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Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

nytimes.com

411–420 of 534 posts

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#411
post #372

As I commented last night[1], the New York Times has cast Fowler's experience as a he-said-she-said story. Unfortunately I was not pessimistic enough: 1. The New York Times spiked the most damning part of Fowler's story: that HR was actively involved in supporting the behavior. 2. It down plays Fowler's specific experience as typical for the industry and marginalizes it by bringing Pao's story into Fowler's narrative…

Were you there when the alleged facts happened? If not, it is definitely he-said-she-said. It is probable that things happened as Fowler claims, but we have no way of knowing without evidence. The article mentions the facts, which are basically who said what, since neither side has shared any evidence. Personally I'm not going to pass judgment either way without knowing more, but this is definitely going into my some…

I just came here to say that. I do not trust Uber and I do not trust her. And without evidence it is "he-said-she-said".

I really do not know what to say here.

Personally, I'm also worried that girlfriend of my wife working in Uber HR might be accused of "hiding sexual harassment" and subsequently just fired (because they are liability). In these cases kind of cases, "investigation by CEO" will cause low-level employees to be fired - even if they did nothing wrong. Just to satisfy blood thirsty "internet lynch crowd".

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#412
post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also point out the possibility that Uber HR has no power... or upper HR management (formerly Renee Atwood, now Liane Hornsey?) is complicit. They have a management chain just like everyone else, and if the person at the top (or the person above them) says "We're not going to discipline this guy" then the best HR can do is try to deescalate the situation.

If true that HR has no power (and it's starting to look like that's the case), then it's clear that the company culture itself it so rotten as to remove any accountability chain just for the sake of a few (sexual predator) engineers spinning out a few more features that will make the company a few (or a lot) more dollars. Shame!

Then we'll find out who did have the power, and also find out if the board has the power to discipline those individuals.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#413
Interesting that Arianna Huffington is taking a personal hand in this investigation, given that her former Chief of Staff and Managing Editor at HuffPost, Jimmy Soni, was dogged by similar allegations: http://gawker.com/top-huffington-post-editor-was-investigate....

This is a mess. They need a fully independent investigator.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#414
post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. Lets imagine Emil actually did exactly as described in his hypothetical: hiring people to investigate true facts and report them to the public. How is that somehow worse than Gawker hiring people to do that to Uber?

When those "true facts" are the personal details of journalists and their families, researched and published specifically to make them fear for their safety. If you think that maliciously doxing people is perfectly fine as long as the dox are true facts , then you are a being a troll. If I have misunderstood your point, then I apologise and would appreciate clarification.

Doxing refers to identifying anonymous writers on the internet. So I'm not sure what you are referring to - Emil Michael was discussing reporting true but embarrassing personal facts about (public figure) Sarah Lacy.

Specifically, the idea was to write articles like these, but with Sarah Lacy (founder of Pando) as the subject:

https://pando.com/2014/02/27/we-call-that-boob-er-the-four-m...

https://pando.com/2014/10/06/venture-capital-and-the-great-b...

So yes, my concrete question is why it's wrong to write the 4 most awful true things about Sarah Lacy, but it's perfectly fine to write the 4 most awful true facts about Travis Kalanick?

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#415

As I commented last night[1], the New York Times has cast Fowler's experience as a he-said-she-said story. Unfortunately I was not pessimistic enough: 1. The New York Times spiked the most damning part of Fowler's story: that HR was actively involved in supporting the behavior. 2. It down plays Fowler's specific experience as typical for the industry and marginalizes it by bringing Pao's story into Fowler's narrative…

You should consider taking your issues with the story to the Public Editor [1], who is the point person for feedback on NYTimes' reporting.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/column/the-public-editor

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#416

Is there any physical/electronic evidence?

It is popular in the USA right now to silence rational, evidence based discussions. Now more than ever it is of vital importance that we stick to values of relying on open dialogue, reason, and facts. If these values only apply when they are convenient and comfortable for you then they aren't your values, but instead a rhetorical tool you abuse. As a community of above-average intelligence and reason, I am disappoint…

Here's the thing: If you had ever taken even a few minutes to sit down with women who work in our industry and asked them if anything like this has ever happened to them you would learn it is extremely common. You would also learn that women rarely get the benefit of the doubt in these situations and are often punished or eventually forced out of the company. Women don't talk about it because jerks immediately start screaming "WHERES THE EVIDENCE?!?!?!?!". As far as anyone can tell she has no interest in pursuing a legal case; in that sense this is just like the NFL national anthem controversy. No matter how blandly and inoffensively someone behaves there will be assholes at the ready to condemn them for speaking out about anything in any form whatsoever. Susan kept her head down, tried to do good work, then left for another job. She has made the absolutely minimum of an issue out of this as it is possible to make.

