Adria Richards Lobbies For New Job

Started by Eviltwin, Mar 27, 2013, 10:17 PM

previous topic - next topic
Go Down

Eviltwin


http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_22883688/adria-richards-fired-from-sendgrid-after-social-media

Adria Richards, fired from SendGrid after social media firestorm, says she's moving on

Andy Vuong, The Denver Post

Former SendGrid employee Adria Richards, who set off a massive social media controversy after tweeting about jokes that had offended her at the PyCon tech conference last week, said Wednesday she's hoping to "find the good in what has been one of the most challenging weeks' of her life.

"What happened at PyCon has cast a spotlight on a range of deep issues and problems in the developer world,' Richards said in an emailed statement. "As ugly as this situation has become, all of these issues have reasonable, and, I think, easily reached solutions that will help us cast conflict aside and construct a more cohesive and welcoming professional environment based on respect, trust and open communication.'

Richards, who worked for Boulder-based SendGrid as a developer evangelist for about a year before the company fired her last Thursday in the wake of the mess, said she no longer wishes to focus on the fallout from the controversy.

Instead, she wants to be "an integral part of a diverse, core group of individuals that comes together in a spirit of healing and openness to devise answers to the many questions that have arisen in the last week.'

"Together, we can work to make the tech world a better place to work for everyone, and in doing so, we make the wider world a better place for all,' she said.

At PyCon, Richards tweeted a photo of two guys seated behind her who she believed were telling sexist jokes. Her tweet, and subsequent blog post, set
Advertisement
of a chain of events that no one could have imagined, including a hacker attack, a flood of hate-filled messages and the firing of one of the men involved.

On Tuesday, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian called out fellow geeks for their behavior during the controversy.

Richards' full statement:

"Those who know me well in the the developer and tech community recognize that I have always tried to conduct myself in a way that builds bridges for everyone. My central aim is to do everything I can to help create new, inclusive inroads for all, no matter who they are, where they come from or what they believe. Development is about innovation, creativity, and in a grand sense, the betterment of human society through technology. So, it stands to reason that everyone should have a seat at the table, and everyone involved in this vital community should feel welcome, safe and respected. In essence, the worldwide community of developers can and should function as a reflection of what our wider society strives to be.

"I cannot comment at this time on the specifics of what occurred at PyCon on March 17, and the subsequent events of the following days, but I can offer some general thoughts. I don't think anyone who was part of what happened at PyCon that day could possibly have imagined how this issue would have exploded into the public consciousness the way it has. I certainly did not, and now that the severest of consequences have manifested, all I wish to do is find the good in what has been one of the most challenging weeks of my life.

"And I do believe there is good to be found in this situation. Debate and recrimination can and must give way to dialog that explores the root causes of these issues in the tech industry. As developers and members of the startup community, we can welcome newcomers, women and people of color who, as of now, are under-represented in our ranks. And, all of us can learn a great deal from those who are well-established in the field. We can solidify the values of our workplaces (yes, conference spaces are workplaces!), and set new, positive and inclusive examples for other professional disciplines.

"What happened at PyCon has cast a spotlight on a range of deep issues and problems in the developer world. As ugly as this situation has become, all of these issues have reasonable, and, I think, easily reached solutions that will help us cast conflict aside and construct a more cohesive and welcoming professional environment based on respect, trust and open communication. I do not, at this time, wish to concentrate on the fallout of the last several days. Instead, I want to be an integral part of a diverse, core group of individuals that comes together in a spirit of healing and openness to devise answers to the many questions that have arisen in the last week. Together, we can work to make the tech world a better place to work for everyone, and in doing so, we make the wider world a better place for all.'



Affirmative Action: The federal government takes your job away from you and gives it to a woman. Then she sneers at you because you are unemployed.

neoteny

Her full statement is lots of high-falutin' bullshit. The bottom line is still that she wants to rule the coop; she wants to push her social agenda on the industry. If she's so innovative & creative, she can start up her own business and can hire those people whom she finds congenial.

At my work, the top four people are men (three of the owners & the executive producer). But there are two woman producers, an associate producer, two designers, a programmer and two artists (and another 13 men in design, art, programming & QA). All are treated with respect; everyone's work is appreciated to the extent that they further the product development. One of the woman designer is a lesbian (and an admitted feminist); she doesn't make an issue of it and no one cares about her personal life. One of the artists is a feminist: in more than two years, she sent exactly one email to all coworkers about some gathering which she thought people could participate in (I think it was about violence against women). I ignored it; and haven't heard anyone else taking her up on the offer.

