Playhaven did the cowardly thing by destroying the guy's career as a preemptive measure for any bad PR they may receive over this. It would take a very sure minded employer to hire him now, considering the nasty ways this can be spun by the blogs/media ("Notorious PyCon Attendee Lands A Job With X, Where Sexual Jokes Are Apparently OK").<p>Sorry but I don't like it one bit. If PH's CEO had any balls at all he'd make this guy publicly apologize. Firing someone like this is the easiest solution.
I'm sure Playhaven employees take note of how one of their own has been had a summary execution. And for the rest of us, Playhaven is now "the company that fired that guy over a joke".
This is a very silly situation. Someone made a joke about a dongle and got fired. Another person posted that she was offended about the said dongle joke and it's flared up into a massive discussion about gender in tech.<p>Here's the bottom line - if such a tame joke can have this large an effect and warrant this type of a knee-jerk reaction from the tech community, our conception of gender equality is seriously fragile.<p>Better discussions about sexism in the workplace could revolve around the lack of female leadership, sexist working environments, an overabundance of male developers, company roles that appear to be gender-specific, etc.<p>We are so wrong on the major issues that we want to make the full situation as easy to digest as a dongle joke and a tweet.<p>It's far more complex than that. And this is the only thing I'm going to say about the situation because we all look like children for addressing this.
This statements leaves more questions open than it answers, it's also self contradictory.<p>"This employee was not Alex Reid, who is still with the company and a valued employee." - why was the other guy not a valued employee?<p>"..we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways.." - or "you can't have all the facts"<p>"we hope to move forward with a civil dialogue based on the facts." - which is not possible because we don't have them all.
I know many guys (including me) that could possibly have said the same things joking around.
I also know alot of girls that like to joke around in similar ways about guys.
Is that sexcism ? Should people loose their job about stuff like that ? Absolutely not.<p>I get that it might be hard to draw the line, but come on, we're all human after all, this clearly didnt overstep the border and the guy apologized.
Doesn't the American Constitution have that 'freedom of speech' amendment?<p>I'm British, so American culture is alien to me, but I've always had the view that you can say whatever you want.<p>People have shouted how Hitler did no wrong, and people have cried how x, y and z people should be put on a plane to another country, but when someone overhears a private conversation containing technical terms (that if you're pedantic enough to take as a joke) you get persecuted; professionally shot by firing squad at dawn.<p>This is super surreal, you'd get laughed out of the room if the same events happened in the UK (and probably most of Europe).
In other news, productivity begins to pick back up at Playhaven as employees are just about finished scrubbing their social media accounts. Rest assured, all references to forking repo's, dongles and other "gender equality" issues have been removed.<p>The biggest losers here are Playhaven & SendGrid. The dev who made the silly joke will get another job and Adria successfully raised her profile and will get more speaking gigs.
A great way to destroy company moral. I would never work for a company or ceo like that. Even if this was "the straw that broke the camels back", I don't see how this incident was a straw let alone a feather.<p>I wish this ceo and the blogger would just admit they overreacted.
> dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior<p>Linking a sexual comment (‘big dongles’, possibly forking) to gender equality implies the assumption of a necessary link between sexuality and different genders since ‘gender equality’ wouldn’t make sense otherwise. You are hence grossly discriminating against homosexuals and dismissing the efforts of the gay community not to be oppressed at the workplace. In other words, you are not only against freedom of speech in private circles, but also utterly homophobic.<p>If you find slight exaggerations, please feel free to reuse and recycle them :-)
> We believe in the importance of discussing sensitive topics such as gender and conduct<p>Is that so? Because judging from your concrete actions, one would be led to presume that the preferred course of action is to do anything to prevent such a discussion.<p>> as a company that is dedicated to gender equality<p>So, I noticed your leadership list (10 people) does not mention any females. I don't assume you are sexist; there probably just aren't that many competent ones that are fit for the break-neck business of peddling templated casual games.<p>> In that spirit, I would personally like to hear your thoughts and concerns.<p>I, too, like to judge people based on hearsay; fortunately for the general public, I don't have the power to let my fear of public opinion affect the lives of those who depend on my rational judgement of situations. It's too bad that a CEO position does not come with a spine and a pair of testicles.
I dunno, seems like the firing is more to seem like they are "doing the right thing" I personally don't think someone should be let go over comments that are part of a private conversation. It was fine for Adria Richards to make sexist jokes on Twitter yet SendGrid firmly stand by her as a company.<p>Playhaven should have done the same.
If you're at a conference, you should behave professionally; you're not down the pub, or out with your friends. It's as simple as that.<p>Hearing stories like this is both tiresome (what do you mean this is still happening?!) and embarrassing; it makes male IT workers look like a bunch of poorly-socialized teenagers.
I fail to see what "gender equality" has to do with what happened. What I do see however is a company that will fire their own over the slightest chance of not being deemed 'sexist' by the deluded few with a saviour complex in our community.
There's a difference between going on your own, paying for your ticket, and being anonymous... and going on the company's dime, as an ambassador for the company, wearing the company T-shirt.<p>I saw the photo (as I'm guessing most have), and it was very obvious that they were representing the company. I'd have been pissed too... they shouldn't be sailing so close to the wind that there was even potential for the kind of "he-said, she-heard" that has happened.<p>I don't fault Playhaven for firing someone who hasn't represented them in the manner they expect when that staff member is on their dime and acting on their behalf.
I think it's relevant that when I examine Playhaven's site, the "Leadership" sidebar features twelve different individuals in various leadership positions, none of whom are women. Balanced recruiting in this industry is difficult of course, but they don't appear to have made much of an effort in this area. They probably know they've allowed themselves to be vulnerable not just to public criticism but also to concentrated advocacy and perhaps even legal action. Their rash actions concerning their former employee don't require any complicated explanation like "what <i>else</i> has this bastard done to deserve getting fired?"; they're probably just praying no one notices what a culture of discrimination they've created.<p>How many of the mosaic of "United Colors" pictures they imply are employees are actually stock photos? Why has a games company handicapped itself so much in developing products for half of the games-playing population? When will Playhaven promote its first woman to a leadership position? Would a woman have made the same stupid firing decision this sausage-party of an executive team made?<p>[edit: <a href="http://www.playhaven.com/team" rel="nofollow">http://www.playhaven.com/team</a> is the page I'm referencing. In case it changes, I see the following names listed under "Leadership": Andy Yang, Michiel Frishert, Jason Liu, Charles Yim, Ville Heijari, Brian Doxtator, Brian Howell, John P. Joseph, Sutton Trout, Zach Phillips, Thomas Gieselmann, and Hany Nada]
Sounds like a canned damage limitation quote and not even remotely sincere (and doubt it is really an accurate reflection of reality either).<p>Anyway, where is the Sendgrid statement ? Their silence seems to be an endorsement of Adria's bad behavior (eavesdropping and then public humiliation via twitter).<p>I'm astonished that Sendgrid are OK with this.<p>There are 2 companies here I want to make sure I have no dealings with.
As told in the prophesy, forever more Playhaven became known as the 'Dongle' joke guys rather than whatever they do. And for every conference they attend in the future they shalt be asked by the lowly what was said and if they over reacted.