Yeah and to my understanding Blizzard has been excellent place to work by most accounts, glassdoor reviews etc. Of course it doesn't mean there wouldn't be rotten inviduals employed there too.
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Ex-Blizzard Employee Details His Terrible Time with the Company
- Thread starter DeckardWintermute
- Start date
Man, that was a harrowing read. I hope Jules and Bri can get back on their feet after this. What an awful failing of every person he reached out to, for no one to have his back or even spot the signs of his declining health. People can be so cold.
There is a segment that believe that when men get harassed at work that they "had it coming" because men have been so horrible to women in the work place for so long that it's about time they suffer too. This is reinforced for these people because the harasser was a woman. This of course is a terrible way of thinking but I have been reading such sentiments on reddit in regards to this story.
I don't know how widespread it is of course but there does tend to be less sympathy in general for male victims. I get it because there is a lot of anger from the very real misogyny that exists in the workplace but I think matters like this should be analyzed on a case by case basis especially with such a detailed telling of what happened to this poor dude at Blizzard.
Gemma Barreda-Mirkovic sounds like a fucking bully.
Wow.
Duuuuuuuuuuuude
Wow.
Duuuuuuuuuuuude
as a fellow mexican that is awful.
Blizzard went from super cool to hell in 12 months, jesus christ
Blizzard went from super cool to hell in 12 months, jesus christ
That's essentially what this comes down to. she was a bully and nobody at the company gave a shit. top heavy and everyone overworked unwilling to rock the boat by going out of their way to help someone.
this story is not at all unique to the world of game development, it happens regularly in other industries. It's a shitty management problem, but good management is more rare than you think even in union jobs.
when you have a thousand employees and teams under teams under teams, it takes a very skilled office manager regularly checking in with individuals to catch this kind of shit.
I hope the guy is able to move on and not be too affected by this in the future.
I have a technical position inside a startup, and usually don't receive many congratulations for my job, they mostly go to those who actually talk to users and partners - and I also can have mood swings depending on how much I'm burned out. But the environment is good inside the company.
I cannot imagine how broken I would be if they deleted my achievements and acted like I didn't exist.
I cannot imagine how broken I would be if they deleted my achievements and acted like I didn't exist.
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Alright, well fuck Gemma.
Hope this dude stabilizes and Blizzard gets their house in order (perhaps starting with firing Gemma).
Hope this dude stabilizes and Blizzard gets their house in order (perhaps starting with firing Gemma).
Blizzard seems to be a mess. They need to fire folks.
I hope the employee is doing better, and gets help.
I hope the employee is doing better, and gets help.
Unfortunately, unless someone breaks the story in a big way, it makes more sense to just let it die out quietly. None of the big dogs seem interested in it. Kotaku hasn't said a word, and this is really their kind of story.
This whole situation reminds me of the handful of Riot problems that have emerged in the last year or so. It is distressing how all of these stories seemed to receive no traction.
People resigning left and right from Blizzard, made me wonder if they have enough people to fire lol
Depression and workplace bullying ain't no joke. Working somewhere you are bullied is truly a nightmare, feels like you are walking into a furnace every day.
I don't know why people are saying media are waiting to post the story while they fact check when a week ago people were saying media were right to post the Ellie Overwatch story despite no factual evidence to the person being real and spun it as a harassment story.
Here we have a detailed telling of a victim's experience and not a word from the usual outlets that cover stories like this.
Meanwhile people were are nitpicking phrasing in a lengthy post to insinuate sexism and doubting claims due to mental illness.
Here we have a detailed telling of a victim's experience and not a word from the usual outlets that cover stories like this.
Meanwhile people were are nitpicking phrasing in a lengthy post to insinuate sexism and doubting claims due to mental illness.
This is embarrassing. Someone mentioned this was a fresh thread as an excuse for it being so very little active. It's day 4 and we're still here waiting for someone to actually go ask Blizzard hard questions instead of taking in their PR answer.
