By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - A KoopaTV exclusive follow-up.
Recall the case of Glen Elg, a programmer working at California-based company Blue Screens, Inc, who was murdered in December of 2018. One fake trial and then a real trial later, the legendary Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright made it clear that Mr. Elg was killed by loan shark Furio Tigre.
But what happened later with Blue Screens? What do they even do? KoopaTV figured something was suspicious about the company. Little is known about it other than that they employ programmers and work in technology, specifically analysing data management systems used by industrial companies and delivering optimal source-level and operating system components. The details are a trade secret, but their end-products are in the form of compact discs, a rather outdated medium. Presumably these launch executable files that change the core of one's computer or server. Their clients must have a lot of trust in them to give them access to such highly-sensitive technology.
A woman named Lisa Basil is the director of Blue Screens. She herself is not a programmer, but she manages the company's programmers and presumably “handles the business side.”
KoopaTV found out something astonishing about Lisa Basil, and it relates to what Blue Screens did after Glen Elg passed away.
Lisa Basil set out to get a replacement for Glen Elg. Happens all the time when someone leaves a company, due to doing something else with their life or that person being dead. We hired Witch Princess after Vortexica died, for example. We had a very fair hiring process with that. Basil, however, did not. Take a look at what our investigation found regarding her newest employee:
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| Lisa Basil hired Adam Mada... on the basis of his name?! Is that a fair hiring practice? |
Adam Mada was hired by Lisa Basil to replace Glen Elg. What do those names all have in common? They're all palindromes—spelled the same left-to-right as right-to-left.
All of the employees working in Blue Screens—and KoopaTV has investigated the other employees’ names as well (though they're being kept unnamed in this article out of respect for their privacy)—have palindromes for names. It appears to be an unwritten hiring rule. That's clearly discrimination against candidates that do not have palindromes for names, which is the majority of the population.
In the state of California, individuals are protected against illegal discrimination by employers in hiring practices on a whole bullet list of aspects. Their name isn't one of them. What Lisa Basil is doing is perfectly legal... but morally reprehensible.
Lisa Basil is a beneficiary from the women-in-tech movement that seeks to have greater diversity & inclusion in technology companies. Like many women in STEM companies, she herself can't code, but is around those who do and provides value for the company in other ways. However, being a beneficiary of favourable societal trends that explicitly try to place an underrepresented class of people into positions of power, only to turn around and have such blatantly inequitable hiring practices of your own?
To make it clear, there is a mountain of evidence indicating women are underrepresented in technology companies. There isn't evidence that palindrome-named individuals are underrepresented or have any headwinds at all in pursuing their happiness. It's not at all an equivalency.
That doesn't sit well with me at all. Perhaps we should have a change in California law to add names as a protected characteristic. Either that, or perhaps there shouldn't be any protected characteristics at all and companies should be free to hire whom they please... Nah. Let's lobby for more government!
KoopaTV made sure to complete its investigation while Women's History Month was still going on. If you would like to take part in KoopaTV's fair hiring process (for the sake of working for KoopaTV, not for its own sake), take a look at the dedicated hiring page and make an application! KoopaTV doesn't care about your name or gender.
Could I be hired then? I just need to dye my mane and muzzle pink.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that would work...they clearly need people's FULL names to be palindromes. You have the first name of "shiny" which doesn't work with the rest. Now, if you were to dye yourself to look like a NORMAL Girafarig, and pass only that part off as your full name, that might work.
DeleteMr. Videre is correct. You'd have to drop Shiny, or change your name to ShinyGirafarigynihs.
DeleteI'm personally wondering what you'd do at the company.
"Mr. Videre is correct." Hrm. Those words sound a lot better than I even thought they would. It just rolls right off the tongue doesn't it? :P
ReplyDeleteThat won't get you a job at Blue Screens either, though.
DeleteThe only thing that'd roll off their tongue is Mr. Eredividere is correct.
...Actually I like that better.