A new Waypoint report retrieves statements from various Blizzard employees who have chosen to remain anonymous. Most of them have contracts that prohibit them from disclosing employment matters, so it is logical that they should share these events without revealing their identity.
In this case their stories are about Derrick Ingalls, who was the company’s CIO (chief information officer) and now an Amazon employee, who apparently had a reputation for making awkward jokes. However, the matter does not end there.
Sexism in meetings
Employees say that at a meeting Ingalls began talking about Ben Kilgore, the company’s former CTO, and that he was also fired with allegations of sexual harassment. Ingalls said in reference to the whole thing that employees should not have sex with their superiors and that if they were doing it, it was already better not to stop if they did not want to lose their job.
According to the employees, the joke did not sit well with anyone in the meeting and that it made it clear that Kilgore had indeed lost his job for sleeping with employees. As if that were not enough, these types of situations had to be endured in silence if you really did not want to lose your job.
Anyone who spoke out against the office’s sexual culture and harassment risked losing their job through what was called the “PIP process”. The acronym stands for “performance improvement plan” and basically forced an employee to meet impossible goals to keep his job.
They took away the bonuses of the year and set goals that you had to meet to get them back. They did this with anyone who didn’t like or challenge them.
Blizzard Employee
Blizzard in full swing
Another employee told Waypoint that he made a report on it and made sure the human resources department read it. However, he says that his boss at the time took the issue away and did nothing about Ingalls’ comments and threats.
Lastly, Waypoint revealed that they asked Blizzard about the whole thing but only received a short response from a spokesperson. “Neither of them is a Blizzard employee right now.”
The American company is in the eye of the hurricane after the state of California published the results of an investigation. This reflects a sexist culture across various departments, a situation that has resulted in at least 1,000 employees calling for changes to their leadership and the resignation of J. Allen Brack.
