Google's 'Bro Culture' Led To Harassment, Argues New Lawsuit By Software Engineer (siliconvalley.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the Mercury News: As a young, female software engineer at male-dominated Google, Loretta Lee was slapped, groped and even had a co-worker pop up from beneath her desk one night and tell her she'd never know what he'd been doing under there, according to a lawsuit filed against the Mountain View tech giant... Lee's lawsuit -- filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court -- alleges the company failed to to protect her, saying, "Google's bro-culture contributed to (Lee's) suffering frequent sexual harassment and gender discrimination, for which Google failed to take corrective action."

She was fired in February 2016 for poor performance, according to the suit... Lee started at the company in 2008 in Los Angeles and later switched to the firm's Mountain View campus, according to the suit, which asserts that she "was considered a talented and rising star" who received consistently "excellent" performance reviews. Lee claims that the "severe and pervasive" sexual harassment she experienced included daily abuse and egregious incidents. In addition to making lewd comments to her and ogling her "constantly," Lee's male co-workers spiked her drinks with whiskey and laughed about it; and shot Nerf balls and darts at her "almost every day," the suit alleges. One male colleague sent her a text message asking if she wanted a "horizontal hug," while another showed up at her apartment with a bottle of liquor, offering to help her fix a problem with one of her devices, refusing to leave when she asked him to, she alleges. At a holiday party, Lee "was slapped in the face by an intoxicated male co-worker for no apparent reason," according to the suit.
Lee resisted reporting an employee who had grabbed her lanyard and grazed her breasts -- and was then written up for being uncooperative. But after filing a report, "HR found her claims 'unsubstantiated,' according to the suit. 'This emboldened her colleagues to continue their inappropriate behavior,' the suit says.

"Her fear of being ostracized was realized, she claims, with co-workers refusing to approve her code in spite of her diligent work on it. Not getting her code approved led to her being 'labeled as a poor performer,' the suit says."

Comments

Re:Nerf balls and darts?

[jellomizer]

Here is the thing. If you or your coworker doesn't want to be hit by darts. Then that is harassment. If you or someone asks them to please stop then they should stop. Because you are at work, not play.

Re:GOOD

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to toughen up. You need to learn to defend [...] Your emotions do not matter. You need to be more [...] You need to undertake [...] You are polluting [...] you need to be expelled. You are rotten.

I know you're just venting at the internet right now, but I'm guessing you're also somewhat serious and apply this ethos to the people around you. It's belligerent and bullying, and doesn't show any recognition that people are fundamentally different from each other, or that technical skill, experience, and productivity can be completely separate from the tough personality traits you're demanding.

If you were on my team and talking like that, we would be having a very serious discussion about how your hostility impacts your co-workers. In my experience, software engineers who talk like you do tend not to make it very far. Maybe you're technically skilled in some focused area, but I bet your willful lack of empathy would impact your ability to work on a team, become a leader, design for your customers, and even architect code in a way that your co-workers would enjoy interacting with and learning from over time. After all, if you're not building up your teammates, then you're ultimately dragging everyone down.

Slashdot being slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny how the comments here mostly seek to minimize and dismiss her complaints (or outright accuse her of lying) while the comments on the James Damore story were mostly supportive.

I wonder what the difference could possibly be.

Re:Slashdot being slashdot

[Mashiki]

I wonder what the difference could possibly be.

~25 years of sexual harassment training, that point becoming narrower and narrower as a definition every year up to this point where the #metoo moment declared that talking is now harassment?

Or would you like to roll with the point that everyone who's ever worked in a workplace knows that gaggle of women who go out of their way to make everyone else's life a living hell, and know that if it had been a man doing the same thing - under those same rules he would have lost his job 3 years ago.

Or can we roll with the claims of "it happened years ago, my word is my truth, but I have no actual evidence." But you really gotta believe me, because female, and listen and believe. And if you don't, you're a dirty white male, a misogynist, and probably commit sexual assault too! Where a male who made the same claim would be laughed at and rightly so.

