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ihsw

* Say no.

* Forward copies of emails to the company's leadership/HR department.

* Keep printed copies of the emails handy in case he decides to retaliate with lawyers.

* Keep your own legal counsel on speed-dial.

* Move on with your life.

There's not much you can do from a legal standpoint, with regards to grievance/redress. Escalating the situation through contacting his boss/HR carries a risk, even though you have the moral high-ground, but it could work in getting him punished. Or it could achieve absolutely nothing.

Or he has a long history of this abusive behavior and this is the last straw that will get him ejected from the company for being a serious liability/generally unpleasant.

He has your resume, and he's exhibited awful behavior -- legal counsel should definitely be at your disposal on a moments notice.

Naturally, if it really interests you, you can consult a lawyer to verify whether there are any punitive measures you can apply against him. The OP hasn't indicated that the guy has harassed her per se, so I don't know if she has any legal standing regarding that.

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This is the best advice I've seen. Also I'd like to add,if you can don't escalate to a lawsuit prematurely. A lot of companies avoid hiring a person who files lawsuits against corporations. Its unfair, but its how the real world works. HR exists to protect the company not its people.

I know I mention this a lot on HN, but also read Corporate Confidential to understand how American Corporations and HR really works.

It seems to me that informing HR, and telling him no (and why) is enough. I most certainly would not initiate a lawsuit over something like this. It was inappropriate and unprofessional; don't respond with something over the top, which is unprofessional in a different way.

But I'm male, and have literally never been harassed at work over anything (not gender, age, race, religion, sexual orientation, facial hair, choice of editor... nothing), so what do I know?

Indeed, I'm not advocating filing a lawsuit, however notifying his employer of the situation does carry risk of retaliation.

She's already lost the job and it's not like they're going to publicise her grievance. I really can't see what risk there is to her of raising the issue. If I was her I'd also ask for their company policy on this sort of behaviour.

What’s wrong with just telling him it’s inappropriate and that the answer is no?

Because he needs to face consequences for his behavior. He's a massive liability to his company.

What if he's a 10x engineer? He's a massive PR liability because of our insane outrage culture, but he's a very valuable asset for, you know, his actual job.

What if he scares off 10 1x engineers because he's poisonous? Or what if he scares off another 10x engineer who happens to be a woman? Keeping toxic people around is not usually going to pay off, regardless of "outrage culture" (which is an odd way of describing a culture that punishes abuse of power).

What if he's a 0.5x engineer and firing him would be good anyway? I was merely illustrating that just because someone acts in an outrageous way doesn't make them a liability, net. There's no rule saying effective companies must be filled with saints, even if that would be nice.

You implied that if he's really good at his job then he must necessarily be a very valuable asset. My point is that he could easily be a liability even if he's excellent at his job, and not because of "outrage culture."

I've been around long enough to see what a toxic superstar can do. It's really easy to look at the "superstar" and see it as an asset, but forget how much liability to associate with the toxic - and therefore to conclude "net win" when it isn't.

Not saying it could never happen, but it tends to leave your company a prisoner. You can't lose the superstar, but you can't attract other top-level talent because the superstar is toxic, which leaves you even more dependent on the superstar...

"which is an odd way of describing a culture that punishes abuse of power"

The guy wasn't abusing his power. He was being a fucking weirdo, after rejecting her for a job. So that power dynamic was over. Now he's being very unprofessional, weird, creepy, and a whole bunch of other things.

Also outrage culture, we're talking about a culture where someone got fired for making jokes about "forking" another guys repo and big dongles in a private conversation. Then the person who got him fired then got fired for having her companies web site DDoS'd off the internet. That's just one of many not quite right things that's happened in our culture.

People keep saying that there's no power dynamic because she already got rejected. I don't get it. Interview decisions can change. People can interview for a different position at the same company. It's not as straightforward as everybody seems to want it to be.

We are not talking about a culture where someone got fired for "forking" jokes. That may be the culture, but it's completely unrelated to the issue being discussed here.

