After paying fines for violations in Hungary and South Africa, Microsoft agreed to stop the practice—but I have evidence that I believe shows they continue to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act elsewhere. I was recruited by Microsoft in 1998, and I helped bring the company’s products throughout the Middle East and Africa for the next 20 years. I was successful and received many promotions. But eventually, I noticed something strange: many employees younger than me, in lower positions, were driving luxury cars and purchasing homes sometimes worth millions of dollars. For my part, I could not afford to buy a home, let alone anything else luxurious, despite my career success. I wondered, naively, whether these colleagues had families with money—but if so, why would they be working on a Microsoft sales team? I put the thought out of mind as Microsoft’s business in the Middle East and Africa boomed. I established contracts in the public sector in Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Qatar, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, and many other countries. I sold licensing and solutions to Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health, Ministry of the Interior, and National Guard. The Sub-Saharan Africa team I built generated $1 million in 2002; a year later, our revenue was over $15 million. This is, of course, a tiny amount compared to the $4 billion Microsoft now banks in the region, with its near monopoly. To accomplish this kind of growth in such a short time, Microsoft has long utilized a network of partners known as Licensing Solution Partners, who are authorized to engage with large public customers because they possess certain technical and business competencies. Together with these partners, Microsoft brings e-health solutions to hospitals and GPS and digitized services (such as online tax payments) to government agencies. The partner then takes a share of Microsoft’s licensing sales revenue, usually 10–15 percent. One way Microsoft closes deals using these partners is to create a business investment fund to pay for training or pilot projects that could cement longer-term deals. As the director of public sector and emerging markets for the Middle East and Africa, I had oversight of the requests for these funds. In 2016, a request came through in the amount of $40,000 to accelerate closing a deal in one African country. When I looked through the submission, I immediately knew something was wrong. The customer did not appear in Microsoft’s internal database of potential clients. On top of that, the partner in the deal was underqualified for the project’s outlined scope, and he wasn’t even supposed to be doing business with Microsoft: he had been terminated four months earlier for poor performance on the sales team, and corporate policy prohibits former employees from working as partners for six months from their departure without special approval. I brought these issues up with the Microsoft services architect who wrote the request, asking why she didn’t take the work in this case to our very capable in-house team, Microsoft Services. She said our in-house daily rate is very expensive, and she needed a less expensive team to handle the pilot. Still suspicious, I escalated the issue to my manager, and then to the human resources and legal departments. I took the business investment fund very seriously, and wondered why we would be giving money to a partner who could not achieve the desired results. The legal and HR teams put a stop to the $40,000 spend, but to my surprise, did not look deeper into the Microsoft employees who were orchestrating the fake deal. Meanwhile, the woman’s manager sought me out, angry that I had bypassed him; I told him I was only following company policy. Soon after, he was promoted and became my manager. He immediately scheduled a one-on-one meeting, in which he told me our job is to bring as much revenue as we can to Microsoft. He added, “I don’t want you to be a blocker. If any of the subsidiaries in the Middle East or Africa are doing something, you have to turn your head and leave it as is. If anything happens, they will pay the price, not you.” When I said I would not block anything unless it violated company policy, his tone took a sharp turn. He shouted that I was not capable of doing this business and couldn’t close deals. But my 18-year track record spoke for me. I requested a meeting with his boss, a vice president. When I told her what had happened, she asked whether I had any personal issues with him, and suggested the three of us meet, but the meeting was never scheduled. So, I emailed Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and an HR executive to explain that I felt mistreated by this manager. The aforementioned vice president immediately got back in touch with me, to say that by escalating the matter to Nadella, I had just “booked a one-way ticket out of Microsoft.” Related posts: Rebecca | Unsafe Working Conditions Anonymous | Overworked and Underpaid Allyna | All Workplaces Are Not Created Inclusive Lioness | Bezos Wants to Create a Better Future in Space. His Company Blue Origin Is Stuck in a Toxic Past.

