[sverige]

I've had that rule my entire career. I also avoid ever being alone with women at work so that there is no question that I could have done something untoward without a witness. That has prevented a lot of problems for me.

It has also probably hindered the careers of some of the women who were my direct and indirect reports, but that's not my problem. I've been waiting for the legislation against those unintended consequences for a long time now. It's closer than ever, I can feel it in my bones.

[harryh]

Intentionally hindering the careers of people that report to you makes you a crappy manager. Doing it in a sexist way makes this doubly true.

You should stop doing that.

[sverige]

I never said I hindered their careers. I have promoted and supported quite a few women over the years.

In fact, one of them is now a senior VP at a Fortune 100. I take no credit for that. She was extremely talented. OTOH, I certainly could have hindered her advancement but did not obviously. In fact I warmly recommended her for a promotion and later gave her very good references when she moved on to other companies. These were important steps in her career. Others have continued to advance as well, if not quite as spectacularly.

What I did say is that there are some who I did not help as much as I probably could have. They could have possibly benefited from some private coaching. I am not a crappy manager for not doing that. I am a good husband and provider for never allowing a situation to occur that could have put my career in jeopardy.

I didn't make the rules, the government (and especially the courts) did.

And calling me sexist is a cheap shot that only proves my point. Accusations are easy; proof is hard. This is especially true when you take a defensive position against the known risks of being falsely accused, as I have been several times.

[tptacek]

You literally just said you hindered their careers, in those exact words. The comment you wrote is there for everyone to read.

Your edit to that last comment doesn't clear anything up. It's non sequitur logic. "I'm not a crappy manager, I'm a good provider"?

[sverige]

I said my defensive stance on this "probably" hindered the careers of "some" of them.

I never said I intentionally hindered the careers of any of them. When facing a choice of going above and beyond to help develop a female employee's career and risking my own career (and my family's well-being) by exposing myself to the very real and well-known risk of being accused of sexual harassment, I have chosen selfishly. (Here is where you tell us all how you would choose to risk your career to advance your female employee "because it's the right thing to do.")

It's exactly this sort of rhetoric that makes it difficult to have any rational discussion about how best to develop talent (whether men or women) in the current climate. The thesis that MeToo is more harmful than helpful is unpopular, I know, but thankfully no one has to defend its helpfulness because discussion of the realities involved is forbidden.

[tptacek]

You were right the first time. You discriminated your behavior based on the gender of your reports, knowing that doing so harmed the careers of the women who reported to you. It's a little weird that you think you can somehow rationalize your way out of that. It's even weirder that you think that your own perceived self-interest somehow immunizes you. You said it yourself! Own it!

And then stop doing it!

[sverige]

I treated the men on my teams exactly the same way. There was no discrimination. They were all treated equally.

It's a little weird that you think you have all the information you need to pass judgment on my career from a few short comments on an internet forum. It's even weirder that you haven't made any substantive comment or query on how that policy played out in real life, but rather resorted instantly to shrill pronouncements on my character.

If you can't look back over your career and see where some things you did might have been harmful to some of your employees, you either lack self-awareness or you never had any employees. I'm guessing it's the latter. You have way too many internet points for someone with real responsibility for other people's well-being at work.

Finally, I no longer manage people, so I have stopped doing it. I hope you can sleep now.

[alexforster]

> the very real and well-known risk of being accused of sexual harassment

Right there - that's the sexist part. Do you believe there's an epidemic of vengeful women running around falsely accusing men of sexual harassment?

Because there isn't - but I'd love to hear your stories.

[dang]

Please don't take a bad thread further into flamewar.

[sverige]

Accusations of sexual harassment are commonplace at many work places. False accusations are disturbingly common. Don't ask me if you don't believe me -- it's obvious already that you don't anyway.

Rather, go make friends with someone who works in HR at a large company that employs lots of men and women. For this experiment, best not to try to befriend someone at your workplace. They may be hesitant to speak freely, since it could come back on them. HR people are nothing if not close-mouthed. At least the ones who last long enough to have good stories.

But lest you accuse me of dodging the question, I'll say that my personal favorite story is the woman who accused me of sexual harassment because I refused to remove a bad quality score from her record. (This was a call center, quality scores were only removed in very narrow circumstances.) She was three levels below me on the org chart.

I spoke to her exactly twice, in public, with several witnesses. She asked me to remove the score. I went back to my office, reviewed the call, and went back to let her know the score would not be removed. I was the final authority in any appeal of quality scores.

A week later I was informed by HR that she had accused me of sexual harassment. It turns out that she also contacted the FBI about me. Not even kidding.

But you might think that was a good idea. Hell, I might be a Russian bot sowing discord to affect the midterm elections and hasten the decline of America. I mean, I don't meet alone with women! Clearly that's un-American!