These are allegations by one party against another with zero data either way, why is everyone on the anti-uber bandwagon.
Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee
51–60 of 534 posts
Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee
#52One thing that every employee needs to understand is that HR is not your friend. No matter how friendly or helpful they seem, their job is not to protect you. It's to protect the company.
This. HR is there to protect the company and not to help employees. They have to justify their salary somehow. If they ask you to sign something it is usually not in your interest to do what they ask.
This is a bit hyperbolic, please take a step back and consider if you would actually say "you have to justify your salary somehow" in person to folks in your company's HR department.
HR does protect the company, but it also helps employees tremendously. I've had several beneficial experiences with Human Resources folks. One company setting a bad example is no reason to dump on an entire profession.
Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
In countries where unions do work, that is another door to go search for help.
> In countries where unions do work, that is another door to go search for help. That assumes your union rep is inclined to help you. In practice (not principle), they have the same incentives as the other managers and HR do in this story. The union rep could decide that the harasser is more important to their union, politically, than you are, and decide not to take action. Plus, the union can simply terminate your m…
Yeah my Union (even researchers and engineers were union members until we became "managers") had its ranks filled with senior folks who were rotating in from corporate. There was more collusion than conflict I think.
Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee
#54>Ms. Fowler’s account is another sign of Silicon Valley’s struggle with women’s issues and diversity in a male-dominated engineering environment. That's a hell of a claim since this is a "typical corporate America" type of problem.
Well there are some typical corporate American companies that have this problem. But I would argue that (almost?) all tech companies have this problem.
What?? Everywhere I worked a screenshot like what she's describing would get you fired. Over office chat even?? It's not even hearsay. Someone can bring up the exact chat history.
Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee
#55I have a hard time believing HR really behaved the way they are portrayed in that article. They really claimed that if she elected to stay in her current department she should expect to receive a negative review from the boss she rejected for a sexual relationship? This is just too much. And for someone as savvy and with as large an internet presence as the author, I can't imagine she would accept this resolution. Th…
Thank you. The swiftness with which the hammer has fallen on Uber, is disturbing. Yes, at face value, this looks bad for Uber. But, the claims here are serious enough that we really should be holding our judgement before an investigation, or some other evidence surfaces.
This does not mean I think her claims are false. In fact, I BELIEVE them to be true, but I withhold my judgment and public criticism until I can be sure.
Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee
#56I have a hard time believing HR really behaved the way they are portrayed in that article. They really claimed that if she elected to stay in her current department she should expect to receive a negative review from the boss she rejected for a sexual relationship? This is just too much. And for someone as savvy and with as large an internet presence as the author, I can't imagine she would accept this resolution. Th…
HR could totally act in the way the article describes. They exist to protect the interests of the organization, and to minimize boat-rocking. It would be easy for HR to dismiss her claims in the very same way that you are. Before we start down the path of victim-blaming, lets at least consider the possibility her claims are valid.
Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee
#57These are allegations by one party against another with zero data either way, why is everyone on the anti-uber bandwagon.
Probably because a good number of people have worked for SF startups and seen this behavior first hand.
Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee
#58I have a hard time believing HR really behaved the way they are portrayed in that article. They really claimed that if she elected to stay in her current department she should expect to receive a negative review from the boss she rejected for a sexual relationship? This is just too much. And for someone as savvy and with as large an internet presence as the author, I can't imagine she would accept this resolution. Th…
"I have a hard time believing HR really behaved the way they are portrayed in that article."
I don't, and I'm a man who has also worked at big well-known tech companies.
"And for someone as savvy and with as large an internet presence as the author, I can't imagine she would accept this resolution."
Why not? It's really hard to rebel against your employer, given that they literally feed you.
Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee
#59When someone senior gets fired, I'll start taking them seriously. Until then, it's all PR.
I think one senior person isn't enough in a case like this. What is described here is an entire malfunctioning department, which in my opinion, couldn't be attributed to anywhere below the C-level. Sure perhaps there is somebody who can be fingered "VP of HR" or whatever, but anybody who has so little visibility into their department that this type of scenario could evolve is clearly not auditing what's happening lev…
Yes, exactly. Nothing should be off the table if this is nearly as wide-ranging as alleged, up to and including Travis Kalanick's termination for cause as CEO.
Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee
#60> If they will discipline and fire people and put processes in place to keep the problem fixed
You're assuming that that allegations are true. They have been neither proven nor corroborated, and the author advertises her book in her post.
Edit: This comment has gone strongly negative in the matter of minutes. I offered no opinion and only stated fact; either there is vote manipulation on HN, or at least some portion of the HN user base does not abide by the community guidelines.