Destiny 2 and Marathon developer Bungie is currently being sued for retaliation and wrongful termination by a former HR manager, who alleges she was let go when she raised a potential case of racial discrimination to her supervisors.
IGN has spoken to 26 current and former employees that have worked at Bungie within the last decade. Their accounts of the studio’s work culture encompass a wide range of experiences. They span overt sexism, boys’ club culture, crunch, and HR protection of abusers, as well as more complex stories of microaggressions, systemic inequalities, and difficulties in being heard. However, interviewees also include a number of more recent employees who, despite their own hurts, truly believe the studio is slowly but steadily improving, are candid about the immense challenge of trying to turn such a massive ship in a better direction, and whose accounts of change line up with statements made to IGN by Parsons in response to this piece.
… When people objected to his demeanor, he told them they needed thicker skins, and to learn how to take criticism. He called one woman on the team an “unmanageable bitch.” Another source said he was “literally the worst person I’ve ever worked for.”
He was eventually let go, but was replaced by what our sources say were similarly antagonizing men. One lead frequently made sexist remarks, but also complained about “reverse sexism” and on at least one occasion made homophobic remarks to a queer colleague. He would openly mock his team members’ ideas in meetings then play his mockery off like a joke, and would frequently take credit for work others had done. …
It seems like the company genuinely tried to change, but some of the old guards, the old employees (not only the execs) are still racists / transphobes / misogynists. While the PR touts that it’s diverse and a safe workplace is not in line with the actual things happening. It reeks like a boys club. That was in 2021, probably going to take more time for the company to change and remove those festering toxic people.
Just a few months into her employment, she says she was instructed to investigate the performance of a particular employee, referred to as “James Smith.” But when she sat down to speak with Smith, he allegedly pointed out that he was the only Black employee on a team of 50 individuals, and expressed that he felt he was being singled out and racially targeted by his supervisor.
Alm goes on to say that she shared this information with her supervisor and recommended that Smith’s supervisor receive diversity training, but alleges that her recommendation was met with “hostility and denial.”
So she just took the allegedly under performing employees word and recommended diversity training without any further investigation? I hope the article is leaving something out.
When someone is hired to address discrimination and someone reports that they are still being discriminated against, I would hope that the person hired to address discrimination would assume the report of coninued discrimination is correct.
Assuming the best when that is crealy not the situation is just shoving your head in the sand.
I would hope that the person hired to address discrimination would assume the report of coninued discrimination is correct.
They should assume it’s true for the purpose of more investigation. Then decide if the facts support or disprove the claim. That’s much different than hearing it from one person, and then concluding that it’s true.
Note that they believed it enough to raise the concern to someone higher up and that person took the existence of the complaint personally. That is doing exactly what you said, taking the complaint seriously enough to look into it.
Did you read the rest of the article? It talks about how she talked with others in the company about this, someone above her took it very personally as suggesting he was racist, and her prompt firing. It also highlights how bungie was exposed for both racial and gender bias by reporting just a few months before she was hired, indicating that these exposed problems likely still existed.
I don’t mean any harm when I say this, but why would you jump to the defense of a company in the first place, dismissing claims of racism or other forms of bigotry? The world is incredibly biased, and regular large-scale studies on company culture (and social culture) reveal widespread bigotry in our world. Simply assuming the status quo absent enough evidence on either side to clearly paint a picture is more often than not correct. What purpose does trying to discredit her accomplish here? How do you think it makes black people feel to see the only reply in a thread is an attempt at discrediting her?
Did you read the rest of the article? It talks about how she talked with others in the company about this, someone above her took it very personally as suggesting he was racist, and her prompt firing. It also highlights how bungie was exposed for both racial and gender bias by reporting just a few months before she was hired, indicating that these exposed problems likely still existed.
Yes. Her superiors disagreed that the supervisor needed diversity training just because that one person who received a bad review said he was being racially targeted. The article doesn’t say that she made any attempt to talk to that Black employee’s immediately coworkers. She just talked to him and decided the supervisor needed diversity training. So it’s not surprising that her supervisors reacted critically.
I don’t mean any harm when I say this, but why would you jump to the defense of a company in the first place, dismissing claims of racism or other forms of bigotry? The world is incredibly biased, and regular large-scale studies on company culture (and social culture) reveal widespread bigotry in our world. Simply assuming the status quo absent enough evidence on either side to clearly paint a picture is more often than not correct. What purpose does trying to discredit her accomplish here? How do you think it makes black people feel to see the only reply in a thread is an attempt at discrediting her?