We are a group of 21 former and current employees of Blue Origin. Many of us have spent our careers dreaming of helping to launch a crewed rocket into space and seeing it safely touch back down on Earth. But when Jeff Bezos flew to space this July, we did not share his elation. Instead, many of us watched with an overwhelming sense of unease. Some of us couldn’t bear to watch at all. Blue Origin’s mission statement features prominently on its website, and it’s a lofty one: “enabling a future where millions of people are living and working in space to benefit Earth.” All of us joined Blue Origin eager to innovate and to open access to space for the benefit of humanity. We believe exploring the possibilities for human civilization beyond Earth is a necessity. But if this company’s culture and work environment are a template for the future Jeff Bezos envisions, we are headed in a direction that reflects the worst of the world we live in now, and sorely needs to change. Blue Origin currently has more than 3,600 employees spanning six states and several countries. However, in the company Bezos has created, the workforce dedicated to establishing this future “for all” is mostly male and overwhelmingly white. One-hundred percent of the senior technical and program leaders are men. Workforce gender gaps are common in the space industry, but at Blue Origin they also manifest in a particular brand of sexism. Numerous senior leaders have been known to be consistently inappropriate with women. One senior executive in CEO Bob Smith’s loyal inner circle was reported multiple times to Human Resources for sexual harassment. Even so, Smith personally made him a member of the hiring committee for filling a senior HR role in 2019. Another former executive frequently treated women in a condescending and demeaning manner, calling them “baby girl,” “baby doll,” or “sweetheart” and inquiring about their dating lives. His inappropriate behavior was so well known that some women at the company took to warning new female hires to stay away from him, all while he was in charge of recruiting employees. It appeared to many of us that he was protected by his close personal relationship with Bezos—it took him physically groping a female subordinate for him to finally be let go. Additionally, a former NASA astronaut and Blue Origin senior leader once instructed a group of women with whom he was collaborating: “You should ask my opinion because I am a man.” We found many company leaders to be unapproachable and showing clear bias against women. Concerns related to flying New Shepard were consistently shut down, and women were demeaned for raising them. When one man was let go for poor performance, he was allowed to leave with dignity, even a going-away party. Yet when a woman leader who had significantly improved her department’s performance was let go, she was ordered to leave immediately, with security hovering until she exited the building five minutes later. What are the blind spots of an organization whose stated mission is to enable humanity’s better future, yet is rife with sexism? Blue Origin’s flaws extend further, unfortunately. The company proclaims it will build a better world because we’re well on our way to ruining this one, yet none of us has seen Blue Origin establish any concrete plans to become carbon neutral or significantly reduce its large environmental footprint. Jeff Bezos has made splashy announcements and donations to climate justice groups, but “benefiting Earth” starts in one’s own backyard. In our experience, environmental concerns have never been a priority at Blue Origin. Time and again we saw new capabilities added to the Kent factory, but not until the machinery showed up did the company begin to consider the environmental impact, including whether a permit was needed to manage the waste products. For years employees have raised environmental concerns at company town halls, but these have been largely left unaddressed. The company headquarters that opened in 2020 is not a LEED-certified building and was built on wetlands that were drained for construction. Eventually the surrounding roads had to be elevated to mitigate the severe flooding that ensued. We did not see sustainability, climate change, or climate justice influencing Blue Origin’s decision-making process or company culture. That culture has also taken a toll on the mental health of many of the people who make Blue Origin’s operations possible. Memos from senior leadership reveal a desire to push employees to their limits, stating that the company needs to “get more out of our employees” and that the employees should consider it a “privilege to be a part of history.” One directive held out SpaceX as a model, in that “burnout was part of their labor strategy.” Former and current employees have had experiences they could only describe as dehumanizing, and are terrified of the potential consequences for speaking out against the wealthiest man on the planet. Others have experienced periods of suicidal thoughts after having their passion for space manipulated in such a toxic environment. One senior program leader with decades in the aerospace and defense industry said working at Blue Origin was the worst experience of her life. Related posts: Rebecca | Unsafe Working Conditions Anonymous | Overworked and Underpaid Allyna | All Workplaces Are Not Created Inclusive Lioness | Microsoft is Using Illegal Bribes in the Middle East and Africa. Why is the SEC Turning a Blind Eye?

