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I am an Uber survivor

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Re: I am an Uber survivor

#671

Post by anonymoose234 »

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…

>I had one opportunity to speak up when my female teammate was being discriminated against

>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.

The implication of this is that you also have experience at Uber working with somebody who is unfireable despite being a "massive jackass" and engaging in sex discrimination against at least one female employee there, while you were around as a witness. It's good that you spoke up when he acted like that, I don't mean this as a personal attack on you or your coworkers specifically. But your anecdote here reads like one more story confirming issues with Uber's management/HR, even though you've intended it otherwise.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#672

Post by Redditshill »

mkolodny wrote: post #630
Redditshill wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Vietname…

Thanks for sharing that -- I think it's a good reminder to not stereotype an entire company. Also, it's also a reminder that this scandal is unfortunate for all of those at Uber who aren't like this and still have to deal with the barrage of bad press and accusations from everyone from the media to those around them (friends, neighbors).

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#673

Post by intended »

sah2ed wrote: post #475
rodgerd wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the best lawyers. Uber have already started contacting anyone who knows Susan Fowler, digging for dirt on her.

How can you be so sure it was Uber? Susan's tweet was intentionally vague [0]. You are forgetting that some past and present employees that could be directly implicated by Susan's evidence may also choose the smear campaign route to save their hide. This could range from the women in HR* who might get thrown under the bus by Uber for aiding and abetting, to the men that perpetrated the actual harassment. *Of course t…

Isn't uber known for this? I remember them responding to a lawsuit or something by hiring PIs to get dirt on people - stuff beyond the merits of the case.

They've always ended up looking

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#674

Post by nikdaheratik »

uptownfunk wrote: post #183
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…

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.

As others have pointed on, on top of all that, even if you win, you're going to have a very hard time getting a job in the same field because of the law suit.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#675

Post by crux »

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, with the rest of us, have been treated to more than enough coverage of the issues at Uber to know that this isn't a series of isolated incidents.

If you really wouldn't stand for this sort of thing, then quit your job.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#676

Post by asah »

1_2__3 wrote: post #438
memmcgee wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fowler's post established that this was happening to many women in the company. If we accept that Fowler is a credible witness, which I think is a fair assessment, we already know that this is a systemic problem. It's safe to assume then that if more women come forward, they are more likely to be telling the truth than not. Additionally, it's in Lyft's or other detractors best interests not to fake additional claims.…

I'd argue Fowler's claims are similarly unchallenged.

This is Susan Fowler, who's very well known in the community. ~zero chance it's fake.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#677

Post by kdamken »

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…

This 1000 times. It so easy to lie on the internet. It's even easier to get riled up and pick up pitchforks. The things this person wrote about were horrifying, yes, but an anonymous post on the internet should not be immediately accepted as cold hard facts.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#678

Post by [deleted] »

RodericDay wrote: post #284
spaceflunky wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it just me or are other people also constantly surprised by how many big names have their hands in the 'uber pot'? It's like there's a massive list of investors and shareholders who are all riding this "sure thing" to big riches. Which makes me wonder two things: 1.) is uber too big too fail? are there so many rich and powerful people invested that they will make uber succeed no matter or 2.) this thing could be t…

I hope they end up like Theranos.

[deleted]

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#679

Post by esterly »

Arizhel wrote: post #278
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.

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…

Agreed. Are down modders anonymous? Seems unfair they can take 4x the points of a contributing comment.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#680

Post by ashwinpp »

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…

Anonymity of poster doesn't render the poster's experience unworthy of thought. If it did, I would be ignoring this comment from a throwaway account.

Cartoonish and poorly written are subjective judgements.

These experiences might seem implausible to you because they might never be happening when you're looking. In light of other, non-anonymous and fact-checked accounts of Susan's experience, I wouldn't think it is implausible.

All-in-all, while I agree in principle that one should apply fair judgement before believing someone's anonymous story, I do not think it warrants incredulity, especially and ironically from an anon account. If you believe that Amy should not have posted anonymously, I find it laughable that you use an anonymous account fearing flagging and down-voting in a low stakes environment fearing the "groupthink brigade".

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