That’s so awesome. I work in IT, which is an extremely white male dominated field. The department I’m in now is almost 50% women, and we’ve got a bunch of minorities as well. It’s the single most diverse IT team I’ve ever had. We’re only 12 people, and the manager of the department is a woman, the manager of the field…

Bet a network programmer or other equally impossible person to replace. The harder you are to find replacements for (not talking about those bullshit unicorn positions but normal jobs in high demand across multiple industries with a low supply) or someone in good with the various old boys clubs.

I work in an extremely male dominated field (IT), and absolutely every job, save for the one I have now, has been utterly dominated by men in that department. Even the some of the companies I worked for were extremely male dominated. Some of which were very much a “good ole boys club” kind of vibe (which to be clear,…

I mean, I’m gonna be honest, this is the most bening of all the “revelations” so far. You’d think somebody would still say something to you, but... hey. But yeah, the notion that the guy who chose to sign his work emails this way had other stuff come up when HR started asking is not crazy.

Entrenched culture is a powerful force and powerful people rise to a place where they’re immune to HR. I’m not saying that’s right, but the HR training clearly isn’t working as intended. I’m just explaining how this happens and how you yourself could unwittingly be a part of it.

Oh, I wasn’t talking about specific people. I’m talking about the men who were on the sidelines and just kinda coasting. If you’re DOING anything that’s awful. What’s worse is that it’s very easy to let this sort of thing continue while not being aware.

“It WaS jUsT a JoKe”.

One of my best bosses ever would bend over backwards to make his female employees comfortable. (in a machine shop too) It was one of the reasons I worked so hard for him and the environment in general was welcoming and constructive. 

Yep. I’m reminded of the episode of The Office where Michael thinks the HR rep is there to reprimand him, only to be reminded the HR rep PROTECTS him.

That’s the ultimate twofer: On top of being both unprofessional and an asshole douchenozzle, it’s not even funny. It’s not a joke or a pun or wordplay, it’s just...something an unprofessional asshole douchenozzle WOULD do!

The answer is likely there's more we don't know about and it's worse.

It should get you a stern talking-to by HR or your boss and a warning never to do something like that again. Employee rights are a thing even if the US hasn’t really realized it yet.

It took a month to be investigate that signature? That’s incredible. I don’t understand how the board can stick by Kotick, not only is the reputational damage going to take years to recover from, the share price has dropped an incredible amount this year despite games like Shadowlands, Vanguard and Diablo 2…

I was with you until the last paragraph. You’re a bad guy if you’re acting like a fucking dickhead, and if you were so entrenched in being a dickhead, that you lost sight of how you might be a dickhead, then it’s double and triple dickhead on you.

Virtually every US company with an HR department has had yearly sexual harassment training for the past 15+ yrs, dude

The idea that someone would get away with doing this purely on professionalism standards is just insane. I can understand casual language being used for internal team emails, but using something this childish as a signature?

The signature thing makes me do some serious self reflection. It’s sad to think about. Like, that’s the kind of thing I (a guy) might joke about with some of my close friends (who are guys). It’s something crude but ultimately harmless with a certain group.

HR isn’t here to listen to you, or help you in any way. They are here to keep the company image clean. So you should start by going to the cops with your lawyer then notify your employer. This way they can’t minimise or turn ablind eye, and they will cut ties with that person. As a popular comedian in my country said…

Seriously. If someone on my team emailed that, it would be instantly spread to everyone through Slack DMs gossiping about it. I can’t even imagine what kind of culture would allow something like that to slide for years.

Good god, how do you reframe rape in a “more positive light”? No one should be harassed in the workplace, but on some level I can understand how people might try and downplay suggestive comments or someone being a little handsy because they don’t think its really bad. They are wrong, obviously, but I can still try and…