An unidentified man, known largely as mr-hank on Hacker News, was fired by Playhaven, a fairly successful mobile game marketing company, after an incident that took place during a keynote session at Pycon (think comic-con for the guys who make games and apps for your mobile phone).
mr-hank and co-worker Alex Reid (who is still employed with Playhaven) were anxiously awaiting a presentation from the day’s line up when they engaged in a slightly tongue in cheek conversation.
Adria Richards, positioned in developer relations for SendGrid (an email delivery company), who was seated in front of the two men, overheard their exchange of words and took offense. What the men may have seen as babble of “forking another guy's repo” and “big dongle jokes about fictional hardware," she took as “disrespectful to the community”. To her the comments were crude, ill placed and sexist.
After her perceived two strikes and what I can only describe as a realization of her individual responsibility, as she saw it, to be a role model to young women joining her field, she stood up, took a picture of the two men, reported and requested assistance in handling their inappropriate behavior.
Now it’s not the reporting that’s the issue here. mr-hank says as much himself in his own address to the incident.
“I'd like to say I'm sorry. I really did not mean to offend anyone and I really do regret the comment and how it made Adria feel. She had every right to report me to staff, and I defend her position…”
He then goes on to defend himself by explaining his intent.
“I did make a big dongle joke about a fictional piece hardware that identified as male, no sexual jokes were made about forking. My friends and I had decided forking someone's repo is a new form of flattery (the highest form being implementation) and we were excited about one of the presenters projects; a friend said 'I would fork that guys repo.' The sexual context was applied by Adria, and not us.”
The problem is the means that she used to report these men. Instead of keeping things professional and going to staff directly, Adria indirectly reported them via a tweet hashtagged Pycon.
Think anybody noticed?
You bet they did but the result was not something that Adria, mr-hank, Alex Reid or anybody else involved could have imagined. The public outrage over mr-hanks current state of unemployment and the way Playhaven dealt with the misconduct, Adria’s perceived over reaction to “an innocent joke” and even SendGrids continued employment of Adria (prior to her being released) was evident. It seems everybody and their grandmother had something to say and not everybody was backing Adria’s stand.
So what’s come of all of this?
Well, mr-hank, the unidentified father of 3, was relieved of his job shortly after this all went public causing a backlash of sorts. There is currently a petition titled simply “Give the mistreated employee their job back” that is 866 of 1000 votes towards completion. Adria Richards has since been let go by SendGrid who sites her behavior as the cause of her release.
“To be clear, SendGrid supports the right to report inappropriate behavior, whenever and wherever it occurs. What we do not support was how she reported the conduct. Her decision to tweet the comments and photographs of the people who made the comments crossed the line. Publicly shaming the offenders – and bystanders – was not the appropriate way to handle the situation.”
On top of the loss of her job loss (no petition here) numerous death and rape threats and the cyber-ly debilitating DDOS attacks on her own blog as well as the site of her former employer, Adria’s outcry has made her a martyr for a very different cause than the one she first anticipated.
Adria obviously felt that this was her moment and that utilizing the social media was a way to get attention for a cause, to force those with push to act. She claims her trigger, her "had enough" moment was when she saw a picture of a young girl onstage and thought of all the women who wouldn’t ever consider technology as a career because the “ass clowns” behind me would make it impossible for them to do so.
Unfortunately for her, instead of appearing as a person who could speak to the positives of involving women in the tech industry she seems to have become the poster child of how to NOT handle instances of misconduct in the workplace, but here’s the question I pose to you, the reader.
What impact do you think social media plays in instances of touchy content be it gay marriage, abortion, parental rights or any other topic that can get peoples blood boiling? This all started with a perceived slight that although was minor to some can be a very real issue for others.
With more and more reports of sexual misconduct in the work place and even in our armed forces this is no doubt a topic that would get people riled up no matter where it’s covered. But do you think the severity of the responses, the threats and anger caused by her actions and the snowball effect that will inevitabley come from everyone who wants to jump to defend both sides would get so far out of hand if not for the anonymity that comes from the fact that most of these people will never get more involved than what’s required to type on a keyboard? Has she taken away from her cause or succeeded in getting it into the spotlight?