looking for actual counterpoints; I'm an LGBT man and I support
Adria for her _right to be offended_ about these statements, which I feel is
all that's truly at stake here.

~~~
claudius
The difference between sarcasm and trolling might sometimes be rather
subjective, sorry.

I agree with you that people are allowed to be offended, but I also think that
people should be allowed to offend – if we tried to never offend anybody, we
wouldn’t get anywhere[0]. I take it it depends on your personal values whether
you think that free speech is more important than feeling well, but I hope we
can nevertheless agree that it is neither possible to never offend anyone nor
is it wise to always offend everybody. Things are unfortunately rarely as
black and white as we would like them to be.

[0] <http://abstrusegoose.com/47>

------
_pmf_
> We believe in the importance of discussing sensitive topics such as gender
> and conduct

Is that so? Because judging from your concrete actions, one would be led to
presume that the preferred course of action is to do anything to prevent such
a discussion.

> as a company that is dedicated to gender equality

So, I noticed your leadership list (10 people) does not mention any females. I
don't assume you are sexist; there probably just aren't that many competent
ones that are fit for the break-neck business of peddling templated casual
games.

> In that spirit, I would personally like to hear your thoughts and concerns.

I, too, like to judge people based on hearsay; fortunately for the general
public, I don't have the power to let my fear of public opinion affect the
lives of those who depend on my rational judgement of situations. It's too bad
that a CEO position does not come with a spine and a pair of testicles.

------
thegyppo
I dunno, seems like the firing is more to seem like they are "doing the right
thing" I personally don't think someone should be let go over comments that
are part of a private conversation. It was fine for Adria Richards to make
sexist jokes on Twitter yet SendGrid firmly stand by her as a company.

Playhaven should have done the same.

------
mootothemax
If you're at a conference, you should behave professionally; you're not down
the pub, or out with your friends. It's as simple as that.

Hearing stories like this is both tiresome (what do you mean this is still
happening?!) and embarrassing; it makes male IT workers look like a bunch of
poorly-socialized teenagers.

~~~
jiggy2011
That's true, but OTOH I used to work for a very conservative bank with all
kinds of policies on diversity, sexual harassment etc but people would still
make remarks like "tee hee, he said dongle" without worrying about being fired
or posted all over the internet.

~~~
mootothemax
_people would still make remarks like "tee hee, he said dongle" without
worrying about being fired or posted all over the internet._

I'd like to emphasize I'm not a fan of public naming-and-shaming.

That said, just because something was accepted elsewhere - or barely tolerated
- does not mean that it is acceptable behaviour.

------
senthilnayagam
thorough investigation and firing within 24 hours, did it happen over phone,
email or face 2 face?

~~~
bioinformatics
SMS pobably, and twitter like the original incident.

------
newDate
I fail to see what "gender equality" has to do with what happened. What I do
see however is a company that will fire their own over the slightest chance of
not being deemed 'sexist' by the deluded few with a saviour complex in our
community.

~~~
rmc
One problem with many conferences is sexualised content that treats women as
passive objects in sex. Only one form of sex is shown, and it's the man
conquring the woman. As a result many tech conferences have started out to
outright ban sexual content at events like this to counter that.

------
buro9
There's a difference between going on your own, paying for your ticket, and
being anonymous... and going on the company's dime, as an ambassador for the
company, wearing the company T-shirt.

I saw the photo (as I'm guessing most have), and it was very obvious that they
were representing the company. I'd have been pissed too... they shouldn't be
sailing so close to the wind that there was even potential for the kind of
"he-said, she-heard" that has happened.

I don't fault Playhaven for firing someone who hasn't represented them in the
manner they expect when that staff member is on their dime and acting on their
behalf.

------
jamespo
"We're hiring" link to the right

~~~
alexlarsson
They should change it to "We're firing".

------
jessaustin
I think it's relevant that when I examine Playhaven's site, the "Leadership"
sidebar features twelve different individuals in various leadership positions,
none of whom are women. Balanced recruiting in this industry is difficult of
course, but they don't appear to have made much of an effort in this area.
They probably know they've allowed themselves to be vulnerable not just to
public criticism but also to concentrated advocacy and perhaps even legal
action. Their rash actions concerning their former employee don't require any
complicated explanation like "what _else_ has this bastard done to deserve
getting fired?"; they're probably just praying no one notices what a culture
of discrimination they've created.

