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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

#581

Post by knucklesandwich »

weberc2 wrote: post #530
knucklesandwich wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, it should be all tech workers that unionize, not just software engineers. And you should talk to some of your fellow workers and ask if they all think they're being fairly compensated. Even aside from the issue of salary, tech workers are rarely given a fair stake in ownership in the company, and their equity grants often come with lots of clauses to deprive them from what little stake they have. I sugg…

> And you should talk to some of your fellow workers and ask if they all think they're being fairly compensated. Even aside from the issue of salary, tech workers are rarely given a fair stake in ownership in the company, and their equity grants often come with lots of clauses to deprive them from what little stake they have. Who decides what is fair? You? Tech workers? Speaking about fairness as though it's objectiv…

> Who decides what is fair? You? Tech workers? Speaking about fairness as though it's objective or straight-forward isn't doing anyone any favors.

The beauty of a union is there doesn't have to be an objective definition. A union gives you a democratic voice to advocate for what you think is fair. Without organized labor power, your voice is completely ignorable.

> Speaking generally, if employees aren't getting a fair deal, they should look for better jobs. If they can't find better jobs, they're getting a fair deal. There are certainly anti-competitive exceptions, but nothing posted so far suggests we're in such exceptional territory.

This is a completely naive understanding of what finding a job is like. Leaving a job can be a strike against a person in the hiring process, not to mention it consumes a lot of time, leaves someone uncompensated and without benefits during the process, etc. This also assumes engineer competency is something we can effectively gauge in the hiring process or otherwise (just search "hiring" on hacker news to get the general sentiment among engineers about how good we are at this).

Imagine if this was the suggestion given to factory workers and coal miners and the early 20th century (not that I think the worker conditions are comparable, but its illustrative of how naive it is to believe that market forces are sufficient for providing fair compensation). This is a marginalist's definition of "fair" that doesn't jive with any real human person's.

The real question is why you are so fervantly against having a democratic voice in the workplace.

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

#582

Post by jaxn »

true_religion wrote: post #492
Mz wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good comment, but: That being said, I don't know if I'd call "she should sue" victim-blaming, even though the reason is probably about the same. This reminds me of some of the BS I have seen where people insist a woman should prosecute her rapist. One of the problems with this line of reasoning is that it makes it the victim's responsibility to try to right this wrong. What if she just wants to put the whole damn thi…

> This reminds me of some of the BS I have seen where people insist a woman should prosecute her rapist. I was under the impression that criminal cases were pressed by the state, not any given individual. The only thing the state may ask is testimony from the victim. If the victim is unwilling or unable to give that, then the case may just fall apart due to lack of evidence.

Which puts the pressure on the victim. Very few prosecutors are willing or able to bring a case to trial without the support / testimony of the victim (who is often the only witness).

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

#583

Post by projektir »

tclancy wrote: post #428
projektir wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a pro-drinking culture at my company due to the nature of the business and I haven't found that it's causing any problems. It's generally done outside of work or for specific events, and I've never felt unsafe on any gathering where a lot of drinking was going on. This is a red herring, if anything. I think there's a difference between a culture where people drink a lot vs a culture where people get black out…

>I've never felt unsafe on any gathering where a lot of drinking was going on. Are you a woman? I am a good coder with a bad drinking habit who has worked at companies that were ok with drinking on site. While they handled it well and while I love an excuse to get together over beers and discuss coding, it's definitely a smell. Black out drunk has nothing to do with it. Hell, it would be preferable if people just pas…

> Are you a woman?

Yes.

> The problem is all the folks who don't pass out but all of a sudden think this is a good time to declare their love for a coworker's body.

The problem is if they say something like that, the target is clearly uncomfortable, and then nobody else cares. Banning alcohol isn't going to fix something like that.

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

#584

Post by jaxn »

toothbrush wrote: post #465
PaulRobinson wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a "whiskey club", and regularly go to the pub where I work. We don't do it at lunchtime. We don't do it during the working day. 5:30pm on a Friday? Let's have a glass of whiskey together. Somebody joining/leaving, or we haven't been out together for a while? Let's go to the pub after work one evening. There is a #drinks channel in Slack where people who fancy a drink after work co-ordinate, and several of wil…

> As for team dynamics, it means we know each other better and bond more frequently. Not a problem, I think. Except for the non-drinkers in your team. I suspect that they either a) feel left out, because a non-drinker at a pub has a boring time, and has to keep justifying their empty glass b) probably miss out on important decisions if a majority of the important people in a team are present, which is bad dynamics c)…

I once received a bottle of wine as a Christmas bonus from the founders of the small startup I worked at. I was the only person on the the who didn't drink and was pretty offended. Especially since it was well known that I didn't drink since this company celebrated "beer thirty" every Friday.

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

#585

Post by ThrustVectoring »

mightykan wrote: post #541
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #139

I may have experienced a little bit of sexual harassment in my youth when working at a local McDonald's but, being a guy, it was the only time and I was able to put a stop to be rather quickly. However, being in software engineering for the past 12 years, I have seen the sexual harassment of several women all of which never saw a proper resolution. For instance I worked at a small company that was later bought by a l…

We should teach our sons to truly respect women. We should teach our sons to be respectful honest decent human beings. We should teach our sons to not be assholes who think they are entitled to a woman’s body. We should teach our sons to be humans with emotions and empathy for others. We should teach our sons to not be toxic despicable entitled pathetic beings. It’s on us (men). If we behave badly, it’s squarely on u…

"Teach our sons better" ignores the fact that most people know better and behave better. Plus, it kind of has a generational feedback cycle - do you really want to wait twenty years before figuring out whether this plan works?

Much better is consistently work to undermine the power of folks who behave badly.

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

#587

Post by user5994461 »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #171
knucklesandwich wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech workers (across all disciplines) need to unionize to combat this kind of thing. As has been pointed out below, HR that is staffed and incentivized by the company management only serves the interests of the management. A union is the only structure that can actually win demands for workers by organizing workers to withhold their labor. It's not a panacea, and there are several historical examples of union leaders…

That speaks to me. After salary negotiations, HR within companies has never done anything for me when I approached them. They seemed to be there only to defend the boss and register me as a complainer. It took me several jobs and this post to learn that.

HR has been fine with me.

Arranging the paperwork to ensign then arranging the paperwork to resign.

Forwarding some more paperwork for taxes, HMRC, benefits, pension and various things that pop up at times.

Arranging interviews, candidates feedback loop, on-site events, university recruiting events, some conferences, offers, etc...

Maybe I just have better than you guys.

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

#588

Post by weixiyen »

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.

Even if this wasn't Uber, it's totally believable.

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

#589

Post by [deleted] »

kennywinker wrote: post #566
weberc2 wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if this post teaches us anything, it's that the system works very well, at least for well-performing software engineers. In this case, Susan found a better job with a different company where she presumably won't have to face the same levels of confusion and mistreatment. Unionization seems to come with its own cultural (and procedural) baggage, so I'm wary of invoking needlessly.

Suffers in kafkaesque work environment for a year... gets new job. The system works!

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