Lord of the Rings Special Effects Company 'Weta Digital' Launches Inquiry Into Toxic Workplace Claims (theguardian.com) 113
AmiMoJo shares a report from The Guardian: Weta Digital, the special effects company behind the orcs, dragons and battle scenes of the Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy, has launched an independent investigation into allegations of a toxic work culture including sexism, bullying and pornography being shared on its intranet. The investigation was ordered by the company's majority owners, who include the director Peter Jackson, his wife, Fran Welsh, and screenwriter Phillipa Boyens. It followed a months-long investigation by local television station TVNZ that found complaints had been ignored by senior management at Weta Digital, and long-standing issues raised by staff had been covered up. "The world's most beautiful toxic waste dump," is how one former employee described the award-winning company. Allegations from former staffers include sexism, bullying, and harassment, as well as "pornographic mailing lists,'" hosted on Weta Digital's intranet, in addition to staff openly viewing pornography in the studio.
The pornography mailing lists are alleged to have existed from at least 2002 to 2015, when they were shut down. "There was a tradition at the time called Porn Friday. Every Friday staff members would email round porn images to the whole team," a female former Weta employee told TVNZ. "The first Friday I worked there I was so surprised, intimidated and uncomfortable. You could opt out of receiving them, which I did. "But there were still conversations amongst the team in my office every Friday about what images were sent round." Another alleged that pornography was openly shared and watched in Weta offices. There were also allegations of sexual overtures and in some cases harassment. It was also alleged that some chose not to complain because the company is a world leader in the special effects industry, and those who experienced issues feared being blacklisted.
The pornography mailing lists are alleged to have existed from at least 2002 to 2015, when they were shut down. "There was a tradition at the time called Porn Friday. Every Friday staff members would email round porn images to the whole team," a female former Weta employee told TVNZ. "The first Friday I worked there I was so surprised, intimidated and uncomfortable. You could opt out of receiving them, which I did. "But there were still conversations amongst the team in my office every Friday about what images were sent round." Another alleged that pornography was openly shared and watched in Weta offices. There were also allegations of sexual overtures and in some cases harassment. It was also alleged that some chose not to complain because the company is a world leader in the special effects industry, and those who experienced issues feared being blacklisted.
Topless Orcs (Score:1, Troll)
> has launched an independent investigation into allegations of a toxic work culture including sexism, bullying and pornography being shared on its intranet.
If their claims are about topless Orcs I say we dust off the guillotines and put the woke out of their misery.
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"Another alleged that pornography was openly shared and watched in Weta offices." plot twist they were just editing cut scenes for Netflix Cuties.
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Workplaces are always "toxic" (Score:5, Interesting)
It comes with the territory. You have to go there basically because otherwise you will starve (existential threat). You have to do things that others order you to do. You have no or very little influence on the environment you spend a major part of your awake time in. You have to live with bad management that kills your productivity and claims whatever you still manage to do as their accomplishments. You have to accept bullshit about these conditions being "friendly" and "welcoming", adding insult to injury.
Basically all else is minor in comparison.
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In other words, hell is other people.
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Nope. That is very much not what I said.
Re:Workplaces are always "toxic" (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're in constant conflict with other people, maybe the problem isn't other people.
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I sure as hell wouldn't want to be exposed to porn at work. I do enough of that when I'm home.
Re:Workplaces are always "toxic" (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely not. I was specifically responding to the "hell is other people" comment. For myself, I've gotten along very well with about 99% of my co-workers, and was able to tolerate the other 1% without major incidents.
Just to be clear: Porn at work is absolutely inappropriate, for either sex. There's a reason the acronym NSFW exists. But of course, that door also swings both ways. People are people, and girls' and guys' talk will always exist, so you need to be a bit tolerant as well, and not bristle with offense that will inevitably occur in nearly any workplace due to some misunderstanding or difference in behavior or culture. The onus is on all parties both to at least attempt not to offend as well as not being overly-sensitive.
