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I'm astonished this is as high as it is.

> did she try to talk to her harassers directly before going to a manager?

There are a huge number of reasons why you should not be expected to do this. The harasser can be in a position of authority, for example. Even separately to that (and i understand this is a reducio argument, but..) would you ask an abuse victim to speak to their abuser? No, they go straight to the police.

> HR is not your friend; it's one of the stakeholders' defense lines.

This is a problem that needs fixing, rather than a status quo that needs defending.

> When you have weeks, months, in some cases, I think it is all right to expect decisions from anyone.

I report an assault. Do I suggest to the police how they should investigate and prosecute this assault? No. The victim reports the behaviour, but other parties should determine how to investigate and proceed with that report.

> This is embarrassing - but there are people out there who lie. Especially these days, with the problems of fake news, it's easy to get suspicious.

Sometimes, yes, people do lie, but each complaint of any nature should be treated confidentially so reports of abuses like this can be made without fear of repercussion.

In the (very unlikely) event of the victim being untruthful, the matter should be dropped, not blow back on the reporter -- or nobody will report real problems for fear of being unfairly punished themselves.

> s/women/people

This didn't need to be said. The author is talking about her experiences of harassment as a woman in technology. Yes, there are other problems that also need solving. This isn't the hill on which to make this point.

> > HR is not your friend; it's one of the stakeholders' defense lines.

> This is a problem that needs fixing, rather than a status quo that needs defending.

Ah, but it's not a gendered problem, and outside of gender laws, there's not much you can do to "fix" something nebulous like this in corporate America.

> This is a problem that needs fixing, rather than a status quo that needs defending.

This is not a problem that can realistically be fixed. An organization that's going to work for the best interests of employees cannot be paid by the company, nor can it report to the company or someone with whom the company has significant influence. That means unions.

sigh - but management can do a better job managing and if victims know what or how to recognize problems, they can be better prepared to deal with the situation more effectively. which is the point of this piece.

"In the (very unlikely) event of the victim being untruthful, the matter should be dropped, not blow back on the reporter -- or nobody will report real problems for fear of being unfairly punished themselves."

What? Apparently, being untruthful about reporting harassment could result in the untruthful reporter being _unfairly_ punished?

Sounds like an all-win situation. Report harassment, true or not. If it helps your lot in life/work, great. If not, even if proven false, it gets dropped, non-consequentially. After all, it would be unfair to punish you...

I think kalleth was saying that _fairly_ punishing an untruthful reporter could discourage future _truthful_ reporters as they may fear being _unfairly_ punished.

> There are a huge number of reasons why you should not be expected to do this.

When you get attacked in the street, talking is the first thing you should do. When you are harassed by a teacher in class as well. You always need to talk to the person attacking you unless it's too dangerous to do so. It may fail, but if you don't do it, you basically give up your ability to act.

> This didn't need to be said

This does need to be said. There is a high focus on making everything about gender these days, and it's very detrimental. It makes people focusing on specifics, instead of global issues. Worst, it usually focus on fighting against something instead of empowering the victims, which needs to be done for long term results.

> each complaint of any nature should be treated confidentially so reports of abuses like this can be made without fear of repercussion.

That's actually very hard to do, but it's true it would be the ideal call.

I did confront them and ask them to stop, but I still had to work with them, and they didn't entirely stop .. Unless you expect women to have taken Harassment 101 as a college course, they are really flying blind with this one .. when more than one person is involved or supervisors are involved, it's not that easy to say oh here, let me pull so many people into HR .. legalities aside, it's the end of a happy working relationship ..

I have been in adversarial relationships at my workplace that took a huge toll emotionally and eventually physically, just as you described. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I think it's good that you are talking about it and hope you recover - I still get stressed just thinking about those situations, years later.

I did learn the hard way how to deal with it, which I think is mostly about attitude. I think part of your ordeal was that you had certain expectations from the people around you, and a lot of the grief was having those broken. So first of all, I guess you get a little more realistic (or disillusioned...) about workplace relationships, leadership and company policies. Sad as it may sound, loss of innocence and thicker skin will help the next time.

