Perhaps hire fewer employees right out of college for crap salaries, and foster an environment where senior employees with families can work?
There is simply very little diversity in applicants who apply for videogame jobs, and if your entire employee base is comprised solely of these applicants, it's going to become an echo chamber.
The people who would not stand for this type of behavior are typically not those who would stand for 80+ hours a week of work at $25,000 salaries.
Build a diverse employment environment with your employees spanning the spectrum in terms of both age and gender, and the problems will become more and more self-righting.
As an anecdote, the only environment where that kind of inter-personal discussion was reinforced and accepted was one where the majority of employees were just out of college. Every other company where the majority of employees are over 30 has not tolerated this behavior at the employee level.
That is off-topic. That cliche about the game industry is irrelevant to this question. These verbal attacks are from outside the work environment, and have no awareness of the composition of the company. And these attacks do happen to mature teams and people, I've seen it.
> That is off-topic. That cliche about the game industry is irrelevant to this question.
I disagree. A team's composition is the only thing that matters when it comes to minimizing this sort of behavior towards co-workers (whether in or outside work). And a team which is comprised of people who have not experienced a professional work environment can not be expected to be professional. It's the same reason we don't expect interns to be immediately familiar with the reality of programming in a business; they have no context of business reality.
I honestly believe that it's fair to say that vast majority of people will act poorly, when the action has no (or few) repercussions; it's why we have easily-pickable locks on our houses, to deter the 98% of people who would steal small items if there were no barriers or consequences.
Diversity and professionalism are the locks to deter people from behaving poorly in a work environment. Of course, this leaves the small minority who would act poorly regardless of the repercussions, their behavior can only be resolved through rules and contracts regardless of the team size or composition. The most you can ever hope to do is prevent the majority of attacks, and penalize the minority appropriately.
I think the best thing to do as far as internal harassment goes is to basically have a no tolerance policy from the higher-ups. Not so much a "you'll get fired" thing but having everyone step up and say "Hey, that's not cool" when someone makes a sexist joke.
At my job, we had a guy for awhile who would post funny pictures in chat. Every once in awhile, he'd post something NSFW (not necessarily nudity) and all the guys would just say "lol" and the women wouldn't respond at all. What should have happened (and I'm guilty of not doing this) is that all of the other men should have stepped in and said "Hey, you know, that's not cool."
A lot of why this kind of stuff happens, I think, is that there's a sort of acceptance implied by the fact that so few men speak out about it. We just let it happen. We frown inside -- or maybe we really think it's funny! -- but we never say "Don't do that."
A strong culture of morality, of speaking up when something is wrong, would go a long way to helping foster a safe, secure atmosphere. Public shaming will stop that behavior in its tracks. Eventually, either the harassment stops or that person leaves.
In the case of my coworker, I don't think he really thought things through. I don't think he meant to be offensive or post sexually harassing things, I think he just honestly thought they were funny and posted them. That doesn't make it okay, but it doesn't mean he needs to be fired, either. He just needed to be told "That's not cool" enough times to make it stick.
As far as external harassment goes, like the ones in the article, I'm not really sure. I think we as a community need to just stand up against this type of behavior, but it's hard when the harassment is all private, like via email or text messages.
TL;DR Say "That's not cool" when bad shit goes on.
> I think the best thing to do as far as internal harassment goes is to basically have a no tolerance policy from the higher-ups. Not so much a "you'll get fired" thing but having everyone step up and say "Hey, that's not cool" when someone makes a sexist joke.
What you describe is not a zero tolerance policy. A zero tolerance policy requires punishment and "Hey, that's not cool" is not punishment.
If an employee is harassing another employee, he or she should be punished. Depending on the nature of the harassment and the employee's prior violations of company policy, the offending employee should absolutely understand that termination may result.
