Former Google Employee Files Lawsuit Alleging the Company Fired Him Over Pro-Diversity Posts (theverge.com) 308
According to court documents filed today, a former Google engineer is suing the company for discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination. "Tim Chevalier, a software developer and former site-reliability engineer at Google, claims that Google fired him when he responded with internal posts and memes to racist and sexist encounters within the company and the general response to the now-infamous James Damore memo," reports The Verge. From the report: Chevalier said in a statement to The Verge, "It is a cruel irony that Google attempted to justify firing me by claiming that my social networking posts showed bias against my harassers." Chevalier, who is also disabled and transgender, alleges that his internal posts that defended women of color and marginalized people led directly to his termination in November 2017. He had worked at Google for a little under two years. Notably, Chevalier's posts had been quoted in Damore's lawsuit against Google -- in which Damore sued the company for discrimination against conservative white men -- as evidence Google permitted liberals to speak out at the company unpunished. Chevalier's lawsuit alleges that his firing is, in fact, a form of punishment. The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco County Superior Court and Chevalier is seeking damages for lost wages, emotional distress, punitive damages, and injunctive relief against those alleged harmful acts. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Transgender Lesbian (Score:4, Funny)
I'm constantly being harassed because I'm a transgendered lesbian person of no-color - although I identify as Asian. People just assume that because I look like a white man and act like a heterosexual man, that I'm white heterosexual guy. When I tell them that my wife is a transgendered homosexual man of no-color but identifies as Black and that I'm in a non-traditional marriage, folks don't take me seriously. I get thrown out of LGBTQ groups and made fun of. Just because she has a vagina and breasts and can get pregnant doesn't mean he is a woman. And just because I can get erections doesn't mean I'm a man.
People really need to stop this bigotry.
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To be fair, you aren't a man. You're a troll.
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Regardless of you gender, race, beliefs, whatever, there are some unspoken but very obvious rules about what you say and don't say on company time.
As companies demand more and more of your time, there's less of a distinction between company time and non-company time than there used to be. Besides, Google is a "bring your whole self to work" company which encourages discussion about things on their internal systems that at other companies would be considered unprofessional.
We have professionalism for a reason, but companies like Google will nonetheless insist that meritocracy is a thing.
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Finally someone gets it. Pushing this stuff hard at work is going to get problematic no matter which side you are on, if it starts to create a hostile workplace or badly impact the operation of the company. The way you deal with things like sexist encounters is not to post some stupid memes, it's to complain to HR and let them deal with it.
This guy and Damore are both screwed.
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harassment - this would require him still being on premence and/or in communications
No, it wouldn't. It would require him to provide evidence to the court that harassment occurred during the period in which he did work for Google.
The one single limitation to this is that google can't claim "out loud" that the reason is due to race, gender, age, or disability.
Or political views, which his lawsuit explicitly mentions as the reason.
Since google claimed the reason is due to the memo
No, that was Damore. This is a different engineer with a different lawsuit.
Otherwise he can only claim $0 in damages
He was sacked. That means he's lost earnings (and other employment benefits), and has been put in a disadvantageous position in the jobs market.
If the company mistreated him before sacking him, and sacked him illegally,
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all my pay deductions to worthy causes, and political parties are hereby cancelled
You may want to keep quiet about that, as failing to contribute to the 'correct' cause is de facto opposition to it, you cis nazi scum*.
*not my views, I'm roleplaying an idiot here. I mean, a woke west coast gender fluid otherkin
Work? (Score:5, Interesting)
Do they do any real work at Google anymore or just write weird memos about social justice all day?
Re: Work? (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course they do real work. Someone has to find and demonitize all the conservative YouTube channels ...
Re: Work? (Score:2)
Y'all are pissed off that Slashdot doesn't like your iPhone's Unicode.
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They were programmed from an early age in public schools, which filled their heads with left wing ideology they were not allowed to question.
This is the youth of today - good luck.
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Lots (Score:2, Insightful)
a). It's click bait. I predict 300+ comments on this post if not more.
b). These lawsuits are being funded by the Republican party [law.com]. This is a major political issue for the Republican party. It's part of a larger narrative they're building that white males are under assault.
Now, the fact is white males are... by declining wages due to outsourcing, H1-Bs, economic crashes caused by widespread deregulation, vulture capital firms killing off their jobs, etc, etc)
Re:Lots (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, the Republican party is funding the Damore lawsuit, but this lawsuit, the one started by this transgender person, I doubt that's being funded by the Republican party.
