By JESSICA MONTOYA COGGINS
A female Silicon Valley developer was fired from her job after tweeting a picture of two computer programmers making an apparently sexist remark. Adria Richards had been working for SendGrid, developers of a cloud-based e-mail system, when she attended the PyCon Conference in Santa Clara, California last week and tweeted and blogged about what she perceived was inappropriate conduct from several of the male attendees. From Richards, the conversation the men had concerned 'big dongles.' A dongle is actually a device that plugs into a computer, but Richards maintains the men were using it in a sexual manner.
The tweet in question, which also included a photo of the men involved, garnered the attention of the conference organizers, who immediately reacted to deal with the situation. The chair of the conference, Jesse Noller, said 'We pulled all the individuals aside. We got all sides of the story. They said she was right, and they were very apologetic.' When blogging about her ordeal on her website But You're A Girl, Richards had this to say. 'Have you ever had a group of men sitting right behind you making joke that caused you to feel uncomfortable? Well, that just happened this week but instead of shrinking down in my seat, I did something about it.'
It was Richards manner in dealing with the situation that led to her firing, according to SendGrid CEO Jim Franklin. 'Her decision to tweet the comments and photographs of the people who made the comments crossed the line,' Franklin wrote on the site for SendGrid. 'Publicly shaming the offenders - and bystanders - was not the appropriate way to handle the situation.' One of the men that Richards showed in her tweet has been fired from his company PlayHaven, a mobile game company in San Francisco. Andy Yang, the CEO of PlayHaven, did not mention the employee's name but came down hard on his actions.
'PlayHaven had an employee who was identified as making inappropriate comments at PyCon, and as a company that is dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior, we conducted a thorough investigation. The result of this investigation led to the unfortunate outcome of having to let this employee go.' Allegedly a second man in the photo, who works with PlayHaven, is still at the company. According to Richards, she was sparked into action by a photo of a young girl, a 'young coder,' that appeared on screen during the PyCon Conference. 'I realized I had to do something or she would never have the chance to learn and love programming because the ass clowns behind me would make it impossible for her to do so.'
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Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.
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