To me, the whole "porn Friday" is a massive, massive red flag. I can't even imagine working with employees who, under any circumstances, would think it was in any way acceptable to send around porn on an internal mailing list. That's just sort of flabbergasting to me. I'm not easily offended, nor am I a prude, but that just seems like such a stupidly obvious line you don't cross, it tells me something about the mentality of many people working there, and it's not good. They shut it down, but only after... what... 13 years of existence? You're telling me that this happened for 13 years and upper management never caught wind of this? That seems incredibly unlikely. More likely, they just didn't care until word leaked out, and they realized it looked really, really bad.
Hell, this is coming from someone who works in the videogame industry. I suspect a lot of people have the wrong idea what that's like. Yes, artists will be artists (the amount of toys they can stuff into a cubicle or small office is staggering), and we've got more than our share of very unique individuals, but for the most part, it's a professional environment like any other. I've literally never seen anything remotely like this at any of my workplaces over the last several decades, even at the worst of them. It just wouldn't have been tolerated.
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I think it's important to amend that by pointing out that pornography is actually appropriate for some workplaces. Clearly pornography is big business so therefore it must an integral part of many peoples workplaces.
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Likewise, I won't get in trouble for playing games at work, since my job involves making games. But that's clearly not the majority of people.
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I hope where you work there's gay dudes who enjoy watching gay porn and you have to put up with being around it. Would serve you right. Jackass.
Re:Workplaces are always "toxic" (Score:4, Interesting)
If porn is allowed in the workplace, then that should also extend to gay porn or any other form of porn that isn't otherwise illegal.
Why would the women object? They're free to look at porn of men too. Many people do look at porn, women included, and just don't admit to it.
People are uncomfortable because this is unusual and not generally allowed in most workplaces, but sex is totally natural.
Personally i wouldn't care if people were looking at gay porn at work, so long as i was also extended the right to look at any legal porn i might be interested in. I may not choose to exercise it, but i wouldn't want to deny it to others.
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There are many things which disgust or annoy me personally, but that doesn't give me the right to impose those views on others. I frequently tolerate things that i personally dislike, and there are others who don't dislike the same things i do.
The idea that sex is disgusting or distasteful is a product of conservative upbringing, in nature there is nothing inherently disgusting about sex.
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What's wrong with gay porn?
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Objectively, it is no more or less distracting than watching any other movie with the volume up or loud music.
But for you, there is a difference, because you're just wired that way.
It's ok, I get it. I'm not judging.
Except I think you still might be homophobic. Which is ok too, hey, you're entitled to an opinion about what you find disgusting. For all I know, you hate cilantro as much.
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The pornography mailing lists are alleged to have existed from at least 2002 to 2015, when they were shut down.
Speaking of which, if anyone saved copies of "Elf Lust" or "Goblin Girl" please PM me.
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Frito, you give your uncle's books back to him. He needs them to look up more words for Scrabble.
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If you're in constant conflict with other people, maybe the problem isn't other people.
"Hell is other people" is a Sartre quote. The humorous point is that we are all the problem, but to each of us it looks like other people are the problem.
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That is a gross oversimplification and does not reflect what I wrote.
Are you in Silicon Valley? Heck even in porn biz (Score:2)
I'm just curious, are you from California?
I read these articles like this, "porn Friday", and see comments like yours and they are so much thr opposite of my experience. I've been working for a few decades now and I've never seen a place where anything even remotely like this would be in any way possible. Just unimaginable to me. But - I've been in Texas most of my adult life. Most of the articles I see talking about this crap happening, this attitude, seem to be Silicon Valley.
Heck, I was even in the por
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So, if you stop working, everything will just be dandy? And nobody tells you what to work on? And you define the environment you work in if you so chose?
That sounds to me like you are very much full of it. Or a "happy slave", which is worse.
And no. I am not from the US. I also very specifically did not even mention "porn being sent around". (That would get you sacked here pretty fast....) I did comment of this thing called "work" in general.
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Re: Workplaces are always "toxic" (Score:1)
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Legally what matters is if management fails to act on things it can reasonably control which make the workplace more toxic to some people than others, such as Porn Friday and sexual harassment.
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Obviously. I am just pointing out that these things are minor annoyances compared to the overall concept of "work".