I’m not siding with the company. I’m siding with the employee who was treated like a racist because one person who may have been underperforming said he was without any further investigation. That’s ridiculous.
You seem to keep making a lot of assumptions about what happened, absent any evidence that it did. Why do you assume that she didn’t make ‘any attempt to talk to that Black employee’s immediate coworkers’? Why do you assume she ‘just talked to him’? Why do you assume there was no ‘further investigation’?
We don’t have any of this information. It’s not fair to assume anything about whether they happened or not. Why are you making all of your assumptions in the direction of discrediting this individual? The article that is linked here links another article exposing a pervasive issue of gender and racial bias at this company, so it seems rather odd to be assuming that they had completely fixed this issue by the time of her hiring, a mere few months later, and that it was not at play in this situation. However, even if this article was not linked and this company was not specifically exposed for these issues, it seems odd to me to assume in the direction that research on bigotry in the workplace also does not support.
Why do you feel compelled to jump to the defense of someone you do not know, over an accusation which doesn’t affect you and you have no stakes in nor any knowledge of the circumstances?
Just want to hop in and also point out the vastly different costs of being wrong in each case.
On one hand, we have a supervisor having to take a diversity course, and an employee getting a written warning about their performance. On the other hand, a person is losing their income and health insurance. If the evidence equally supported both sides and we had to guess, the detrimental effect of incorrectly supporting one side is vastly more significant than incorrectly supporting the other.
And that assumes a hypothetical where the evidence doesn’t support either side, something I do not think is the case. I think the article supplies enough information to support Alm’s case.
On one hand, we have a supervisor having to take a diversity course, and an employee getting a written warning about their performance. On the other hand, a person is losing their income and health insurance. If the evidence equally supported both sides and we had to guess, the detrimental effect of incorrectly supporting one side is vastly more significant than incorrectly supporting the other.
Yes, but don’t you get it? Someone might be getting called racist when they’re not, and that’s obviously the worst thing in the whole big wide world! And on top of that case, a black person will get to under perform in the workplace! Oh the humanity! Will no one think of the children?!?!?!
I for one am thankful we were born and raised in a society with no racial biases that could seep in to my work. Now, if you excuse me, I have to go back to writing up the only black person on my team for underperforming at the video game company with a history of racism and sexism B)
Notably, Alm was hired at Bungie just five months following an IGN report on the company’s work culture. In it, over 25 employees alleged the company had a history of allowing toxic culture to fester, including racial and gender bias, with those who reported such instances to HR alleging their reports were frequently dismissed or even turned against them. Following this report and prior to Alm’s hiring, Bungie’s former HR head stepped down from her role. IGN understands from its sources that following its 2021 report, Bungie also hired a number of new HR personnel in an effort to address the issues from the article, amid some pressure from its new parent company Sony.
I’m siding with the employee who was treated like a racist because one person who may have been underperforming said he was without any further investigation.
It’s so poignant that you tell on yourself with this statement.
All the best workplaces that don’t have a racism problem are the ones where lightly suggesting diversity training is met with hostility, denial, and sacking of the person suggesting it. Such actions really highlight how seriously said company takes concerns of bigotry at the workplace and proves they’re giving it their all to make it as inclusive as possible.
I’m siding with the employee who was treated like a racist
Proving how incredibly not racist I am by taking incredible, personal offense at the suggestion of checking possible biases I may have as manager at a company with a history of racial biases, because I care about combating racism just that much
Not sure about other companies, but at the one I work at, recommending a training doesn’t mean a whole lot except “this might be relevant to your work”. For example, in this case an employee expressed concerns of being discriminated against, so it makes sense to recommend training on how to identify and address those kinds of problems (even if no such situation is actually occurring) so that you’re better prepared to handle it.
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I’d be pissed to if my office went from a boys club to having forced diversity training.
Telling who you identify with.
IGN had a writeup about the condition of working in Bungie in 2021
It seems like the company genuinely tried to change, but some of the old guards, the old employees (not only the execs) are still racists / transphobes / misogynists. While the PR touts that it’s diverse and a safe workplace is not in line with the actual things happening. It reeks like a boys club. That was in 2021, probably going to take more time for the company to change and remove those festering toxic people.
So she just took the allegedly under performing employees word and recommended diversity training without any further investigation? I hope the article is leaving something out.
