In the US, almost all employment is at-will. There's no probationary period and any one can be let go at any time without notice for any reason (or no reason) except for a certain list of protected things (gender, race, marital status, and the like).

Also, from the description, it seems like the conversation was way more than just "would you like to get a drink" and the guy already didn't back down.

> from the description, it seems like

Exactly, nothing that any HN observer can come to any conclusion with.

> With that said, aren't we potentially overreacting here? Quite a lot of romances spark in the office. The guys tried it on, he's been rubuked, hopefully he got the point and will settle down.

I see your point, but if you're an employee and you're sharing that "so and so texted me this <shows phone>", what's the motivation behind that? She said she doesn't want to cause problems, but if it's something between two adults and not involving work, I would imagine she would just not say anything, particularly to management.

OP needs to read into their conversation, it's hard to armchair quarterback this over the internet. At the end of the day it's ultimately easier for us to say fire for a multitude of reasons, many of which are likely valid.

> I see your point, but if you're an employee and you're sharing that "so and so texted me this <shows phone>", what's the motivation behind that? She said she doesn't want to cause problems, but if it's something between two adults and not involving work, I would imagine she would just not say anything, particularly to management.

I think you're dangerously into all women are always resonable logic there. It's entirely possible, that the female employee, as an employee of a startup, is inflected by the same hyper-sensitivity that plagues communities such as ourselves. Conversely it's also entirely possible that male employee is a complete and utter dickhead. I wouldn't bet my life on either one being the truth.

> OP needs to read into their conversation, it's hard to armchair quarterback this over the internet. At the end of the day it's ultimately easier for us to say fire for a multitude of reasons, many of which are likely valid.

Well yeah, the OP hasn't given us enough info to really comment and he'll need to use his own personal judgement on whether the messages were over the line or whether he was just being a guy. I'm just trying to remind people that whilst we should be professional at work, we aren't automatons and normal people are going to continue dating and bonking their colleagues or attempting to do so and whilst that's sexual, it doesn't necessarily constitute harassment.

> I think you're dangerously into all women are always resonable logic there.

Uhh... seriously? I hope I'm misreading what you wrote here.

Why? Your no smoke without fire argument relies on the lady in question not being touchy or unresonable. I'd argue donglegate shows that, despite having an army of men willing to defend them, sometimes this is the case.

It's also poor form to skip the context like that.

Dunno, I'd kinda assume people are being reasonable by default. That's how societies are built by the majority so that a minority of cynics can find the luxury to make sexist remarks within that established framework.

You're focusing on one bad outcome, while ignoring another.

I am trying to convey the notion that with this line of thought, anyone could be doing anything because they are unreasonable or selfish. The original poster could be experimenting on us to mine text and find differing levels of consensus per time when HN faces controversy. I could be a bot trying to be more human. Without taking evidence into account, most of society is garbage.

Self-interest/motivation has its own MO. Also, sometimes motive isn't so important - physical behavior is. This is the evidence which can be collected. Otherwise you can't really assume much. Your original comment seemed to imply a conspiracy though through "built by".

This is a little detached from the original context though, and there's another issue there; People are not random processes, they may choose to pursue selfish strategies conditional on being in a system where it is uncritically "assume[d] people are being reasonable by default".

Well, no. You're assuming the woman is reasonble by default and thus the man must be at fault. This is actually a sexist point of view.

Except I wouldn't ignore textual evidence "because women can be unreasonable" or "men can be assholes".

Straw-man. Or possibly framing the original argument stereotypically/in bad-faith.

Concluding you only have one side of the story, is not the same as, nor necessitates ignoring it. One alternative is getting the other side of the story.

I also find the phrasing "because women can be unreasonable" to be suspicious - there is no reason to put it this way rather than "people can be unreasonable"; OP made no claim that only women should be treated with skepticism.

- are you trying to invoke the historical meme of women being dismissed as irrational?

I did not make up the phrase, just read the comments and the memes and the rhetoric by the OP. They are exactly what you disagree with. OP didn't just say "listen to his side" which is reasonable (albeit dangerous and should be handled by legal rather than personal means)

Actually the only point I've really made is you shouldn't automatically assume the woman is being resonable whilst also assuming the man is unresonable. I'll happily admit that the converse is also true, but since 90% of the thread has jumped to the conclusion the guy should be fired, it hardly needs to be said.

Where you're going wrong, is that you're attributing more to whats actually been said, which is sadly the problem I have with this entire thread.

Ambiguity and rhetoric does that.

You forgot "actually" after your "Well"

Referring to someone as a MILF at work is inappropriate at work, even if you are trying to 'spark a romance'. You don't get a free pass to try anything once. If you are trying to spark a romance, you have to do it in a professional way that leaves the other person an out before you take it to an inappropriate level.

See I think this is a culutre thing, but I imagine it doesn't work for the entire USA but is locked down to the left politically correct spectrum, because to me it's not all that bad a word.

Point being, I could quite happily call someone from work a MILF in a semi-serious / semi-jokey way and get away with it. In fact, I've said worse and had success because if the woman likes you, she'll like the fact you said it.