I don't feel oppressed at all; I just do my job and keep my opinions to myself. Most everybody does the same; the personal is decidedly not the political, at least in my workplace, and it seems everybody is for the better because of it. There's absolutely no need to bring gender politics into work: it couldn't improve the milieu, only cause grief.
The spreading of information about the [quantum] system through the [classical] environment is ultimately responsible for the emergence of "objective reality." 

Wojciech Hubert Zurek: Decoherence, einselection, and the quantum origins of the classical

Captain Courageous

She's still a sneak and a scuzzball that hoisted herself on her own petard.

The rest is "damage control".


Virtue

1. She got fired for her BS
2. The Tech industry is a RESULTS orientated industry.....if you preform well enough you could topple Microsoft.....if your preformance is shit you will get fired and no one will want to do business with you.
3. If you were a tech company would you want to hire her at this point?
Imagine waking up tomorrow to find
that unbelievably rape is now legal.

You would be freaking out, telling everyone you ran into this is crazy- something needs to be done... now!!! And then every man you told this to just very smugly and condescendingly says...

"Hey... not all men are 'like that.'"

Iron John


3. If you were a tech company would you want to hire her at this point?


No. That would be too great a risk. Not only for the bad publicity, but the eventual lawsuit as well.

AnubisRox

Like Neoteny said, this post is the typical "flowers and rainbows" tripe that feminists love to use when they put themselves in a position where nobody's willing to back them up.

When guys are lambasted for doing anything wrong in the eyes of these types of women then there is no middle ground. Its simply, "he's wrong and that's all there is to it!" When someone like Adria messes up like this they go with the "measure of society" and "we're all God's children" crap. I've seen it so many times. Best time is when a mother is on trial for killing her kids.
ell she turned me into a NEWT!! A newt?! Er..., well I got better.

Tigerman

Quote
"I cannot comment at this time on the specifics of what occurred at PyCon on March 17, and the subsequent events of the following days, but I can offer some general thoughts.


From reading the above it's almost certain that she is keeping her powder dry and is most likely closeted with a bunch of vult.. err I mean lawyers and intends to sue Sendgrid for a shitload of loot.  I know she doesn't have an ethical leg to stand on but I read a blog post from some lawyers group enumerating some technicalities they think could well succeed.
If she does go ahead she will no doubt go for the maximum possible payout because no business in their right mind would ever employ her again. From the careful wording of her statement which actually looks like it was prepared with help from her lawyers it looks like she has been assured that the chances of success are high - it's a big gamble though because if she doesn't win she not only loses a payout but also little chance of finding employment for the foreseeable future.
If she does win it will be bad news for the rest of us because not just her but countless other petty tyrants or enforces of pc codes will feel even more empowered.  :angryfire:

Galt



From reading the above it's almost certain that she is keeping her powder dry and is most likely closeted with a bunch of vult.. err I mean lawyers and intends to sue Sendgrid for a shitload of loot.  I know she doesn't have an ethical leg to stand on but I read a blog post from some lawyers group enumerating some technicalities they think could well succeed.



Well, here's my dilettante's impression of labor law: In most states, white males, if there is no employment contract, are employed "at will", meaning they can be fired at any time for any reason.

"Other people" can sue for discrimination and related things, whether that occurred or not. You first apply to the EEOC, and they give the green light (that discrimination may have occurred, but their case load is too high to take the issue on themselves - they almost invariably give the green light if a white male is not involved). The modern litigation attorney's view of this is "get it to a jury", meaning survive a "non-suit" or summary judgment (in which the judge decides based on the law). Once a case is before a jury, a whole new world of manipulation arises. And the opposing attorney knows it.

Now who are these "other people"? You get a point for every deviation from being a straight white male. Being a white woman is a "one-fer". Being an Eskimo woman is a "twofer".

In comparison, Adria Richards is apparently a "threefer" (female, black and Jewish) and if she "came out" (whether true or not) that she is gay, she would be an almost unbelievable "fourfer". Fourfers have incredible powers.