When someone is hired to address discrimination and someone reports that they are still being discriminated against, I would hope that the person hired to address discrimination would assume the report of coninued discrimination is correct.
Assuming the best when that is crealy not the situation is just shoving your head in the sand.
They should assume it’s true for the purpose of more investigation. Then decide if the facts support or disprove the claim. That’s much different than hearing it from one person, and then concluding that it’s true.
Note that they believed it enough to raise the concern to someone higher up and that person took the existence of the complaint personally. That is doing exactly what you said, taking the complaint seriously enough to look into it.
Did you read the rest of the article? It talks about how she talked with others in the company about this, someone above her took it very personally as suggesting he was racist, and her prompt firing. It also highlights how bungie was exposed for both racial and gender bias by reporting just a few months before she was hired, indicating that these exposed problems likely still existed.
I don’t mean any harm when I say this, but why would you jump to the defense of a company in the first place, dismissing claims of racism or other forms of bigotry? The world is incredibly biased, and regular large-scale studies on company culture (and social culture) reveal widespread bigotry in our world. Simply assuming the status quo absent enough evidence on either side to clearly paint a picture is more often than not correct. What purpose does trying to discredit her accomplish here? How do you think it makes black people feel to see the only reply in a thread is an attempt at discrediting her?
Yes. Her superiors disagreed that the supervisor needed diversity training just because that one person who received a bad review said he was being racially targeted. The article doesn’t say that she made any attempt to talk to that Black employee’s immediately coworkers. She just talked to him and decided the supervisor needed diversity training. So it’s not surprising that her supervisors reacted critically.
I’m not siding with the company. I’m siding with the employee who was treated like a racist because one person who may have been underperforming said he was without any further investigation. That’s ridiculous.
You seem to keep making a lot of assumptions about what happened, absent any evidence that it did. Why do you assume that she didn’t make ‘any attempt to talk to that Black employee’s immediate coworkers’? Why do you assume she ‘just talked to him’? Why do you assume there was no ‘further investigation’?
We don’t have any of this information. It’s not fair to assume anything about whether they happened or not. Why are you making all of your assumptions in the direction of discrediting this individual? The article that is linked here links another article exposing a pervasive issue of gender and racial bias at this company, so it seems rather odd to be assuming that they had completely fixed this issue by the time of her hiring, a mere few months later, and that it was not at play in this situation. However, even if this article was not linked and this company was not specifically exposed for these issues, it seems odd to me to assume in the direction that research on bigotry in the workplace also does not support.
Why do you feel compelled to jump to the defense of someone you do not know, over an accusation which doesn’t affect you and you have no stakes in nor any knowledge of the circumstances?
Just want to hop in and also point out the vastly different costs of being wrong in each case.
On one hand, we have a supervisor having to take a diversity course, and an employee getting a written warning about their performance. On the other hand, a person is losing their income and health insurance. If the evidence equally supported both sides and we had to guess, the detrimental effect of incorrectly supporting one side is vastly more significant than incorrectly supporting the other.
And that assumes a hypothetical where the evidence doesn’t support either side, something I do not think is the case. I think the article supplies enough information to support Alm’s case.
Yes, but don’t you get it? Someone might be getting called racist when they’re not, and that’s obviously the worst thing in the whole big wide world! And on top of that case, a black person will get to under perform in the workplace! Oh the humanity! Will no one think of the children?!?!?!
I for one am thankful we were born and raised in a society with no racial biases that could seep in to my work. Now, if you excuse me, I have to go back to writing up the only black person on my team for underperforming at the video game company with a history of racism and sexism B)
This isn’t great though:
It’s so poignant that you tell on yourself with this statement.
All the best workplaces that don’t have a racism problem are the ones where lightly suggesting diversity training is met with hostility, denial, and sacking of the person suggesting it. Such actions really highlight how seriously said company takes concerns of bigotry at the workplace and proves they’re giving it their all to make it as inclusive as possible.
Proving how incredibly not racist I am by taking incredible, personal offense at the suggestion of checking possible biases I may have as manager at a company with a history of racial biases, because I care about combating racism just that much
Yikes the more you read down the article the more of a hole Bungie seems to dig.
Not sure about other companies, but at the one I work at, recommending a training doesn’t mean a whole lot except “this might be relevant to your work”. For example, in this case an employee expressed concerns of being discriminated against, so it makes sense to recommend training on how to identify and address those kinds of problems (even if no such situation is actually occurring) so that you’re better prepared to handle it.