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I am an Uber survivor

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Re: I am an Uber survivor

#621

Post by cb21 »

zem wrote: post #416
uptownfunk wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I've watched too much Suits and The Good Wife, but it just seems that it's all futile. They're a huge corp, if you file suit against them they'll hit back harder with bigger and badder lawyers, and you either settle out of court, or play the lotto with the court system and try your hand at a judgement with whatever lawyers you can afford. It's really sad how stacked the odds seem.

agreed, watching "the good wife" has been uncomfortably educational about how the system works.

It's also a fantastic show, to boot.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#622

Post by oska »

plainOldText wrote: post #492
enraged_camel wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She posted anonymously, BUT also went out of her way to provide an awful lot of information about herself. Information that her ex-coworkers could presumably verify and figure out her real identity (especially since Uber seems to have very few women in engineering positions). Based on the article, she is: 1) A woman in her late 20s 2) who used to work at Uber in Engineering working on database and networking scalabil…

I know comments on this type of articles get extremely heated, but with no intention to favor any side, I will say this: What if she provided that "awful lot of information about herself" with the intent of deceiving the audience and creating the illusion that she's this person, when in fact she's somebody else? Maybe she aggregated attributes from multiple women at Uber and created this new person which cannot be sp…

I think they've lost the benefit of the doubt after responding in an unconvincing way to Susan Fowler's allegations and the critical open letter from one of their VCs, to name just two recent examples.

People deserve the benefit of the doubt and courts are very strict on this. Companies that let such an issue fester for such a long time without convincing remediatory action probably don't deserve it in the court of public opinion.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#623

Post by xapata »

mememachine wrote: post #422
xapata wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not talking about this situation at Uber, then why is your comment relevant? Despite your claim that you're discussing other situations, it seems like you are trying to say the post author is a "victim" rather than a victim.

I didnt read this one, I read the first one, and in the first they were a victim for sure. If you want to project some ulterior motive onto me, go for it. Don't pretend its got anything to do with what I actually think, though.

"Projecting" is psychological jargon describing the act of ascribing one's own feelings or motivations to another.

Since I don't have an ulterior motive, perhaps you are projecting?

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#624

Post by voodooranger »

I consider the HN community to be one of the most thoughtful I've found on the web, yet am stunned by how quickly a righteous mob is formed based on an anonymous, cartoonish, and IMO barely plausible account of what it's like to work for a large US tech company.

Having spent years working at multiple SV tech companies, where even the slightest tinge of a racist or sexist affront would land you in an office in front of HR and a company lawyer, I find this account to be very difficult to believe. Slanty eye joe? Please.

We don't know if this is a (poorly written) attempt to sink Uber (which I don't happen to care for) by someone with a short position and an evening to spare, or if it has been penned by an employee with a grudge.

Please have some credulity before parading your #deleteuber hashtags and morally superior posturing so the world can marvel at how virtuous you are. There has never been a more evil force in the world than an outraged, self-righteous mob inflamed by twisted anecdotes.

And yes, I've resorted to creating a throwaway account, fully expecting the flagging and down-voting groupthink brigade to be in force. If there's a shameful story here, it's more likely this disturbing human phenomenon, not an anonymous blog post, the veracity of which we know nothing about.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#625

Post by Gatsky »

jastingo wrote: post #257

I'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 would worry less about this credibility issue. Uber management, Mike#2, HR and likely every Uber employee will know if these claims are true, and if so, who they refer to. Our opinion and our degree of outrage matters not at all.

If history shows anything, and despite what we may like to think, public outrage has very little impact on corporate reality. The key to enacting change at Uber is the company management and HR. Rest assured the people that matter will know if this story is true.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#626

Post by mirimir »

blacksqr wrote: post #569
ForHackernews wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is sitting on billions of dollars of VC money. I'm sure that there are some very high-powered law firms out there salivating at the chance to represent these women in a class-action lawsuit. Maybe the victims won't get as much recompense as they deserve (because so much of the judgement will go to attorneys), but I would not be so sure that Uber will have them outgunned in court. At the very least, it could teac…

I'm afraid you have a poor idea of what makes high-powered law firms salivate. When they see someone sitting on a pile of billions of dollars, they don't think "how can I piss that person and all his friends off?" They think "how can become that person's best buddy?"

Maybe so. But it arguably depends on firm type.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#627

Post by int_19h »

uberengineer123 wrote: post #605
wvenable wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You could do one thing to prove the point about not defending leadership and not standing up for this kind of bullshit right away. It sounds like "Mike #2" ought to be sufficiently unambiguous for Uber employees to identify, so can you name that person?

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#629

Post by jjaredsimpson »

danso wrote: post #539
brown9-2 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and has never run for elected office.

But Attorney General is a political position, e.g. appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the U.S. President.

So is Administrator of NASA. I don't think being appointed AG makes you a politician.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#630

Post by mkolodny »

Redditshill wrote: post #146
leggomylibro wrote: post #132

>Travis is well known to protect high performing team leaders no matter how abusive they are towards their employees. The HR team was known to be deftly[sic] afraid of Travis’s tendency to blame and ridicule the women and yell at HR whenever they went in with complaints of abuse. I heard about Travis personally congratulating Mike#2 for meeting strict deadlines months after I complained to HR about my abuse. This is…

As skeptical as I am with Uber, I'm still hoping that something will come up with the investigation. It also encourages me that more people are speaking up. The more bad press they get, the more pressure they'll have to have their "investigations" result in some discipline.

I work at Uber. What happened to Susan Fowler and Amy is terrible.

To give another side of the Uber story, I've seen nothing but respect on my team of ~25 engineers. Only a few of us are women, but also only a few of us are the "white male" stereotype that you see in the press. Everyone I've talked to on my team is aware of and upset about the lack of female engineers in tech.

I saw Uber's CTO (Thuan Pham, a Vietnamese refugee) downstairs at Uber the day Susan Fowler posted her article. A woman who works at Uber came up to him, and asked him how he's doing. He said, "It's a tough time, but we'll get through it." She told him, "I'm sorry, I know how much you care", and gave him a hug.

Arianna Huffington is on Uber's board of directors. She's in charge of helping Uber employees "lead healthier lives". In response to Susan Fowler's article, Arianna has been holding personal discussions with employees about what we're going to do to stop this type of thing from ever happening again.

It's easy to stereotype a company, but at the end of the day you're talking about ~12,000 individuals. Many if not most of whom came from Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I'm hopeful that these decisions didn't come from the top. It really may have been just a couple of individuals who did messed up things, and should/will be fired.

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