The impression I have after reading this that Ms. Ehmke had a shit attitude and people got sick of it. And that she hasn't seen that yet.
I'm sorry if this seems unempathetic - getting fired sucks, and is extremely painful. But there's no other way I can put it.
A long time ago, when my career first started, I also went through the "PIP deathspiral", and it took months... maybe years after my termination to realize I was just fired being a shithead.
I see the same "it's not my fault it's theirs" attitude I had at the time in this.
But it's not exactly the first time GitHub has had issues with this kind of thing.
The impression I get from this whole debacle is that GitHub has a shit attitude, and there's more of them than there is of her, so they did what any company does in a similar situation.
But hey! It's just a "culture issue" right. Except, the culture issue is that the whole effing Silicon Valley culture is pure poison.
What made you get that impression? Obviously the text is going to be somewhat biased, but from what's described I got the impression that she cares about her work, cares about being a good engineer/mentor/manager, has the skills to be good at all of those, and cares about improving even when she doesn't fully agree with the situation.
> I got the impression that she cares about her work, cares about being a good engineer/mentor/manager, has the skills to be good at all of those, and cares about improving even when she doesn't fully agree with the situation.
I agree; she's very passionate about what she's doing. I'm really on about her interactions with the team.
The things that really stand out to me:
- Regarding the data scientist's gender question: "I was forbidden to interact any further with the author of the survey"
- Regarding the mentee situation: "I was told to stop the formal mentoring and allow this person to 'learn at her own pace, without any pressure from you.'"
- Regarding asynchronous communication: "Asynchronous communication is definitely not my strongest area. When I see a text box on screen, I tend to be very terse and direct instead of typing out a wall of text."
It sounds like there's a lot unsaid in these lines she's getting. As if glaring social cues are being missed, and the managers and teammates are either unable or unwilling to just say "you come across like a jerk a lot. People are scared to say this to you. Please slow down before you type."
It could also be my massive amount of privilege talking. Who knows.
I'm sorry if this seems unempathetic - getting fired sucks, and is extremely painful. But there's no other way I can put it.
A long time ago, when my career first started, I also went through the "PIP deathspiral", and it took months... maybe years after my termination to realize I was just fired being a shithead.
I see the same "it's not my fault it's theirs" attitude I had at the time in this.