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His mom either doesn't know what a fucking piece of shit he is. Or does and feels guilty that she hates him. Or she's arguing with him right now to go back to cognitive therapy
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The only time the men do it seems to be when its "shocking" porn.... two girls one cup, a girl blowing cum bubbles out her nose, etc...
Re:Don't hire women (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, obviously it is bad if men do it and perfectly acceptable if women do it.
In other news, sexism does not become one bit better if women do it. Unfortunately, many people (men and women) are so brainwashed these days, they cannot see that anymore.
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In other news, sexism does not become one bit better if women do it.
In the non-fake news, none of this is sexism. Your problem is that you WANT it to be a problem.
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Sure, why not?
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Because if it's ok for women to do then it's ok for men to do (otherwise you get sued for having sexist policies) and if it's ok for men to do you get sued for allowing sexual harassment.
Better to just ban that stuff from the workplace. Quite easy too, and you'd be amazed how easily most people comply with a 'no porn' policy.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:WTF? This is pure drivel (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe you in that you didn't witness anything as described in the article. However just because you didn't see anything doesn't mean it didn't happen.
What I've found out by working in the same office for 18 years is that gossip doesn't find you unless you're one to share it as well.
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That was a general account of the culture. And that account says no rampant or general sexism, just some individual one. You find that in any group large enough and there is not way for a company to completely suppress it.
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Sure there is. You create a reporting structure that allows victims to feel confident when they have to report someone harassing them. You have policies that make clear disciplinary action up to and including dismissal will arise from harassment. And you follow through. You'll never stop some self entitled jerk from harassing people, but you sure the hell can show him the door
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Well, sophisticated people of all genders manage to overcome this biological conditioning and also refrain from exploiting it. Unfortunately, most of the human race never makes it to that level (or do not have it from birth, depending on your model of existence).
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Facts very much matter and TVNZ was able to independently verify some of the claims, like the porn mailing list. There is very likely to be ample evidence if people were emailing porn around, or organizing "Porn Friday".
So perhaps instead of just making some bullshit claims about the nature of male/female roles in modern society you could perhaps criticise the content of the article or defend this behaviour.
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Re: WTF? This is pure drivel (Score:2)
Are these the people who brought us scrotum chin the troll king?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V-n_... [blogspot.com]
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I never met a more focused bunch of nerds in my life before.
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In fact, I've been to few places with a less sexist and more professional workplace atmosphere before.
I suspect that the goal driven culture drives people to set aside their outside of work petty differences. And the flip side of this is that employees with too much time on their hands and no goal-driven focus tend to get involved in much more divisive social and political debating and divisiveness [slashdot.org] on the job. Facebook's solution may not be the answer. As they will still have too much spare time and think they were hired to be the social conscience of the company. They simply need to walk a lot of these peo
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I know you can't get laid. Do you ever wonder why?
Intolerance. (Score:3, Insightful)
People spend over half of their lives at the office. For most people their entire lives consist of going to work and then going home to just barely take care of their lives. People are constantly told, "Don't discuss politics. Don't discuss sex. Don't discuss your private life. Don't develop an attraction to anyone you spend your waking lives with here.", all while they spend the majority of their lives in these places.
Because it's a workplace and people need jobs and money, people can't just up and leave. Instead of everyone being tolerant and open minded and dealing with being uncomfortable, we end up with companies banning everything that could possibly upset anyone. Because everyone is fighting for more control over their daily lives, more pay, and more power, the only way to progress is to put your head down and never never act outside whatever "the norm" is or you'll be removed from the "team." Act human and you'll be removed as polite society has decided that sex isn't normal, other people are the only ones with "issues", and if you have any personal issues you can't hide you clearly have something wrong with you. Working in these environments becomes an exercise in pretending and acting. Opinions and politics are not for employees, you can do that when you are not an employee or dead.
It would be so nice to hear one day about a diverse group of people that worked together that was able to deal with everyone else's reality. Hell, this might even lead to more employment and less depression. Instead it's all about power plays, throwing each other under the bus, and complaining that "If not for X, I'd be further in my career!"