That last lawsuit against Google could be funded by Google against itself for all I know, to show that they're not showing bias in firing people since people from both sides are suing them.
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Ok, let me see if I've got this (Score:2)
Your response to that point isn't to attack it on it's merits, but to say that my point is irrelevant because there might be a conspiracy by Google to fund lawsuits against themselves as a false flag operation to d
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Sheesh. Please just read the article. There is no need to speculate.
Re:Work? (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, dashing off a memo (one way or the other) doesn't take a lot of time.
What does take a lot of time, cumulatively speaking is reading such memos. If you send a memo and it gets distributed to a couple of hundred people, the cost of that memo can be staggering.
Re:Work? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know a dude who works there and he feels like he's undercover at this point, there's constant inane memos about excessive SJW stuff.
Sure, obviously they do actual work in the place, but the diversity and equality group or whomever they are, really seem to have their fingers in every pie, fussing over the most inane bullshit.
I know a dude... (Score:2)
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Well, this guy's manager is named in the memo and accused of targeting him with a comment about spending 50% of the time writing weird memos.
So clearly there's a desire for staff to be productive, and Chevalier disagrees with his former manager regarding the appropraite work/memo balance.
Re:Work? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Do they do any real work at Google anymore or just write weird memos about social justice all day?
You do realise that Google has 74000 employees, and that you're complaining about a small handful right?
Re:Work? (Score:5, Insightful)
A while back I did some consultancy work for a company that made gaming machines. It was actually kind of interesting to go out to the companies who used them. Most of them still had a few engineers who were understandably fed up that their company had brought in an outside solution instead of the in house one they'd championed. However they had loads of executive types who spent their time having boozy pub lunches, usually ending in an angry political rant.
It reminded me a bit of the idea of a 'resource curse', the notion that 'that countries with an abundance of natural resources (like fossil fuels and certain minerals), tend to have less economic growth, less democracy, and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources'. [wikipedia.org]
It's possible that there's something analogous happening with Google - once they worked out how to make piles of cash from ads and not from developing new software it all started to stagnate.
Or look at Valve. Valve used to make some very interesting video games, peaking around the Orange Box with Half Life II and Portal. However now they've got an income from Steam they too seem to produce less than they used to.
In Google's case it seems like they've hired a lot of smart people fresh out of good universities but most of them get stuck in a profoundly stagnant environment. So the politics starts up. Interestingly in Google it's not normal company politics - trying to bring down your rivals at work - but rather the sort of identity politics you see at elite universities. And a few people on the other side pointing out how silly this stuff is.
So the sort of insanity that played out at Evergreen [wikipedia.org] and Harvard and Yale [wikipedia.org] now plays out at Google.
I think the reason Google can survive it for as long as it does is that it's profitable mostly because of ad revenues, not producing new software. Android and Chrome are free after all, and have become the default choice like Windows and Internet Explorer used to be.
I.e. the resource curse has allowed them to survive despite having a culture which is more about student politics than having to deliver anything to critical customers on time.
Re:Work? (Score:4, Interesting)
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I'm not really sure what you're alluding to here. Valve were great around the time of the Orange Box and seem to have gone downhill a lot since then. I don't really know too much about them before then.
Of course it might just be that I had the time and hardware to play games around the time of the Orange Box and haven't really had it since then.
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This is another one of those Fermat's Margin gambits isn't it? I.e. "I have proof that I'm right and you're wrong but it is too large to fit in this slashdot comment box"
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An strange development (Score:2)
Google has a right to cultivate their own corporate culter, you can't tell a private company how to run its business. I'm just enjoy
Re:An strange development (Score:4)
I'll bite. Where did you get those numbers from?
Not saying you're right, not saying you're wrong. Just looking for source data.
They just want people to get back to work (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the main issue here is that Google doesn't want people arguing this stuff on company time instead of working. Fighting against social ills like sexism and discrimination is a noble cause, but if employees are spending half their time doing so instead of working, the company will suffer.
Better to rid of toxic people on both sides than to allow them to rile up others and cause big social problems within the company. A lot of times a group of people will work quite well as a team until politics is brought up, then it's practically World War Three.