> At my job, we had a guy for awhile who would post funny pictures in chat. Every once in awhile, he'd post something NSFW (not necessarily nudity) and all the guys would just say "lol" and the women wouldn't respond at all. What should have happened (and I'm guilty of not doing this) is that all of the other men should have stepped in and said "Hey, you know, that's not cool."
This is precisely why your approach to the problem doesn't work: the first response of the people you're asking to say "Hey, that's not cool" is to "lol" when presented with a NSFW picture at work. This is simply a reflection of the fact that some percentage of employees are not mature and professional enough to have developed an awareness of the environment they're in.
It's silly to expect self-policing from folks who don't understand that a NSFW photo that might genuinely be amusing when shared outside of work can be incredibly awkward or offensive when shared at work.
Well, I think my point is that I wasn't one of the "lol" people, and I should have been one of the people to say "Hey, that's not cool," and this post is me promising myself that in the future, I will speak up.
I don't disagree with you, though. An official policy is great, but I think sometimes people just say things without thinking, and I don't necessarily think punishment (beyond public shaming of some kind) is really necessary in 100% of cases, which is kind of what I was getting at. If it was something blatant and clearly intentional, then absolutely get HR involved, but sometimes people just say things unintentionally.
I dunno. It's a very, very tricky, complicated topic, but in the end, I think we both agree that those with the power (socially or professionally) should absolutely step in and stop inappropriate behavior.
Great point. I know that when I see mildly inappropriate, my first reaction is to laugh, even if it's not always the right reaction.
My kids are at the age where they make poop and fart jokes, and I confess that I find them funny. I fear I will always find them funny. I am unable to be upset when my kids swear -- even if I don't think they should be using those particular words. (Was there ever a more sincere expression of three year old frustration than when you overhear them saying, "Fucking _bummer_"?)
But, at work, it feels like there's a different line. The things I would laugh at if I saw them on my Facebook feed (linked by ladies or men) would make me uncomfortable to encounter at work. The mild "so to speak" banter, or the (non-sexual) mild harassment that men and women friends have had has always been funny, but I feel weird when I hear it at work. My inner dialog is usually, "I'm not offended, but ... is that okay? Are we allowed to joke about ... ?"
I tend to listen a lot more than I speak at work, as you can probably tell. ;)
In every other situation this place bemoans the cruelty and stupidity of "zero tolerance," which I think is the correct reaction. Other than that I agree with everything you're saying.
Personally, I disagree. I have no problem my coworkers saying dick/sex/insulting/racist/etc jokes, whether they are male or female. If I worked at a company that claimed to have a "relaxed" office culture (i.e. most startups, not corporations), I would strongly voice my opinion that such censorship is inappropriate. The recent case of an Attlasian developer making a joke about his girlfriend at a conference comes to mind - I would offer my support for such a coworker and publicly state that I think the company's reaction was inappropriate.
Obviously, if people want to opt out of such email, they should be able to, but some might also do it for other reasons (e.g. prefer less distractions in their inbox).
Well, that's the thing, isn't it? It's not about whether you're cool with it -- it's about whether everyone is cool with it. Just because you like dick jokes doesn't mean that your female coworkers (or any of them, really) are comfortable with it. Since you can't speak for everyone, and some people can't speak up for themselves without making themselves targets, then it's your responsibility as a member of the team to make a judgment call: is this appropriate or not?
If you decide it's inappropriate, you should say something.
If you decide it's appropriate, don't.
I'm not advocating censorship, but I am advocating that you should push back if someone's doing something offensive. Your female coworkers are probably more likely to go to HR or the CEO to complain (in a relatively safe manner) than to speak up in "public", especially amongst a bunch of men who think "it's just a joke" or "it's just banter." And I'm pretty sure we both agree that talking to HR can make the whole thing way worse.
