HP CEO's Browsing History Used Against Him

theodp writes "Anything you browse can and will be used against you. An investigation of ousted HP CEO Mark Hurd's surfing history reportedly convinced the HP Board that Hurd had had a personal relationship with sexual harassment accuser Jodie Fisher, even if not sexual. Just the latest example of how HP 'work[s] together to create a culture of inclusion built on trust, respect and dignity for all.' The WSJ reported a person close to the investigation said Hurd had looked at clips from racy films featuring Ms. Fisher, a former actress, while someone 'familiar with Mr. Hurd's thinking' said he merely did a Google search of 10 minutes or so. One wonders how many more 'personal relationships' with Ms. Fisher the browser histories of HP's 304,000 worldwide employees might reveal. BTW, nice to see that Hurd has made it to HP's ex-CEO-Hall-of-Fame page."

The case against Hurd is dubious

[hessian]

This article summarizes it well but I'd have to quote more than "fair use" allows:

http://gawker.com/5609386/heres-the-real-reason-hp-ceo-mark-hurd-was-fired [gawker.com]

tl;dr Hurd was a goofus and tried to get intimate with a subordinate but backed off when it went nowhere, and probably did nothing illegal or immoral to Jodie Fischer or HP; the board just wanted to avoid publicity.

Re:HA HA

[dov_0]

Sounds like Simon [ntk.net] didn't like him.

Re:the story summary is rather sympathetic to hurd

[davev2.0]

You would be right if he was found to have committed sexual harassment.

But, he wasn't.

Re:What is sexual harrassment?

[vegiVamp]

Your not allowing me to put up a tasteful poster of a beautiful, if scantily clad, woman is clearly a sexual issue, and I see it as harrasment. The victim defines the crime, right ?

Re:What is sexual harrassment?

[Anonymous Coward]

That assumes that stability and productivity are more important than humanity, and perhaps that the company is more important than the people who make it up.

Maybe, maybe not.

Some of us don't want to sever our lives that way, and just be cogs in the machine at work. If you let yourself see the company as having purposes in addition to making a buck, like providing a fulfilling environment in which whole, functioning human beings can flourish during a third of their lives, your case isn't so clear any more.

Personally, I lost the ability to drink the corporate kool-aid during a few years' hiatus from that world. I'm back now, and I survive by telecommuting, so I don't have to keep my mask glued on quite so tightly all the time. I don't think I'm as effective as I could be even from a purely business standpoint, ignoring the impacts on me (and others) as a person. Sexual expression isn't my personal issue (although I used to be pretty ribald at work with people I was sure wouldn't be offended). However, the values you show when you blithely talk about stability, productivity, working together, harmony, etc, without thinking about other things, tend to create a stultifying culture way beyond the sexual harassment question.

... and I don't think it's open and shut that that does improve productivity, either. It may improve the productivity that you can measure. It may make it easier to get a group of people to crank along in an already defined way on an already defined task. But I don't think it's kind to the sort of personality who really transcends that and comes up with new things. You may get better and better at making buggy parts, but you're not going to invent the automobile that way.

Yes, we all need to be sensitive to what bothers other people, even if we think it's silly. But there have to be limits, things that people don't get to expect of others. Rules can only go so far in making people not be jerks.