Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I am an Uber survivor

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

761–770 of 841 posts

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#761

Post by achow »

uberengineer123 wrote: post #751
achow wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He clearly mentioned "It (sexism) wasn't even blatant either..". In every company there are 'Jackasses' (selfish egotist managers, politically malevolent colleagues etc.) who can never be fired for their specific ways of 'jackassery'. In this Uber narrative it was not anyway implied that this person was always sexist jackass. I'm just being respectful of the anonymous Uber engineers who are speaking up. This would on…

Thanks for speeaking up for me, this is exactly what I meant. It is really hard to stand up by myself against the deluge of negativity, thanks.

It is funny.

Here you are perhaps doing the same (vocalizing on behalf of silent majority of good individual engineers at Uber) and the HN crowd is piling on to you; perhaps no different behavior than what they are trying to preach against.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#762

Post by arunitc »

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 just returned to India after working in the US for one year. I find it extremely difficult to believe such a culture can exist in the country let alone an organization. People there were friendly, extremely polite and well mannered. I never once faced any incidents or racism or hatred in my work place and out. I can't imagine things like this even in my wildest dreams.

-Chauvinistic, racist and homophobic attitudes were far too normal

-It was normal for guys to openly refer to attractive female colleagues as sluts

-They had private chats where guys wrote sexual fantasy stories about female colleagues and supervisors where they performed all sorts of demeaning acts on the women

Also the fact that she talks about driver compensation makes it look like it was an article written just to smear Uber. I may be wrong though, but really, really hard to believe.

Edit: She refused to meet Freda Kapor (see comments in post) makes it all the more suspicious.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#763

Post by ralfd »

revscat wrote: post #465
nanolith wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I saw a manager do what she described, no matter how high up the food chain he was, I'd frog march him to HR myself. I don't even care if they fire me for it. We don't tolerate stuff like this in this century.

Have you seen who is President these days?

To be fair, it is more nuanced. While everyone knows Trump "is sexist and makes comments and stuff like that" (quote from the linked article) at the same time he has glowing testimonials by women who worked for him and who he promoted to top jobs in a "boys club" industry.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-a-champ...

> The picture many current and former employees paint stands in contrast to the blustering controversies prompted by Trump’s comments since he hit the campaign trail. .... Those who have worked for Trump say looks aren’t everything. He is more interested in hiring smart people, regardless of gender, they say, and that has led Trump for decades to rely on strong, assertive women both as gatekeepers and as advisers. Several of Trump’s female employees said he fostered a positive work environment.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#764

Post by tanderson92 »

gaius wrote: post #760
tanderson92 wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said: "Linus has made demeaning, sexist remarks to a woman to lower her self-worth and value, in a way worse than (or even similar to) "whiny little bitch" ? Please provide sources, I'm genuinely interested." And you responded: "You really need a link to Torvalds abusing people? Here's kernel dev Sarah Sharp https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/linus... But you did not actually present evidence of…

You're asserting that some abuse is OK, praiseworthy even, and some is not, and positioning yourself to make that judgement on behalf of the community . I'm asserting that none is. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I am not asserting that at all! I'm saying two things and two things only:

1) you did not show any evidence of abuse directed towards women, as first claimed.

2) the supposed victims of Linus' abuse claim they were not abused. Who is Sarah to decide for them that they were abused?

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#765

Post by learningram »

>My paycheck is 18% less than my less qualified male colleagues.

I stopped reading after this line. Not because it cannot be true but because it reeks of agenda and made me doubt her credibility.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#766

Post by xapata »

soheil wrote: post #179
harryh wrote: post #31

Why would someone write an anonymous blog post but then declare that they are: 1) A woman in her late 20s 2) Who used to work at Uber in Engineering working on database and networking scalability 3) Went to a top private college 4) has a Masters in Information Systems 5) previous to Uber worked as a Data Analyst in a tech company in the Midwest and left when it was acquired by a Chinese firm 6) Is 5 foot 7 Caucasian…

Did a search of all current/past Uber employees based on public data mainly from LI, found only 6 people with those degrees and none were female. Did another search for people who worked as Data Analyst and worked at Uber came up with 6 different people again all male. As other answers suggest the information could be twisted, but definitely not "slightly".

You think Uber has only 6 "Data Analyst"s?

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#767

Post by netsharc »

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…

It would be stupid for Lyft to do this, because if they get busted, it'd be a PR nightmare and counter-productive, because Uber can change the narrative and call Lyft the lying bad guys.

But it's also possible that it's someone who likes Lyft or/and hates Uber.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#768

Post by piva00 »

uberengineer123 wrote: post #691
crux wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't get this. You don't know anything about working at Uber except secondhand accounts. Where do you get off dictating morals to me? You don't think I'm a person that stands up for what's right? You know nothing about what I'm doing, who I am, or anything about working at Uber except the worst of the worst. Yet here you are acting condescending, because you've read a bunch of newspaper articles you're morally sup…

What is your opinion on the reports about Travis ignoring red flags on this kind of behaviour inside Uber?

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#769

Post by Tomis02 »

alinspired wrote: post #408

what every man needs to ask himself and reflect on: - would i stand up to a pig in the room - would i stand up to a pig in the room that is way up the ladder

I think a reasonable reaction would be to stand up and slap him around for a good few seconds (10 should do the trick). Then proceed to go to HR to report the guy and threaten with a lawsuit if he's not instantly fired. There you go. As an engineer in California you should be able to find another workplace if they decide to fire you instead.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#770

Post by ForHackernews »

btilly wrote: post #437
geofft wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's an appropriate use of flag: > Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think a story is spam or off-topic, flag it by clicking on its 'flag' link. If you think a comment is egregious, click on its timestamp to go to its page, then click 'flag' at the top. The story is not spam, not off-topic, and has a good chance of being non-egregious. It'…

My stated belief was that there are greater than even odds that it is propaganda. Propaganda is a form of spam. Even worse, propaganda is a particularly nasty form of spam since it tries to alter your belief system such that future propaganda will seem more reasonable to you. Therefore maintaining a keen sense of what is possible propaganda is very important. A healthy brain should immediately try to verify anything…

Oh no, propaganda that might alter our belief system into respecting female employees! Better reject that out of hand...
Post reply on HN