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"Playing along felt like the price of inclusion. I spoke up only when it looked like he would become an official manager — my manager"

"Playing along felt like the price of inclusion. I spoke up only when it looked like he would become an official manager — my manager"

"As soon as my complaint with H.R. was filed, Google went from being a great workplace to being any other company: It would protect itself first. I’d structured my life around my job — exactly what they wanted me to do — but that only made the fallout worse..."

"The aftermath of speaking up had broken me down. It dredged up the betrayals of my past that I’d gone into tech trying to overcome. I’d made myself vulnerable to my manager and the investigators but felt I got nothing solid in return."

"I feared that going on leave would set me back for promotion in a place where almost everyone’s progress is public and seen as a measure of an engineer’s worth and expertise. Like most of my colleagues, I’d built my life around the company. It could so easily be taken away."

"After my leave, the manager I loved started treating me as fragile. He tried to analyze me, suggesting that I drank too much caffeine, didn’t sleep enough or needed more cardiovascular exercise. Speaking out irreparably damaged one of my most treasured relationships."

" it was still significantly less than my competing offers. I was told that the Google finance office calculated what I was worth to the company. I couldn’t help thinking that this calculus included the complaint I’d filed and the time I’d taken off as a consequence."

"So I took a role at a firm to which I felt no emotional attachment. I like my colleagues, but I’ve never met them in person. ... My manager is 26 — too young for me to expect any parental warmth from him. When people ask me how I feel about my new position, I shrug: It’s a job."