Naughty Dog Respond To Sexual Harassment Allegations.

[Madword]

SuperNova said:

Madword said:

Its common in the industry when you want to get rid of someone (mostly someone who you dont want to work for the company because they are a problem employee) you offer then salary x so many months (I've seen it happen in the UK at two different companies - not me but others, so I guess this could happen in the USA). Personally 20K is high, but apparently whats being said over at Neogaf this is quite a normal amount as it can take into account other factors such as time in Lieu etc.

Dont know why people assume that sony are paying him off, they could have just been trying to get him out of the company. The guy said himself he was having a breakdown, doesnt sound like an employee around if they are in that state. Not saying this is right or wrong, but there is so much in the air, too many people making assumptions one way or another.

Uh, he said he was having a breakdown because he was being sexually harrassed. There's as little evidence to suggest that he was a 'problem employee' as there is for anything else, so attemting to play down his own accord by twisting his own words isn't helping the situation any.

You, or 'people on neogaf' went through way bigger leaps of assumptions, to make Dave Ballard seem like an implicit liar, then I ever did when I basically said: If there's any truth to his story, they would not admit to that in an official PR statement.

And even if he was just having a regular old breakdown in an industry that is rife with bad working conditions, no security, exploitation of employees and the suitably mystified 'crunch' and their respose to a mental health issue is: 'take money and get lost', they are still scumbags.

Wich doesn't change that all of this is speculation.

There is little evidence of anything right now, thats the point most of us are trying to make. I owe neither party anything, I'm just telling you what happens in business. Severance pay is normal, could that be construed as a payout, of course, could they be trying to pay him off, of course.

Crunch is bad, most of us have never done the types of crunch that apparently these guys do, but even doing a small number of hours over and pressure can really make you depressed and for some people it can lead to breakdowns. Thats why the industry loves younger people cause they seem to be able to hack it more than older people. At no point did I say crunch is good, its not.

I dont know what happened, but nor does anyone else on the web, but I am just telling you that crunch is bad, people you work with can be bad, people having breakdowns can be bad. Perhaps he had a bastard of a boss or lead, totally plausible because people have had awful bosses, but on the other shoe perhaps he's one of those employees who are just so much hard work or a total nightmare. The issue I have is people are stating matter of factly that a tweet is 100%.