Second thing is to nip things in the bud and not let anything fester. At this point I will straight up confront anyone if I feel treated unfairly and not let it rest. More often than not this solves the situation. If not, I will move on. Life is too short to stick around and being miserable somewhere, as long as you have the freedom not to.

It sounds from your writing like you've already learned these lessons, but I just wanted to share my experiences.

Workplace abuse is definitely a massive problem. Like personal relationships, it isn't something that the abused party can simply walkaway from without a major impact on their own life.

I would guess a double digit percentage of jobs globally are abusive. A big chunk of which wouldn't even qualify as consensual employment - either through unpaid slave labor or misleading information about wages and work conditions.

There needs to be more transparency about employment and the people involved in them. I think we will eventually see something like LinkedIn but which provides both positive and negative feedback about people and doesn't require a user to sign up for a profile to exist.

There is a hard question as to where to draw the dividing line. Without robots, some jobs are just abusive - period. Many jobs lower the life expectancy of the workers, and I suppose the alternative would be (without robots) that no one does them. In the West we kind of get to firewall ourselves off from this, and we get to use, sell, or consume the product after all of the dirty work is done. At the minimum, reducing non-consensual employment will help push the true economic costs of produced goods closer to reality and eliminate the market forces which benefit non-consensual labor (basically cheating.)

In terms of adversarial work environments, which if not addressed can easily become mutually abusive, no matter what the policies of a company are, the fired workers are going to end up working somewhere else. A big company like Apple may be capable of implementing ideal processes and eliminate those workers, but what happens at the next company they show up in? Should an employment blacklist exist at the federal level, or should employers only allow known abusive employees just to work in isolation?

I recently joined a new team and company, and the senior person became threatened by me (I am stronger and would have become the tech lead), and he started bullying me. I switched teams. It cost me time and reputation. I didn't know what else to do, since bullying is a covert aggression and designed to be felt but not witnessed (e.g., he arranged a group after-work get together, in front of me, without asking me the newcomer to join). People don't believe when you point out that someone is aggressing unless it is overt. You get all of the asinine replies that people are writing to your article here. My company gets to reap the reward though: they have someone that is protecting his position of poor performance through bullying, causing us to lose users due to his buggy product, and since he is friends with the management, they don't seem to understand his poor performance.

BTW, good article, kudos for publishing it, and you are correct to have those feelings.

> The only thing I miss from the article: did she try to talk to her harassers directly before going to a manager? Maybe I misread something but it seems like this did not happen, yet this should always be the first step.

I understand where you're coming from. But... there should be no need for one adult to educate another that bad behavior is unacceptable.

Hi! I know you enjoy punching me from behind when I'm doing my work, but could you please stop?

The larger issue is that (like most companies) actually doing anything is secondary to management politics. Protecting the bureaucracy is the #1 goal.

thank you :-) i think that is the point of the article .. we are in a chicken and egg situation here .. no one believes women when they say there are problems and hence there is no progress ..

> no one believes women when they say there are problems and hence there is no progress ..

There are huge public awareness campaigns around all of these issues.

Yes, and for good reason :-)

So when people say no one believes women when they say there are problems, and at the same time, there are huge public awareness campaigns, I have to point out the inherent contradiction involved.

Everything I see in the media is that there are not only huge awareness campaigns, but that when something does happen, there are also huge outcries about it.

look at the skeptics in this thread as an example .. does it give you a warm and fuzzy ? this is a stressful thread to read.

We are complete strangers to the situation, we are only hearing one side of the story, and now we're the bad guys because we don't take 100% of what you said for granted?.

I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, as sexism is undoubtedly a real issue in our society and our industry, but every other comment I read of yours makes it ever closer to a textbook case of a baseless accusation made to get back at someone you didn't like, and I'm ready to be conclusive about this. Do you realize how much this impacts all future cries for help from women being grossly mistreated because of their gender? My SO is going into engineering and it boils my blood to think how much people are willing to abuse the system until she can no longer be protected by it and we're back to the 1950's.

I'm afraid that HR protection of corporate interests is only tangentially related to sexism and racism. Even if you banished racism and sexism from the earth, that HR machinery will still be doing everything in its power to build a paper trail narrative against you should you make the company uncomfortable in any way.