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I think the main issue here is that Google doesn't want people arguing this stuff on company time instead of working.
Well if so, they have a funny way of showing it. As a company they spend a lot of time and energy talking about all this argle fargle.
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"My manager does a lot of argle fargle" is not actually an excuse for ignoring strong hints from your manager for you to do less argle fargle. At will employment is what it is.
Re: They just want people to get back to work (Score:2)
Lick those boots!
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So if you are incompetent and about to get fired (Score:5, Insightful)
Just quickly post some things like these. Not saying this is what happened here, but seems to be a flaw in the system.
It is also quite possible the actual problem here is these companies having styled themselves too much as a "home" and "welcoming place" in order to attract talented people (and have them work long hours uncompensated) and people working there are less and less aware that it is a place of work. You know, one of those places were you keep politics out and are expected to behave professionally all the time ...
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Well, for variable values of "advocating". Obviously these quotes are not to be taken literally. Still, if he made them within a work-context, that is pretty bad.
Google has a what now? (Score:4, Funny)
FTFA:
"A Google employee allegedly responded to the post by noting that asking for ID was just part of the job, Gizmodo reported. Chevalier then made a privilege-denying dude meme using Google’s internal meme generator with the caption, “I have opinions about forms of oppression that don’t affect me.” "
Google has an internal meme generator. I'm sure it provides hours of laughter and cohesive working.
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It’s a honey pot to figure out who to fire.
Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't try to change company culture yourself (Score:2)
Chevalier’s supervisors were critical of Chevalier’s political participation and dismissive of his attempts to change Google’s culture. Ultimately, Google fired Chevalier. Human Resources explicitly told Chevalier that Google was ending his employment because of his political statements in opposition to the discrimination, harassment, and white supremacy he saw being expressed on Google’s internal messaging systems
The proper recourse for harassment is to report it to HR and let the company deal with it -- you don't get free reign to try to change the company's culture yourself. If the company doesn't deal with it, *then* you sue the company.
Maintaining professionalism (Score:3)
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He never wrote any pro-diversity posts (Score:5, Informative)
Anonymous for obvious reasons.
I reported Tim to HR several times. Good to see that the system works.
Tim posted a lot. A lot. Pretty much all of was abuse.
I never saw any good faith pro diversity posts from him, so the article is wrong in that regard.
Instead, his usual posting style consists of jumping into a discussion and start hurling serious abuse and personal attacks against whomever he thought was in the wrong.
He regularly calls other work colleagues Nazi, Racist, Rapist. Relentlessly and over and over.
He is very toxic and abusive. Shame it took this long to get rid of him.
I don't think his lawyers really know what kind of stuff Tim was writing when at Google. If they did they would know that this whole "fired for being pro diversity" angle will crash and burn almost immediately once Google starts showing what really happened.
Re: He never wrote any pro-diversity posts (Score:5, Interesting)
What do you mean he is the leaker?
You have not seen shit about what he used to post. If I were him I would not leak anything.
True story: I reported this with screenshot evidence around feb/mar last year :
There was this woman that wrote a long and heartbreaking post on how and the struggle to bring up a mentally challenged child
or her own, and whom she loved. It was really good and informative on the challenges of a young family protecting and bringing up
a downs syndrome child.
I and all other googlers that have a heart, and are not insane, was touched by her experience and her struggle.
We emotionally started to understand the real live situation and how to help.
In comes Tim. He is mad. This mother or a challenged child used the "wrong" words to describe her childs disability and he tore her a new asshole
on how intolerant she was and how bad mother she was. Personal attacks left right and centre and really aiming to hurt this woman that had opened
up to talk about a very difficult subject. His attacks were relentless. He was so vicious you can not even imagine it towards this woman.
Not even the worst you have ever seen on twitter comes close.
He hurls abuse, slurs and personal attacks left right and centre on this woman. Disgusting.
So fucking disgusting. Such a fucking disgustingly bad person. This was one of the two times I reported him to HR. I never reported him calling fellows rapists or nazi or that they should die or leave google. Those guys can protect themselves. They are grownups.
But when you viciously attack a mother of a mentally handicapped child, that is crossing the line.
Hope you read this Tim. You are a disgusting worm.
There are just so many similar stories about Tim you would not believe it. This one just struck a cord with me for personal reasons.
No other company would he be left on the payroll for almost a year with HR involvement this long.
