I just can’t help but think that if I had made that sort of comment in that sort of meeting, every boss or office I’ve worked for would have immediately taken corrective action, either publicly calling me into a separate meeting or by advising how such comments aren’t acceptable and noting how it violates policy.
The fact that it was just ignored is so much more indicative of the culture than I think just about anything else in the video.
I think its more the implication that Linus looked like stripper on the table. But I appreciate that could be a stretch. I’m more concerned by a) instructing people to go directly to the person harassing them with no managerial oversight first, b) implying harassment complaints are drama, c) suggesting that its not their job to resolve harassment complaints by down playing them as “interpersonal problems” and d) intentionally or unintentionally suggesting that if you have a problem you are going against the fun environment, which instantly puts a harassment victim in an us vs them environment.
I’m coming at this from a lawyer perspective, as I am a lawyer (albeit not an employment or harassment lawyer) and I’ve witnessed first hand how harassment and discriminated employees are not respected by management. I’ve seen how that impacts people’s mental health and how, especially for younger women, it creates a toxic cycle where it can be extremely difficult to leave because you’ve internalized the harassing and discriminatory experience to the point of thinking “well, who else will hire me? I can’t just get another job.”
I realize if you have not experienced that or witnessed that, its hard to understand how a toxic environment can lead to that mindset. So hearing someone joking around in an emergency all company meeting may not immediately seem problematic. But when the subject of the meeting is harassment, and a high ranking manager just jokes around like its not a big deal, and that joke is tacitly approved of by the executive level (where there isn’t immediate correction), it all strikes me as a corporate culture that doesn’t respect the seriousness of harassment.
I’m also biased as my office literally just had our annual harassment training yesterday.
It is good they are taking public steps to change their corporate culture, but it is clear they had a top down culture of not taking harassment seriously. Hate to share a reddit link, but this video: https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/15t1mzn/mandatory_meeting_the_after_madisons_departure/ purports to be from when Madison left. The language here is not the language of a corporate culture that takes harassment seriously. Especially since James didn’t get immediately corrected.
If they want to win back the viewers (and likely sponsors) they are losing or have lost because of all of this toxicity, they are going to have to continue to publicly show they are committed to improving not only their culture to move away from a harassment friendly, grindset focused content farm, to one worth our time (and sponsor dollars).
I have not sat through many depositions, but that deposing attorney is impressively calm.