After my 15 years as a high-performing patent lawyer for Apple, the company prioritized a gun-toting colleague over my physical safety. The first time Ted pushed me, it took me by surprise. He apologized, but this became the first of many violent outbursts that he’d then use mental disorders, suicidal tendencies, and substance abuse to excuse. Unfortunately, I was primed for this, having family members who struggled with mental illness. I would never abandon them in a time of need—and I felt the same toward him. When I joined Apple as a patent attorney in 2006, I was the main income earner in my marriage, as my husband’s income from running a small business was low and sporadic (we’ve been separated since 2016 but are still in litigation, primarily over his alimony claims). I didn’t even own an iPod, but a trusted former colleague recruited me. My son was only three months old and my daughter was a toddler, and the move cut my commute in half. The iPhone was launched the following year, bringing on massive litigation; the company’s patent cases soon went from less than 10 to more than 150. In 2010, I became the Head of Patent Litigation and was compensated commensurate with the job’s stress level. I soon found myself making over $1 million a year. I didn’t come from money, so being able to provide for my family felt like a huge accomplishment. But all the required travel took a toll. With my marriage and home life suffering, I changed positions (partly to reduce the travel) in 2012 to become the Director of IP Transactions. I met Ted (not his real name) at Apple, where he is also an attorney. His backstory was remarkable, but like many things about him, I now wonder whether it was true. He presented a history of pulling himself up by the bootstraps, ascending from a poor family to graduate from a top-tier law school, earning the praise of senior leaders along the way. He is charismatic, charming, and attractive—with a hidden dark side. No one who knows me would ever characterize me as weak. But when Ted romantically pursued me, I was in a vulnerable place. Even after I realized something wasn’t right, I had so much on my plate between work, single parenting (my daughter refuses to see her father and has been estranged now for almost five years), and the divorce litigation that it took me a long time to put the pieces together enough to understand my safety was at risk. Usually, Ted seemed perfect. He was thoughtful, loving and supportive. Not only was he accomplished, he was talented at seemingly everything. He cooked for me or sent me food, regularly bought me flowers, rented an apartment near my house, even offered to help with my crippling legal expenses. He showered the kids with gifts and took us on expensive vacations. However, there were other behaviors that subtly threw me off kilter. Peppered among the caring gestures, compliments, and generosity that built me up were mocking, cruel, or frightening comments that tore me down and undermined my sense of self. His mood swings were erratic. At first, I did not recognize this as domestic abuse. But over time, Ted’s cycles through different personas accelerated and escalated. Eventually he was breaking down the bathroom door during a fight, grabbing me by the neck, throwing me on the table, holding me down, and spitting in my face. I had built my career on being tough, but that did not protect me—in some ways, it made me the ideal target for a narcissist. He wanted status. He played on my blind spots, as happens with many people who end up in abusive relationships. The gaslighting clouds your perception of reality—and the shame keeps you trapped. Related posts: Rebecca | Unsafe Working Conditions Anonymous | Overworked and Underpaid Allyna | All Workplaces Are Not Created Inclusive Lioness | Microsoft is Using Illegal Bribes in the Middle East and Africa. Why is the SEC Turning a Blind Eye?