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When diversity is a priority, being Trans and Disabled puts someone in an entirely separate class. Tim could get away with almost anything, and it is surprising he got fired at all even after very egregious and appalling behavior. Disadvantage person
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What if? (Score:2)
What if this is the....uh....guy....girl...whatever that leaked Damore's memo?
Google surely would love to get rid of such employee...
So many snowflakes... (Score:2)
Re: Just plain hypocrisy (Score:2, Informative)
In my opinion, if you are openly contributing to a toxic work environment, you deserve to be fired.
This applies to conservatives or this person.
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It was Google who created the toxic work environment. The company allowed and even encouraged political activism. But Google chose one side to support and fired anyone who didn't agree with their political platform. Goggle might as well introduce religion into the work environment and chose only one denomination to support and fire anyone who doesn't agree.
I wonder how low Google has set the bar when evaluating and hiring employees in order to meet their diversity quotas? Oh and in the real world who gives
Re: Just plain hypocrisy (Score:4, Insightful)
This is just the opposite end of the spectrum from James Damore.
Maybe if you're looking at it as the irrational bigotry in this chick's rants being the polar opposite of the kind of rational, nuanced case put forward by Danmore. But if you're talking about politics and particular stances, then no, there's no "opposite spectrum" to a centrist.
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The only reason why they ever created the term "cisgender" is because they simply cannot bring themselves to call it what it really is: normal.
Admitting this through word choice would remove much of the wind from their proverbial sails.
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Do you equally object to "straight" or "heterosexual" being words?
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Inventing new words is fine (stupid, but fine). It's when they unilaterally redefine old words to mean something completely different than they have for centuries that gets annoying.
Since the dawn of humanity "What sex/gender are you?" has meant "Do or don't you have a dick/Y-chromosome?", not "Which of two ( or several dozen [tumblr.com]) sets of perceived societal stereotypes do you and/or your 'headmates' feel most in conformance with today?".
I don't fucking care, I just want to know if you have a vagina or not. Tho
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Gender was a linguistic category (e.g., masc, fem, neut, common) until just a few years ago when some bozos thought 'twas cooler than the word "sex".
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I thought they changed it because they were tired of people writing "yes" under "Sex?".
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Erm. That's kind of normal.
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Remember when we did our goddam job and played at the fucking house?
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I never discuss politics at work. If I want a political argument, I go to Slashdot.
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Argument is an intellectual process. Slashdot is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.
Re:Remember when we cared about tech? (Score:5, Funny)
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Oh, I'm sorry, this is abuse.
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Man: An argument isn't just contradiction.
Mr. Vibrating: It can be.
Man: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
Mr. Vibrating: No it isn't.
Man: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
Mr. Vibrating: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
Man: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
Mr. Vibrating: Yes it is!
Man: No it isn't!
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Yes, But if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
No you don't. [youtube.com]
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I visit slashdot from work you insensitive clod!
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I'd really appreciate it if we could move back towards topics where rational thinking is not overshadowed by identity politics. But I also believe that hoping for this is a very naive thing.
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It's almost like Google doesn't have a consistent bias that conforms with anyone's narrative!
Oh dear. [thoughtmaybe.com]
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Professionals know when you see some insanity like the original memo, you forward it to HR, and STFU.
The problem with having an internal social network is that insanity can go around the world several times before the adults have a chance to put their boots on.
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You're here to work for a living, not make spectacles of yourself.
Google tried making specacles for other people, and that didn't work out very well. So, the only choice left is to make them for themselves.
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PopeRatzo is more than a single individual. He is an idea. You can think of him as the Nicolas Bourbaki of Slashdot commenters.
I appreciate that, but the answer is still no, I won't have sex with you.
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I think it will, because not only were some of the exhibits in Damore/Gudeman's suit from Chevalier (e.g. page 21, then Exhibits B 16, 26, 40, 44, 46, 83 and 86) but it looks like Chevalier was sacked before the Damore/Gudeman suit was filed.
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On the contrary, I think it will strengthen Damore's case, because Google has tacitly agreed that there has been unacceptable behavior from the so-called "diversity" camp. In which case, firing Damore shows even less justifiable bias against his position.
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On the contrary, I think it will strengthen Damore's case, because Google has tacitly agreed that there has been unacceptable behavior from the so-called "diversity" camp. In which case, firing Damore shows even less justifiable bias against his position.
