the harassment parade

memories, complaints, plus the launch of the techsupport DISCORD

hi, the techsupport discord is LIVE(ish)…let’s commune etc…more about the “vision” for this “space” beneath the rambling that follows….

In December, right before the omicron wave flooded NYC, I went out to a holiday party, a dinner for architects that my husband Shane was co-hosting. I didn’t know many people there, so upon arrival, I gulped down a glass of wine like I was being timed with a stopwatch and fell into some small talk with a very nice tall person. It was déjà vu: the last time this group had gathered, two years ago, he introduced himself to me by saying he had listened to the episode of “Recode Decode” I was on (“I’m a religious Kara Swisher fan,” he said seriously, revealing a sub-type of dude I didn’t know existed then. And does it still?? life moves pretty fast…). This time he came bearing the news that someone in his office had gone to high school with one of the other Google Walkout organizers. It was a complicated connection and it took a few stumbles/restarts/mid-sentence edits to land it. Somewhere in there, instead of walkout he called it “the Google harassment parade,” which I truly loved. We clinked glasses, glugged down more wine. To random connections! To harassment parades! To Kara freaking Swisher!

That’s the end of that story, which has no point besides establishing the expression “harassment parade” which stuck around for weeks, NOURISHING me through the long winter’s quar. My memories of the Walkout now are a little dry, fossilized, saddled with the bad vibes that came after, and “harassment parade” warmed it right up, brought it back to life in an alternate universe. Switchblades tucked into miniskirts, chilling smirks on our faces, “we marched those SICKOS through Mountain View!” (the accompanying mental image is toggling unstably between Game of Thrones and Station 11). Dark forces vanquished. Justice prevailed. Fait accompli.

The other thing “harassment parade” made me think of, insofar as I’m just doing free-for-all word association to fill the void now, is an incredible bit player in the real-life ordeal—Celeste, I’ll call her—whom I’d completely forgotten about in these interceding years. Her official job title was “Global Head of Women@Google” which sounds comically grandiose, and it was (never trust a “global head of”….that’s colonialism, sweetie), but it was also technically true, “Women@Google” being the umbrella term for management-sanctioned programs to make women feel better about things without changing anything, like mindfulness classes and catered meet-ups and having Arianna Huffington come speak. Nevertheless Celeste’s “three word mission” on her internal company profile page was “catalyze systemic change.” Hahahaha. Hahaha. Ha.

Celeste popped up on my calendar the week we were planning the Walkout, urgently wanting to meet, because what else was the Global Head Girl supposed to do when all the other girls were staging a revolt? “I’m here to support in any way,” she said after we introduced ourselves. Even over video chat, I was struck by her shininess: tawny blown-out hair, a fresh athletic glow, the Gwyneth-esque equanimity that doesn’t come cheap. I knew so many people like this over the years at Google—the non-technical ranks are full of preternaturally poised Stanford grads—and yet still, the eyes had to adjust. The main way she wanted to “support,” it turned out, was by brokering a meeting between Walkout organizers and the top female executives, Ruth Porat, Susan Wojcicki, some others. They wanted to hear from us, she said, get our feedback (on…not paying harassers tens of millions of dollars?). I took it back to the other organizers. Some wanted it to do it, some (the less naive…always trust the less naive…) wanted to decline: this couldn’t be anything but an attempt to co-opt, to use their Illuminati/Jedi mind tricks on us, to massage the message into something softer and less threatening. Scared to say no outright, I went back to Celeste with a compromise: we’d meet with the execs, but only after the Walkout, and only if we could share back notes to the thousands of people who were taking part in it. The disapproving frown on the other end was PALPABLE. That was not going to work. “This is the only time they’ll be open to meeting,” she messaged back flatly. I shrugged. She Hail Mary’ed: “Claire, just between us, this is an incredible visibility opportunity for you and I don’t want you to miss out on it.” Hahaha. Hahahha. Ha. The door, which had been propped open a crack however briefly, had shut for good. That was the last I heard from her, though she did attend the Walkout, wearing a pink sparkly jumpsuit that said “FEMINIST” on it.

I don’t meant to unduly snark on this one person. She didn’t make the world. No doubt her life is awesome, her work imbued with meaning and purpose. “I’m equal parts exhausted and inspired,” she said in a profile on the Google blog that spring when Meredith and I and other Walkout organizers were fighting to keep our jobs, highlighting such systemic shifts as getting the Google maps team to add an icon for female-owned businesses (Claire, I’m BEGGING you to cool it with the snark). The rewards for being a Celeste are so clear it feels irrational to not be that way. To think of all the mindfulness training and money I’d have by now if only I’d gone to that meeting, if I’d simply been VIEWED that day by the women in power! (Probably the scathing interviews I gave on podcasts after the Walkout while still employed didn’t help matters either….wow, did this newsletter actually come full circle? #karafreakingswisher).

With gratitude I recently inhaled Sara Ahmed’s brilliant and revelatory new book COMPLAINT! which unpacks what we learn about power from the way that institutions handle formal complaints of misconduct (tldr “you expose a problem, you POSE a problem:” institutions protect themselves and resist any challenge, so complaints are filed away, complainers are punished, which starts by being branded a complainer). But the way she describes being a complainer (and what you learn going up against the powers that be through the process of complaint) is almost like a superpower, seeing the world in ultra-violet. I feel that deeply—I can’t un-see the bullshit now, the arbitrary and system-preserving ways doors are open to some and closed to others—but the question remains: now what? Per Ahmed, the plight and promise of the complainer is that you may not be able to survive in institutions but you will find others to commune with, find ways to create good friction, find moments to extend solidarity to others. When the revolution comes, girls, we are going to be READY (I’m scaring myself now).

[COMPLAINT! was recommended to me by Alex Hanna, an all-around wonderful woman who incidentally just left Gerbil Inc herself and whose barn-burner of a resignation email must be read in full HERE. TY Alex you’re a literal angel :)]

Anyway, the discord. The DISCORD. Do you discord? Do I? Looking forward to kvetching about jobs/catalyzing systemic change with my fellow workers in there. At the very least I’ll be posting links to things I enjoyed, like this phenomenal 2 hour YouTube video about everything that’s wrong with NFTs/crypto that should honestly win awards, a selection of the 10-15 Marianne Williamson (mom!!) podcasts I’ve listened to in the past couple weeks to try to divine the societal chaos ahead, and the latest installment of the greatest (only? it’s still great) comedy column comedy of our times.

yours in complaint, me