In the end it's all about presenting to the least tolerant people. Where does that get you? Well, it gets you here.
--
Tolerance of intolerance enables oppression. - DaShanne Stokes
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Indeed, that is pretty much how this works. That most people have no clue about that makes things worse. I would claim that the porn-sharers are as much as fault as the ones making a public issue of it. Both behaviors are hugely unprofessional. If such a thing happens, you quietly complain to your superior, if that does not help, you quietly escalate to HR. Only if that does not help, you still quietly go the legal route. But making a big stink is not what you do.
There is also some cultural difference. For
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Just FWIW, as a USian, I can't _imagine_ porn sharing at work. FWIW, my response would probably be "If you want to share porn around, no problem, clock out and do it on your own time, off company grounds."
I would not take this kind of this as remotely representative of the average workplace in America.
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Just FWIW, as a USian, I can't _imagine_ porn sharing at work. FWIW, my response would probably be "If you want to share porn around, no problem, clock out and do it on your own time, off company grounds."
I would not take this kind of this as remotely representative of the average workplace in America.
Thanks, I have wondered about that. So a rare thing in the US as well.
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They did complain to HR and management according to TFA. Nothing was done for years and years.
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They did complain to HR and management according to TFA. Nothing was done for years and years.
Then they are doing it wrong. Give HR, say, 6 weeks to do something, then file a criminal complaint. Still, do _not_ go public. Doing so is exceptionally unprofessional.
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Criminal complaint? This would be a civil matter, and thus a matter of public record anyway. Often the lawyers recommend getting some publicity too because it helps them discover other victims whose corroborating statements help the case.
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That's the incel theory of modern dating, but it doesn't really hold up. For a start they also think that woman are having sex with different top tier men every day, clearly a logistical impossibility. The worst part is how they think women are just mindless animals, controlled by evolutionary biology which explains all their actions, and that men are only a little better.
Modern relationships are more about the pursuit of happiness than ever. The pressure to marry and have a family is less now so people loo
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Shut one source of clout down and the women will just move on to another source to complain and signal over.
Just women? I worked at a place (high tech firm) which finally had to institute a 'no violence or threats of violence' rule. Because some people thought that their evolutionary fitness was determined by how big they were, how loud they could yell and pound on tables. Everyone attempts to exploit whatever advantage they think they can to get ahead. Advantages which have nothing to do with getting the job done. I'd rather not work at an outfit that judges people by how 'woke' or 'hip' they are just as much as
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Every place I've ever worked we were able to discuss our lives and politics and even sex as long as we were respectful about it. Watching porn was not acceptable though.
I've always tried to build a no blame culture in every team I've been part of. If issues arise we discuss them and fix the process, we don't assign blame.
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Sounds like some woke people looking to be offended. When you go around looking to find offense, you can usually find it. In my professional experience white collar environments are pretty intolerant of anything sexual or that could be construed as harassment. I recall one place I worked at where one guy told another guy a mildly sexist joke in the bathroom. A third guy overheard while he was in the stall. Said third guy later bragged about get both of the first two guys fired for laughing at the joke.
Now i
Men and Women are Different (Score:3, Insightful)
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Or finally be adults and understand that we need to balance the two perspectives and find a better way.
While that is clearly the only good solution, it will be a long time yet until the human race gets there. A lot of other problems (like religion) will have to go the way of the Dodo first.
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For men being evolutionarily designed as the pursuers, sex and sex humor and culture is an indispensible part of life
You know how many sexual jokes i've made at work in the last very long time ?
0
you know how many people i've worked with have made those kind of jokes ? very, very few. And by a grand coincidence the people i've noticed making those kinds of jokes are generally not very funny and usually what i would charitably call an "asshole".
indispensable
I don't think that word means what you think it mea
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Evolutionarily designed as pursuers and gatekeepers? WTF is this bullshit?
Sounds like you have thing rather silly ideas about how the world is and are trying to use scientific sounding terms to justify those views.
I look forward to your evolutionary explanation of "simps".
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I'm not outraged, but I think you need to believe I am as your worldview depends on it.