"People keep saying that there's no power dynamic because she already got rejected. I don't get it. Interview decisions can change. People can interview for a different position at the same company. It's not as straightforward as everybody seems to want it to be."

Very unlikely for a start up that'll you'll interview again for a different position. They would just offer you the other position. Also very unlikely is a rejection turned into acceptance.

"We are not talking about a culture where someone got fired for "forking" jokes. That may be the culture, but it's completely unrelated to the issue being discussed here."

That is exactly what the person was talking about and this thread is very much the same. A bunch of people outraged because they should be.

They don't always hire for everything at once. Why is it so absurd that a startup might hire for a different position a few months down the line? And why is changing a "no" to a "yes" unlikely? Do interviewers never change their mind afterwards?

Personally, I'm not outraged because I "should be." I'm mildly annoyed at the person in question, and I'm outraged at all the people coming out of the woodwork to defend him.

"And why is changing a "no" to a "yes" unlikely? Do interviewers never change their mind afterwards?"

It's not that they never change their minds, it's more that they usually don't. Especially after telling someone officially they're rejected. If a company rejected me then phoned me up two days later saying they changed their minds I wouldn't look too favourably on them.

"I'm mildly annoyed at the person in question, and I'm outraged at all the people coming out of the woodwork to defend him."

Personally I just think he's a weirdo who's clearly not that smart. But I've seen some people call him a "sexual criminal". I'm like WTF! That's a bit extreme. That's the sort of thing the outrage culture is describing.

You seem to be saying that changing the interview result isn't worth considering because it's not normal and would cause you to think poorly of the company, yet this whole discussion is about asking an interviewee on a date which is also not normal and causes me to think poorly of the company.

It has nothing to do with normality, just potential.

I haven't seen "sexual criminal" but rest assured that I'd object as strongly to that as I object to all the people defending this guy.

I don't give a fuck if he's a 10,000x engineer or a 10e100x engineer. If his idiocy destroys his company, then it doesn't matter. Any number multiplied by zero is zero.

This comment leaves me queasy in the stomach.

Just because someone is good at their jobs shouldn't excuse inappropriate behavior. It lessens everyone else on the team and those seeking employment. Look at professional sports just because they're 10x ers should they get away with their transgressions. Or, because they are so good should they be held to higher standards.

From what I've heard, most companies will do the explicit math and decide whether to keep him or not.

It's not unheard off. Personal Anecdote: I've known a friend, who keeps the most obnoxious programmer around at his company because he wrote the core money making algorithm by himself and is the only one who understands it. The ceo actively protects other employees from this programmer, but won't fire him because they need him more than anyone else at the company.

No attempt has been made to bring someone else in (either internally or a new hire) to understand the algorithm and the code behind it? Even if this guy is obnoxious, it's smart to have a back up plan in case he leaves.

From what I've seen, people in that position almost never leave.

It seems like for those folks, the most important thing is to be irreplacable. They like being needed, they like being a key person in the operation, more than they like money or doing a good job.

Even so, what if the obnoxious programmer gets hit by a bus? What if a critical production issue crops up just after he gets ill and takes PTO/sick leave for several days?

Oh yes, I think it's a terrible place for the business to find themselves. It just seems like getting hit by a bus is the only way they leave the organization--they'll even stay through retirement!

Anyone who wants to own some part of the business that thoroughly is a liability.

If I had a programmer who refused to document the company's core money-making algorithm, that programmer would be out the door by 5pm, and I'd hire a sensible, smart programmer to reverse engineer, rewrite, and document it. No one in tech is that special.

This sounds good but is wrong.

You can write documentation on something and still have it be very hard to understand to the point where other developers can't understand.

Say it's a start up in the first two years of doing business. You're going to rewrite a stable money making functionality just because one guy wouldn't document the code? That's just plain stupid.

Also a smart programmer wouldn't have to reverse engineer the code, THEY GOT THE CODE. Also who says you're going to find a smart programmer? You've burnt your bridge before you've crossed it.

Some people are that special as shown by multiple companies doing this in multiple sectors. Life isn't fair, it doesn't work the way you think it should, it just keeps on rolling with people generally taking the safest option for them to succeed.

