This person was Tweeting internal e-mails from Apple, complete with the footnote explaining that they were confidential and not to be shared outside of the company. Example here: <a href="https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1435421599826518025/photo/1" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1435421599826518025/...</a><p>There were headlines and outrage about her being placed on administrative leave by Apple recently. Reading the finer details, it turns out she requested to be placed on leave (From the article: "She was placed on administrative leave in early August while Apple investigated some of these concerns — a placement she says she requested as a last resort.")<p>She has a dedicated form on her website for press to fill out to request an interview with her. ( <a href="https://www.ashleygjovik.com/press.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.ashleygjovik.com/press.html</a> )<p>She maintains a website called iWhistleblower ( <a href="https://www.iwhistleblower.org/" rel="nofollow">https://www.iwhistleblower.org/</a> ) with details about past cases involving Apple and links encouraging people to report Apple information to different regulatory bodies.<p>Her personal website leads with "Apple Labor Advocacy" as well as "Public Health Advocacy" where she describes how she thinks there might be a toxic waste container somewhere on the property of her old 3rd-floor apartment. She believes it was causing her blood pressure and heart rate to change, according to monitors that she wore. She published photos of herself wearing a blood pressure monitoring cuff and her story here: <a href="https://sfbayview.com/2021/03/i-thought-i-was-dying-my-apartment-was-built-on-toxic-waste/" rel="nofollow">https://sfbayview.com/2021/03/i-thought-i-was-dying-my-apart...</a><p>While I fully agree that all allegations should be given due process and properly investigated, I get nervous when someone is visibly invested in building a personal brand on social media around being a victim. The story about the toxic waste apartment, the story about Apple's lawyers needing her work phone for an investigation, and the story about her alleged harassment at Apple all happened within the past 6 months. Her entire social media presence appears to be built around capitalizing on these stories.
I google-image searched her name. This tweet (and the one below it) came up:<p><a href="https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1422380335703101443" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1422380335703101443</a><p>This is one of those prickly things where about half the population takes one side and the other half takes the other side.<p>I, personally, would greatly appreciate my boss giving me advice on how to improve the tone of my delivery during presentations.<p>I wouldn't call it tone-policing.<p>I wouldn't complain to HR about it.<p>And I certainly wouldn't put it on Twitter for the world to see.<p>Bananas.<p>-----------<p>Update: I just saw the piece on her website where she tweets "Here's me catching my #Apple officemate randomly looking at rifle specs".<p>The tweet: <a href="https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1426572384736202758" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1426572384736202758</a><p>(Astonishingly, she thinks it's okay to take a creep-shot of a colleague's computer screen and post it on Twitter.)<p>Ashley "caught" her officemate doing something naughty, y'all.<p>She's a professional snitch.
Apple did the right thing to let this person go. Regardless of whether she's wrong or right, you don't let inmates run the asylum. Whenever you have an employee like this, they are nothing but trouble: insisting on getting everything "in writing," pushing for explicit answers to things they don't have a need-to-know, and otherwise creating negative energy around the office and acting like they run the place. Really, people like this are pure downside for an org. The old saw about rather not hiring ten qualified people than making one bad hire is 100% spot on with this one. Go Apple!
No surprise. When she tweeted that they wanted an extremely short notice meeting about a “serious issue,” I knew she was done. This is how most of the big companies do their firings these days.<p>Definitely not sympathizing with her, though. She brought this on herself, 100%. Constantly campaigning against your employer, in a very public forum to boot, is eventually going to draw their ire. She had a very generous title and salary for what looked like limited experience in the field and it seemed they were paying for her to obtain an unrelated J.D. <i>Very</i> generous, I’d say.<p>If you keep biting the hand that feeds you, eventually the hand - and the food - gets withdrawn.<p>A bit tangential, but I’ve never understood why people stay in jobs they can’t stand to the point where they self implode like this. I’m sure there were other teams, other roles at Apple in which she could have found herself.
The note that Apple has carte blanche access to any of their employee's iCloud/iPhone data is not surprising to me, but should be a wakeup call for anyone working there.<p>I know a guy who worked on their internal security team (investigating leaks, etc.) and the access they have into employee's digital lives is legitimately terrifying.<p>We need better protections around "tech worker" user data & its ownership. Apple shouldn't be able to keep your personal iCloud data indefinitely just because you worked for them, but they can, and it's totally legal.
I had never heard the phrase, "open the kimono", before, as referenced here in a summary of events leading to her firing: <a href="https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html</a><p>I find it hard to see the implicit sexism in this. Truth be told, if I heard the phrase around the workplace and someone took issue with it I'd probably be internally rolling my eyes.<p>Am I different from the average person? Do other people have an automatic, internal and visceral reaction to such locutions that I'm lacking?
Apple has had a notoriously secretive, paternalising, and "you <i>will</i> do what we say" attitude towards its users for a long time. It should be no surprise that the internal culture is not much different.
She leaked internal IP.<p>She lied about being doxxed on Blind.<p>She asked for paid leave and claimed it was forced on her.<p>She asked for an exit package spanning 18 months covering her entire salary, RSU value, and benefits to leave.<p>She clearly doesn't have a lawyer, so I'd guess all of her claims are entirely baseless.<p>She is a classic cow and belongs on kiwifarms.