I think even the best lawyers are going to have a hard time convincing a judge that actions that display even-handedness on Google's part, is actually evidence of bias. However, if Google enters Chevalier's firing into evidence, which they likely will, I'm fairly certain that Damore's lawyers will try a similar argument. I just doubt that the judge will accept it as anything more than a desperate reach by a floundering lawyer.
Re: Woman (Score:3, Interesting)
yes, he was born with a vagina.
You have an issue with that, it's your problem, not his.
I'm pretty sure that her being born with a vagina and then developing the belief that she's a man is an issue for her, and nobody else. It certainly isn't an issue for the court to examine, so wtf is it doing as part of the lawsuit?
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Discrimination on the grounds of gender is illegal in most places. Gender disphoria is a recognized medical condition.
Saying things like "developing the belief that she's a man" could be used as evidence of a hostile workplace. If someone said something like that, he reported it and HR didn't take action, it strengthens his case. That's why it's part of the lawsuit.
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Gender disphoria is a recognized medical condition.
And they only stopped thinking of homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1987 https://www.psychologytoday.co... [psychologytoday.com]
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...they only stopped thinking of homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1987...
That doesn't imply that it WAS a mental illness before 1987. (I don't think you were trying to imply that.) Historically, a lot of the treatment of gays has been terrible. Turing comes to mind. If some woman wants to live as a man, that's entirely up to her. I'll even use a person's preferred pronouns regardless of genitalia. Doesn't hurt me at all.
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Gender dysphoria is even more so.
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Cut that out. I have a spelling disability.
Re: Woman (Score:2)
Saying things like "developing the belief that she's a man" could be used as evidence of a hostile workplace. If someone said something like that, he reported it and HR didn't take action, it strengthens his case. That's why it's part of the lawsuit.
Her lawsuit doesn't make any such allegation, ergo her lack of a penis is not pertinent to the case. Besides which, it would take a special kind of gullible idiot to believe that Google - the bastion of "progressivism" - discriminates against trannies.
A more likely explanation is that she's used to being able to scream "I'm disabled and transgender!!!" to immediately end disagreement and receive deference from pretty much everyone around her. She's do used to it that she's fooled herself into believing th
Re:Woman (Score:5, Insightful)
There can be literally hundreds of objective measures of physical performance that can screen for physical infirmity. Some of them are even codified into laws and regulations, like what criteria you have to meet to get a handicap placard for your car or whether you're capable of operating a motor vehicle at all.
This phrasing is retarded. And while I'm at it...what the hell is 'queer' exactly?
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Yeah, I boggled at identifying as disabled. But just to clarify, he's claiming mental disabilities not physical ones. PTSD and some other thing that I forget and can't be arsed re-reading the suit to find out.
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...he's claiming mental disabilities not physical ones. PTSD...
I'm diagnosed with PTSD. You wouldn't believe the number of cases that appeared when it became a qualifying condition for buying cannabis. PTSD is a real thing and I feel for the people waking up screaming and all, but a whole lot of people just 'identify' as PTSD.
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"Queer" is a catchall term for anyone not cisgender and heterosexual. In place of the alphabet soup of "LGBTQQA+OMGWTFBBQ".
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You either fuck pussy or you don’t, too. Obviously the ones who do are the straights right?
Even if those pussy-fuckers also suck cock? Still straight? You either fuck pussy or you don’t right? And they do, so...
And what about people who neither fuck nor suck? Gay because they don’t fuck pussy? Or straight because they don’t suck cock?
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For example, I have ME, also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
Yes, but as you said: you have it. You don't identify with it.
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They usually ask "do you have a disability?"
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For example, I have ME, also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
So do I tick the disabled box on the form?
If Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is considered a disability, yes you tick the box.
Someone with Epilepsy would say they have Epilepsy even though they aren't having a constant 24/7 seizure.
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I'll try not jacking it for a month, and report back here. If I seem a bit frustrated these next few weeks you will have to forgive me.
Re:There are many ways to get fired. (Score:5, Informative)
It's at-will employment.
"At-will" means you can be fired for ALMOST any reason, or for no reason. But even with "at-will" there is are reasons that cannot be used to fire someone. For instance, you cannot fire someone for belonging to a protected class [wikipedia.org]. California has state restrictions in addition to the federal restrictions. The city of Mountain View may add even more.
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