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About LinkBacksWait until you get to Linus' 'apology' at the end..Originally Posted by Saracen999
I hear that as he's sorry, but not actually sorry, his tone and badly placed jokes and comments suggest he's only saying sorry because he's been caught out.
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Wait until you get to Linus' 'apology' at the end..
I hear that as he's sorry, but not actually sorry, his tone and badly placed jokes and comments suggest he's only saying sorry because he's been caught out.
Jonj1611 (16-08-2023)
"Trust me Bro"
nah
[GSV]Trig (16-08-2023),neonplanet40 (17-08-2023),Saracen999 (16-08-2023)
Have now.
I haven't followd the "Madison" line, and to be honest at this point, don't particularly want to if it goes where, reading between the lines, it seems it might.
As for the rest of the video, it seems they have collectively got the message and taken it on-board. So my position, for now, is that they've basically said the right things. But, talk is cheap and actions speak far louder than words. So at the risk of horribly mangling metaphors, I'm going to see if they put their money where their mouths are, and can walk the walk as well as talk the talk.
This whole sorry mess is not going to be fixed in 5 minutes, or even a week. It'll take months, so I'm withholding forming my personal judgment and opinion, and going them the benefit of the doubt. For now. I hope they can pull it round, on the lines of those promises. But if they think they can do a business version of a politician "holding an inquiry" and just kick it into the long grass hoping we'll all forget?? Snowball's chance in hell of that.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
The Madison thing is just, wrong, however you dress it, if even a pinch of it is true..
Theres also something about some kid committing suicide that's come out of the woodwork, but that seems to be the 'community' rather than an actual LTT issue, having seen the interaction between Linus and said kid, Linus wasn't really out of line, but I think the ball has started rolling now, and will only pick up momentum, but, this is the internet and in a couple of weeks someone else will have done something and our attention will be pulled elsewhere...
Madison is just the tip reading between the lines of whats been going off.
My gut reaction is that the brand is now toxic and must be avoided at all costs. If i was a sponsor i would drop like a stone, less i get accused of condoning such allegations.
I understand that but personally, I'd prefer to wait for a less emotive time, because this feels too much like trial by social media, guilty until proven innocent. It certainly wouldn't be the frist time the torches and pitchforks have come out, only for it to turn out later that the facts were not what the rumour mill initially made it out to be.
As I said, I'm not talking about the "Madison thing", not least because I know next to nothing about it, nor want to. That's not to say it dooesn't matter - simply that all I personally can do is to watch or not watch LTT content, and that will be decided on the basis of the quality of that content going forward - i.e. can I put any reliance on the validity of reviews and/or lab tests to influence the buy/not buy decision?
I'm also not saying others shouldn't decide on their future involvement with or reliance on LTT because of the Madison thing, whatever that is. Just that I'm not going to, because I neither know nor want to know what allegedly happened. Everyone can decide on that basis if they want, but Im looking at labs and review quality.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
The in joke over Colton "you're fired" - its not a joke to use that sort of language and its been going on for years at that place.
While i can not prove it, Maxine another female employee left in a rather hurried fashion and again LMG didn't want to talk about it.
In each interaction where a female host/guest is involed; it feels cringe, like some undercurrent tension.
It paints a picture.
From a data protection specialist pov (mine); the absolute cringe way he dealt with the data the company was producing made me sick, if i had the attitude that he showed i would have been fired but i guess with his trust me bro mentality it didn't matter (remember when they had data loss incidents)
I can look at one isolated incident and move on, but we are seeing a pattern over many many years of the same issues coming up, i am not prepared to be a enabler of that, through my susbscrition, viewing time etc
I've been on the receiving end of a bulling manager (for 8yrs) and a indifferent upper management who turned a blind eye, i will not be silent, i reconise the same traits in thoese who tourmented me (and i wasn't the only one) in what Madison is saying.
It paints a picture.
For me LMG/LTT is done, any goodwill that was left they burned up with the bone stupid way they dealt with saying sorry not sorry in the last vid <shudder>
The frat boy / trust me bro / gym bro attituide is not acceptable in this day and age and never has been, it needs to be called out and not allowed to hide under any rock.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes; and they are about to win "big"
I haven't actually checked out the stuff related to the original reason for this thread yet, as its importance is obviously distant in comparison to the ex-employee's allegations.
LTT have since made a post addressing it however.
Last edited by Output; 23-05-2024 at 08:35 AM. Reason: Redacted name, even though it was present in the original quote.
Theres a leaked recording from an HR meeting that was taken post Madison leaving, apparently Linus was stood on the table at one point...
