Summary
- Employee faced hostility and made ADA accommodation request after depression diagnosis.
- Manager cursed at employee in online conference, leading to termination.
- Crunchyroll fired employee, offered silence in exchange, and faces backlash.
Quick Links
A former Crunchyroll employee claimed on LinkedIn that he experienced hostility inside the company after being diagnosed with depression. Shawn Hoffman was a Senior Software Engineer at the company, according to his own profile on the social media.
In his post, he said that he was diagnosed with major depression and anxiety after his mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He then requested ADA (American with Disabilities Act) accommodation – and, instead of support, he was met with hostility.
Related
Crunchyroll Responds To Claims Of User Data Breach — Assures There’s Nothing To Worry About
Crunchyroll addresses a data breach involving Premium account credentials in recent statement.
A manager cursed him during an online conference, and made an obscene gesture – a middle finger. No further context about it was informed (although it may be hard to imagine any context in which this gesture would be acceptable).
Former Employee Claims Upper Management Knew Everything
At the time, he took a screenshot of the gesture and added it to the post. According to this post, he reported the incident inside the company, and noticed a shift in the way he was treated. Apparently, no action was taken regarding his manager.
He kept raising concerns about it, and, shortly after, Crunchyroll fired him, alleging a policy violation – he doesn’t state which kind of policy he was accused of violating. Then he claims that Crunchyroll offered him severance in exchange for his silence.
I raised concerns about workplace treatment, professionalism, and respect. Shortly after, Crunchyroll made the decision to terminate my employment, citing a ‘policy violation’.
Then they offered me severance in exchange for silence.
The manager in this photo? He remains employed.
Meanwhile, I am now without income while I care for my mother, a 52-year-old substitute teacher, who is battling cancer in a broken U.S. healthcare system that has left her unable to afford treatment.
Leadership knew. HR knew. Yet this is how they responded.
I share this not just for myself, but for the many professionals out there who face retaliation for speaking up, who are forced to choose between their livelihoods and their dignity.
Crunchyroll hasn’t made any statement about the incident so far – given previous occasions in which people spoke up about alleged abuses by the company, they are unlikely to address the issue.
Crunchyroll Has Been Under Fire Recently
The past few months have been rough for Crunchyroll. In November, voice actor and ADR director David Wald claimed that the company tampered with his mail – he stated that he would reveal more details on Twitch at a later date, but hasn’t done it so far.
Then, in December, another shocking report came out: according to Bloomberg, after interviewing 18 employees or former employees, the work environment has changed following the acquisition of the company by Sony.
Not only are employees unhappy with the way things are going inside the company, but many Japanese companies are also dissatisfied with the marketing strategies undertaken by the company to promote their titles. Crunchyroll replied to Bloomberg’s request for comments via email, stating that the company offers everything that anime fans could want.