I don’t think the outcome is that surprising. Regardless of the merits of this person’s complains toward Apple, it’s hard to see an employer put up with this kind on incessant broadcast to the public place about sensitive matters.<p>The adult way to handle this would be to complain internally, and it it fails go public once, and then move on to either discuss it in good faith with Apple or litigation.<p>What would Apple have to win with her? Looking at the Twitter stream I feel like no matter what they do, it will never be enough. So firing her is the only possible avenue. At this stage the price of litigation is probably less than the reputational costs in the long run.<p>The whole episode about her boobs is mesmerizing. I’m not saying the attitude of Apple sort of enticing their employees to use to personal accounts is not problematic. But even my horny self would think twice about sending a nude using my work phone. And if I did, I suppose I would come back to my senses eventually and delete those. She’s a grown up, work at a tech company, and has heard of fappening.
Why doesn't apple allow 2 profiles (work and personal) on iphones yet? I have personal and work PCs/laptops, and that's fine because I use those devices for hours at a time. I also have a personal and work iphone and I HATE it. It's inconvenient, I'm constantly changing where headphones are connected, gave up using airpods (not fun to unpair and pair when your devices use different apple IDs) and gave using Apple watch for notifications (can only connect it to one phone). I would be OK allowing my employer to restrict, wipe or whatever a work profile on my personal phone.
<a href="https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.ashleygjovik.com/ashleys-apple-story.html</a><p>July 2, 2021<p>In a heavy redacted email she was exposed to a substance and want to know "what chemicals & at what levels, for future cancer monitoring, etc." It made me curios what she was exposed too.<p>July 20, 2021.<p>Here I think she is accusing someone from apple of smuggling and "violating of the US embargo & sanctions against <redacted>" I assume is Iran by the length of the redacted text.<p>July 28, 2021.<p>She wants to transfer to ER and is refused 42 times. If she would have been transferred to ER she would have publish every complaint she investigated and used everything for here own lawsuit and her own cause.<p>July 29, 2021<p>Long email were she is unhappy with the investigation and what the conclusion of each investigation to be sorted by area of the law to route them to different lawyers. In the list we get toxic tort but no details.<p>I think any health issue that she will have in the future would result in a lawsuit against apple.<p>Aug 6th, 2021<p>Long list of articles were she was mentioned and tweets. She talks about Apple not doing exposure testing but nothing else regarding the chemicals.<p>August 14th 2021<p>Post a picture of a colleagues office with 5 bottles of alcohol and 3 bullet cases with the tip (the bullet) removed and 1 old musket ammunition. Not one of the items is live ammunition but she say it is live ammunition.<p>She took a picture of a colleague looking at a rifle specs. At this point it would not amaze me if she requested the colleague to show here the gun specs and took the picture and used it against him.<p>She complains that she is "constantly attacked" with Nerf guns and dodgeballs by here colleagues and mentions the rifle and bullets post trying to make a connection. She also says she has PTSD from past violence. She post a mail exchange were it is clear everyone is having fun even here but now she uses that to make a point of violence and danger.<p>"I do feel like it's me against three 13 year old boys a lot of the time. I think I just need to out mischief them - hide or boobytrap their toys maybe" - mail from the exchange with here boss. Sorry I don't see the PTSD inducing horrors in here email. In this email she understands that everything is a joke and even participates in the joke by wanting to set boobytraps on there toys. If we would apply the same logic that she apply then she is a domestic terrorist trying to set up IEDs at Apple.<p>She complains on twitter more about the nerf gun war but says nothing in the emails and even participates in the nerf gun war.<p>We find out that she has a "2015 - Assault & Battery" folder that she shared with Apple last month and she is furious that the ER team don't want to investigate anything before 2017.<p>For some reason she is challenging NorthropGrumman (3rd largest weapons manuf in the world)<p>She complains about physical safety and when here boss give here some good advice about physical safety she uses that against him.<p>Every interaction with here colleagues is used against Apple and said colleague.<p>Mr. Bullet -that what she called one of the guys had a ticket named "Make Ashley's Life a Living Hell" in 2015. I am amazed how she hold on to it for years and complained about it now.<p>So from 2015 until now, every interaction with here colleagues was documented and now it is used against them. Everything is overdramatized. If you would blur out Apple from here tweets you would think that she works for some drug cartel.
Allegedly? Here it is
<a href="https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1435421599826518025?s=21" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1435421599826518025?...</a>
In plain English the footnote says not to leak the email and she did it anyway, doxxing a fellow employee. Absolutely grounds for dismissal. Sure Apple has discretion, but why would they exercise it for an employee publicly embarrassing the company at every opportunity? She did this to herself, don’t blame Apple.
I do envision Ashley lawyers requesting the data on:<p>- how many Apple employees looked at Ashley's boobs in Apple's permanent evidence locker<p>- what the reason for each occurence<p>- what their names and titles
If you hired a landscaper to mow your lawn and trim your hedges, or a pool service to clean your pool, and they started bitching about the fact that your house was too close to power lines, yet they insisted on keeping their job and pay, and you’d better do something about the power lines, would that be OK?