Galt

And, if Adria Richards somehow develops a limp that is enough to place her under the Americans with Disabilities Act, she would be an incredible five-fer, with almost unlimited power. She can then get YOU fired if you attempt to fire her.

Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum

Another lawyer says she doesn't have a leg to stand on.  Personally I agree but I bet that SendGrid will pay something to 'make her go away'.

http://codebetter.com/johnvpetersen/2013/03/22/donglegate-a-legal-perspective-and-some-social-commentary/

~Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum

Galt

Based on the MERITS of her case:

She can't program or code or develop. Her small company probably got over the line of employees allowed before the EEOC starts investigating. So they had to find a woman to hire for any reason. She was hired as an "evangelist" to build bridges to other developers and companies and the community. In reality, marketing / PR / sales.

This is a woman who, at her core, hates the very people she is supposed to be building bridges with. They are mostly white males who can DO something (like develop software), as opposed to her (she can only be an "evangelist" for the software, if she could develop it, she would be developing it).

So she overheard a dongle joke, and was going to make the horrible perpetrators pay and pay via her proven technique of social shaming.

She did the exact opposite of what her job called for in her arrogance. She burned bridges, turned off potential customers and employees and would have bankrupted her company if she hadn't been fired. She viewed the resources of her company as her basis for waging war against the hated "people who actually do something" in the industry.

As a side note, it seems to be an unquestioning article of faith in most Internet contributions on this that the woman sets the standards of what can be said or not. Why? It's just like a marriage here - the spouse who really earns something (usually the male in a marriage) has no say in the standards of how the marriage is going to run.

Here, software developers could in some cases be very talented, but a bit socially awkward. Everyone has pluses and minuses. Women like Adria Richards are going to determine themselves that no one is going to be socially awkward (although no one would ever demand that she herself actually ... develops software), and that is that. And then she is going to be judge, jury and executioner in the public sphere.

That is why spoiled brats like Adria can bloom today. Men have just become wimps for the most part who think that women have the last say.

neoteny

Being an Eskimo woman is a "twofer".


Being an Inuit woman is a twofer. If she's called an Eskimo, that's a threefer.
The spreading of information about the [quantum] system through the [classical] environment is ultimately responsible for the emergence of "objective reality." 

Wojciech Hubert Zurek: Decoherence, einselection, and the quantum origins of the classical

Galt

And another thing ... while I'm ranting:

A big deal was made about Adria getting death threats and rape threats and how that wouldn't happen to a man.

Yes it would. You say something that really goes afoul of the Internet and you will get threats and you will be "doxed" (meaning that your home address and telephone number will be made public). That is not based on man or woman.

The very fact that some women think this is unique to them shows the real extent to which they are spoiled brats, who think that men are given everything in this world.

Galt

With regard to rape threats, aside from the fact that men HAVE also gotten explicitly sexual threats ("you're going to be chained to my radiator and suck dick all day" - is one I heard of), threats are based on your fears. If you fear rape, they are going to be rape-based. Most threats are probably death threats.

The second issue: To what extent DID Adria Richards get her threats? It's only based on her say, and she has proven to be well able to manipulate based on victimhood.

You get more threats, you have more victim status. So the conflict is obvious - reporting may not equal actual incidents.

Eviltwin

Quote
The second issue: To what extent DID Adria Richards get her threats? It's only based on her say, and she has proven to be well able to manipulate based on victimhood.

You get more threats, you have more victim status. So the conflict is obvious - reporting may not equal actual incidents.


Good question. None of the mainstream media outlets that have been raging about this have bothered to provide copies of the actual threats. It seems to me that if there had been any available they would have done so. One outlet that was attempting to be a little more objective than the others managed to find two tweets that encouraged her to kill herself, but that was about all. They claimed that the death threats had been deleted. There was no mention of any rape threats. I have seen a lot of other tweets that were involved in the case, including Richard's mean spirited joke about running over a dog because it was "men's best friend", but still no rape threats.

Contrast this to the situation last fall when Mitt Romney was receiving death threats simply because he was running for President. The liberal media chose to ignore these, but the conservative outlets that reported on them were able to produce copies of the actual tweets. I suspect that the feminists who are now ranting about "rape threats" are merely repeating what they heard from other feminists, but none of them have bothered to check them out.
Affirmative Action: The federal government takes your job away from you and gives it to a woman. Then she sneers at you because you are unemployed.

Go Up