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Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#211

Post by tehlike »

kevinburke wrote: post #22
gkoberger wrote: post #19

One 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.

I guess to some degree "protecting the company" involves implementing procedures that protect the company from losing a class action lawsuit and damaging their ability to recruit engineers, right?

it also depends on what the projected cost of class action lawsuit. My understanding is, it's usually a fraction of what it could have been. it's mostly anectodal, though (reading news online, etc).

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#212

Post by ThrustVectoring »

rdtsc wrote: post #81
gkoberger wrote: post #19

One 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.

Good point. I gotta wonder about their general competence. What are the credentials to be an HR person? Here, even if they really wanted to discredit her and protect the company (so assuming they completely were not prepared to take her side, ever) they acted in a very stupid manner it seems. Is there an HR major? Or is it MBA student who never graduate? How does one end up picking a good HR person vs just a friend-o…

>Now the answer is probably they had defended and covered up that manager's behavior before. Blog alludes to that. So it became a pattern. Then just when another similar complaint popped up, admitting it was wrong and doing anything besides what they did before, would have meant acknowledging how wrong they have been in the past. "But we've already covered up for him 10 times, why is this special now..." kind of deal.

That analysis lets management offer HR as a scapegoat too easily, IMO. Why was HR willing to defend and cover up that managers behavior the first time? "If you make things difficult for me, things will end up difficult for you", and you end up promoting sycophants and pushing out anyone with a spine.

In other words, HR doesn't create corporate culture. Management does. And the culture they wound up with both convinces managers that they can get away with this BS, and HR to cover it up.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#213

Post by mistercow »

gkoberger wrote: post #19

One 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.

That's true, but in this case HR wasn't really the company's friend either. The overwhelming sense that I got from reading her post is that Uber's company culture is super broken. Everyone's looking out for themselves, rather than the company, including the HR department.

If they were actually trying to help the company, they would have taken action to reduce its liability. Instead, they played politics.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#214

Post by pjc50 »

aisofteng wrote: post #140
enraged_camel wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 will preface this comment by saying that I think this may be a true allegation just as much be a false allegation; I, like any other Internet commenter, do not know enough to be able to judge. What I do want to say, however, is that in the United States there is, in fact, currently a culture that not only favors women making accusations of sexism and harassment, but also one that makes it taboo to express the norma…

> culture that not only favors women making accusations of sexism and harassment

No there isn't, or we wouldn't be having this conversation!

Culture is tilted very heavily against the accuser and they are usually disbelieved and nothing is done. As in this case.

Note that "innocent until proven guilty" is only the criminal standard of proof, whereas civil law is "balance of probabilities" and the court of public opinion .. well, that does whatever the hell it likes.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#215

Post by peripitea »

sarcasmdevil wrote: post #80
sychophant wrote: post #23

I see nothing wrong with the manager's behavior. Given: ------ - The manager indirectly fished for mutual sexual interest with a subordinate. - Managers and subordinates engage in workplace relationships across the country and the world. They all start with a "proposition" of one kind or another. Only when a manager is shown to abuse their power in support of a personal agenda should there be damages imposed. Not sim…

Common sense. Absolutely agree. If a woman flirts with me I dont go printing screenshots of the Google Chat and run to HR. I see no abuse of power by said manager at the point of expressing an interest. The rest, well that is odd way for HR to handle it I accept, if that is actually what happened - we need to hear the other side of the story. This is like red bull for diversity and inclusion directors though.

>I see no abuse of power by said manager at the point of expressing an interest.

I don't think you understand the perspective of women then. I don't know if this comment alone will be able to change that, but there are so many dynamics involved that I'm guessing you are unaffected or less affected by, and are therefore failing to take into account when judging what this situation would be like if you were in it. Things like the female-male power imbalance, the manager-employee power imbalance, the fact that this happens orders of magnitude more often to women than to men, etc.

I would urge you to read more accounts of women's experiences with workplace sexual harrassment, and/or to speak with women you know about it with an open mind. Their average experience is so different from yours in this respect that it can be hard to understand why something that seems innocuous to you is absolutely toxic to them.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#216

Post by smhost »

Nitramp wrote: post #189
smhost wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 st…

> 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. Your boss by definition is in a position of power over you. If they date you (let alone ask for sex in this manner!), they can be seen as exploiting their power over you, or you being treated differently in return for sex. That ju…

I agree with you:

> Your boss stating that he wants to have sex with you is stupid, unethical, and unprofessional.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#217

Post by nzp »

chimeracoder wrote: post #82
pjmlp wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why I added the remark "do work", not when they are just yet another way to take vacations.

> Which is why I added the remark "[in countries where unions] do work", not when they are just yet another way to take vacations. That's not a matter that's specific to a particular country, though. It's inherent in the nature of a union structure (and arguably inherent in the nature of any hierarchical human structure, which is a superset of "unions"). You can find situations like the one I described in any country…

Inherent in hierarchical structures, yes, but unions don't have to be hierarchical. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism There are numerous such functioning unions throughout the world. Small compared to bureaucratic unions, most under various forms of state repression, but very successful and effective in labour struggles they participate in.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#218

Post by ThrustVectoring »

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…

If Uber reflexively solved problems through discipline and process, they wouldn't have wound up in this situation in the first place. Far more likely is something like the least powerful people they can get away with scapegoating end up thrown to the wolves. 1-2 non-HR managers for being weak enough to let the situation get out of hand, and a bunch of HR folks for not effectively covering.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#219

Post by frobozz »

xiphias wrote: post #154
dclowd9901 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they're not your friend, but Jesus Christ, the amount of legal trouble this particular HR establishment exposed themselves to through their actions is breathtaking. THAT'S their job: to prevent the company from getting sued!! In this case I'm completely bewildered as to why HR handled this particular situation so clumsily.

Sure..the thing I don't understand is why she didn't go to a lawyer? That would have been the next logical step for me. At least 1 person should get to prison if there is enough evidence collected by multiple women.

A union representative is the next logical step. They will be able to represent you anonymously at first, and bring a collective action against the perpetrator if there have been multiple incidents against multiple victims.

If you wish to take it to court yourself, then they may also be able to provide you with or help you find an appropriate lawyer for the case.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#220

Post by thewhitetulip »

beachy wrote: post #171
thewhitetulip wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should be able to go Yes, in theory. But most HRs "protect the org" in the most short sighted way possible

That's a sweeping statement that I utterly disagree with. We do HR software, I've interacted with many HR people at many companies and I've never even heard of anything as outrageous as the behavior described in this case. In no way is it the way"most HRs" behave.

This kind of behaviour isn't advertised in the newspaper, you know about it only by experience, the dark side (if you choose to ignore it, please do). This is like the earlier people who said "there is no black swan" because all swans I have seen are white, no, there are events which happen without you being aware of them
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