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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

#491

Post by throwawaymaroon »

tomlock wrote: post #434
throwawaymaroon wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a leftist... I can only feel the left is fucked. on the other hand, I am arguing in a thread that contains that complete altrightgarbletwat banned below. on the other other hand, your aggrieved-on-behalf-of-my-lady-friends stance is just so freaking overwrought and gross. you're attacking a position that no one has advocated for, with the exception of the altrightgarbletwat. go bug him. and final edit: by the way,…

You're responding to a post where I suggested a throwaway comment should be discussed with real people, irl. What position do you think I'm defending?

I wouldn't describe your participation in this thread with anything so advanced as a "position." You're just providing a bundle of sanctimonious outrage on behalf of others.

edit: for the record, tomlock, I think you should keep giving hell to the deplorables in threads like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13684668 and some of the other ones. just don't get full of yourself.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#492

Post by throwawaymaroon »

tomlock wrote: post #431
hueving wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know who the strawman you are attacking is, but it's definitely not me. >given an egregious example of harassment I upvoted her story. It's a terrible case and it needs to be investigated ASAP. >instead leap to the defense of the six silicon valley companies they've worked for or to criticise the NYT The comment you are referring to is in response to the NYT turning a serious, specific issue into some larger…

>I upvoted her story. It's a terrible case and it needs to be investigated ASAP. Maybe, just maybe, you should put this above the fold next time.

haha, this is as close as we're going to get to tomlock capitulating.

close it down everyone, minor irrelevant point in favor of cooler heads prevailing won, we can go on to armchair lawyering the next public media frenzy.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#493

Post by walshemj »

danaliv wrote: post #425
logicallee wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the reporter didn't read the blog post, because it was beyond his attention span. Honestly, it just sounds like an editor assigned him to report. If he had read it he wouldn't have summarized it as "a lengthy post on her personal blog": he would have written that Fowler wrote about her experiences which began " On my first official day rotating on the team, my new manager sent me a string of messages over compa…

> Maybe the reporter didn't read the blog post, because it was beyond his attention span. I know Mike and I assure you that (1) he has the attention span to read a blog post, and (2) he was not just "assigned." He's on the tech beat. He lives in San Francisco, not New York. And he's paying very close attention to this story. Go look at his Twitter feed if you don't believe me. https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac

On the "tech beat" which means that no ofence intended he almost certainly has very little knowledge on hr / Industrial Relations.

Does the NYT not have a labour or in UK terms an "industrial" correspondent who would be more knowledgeable

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#494

Post by jimmywanger »

enraged_camel wrote: post #453
jimmywanger wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>>First, in this case, we're obviously not dealing with most people. Of course we are. Most people don't go around sexually harassing others. That's why you hear about it when it happens. >>Second, these things are culturally dependent. Again not sure how that's relevant. We aren't talking about a foreign employee who was temporarily visiting the company's San Francisco headquarters. If we were, then you could make t…

> Most people don't go around sexually harassing others.

A high proportion of programmers are on the autism spectrum compared to the general population. The law should apply to everybody equally, but this sort of thing is extremely hard to pin down. Something appropriate in one situation is not appropriate in another, and it takes discernment.

> If we were, then you could make the argument that such behavior may be acceptable where the employee is from, but it isn't here in the US.

We're talking about the law in general, about how it's especially not clear cut and black and white in this case. Your arguments aren't relating to that point at all.

> You aren't sure if something may be perceived as sexual harassment? Then don't do it.

That is ridiculous. Most people don't know the law backwards and forwards

It's stupid to think that people are responsible for all of the perceptions people have of them, especially people who are on the spectrum, as I have alluded to earlier. Would you just cut all people with social disorders out of any sort of human interaction, because by your logic, they can't do anything?

There is no hard and fast rule, as I have said before. There are standard deviations from the median, and it's hard to draw lines in human behaviour, a nuance that seems to escape many people.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#495

Post by alexandercrohde »

idiot_stick wrote: post #309
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…

> I think one senior person isn't enough in a case like this. How can you make a statement like this without knowing anything about the details of the case? We have an allegation; a big one, but that's it. How many heads would you like to see in advance?

It's not so much a number of heads, but what I reject is the common notion that somebody can be so many levels above a problem that they are absolved of responsibility.

Let me ask you this: How many people in the HR department would you need to see leave before you'd feel comfortable having your sister work at Uber? What would you need to see to have trust?

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#496

Post by [deleted] »

idiot_stick wrote: post #309
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…

> I think one senior person isn't enough in a case like this. How can you make a statement like this without knowing anything about the details of the case? We have an allegation; a big one, but that's it. How many heads would you like to see in advance?

[deleted]

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#497

Post by clubm8 »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #457
acchow wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish papers could run non-stories along with the usual stories: "Uber Sexual Harassment Claims Story - In Progress This story is in progress, and the following are the verified facts: The following are claims that no media has reliable, verifiable source on yet. If they are reporting on them as fact, you might want to reconsider what media you trust: We will publish our full story when we the picture is clea…

Sometimes merely repeating an unsubstantiated fact can expose a news org to liability. Take, for instance, a slander or libel case.

That's not true. If you attribute what you say "X said", then X is guilty of slander/libel.

(YMMV in England)

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#498

Post by EdHominem »

ethbro wrote: post #282
HelloNurse wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading between the lines of Mrs. Fowler's account, the company's goal was being nice to a more important employee than her: a common situation in sexual harassment cases and other workplace conflicts.

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 that's the case it's your responsibility to go over their head, all the way if necessary - as it would be for an engineer whose boss said to use Balsa wood for a support instead of steel.

If Edward had to do it, we do too.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#499

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

mud_dauber wrote: post #307
beachy wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

33 years across 6 companies, from Fortune 500 to 20-person startups. HR departments have been, without exception, absolutely useless except to protect the company's hide.

> absolutely useless except to protect the company's hide.

But that's my point. If Uber's HR properly cared about protecting the company's hide, they would have immediately disciplined the manager involved, and "sexually propositioning a first-day direct report" is so egregiously over the line that they would have fired the manager.

Uber's HR failed here not because they only cared about protecting the company's hide, but because they didn't.

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