Sounds like the kind of "10x engineer" who gets there by demoralizing the rest of his team to 0.1x productivity by being an asshole.

Do not want. Do not need. GTFO

I don't hire nor value 10x engineers. So no problem there.

I hire and value engineers that elevate those around them to 10x.

And this behavior lowers people, not elevates. So no, that person is not a valuable asset. He's the very definition of a liability.

Your comment sounds good but that's it. It's flawed. You don't hire 10x just people who make other people 10x? Then that person you just hired is 10x.

The person is clearly a liability, it's still possible he's an asset. In simple business terms you have a guy who'll get you sued for 1 million but will make you 10 million. That person while a douche is still a valuable asset. Chances of that ever being the case or anyone ever choosing to keep a known douche about is another thing.

> You don't hire 10x just people who make other people 10x? Then that person you just hired is 10x.

The point was more that I value a person's ability to lift those around them much higher than their abilities to outperform them. It's hard to scale one person. But one person who can help scale an entire team is infinitely more valuable.

> In simple business terms you have a guy who'll get you sued for 1 million but will make you 10 million.

He's not a liability because of potential lawsuits. He's a liability because he brings the team down (antics like this do have a huge impact on the rest of the team).

> The point was more that I value a person's ability to lift those around them much higher than their abilities to outperform them. It's hard to scale one person. But one person who can help scale an entire team is infinitely more valuable.

It seems like while trying to dislike 10x you fundamentally want 10x. All those things are in my opinion what 10x is, they bring 10x more value to the team. Some may be 10x because they literally code faster and better, or they could be 10x because their code helps other people also code faster (I suspect the two are pretty well linked), or they could just be the leader who gives them more confidence to do stuff, etc.

10x may or may not be a myth. I don't think it is, I just don't think it's someone who codes 10x faster than everyone else. I think they just make the entire team better. I also think someone who is 10x one place isn't always going to be 10x in another team due to team dynamics. I.E. the team also makes them better.

> He's a liability because he brings the team down (antics like this do have a huge impact on the rest of the team).

While I get what you mean, I don't see how the team fits in to this. It's not like it was at a team event, team were involved. They most likely will never know this happened. This could just literally be a once off weird thing the guy does while being a cool guy just as much as it could be that he's an around weirdo who does weird things and is constantly belittling people.

If he’s interviewing, then that is his actual job. If he’s hitting on people while representing the company in any context, e.g. at conferences, that is his actual job.

The way you framed this as a “PR liability” suggests you don’t think there’s anything wrong here, it’s just a question of dollars and cents to the company’s bottom line. That’s exactly the kind of sociopathy that is the problem.

You have to stop and decide that there is a moral and values problem, and that these things matter more than a few bucks. If the company has values around this, it will make sure people have training around what is not acceptable behaviour. It will not pass out cards, 10x engineers get a green card, 5x engineers get a yellow card, 1x engineers get a red card.

Everyone will get the same message about what the company values, and steps--I will not say what those steps are, maybe training should have happened before this incident, maybe coaching should happen afterwards, maybe firing is not necessary--and steps will be taken to ensure that everyone in the company acts in accordance with the company’s values.

Also, my sociopathic HR lawyers says that if you decline to hire someone, and then any one of your employees hit on them, you are exposing your company to a lawsuit alleging that they were qualified, but you elected not to hire them to pave the ay for hitting on them without any repercussions, e.g. embarrassment if they turn you down and tell all your colleagues that you hit on them.

Guard against this possibility is remarkably easy: Nobody hits on job applicants. If you are interviewing people, it is your duty to know this, and your company’s duty to ensure that you know this.

Either that, or you had better have one hell of a documented paper trail explaining how they were good enough to interview, but not good enough to hire, and explaining why the person you ended up hiring was clearly superior.

In my experience, any company with the kind of process that can defend itself against such lawsuits wouldn’t permit an employee to expose them to the lawsuit in the first place.

If one of their managers has read this, I’m sure they’re horrified.

