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Cassandra at the Keyboard

Whistleblowing and Working

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Heidi Waterhouse

Write/Speak/Code 2016

#sayit

@wiredferret

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Content notes

Discussion of sexual harrassment

Discussion of sexual violence

Discussion of intimate partner/domestic violence

Discussion of online stalking/abuse

Adult language

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@wiredferret

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Whistleblowing

A Definition

True

Actionable

Expensive/Painful

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True

Painful/Expensive

Actionable

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Options

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In 1970, Albert O. Hirschman wrote that when a person sees a decline in quality from their organization, they can either choose voice (complaint) or exit, but that loyalty affects that binary choice to make it a three-way decision. Your loyalty affects how you choose to exit or speak up.

For example, have you ever been attached to a brand and disappointed when they screw up, like when Lands End took two belt loops off the back of their plus size jeans. You can either write them and complain, or you can silently take your business to Eddie Bauer. But if you have a lot of loyalty to Lands End, you're more likely to give them a chance to fix their mistake by telling them about it.

These balancing decisions frequently occur in combination in whistleblowing cases. A person can see a problem, voice it, and then remain loyally silent if it is not repaired. Eventually, they may feel that they need to leave. Voice, Loyalty, and Exit are not a one-time decision, but an ongoing tension in our decision-making.

Let's make this less abstract. Here are three examples from my life.

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Voice

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Do not plagiarize the AMA. This seems like an obvious rule for living, but I was put in a situation where my manager directly told me to "file the serial numbers off" some documentation from the AMA. I felt...unhappy about this and asked if we could get permission. He said no.

Rather than repeat my protests to my manager, or just go ahead and do it, I went to the CFO and explained why this was a violation of my professional ethics and could get me, personally sued, as well as the company. The CFO took my report seriously, and I ended up in a call with a lawyer from New York who probably billed by the second.

The CEO got my manager to back off, and it was mostly ok. But even though that is a best-case scenario of how to handle whistleblowing, this guy was still my manager, still didn't believe he'd done anything ACTUALLY wrong. I left as soon as I could, because it was so awkward working as his direct report.

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Loyalty/Silence

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Exit

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Examples

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Voice

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Whistleblowers can be women who stand up to abusive rudeness, like Sarah Sharp.

Sarah was a Linux kernel developer when she decided to request more collegial interactions on the Linux Kernel Mailing List, which could have upwards of a thousand messages a day.. Linus Torvalds said, "I'd like to be a nice person and curse less and encourage people to grow rather than telling them they are idiots. I'm sorry – I tried, it's just not in me."

Network World said, "Sharp has publicly locked horns with senior Linux kernel developers including Torvalds in the past over issues of civility and professionalism, and has, arguably, been more responsible than anyone else for pressing the community to consider those issues more critically in recent years."

There are people like this, who have chosen to take their whistleblowing public, and are suffering very real consequences for it, but who are also moving the conversation by their very presence, their stubborn refusal to shut up about it already.

We don't all have to be that someone. We don't have to admire all of whistleblowers on a personal level. We don't even have to like them. But we can see that this is what voice looks like, if that's a path we ever feel we need to follow ourselves.

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Loyalty/

Silence

Someone had blundered.

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

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Exit

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Real Talk

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You're likely to get fired

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You'll take a reputation hit

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Depending on how big a splash you make, or who you are pissing off, you may come under online or offline attack, you may suffer professional damage, you may get a reputation as someone who is in it for the drama, or a tattle. Just as women in an industry talk to each other about unpleasant men they deal with, men gossip about who is difficult for them to deal with. It will feel like everyone is calling you a bitch.

One of the first responses a lot of people have to a report of harassment is to tell the victim to toughen up. You remember that Medium post where the woman said, sure, guys had tried to kiss her at conferences, but it wasn't a big deal, she just talked more about her husband and her kids and made sure to leave parties before midnight? Yeah. It's not just men that will come down on women who report harassment. It's also women who have had their own run-in and have chosen loyalty, for their own reasons. Choosing otherwise challenges them in really uncomfortable ways.

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You won't feel vindicated

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Why speak up?

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Systems

#sayit

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Empathy

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Ideals and Rules

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Why keep quiet?

