Tuesday, March 24. 2009Microsoft Soft on Office Harassment? Jamie Durrant, Xbox 360 designer and long-time friend of Big Queer, has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for £45,000 (approximately $66,000) for discrimination based on his sexual orientation. The software giant bought the U.K. company for which Durrant works, Lionhead Studios, two years ago. Durrant claims he began receiving harassing emails over a year ago and that his complaints to the company's human resources department were "blatantly disregarded." He agreed to refrain from filing a formal grievance and was told that a memo would be sent to Lionhead employees reminding them to "behave responsibly," but no such memo was issued and a message with the title "Fag Boy Jim" was posted in the office kitchen. Durrant was offered counseling and was asked to sign a document agreeing not to pursue any further action against the company, but he rightfully declined. BQ reached out to Durrant to find out if he or his attorney has a copy of the proposed agreement, but he declined to comment on the issue or make any other on-the-record statements due to the pending suit. Durrant has been on sick leave due to depression and is seeking payment for lost pay and, according to the U.K. press, "hurt feelings." (We took issue with the references to our friend's "hurt feelings," but apparently "injury to feelings" is a legitimate legal complaint on the other side of the pond.) As for Microsoft, the company has a history of providing domestic partnership benefits and has included sexual orientation in its anti-discrimination policies, though its lack of support for Workplace Fairness legislation was an issue in 2005. BQ will post more information as it becomes available. Trackbacks
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I work at Microsoft, though on the Redmond campus.. I can't speak for companies bought by Microsoft, or even for other campuses. But I can speak for what it's been like at Microsoft Redmond.
I work on one of Microsoft's biggest products, and am openly gay, and fairly young. I guess I'm what you call an "obvious" gay, but no one has really made a big deal about it. I'm a pretty charismatic person, and consider myself friends with my manager, his manager, and your General Manager, even our VP. They all know I'm gay, and have met my boyfriend at various parties and gatherings we've gone to. I'm pretty close with a lot of people I work with, and we joke around A LOT with each other. Some of my closest friends I work with have no problem calling me "gay boy" or "big queer", in a joking manor. I don't care, either. I tease them about being straight people with no sense of style. I mean, we don't do that in meetings or anything... But with each other it's fine. Though some time ago I did have some issue with harassment. I was a part of an email discussion, and we were considering making a major design change. I'm a designer well one manager, who the change would have made a lot of work for, got very heated and said something to the tune of "And of course because he's the gay designer, we have to listen to his opinion..." I was a bit hurt, yeah, because I can count exactly four times since I was 17 that I've faced any adversity due to sexuality. But it didn't really bother me too much. Though, one of my co-workers filled a complaint with HR. Well, he had a meeting with a higher up Manager, he wasn't in work for a week (assuming without pay). Our GM caught wind of the incident a bit before the meeting, and sent out an email to the org sternly reminding everyone of Microsoft's anti-discrimination policy, and how it would not be tolerated if anyone wanted to further their career. HR proceeded to send out their "form email", but I think the GM's email really spoke to how equality has been instilled in our management, from Steve Ballmer on down. I had lunch about a week or so later with our VP, we were just catching up with each other. The VP personally apologized for what happened. Also, Microsoft ended up putting back their support behind the Workplace Fairness legislature in question. I don't want to downplay Jim's experience, because again, each division is like it's own company. But I just thought I'd write about my positive experience.
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2009-03-25 02:01
In All Gays Go to Heaven, I talk about a friend who worked at Microsoft and was actually fired for being "too flamboyant" in the main office. This is the behavior of MS? His name was Jeff Guinn and he has a pending suit.
Hey "I work" thanks for the comment and sharing your experience at Microsoft. When we were working on this post we had the thought that had this been in the US maybe it wouldn't have played out the same way but you never know. Here in the US we have such limited rights but in the UK they have equal marriage laws, queers can sponsor their same-sex partners for immigration purposes, and they are well ahead of the USA in terms of equal rights for queers on many levels but with all the advances there is still a lot of ignorance and discrimination. If we replaced gay with woman I wonder how well it would have been tolerated.
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