Re: Kristian Walsh I don't know...
He was accused, not convicted, and yes the alleged victim also could have been lying (statistically, though that is just as unlikely as a report of him stealing from her being a lie).
I think you'll find that statistically people exaggerate wrong done to them quite a lot. You'll probably also find that there are a high number of men accused of raping women where the evidence including DNA just doesn't stack up. Sadly, often the police seem to work on the view of "he was accused therefore he is guilty" and take efforts to make sure they're convicted, even to the point of "there's no DNA evidence nor physical evidence of any penetration let alone forced" being hidden from the defence/jury. Some of that (maybe the majority) is from the fear of accusing a victim of lying and being found that the victim was telling the truth.
People lie against their enemies all the time. It's human nature.
Would you have dealt with it this way if the two interns were your direct reports?
I would've independently spoken to each, given them an opportunity to move to another department or an offer of one taking leave while it was investigated. If neither wanted to move I would not have forced them to unless the issue was impacting others.
However, leaving two employees together who are in such serious conflict with each other is disgraceful behaviour towards whichever of them is the wronged party.
I expect/assume they were both given the chance to move. Neither of them felt strongly enough about it. That is quite strong evidence that she was lying, she did not feel threatened enough to want to work in another department and her story wasn't credible enough to force him to move even as a precaution.
In other companies, people can be given a choice if the firm is large enough, and they can take it upon themselves to get a job elsewhere or just plain quit if the firm isn't large enough to have other departments, Often in a conflict there are two sides, and the "wronged" side may have mental issues that cloud their judgement - I have a friend whose neighbour has been accusing him of harassing her among other things. His "harassment" initially consisted of a friendly greeting whenever they were in speaking distance, but now simply consists of if she's outside checking her mail box when he's going to work then he's picking that time to travel just because he knows it upsets her - not because he's had an 8:30am start for the past 5 years. To take your line, he should move out of his home because she felt wrong, and maybe the thing that got her upset really happened.
Adults should be able to sort their differences out. If they can't, they should be able to put them aside enough to work together. In a case of rape then while police are investigating there should be some grounds given (even perhaps letting one take time off on full pay should they choose) for one party to leave, but you simply cannot force an accused person to do something without a very good reason; it's both immoral, abusive, and in many jurisdictions plain illegal. If the accuser doesn't want to move or take a break, that suggests that his/her feelings in the matter aren't that strong.
I've worked in places where people hated each other passionately, and if they ever met in the street after work you could expect one of them would be dying. But they were professional enough to put their differences aside enough to get their jobs done and to not let their personal bitter hatred of each other (actually IIRC it was just one hater, one upset because they could never find out what the problem was) affect performance. That's what adults do.
If both want to stay, and it's not having a significant impact on the rest of the staff or the company as a whole, then leaving them together is the right thing to do.
Her complaint was about how badly her employer has handled the situation.
I read the article with that bit of joy at the sort of hate I could lump on MS because of how badly they'd done things. I see instead that they appeared to have acted in the right manner. The article was disappointing because I could not use it to further justify my dislike of (almost) all things MS. Instead I was in a position to bite back some of my hatred and acknowledge their apparent ability to actually get things right from time to time.
The strong correlation between those commenters standing up to defend Microsoft for this idiocy and those commenters who normally despise Microsoft and all its works was amusing.
It's weird that you see my defending MS for doing the right thing in this case and giving them shit for doing the wrong thing in other cases is something strange to you. Are you not familiar with the concepts of "credit where credit is due"? When your children do the right thing, do you punish them because in the past they've done wrong and you must treat them in a consistent manner? If a friend wrongs you today, but is friendly towards you tomorrow (and perhaps they believed the "wrong" you felt was actually the right thing), do you treat them as if they're still doing bad things to you?
Deal with situations and people on their merits, not on what happened in a completely different situation.
And perhaps that even their most passionate haters (I think I saw even BB give them credit for how they managed this!) are saying they got this right should tell you something about whether or not MS did the right thing.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
