Someone puts hands on you at work, file an assault complaint with the police. Period.
I am an Uber survivor
601–610 of 841 posts
Re: I am an Uber survivor
#602I'm not in the business of defending Uber - quite the contrary - but reading through the comments it seems that most people are assuming that this post by an anonymous person is 100% true. These types of posts are worrying to me. Why could this post not have been crafted by someone at Lyft? Or one of Uber's many other detractors? Given the PR nightmare that Uber is in why not pile on while the public seems primed for…
I wouldn't be surprised if this was fake. It seemed to hit on too many talking points and buzzwords. It has a "too good to be true" feel to it.
Are there publicly known instances of something like this being "too good to be true", or is your feeling based only on private experience?
I have had no private experience with something like this being "too good to be true", and multiple instances of it being all too true. And there is obviously a publicly known instance of something like this that appears quite credible (the Susan Fowler blogpost). So you understand why I'd feel the opposite way---that in spite of the lack of substantiation, this feels all too true.
Re: I am an Uber survivor
#603Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hope they end up like Theranos.
I want them to change instead of ending up like Theranos. If Uber went down, a lot of good people would be out of a job (both employees and drivers) and it would burn a lot investors, thus negatively affecting the funding landscape for years to come. To reiterate, I wish Uber to change. I don't wish them to fail.
Many of them also drive for Lyft, so probably not.
Re: I am an Uber survivor
#604Earlier quoted context omitted.
The best way for men to counter this in a toxic environment is to call it out when they see it. This sends a message that being outwardly dehumanizing and dismissive is not okay, and is not the accepted norm.
I'm quite shocked that nobody stepped in when Mike2 called her a "whiny little bitch" in a meeting. She said the other men "were shocked" spare a couple that giggled. What the fuck kind of person stands around and does nothing when witnessing that kind of abuse in a professional environment?
Presumably ones that are themselves being abused/in an abusive environment, as mentioned all over the article? Plus, of course, the ones perpetuating that culture, but I doubt those were the ones whose silence you were shocked by.
Re: I am an Uber survivor
#605I'm really happy she felt comfortable doing this. What an incredibly brave and strong person—I can't imagine what she must be feeling. What I really want to see is the other 20 men on her team tell their bosses to cut that shit out. We cannot rely on the abused to stand up for themselves; for every one who does there are thousands who cannot. It is on every one of us to report abhorrent behaviour, even if we think so…
> What I really want to see is the other 20 men on her team tell their bosses to cut that shit out. It sounds like the abuse is pretty universal, from the article: "It was normal for guys to refer to other guys as fags when they didn't participate in private parties where sex and drugs were involved." The 20 other men on her team were probably as concerned with keeping their job and not being abused. The big differen…
>It sounds like the abuse is pretty universal, from the article: "It was normal for guys to refer to other guys as fags when they didn't participate in private parties where sex and drugs were involved."
Full disclosure, I work at Uber.
I have been staying out of this until now, but this point particularly grinds my gears.
If I heard anything remotely like what was discussed in this article you bet your ass I'm going to speak up. I know people do not speak of me, but watching my entire company be vilified is a bit difficult and hard to not take personally. I work with a lot of fantastic engineers that would not tolerate anything remotely like the behavior outlined in this article for a second. That's the problem with gigantic companies though, things often happen in dark corners that aren't apparent to the rest of the organization. People want to conflate specific incidents with the state of the entire company.
I had one opportunity to speak up when my female teammate was being discriminated against, and I took it. It wasn't even blatant either, the guy could easily defend himself and say it's not a sexism thing, but that's what it was. He's a massive jackass too, but you can't fire people on the spot for being a massive jackass without a lot of evidence to back it up. I did my part.
I cannot speak for anybody else, but I can tell you in my corner of the Uber world I take this shit very seriously, and so does everybody else I work with. The bullshit that is going on is not representative of my team, and it's very very hard to not take this personally.
