These stories leave a bad taste in my mouth. It hasn't yet gone to court, so the guys allegations could be really be anything from the God's honest truth all the way to a complete fabrication. Yet there is a huge amount of irreparable damage by public stories like this.<p>I was once personally on the receiving end of a complete false sexual harassment allegation from a coworker almost at random (someone I had almost no interactions with, ever). There wasn't even a sprinkle of truth in the whole thing. I was saved by pure dumb luck, where against all odds just happened to have irrefutable proof one of their claims was impossible which led to her dropping the whole thing. I'm still a bit jaded that there are absolutely zero repercussions of making false claims.<p>I guess I feel like "Innocent until proven guilty" is a pretty good model and running a story just amplifying one persons unproven claims kind of goes against that.
> Olohan said he began feeling increasing pressure from his supervisor, who told him that there were “obviously too many white guys” on his management team. In July he was encouraged to fire a male employee to make room on his team for a woman, the suit claims.<p>This is the most crazy section. Why physical characteristics like gender or ethnicity should be important in the management selection?
And if yes, why only those two characteristics and not considering others like body weight or baldness?
Probably worth noting this story was first published by the New York Post. Take that for what you will.<p>That said, this is a pretty wild turn of events. From the initial and continued sexual harassment/assault to the racism, and subsequent retaliation. More curious is the very direct "your team is too male" and the encouragement to fire someone. I've heard this hinted at before, but never said out loud for obvious reasons. If all of those claims can be proven I'm pretty sure this guy won't work another day in his life if his lawyer can read sentences and make it to court on time.<p>I would like to hear Google and Mrs Miller's side of the story before I cast any judgement though. I don't suspect we'll get that until court.
This specific comment is so annoying<p>>Olohan said he reported the issue to Google’s human resources department the following week, but nothing ever came of the complaint.<p>The HR rep “openly admitted … that if the complaint was ‘in reverse’ — a female accusing a white male of harassment — the complaint would certainly be escalated,” according to the lawsuit.
Created a throwaway for this post.<p>It is so scary and damaging to be accused of moral misconduct of this type. I cannot imagine how many people (independent of the gender) are going through this kind of abuse and not daring to bring it up because of the way it is approached and the whole complexity of proving it.<p>I have a similar experience:<p>I used to work at a big tech with +100,000 employees, and had a female co-worker a few years older than me. I was groped, kissed and basically harassed to the point that I left the job that I liked the most and ended up with depression. Note that we are both software engineers.<p>As a guy in my 30s when I asked for advice from friends outside the company I got the advice to leave with an good excuse because if she decide to she can ruin my career and steal years of my life. I never told my partner about it nor have I spoken about it with anyone else.
In all honesty, if these things had happened to me, I would've kept quiet since most people won't believe a 20-something male. I was in high school when two of the girls (who were considered hot in our class) grouped me and rubbed their breasts against my back. When I told one of the lady teachers about the issue, she thought I was crazy and making things up.
This is why I'm so grateful to work in SWE where skills and progress are somewhat objective. If such a situation occured with my boss I could just resign and have a new job in a couple weeks. Their loss.<p>But in management you've spent years at the company building up to your current role, and you're just kinda stuck with people. Can't imagine how stressful it would be to be in that person's position.
“When he asked why he was non-inclusive, Olohan was told that he had shown favouritism towards high-performing employees and that he was “ableist” for commenting on other employees’ “walking pace.”<p>What? How can favoriting high-performing employees ever be a valid reason?
Link to court docket: <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66577374/olohan-v-google-llc/" rel="nofollow">https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66577374/olohan-v-googl...</a>
Wow, no. That's sexual assault and a hostile work environment.<p>It's not ok no matter the gender of the individuals involved. That woman needs to be fired.
It was interesting watching Google's tolerance of alcohol slowly decrease from 14'-'20. I stopped going after my fourth or fifth company event, the last being where a fistfight broke out between two upper management individuals.
> During a videoconference call, Olohan said he was told by the Google Employee Investigations team that he was being fired because he was not “inclusive.”<p>> When he asked why he was non-inclusive, Olohan was told that he had shown favouritism towards high-performing employees and that he was “ableist” for commenting on other employees’ “walking pace.”<p>Sounds like satire...