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Practicalities

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Integrity

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Autonomy

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Exit - your other option

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Go quietly

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Burn it all

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Practical Advice

Do what you can

with what you have

Know your reasons

Know your consequences

CLICK

Whatever your reasons, you should identify them and make sure that your plan takes them into account, so you meet your actual goals.

Systems?

Empathy?

Ideals?

CLICK

There are always consequences for invoking power. It's a little like summoning a demon. You are never the most powerful person in the relationship, by definition. So before you say anything, you have to try to establish what the likely consequences are, and whether they change your opinion of what you want to do.

Depending on the level of what you want to say:

Talk to a friend

Talk to a lawyer

Talk to people who will be affected

Are you ready to go? Do you have a box under your desk, do you have your computer all cleaned up, do you have your parachute packed? Exit is what you do on your own terms, but depending on how serious the thing you are speaking up about is, you may get asked to leave anyway.

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Audience Matters

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Power

Sympathy

#sayit

@wiredferret

CLICK

Power: They need to have power -- the power to change something, or to bump the problem up the ladder. You need them to be someone who can do something about your problem that you're reporting.

Authority is the external trapping of power, but it is also the way that your actions will be legitimized. When I refused to plagiarize the AMA, I went to the CFO to report my boss. Although the CFO had the power to tell me I had done the right thing, and to connect me with the expensive lawyer, it was only when he told the CEO that my boss was reprimanded. I had chosen someone with power, but not the right kind of authority.

CLICK

Choose someone with sympathy. They don't have to be sympathetic to you as a human, although that's nice. They need to be sympathetic to your reason for telling. Are they systems people? Are they empathy people? Whatever it is that drives them needs to be something you address when you tell them.

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Go in with a solution

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It's all about the money

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Choose someone who understands how this change will contribute to the financial health of the company.

The great thing about whistleblowing at a company is that it is almost always true that your disclosure will save them money in the long run. You just have to get them to understand that scope. Are you going to save their product from being delayed by programmer communication issues? Will this action keep them from being sued? Could the company avoid a superfund site-level of expense? Will a change improve the productivity of a team that is no longer dealing with the mental expense of micro aggressions?

Businesses have a hierarchy of needs, just like we do. They want to stay alive. So part of successfully disclosing is convincing the organization that it's a matter of life and death.

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Protect yourself

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Build a Fed-Up Fund

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

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Build your team

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Keep offsite backups

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Document everything

#sayit

@wiredferret

I have a friend who worked for a non-profit. She was having real trouble with a person in leadership, and she felt that her job was threatened. When I asked her if she had documentation, she said that she did, but it was all in an account tied to her employment there.

That's a terrible idea. I am not a lawyer, but in my experience, there's nothing saying you can't BCC yourself on emails as long as they don't have PID or classified information in them. Those cranky emails from your boss? Totally legit to keep for your records, as well as the ones where she told you to do the exact opposite a week ago. If you are whistleblowing about something at your company, or in your volunteer organization, or ANYTHING ELSE, keep your own copy of the documents in question. Keep it secret, keep it safe. You may need it later.

NOTE: There are several circumstances in which you can get sued or prosecuted for removing proprietary information. Talk to a lawyer.

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Go into security lockdown

#sayit

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tl;rt

Too long, read twitter

Is it true?

Can it be solved

Who will be hurt?

Am I willing to take this risk?

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Choose, and choose again

Choose. Choose again and again. If it's true, it will not be less true in the future. You can choose exit then voice, loyalty then exit, exit and voice. But by having noticed something, you are forced to make a decision. Not doing anything is a decision.

People generally make better decisions when they know more about the problem space. That's why I'm giving this talk

It is a service to tell them something they don't know. That doesn't mean it will always end the way you expect. The stress of keeping secrets is really high. The stress of acting against your beliefs is astronomical. Either you break or your beliefs bend around to encompass horrible things you don't want to support. At the risk of bringing up morals in a technical talk, you need to be able to live with yourself in the end.

Jobs are transitory, volunteer positions, money, fame, they come and go. But you only have yourself in the end.

I'm not taking questions, but I'll be around all week, if you want to talk to me privately.

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Heidi Waterhouse

Write/Speak/Code 2016

#sayit

@wiredferret

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