You're right I don't see anything wrong with the situation as presented. It's funny, guy has some balls to ask for a date after that. I'll agree he was pretty stupid about it. But I see all the time much stupider advances that actually get accepted instead of rejected. I'd say forgive and forget but I don't see anything to forgive. Asking for a date is how you get dates, even if the context for asking is unusual. I'd like for shy men to still be able to hear the worst thing that'll happen is "she'll say 'lol no, loser'", but now the worst thing that can happen is she'll be so offended she'll throw a fit and publicly name you and destroy your career. Thankfully that hasn't happened here yet. "This made me feel upset. How should I handle this, random internet people?" is a reasonable way to approach this if you don't already have a philosophy that says "chill out and move on".

There's a side conversation here that I'm sort of interested in. There is a certain moral obligation to protecting the company you work for and not putting it under risk with thing like discrimination-based non-hires -- but why should sociopathic lawyers get to decide what risks are actually there or not? It's immoral some of the things many companies do in all legality, risk-free. You won't stir up an internet shit storm for every one of them, even if you can get a few. Not so long ago the behavior this woman reported would have not been cause for such outrage and moralizing displayed on this page. What changed in humans since then? I really don't think we've gotten all that more moral. I'd say instead what changed is the sociopathic lawyers became even more powerful, and saw a great and endless revenue stream for themselves by making it easy to destroy people and businesses for these very basic and human drives, faux pas mistakes at worst.

Your argument seems to be, "If only I would appreciate how good this is for him, I would stop worrying about whether his choices are toxic for anyone else." Am I missing some relevant nuänce?

I don't think that's it. One should worry about toxic choices. I just don't think a culture of asking people out is toxic. Something I do find toxic is an environment of conformity that imagines itself so fragile that it overreacts to the slightest deviation from what those in power say as if it were an existential threat.

> I'd like for shy men to still be able to hear the worst thing that'll happen is "she'll say 'lol no, loser'", but now the worst thing that can happen is she'll be so offended she'll throw a fit and publicly name you and destroy your career.

Context is important. Asking a stranger out for a date at a bar has a worst case scenario of hearing "no". Asking someone out whom you just rejected for a job listing has a very, very different worst case scenario.

For fuck's sake, did I really have to just spell that out?

> why should sociopathic lawyers get to decide what risks are actually there or not?

Sociopathic or not, employment lawyers have a lot to say about liability and risk for business because they know the relevant laws very well and know how to make persuasive arguments in court for corner cases where precedent isn't entirely clear.

Again, did I actually have to spell that out for you?

It's worth adding, too: aside from the legal liability angle, what about what the invitation to a romantic encounter does to that applicant for the rest of the interview? Now the rest of the interview, from her perspective, is all about that dude's romantic interest in her, and no longer a professional encounter. It's all downhill from there. If she gets hired, how can she possibly work without the pressure of thinking that her job or advancement depends on her response to that guy's advances? If she doesn't get hired, how can she possibly think she was fairly treated?

I don't have an inherent problem with coworkers asking each other out on dates, or within a professional context in general, but doing it in an interview is beyond stupid.

Because he needs to face consequences for his behavior.

Does he? Is "facing consequences" the only way for someone to learn?

If I "faced consequences" for every stupid thing I've done in my life time I'd probably have spent the last 30 years in jail. Because at the age of 42, I've done a ton of dumb, inappropriate and just plain stupid things in my life.

Most of the time, someone has explained to me that what I did was wrong and I was able to learn from it and change my behavior. And look at me today - gainfully employed since I was 14, happily married, three children.

These zero tolerance policies of "facing consequences" for any infraction don't benefit society at all. There is no true binary decision of, Bad Behavior = Punishment, Good Behavior = No Punishment. Bad behavior can be challenged, forgiven and forgotten without having to ruin someone's career over it.

Repeated bad behavior, on the other hand... Of course you need to escalate at that point.

> Is "facing consequences" the only way for someone to learn?

No. Most people learn the basic lesson of not hitting job candidates up for dates (and other related ethical issues) either during orientation in their first job or--even before that--when learning about the harm caused by abuses of power.