Isn't a logical extension of having a company be responsible to shareholders, that it shall optimize for no lawsuits, as they're very pricy and damage the brand more than a blog post?

> there should be no need for one adult to educate another that bad behavior is unacceptable.

In a perfect world, where each and every one of us is aware of each and every culture around the world, this is true. Right now, we are in the middle of a process, where we encounter with culture we never dealt with before.

In some societies the boundaries for certain acts - such as personal space, physical contact, etc - is completely different to others.

Therefore I do believe talking could solve a small percentage of situations, which one considers harassment. ( Not the one in the article. )

And the thing about questioning, I understand innocent until proven guilty, but putting the onus of everything on the victim is pretty unfair ..

I agree with you. I definitely wouldn't trust an employee's accusations without a proper investigation, but contacting the alleged abusers and reminding them to behave professionally doesn't seem to be a problem. Especially since (in general) they might be unaware of the effect their behaviour has on you!

No, actually, it's not. You're accusing someone of something very serious that puts their livelihood at stake. You need to have proof in that situation. It's a very intense and emotional experience, but that doesn't mean everyone needs to automatically assume the alleged victim is being honest.

And that's what makes victims think 100 times before making a formal allegation .. and why most don't report it.

What does? The necessity that you should actually show something is occurring before a company destroys someone's reputation and livelihood? Reality is that people lie. Do you genuinely believe that an accusation should be taken as 100% truth simply on one person's word? Do you not see how easily that become a weapon? Even reprimanding a person, when there's no proof they've done anything wrong, establishes a bias against them. That's a great way to alienate an employee who may have done nothing wrong, not to mention opening the thread of legal repercussion.

Why can't a formal investigation happen anyways in an anonymous fashion? It takes the concerns seriously and also doesn't automatically assume I'll intent on either side. I don't see the point in dismissing op and assuming someone accused of harassment is the first person that needs protection and support over people who are concerned they are being harassed to the point they make complaints about it...

An anonymous formal investigation absolutely should happen. The OP seems to arguing that you shouldn't even question someone who claims they are being harassed, and that is what I take exception with. Both people in the situation should be treated as innocent until there is proof otherwise.

There is a difference between questioning someone and proceeding with the investigation to ascertain proof and actions if necessary. One assumes there are concerns that need to be looked into, the other one implies the accuser is lying ... the former is good faith and the latter is dissuading someone from proceeding.

it should happen, but the company can either encourage it or discourage it .. and that stance is important ..

Yes, but consider the opposite scenario, where the onus is placed on the accused. Virtually every situation would be a nightmare to deal with; careers would be ruined on false allegations, and eventually accusers would lose credibility. I understand where you are coming from, and I do empathize with your situation and believe that Apple should have done more, but I'm firmly in the camp that the onus of proof should be on the accuser while also firmly believing that the accusers claims should be taken very seriously.

to be honest, women's careers are ruined far more than men. how many men do you know who have been ostracized ? trump is president for crying out loud.. and ailes is happily working for him..

anyway, i only said the company needs to encourage investigations and reporting, not discourage them. this has nothing to do with people at all - it is the company's attitude that i am talking about.

I disagree slightly - having been in management and having dealt with multiple harassment issues, the responsibility of the target of harassment is to report it, and it is the management's responsibility to investigate even handedly. As outside observers, we need to try to restrain ourselves and refrain from brash judgements.

Harassment situations like these can be difficult to talk about publicly for a number of reasons; respecting the privacy of all parties involved, readers' natural tendencies to issue a judgement, and so on. My take has always been that anonymized public stories like these are mostly as awareness raising not specific accusations - the emphasis is on the difficulty of the experience, not really trying to bring a specific person to justice (usually, of course there are exceptions). I do think that, if the reader is receptive, such stories are useful for helping to understand what this sort of thing looks like and what someone who is targeted by harassment is going through and perhaps provide suggestions to those who can help on how to help.

But as for placing guilt itself, I'd suggest that's not the business of stories like this or the business of those reading it. Even when you are in a position where it is your responsibility to address an issue of harassment, getting the story in a fair way is very difficult, and it's really unpleasant for everyone involved. Those who are responsible for others of course need to get over the discomfort of such discussions and work to resolve the issues, whether it's by correcting behavior or helping to explain misunderstandings, which can still be hurtful even if they are not meant to be.

