Interesting point. However, perhaps the reason why you would just take it as a compliment, is because as a man, you haven't been in the position of being taken advantage of, or desired for purely sexual purposes by women in positions of power. I am making huge assumptions and generalizations of course, but as I understand, it is much more common for older men with power to "take advantage of" more vulnerable women, so women are instinctively taught (or learn) to be wary and incredibly careful in these situations to not give the wrong "signals". Whereas men, generally having no experiences with this dynamic, are more carefree.
Yes, they met as two professionals in the context of an open job position. Inappropriate move #1 was contacting the job applicant over FB, #2 was making a comment about whether or not to "hire" or "hit on" her. The fact that he places the chances of hiring her in relation to "hitting" on her is wildly inappropriate.
If he wanted a relationship, there are infinitely better and more appropriate ways to go about it, especially if he thought she might actually be interested.
Going via FB in the manner that he did is pure 100% creepy behavior.
Someone else here mentioned that Bill Gates met Melinda (his wife) while she was working at Microsoft. Wouldn't this mean their relationship shouldn't have happened/is wrong?
There are many public figures who have met, dated, and married their colleagues. One that comes to mind is Jimmy Kimmel and his wife (head writer for his show). I think as long as it doesn't affect hiring/promoting/professional decisions it's a different situation. This is also assuming, of course, that there is no form of harassment going on.
Well it definitely has an affect, the only difference is everybody is either ok with it or indifferent to it. If all of a sudden Jimmy's wife starts being an asshole and gets fired then what? You don't think it would be handled differently if the head writer wasn't his wife? Just like this Facebook message thing. If she had been receptive to it, everybody is cool. But since she wasn't all of a sudden we've got the pitchforks out. I'm not saying it isn't wrong per se, but it's a far cry from some sort of clear-cut breech of ethics when whether it's ok or not depends on somebody's reception to it, and we sit here and happily condone marriages in the workplace and pretend they don't have an effect.
I mean there's also a couple other things that differentiates McClure's situation. He's also married. He seems to have accelerated the harassment immediately. Obviously I don't know the details, but it doesn't seem like he was just asking her out on a date. And if he did then clearly she wasn't receptive and he should have stopped. I think it's pretty easy to see that there's a clear violation on McClure's side.
Sure I don't disagree. At the same time, I can see (and I'm sure it's happened) that if he had sent just one message, and had not been married, we may see a similar reaction. My larger point isn't that he didn't do anything wrong, but that these situations are common, we usually only hear about it when something bad happens, and the line between what is acceptable or not is highly variable.
Its not very hard to make your intentions clear outright. Like other siblings have pointed out, it was the way that he propositioned her that was creepy and unprofessional. He appears to be leveraging the financial power he has to get the lady to go out with him, whether he realized that or not. (Strictly personally, my opinion is that he was fully aware of what he did. He seems like a very smart and determined person and its hard to see him not realizing this).
A better way would have been to make it explicit. i.e. "Hey X, now that we are done with business, I was wondering if you would like to meet over coffee sometime later. This will certainly not affect our professional relationship either way, but I think you're an interesting person and would like to know you better."
Some relationships though are just really dicey, like the one above. Its like having a relationship with your direct manager, since the manager is evaluating you professionally, and that's why its generally considered a bad idea.
As the OP pointed out, one of the big differences is that Bill Gates never said "go out with me or I'll fire you", whereas McClure clearly indicated he was choosing between hiring and hitting on.
Who knows exactly what it was like for Bill ans Melinda. It isn't difficult to pick up on social cues of someone illustrating a mutual interest in you before you outwardly hit on them. It's also not difficult to respectfully ask them if they would like to get a drink, in a personal context. There's no evidence McClure did either.
I meant it in a different way (and was being somewhat sarcastic): that in a lot of cases, office flirting (even among equal peers) can seem OK if the woman likes the guy, and creepy if they don't (e.g. he is awkward, nerdy, out of shape, etc). In essence, a comment on how "jocks" get away with more of that kind of stuff.
> If he wanted a relationship, there are infinitely better and more appropriate ways to go about it, especially if he thought she might actually be interested.
McClure aside, in general situation when during recruitment precess you meet someone you would like to date is there really a way to go about it that doesn't end badly? Message during recruitment is plain creepy. Asking them out after they are hired is bad for obvious reasons like you being the superior and him/her having the impression that this is the real reason they've been hired. There was at least one story on HN that I remember when someone wasn't hired and soon after was asked for a date and it also ended badly, even if that person waited some time to be "safe" that still could be counted as stalking and using information summited during the interview for personal reasons is bad.
But you can't even ask about their phone number anyway! It doesn't matter if your intentions are honest and you two could be a good couple if you met at different occasion. Once the recruitment process starts he/she is pretty much removed form your dating pool. Even if you ask nicely without any inappropriate signals - any move you make can be seen by him/her as you taking advantage of the situation. Even innocent question about phone number can have really scary implications from his/her point of view.
Sure it can end in nice date or maybe an awkward silence and you explaining yourself and apologizing or it can give them a true nightmare... Are you going to risk it?
> in general situation when during recruitment precess you meet someone you would like to date is there really a way to go about it that doesn't end badly?
(a) No, not one where you have any control whether it goes bad or not
(b) Your day job is not a dating service
(c) If you can't figure out a and b on your own, you're not mature enough for a position of power
This isn't actually that complicated. There are seven billion people in the world, you choose one of the ones that you aren't professionally compromised with to date. Period.
Life is full of situations where you have to choose between two competing positive values. It's part of being an adult.