The problem I have is that everybody wants to chime in with how awful Uber is like they know something I don't. Now I'll admit, there's a lot I don't know about working at Uber, as I only know my corner of the company. If I'm saying that what does that say about everybody else? Do these people think for a second that I would have stuck around and stuck it out if I saw this bullshit going on first hand?
I'm not going to be the one that stands up and defends leadership, or HR, or whomever else, they can speak for themselves just as I speak for myself.
Re: I am an Uber survivor
#606Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm quite shocked that nobody stepped in when Mike2 called her a "whiny little bitch" in a meeting. She said the other men "were shocked" spare a couple that giggled. What the fuck kind of person stands around and does nothing when witnessing that kind of abuse in a professional environment?
When you put a lot of your self-worth in your job and you know that the person you're about to call out can have you fired on the spot? So probably almost everyone. It's really hard to call out the boss, especially when you know that no one all the way up to the CEO has your back. Not saying it's still not the right thing to do, just, you should put yourselves in their shoes. Probably that entire room could have told…
I've stood up for someone in that kind of conversation. Our boss was yelling at a colleague in an inappropriate way. I interrupted to defend the guy. Our boss said, "If you don't feel like you need to be here, you should leave the room." I left the room. No adverse consequences to my job, as far as I can tell.
I suppose I could have stayed, but I also figured my colleague could stand up for himself. He's not a pushover.
Re: I am an Uber survivor
#607Earlier quoted context omitted.
My problem with your comment is the entitlement you claim to define acceptable behaviour of those being abused "what I demand from anyone who wants to call themselves a victim". Also people don't want to call themselves victims, they are victims who may feel able to make that known. Letting a bully know that they are having an effect on you is far from risk free. You also seem to believe that people have no responsib…
>You also seem to believe that people have no responsibility for making people around them comfortable unless they are explicitly told it is making them uncomfortable. Everyone has a responsibility not to be ass. I do not believe this. >My problem with your comment is the entitlement you claim to define acceptable behaviour of those being abused "what I demand from anyone who wants to call themselves a victim". Also…
If that isn't what you believe you aren't clearly expressing what you do believe and what responsibilities people, particularly senior people do have.
Most who come forward aren't asking for sympathy but reporting what has happened to them. What I would ask is for you to stand up if you witness inappropriate behaviour.
Some may want the abuse recognised but they all wish they weren't victims. Going public is tough, main reasons to do it are to protect others by either changing the organisation or just waning likely victims away. You stating "Is not remotely true" does not a reasonable argument make, at least put some description behind your opposing thesis.
Re: I am an Uber survivor
#608Rise up people and take action. Boycott uber and let them fail. As others have said, there are plenty of other companies in the space ready to fill the void. #deleteuber
Re: I am an Uber survivor
#609Re: I am an Uber survivor
#610Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am trying to verify its legitimacy, how can you silently accept such a critical post on face-value, no I don't work there. Giving voice to false claims intensifies their illegitimate power and in societies that this prevails that same power can be used by propagandists to advance their goal, so it's not about Uber it's about giving homage to truth, as every person's responsibility should be.
I've not accepted it as genuine at all; I'm saying that regardless of if it's real or not, the point here is that if it was it wouldn't surprise us.. I'd really really like it if we could get to the point where if stories like this came out for any company, we would be more surprised by them.. As for the illegitimate power (I'm not even sure what that is...) and propagandists comments; I don't really see how this fit…
> I'm saying that regardless of if it's real or not, the point here is that if it was it wouldn't surprise us …
It would certainly surprise me. I simply cannot imagine working with the sort of folks Amy describes. I'm not saying that such folks don't exist — it's a big world — but that I have never in my almost two decades of work in our field run into them.
Now, maybe that means I haven't run into them. I can accept that. And maybe it means that Uber is particularly bad in this regard. I can also accept that.
I don't know if this story is true or false: I honestly don't. It's probably worth investigating; certainly, after Susan Fowler put her name on some allegations of despicable behaviour it probably is.
If there are pockets of our field where this is considered normal, they need to be eliminated. But it does not accord at all with my experience of trends in our field.