Now where the problem lies in this example is the guy should have read the signals that she wasn't interested and not just try it on anyways. Then again, I'm not sure why she'd move over to a private medium if she wasn't acting interested.

But I get it, you're outraged at a couple of tidbits of information that aren't guaranteed to be in order and are largely without context of the conversation. I can't really argue with that.

> had success

That's a really gross way of describing your overbearing behavior in a work setting. As if spitting out sexually-charged comments is some sort of win/not-quite-lose scenario.

Yeah, let's just keep calling women MILFs, or calling guys DILFs, or whatever the pickup line du jour is, until it "succeeds", and until then, well, just keep trying. That doesn't sound like a creepy, overbearing trait to exhibit at all. /sarcasm

There's a difference between me calling you a DILF either in jest, as an actual compliment or because I want to see how you react than repeating it ad nauseam.

Also you seem to be imagining that everyone's doing this during working hours and that there's no context to the comments. If I just walked into work and started yelling such things at people, I imagine folks would quite rightly pause, but the "had success" point was that there is obviously situations where this is appreciated.

Why do you keep harping on someone "appreciating" or "liking" the comments? It comes off as you equivocating your sexual advances towards coworkers as being something worth giving, that the existence of one time where you made a comment that wasn't rebuked is now the case law for it being OK that these things are said to people who might very well be totally disgusted by the person who says it, because one person, at one point in time, wasn't disgusted.

Sigh. You seem to be missing the point which is that a not insignificant percentage of relationships spawn from the work place. You may want no part in that, and that's fine, but the idea that we should never act human to each other because professionalism is something that a significant percentage of people dont appear to agree with.

So whilst I'm not suggesting you go in tomorrow and tell your nearest female colleague they have nice tits, I'm arguing that at some place at some point in some context it's entirely possible to compliment and make appreciated advancements on a colleague, otherwise office relationships wouldn't happen.

Now if you accept that sometimes it may be okay, under certain circumstances, to do such things, you also need to accept it's possible to make an unwanted pass at someone. You may find that disgusting but most people would just find it slightly awkward and am slightly bemused at the reaction of some of you.

The other point I was generally making, is that whilst some woman will never appreciate such a comment and some will, some of the time some will appreciate you making the comment whilst being quite annoyed if I did. But all I'm really saying is the matter may be more complex that the "he needs to be fired" comments.

Of course you're free to draw the line before calling someone a MILF, and again this is without context, but if you really find saying such a thing under any circumstances abhorrent, I'm going to go out in a limb here and suggest you're just no fun.

Look, I know all about workplace romances - I am married to a woman I met at work.

I think YOU are missing the point. There is no word (MILF included) that I will categorically say should NEVER be uttered at work.

I will say, however, that you better be VERY close with your coworkers before you start saying it. The kind of close that is IMPOSSIBLE to get to in the first few weeks of employment at a place. The fact that this guy just started working at the company and already called someone a MILF (and who clearly didn't like it, since she complained to the CEO) means he is being horribly inappropriate, and has no excuse.

> I will say, however, that you better be VERY close with your coworkers before you start saying it. The kind of close that is IMPOSSIBLE to get to in the first few weeks of employment at a place.

I disagree. I'm a "contractor" which means I've had a lot of short engagements. Part of what makes me good at being a contractor is I usually get on with people pretty well and being a working class Scottish lad, I do have a rough sense of humour. I joke around with both men and woman, and that's okay because people like that part of me.

> The fact that this guy just started working at the company and already called someone a MILF (and who clearly didn't like it, since she complained to the CEO) means he is being horribly inappropriate, and has no excuse.

Well yeah, but that's still the no smoke without fire argument. She clearly doesn't like it, it shouldn't be said again, but do we extend that you immedaitly firing the guy if he simply misread the situation and dropped it from there?

If you are friends with your coworker, and you know each other well, then sure, you can get away with calling her a lot of things. I have specific coworkers that I am like this with (in private, away from other coworkers who might not know our relationship)

There is no WAY this would be acceptable until you have established that type of relationship over a long period of time. This guy just started working there, so that is not the case here. The fact that she complained about it means that they don't have that type of relationship, as well.

Yes, ownagefool, I think that this thread, the more extreme reactions come from an oversensitized USA to the sexual harassment.

One has barely any info other than the attitude of the guy made the CEO upset [and we don't know exactly if that translate to harassment, improper conduct or maybe latent feelings (consider all of these)], yet, everyone is saying fire him.

The asking for a whatsapp and she saying 'only as friends in a work context' can't be seen as a first advance, so it can't be seen as he got rebuked the first time, he got it clear with the MILF remark, she probably rebuked him, if he continued, it is harassment, if not, I wouldn't call it that.

Probationary periods are basically fictional unless you've laid out some formalized termination process.

Perhaps fictional in the US. They are very much legal fact in (most of?) Europe where at-will employment isn't really a thing.

I assumed this story took place in the US, where people talk about "probationary periods" all the time despite basically your entire term of employment being "probationary" in this sense. Yes, if you're in Europe it's a totally different story.