Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 534 posts

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#141

Post by tomlock »

reddytowns wrote: post #132
tomlock wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some of the women even had stories about reporting the exact same manager I had reported, and had reported inappropriate interactions with him long before I had even joined the company. It became obvious that both HR and management had been lying about this being "his first offense", and it certainly wasn't his last. Within a few months, he was reported once again for inappropriate behavior, and those who reported h…

How does this contradict what the parent poster said?

I don't know if its possible to contradict a... lack of sympathy or empathy. Its like the comment just fails to recognize how humans... feel... about being approached by their direct superior who controls their performance reviews and work tasks on the first day of work.

If only there was some feedback mechanism to let this socially-clueless person know they'd stepped over the line most people feel is relatively sacrosanct. ohwait

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#142

Post by freyr »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #17

I wonder how much impact this will have. If they will discipline and fire people and put processes in place to keep the problem fixed, or if they will make a lot of noise about investigation and saying how terrible they feel and not have anything change. Someone here once asked me how I differentiated between a corporation run by people and a corporation structured as an institution. In the latter there are processes…

> I wonder how much impact this will have.

What were the consequences when Uber management was caught behaving badly in the past?

In November 2014, Uber’s senior vice president Emil Michael suggested Uber hire a team of opposition researchers—equipped with a million-dollar budget—to dig into the personal lives of journalists who reported negatively about the company in order to dox, target and harass them and their families. One of his main targets was Pando founder and editor-in-chief Sarah Lacey, who had reported on the company’s sexist and misogynistic ways. Further proving her point, Mr. Michael said he thought Ms. Lacy should be held “personally responsible” if passengers who head Ms. Lacey’s advice and stop using Uber are sexually assaults by taxi drivers. Mr. Kalanick apologized on behalf of the company, but Mr. Michael didn’t lose his position.

Well, there's your answer.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#143

Post by aisofteng »

Gatsky wrote: post #130
aisofteng wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't be the first time such a thing has happened. I'm not implying that's what this is, because I have no verifiable knowledge of the sitauations. I was pointing out a (possibly chance) correlation that should give pause. That is not "crazy". If the alleged events happened to me, I would find it serious enough of an issue that it would not occur to me to advertise my book when writing about it; conflating a mo…

I didn't say withholding judgement was crazy, see the first sentence in my comment. I just don't see your point - she wrote a blog post. On her own website. She didn't say she was writing about the moral philosophy of sexual harassment. She didn't set out to write a feminist manifesto. She just wrote down what happened to her. Issues about morality and stance conflation are being imposed by you, derived from your hyp…

>She just wrote down what happened to her

What she _said_ happened to her. Nobody has corroborated and she has presented no evidence. It may well have happened, and would be rightfully a scandal about deplorable behavior if it did - but there is nothing so far besides just this one person's blog post which she herself says multiple others _can_ corroborate.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#144

Post by packetized »

linuxkerneldev wrote: post #84
packetized wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that there seems to be a terrible, unbelievably toxic culture pervading nearly every department at Uber. Also, "I know that sounds sexist" is a fucking terrible caveat.

> The problem is that there seems to be a terrible, unbelievably toxic culture pervading nearly every department at Uber. I wonder if such things are limited to Uber or more widespread than we believe it to be. I have a fear that these incidents are more common than I believe them to be and that because we have our heads down and focusing on an end-goal, we don't notice that some of our colleagues are being traumatiz…

They are definitely not limited to Uber, but I'd also surmise that they're just as prevalent (if not more so) outside of tech/startups in the Bay Area.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#145

Post by weixiyen »

searealist wrote: post #45

I 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.

It's easily believable. I've seen worse. The author has a lot to lose by putting something like that out there.

> only last in jobs for a median of 6 months

Why would this be suspicious?

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#146

Post by gydfi »

genericpseudo wrote: post #59
alexandercrohde wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, whatever, because of one mid-level manager being a perv?

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#147

Post by smhost »

louwrentius wrote: post #123
siliconc0w wrote: post #118

Not saying uber is right or wrong but part of the problem is there aren't any sane rules of what is and isn't sexual harassment - there is mostly just vague case law and public opinion so things are treated 'case by case'. I was told by a HR department that if someone overheard you and misconstrued what you said it still could be harassment even if they don't report to the person talking. No one could agree what was…

You want to make it sound like it's vague what sexual harassment really is. But your boss stating he wants to have sex with you, I think that's quite a clear-cut case.

It's really not though. The problem only exists because our society has an unhealthy attitude about sex. If we all had a perfectly healthy attitude about sex, the mere admission of the fact that someone feels sexually attracted to someone else would be a nonissue. But the world isn't ideal, and there's a whole host of misogyny, fear, taboos, antiquated traditions, and stupid people. So we have a problem.

Your boss stating that he wants to have sex with you is stupid, unethical, and unprofessional. It's not clear that it's sexual harassment, unless he was told to stop yet continued anyway.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#148

Post by gydfi »

enraged_camel wrote: post #120
aisofteng wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the allegations are true, yes, heads should roll. Why are there no examples of this wealth of evidence that has been claimed to exist?

I think what the parent is implying is that it would be career suicide for anyone to make such serious accusations unless they have considerable evidence to back them up. I mean let's face it: Susan doesn't stand to gain much from publicly accusing her former employer of harboring and shielding sexual harassers, but she has a lot to lose. Heck, she probably has hurt her employment prospects quite a bit, since many fu…

>I think what the parent is implying is that it would be career suicide for anyone to make such serious accusations unless they have considerable evidence to back them up.

I dunno, remember Ellen Pao? Sued Kleiner Perkins for sex discrimination several times, lost over and over, but still managed to land in a position as "an investment partner at Kapor Capital,[2] the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at the Kapor Center for Social Impact,[3] and co-founder of the diversity consulting non-profit organization Project Include". And that's after getting sacked from reddit, too.

The nature of the "women in tech" scene is such that you can make a niche for yourself by complaining even if your complaints are later shown to be bullshit.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#149

Post by nedwin »

rhizome wrote: post #103
csharpminor wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HR is just the messenger. This rests squarely on the shoulders of Uber's management. They were informed and refused to act. The buck stops with them. Also, having the number of woman engineers drop from 25% to less than 3% on that team should have been a red flag well in advance of this ever being published.

There's indeed a lot to hang on upper management, but HR has responsibilities delegated to them for a reason. I'm sure heads will roll, but presumably they've been cruising without an HR reboot for years, so a lot of habits and perspectives are going to be entrenched.

Unfortunately more often that not HR, in my limited experience, does not have these responsibilities delegated to them.

This case sounds like either completely inexperienced and untrained HRBPs OR they're being overinfluenced/overrun by management. Possibly both.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#150

Post by vectorpush »

siliconc0w wrote: post #118

Not saying uber is right or wrong but part of the problem is there aren't any sane rules of what is and isn't sexual harassment - there is mostly just vague case law and public opinion so things are treated 'case by case'. I was told by a HR department that if someone overheard you and misconstrued what you said it still could be harassment even if they don't report to the person talking. No one could agree what was…

Can we just avoid sexual conversations at work? That's a pretty simple rule that negates all the complexities of determining what type of sexual discussion is and isn't sexual harassment. I've sometimes heard the argument that such a notion is puritanical and sterile but honestly I am just not at all interested in sexual banter at the workplace and I feel like nothing of value is lost if I don't have to overhear remarks about sexual escapades, desires, or jokes during the work day.
Post reply on HN