How many of the mosaic of "United Colors" pictures they imply are employees
are actually stock photos? Why has a games company handicapped itself so much
in developing products for half of the games-playing population? When will
Playhaven promote its first woman to a leadership position? Would a woman have
made the same stupid firing decision this sausage-party of an executive team
made?

[edit: <http://www.playhaven.com/team> is the page I'm referencing. In case it
changes, I see the following names listed under "Leadership": Andy Yang,
Michiel Frishert, Jason Liu, Charles Yim, Ville Heijari, Brian Doxtator, Brian
Howell, John P. Joseph, Sutton Trout, Zach Phillips, Thomas Gieselmann, and
Hany Nada]

~~~
ktsmith
> they're probably just praying no one notices what a culture of
> discrimination they've created.

You are trolling right? Or did you really infer all of that from a web page.

~~~
jessaustin
It's not about what I infer. It's about what is inferred by disadvantaged
parties and their advocates, especially once the stupid remarks of an employee
have focused the attentions of those on the company. Ten different personnel
decisions have been made, for a set of mostly-business-oriented executive
positions (seriously, VPs of Ad, Mark, Biz Dev, and "Pub" Dev plus a _single_
non-S VP of "Product and Engineering"? what kind of tech company is this?) and
in no case could a suitable woman be found? Your Honor, we rest our case.

Besides, this page is the public face of the company, which they choose to
show the public. The semiotics of the "United Colors of Benetton" mosaic is
clear, but it is undermined by the "Leadership" sidebar, under even the most
generous possible reading.

~~~
ktsmith
> Ten different personnel decisions have been made, for a set of mostly-
> business-oriented executive positions (seriously, VPs of Ad, Mark, Biz Dev,
> and "Pub" Dev plus a single non-S VP of "Product and Engineering"? what kind
> of tech company is this?) and in no case could a suitable woman be found?
> Your Honor, we rest our case.

What case? You have zero information about how the personell decisions are
being made within that organization. You don't know when those appointments
were made, nor do you have any information about the composition of the
organization when they were made. All you have is the result which currently
includes all men. Is it plausible that a woman was passed over for one of
those positions? Sure. It's also entirely plausible that the men holding those
positions were the best candidate available to the company at the time the
roles were filled.

> The semiotics of the "United Colors of Benetton" mosaic is clear,

You are taking a mosaic and applying what you want want to find in it. It
certainly isn't clear to me that their intent was to be associated with the
United Colors of Benetton. If anything I looked at it as a weak implementation
of a current design trend in use on tech companies about pages.

You have also failed to address how you came to the conclusion that the
company has a "culture of discrimination." Did you work there? Have you been
to their offices or know someone that worked there? A single page on a web
site is not sufficient evidence to understand the "culture" of a company let
alone to determine that it is discriminatory.

------
thepumpkin1979
So Alex wasn't fired, was mr-hank fired? I wonder, they don't disclose the
name of the guy who was fired.

------
xcasex
bollocks.

------
fatihdonmez
this is personal privacy violation? Two people're just making joke and someone
just listen them and publish on media and then messed up their life!

------
mortov
Sounds like a canned damage limitation quote and not even remotely sincere
(and doubt it is really an accurate reflection of reality either).

Anyway, where is the Sendgrid statement ? Their silence seems to be an
endorsement of Adria's bad behavior (eavesdropping and then public humiliation
via twitter).

I'm astonished that Sendgrid are OK with this.

There are 2 companies here I want to make sure I have no dealings with.

~~~
jcc80
Saw this mentioned in another thread and it's a great point. SendGrid is going
to back her 100%. They now realize, if they didn't before, that they have a
risky employee on their hands - the type that would sue them and make a huge
public spectacle (comparing herself to Joan of Arc, etc). They need to keep
that bomb from going off and eventually she'll move on to focus fully on what
she's passionate about.

 _@adriarichards Black people CANNOT be racist against White people. Racism is
a position of the oppressor who has the power_ \-
<http://i.imgur.com/ou8JZVu.jpg>

------
CallingIit
As told in the prophesy, forever more Playhaven became known as the 'Dongle'
joke guys rather than whatever they do. And for every conference they attend
in the future they shalt be asked by the lowly what was said and if they over
reacted.

