Like what? I have an ex-girlfriend whom I dumped when she (among other things) called my family and lied about me getting into a horrible accident because we were arguing about her [several hard street drugs] addiction. I cared about her enough to stick around until after the drug problems started. She tells people I'm a "creep" when she explains why we didn't work out, because we had been together for a while and I seemed like a decent guy. I literally moved to a different state because she'd show up at my home and work frenzied, and I knew a restraining order would land her in jail (and cause her to lose her surprisingly good job, which I was sure was the last remaining foothold of stability in her life; at this point I was literally worried about indirectly killing her by protecting myself). She still doesn't know where I live, some of my throwaway accounts have the phrase "FUCK [her name]" in their password, and (old, because I can't share contact anymore) mutual friends have told me she tells everyone that I developed hardcore schizophrenia and generally behaved like Satan. The shorthand for this is "creep".
I'm sorry that happened, that sounds like a terrible situation.
Do you see how I took you at your word and extended sympathy, rather than questioning whether you're misrepresenting the situation? Is there something you know about the facts of jedberg's situation that lead you not to do the same?
He has not presented any facts that are under contention, only normative estimations that rely on facts that are deliberately unspecified.
The politically and economically safe option in the workplace is always to discard people who fall under scrutiny that exposes an employer to liability. This raises the reasonable standard of complaint for these types of issues beyond "his password, which I cracked despite design and goal to remain private to one human soul ever, was weirdly suggestive, and none of the people ostensibly involved have voiced any concerns but I must Report This to The Authorities and Start the Hammer Falling."
Suspicion and doubt are very powerful weapons, and sometimes they're used against good people in the name of heroism, saying nothing of bad motives. They also have the feature of being incredibly hard to dispel entirely once raised, regardless of the quality or scale of the evidence. If someone looked at my F-word password with the wrong prior or coaching, I'd have to break out volumes of psychotic voicemails, videos, pictures, testimony by family and close former friends, etc, to prove I shouldn't be Cancelled.
Can you think of a crackable-length passphrase that would make a normal, level-headed person suspicious enough to make efforts that almost guarantee someone is going to get fired in the worst way possible?
> The politically and economically safe option in the workplace is always to discard people who fall under scrutiny that exposes an employer to liability.
What leads you to believe this? You are aware, I assume, of the existence of "wrongful termination" lawsuits, many of which have cost companies millions of dollars?
> Can you think of a crackable-length passphrase that would make a normal, level-headed person suspicious
"rape Karen fun"
> fired in the worst way possible
What about this sounds to you like the worst way possible to get fired? Here are some ways to get fired that sound way worse to me:
"several frightening, anonymous calls that came into his work phone. One caller told him that [...] he wouldn’t live to see the weekend. Another said that the “fancy blue tie” he was wearing that day might wind up turning red. [...] an effort by the [company's] attorney to discredit him by falsely claiming he’d had a romantic relationship with [coworker he was standing up for]. Shortly afterward, [his employer] fired him."
"only two weeks after her hire, while she was in the passenger’s seat of [male employee]'s car returning from a business meeting, he exited the 101 freeway, stopped his car on a side street, and pulled his erect penis from his trousers. With the doors and windows locked from the driver’s side, he reached over “and pushed her head on his erect penis in an attempt to force her to orally copulate with him,” according to her complaint. He then ejaculated.
[her] horrifying depiction of sexual assault went on for pages. There was the ride back to the office after a client visit two days later, when [male employee] again tried to force her to touch his penis and “almost careened into a commercial eighteen-wheel vehicle.” Another time in the car, this time in standstill traffic, he took his erect penis out of his trousers and shoved her left hand back and forth on it, again ejaculating. In the complaint, she says she tried to free her hand but “was unable to overcome his strength.” In another incident, he called her into his office, locked the door behind her, and tried to force her to have sex. That time, the complaint says, she “managed to escape his grasp.”
A month after that frightening incident, [she] was fired by [him], purportedly for “an attitude problem, aversion to directions, resistance and resentfulness.” She told the office supervisor about [his] assaults and suggested that the “attitude problem” [he] had referred to was her resistance to his assaults. The supervisor told her that sort of workplace conduct was considered “normal”"
1. The courts are profoundly unfair. Are you comfortable forcing harassment victims to go through the courts for what are literally criminal allegations?
2. This example seems too contrived and implausible, as is anything else I could think of. The whole story just seems too magical. Maybe I'm just being hard-headed and arguing with a hero.
3. I will concede that is a more unpleasant series of events without care for semantics.
1. I have no idea what you're talking about. You suggested the liability risk for employers is extremely one-sided such that the "safe option ... is always to discard people". I asked if you were aware of the enormous, court-tested liability risk employers face when they discard people. What leads you to believe the liability risk is nevertheless extremely one-sided?
2. Someone sexually harassing his coworker and saying something sexual about her in his password seems magical and unlikely to you? You don't believe the hundreds of corroborated stories about men saying stuff like that openly? Or you think people are less likely to do that in something semi-private like a password than openly?
Sorry to hear about an unpleasant situation. However, I think it's safe to assume this is unrelated to the story about the dude's password and HR issues.
Well it's none of my business and after the story you've shared I can't say I am very concerned. But in the story about HR, they looked into it and there was "other stuff", I guess they concluded something else about that situation.
We don't know what that "other stuff" is and if it's right or wrong, but it's also likely not the exact same situation as your very detailed and specific story, is my point.
There's at least another similarity, and that's that neither of us had been accused of misconduct in our workplace. If anything, he was looking sharp relative to my vindictive smear campaign.