From the man who brought you TITS U, I present SpaceX: an environmentally irresponsible company so rife with sexism, the only remedy is for women to leave. I found my way through an abusive upbringing, leaving home at a young age, subsequent homelessness, and sexual assault in college, and eventually got a job at the “leading engineering company” in the world. Yet I simply could not find a way to navigate the conditions at SpaceX—a workplace I consider to be in a state of disrepair and dysfunction so great that the only remedy, finally, was to leave. I started at SpaceX as an intern in 2017, joined the team full time in 2019 as a build reliability engineer, and was later promoted to mission integration engineer. I worked at Cape Canaveral, integrating the flagship crewed mission and Demo-2; I personally evaluated technical risk for the vehicle, among several other roles at the company. For a woman, particularly an Asian American woman, to reach a position at this level in the space industry is next to impossible. A few weeks after my start date, a fellow intern approached me in our intern housing and grabbed my butt while I was washing my dishes. I reported the incident to a superior and another colleague, but the matter was never brought to HR. I had to continue living in the residence with this man. Over my next two years as a SpaceX intern, countless men made sexual advances toward me. In 2018, during a team bonding event, a male colleague ran his hand over my shirt, from my lower waist to my chest. I told my supervisors what he had done, then met with HR and reported the inappropriate behavior, but no one followed up. This man remained part of the team I reported to and worked for. Given my tenuous position at the company, I felt powerless. In the past year alone, I have had to bring multiple different incidents of sexism to HR. Some of the men who work at SpaceX hug women without consent, stare at women while they work, and interpret every company-related social event as an opportunity to date (or hit on) women in the office. I saw one woman pressured into dancing with a male colleague in front of other male employees. When we had to work from home during the pandemic, men from the company found my Instagram account, messaging me to ask me out. One called my phone at 4:00 am. Another coworker came to my house and insisted on touching me even when I repeatedly requested we stay professional. I reported each incident of sexual harassment I experienced to HR, and nothing was done. I was told that matters of this nature were too private to openly discuss with the perpetrators. Instead, they said mandated company training programs would be held. I presented ideas for a standardized framework for penalizing sexual harassers to HR, as they had not implemented any remedies; those ideas went unresponded to. I recorded a meeting I had with HR, because I found it so unbelievable that there was no system in place to deal with this behavior. In the end, nothing happened—except I was given a warning that recording the meeting was in violation of SpaceX policy and Florida law. Each and every man who harassed me was tolerated despite the company’s so-called no-tolerance and no-asshole policy. I did my best to compartmentalize the things I put up with as a woman at work each day. Why did I continue working at a company like this? Well, rocket science is not something you learn overnight; it’s a phenomenal field of expertise that is shared within the company, and a magic you learn to harness. I took great joy in that. We were promised we could change the world, and every time we met a goal it felt like all this pain, distrust, and sacrifice was worth it. It may also be that the atmosphere at work felt familiar to me. Elon Musk’s behavior bears a remarkable similarity to the behavior of a sadistic and abusive man who had previously been part of my life. Elon makes promises he doesn’t hold himself accountable to, shifts the goalpost constantly, unnecessarily strips resources from people who are working themselves to the brink of burnout, and then sends threatening messages to remind them that their efforts will never be adequate. These conditions would be disturbing anywhere, but in this particular workplace, we are blazing a trail to settle a new planet. What will life on Elon’s Mars be like? Probably much like life at SpaceX. Elon uses engineers as a resource to be mined rather than a team to be led. The health of Earth is rarely a consideration in the company’s projects. Misogyny is rampant. Related posts: Rebecca | Unsafe Working Conditions Lioness | My Coworker Terrorized Me and Said He Was Part of a Drug Ring. When I Told Apple, I Was Punished. Lioness | Bezos Wants to Create a Better Future in Space. His Company Blue Origin Is Stuck in a Toxic Past. Lioness | Microsoft is Using Illegal Bribes in the Middle East and Africa. Why is the SEC Turning a Blind Eye?

I was working at a production company, and I am a Sabbath-observant Jew with food allergies. There were many problematic instances at this company. I was told I received less of a bonus than my colleagues not because of my work product, but because I took more (unpaid) time off for my sickness and religious observance. I was often forced to work in my car or in the parking lot because of exposure to airborne allergens, which my employer knew about. On multiple occasions, my direct supervisor would force me to stay in his office while he ate foods I was allergic to, resulting in a reaction, even after I asked if he could pause eating during the meetings or meet in a room without food. I was regularly bullied privately and publicly about both issues. Related posts: Rebecca | Unsafe Working Conditions Anonymous | Overworked and Underpaid Allyna | All Workplaces Are Not Created Inclusive Lioness | Microsoft is Using Illegal Bribes in the Middle East and Africa. Why is the SEC Turning a Blind Eye?

