How did you come to the decision to blow the whistle?
Brittany
It’s hard to come to terms with the realization that you’ve basically been in an abusive relationship for many years…what do you do to fix that? . . . In the end, you just look at the facts and be honest with yourself. Your superiors are always going to have a complex set of motivations. And if none of them have to do with actually caring about your wellbeing, or the wellbeing of society in general, then you have to really assess whether pushing you to do things that are good for the company or good for their bottom line is something that you’re willing to accept.
Chris
I already took my stance against the company, it was just a matter of what was going to happen after they quarantined me [for COVID-19 exposure]. You know, I thought if I didn’t do the walkout, I probably would’ve done the quarantine and came back and still continued, but that would have been another two weeks . . . and we’re talking about the entire Amazon network. So it was a no-brainer for me to continue to fight.
Chelsey
I had the suspicion that there’s no way that this is happening just to me. This is happening to other women too, and I would not want anyone to go through this feeling alone, which is how you feel. So it was just my instinct. I remember I was at home, just feeling like, “I have to tell the story,” and I just started writing.
How do you deal with negative backlash and hatred online?
Brittany
You whistleblow because it’s a crisis of conscience and you know that you won’t be able to live with yourself if you don’t say something, because it’s the right thing to do. That’s why you do it, and you have to be ready to ignore what anyone else says about you because you’re doing this for yourself and you’re doing this for the greater good and nothing else matters.
Chris
You ain’t gonna be able to win everybody over. If you’re serious about exposing whatever the issues are, then you just know to stay the course. It’s going to come with the territory, no matter the type of reason you’re in the public limelight.
What is one thing you wish you had known when blowing the whistle?
Brittany
I wish I would have known about whistleblower rewards . . . I had no money, and definitely no job — professional whistleblowers hang on friends’ couches and that type of stuff, it’s not a job. Knowing that there’s a possibility to be compensated for the evidence that you bring forth and for the risk that you’re taking for yourself and your family and your future — I wish I would have known that.
Chris
You definitely need a good support system. I didn’t have that in the beginning, I had to build one. You need people you can trust all the time. Every whistleblower will be different, but you’re going to go through your ups and downs and you’re going to need people to lean on. So, if you don’t have a good foundation, whether it’s at home or with an organization, you need to find one.
Chelsey
I think I would have been a lot firmer from the get-go in terms of asking that Google intervene and conduct an investigation, but I didn’t because I didn’t understand. So my advice is — especially knowing of all the stories I know of now — just to know that discrimination, harassment, retaliation is incredibly common and if it happens to you, you’re not alone. Your experience is not a one-off. This is rampant in tech industries.