It's concerning and symptomatic for the current culture in North America how many comments there are insinuating this to be fabricated, without knowing details or it even having gone to court yet.
> When he asked why he was non-inclusive, Olohan was told that he had shown favouritism towards high-performing employees and that he was “ableist” for commenting on other employees’ “walking pace.”<p>Wait, what...?
You know, I don't know how practical this is but I've been feeling for a long time that all accusations should be kept confidential (enforced by the court) and trials not be at all public until a verdict is reached. We're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but people treat others as guilty until proven innocent with some of these accusations.
Remote work has so many benefits. Theoretically, you won't even have to <i>know</i> about your colleagues' and employees' gender / disability / height / race / social class / looks.<p>I envision a world with millions of 1-10 person remote companies working together. All this crap would simply evaporate.
>Olohan was told that he had shown favouritism towards high-performing employees<p>Why is this seen as exclusion? If you are bad at your job then you need to improve or suffer the consequences.
An aside to the sexual harassment: If favoring high-performing individuals is now a firing offense at Google, I believe they’ve opened themselves up to competition.
Homo Sapiens, despite all its culture, it is still commanded by Nature to do everything it can to spread its genes. A (nice) side-effect of that is that we are lewd. The problem is that we loose our composure when we drink.<p>Just playing the devil's advocate here, but let's assume for a minute we could reorganize things a little to avoid matters like this becoming a problem.<p>Like say, we could make women stronger than men, or we could give people a switch to turn their libido off, or we could invent a drug that when people intoxicate with it they want to speak about math instead of having sex. Any ideas?
Most of the comments here seem to be about false accusations. Its as if they don't want to believe a man could have been sexually harassed. I can't remember seeing so much scepticism when there are stories about harassment against women. Maybe people are more scared to be sceptical when it's a woman making the accusations.
Sexual harassment is difficult to prove so can be abused.
Once an accusation has been made the smear will often stick.
What really needs to happen is that companies need a policy/procedure that handles this.
My wife designs procedures and training for organizations for sexual harassment, this is surprisingly effective and one should make sure you have something in place and understand how to use it.
This is why I made a decision not to immigrate to US six-ish years ago when starting my career as a software engineer and considering future prospects.<p>I just want to deliver fast code and good user experience, not worry about "politics" and completely subverted safety nets that are now weaponized against men, not even mentioning presumption of innocence flying out the window long ago.
Without passing comment on the case, this guy appeared to go to 3 further work events including alcohol after the incident.<p>Why do people put themselves in these situations at work? I'm nervous having even 1 drink with work colleagues in todays day and age, let alone getting plastered 3 times with the same people after an incident.
> When he asked why he was non-inclusive, Olohan was told that he had shown favouritism towards high-performing employees<p>I always expected capitalism to eat itself, but not like this... not like this.
I was interested to notice how I formed my initial guess about the man's credibility.<p>The factors included:<p>- How attractive was he vs. the woman?<p>- I noticed he has 7 kids, and went to Providence College. So I'm guessing a devout Roman Catholic, which would mean he (publicly, at least) has a world view that values marital fidelity.<p>- In his LinkedIn profile [0], he claims that his family started basically a charity ice-cream shop. And the start date is 5 months before the first alleged sexual harassment. I guessed that a family with a distressed marriage would probably be unable to pull that off.<p>- On the other hand, IIUC, it seems like he's in marketing, which would mean he's got experience managing his companies' brand as well as his personal brand. So that raised my guard a little.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanolohan/" rel="nofollow">https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanolohan/</a>
And yet people flock to work at these morally bankrupt companies. Cringe.<p>Only those will lots of vested RSU will downvote lol. Gotta get that money at any cost
I believe that!<p>Women can become extremely vindictive after getting rejected. A-type females with narcissistic tendencies who usually climb the corporate ladder extremely well are known for that.<p>Asian girls absolutely love European guys, and his sexual market value appears to be higher than hers (judging from the pictures).<p>If it all turns out to be true, I hope she gets prison time.
Rupert Murdoch rag is not a reliable or credible news source. If this story is importable it deserves to be cited from a source that people will respect.