[Edit: I’ll redact this comment once someone who knows more actually clarifies it. My intent was to help provide a way to connect the concern to OP’s piece as-written. If you don’t want that and want perfect clarity instead, just skip this thread]
(I’ll throw my hat in the ring that this doesn’t surprise me, now seeing that he was pretty sure that he had a friendship with this woman. Personally If I arranged for a friend to have an interview at an effective nonprofit in my city, I would definitely ask them if they wanted to stay in my spare bedroom. I’d always offer because (1) I personally greatly prefer to stay in a place with a kitchen and some opportunity for social interaction over a hotel room, and (2) hotel costs are counterfactual donations and trades of this flavor have been going on in EA for a decade now.
It’s bad if he didn’t clarify first and give her the option of hotel or not. And possibly, due to perceived power dynamics, it would even be bad anyway to offer his space… like maybe it’s important that he had been totally hands-off with her entire work-related visit since their friendship was not actually so cemented. But this whole housing dynamic seems qualitatively similar to the type of mistakes and misunderstandings of power dynamics that he made elsewhere, and is now working on improving and addressing proactively in future. So I personally do not continue to be worried about the housing aspect although it was not named in this apology piece.)
“she recalls being surprised to discover that she was expected to stay in his home” seems to preclude the notion that Cotton-Barratt asked her first, so I’m not sure why you’re writing as if we’re not clear whether they discussed it beforehand.
Sorry I’m on mobile and it’s hard for me to see exactly how my comment comes off in the scheme of larger discussion. I agree it sounds like he didn’t ask her first. My main intention with my comment was to say that his treatment of that situation seems qualitatively related to the idea that he needs to address power dynamics and find clarity more proactively.
[[Edit: That said I can come up with an exchange where he would consider himself to have asked. I don’t really want to theorize this as likely to have happened, but maybe it can illustrate why I try to speak hesitantly about the actions people might or might not have taken. Example dialogue:
Owen: So normally in this situation I’d just host the interviewee at my place rather than having people faff around with a hotel. Is that cool here?
Woman: (thinking: damn that’s expected huh? Im surprised) um I guess so
My second paragraph appears to go off on a tangent but I was actually thinking in response to a potential exchange like this and trying to get ahead of anyone who might think that asking would always be good enough. I’m not necessarily ensorsing asking as a singular plan though I’d probably do it myself in some situations. The only sure solution is the solution that Owen appears to be taking, more proactivity and avoid these dynamics when possible anyway]]
Yes, that is one possible explanation for the sentence. There are also other, more problematic possible explanations, such as if the org itself told her they had a place for her and then sprung the surprise that it was at Owen’s house.
I tried to avoid speculation like this with my original comment because we can just ask what happened. We don’t need to make up stories, we can just find out what actually happened from the OP and the woman and put the matter to rest.
Yes I agree and I do hope someone who knows chimes in. I waited hours to comment here hoping someone else would, but in the hours I waited the original comment got over 60 more upvotes. It seemed like a growing and urgent concern for people, and I was becoming less confident that Owen or the woman would chime in in a timely manner.
I commented in parentheses to try to imply I was just dropping in, but now I really regret not writing something like: “I’ll delete this comment once someone who knows more actually clarifies it”
Just letting you know that Owen has chimed in to give more context, see the reply above. I think the added context is much worse than speculated here, a key point being that this was only sprung on her one day in advance.
[Edit: I’ll redact this comment once someone who knows more actually clarifies it. My intent was to help provide a way to connect the concern to OP’s piece as-written. If you don’t want that and want perfect clarity instead, just skip this thread]
(I’ll throw my hat in the ring that this doesn’t surprise me, now seeing that he was pretty sure that he had a friendship with this woman. Personally If I arranged for a friend to have an interview at an effective nonprofit in my city, I would definitely ask them if they wanted to stay in my spare bedroom. I’d always offer because (1) I personally greatly prefer to stay in a place with a kitchen and some opportunity for social interaction over a hotel room, and (2) hotel costs are counterfactual donations and trades of this flavor have been going on in EA for a decade now.
It’s bad if he didn’t clarify first and give her the option of hotel or not. And possibly, due to perceived power dynamics, it would even be bad anyway to offer his space… like maybe it’s important that he had been totally hands-off with her entire work-related visit since their friendship was not actually so cemented. But this whole housing dynamic seems qualitatively similar to the type of mistakes and misunderstandings of power dynamics that he made elsewhere, and is now working on improving and addressing proactively in future. So I personally do not continue to be worried about the housing aspect although it was not named in this apology piece.)
“she recalls being surprised to discover that she was expected to stay in his home” seems to preclude the notion that Cotton-Barratt asked her first, so I’m not sure why you’re writing as if we’re not clear whether they discussed it beforehand.
Sorry I’m on mobile and it’s hard for me to see exactly how my comment comes off in the scheme of larger discussion. I agree it sounds like he didn’t ask her first. My main intention with my comment was to say that his treatment of that situation seems qualitatively related to the idea that he needs to address power dynamics and find clarity more proactively.
[[Edit: That said I can come up with an exchange where he would consider himself to have asked. I don’t really want to theorize this as likely to have happened, but maybe it can illustrate why I try to speak hesitantly about the actions people might or might not have taken. Example dialogue:
Owen: So normally in this situation I’d just host the interviewee at my place rather than having people faff around with a hotel. Is that cool here?
Woman: (thinking: damn that’s expected huh? Im surprised) um I guess so
My second paragraph appears to go off on a tangent but I was actually thinking in response to a potential exchange like this and trying to get ahead of anyone who might think that asking would always be good enough. I’m not necessarily ensorsing asking as a singular plan though I’d probably do it myself in some situations. The only sure solution is the solution that Owen appears to be taking, more proactivity and avoid these dynamics when possible anyway]]
Yes, that is one possible explanation for the sentence. There are also other, more problematic possible explanations, such as if the org itself told her they had a place for her and then sprung the surprise that it was at Owen’s house.
I tried to avoid speculation like this with my original comment because we can just ask what happened. We don’t need to make up stories, we can just find out what actually happened from the OP and the woman and put the matter to rest.
Yes I agree and I do hope someone who knows chimes in. I waited hours to comment here hoping someone else would, but in the hours I waited the original comment got over 60 more upvotes. It seemed like a growing and urgent concern for people, and I was becoming less confident that Owen or the woman would chime in in a timely manner.
I commented in parentheses to try to imply I was just dropping in, but now I really regret not writing something like: “I’ll delete this comment once someone who knows more actually clarifies it”
Just letting you know that Owen has chimed in to give more context, see the reply above. I think the added context is much worse than speculated here, a key point being that this was only sprung on her one day in advance.
Ah, thanks! I’ve retracted my first 2 comments here.