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I am an Uber survivor

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Re: I am an Uber survivor

#661

Post by diebir »

lubesGordi wrote: post #412
diebir wrote: post #354

Without getting into any details this: "Once in a group chat, team members referred to a new Asian American recruit as slanty eye joe" seems very strange to me. The Uber tech org is like 80%+ foreign born, this makes pretty much zero sense. Disclaimer: I work for Uber.

You work for Uber but are you in the SV offices? The culture probably varies quite a bit depending on where you are.

I meant the San Francisco offices. I think this office is something like half (corrected) Asian American. I thought about this a bit more and it makes even less sense.

I have worked for a number of old generation US companies and some were a part of the military-industrial complex. The employee population in them was significantly biased to the right (white, male, middle aged), up to the point that it would be "Trump crowd" today. Yet, I have never heard anything like this. Uber as any other tech company is full of younger and more liberal people. So this particular allegation (open expressions of racism towards Asian Americans) just seems extremely unlikely.

Unless... Well, there are indeed some countries that are culturally very casually racist. Ex-USSR comes to mind. Yet, even ex-USSR crowd is not that stupid and by now there enough self awareness to not say things like this out loud.

This is fishy.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#662

Post by dpweb »

selectodude wrote: post #279
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…

>"Great, retain a Chicago politician so you know you'll get the answer you're paying for." Normally I don't care, but because I'm from Chicago and am officially very touchy about all the abuse the city catches, I'd like to correct the record as Eric Holder is from New York.

Agree. I've lived both places. Clearly, NYC has more slippery characters. /bash

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#663

Post by bbarn »

_xhok wrote: post #644

Social justice fundamentally needs an economic basis to stand on. If you want to stop sexual harassment, install a financial penalty. * The internet was supposed to democratize this stuff. People like Balaji Srinivasan say the FDA should be replaced with Yelp for drugs. Why isn't Glassdoor more effective? Why wasn't Uber's toxic work culture public knowledge, gorgeously pinned to the top of Google's search results? *…

> * The internet was supposed to democratize this stuff. We have people like Balaji Srinivasan saying the FDA should be replaced with Yelp for drugs. Why isn't Glassdoor more effective? Why wasn't Uber's toxic work culture public knowledge, gorgeously pinned to the top of Google's search results, long before Susan or Amy started interviewing?

"The internet" as a decision making body rewards the loudest, most obnoxious, easiest to use, quickest to strong arm someone into joining its network. Not the most just, or best for its own well being.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#664

Post by bbarn »

grandalf wrote: post #360

I think the bottom line is that some founders believe that you have to tolerate abusive personalities in order to hire the best. I had a person on my team once who I did not hire but who had a reputation for being one of the smartest and most capable engineers. As his new manager, I expected that I'd soon promote him. But then I saw that he treated others on the team very poorly and often said highly inappropriate se…

> I know it's a cliche that bullies are always deeply insecure. I think that is the case for workplace bullies too. The brash, over-confident, aggressive act that these people put on works to help them find out who they can victimize.

I just don't agree with this thinking. Thinking that insecurity drives aggression ignores the simple fact that aggression is aggression. It's applying a victim card on top of asshole behavior.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#665

Post by roystonvassey »

DannyBee wrote: post #638
Arizhel wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this being modded down? It's the truth. Big companies almost always come out on top in trials because they can afford the best lawyers, and they can afford to game the system to bankrupt their opponents by filing never-ending motions to delay and other tactics which increase the legal costs to the opponent. You're almost never going to get a positive result if you're a rank-and-file employee; your best course…

"Why is this being modded down? It's the truth. Big companies almost always come out on top in trials because they can afford the best lawyers, and they can afford to game the system to bankrupt their opponents by filing never-ending motions to delay and other tactics which increase the legal costs to the opponent. You're almost never going to get a positive result if you're a rank-and-file employee; your best course…

It probably is quite different in the States but in my country, this is very true. If you are a lone individual fighting a legal case against a large organization, chances are you will be worn down by years of litigation that often appears endless. To dissuade litigants even further, cases are filed in far-off remote outposts that make such endeavors cost-prohibitive even further [1, for e.g.].

[1] http://www.livemint.com/Specials/13TE2UEtexMf1GDeEt5rCP/Mahe...

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#666

Post by Eiriksmal »

_xhok wrote: post #659
voodooranger wrote: post #624

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 o…

I think the idea of "victim-blaming" has morphed into its own beast. We're so scared of doing it that asking for evidence or asking critical questions is now in a weird way associated with victim blaming. Everyone in this thread who's said what you said has ipso facto gotten downvoted. I find myself suspicious of this new culture of "standing together in solidarity," "letting vulnerable people tell their narratives,"…

>I think the idea of "victim-blaming" has morphed into its own beast. We're so scared of doing it that asking for evidence or asking critical questions is now in a weird way associated with victim blaming.

This is a critical point. Is there a way to express doubt, sans body language, that can further a discussion without evoking responses such as this? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13748089]

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#667

Post by lr4444lr »

laughinghan wrote: post #582
lr4444lr wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a strong allegiance to the American justice principles of innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, right to face one's accuser in open court, cross examination, and standards of evidence. So much so that I apply it to judging controversial current events like this. Much as I might dislike putting a powerful entity like Uber into the defendant's chair with those attendant protections, These princip…

I understand where you're coming from; I don't think you've made enough of an effort to understand where your parent is coming from, your focus is entirely on how wrong you feel your parent is. Of course the criminal justice system must abide by the principles of due process. Simultaneously, if someone anonymously expresses great suffering, we are of course under an ethical obligation to take them seriously, offer th…

I reread the parent, because your point is a well-taken that I might have brushed it aside too quickly. I can specify upholding my skepticism on the grounds that only Uber employees in some certain proximity to "Amy" could deduce whether she's a real person. If not Amy herself, but 2 or 3 of them who could vouch will come forward out of anonymity and say something along the lines of "yes, 'Amy' is a real person. Her story is real. Uber management treated her terribly and HR ignored her claims", then I'll be a lot more willing to consider this credible. I disagree that anonymous, unverifiable grievances impose on otherwise ethical and rational people a positive obligation of specific personal demand for belief or compassion. But I can only speak for myself.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#670

Post by MarkPNeyer »

EpicEng wrote: post #256
snappy173 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Great, retain a Chicago politician so you know you'll get the answer you're paying for." right. regardless of where you stand on his performance as attorney general, hiring eric holder is a political move. if uber actually cared about investigating this, they wouldn't have hired a politician.

Eric Holder was AG. AG is not a political office, and he's not a politician. What you should be concerned with is the fact that he was associated with them previously and is a proponent of theirs.

> AG is not a political office

Anything involving the law is political.

Any time two people interact, politics comes up.

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