It does sound like a bit of a boys club mentality and meetings like this are usually done just to squash anything if it comes up, oh, XYZ person said such and such, complaints weren't made but we made sure there was a meeting just to go over the 'company stance' etc.
I doubt that anyone, other than maybe the person that recorded the HR meeting, will come forwards, its a balancing act between doing a job you don't like that pays for a lifestyle, or gives you access or a platform that you would lose if you said something, and if there was more than one person doing it, then its likely that they'll all corroborate the same story and tighten ranks, I have seen it before where someone will make a statement, and then a few days later make another statement, shortly afterwards they get a new car....
But hey, its all drama and a half decent distraction..
I'm sorry but I can't get particularly upset over the "you're fired" thing with Colton. This is, it appears to me, merely an in-joke ... a meme almost .... among a group of like-minded, similarly aged young-ish people that have known each other and worked together for a very significant proportion of heir adult life. The might have aged, and matured some, i 10 years but some in-jokes survive that.
You mentioned that you've been subjet to a bullying manager for 8 years and I get that that is absolutely no joke, and absolutely not acceptable behaviour. However, I'd raise this as a thought - we are all the product of (among other things) our experiences. Yours might colour yur perception of that one way, while mine colour it a different way.
Example. And note please - this example is NOT a subject I'm going to get into a discussion of.Been there, done that, it never gets anywahere. Contention - does light (and I stress LiGHT) smacking of a child for naughtiness cause harm? That, by te way, is the subject I'm not going to get drawn into.
Years ago, I had a long discussion with of with a very good friend. He was og the opinion (and I choose that word carefully) that ANY form of physical chastisement is not only not necessary, but also not effective. i expressed the view that whether it was necessary or not, it can be effective. His childhood experience of parental 'discipline' was that if caught putting a foot wrong, he received a thorough walloping with a father that was far to handy with a thick leather belt. That, in my view, is utterly outrageous. totally unacceptable and very likely bth ineffective for that child, and far too likely to produce an adult that will o on to use such abuse against their own child. It was certainly nothing resembling a "light" smack, on rare occasions.
I, on the other and, received a the light smack, by which I mean hard enough to get my attention but not hard enough to leave a mark, and on VERY rare occasions when I was going out of my way (probably on purpose) to be a right little s&*t. And I received it on, I'd say, maybe three or four occasions at most, during my entire childhood.
My perception of "snacking" was and is very different to his. His, I'd maintain, was coloured by getting regularly and severely beaten, and he not surprisingly considered absolutely any such form of physical contact as heinous. I received te previously stipulated rare and very mild slap te effect of which was more about shock value, sheer surprise, than pain. That treatment certainly didn't do me any harm, but did convince me that when M&D said "no running out into the street if the gate is open", they REALLY meant I was not to run out into the (busy with traffic) street. In theory the gate was never left open, but in practice with one parent often out at work and te other trying to corale three kids (plus sometimes visiting friends) she couldn't guarantee that an occasional oversight, or careless visitor, wouldn't result in a briefy open gate and that me running out of it might result in me losing a fight with a passing car.
So, my view of an occasional light smack and that of my friend were very different, probably in large part because our childhood experiences were also different. And, by the way, it is a technique I have never had the need to employ.
I woudn't employ the "you're fired" technique either, at least in part because it's been seemed appropriate, but without having been there and seen their internal dynamic, neither am I prepared to consider it bullying, or base my ongoig viewing of LTT on it. I'm not saying you're wrong to do so. Frankly, it's your call. But i'm not going to.
If there is now an investigation going on, and by an independent third-party, AND the results are to be published, I'll at least wait for the results of that before making any long-term decision.
Final thought for you - if we all boycott LTT going forward, it may well result in the company being non-viable going forward, with some 120-ish staff, most of whom have presumably none nothing atll wrong, all losing their jobs as the company collapses. I'm simply not jumping the gun on my tiny little role in helping to cause that. Not yet.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
Update - for those that haven't noticed (and care) - the WAN show was back last night, and there's a "what's next"-type video update on the main channel.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
There has been a follow-up public statement about the previously announced investigation, with this public statement being posted on Twitter.
Well, that's no surprise at all. "We investigated ourselves and found ourselves innocent". EDIT - I appreciate that they've paid an external firm. But there was no way they were going to hand over evidence that would show anything other than compliance.
LTT have been caught up in so many controversies over the past few years - I started thinking about it after this one and there are tonnes. But every time, Linus would stand there and say "Oh, that was just a mistake - we didn't mean to do that. It's really tricky being a growing company".
