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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

#501

Post by aioprisan »

intrasight wrote: post #412
aioprisan wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Will we really? Or will they come out with a report saying that those responsible likely left some time ago, without naming any names, and no C-level resignations? Time will tell.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#502

Post by tptacek »

grzm wrote: post #436
lovich wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an aside from this conversation, but why do you put a ' in front of user names?

It's a way of denoting a user name, similar to how @ designates Twitter user names. I suspect ' is common on HN because ' designates a symbol in lisp.

It's why I use it; also, because my motivation for quoting usernames was that people had dumb usernames, like "the", that I was mistakenly evaluating in sentence context. :)

You definitely can't use @username on HN; many (most?) HN commenters don't have @username on Twitter. I'm @tqbf on Twitter, not @tptacek.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#503

Post by lovich »

grzm wrote: post #436
lovich wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an aside from this conversation, but why do you put a ' in front of user names?

It's a way of denoting a user name, similar to how @ designates Twitter user names. I suspect ' is common on HN because ' designates a symbol in lisp.

Thanks for the information

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#505

Post by thewhitetulip »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #499
mud_dauber wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They did care but in their short sighted way. They don't really mean "save company", it means dancing at the tone of the HR boss, if they truly cared for the company they'd do something about this.

So, they just don't care about employees

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#506

Post by analogmemory »

tekklloneer wrote: post #193
analogmemory wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, how many people have you seen get fired for this?

At least one, maybe two.

You're seeing the tip of the iceberg. But keep your head in the sand if it's more comfortable.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#507

Post by freyr »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #479
freyr wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? The article highlighted four direct quotes from Kalanick's interview with GQ magazine, not "the 4 most awful true facts about Travis Kalanick." Do you understand the difference between digging up and exposing embarrassing personal details about a person and his o…

Do you believe it would be wrong for Gawker or Pando to publish the 4 most awful true facts about Travis Kalanick? E.g., leaked emails he wrote to a fraternity (as was done to Evan Spiegel)? Or perhaps reports by a third party that he was a great big jerk? These are things that notable journalistic establishments do on a regular basis. I'm asking the same question that Emil Michael asked: why is it wrong to do the sa…

Some journalists have written trashy gossip articles, and I wouldn't defend that.

But if that's his mindset, "Other people have done bad things, so why shouldn't I?", that's not great. That leads to a culture of decaying ethics, lowest-common-denominator behavioral norms, backstabbing and retribution, etc. And the stories we've heard about life at Uber become much more plausible.

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#508

Post by hueving »

eropple wrote: post #410
theWatcher37 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a hateful and oddly specific comment. "I've read your comments" Yeah, ok buddy

He's not wrong. 'hueving's comment history around here pushes an extreme-right-wing viewpoint that is cloaked in just enough civility to make the decent folks I know around here reconsider whether or not it's worth engaging with him. (Many don't, because it's exhausting to be alternative-facted to death.) I wouldn't expect a woman--or anyone--to tell me jack and/or shit if I was comfortable expressing worldviews that…

>He's not wrong. 'hueving's comment history around here pushes an extreme-right-wing viewpoint

Feel free to link to any of my extreme right wing view points. I'll highlight a few of my beliefs that have been argued about recently here to save some time:

* I think unions that collectively bargain are a bad idea for software engineers because there is a wide variety in expertise and pay tied to a title fails to recognize that.

* I prefer market-based solutions to most problems because humans on a large scale don't seem to be that altruistic. (I.e. Attack CO2 with cap and trade rather than tons of regulations spread all over different industries)

* UBI as people suggest it ($10k-$20k per person annually) is currently ridiculously unsustainable in the US. People talk about it as if it's as simple as a policy decision but we would need to double our tax revenue to pay for it, which could easily cause a depression.

* All conservatives are not racists, idiots, bigots, whatever label. Stories and comments that perpetuate this idea are shallow and lack critical thought, so I will call them out for that.

* I don't think things like hiring quotas and "heads of diversity" will solve diversity issues when the supply of new graduates is so imbalanced. Hiring people based on gender/race will cause people to think they are only there to fill a checkbox and not because they are skilled.

These are pretty centrist viewpoints by US standards. I would like you to identify something you consider right wing extremism and link it.

>because it's exhausting to be alternative-facted to death

Is "alternative-facted" a new term for challenging viewpoints?

>make the decent folks I know around here reconsider whether or not it's worth engaging with him

Interesting for someone accusing me of being extreme right wing to use a play right out of Donald Trump's book. Provide a completely unprovable and unfalsifiable claim that gives the impression that "many people tell you these things".

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#509

Post by hueving »

praneshp wrote: post #449
theWatcher37 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a hateful and oddly specific comment. "I've read your comments" Yeah, ok buddy

He's not wrong. hueving comes across to me as rude, unwilling to google simple things, and quick to say things like "why should I care about X". I don't want to say things like "If I were a woman I wouldn't tell you about such things", maybe hueving's a great person to talk to in real life.

>unwilling to google simple things

Such as?

Re: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee

#510

Post by Consultant32452 »

st3v3r wrote: post #444
Consultant32452 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental principle of the American justice system is that we should be skeptical of all claims of wrong-doing. The appropriate response to these claims is to ask for evidence and in its absence potentially educate the claimant on how to properly collect evidence. I'm sure there's a lot of legitimate claims out there, and most of them will not result in justice. However, rampant speculation based on Twitter ane…

Except that's for the Justice System. Not normal people. The Justice System can take care of vetting evidence. Normal people are supposed to be supportive and stand up for those who come to them with stories like this one. And I'm sorry, but if someone comes to you and says that they've experienced the things in this story, and the first thing you do is ask for evidence, then you will be branded a monster, and rightf…

Different audiences. If you're a close friend or the HR person at the corporate office, then sure the first thing you do is console them. If you're the media or just general public, you ask for evidence before you socially/publicly crucify someone.
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