But tell you what, when you put forwards an actual argument with facts and logic, then we can work on the logical flaws. Until then you don't even have any logic for there to be flaws in, all you've done is invent some for about evolutionary roles.
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No you made specific claims about for those behaviors were shaped.
You didn't make an argument, you stated unsourced opinions as fact and are trying to pass that off as a logical argument.
You then parlayed that into general claims about how men and women behave in the workplace. Except that that is also invented since there are many male dominated workplaces which don't fit you you say they are. I guess lots of dudes feel rocking a boner at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon as work is awkward as fuck and so steer c
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I think you're parents failed you.
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Appeals to biology are usually quite weak arguments. Primates use violence to assert dominance and resolve disputes, but our brains evolved to the point where we have found better ways to live.
We invented concepts like marriage to move us beyond the mating practices of prehistoric man. Shame over our bodies is mostly an Abrahamic religious thing, cultures that were not exposed to it (e.g. 1800s Japan, some native Americans, older African cultures) don't feel that way. And of course those religions were crea
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Non GMO? Chemicals are bad? Don't eat processed foods? That kind of "going backwards"?
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You are offering a False Choice. There is no fundamental linkage between being someone who tells dirty jokes and being someone who foregoes telling dirty jokes for the 40 or so hours per week they are paid to act like a mature profession.
Sex and sex humor and culture may be an indispensable part of life, but it is only the very childish who cannot figure this out. That is exactly how "a better way" is accomplished, by understanding that your social life exists within different contexts, and different rule
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well, you talk like an incel...
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No incels sprout just the kind of crap you do. Modern Inceldom is a self inflicted thing and involves a string hatred of feminists, because apparently they're the reason incels aren't having all the sex.
In other words, you're not the unique, special snowflake that you seem to think you are, you're just like a large group of other people.
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If you were a member of my staff and you made a suggestive comment about a coworker, there would be formal disciplinary action. If you refused to cooperate or continued the behavior you would be fired.
Grow up.
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I can't wait for these to be newsworthy no longer (Score:3)
1. I hope that if the investigation finds wrong-doing that they correct it in a constructive manner for all involved.
2. I hope that if no wrong-doing is found, that they are still willing to help the person who submitted the complaint.
Is there ever anything more to say about these types of news reports?
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How about 3, if the investigation fiends the the complainant lied or made stuff up, than the person should be fired. That's constructive.
I had a situation at work where two female employees who had known each other outside of work for years (big mistake hiring the second worker) let some kind of out of work personal drama enter the workplace and they both made serious complaints about the other person. Nothing was provable as it was a she-said she-said situation. It finally took other employees' written rep
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Keeps happening. Keeps being ignored for years until it goes public. Maybe we can learn something to stop it happening again. Like an air crash investigation.
Oh what a surprise! (Score:1, Troll)
He's at it again.
"Lord of the Rings Special Effects Company 'Weta Digital' Launches Inquiry Into Toxic Workplace Claims"
Posted by BeauHD
Are we noticing a trend yet? No interest in tech, endless interest in social justice.
Not fitting for slashdot, why is this 'news' here?
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Re: Oh what a surprise! (Score:1)
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Oh, troll eh?
15 days ago.
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
Show some emails? (Score:2)
It can easily be forged of course, but faking some full header emails is a bit more explicit level of fraud than nebulous claims.
huh (Score:2)
"There was a tradition at the time called Porn Friday. Every Friday staff members would email round porn images to the whole team," a female former Weta employee told TVNZ. "The first Friday I worked there I was so surprised, intimidated and uncomfortable. You could opt out of receiving them, which I did. "But there were still conversations amongst the team in my office every Friday about what images were sent round." Another alleged that pornography was openly shared and watched in Weta offices.
Huh. Yeah, I'm old. I remember when it was only us silly old American conservatives who had such repressed hang ups about clothing and sex and stuff.
All the cool kids were way too sophisticated and would-be Euro to have any hangups about such things.
Toxic workplace! (Score:2)
It's a toxic workplace! Apparently all those NiCd batteries have been leaking cadmium all over the place.