I disagree - maybe because I only perceive speech as "offensive" if it's directly insulting to a targeted person - which impersonal jokes (whether "dick jokes" or any other jokes) are not. In any case, I would rather err on the side of freedom, allow most communications (except insults, secrets, and whatever is illegal, such as hate speech), and rely on people to proactively say they are uncomfortable with something. I understand that not everyone wants that, but then again, I would prefer to not have to wear a suit to work, while others might. We just won't work together.
I find your pro-censorship position completely offensive and inappropriate and unacceptable, not just in the workplace, but anywhere in civilized society.
A "relaxed" office culture means that "dick/sex/insulting/racist/etc jokes" are acceptable? This might be the most amazingly asinine comment I have ever encountered on HN.
The type of "jokes" you refer to are usually not only not funny to the people who have to listen to them, they can create huge liabilities for the companies dumb enough to employ the out-of-touch fool who thinks he's the office's Dave Attell.
"But we're a startup with a relaxed office culture and an opt out from toxic emails policy, not a big corporation!" isn't an effective defense to a racial discrimination or sexual harassment lawsuit.
I think that in a lot of companies, this would be a terrible approach to take. By not standing up against such things, you could easily destroy the cohesion in a company.
Maybe if you have a very homogenous company then noone will be there to take offence (that doesn't make it right), but the fact is that most companies are becoming more diverse and it is in their interests to support all members of the company to retain cohesion and efficiency - that means protecting them against their own coworkers, who may be racist, sexist, etc.
In addition, a company doesn't want it to get out that it has a very toxic work environment, as that could harm relations with consumers and partners.
You might call it censorship, but the fact is that companies must do what they need to to protect individual employees against a toxic culture.
I totally agree with all that you said, the thing is that I don't think that racist jokes mean that someone is a racist, and joking about one's girlfriend doesn't make a man sexist. I don't think those make for a toxic culture, only for a relaxed culture. But then again, I'm from Europe - I understand that Americans are quite a bit more puritanical about certain things (e.g. sex, cursing and race), and maybe less about others (violence and gore).
Protip: Form an all-female software company. Gender-discriminatory hiring practices don't apply to small companies.
See Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000e and following). Title VII applies to employers that fit into the following categories: private employers with at least 15 employees.
14 Women can get together and not hire any men if they want. They can make software for women and get rich and support their families if they want.
They don't need men. They can make this completely public, legally. 14 people not big enough? Form a second 14-woman company and subcontract out to them.
Yes, and plastic doesn't conduct electricity well, so why keep trying to force electricity through it?
The problem as stated was "How can I make everyone in my game studio behave the way I want?" That is like sending electricity through plastic.
The real problem is: "How can I earn a living to feed my family doing what I love to do in a safe environment?"
My answer is the answer to the real problem. If you think you can keep sending electricity through plastic and make it work, it's worse than my "temporary hack" which is only "temporary" as long as the Constitution is in effect.
My answer brings new information to the table which most people don't know. I'm sick of these threads coming up over and over again and I've offered a fresh formulation with new ideas that people can start to use right away.
> You're trying to police ideas and behaviors that offend you.
Again where in this specific thread did you read that? In this thread, I'm questioning the long term logic of someone else's idea of what you would call "policing".
Have you read your own comments on this thread? I find it ironic that you're essentially doing the same thing that you accuse me of doing.
I think that's a good question, but what practical things can an employer do here? The harassment isn't really happening "at" work, it's coming in through tumblr and personal blogs. And (I hope!!) the people sending these threats are not other employees.
The employer has more resources than the employee. Lawyers and private investigators would be a start. If I ran a company and found out my customers were sending death threats to my staff, I wouldn't care where it occurred and would throw a good amount of resources at finding out who they were, having them prosecuted, and then publicising the results as a sort of modern version of putting heads on spikes.
edit - though I would go to the person making the threats and give them the opportunity to make amends first before involving any level of publicity or authority.
No offense, but I think you misread my comment, which did not specifically single out women gamers. Women who work at game companies receive threats through the channels I mentioned with some frequency, because they have access to them.
