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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

#241

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

sanderjd wrote: post #24
kuyan wrote: post #11

This is the third post on this topic that's made the front page: [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13683894 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13682022

Why wouldn't there be lots of stories about this on the front page? It is big news about a major player in the exact target market of this site. It is also actionable to the audience here: this story may affect the decisions of many current and potentially future Uber employees.

Relax, kuyan didn't provide any opinions with these links. It wasn't necessarily a complaint.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#242

Post by [deleted] »

muglug wrote: post #125
camdenlock wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's trendy right now to "listen and believe." Outrage can score you some serious Internet popularity points, particularly when your claims are about men being sexist pigs. Don't ask for any evidence, just grab the pitchforks! That being said, it's tempting to just believe everything Fowler wrote and hope for sweet justice. We all love a good story, after all. Unfortunately, what makes for a gripping story of justice…

She's staked her reputation (and, at this point, probably her career as well) on not lying about the harassment. She says she has both documentary evidence and other female Uber employees to back up her claims. "Guilty until proven innocent" is how our courts work, and rightly so. But, as a layperson, there's nothing wrong in assessing the evidence and saying: "the chance these claims are false is vanishingly small,…

[deleted]

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#243

Post by benchaney »

tomlock wrote: post #240
benchaney wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, when you said women might be offended by the statement that pitchforking is bad, that was clearly a criticism of the statement that pitchforking is bad. That criticism is nonsense, and you supplied no actual logic or evidence of an issue with that statement. I don't see why this is difficult to understand. Your response to someone advocating against pitchforking was clearly hostile.

You thought I was criticizing the content of his post? Incorrect.

"Understood. You should get your lady friends in tech to read the comments you posted on a throwaway. Do you think they'll feel safer around you?"

Are you seriously going to argue this isn't a criticism?

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#244

Post by nkoren »

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 friend of mine experienced a somewhat worse level of harassment at her job. She lawyered up and quickly received an offer for a non-trivial silver parachute, and a mutual non-disparagement agreement on her way out the door.

Seemed like a fine solution, but it soon became evident that she had, in fact, been blacklisted: 18 months passed before anybody would even give her an interview, and that was only after deciding to change industries altogether. That silver parachute was, in hindsight, wholly inadequate compensation. Meanwhile her harasser has continued his career with no repercussions whatsoever.

When these problems are cultural / institutional, the threat of a lawsuit will neither benefit the victim nor effect any real change. Takes something more sustained and substantial than that.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#245

Post by kebrixx »

deminature wrote: post #112
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what's the alternative Contact your state's labour commissioner. If you received stock or stock options, contact your state securities commissioner. Otherwise, suing is tried and true.

Suing is a surefire pathway to being made a pariah, case in point Ellen Pao. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pao_v._Kleiner_Perkins

Blatently false accusations cause you to be made a pariah. And rightfully so. Ellen Pao's false accusations make it harder for women such as this to receive justice.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#246

Post by golergka »

DanBC wrote: post #234
hueving wrote: post #233

>Ms. Fowler’s account is another sign of Silicon Valley’s struggle with women’s issues and diversity in a male-dominated engineering environment. In 2015, the venture capital world was put under the microscope when Ellen Pao, a former partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, claimed in a lawsuit that she was discriminated against at the blue-chip venture firm because of her gender — a case she lost. This paragrap…

> (this behavior doesn't match the 6 companies I've worked at) Why do you think women would tell you about their experiences? I've read your comments on HN, and you'd be the last person I'd tell if it had happened to me.

> I've read your comments on HN, and you'd be the last person I'd tell if it had happened to me.

So you prefer preaching to the choir to trying to change someone's mind?

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#247

Post by pmiller2 »

AYBABTME wrote: post #170
xiphias wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It may seem hard to understand why one wouldn't go to a lawyer, but think about this: Consider that the people who are wronged in these situations didn't set themselves those days to be harassed. Now they should not only stand what's been done to them, but also drop everything they were doing that day to sue? I think there's an understandable tradeoff that people go thru in those circumstance. They push the issue as…

I agree with everybody who's pointing out the time, effort, and cost of suing. In this case, I think consulting a lawyer to negotiate a severance agreement might have worked well, but that would have essentially negated her ability to write this blow post. I'm glad she chose to write the post as a service to the tech community rather than seek a big payout.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#248

Post by mistercow »

erdojo wrote: post #196
mistercow wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sooner or later, the truth is going to come out. Fowler knows this. There's no room for ambiguity here: either Uber has broken the law extravagantly , or she's lying. If the latter is true, she will be crucified for it. The defamation suit alone would be monumental. And again, there's no ambiguity. She says she has extensive records of this behavior. That's not something she can really walk back. In a situation where…

The truth will only come out if a lawsuit is filed and it goes to trial and it's not settled before a verdict. Otherwise we'll get her side of the story as written and a statement from Uber that's been rubber stamped by lawyers.

If she's lying, it's pretty hard to imagine a scenario where Uber lets her settle this without recanting.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#249

Post by deminature »

ewwertee2454 wrote: post #153
deminature wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suing is a surefire pathway to being made a pariah, case in point Ellen Pao. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pao_v._Kleiner_Perkins

> ...pa ... I understand that English has absorbed that word and its meaning in the current sense. But please don't use that word. That is like the n-word in south india. It is specifically used to refer to people in a derogatory way.

I didn't intend it to be offensive, just to illustrate her persona non grata status after suing for discrimination. My dictionary says the offensive racial use is historical, not current.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#250

Post by distances »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #241
sanderjd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't there be lots of stories about this on the front page? It is big news about a major player in the exact target market of this site. It is also actionable to the audience here: this story may affect the decisions of many current and potentially future Uber employees.

Relax, kuyan didn't provide any opinions with these links. It wasn't necessarily a complaint.

Yep, I thought of it as "find out more here" kind of collection.
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