In 2020, in the midst of the protests and the beginning of the pandemic, I moved to a new city and was looking for work. Because of COVID, the opportunities were pretty limited in my field so, when I was contacted about a marketing position with a private school, I hesitantly said “yes”. While I wasn’t interested in working in education, I was just grateful to finally have a job offer related to marketing and decided to make the best of it. During the interview process I did ask a lot of questions about workplace culture and diversity initiatives, because on one hand, I had just left a toxic work environment in my previous city, and on the other hand, after viewing the staff page on their website, I was extremely nervous going into a situation where I would be the only person who looked like me or could potentially relate to me, as the school and surrounding community was very wealthy. I was assured that as a direct result of the protests, and their “moral obligation”, they were in the process of securing DEI training for the entire school, hiring diverse professionals and teachers, and more. After starting, it was immediately obvious that I was an “other”. I’m not entirely sure if this was about me specifically or just had to do with the cliquiness of the staff, so I didn’t think much of it, as I’m already an introvert. However, a few weeks into the job, during the first staff meeting of the school year, the heads of the school were doing a presentation to deliver updates. One of the updates included information about the upcoming DEI training and initiatives the school would be enacting, and the next slide was about diverse hiring and it included a large photo of me. No one else. And on top of that, my name was spelled incorrectly with far too many letters and in a very stereotypical way. Aside from this being extremely embarrassing, I was uncomfortable that they basically implied that I was hired due to how I looked as opposed to my professional experience and qualifications (which I had). Also, as a racially ambiguous person, I felt uncomfortable being the spokesmodel for diversity. This is not what inclusion looks like! This wasn’t something I took lightly, and spoke with everyone involved about the incident and was assured that they did not mean it like that, it wouldn’t happen again, etc. However, the next few months included staff wearing racially inappropriate clothing to work and not being reprimanded, heads of the school rolling their eyes during conversations about promoting more students of color in school communications, volun-telling me I had to participate in groups and clubs (despite my role not being school-staff) as a show of diversity and equal input, really great diverse candidates interviewing for roles but being rejected for far less qualified white candidates, team members blatantly ignoring my ideas and constantly talking over me, and much more. Ultimately, I stayed at this job for only 6 months and left without having a new job lined up and without notice. This was a huge financial risk for me but it was definitely necessary in order to protect my mental health from being in that environment daily. I now work for myself and am very specific about the clients I work with because I refuse to be in a situation like that again. Times are changing, so employers need to get better or get out of the way as society learns what inclusive and diverse environments actually look like. Related posts: Rebecca | Unsafe Working Conditions Anonymous | Overworked and Underpaid Anonymous | Battling Discrimination + Bullying at Work Lioness | At SpaceX, We Are Told We Can Change the World. I Could Not, However, Stop Getting Sexually Harassed.

