[laughinghan]

> 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”"

https://theintercept.com/2019/10/07/metoo-wall-street-sexual...

[1000units]

Three responses in turn,

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.

[laughinghan]

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?

[1000units]

1. It's difficult to safely discard people on the basis of their belonging to a certain set of protected classes, which does not include those accused of sexual misconduct. As soon as you have someone willing to issue a complaint you can't disprove, you're prepared to safely remove your enemies. There's a reason savvy managers never have private meetings with women.

2. It's magical that some guy exposed a "creep" Doing Very Bad Things by looking at his password he cracked. No witnesses complained, the victim had never complained, just from a distant computer we catch this faint whiff of something wrong in the strangest (invasive, aside) way and turn out to be a hero. Or maybe we just sent a weird password to HR, and they did the default thing and fired the guy for nuisance and liability, and years later we remember the justification that he must have deserved it because he's gone. (Details? Sorry, can't!) It's easier on the conscience, too.