Try this thought experiment: assume the original story was written by a man and was identical except for the sexual harassment part. The same tales of toxic work culture. The same stories about managers protecting fiefdoms, undermining each other, and withholding information. The same story about being denied a transfer so this person could serve as a "feather in the cap" of the manager denying the transfer. Would you still be out here claiming it is the end of civil society that everyone isn't demanding evidence before rushing to judgement?

Hint: we've had these kinds of stories show up before with male authors and the answer is no, people aren't so demanding. Only people who experience sexual harassment are held to this double-standard.

Nothing about what Susan posted seems far-fetched or out of the ordinary. HR exists to protect the company from you, not to help you or ensure justice is served. Telling people this is someone's first offense is likely to diffuse the situation and ensure no one files any pesky complaints with commissions nor hires a lawyer. Playing games with performance reviews is par for the course. Anyone who complains is viewed as a troublemaker. This happens on a daily basis in most companies in the USA.

Of course I don't believe you (or the rest of your compatriots) posting here are acting in good faith. If she shared screenshots and emails you'd just claim they were faked. How exactly she is supposed to gather evidence (when CA is a two-party state, so recording the conversations secretly would be illegal) is never explained.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#417
post #408

As I commented last night[1], the New York Times has cast Fowler's experience as a he-said-she-said story. Unfortunately I was not pessimistic enough: 1. The New York Times spiked the most damning part of Fowler's story: that HR was actively involved in supporting the behavior. 2. It down plays Fowler's specific experience as typical for the industry and marginalizes it by bringing Pao's story into Fowler's narrative…

NYTimes is a news organization with a mandate to report on verifiable fact, not rumor or opinion. You're complaining that it's reported as a he-said-she-said type of story… but for now, that's exactly what it is. The claims are quite plausible and convincing (and likely true), but at this point they still are merely unsubstantiated claims. If I were to imagine the right way to report such a story at this point, it wo…

If you want an objective fact, there was a drop from 25% women to 3% women. Now, it's not just he said she said.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#418
post #387

>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…

Let me guess.... You're male, yeah? Sit down and be quiet please - you're not helping.

Sure, we'll all sit down and stop engaging in the issue... Nothing to do here, this is entirely a non-male's problem!

Sarcasm aside, you're also not helping. Even if someone is off-base in their opinion or what they're writing, telling them to STFU is, in most cases, worse than their actual opinion.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Frequent" and "severe" are definitely not legal terms. If you ask somebody out to dinner, and they say they're busy, is it ok to ask them out again in a week? Is that frequent? Everything is context driven, which makes things very difficult to write hard and fast rules about. For instance, it is usually sexual harassment if you link somebody to a page of with pictures of models in lingerie on it. If you work for an…

To me there is a very clear difference between asking a fellow coworker out to dinner, and propositioning a subordinate for sex on their first day on the team. You keep coming up with all kinds of examples, but in real life most people know (or should know) what constitutes harassment and what doesn't.

> but in real life most people know (or should know) what constitutes harassment and what doesn't.

That's a very dangerous statement.

First, in this case, we're obviously not dealing with most people. If you want clear cut rules, you're not going to find it.

Second, these things are culturally dependent. You can go topless on a beach in France and nobody will bat an eye, do so in an asian country and you'll be gawked at, and in any conservative Muslim country you'll be jailed.

Simply saying "You should know" is not a legal justification for monentary sanctions and/or accusations.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#420
post #408

As I commented last night[1], the New York Times has cast Fowler's experience as a he-said-she-said story. Unfortunately I was not pessimistic enough: 1. The New York Times spiked the most damning part of Fowler's story: that HR was actively involved in supporting the behavior. 2. It down plays Fowler's specific experience as typical for the industry and marginalizes it by bringing Pao's story into Fowler's narrative…

NYTimes is a news organization with a mandate to report on verifiable fact, not rumor or opinion. You're complaining that it's reported as a he-said-she-said type of story… but for now, that's exactly what it is. The claims are quite plausible and convincing (and likely true), but at this point they still are merely unsubstantiated claims. If I were to imagine the right way to report such a story at this point, it wo…

It's not just about verified vs unverified claims, it's also how the claims are presented. The quotes from Fowler's blog are selective to misleading:

As an example, the part where she describes HR's excuses is quoted in full ("first offense", "honest mistake") but the part where she notes those excuse are likely complete fabrications is left unmentioned. That makes it appear as if Fowler were overreacting even by her own claims when her actual claims are much more grave and substantial.

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