I don't buy any of it, and haven't consumed any of their media since these stories landed. Would be quite happy to see them disappear.
Last edited by jim; 23-05-2024 at 09:10 AM.
It's a weird one, I still imagine that something went on (no smoke without fire and all that) but not sure what else can be done.
I've still barely watched any videos apart from the technical ones, they reviewed a pool cleaner recently...what.
My admttedly limited (but non-zero) experience with external 'professional' firms is that they won't agree to do an investigation without full access and if they get any suggestion that stuff is being withheld, they're very likely to conclude that in the report.
Unless it's a matter for either police or some other external regulatory statutory body (like tax authorities) there isn't much ANY company can do but to engage a reputable external professional firm to investigate. And, no professional firm is likely to investigate unless they're being paid, because doing so will consume a distinctly non-trivial amount of their time. So paying them is hardly a surprise.
Consider even a standard audit as a sort-of (within limits) comparison - companies pay an external auditor to come in, review company accounts in all sorts of ways, and produce a report and the company being audited has no legitimate way to interfere with the audit. But the auditor will, believe me, being getting paid, and by the firm being audited.
Yes, there's a difference, not least that such firms are compelled to engage an auditor, and yes, the auditor is working within rules and guidance defined both by law and by the standards of their own professional body. There's a degree of parallel with any company engaging an external professional body to do an investigation such as this, certainly in the UK and I don't believe Canada is going to be much different in principle, though exact detail no doubt varies a bit. Those external firms MUST operate within the standards mandated either by law, by their own professional (in this case, legal) standards, or both. I find it very difficult to believe any large and reputable law firm would compromise those standards, especially for a firm the size of LMG. If this is a typical large and leading law form, it's going to be orders of magnitude larger than LMG and, if as hinted at in that statement, LMG are considering at least the possibility of a defamation action, there is at least a decent chance that that law firm's "report" is going to end up front and centre in the evidence in such a case, should it ever happen. In other words, their report has to be capable of sustaining detailed scruting from other law firms, in court.
Let me put it this way, Jim .... it is 100% certain that not ALL such allegations made against a business are going to be legitimate. By that, I mean some will be, but others will be the result of perhaps misguided anger by someone that feels wronged (whether they were or not), and others are simply going to be a try-on.
I have personally seen examples (and no, I'm not going into details) of that latter. I wasn't directly imvolved in any way, on either side, but did see the decision-making process in a few cases and the conlusion as that it's cheaper to just pay out (with a suitable written agreement) than to try to fight it, given both legal costs which might end up not being recoverable, and/or possible reputational damage during the process. Some such damage is likely to result, whatever the degree of merit of the claims were. I've seen CEO's issue orders to "just pay them and make it go away", even when there was zero actual merit. On the other hand, I've also seen CEO's refuse to pay even modest pay-outs in such cases, because doing so makes them look guilty whether they are or not.
This is one reason why I said when this all blew up that I wasn't interested in even seeing what the "Madison" allegations even were. From this remote viewpoint, I have no way to form any kind of an objective view of what merit any claims may have had, or not had. They could be absolutely justified, or an utter try-on, or anywhere in-between.
The only half-way impartial assessment is that of that report, bearing in mind that the law firm and individual investigator(s) could quite possibly end up having to justify what the report says, in court, if EITHER LMG end up taking action for defamation, OR "Madison" pursues any sort of employment claim.
So in the position LMG were in, what else would you suggest they could have done that would have been any better than commissioning such an investigation? Because I can't think of much.
NOTE - I still haven't looked at any of the "Madison" claims, and so have zero opinion either way on what merit they may have. I don't intend to look either, because if a local law firm can't reach a believable objective opinion after an investigation, nobody on the far end of an internet connection has the remotest chance of doing so.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
They should have left their solicitors at the door and had an investigation by HR consultants instead. That would send the message that they are doing what they can to improve working conditions rather than fix a legally binding label.
I can't remember ever seeing a law firm getting involved making a situation more relaxed.
There's also the problem that full access to a firm doesn't guarantee good results. I was once in a company that had an audit on its development processes, and were given a glowing report. The auditors only interviewed top level management, and looked at existing documentation. I was expecting an interview as one of the senior engineers, but the auditor was suddenly gone and I couldn't find anyone at the coal face as it were who was interviewed. Needless to say, the work being done bore no relation in practice to the documents that had been audited. I've seen competent auditors who would have torn that place apart within the hour
Jonj1611 (23-05-2024)
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