I agree with the substance but I don’t agree with airing dirty laundry on Twitter.
I’m not an exec but I’ve said things at work I regret. I’m sure many of us have. You just say a stupid thing here or there sometimes. It seems destructive to bring that all out publicly on Twitter.
I defend the termination, based on what I read and have experienced on Twitter, today:
The fired employee named the executive, on Twitter, in the same thread before being fired.
And, Twitter, as you're all probably aware, can be a cesspool of under-moderated hate, lately.
The company and executive should reasonably expect that the executive will receive a lot of hate from randos, due to the tweet thread.
I suspect this tweet thread opens Unity Inc up to risk by funding, through keeping on the payroll, a person who, in turn, drives hatred and vitriol online to another one of its employees. So I imagine unity decided to put an end to this liability.
I suspect this tweet thread opens Unity Inc up to risk by funding, through keeping on the payroll, a person who, in turn, drives hatred and vitriol online to another one of its employees. So I imagine unity decided to put an end to this liability.
As opposed to firing the employee and giving her good reasons to deliberately send harassment trolls after the former employer.
Yikes - as opposed to these hypothetical concerns, the employee neatly doxxed a coworker, and complained about an un-raised (as far as we know she did not ask for a cost-of-living-adjustment) internal grievance in a public forum. Reality is she behaved unethically, in my view.
Reality is, management, by virtue of their possession of Director titles, are already often public information available to investors. Number 1.
Number 2: Nudge theory is absolutely a thing, and barring a technical reason for RTO, it is 100% a powerplay by management. I have been in on meetings where those types of measures are discussed.
Poor response by management types to laborers naming and shaming is generally a very good signal that someone was relying on worker discretion or control of the flow of information to get something past the radar.
Newsflash:
People can, and absolutely should talk. Half of being a leader or person in management is ensuring that you keep your nose clean enough that the people below you don't feel the need to speak out, and if they do, that you're ready for the fallout.
It ain't hard to do that if you're being ethical, and are equipped with real, valid reasons other than narcissistic upper management dictat to back up why the company is doing X.
If you don't have that, then maybe you need to reevaluate whether or not you want to be in that spot.
Fantastic reply, @salawat. Thank you for taking the time to continue the conversation.
I think I am getting where you are coming from and have a better sense of the value of talking-back, and of unethical management being in competition with non-management.
I tend to work around others' faults (instead of challenging) - and I may be projecting that attitude in my position.
Here I still feel bad for the singled-out exec - though that could simply be me denying the intentionality and tactics of a person in a "powerful" position.
So while I may want to defer to the dominant paradigm, to work within the bounds, I see the value of changing it - of ensuring all workers have safe avenues for communicating dissent.
That oversimplifies this situation because an employer, regardless of it having outrageous work environment characteristics, has a responsibility to its employees. Like, in court.
One employee is now terminated for having reasonably driven vitriol from random internet Twitter users to another, by name.
Totally fair - life has nuance and its not clear cut moral high-ground to air all grievances on Twitter.
That oversimplifies this situation because an employer, regardless of it having outrageous work environment characteristics, has a responsibility to its employees. Like, in court.
Butttttt I gotta say companies routinely violate said legal obligations and intentionally commit resources to continued abuse of said obligations - knowing individuals lack the resources to fight back or institute meaningful change through legal recourse without great cost.
An I whole-heartedly agree with you. It's horrific when companies violate legal obligations, hoping to skate by undetected, making power-plays against their own employees. It's unethical.
Here, to repeat, it seems the issue is simply the employee revealed personal information about a coworker.
I feel critical, because the employee could have raised her "can't afford to live here" with someone in the company - requesting a pay raise, and then hypothetically gotten some REAL WHISTLEBLOWER DIRT if they responded with something like, "tough luck, poor-ie employ-ee lolzzz." But she did not, and the company did not, and she shamed her coworker (and being an exec should not mean you get publicly shamed IMO).
yeah… I can’t agree less… Twitter is basically “built on bitching” at this point… viewpoint A bitches about viewpoint B” (pick your own A and B) … customers bitch about companies… Stan’s bitch about people not getting the things they Stan for… and generally everyone is bitching about Twitter itself, doubly so since Elon first offered to buy it, triply so since he bought it, quadruply so now he’s actually running it as an active CEO.
Timing is a thing and there are a huge number of complaints about Unity this week due to the layoffs. Her twitter feed is probably full of them and what she said is fairly tame in comparison to what is out there at the moment.
Comments
I agree with the substance but I don’t agree with airing dirty laundry on Twitter.
