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Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

susanjfowler.com

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Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#191

Post by jitl »

Rapzid wrote: post #104
dkarapetyan wrote: post #66

Susan is ~an industry veteran~ a somewhat experienced engineer and her interactions with HR are typical of what I've seen so I would have expected her to know how things would play out. In my experience HR is never there to protect the employees. HR is there to make sure the company doesn't get into any hot legal waters. Most of the time the easiest way to do that is to just suppress any wrongdoing and sideline whoev…

I wouldn't qualify her as an industry veteran. This is not how things would have played out at a lot of the risk-adverse companies I have worked for. I'm sure it does at some places and it's no surprise to hear this about Uber TBH. Being just a couple years out of college, I'm not sure why you would expect her to understand all the shity ways the world can work.

What qualifications does Susan lack that would make her an "industry veteran" in your eyes?

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#192

Post by randomname2 »

brudgers wrote: post #91
jacquesm wrote: post #44

What's with all the 'this is unbelievable' comments here? This is absolutely believable, Uber has pretty much made it their standard to break the laws where-ever they can, why should work place conduct be any different? In for a penny, in for a pound. You'd never hear something even close to this from Stripe or some other company run by upstanding folks. Fish rots from the head.

If taking a billion dollars from the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia says something about a company's stance regarding women's equality, what it says is not terribly inconsistent with Fowler's story.

It's not all bad though: http://www.voanews.com/a/saudi-employment-uber-careem/366760...

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#193

Post by giaour »

bsaul wrote: post #124

Clearly there's a problem in that company, but maybe some woman working in the US could answer to me : why isn't just answering to the first mail " sorry, not interested" then keep working there not an option ? to me, the term "harassment" means repetitive, morally painful actions from a boss to his employee. Obviously the guy has a huge problem with his sex life, but why report to HR instantly , instead of trying to…

That scenario allows someone to get away with making every female employee's first day horribly uncomfortable. The sender has the power to fire the recipient at will without an explanation, which means saying "sorry, not interested" could get you summarily fired with no recourse.

Only a sociopath would actually fire you for turning down a proposition, but this is your first interaction with the guy, so you have to consider the possibility.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#194

Post by dboreham »

bsaul wrote: post #124

Clearly there's a problem in that company, but maybe some woman working in the US could answer to me : why isn't just answering to the first mail " sorry, not interested" then keep working there not an option ? to me, the term "harassment" means repetitive, morally painful actions from a boss to his employee. Obviously the guy has a huge problem with his sex life, but why report to HR instantly , instead of trying to…

I'm not a woman, but seriously : WTF? Your boss has to ask you for sex TWICE before that's a problem?

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#195

Post by robaato »

jacquesm wrote: post #44

What's with all the 'this is unbelievable' comments here? This is absolutely believable, Uber has pretty much made it their standard to break the laws where-ever they can, why should work place conduct be any different? In for a penny, in for a pound. You'd never hear something even close to this from Stripe or some other company run by upstanding folks. Fish rots from the head.

Learnt that lesson the hard way - as an independent consultant working with local businesses, did some work with a seemingly successful guy who boasted about how he always got a good deal/complained about service and got money back etc. Surprise, surprise, a month later he did that to me too, including stupid petty things like trying to pay the invoice without the VAT.

What goes around comes around.

I still support our local taxi company and talk to the drivers who take me (typically to/from the airport). Many of them have had experiences with Uber and don't have good things to say. However their traditional business is struggling.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#196

Post by zekkius »

bsaul wrote: post #124

Clearly there's a problem in that company, but maybe some woman working in the US could answer to me : why isn't just answering to the first mail " sorry, not interested" then keep working there not an option ? to me, the term "harassment" means repetitive, morally painful actions from a boss to his employee. Obviously the guy has a huge problem with his sex life, but why report to HR instantly , instead of trying to…

Because challenging someone to "justify" why they feel sexually harassed is inappropriate?

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#198

Post by flamedoge »

dkarapetyan wrote: post #142
pvg wrote: post #40

For all the people saying 'HR works for the company' and 'She should have sued!', I think you're underestimating how difficult that is to do. You're reading the account of a person who was clearly perfectly aware of her rights and how corporate workspaces operate. What would you actually do in their position? You leave work one evening, go home and google 'lawyer that will get me lots of money from my company and wor…

Engineers, especially the ones at Susan's level, are pretty well paid. Suing would have definitely been an option for her.

yes, but "does it make financial sense?" is always the question.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#199

Post by diziet »

jitl wrote: post #191
Rapzid wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't qualify her as an industry veteran. This is not how things would have played out at a lot of the risk-adverse companies I have worked for. I'm sure it does at some places and it's no surprise to hear this about Uber TBH. Being just a couple years out of college, I'm not sure why you would expect her to understand all the shity ways the world can work.

What qualifications does Susan lack that would make her an "industry veteran" in your eyes?

I would say that to be called an 'industry veteran', a minimum threshold of 5 years of work experience in that industry is a reasonable qualification.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#200

Post by bifocald »

logandavis wrote: post #69

By all indications, Uber has a toxic work culture that costs them both top talent and organizational velocity. I'm a college senior at a well-regarded engineering school. My CS classmates - especially women - simply do not apply to Uber, in large part because of its reputation for internal misogyny and general assholery. Four classmates interned there last summer, and as far as I know none are interested in returning…

The real problem in Uber's engineering orgs is that Uber hired too many people for too few real projects. From what I learned from my friends in Uber, many teams had largely overlapping responsibilities, and therefore created bogus projects to justify their existence. Their standard MO is picking a missing feature in a service, and then creating a new system that implemented that feature.

It might be okay if all the talents that Uber hired could work together to build truly great software, but hell no, their management created this weird cut-throat culture by enforcing stack ranking with forced curve down to each team of first-line managers. It's hard to imagine that a team with fewer than 10 people had to name an engineer who "didn't meet expectation". Yet that was exactly what happened in Uber. They also doted out disproportional amount of bonus to a few top performers. Naturally, people's expectation was distorted, and chaos ensued.

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