Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/04/16/meet-the-lucky-male-tech-execs.html
* whether they deserve one or not
11 Likes
The “glass floor” phenomenon was bad enough when institutions and industries were giving second and third and fourth chances to the plagiarists and fabulists and the serial screw-ups in whom they’d invested so much. The next logical step after this will be when we hear that convicted rapist Brock Turner gets a job at one of his Stanford classmates’ start-ups.
23 Likes
It must be nice to make profound mistakes in life and proceed upward, as you were, with seemingly few or no consequences. Must be nice. Would not know.
2019 marks my 35th year working in corporate America. My 20th in “high tech” or something along those lines.
I know that I’m not the only one that could write a book here in the comment section about the people that continue to “proceed upward” who are morally repugnant on their best day. I’m not proud to say that at least one of them I genuinely hoped (in all seriousness) would perish in a fiery single vehicle accident on the way to or from work. Don’t know the exact number, but the bulk of them were reported for one thing or the other and all of them were dudes.
The old boys club isn’t just a joke that gets tossed around - it’s real and often dangerous.
21 Likes
The only thing that will change this is money.
This is the kind of thing that needs to be disclosed in SEC filings for IPO’s & to mutual fund rating agencies as possibly effecting the stock price, be reported to insurance companies and brought to the attention of the board.
16 Likes
Sadly, I’m only surprised that even a non-serious token effort was made to hold these men accountable…
6 Likes
These techbros should have run for Congress instead, so that taxpayer-supplied hush money could have been paid to their victims to ensure silence.
What will be shocking and unheard of is when one of these men runs for and is elected U.S. president. Nah, that would never happen. Carry on.
3 Likes
The question was after how long, and into what roles?
Toilets always need cleaning, somewhere.
6 Likes
Hey! There’s nothing wrong with people getting jobs after getting fired for abusing people! In fact, I hope they do get hired, as maybe a night janitor or a subway conductor. Where they make enough to provide for their families and yet don’t have the opportunity to interact with other people.
…they got hired as C-level executives? Ohhhh, that’s not good.
3 Likes
@xeni, since you are working on how tech deals with sexual predators: are you following the current DataCamp shitshow?
TL;DR: they even fucked up their apologetic blogpost by trying to stop search engines to catalogue it. Removed the tags since, but damage done.
See, e.g., for a technical explanation:
For some background:
5 Likes
When I read this headline, Emma Thompson’s letter about John Lasseter immediately came to mind. Different industry but same questions. It’s best read in its entirety. https://variety.com/2019/film/news/emma-thompson-john-lasseter-letter-1203149788/
2 Likes
I must admit that I read “Male tech execs” and attributed male to the tech instead of to execs and was getting ready for a story about hacked advanced fleshlights and mangled genitals. Boy did I get that wrong… but im sure its just a matter of time…
2 Likes
Or even worse, nominated to the Supreme Court-- a lifetime appointment!
3 Likes
This is article is about media, not tech, but you can bet this is how they fared: https://jezebel.com/women-in-media-are-reportedly-getting-blacklisted-for-f-1834097806
1 Like
4 Likes
Hey, everybody, don’t do this. People do these jobs for real and they work damned hard. Saying things like this is saying that you think that these are terrible jobs that should be done by terrible people.
Once you start thinking a job is beneath you, it’s a very short step to start thinking the same about the people who do that job.
6 Likes
Nobody said any of that. Nor implied it.
I also have done that job, so I feel no reservations about recommending it to others—even punitively.
We can all agree these MTEs do not belong in positions which grant them any authority over others. But if not in tech, then where do we put them?
Scrubbing toilets is a necessary role, in that somebody has to do it. Letting a bunch of MTEs deal with someone else’s shit for a change is a perfectly acceptable way to make a living.
These are also jobs with limited prospects for supervision and power over others, and that’s exactly what these people have demonstrated they need.
It does imply it. When you suggest it as the type of job an abuser should have, you’re implying that the job is a punishment for bad behaviour and that you don’t care about the people who do that job because you’re fine if they have to work with an abuser.
Whether you think you implied it doesn’t change the fact that you did.
4 Likes
It absolutely does not.
Again, I’ve cleaned toilets for a living. It is an unpleasant but necessary task. I.e., a chore. I agree with you when you say that it is a valid way to earn a living, which is the first reason I proposed it in the first place. I don’t pass any judgement who earn their keep this way—and were these executives be obliged to do so, I wouldn’t be passing judgement on them for that, but for completely different reasons.
Do you understand now?
A chore may be punishment for poor behavior, but that says nothing about those who do a chore for a living or even about the chore itself. That these men might find such work beneath them is on them, and is sort of a bonus, really. Is that really that nuanced? Because it seems sort of obvious to me.
Also, I hope you’re not suggesting that people who break the law deserve to have no employment, just because they might wind up working alongside folk who haven’t broken the law, because that is unreasonable and unrealistic.
No, and that’s just bizarre. This leaves you free to imagine any transgression you like because you can wave your hand around the word “implications.” That doesn’t make me feel like I can talk to you.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
