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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

#201

Post by kevinburke »

sergiotapia wrote: post #43

>On my first official day rotating on the team, my new manager sent me a string of messages over company chat. He was in an open relationship, he said, and his girlfriend was having an easy time finding new partners but he wasn't. Totally normal behavior! Who hasn't spoken about their sex life the very first day of interactions? "Welcome to the team, we use Git for source control, all of our company knowledgebase is…

I would guess that this happens more often than you imagine. Women often don't share stories like this for fear of retribution at their current company or future companies, or because they think you won't believe them. In addition NDA's are often a condition of receiving severance.

Most women in Silicon Valley have had experiences similar to those mentioned in the article (HR disbelief, multiple women reporting same man to no effect, retaliation, legal threats, &c, &c).

The OP probably declined a severance package to write this.

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

#203

Post by fibbery »

jacquesm wrote: post #89
username223 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just sex, but sex in an "open relationship," presumably as "backup booty." It's hard for me to understand why she didn't immediately start trying to GTFO, but instead stuck around for a year and tried to make things work. Save transcripts and screenshots, find a new job, then sue at leisure.

> It's hard for me to understand why she didn't immediately start trying to GTFO, but instead stuck around for a year and tried to make things work. Some possibilities: - Because she's loyal to her co-workers - Maybe still not jaded enough to jump ship at the first reason - quite possibly didn't have another job lined up to jump ship to A year isn't all that long, and if things had been turned around who knows she mi…

Some companies also require repayment of signing bonuses/relocation if the employee leaves within a year. So that gives people incentive to try and make the best of things even if they would have otherwise left.

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

#205

Post by [deleted] »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #30
jackweirdy wrote: post #13

> The HR rep began the meeting by asking me if I had noticed that I was the common theme in all of the reports I had been making That's such a meaningless thing for an HR person to ask someone, that it clearly only serves to be patronising and hopefully stop them bringing problems up. I mean, how could you as an HR staffer possibly justify your inaction with an argument like that? "We didn't act on any of their compl…

HR serves to protect the company, you have to think in HR's shoes. If the complainant goes away and finds another job the problem is solved. Most harassment cases tend not to end up in court, usually the aggrieved party quits.

[deleted]

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

#206

Post by a13n »

calcsam wrote: post #15

In case anyone isn't sure why the original interaction is harassment: relationships within a reporting chain are generally prohibited, for both legal, ethical, and practical reasons. Sex becoming part of the effective job description crosses both legal and ethical lines, and team effectiveness is hindered when people wonder whether someone is getting special treatment because they're sleeping with the boss. A manager…

Does anyone know who this "high performing" manager is?

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

#207

Post by merb »

scurvy wrote: post #126

What is Uber doing with 150 SRE's? Wow talk about bloat. The rest of the story is horrible to hear, too.

ignoring messages that a database server is nearly out of space. and loosing nearly all database servers after ignoring the message and then telling that the database is bad and they switched to mysql? well it wasn't just that, they also did wierd things with a relation database and they still do with mysql. I'm not sure but actually keeping the database servers happy should be the no 1 job of an SRE team, since the data is the most important thing to any company.

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

#208

Post by madeofpalk »

calcsam wrote: post #15

In case anyone isn't sure why the original interaction is harassment: relationships within a reporting chain are generally prohibited, for both legal, ethical, and practical reasons. Sex becoming part of the effective job description crosses both legal and ethical lines, and team effectiveness is hindered when people wonder whether someone is getting special treatment because they're sleeping with the boss. A manager…

> In case anyone isn't sure why the original interaction is harassment

Is there anyone that thought a manager asking their subordinate for sex isn't harassment?

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

#209

Post by enjo »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #131
csharpminor wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally speaking, I've noticed that Uber has become a dirty word among my friends. For example, someone using Uber will generally just say that they're calling a car rather than naming the service. Lyft doesn't have the same stigma. It should be concerning to management that the company's ethos is repelling customers. Edit: Management should be far more concerned that Uber is allegedly an environment that systema…

Isn't that due to the perception that they broke the recent anti-Trump taxi strike, rather than their internal work culture?

Among my peer group (Denver) it's been the same. It has alot more to do with what we hear from drivers about the respective companies. For whatever reason drivers are happy to shill for Lyft and are often almost hostile towards Uber. At some point you just get the feeling that Uber isn't what we really wanna be supporting.

I should note: my peer group isn't particularly tech oriented.

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

#210

Post by rmason »

Never ever take a problem to HR. HR represents the company's viewpoint at all times, not yours ever. You will never get a satisfactory resolution.

HR exists solely to help 'manage' the work force. Most companies that I've worked at it does a very poor job of it. Someday the HR department will get replaced by software, in my opinion the sooner the better.

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