Yes, you are right about there being a choice. This is the core of the problem here. Many I feel look at it and wonder why pass a good opportunity to meet someone, we could both have a chance at something great (unending source of unwanted advances)... The advice about not trying it in professional settings is seen as taking away their freedom to date people, as being rejected without even ability to ask and by it being fundamentally unjust. What they fail to consider is how it look from the other side and how the very same innocent question from their point of view can be seen as some sort of "deal" and part of nightmarish recruitment process.
If you steal bread, get caught, and are shown mercy by the baker, did you still not commit a crime? Just because you aren't punished doesn't mean you didn't do something wrong.
And before you say "there's no victim if she was okay with it", there was a victim: the company and investors he represented. His actions show that he was not acting with proper ethics, putting them all at risk of lawsuits, criminal action, etc.
The fact of the matter is, when you are a hiring manager, you are in a position of power and that power comes with certain ethical obligations and responsibilities. Not just to those applying for a job or funding, but to your company and it's shareholders.
And the argument about whether she might like it or not doesn't change the fact that it's inappropriate and creepy.
It's sexual harassment. As a male, I would be incredibly uncomfortable if I were in this situation with the genders reversed. Picture: you're interviewing for a job you're wildly enthusiastic about. The hiring decision lies with an older woman who you are not at all attracted to, and she fires off that line at you. Who would feel comfortable in that situation?
It happened to me multiple times, because I am an attractive male. Having conversations with a female boss like "oh, my shoe is too tight, let's go to my hotel room together to change it" etc. Sometimes I think medieval-style gender separation is the best thing for business...
I wouldnt have any issues with that honestly. We are humans not machines. We say things sometimes that get interpreted as something its not. The comment Mclure made was stupid. But calling it sexism or herrasment as if its some systemic thing seems a tad extreme too.
it's pretty unambiguous what he said. Unless he pulls a Clinton (be skeptical about the definition of "is") there is no way for this to "get interpreted as something its not".
A professional can keep their personal feelings separate from their professional responsibilities. If you feel that the former is compromising the latter, remove yourself from the situation and defer the hiring responsibilities to a colleague.
You can also ask someone else in a non-creepy way, especially by not relating the prospect of getting hired to their response to your sexual overtones (the "I don't know if I should hire you or hit on you" bit).
This isn't rocket science, its common sense and common decency, not to mention being a "professional". McClure's actions in this particularly instance are shady and creepy to the extreme.
A more apt analogy would be if you were a young hetero male not attracted to older females (cougars, in parlance) and she were a loan officer at the bank you want to procure a loan from and she hit on you like that.
It's something you'd likely report to the bank management but it's not workplace sexual harassment (she's not harassing another lower echelon staffer).
Still uncouth and uncalled for and any respectable organization would take corrective action.
[edit] Seeing that that was during staff recruiting process, I can't even imagine how someone would even entertain such a puerile idea in their heads, no less mention it in communication.
There are some people (maybe many) who when they have some power seemingly lose all sense of decency. It's discouraging and boggling.
I know we are way past civics and other classes in school which tried to steer kids into a more "moral" frame of mind, but I think the advent of fraternity culture permeating into daily life beyond secondary education and educational institutions in the educated indicates that something's amiss in our culture.
Music, movies, games, etc., take a pretty jocular view of appropriate behavior --it's not to say there were not predators or other unsavory behavior by people toward others before mass media, but at least in some classes of people it was at least frowned upon whereas now it's openly celebrated with few exceptions.
I think this is a cop-out excuse. Even the frattiest of frat boys have moms, sisters, and girlfriends/wives.
This isn't that complicated, it's simply "treat others how you wish to be treated."
Before you proposition job applicants over Facebook DM just ask yourself: would I be okay with this if someone treated my mom/sister/girlfriend in this manner?
I'm not sure having sisters/wives/moms/brothers/fathers has much effect on people who are reared and imbued in a culture where entertainment (liberally defined) celebrates fraternity culture.
You just have to examine the "shaving cream on mouth and dicks painted on friends faces" attitude to know people do things to others that they _do not_ particularly want done to themselves.
To use a car analogy these are the kinds of people who would be happy to cut someone off while driving but would get enraged if someone did that to them. Of course, it's simple, drive defensively and don't do stupid things when driving --do people follow?
The comment is like in the dictionary next to "sexual harassment." Hell, you can tell how bad the statement is even without any other context. "I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you." The implication is that this woman might have lost out on a job opportunity because the man interviewing her found her attractive.
I think this is much more serious that you are making it sound if I'm reading your post correctly. As a potential investor you are in a position of power. Depending how things are going it might be a very serious power imbalance. The person seeking funding might feel very compelled to in essence prostitute themselves.
Absolutely. I'm not saying nothing happened. I'm not defending him at all. I'm just saying the word "sexual" is counter productive.
Harassment is harassment. It is not the fact that something is sexual in nature that bothers me. It is the fact that someone abused their position of authority.
I mean if we're going to debate labels: In my opinion it is completely inappropriate when your position of power, in a person setting, while referencing the professional setting, to discuss this. Maybe we could use the labels "abusive" or "predatory" or "toxic" if you'd prefer? Personally, I'm fine with "sexually harassive".
I would much rather that because this had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with ego and power trips.
I don't think it is OK what he did but sexual harassment this is not. It is an advise of power, pure and simple.
We talk about the middle east being sexually repressed but look at ourselves in the us: why is everything a sex crime? Come on folks. We can do better.
Personally, I'd feel better with the sexually part removed. Who cares of the harassment is sexual? Harassment is harassment.
No, this is clear sexual harassment, and would be if the genders were reversed, or the same, or entirely unknown. It's a sexual proposition from someone with power over another person in a professional relationship.