Re:Slashdot being slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Damore did not accuse specific people of criminal activity. Whereas she did.

Damore was fired *after* his views went public, and specifically because of that event. She was fired *before* she made these accusations, and for reasons that she is challenging by making these accusations (that is to say, fired for poor performance, she says her performance only seemed poor due to the harassment).

So, she might be telling the truth. But, she also has an incentive to lie. So we don't know.

Damore simply put all his cards on the table, and got fired for it, and that was that.

These differences are far more relevant than the difference that you are alluding to.

Re:Bro Culture lol

[Bing Tsher E]

At large successful companies, there is a major sea change after the company becomes successful. People like you are the foundation that builds the companies success, but after the bells start ringing and the company becomes rich and successful, a different sort of people climb aboard.

Re:Schizophrenia

[RightwingNutjob]

Maybe all parties are lying or maybe none of them are.

It's entirely possible for the place to be a complete frat house all around: men grabbing at women, SJWs pissing on normal people, HR treating all complaints as grounds for terminating the complainer, and upper management adrift in the clouds making high-minded paeans to whatever gods they believe themselves to be the Earthly manifestations of.

I had a friend who used to work at an East Coast Google office a while back. He quit after a few years because his direct supervisor wouldn't let him take any vacation. He also loved his coworkers and the camaraderie of his peers.

Re:I generally side with the woman in these cases

[wickerprints]

Why should anyone be SOL for not immediately reporting a problem? Is there some kind of statute of limitations that absolves the perpetrators from liability simply because those who are targeted do not complain right away?

That kind of thinking is exactly why workplace harassment is so pervasive, because what happens is that a culture is created in which prompt reporting is discouraged. You claim to understand why someone "might be uncomfortable reporting these problems." But it's clear that you don't because you immediately follow that with this absurd notion that the victim is not entitled to redress precisely because of those reasons you claim to understand.

These reasons for not immediately reporting are well-known and researched, for example, in cases of rape. While vastly different in severity--by no means do I claim that rape is the same as workplace harassment--the underlying psychology of not wanting to report such offenses is similar. The emotional trauma of being targeted and victimized, compounded by the additional trauma of not being believed, having to immediately retell your story, being expected to remain level headed about your experience, then being isolated from your peers, the focus of gossip and suspicion and talk about whether you did anything that caused you to "have it coming" or "deserve it"--these are just the beginning of a litany of reasons why people do not always do what you seem to blithely suggest one must do in order to be deserving of justice.

Re:Schizophrenia

[BlueStrat]

This has become a nation of schizophrenics. I'm not able to believe that both this woman's sob-story and James Damore's sob-story are both true. At some point in the information pipeline, data is being distorted, or wholesale invented. And folks are surprised that Americans don't trust their media, and elect con-men celebrities to high office.

What has happened is Identitarian politics of groups and group-identities. Google's problem with Damore, this person, and the rest that are certain to follow, is that Google themselves embraced Identitarian ideas. Google, to a large extent, brought this on themselves and in so doing, helped spread and give such broken ideas more power.

Identitarian politics of group identities feeds on and exacerbates the tribal behaviors inherent in human nature and enables the "Other-ing" of those who disagree, allowing for their dehumanization.

Once dehumanized, opponents can be dealt with expediently by any means as "the Enemy" without needing to listen to anything the Enemy has to say. They're Evil, after all, being the Enemy.

Identitarian politics have had an enormous effect upon culture. Even comedy. Can you imagine if today Steve Martin joked as he did in his movie "The Jerk" "I was born a poor black child." That would be the end of his career. Many top comedians won't do university/college tours anymore because of the intolerance.

Stop looking at what "group" somebody may be a part of and deciding on that basis whether to listen to what they're saying, and look at the person.

Strat

Re:Nerf balls and darts?

[ShanghaiBill]

HR isn't there to help the employee. They are there to protect the employer. So of course they said her claims were unsubstantiated.

If her claims were backed by evidence, and HR said they were not, that is not "protecting the employer". It is setting them up to lose a lawsuit.