Xbox exec claims she was pushed out after eyebrow-raising bathrobe incident with colleague at hotel

A former Xbox executive says she was forced out of her job after refusing to put on a bathrobe handed to her by a colleague in a hotel room during a major gaming conference.Laura Fryer, who was director of the Xbox Advanced Technology Group at the time, said the incident occurred in 2004 during the Game Developers Conference, where her team had just delivered the keynote unveiling Microsoft’s XNA project.According to Fryer, she spent several hours on a stage giving a presentation before eventually heading back to a hotel room alongside an Xbox executive and a public relations official.“Next thing I know, I’m handed a bathrobe and asked to put it on.I laughed like it was a joke and I got out of there as fast as possible, but I was freaked out,” she said.Fryer said the consequences followed almost immediately.“I barely really thought about it much until the next week when I got back, and that’s when I was suddenly told that I was being reorganized out of my job.

I was being kicked out and replaced from the job I loved,” she said.She said a friend believed the GDC incident triggered the move and reported it to human resources on her behalf.“He believed that the reason I was being pressured to get out was because of this incident.He told me I needed to go and talk to HR, and while I was thinking about that, he did instead, and that’s when everything flipped,” Fryer said.She said the matter went nowhere despite corroboration from another person in the room.“Unfortunately, even though the other person that was in the room confirmed my story, it didn’t matter.

I was pushed out and nobody would help me.My career had gone from red-hot to radioactive,” she said.Fryer added that support from leadership evaporated.“I had a VP mentor who dumped me after this.

I was doing what I thought was my forever job, a job I could never imagine giving up.It was perfect,” she said.In hindsight, she said, the episode reflected deeper cultural problems inside ...