> Repeated bad behavior, on the other hand... Of course you need to escalate at that point.

From reddit OP's description, it seems likely that the interviewer has done this sort of thing before.

"Face consequences" doesn't necessarily mean "get fired". In this case it may be as simple as his boss pulling him aside to explain exactly how stupid what he did was. It may mean being pulled off the interview team and replaced with someone who's better at that task.

It's worth noting that neither we nor the original interviewee know whether this is repeated bad behavior or not. It might've been a one-time slip-up, or he might be serially abusing his position. We can't know, but his boss can and probably does. Go ahead and report to the folks who are in a position to make an intelligent decision.

Because the OP is not in a position to help him understand why this is inappropriate behavior or to see that it is sufficiently addressed. Personally, I would not want to have any further contact with someone who treated me like that.

Lawyers are expensive something a recent graduate probably doesn't have easy access to.

> * Keep your own legal counsel on speed-dial.

What scenario are you envisioning where she might need to save the 15 seconds it would take to dial from the contacts app?

It's an expression from the days when "the contacts app" wasn't a thing. Like the save icon floppy disk, expressions tend to last beyond societal changes that make them meaningless.

I'm not sure responding at all to the man in question is appropriate. She needs to sever contact.

Sever contact? It's not like they're coworkers. In what way would you suggest she sever contact?

By not responding as the poster above me suggested.

Come on, turn the cheek. Sheeze. If you are really feeling vindictive, just forward the OP, that will make him think twice next time.

Edit, removed sarcasm

And if it isn't clear, yeah, I think forwarding this to the company he has the potential of ruining this guy's life.

Call me soft hearted, I guess.

Seriously ? All for asking her on a date ? I don't see any harassment or any kind of quid pro quo. Mistakes happen all the time.

Its not a mistake, he admits in the email that what he's doing is not OK.

@pavel_lishin - You bring an important point and after thinking about it, I agree with you. For company's sake, HR should be involved to caution him.

He wasted the time of a potential employee, and made her feel very uncomfortable with unprofessional behavior. Plus, he admitted that what he was doing was wrong - presumably against company policy, as well as in general being a shitty thing to do.

From a pure "what's good for the company" consideration alone, at the very least someone from HR needs to have another talk to him about what's acceptable or not - he could be driving away other potential employees, and setting the company up for lawsuits.

What's wrong with what he suggested? The only active measure he proposed is telling the guy's bosses. Surely that's appropriate for a mistake. The rest is just stuff to keep in mind in the event that it turns out not to be a mistake.

I'll take the risk of being buried along with beenpoor, but I should point out that asking someone out once is not harassment. Harassment is asking them out repeatedly after being turned down (i.e. it is known to be unwelcome).

Not making any excuses for what interviewer guy did at all, that was still pretty slimy.

So making sexual advances in a professional setting is A-OK, as long as you only do it once per person?

Of course not. If the way you ask people out on dates involves overt sexual advances, that's definitely not an appropriate way to do it in the workplace.

Sexual advances? Did we all miss something?

It's not sexual advances.

It's not in a professional setting.

Not saying that what he did is OK (it's not) but let's keep our facts straight.

It's making an advance for the eventual goal of sex. How is that not a sexual advance? How is an email chain between interviewee and interviewer, discussing your interview results, not a professional setting?

People go to GREAT lengths for the "eventual goal of sex" all the time without it being labeled a sexual advance, including striking up what may seem like friendly conversation even though you may never have the slightest idea that their end game was actually to screw you (among many other things). Arguably the majority of anything that people do is for the eventual goal of sex.

The e-mail "later that evening" was not discussing the interview results. It was a later email, presumably on his own.

    People go to GREAT lengths for the "eventual goal of sex"

Like get married

@pyrocat - You are making assumptions here that there was any quid pro quo involved. She was already rejected for the job. And then she was asked on a date. What was unethical and unprofessional was that he did it while being in a position of an interviewer.

You can assume that potential employees will find dating questions to be unwelcome.

The behaviour is harassment even though it's a single contact because of that assumption.

s/You can/Anyone with two brain cells to rub together will naturally/

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