It is unfortunate though understandable why many businesses take a handsoff position out of fear of legal reprecussions, since such actions just make the entire thing worse. Pretending it's not happening doesn't help anyone, whether it's based on a misunderstanding or not.

edit: changed onus to "responsibility of" since I cross posted mentally from a different discussion

In this context, "No, actually, it's not" is not a particularly civil way to make this point. The valid concern you're raising would not be hard to express in a good-faith way. I think we can all agree that there are multiple concerns and it's not obvious how to balance them.

The fact that you led with "No actually" instead, and ended by imputing a strawman ("everyone needs to automatically assume") gives your comment an absence-of-good-faith quality that we should all be striving to avoid on HN—particularly when the topic is divisive.

I'm sorry if I've violated some set of community standards. I personally find this article rather distasteful and lacking in details. The cultural signaling strewn throughout it come off as an attempts to raise an angry internet mob against a company based on what is very clearly a bias representation of the situation. This sort of manipulation and axe-grinding is not something I see as being in particularly good faith, so my distaste for it colored my comments.

I tried to make sure I wasn't attacking anyone, but rather the ideas presented. I'll keep your guidance in mind if I find myself making such comments again.

what about the livelihood of the victim ? is that not at stake because of someone else's misbehavior ?

Curious as to your thoughts on official corporate surveillance on employees in context of this sort of she said/he said situations.

If things happen in places that have cameras, maybe it is helpful. But otherwise ? These things just happen - they cannot really be anticipated.

There are no labor unions any more; those are the ones that would actually care about your wellbeing.

Actually labor unions tend to protect people accused of sexual harassment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/nyregion/found-to-have-mis...

In fact they seem to be legally obligated to advocate for all union members, which would include the people doing harassing.

> did she try to talk to her harassers directly before going to a manager? Maybe I misread something but it seems like this did not happen, yet this should always be the first step.

How do you support this statement? It doesn't strike me as a given and you don't really back it up at all.

> s/women/people Harassment get target _anyone_

But does it target everyone _equally_ ? Of course not, far from it. This is why we pay attention to the groups that get targeted a lot.

> Please don't make harassment part of the gender wars.

Assuming that it isn't already.

but by targeting harassment properly you'd help all the groups at the same time.

Isn't that basically the ""everyone should get their fair share" argument?

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3du1qm/e...

thanks for the link, it was a nice read. i still have a problem with this:

> Saying "target all harassment" is dismissing the very problems that the phrase is trying to draw attention to

the problem is harassment. not just women harassment, not just racial harassment. isn't it just as dismissive to say "focus on these kinds of harassment, everybody else will just have to wait because they can consider themselves lucky enough to even be white males"?

they key bit is "targeting harassment properly". of course dismissing is not proper handling.

> But does it target everyone _equally_ ?

LOL, wat?

Each and every case is unique, there is no equal in this.

I even gave an example, which has happened to me, to friends, to my wife equally...

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. The point that I am trying to make is along these lines: http://www.vox.com/identities/2016/12/8/13882562/online-hara...

Saying "it happens to everyone, it's not gendered" is ignorant at best.

From article above:

> yes, people disagree and are jerks. But they also tend to be much bigger, nastier jerks to women, people of color, and folks in other marginalized groups. Women and people of color can shrug off harassment too, of course, and often do. But they also tend to face more, and more vicious, attacks

"Women .. face more attacks" is what I mean by not equal. "More", meaning "not an equal amount".

What you're saying may feel and sound rational. But it is victim blaming.

No, it's not.

I was asking questions and stating a few thing I made as mistakes - HR as someone to turn to -.

Congrats, you've assigned an arbitrary label to his questions. Labeling arguments is not the same as refuting them.

Now, is he incorrect? If so, why?

You can tell somebody about how the bribery system works in another country after they've fallen victim, but that doesn't mean you think they own the blame for a foreign country's bribery issues.

And, if something is a serious issue, like HR motivations to build a case against you no matter what, then people should say it out loud.