Yeah. At this point it looks like no one is going to pick up the story and it will just be swept under the rug.
I guess people is just waiting to hear what Jeff Kaplan has eaten for lunch.
This has been the unfortunate best example of this dichotomy wherein the victim doesn't 'fit the archetype' and Blizzard is a company that everyone loves. Even in this very thread we've got excellent contributions from people who decided to completely ignore the abuse but wanted to put their 2 cents in: 'well I've heard great things about working at Blizzard' and 'why is he saying 'my Mrs.' - that's possessive."
beyond embarrassing.
Rockstar crunch gets what? Multiple threads? Hundreds of pages? The Guild Wars 2 firings had threads that went on forever.
But a man gets bullied and harassed to the point of actually contemplating suicide? Measuring rope planning to hang himself, and almost crashing head-on into a semi?
Nah man, we get people worrying about "oh he shouldn't have named his abuser, especially the women!! Oh no what about their well-being? :(" To thinking he's sexist or having "alarm bells ringing" because of something as innocuous as saying "my Mrs.". Even people making blanket statements about not believing what he says just because he is a man. This would be a graveyard if the gender roles were reversed.
I only found about the story today, because it was mentioned in the GDQ thread, and apparently this is already a few days old and no big outlet has picked up on it is telling. I really feel for him and hope he never has to deal with something like that again. Sad that the disgusting people who put him through this will probably face absolutely no repercussions.
But a man gets bullied and harassed to the point of actually contemplating suicide? Measuring rope planning to hang himself, and almost crashing head-on into a semi?
Nah man, we get people worrying about "oh he shouldn't have named his abuser, especially the women!! Oh no what about their well-being? :(" To thinking he's sexist or having "alarm bells ringing" because of something as innocuous as saying "my Mrs.". Even people making blanket statements about not believing what he says just because he is a man. This would be a graveyard if the gender roles were reversed.
I only found about the story today, because it was mentioned in the GDQ thread, and apparently this is already a few days old and no big outlet has picked up on it is telling. I really feel for him and hope he never has to deal with something like that again. Sad that the disgusting people who put him through this will probably face absolutely no repercussions.
The truth is he is a man and his bully is a woman...plain and simple. If this were a woman and her harasser a man every gaming site on the planet would have already run this story and this thread would be 50 pages long.
Games media needs to do their thing and put pressure on Blizzard.
Blizzard probably won't do anything for this guy unless he can sue, and win.
Sounds like that avenue's unavailable?
But regardless, this situation certainly demands Blizzard committing to seriously looking into it and addressing what led to such an extreme failure on the company's behalf. His experience sounds beyond terrible and no one should have to go through that.
Blizzard probably won't do anything for this guy unless he can sue, and win.
Sounds like that avenue's unavailable?
But regardless, this situation certainly demands Blizzard committing to seriously looking into it and addressing what led to such an extreme failure on the company's behalf. His experience sounds beyond terrible and no one should have to go through that.
It is situations like this when the courts are not an avenue a person can take that journalists are most needed. Not to crucify Blizzard but to find out the truth and let people know.
Fuck no they won't - they won't even acknowledge this because it didn't start trending enough.
I don't know who is right and who is wrong, but it's monday, and only Variety, PCGamesN, Screen Rant, and a couple others covered it. Nothing from Kotaku, IGN, etc.
I am also surprised Kotaku hasn't posted anything about this. Sure they posted about Gearbox and Randy's ongoing spat with their ex-lawyer. However, one would think this would be right up their alley? Is it just the lack of ability to investigate if the claims are true? It makes no sense.
I literally went and joked about it - the silence surrounding this situation - tagging people around including their news guy in its thread where people was going crazy for its book. Nothing.
Wish I could open a new thread denouncing how they completely ignored this situation. Something is not right.
Re-reading this post and the response reminded me of this really horrifying thread on Reddit yesterday: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/agtzzc/sexual_abuse_of_boys_often_overlooked_by_state/