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Comment by e40 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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I appreciate your comment. Truly, it won't reach you, it will stay stuck in middle management.

To keep something like this from happening you need to implement training. Training for both men and women on what is acceptable "here", because believe it or not, people are not learning from their home or college environments about what you think is acceptable.

Then make yourself, or a senior HR person, available to speak with.

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.

There's a reason that information doesn't make it all the way up the "chain of command".

When you say, "this has never happened at my company." I am curious what you mean by that? The article describes several anecdotes which seem to me to paint a fairly broad brush.

Never at the end of a meeting at your company has an employee joked about their spouse?

Never has someone at your company ever used a violent metaphor to describe losing a sale, or the servers crashing, or learning the release just slipped another month?

Never has someone at your company been passed up for promotion and was upset because they felt that they deserved the job?

Never has someone at your company had to interview a job candidate without proper training on how to run the interview, or proper time to prepare?

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

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)

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)?

Would you fire a person for a joke like this?

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