I’m not an exec but I’ve said things at work I regret. I’m sure many of us have. You just say a stupid thing here or there sometimes. It seems destructive to bring that all out publicly on Twitter.
I defend the termination, based on what I read and have experienced on Twitter, today:
The fired employee named the executive, on Twitter, in the same thread before being fired.
And, Twitter, as you're all probably aware, can be a cesspool of under-moderated hate, lately.
The company and executive should reasonably expect that the executive will receive a lot of hate from randos, due to the tweet thread.
I suspect this tweet thread opens Unity Inc up to risk by funding, through keeping on the payroll, a person who, in turn, drives hatred and vitriol online to another one of its employees. So I imagine unity decided to put an end to this liability.
As opposed to firing the employee and giving her good reasons to deliberately send harassment trolls after the former employer.
* She tweeted her first name
True.
In my estimation, and having worked at Unity, Unity is not that big where a first name couldn't uniquely identify a female executive.
So the risk is real.
Oh heavens. An executive being held accountable for the negative externalities their incessant nudging is trying to push on other employees?
Unthinkable. That sort of accountability is only for those plebian workers.
Yikes - as opposed to these hypothetical concerns, the employee neatly doxxed a coworker, and complained about an un-raised (as far as we know she did not ask for a cost-of-living-adjustment) internal grievance in a public forum. Reality is she behaved unethically, in my view.
Reality is, management, by virtue of their possession of Director titles, are already often public information available to investors. Number 1.
Number 2: Nudge theory is absolutely a thing, and barring a technical reason for RTO, it is 100% a powerplay by management. I have been in on meetings where those types of measures are discussed.
Poor response by management types to laborers naming and shaming is generally a very good signal that someone was relying on worker discretion or control of the flow of information to get something past the radar.
Newsflash:
People can, and absolutely should talk. Half of being a leader or person in management is ensuring that you keep your nose clean enough that the people below you don't feel the need to speak out, and if they do, that you're ready for the fallout.
It ain't hard to do that if you're being ethical, and are equipped with real, valid reasons other than narcissistic upper management dictat to back up why the company is doing X.
If you don't have that, then maybe you need to reevaluate whether or not you want to be in that spot.
Fantastic reply, @salawat. Thank you for taking the time to continue the conversation.
I think I am getting where you are coming from and have a better sense of the value of talking-back, and of unethical management being in competition with non-management.
I tend to work around others' faults (instead of challenging) - and I may be projecting that attitude in my position.
Here I still feel bad for the singled-out exec - though that could simply be me denying the intentionality and tactics of a person in a "powerful" position.
So while I may want to defer to the dominant paradigm, to work within the bounds, I see the value of changing it - of ensuring all workers have safe avenues for communicating dissent.
If you google search that first name and Unity together it will be very clear exactly who she was talking about.
If everyone stayed externally silent on internal issues the world would be a much worse place.
That oversimplifies this situation because an employer, regardless of it having outrageous work environment characteristics, has a responsibility to its employees. Like, in court.
One employee is now terminated for having reasonably driven vitriol from random internet Twitter users to another, by name.
Totally fair - life has nuance and its not clear cut moral high-ground to air all grievances on Twitter.
Butttttt I gotta say companies routinely violate said legal obligations and intentionally commit resources to continued abuse of said obligations - knowing individuals lack the resources to fight back or institute meaningful change through legal recourse without great cost.
An I whole-heartedly agree with you. It's horrific when companies violate legal obligations, hoping to skate by undetected, making power-plays against their own employees. It's unethical.
Here, to repeat, it seems the issue is simply the employee revealed personal information about a coworker.
I feel critical, because the employee could have raised her "can't afford to live here" with someone in the company - requesting a pay raise, and then hypothetically gotten some REAL WHISTLEBLOWER DIRT if they responded with something like, "tough luck, poor-ie employ-ee lolzzz." But she did not, and the company did not, and she shamed her coworker (and being an exec should not mean you get publicly shamed IMO).
Sometimes you're willing to take a risk to help effect change. If everyone keeps their heads down and never fights back then things don't improve.
yeah… I can’t agree less… Twitter is basically “built on bitching” at this point… viewpoint A bitches about viewpoint B” (pick your own A and B) … customers bitch about companies… Stan’s bitch about people not getting the things they Stan for… and generally everyone is bitching about Twitter itself, doubly so since Elon first offered to buy it, triply so since he bought it, quadruply so now he’s actually running it as an active CEO.
That Twitter is built on people yelling at each other is not a good counterpoint against a claim that such yelling is destructive.
Timing is a thing and there are a huge number of complaints about Unity this week due to the layoffs. Her twitter feed is probably full of them and what she said is fairly tame in comparison to what is out there at the moment.