When working for a state assembly, employees were expected to push out as much work as possible with little regard to how the amount of work was going to impact the people working for them. I started out as an unpaid intern and eventually moved on as a full time staffer. The problems only continued to increase when I came on full time. The assembly has salary pay so there’s no way for you to receive compensation when you work more than the 40 hours that are required of you. They would have me come in for my 40-hour work week Monday through Friday and then also expect me to come in on Saturday and Sunday to participate in events that very often took up my entire weekend. Being a new staffer meant that I got handed a lot of the work that no one else wanted and that usually meant that I would have to work events that would take me into overtime with no compensation for the additional hours worked. This resulted in me working almost 60-hour work weeks for little pay. When I would ask for time off on the weekends, which were technically already supposed to be my free days, they would guilt trip me, make me feel like I wasn’t contributing and stated I was ruining an event or the office’s reputation by not being present. Once I spoke to a coworker about this issue, they let me know that HR could help me settle this by stepping in and making sure that I was able to keep my job, while also ensuring that the organization wasn’t abusing their power over me. I wish I would’ve known that it was okay to reach out to HR to report these types of issues. The problems you report can be handled in a professional manner and if you want to bring up an issue and remain anonymous, HR can help you do that. It’s illegal to make employees work overtime with no compensation. I wish I would’ve known that I wasn’t required to work those hours and that I actually could’ve said no and they wouldn’t have been legally able to make me. Related posts: Rebecca | Unsafe Working Conditions Allyna | All Workplaces Are Not Created Inclusive Anonymous | Battling Discrimination + Bullying at Work Lioness | Microsoft is Using Illegal Bribes in the Middle East and Africa. Why is the SEC Turning a Blind Eye?

In October 2018, I started working in a meat manufacturing facility as a Quality Assurance Tech. The company was not transparent in the interview with me or anyone else about the hours and schedule. I was told that my hours would be Monday through Friday from 6am to 2:30pm, but after starting, I was told to come in at 5am instead of 6am. Employees mentioned to me that sometimes they were made to work seven days straight for months. And then it happened: management told us we had to work mandatory overtime, 6-7 days a week, indefinitely. The shifts were nine hours long for my role and up to 12 hours for the line workers. Some worked double shifts. Oftentimes, many of them didn’t get a full lunch break. They only got 30 minutes for lunch and one 15 minute break in the morning for their whole shift. The night shift hours, which I was required to work for a period of time, were even worse and could go from 2:30pm until 2am, and sometimes even all night. During the holidays, We only had Christmas day off followed by six days of work. They did this schedule with every holiday – one day off and no overtime pay. On Christmas Eve, I couldn’t wait for work to end on my day shift. I was sad that we didn’t get out early or get any extra days off for the holiday. During my shift, I was told that we weren’t actually able to leave at our normal time that day because there is no second shift on Christmas Eve, meaning that first shift was required to stay until the end, which didn’t have a real set time. I was unable to maintain my personal health routines of eating well and exercising that I had established before beginning that job, and I never saw friends or family. I was unable to work on personal goals and also wasn’t feeling a sense of advancement at work. I started feeling very angry, depressed and suicidal. The work culture was awful. It seemed like management did not care about it’s employees and had double standards. They did not have good benefits to offer, and work was all that mattered to anyone. If you wanted to call off for any reason, you were considered lazy and invalidated. Management never considered employee perspectives and distrusted them, always assuming the worst. One person was written up for not wanting to work on Sundays because he wanted to go to church. The environment became completely chaotic and unsafe. New employees didn’t follow the rules and old employees stopped following a lot of them too. Between construction and other changes to the building, it became inconvenient and problematic for all the workers inside. The numerous carts of product, pallets for packages, and forklifts filled with ingredients made the environment look like a war zone. Construction would block off different parts of the building including entrances and doorways in the middle of the work day. The floor in one area was overcrowded with equipment and was very slippery. Each day, employees had to take hurried tiny steps across the ground trying not to fall as they worked. Multiple people slipped and one person was injured. Apparently this sort of nonsense and lack of care for workers is common in factories. Many of the workers are immigrants and not fluent in English or aware of their rights. They are exploited in these factories. They did not properly train or fairly compensate their employees, and HR did not address any of the issues. The worst part for me was realizing that there is no law in Pennsylvania to ensure workers get a break dependent on the hours worked, and that there is no law protecting against chronic forced overtime. To this day, I’m continuing to contact labor unions, labor organizations and the U.S. Department of Labor to bring attention to these conditions. Related posts: Anonymous | Overworked and Underpaid Allyna | All Workplaces Are Not Created Inclusive Anonymous | Battling Discrimination + Bullying at Work Lioness | Microsoft is Using Illegal Bribes in the Middle East and Africa. Why is the SEC Turning a Blind Eye?