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I am an Uber survivor

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Re: I am an Uber survivor

#771

Post by chris_wot »

achow wrote: post #761
uberengineer123 wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

After reading about the egregious violations of privacy, threats against journalists, flagrant violations of the law in many countries and cities around the world and the fact that the top man of Uber was willing to serve under a Trump presidency, I don't think you can be too surprised about all the negative comments!

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#772

Post by Camillo »

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…

How do we know you're a Uber engineer and not some rented astroturfer? You better balance some binary trees for us right now, son.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#773

Post by inferiorhuman »

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…

Ehhhhh it's not as if this is the first time Uber has repeatedly been in the news for abusive behavior. You guys have a reputation of being vile to a really diverse group of people (drivers, tech types, news media). FFS Uber is a company whose core values are thumbing their nose at the rule of law (rah rah disruption... gag).

So, no, I'm not going to suggest you quit your job. Hell, I don't even think you condone the nasty behavior coming out of your employer. But, by working at Uber, you are very directly helping a company that is about as far away from "do no evil" as possible. You're directly contributing to making the world a worse place and that sucks. That's pretty offensive to me. You're aiding and abetting a company that absolutely feeds into the anti-tech narrative in the Bay Area and that is personal. And, yes, I resent that.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#774

Post by mtarnovan »

Tomis02 wrote: post #769
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.

Stand up to him - sure. But slap him around? I think you may have overdosed on punch-the-nazi memes.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#775

Post by vidoc »

> Chauvinistic, racist and homophobic attitudes were far too normal at Uber

There should be a $10 fine every-time the wonderful word 'chauvinism' is misused. The law should nevertheless have an exception if the term is appropriately prefixed: 'male chauvinism' even if it hardly makes any sense (1).

For those who are curious, the term comes from a soldier named Nicolas Chauvin who lived around the turn of the 18th/19th century. The guy was exaggeratedly nationalistic and subject to mockeries in the pop culture. A 'chauvinistic' person is a person that pushes the boundaries of jingoism and patriotism to the extreme and ends being grotesque.

1:While tolerable, the term 'male chauvinism' makes no sense since a 'chauvinistic' attitude is supposed to contain a great deal of bad faith and demagoguery, and I'm afraid a lot of 'chauvinistic males' are actually sincere in their beliefs.

Apparently the misuse started in the 70s, not only in english but in german too (would love to hear a german speaking person weight on this). It's not too late, we can save this word, we can prevent it from being the new 'bistro'!

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#776

Post by Asooka »

waisbrot wrote: post #214
mi100hael wrote: post #125

> I remember how the interviewers constantly tried to trigger me and insulted my intelligence to see if I break under pressure. What the fuck? I'd walk and never entertain an offer from a company that spent the interview insulting and provoking me. Who would be stoked to get an offer after an experience like that, much less accept it??

Famous example: http://www.businessinsider.com/hyman-rickover-interview-tech... I don't know if it's actually useful when interviewing for a job with lives on the line, but I would guess that it creates an effect where the worse the interview experience is the happier you feel when you pass it.

That's quite different from what Amy alleges happened to her at the interview.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#777

Post by Tomis02 »

mtarnovan wrote: post #774
Tomis02 wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Stand up to him - sure. But slap him around? I think you may have overdosed on punch-the-nazi memes.

I just said it would be a reasonable reaction (as in, I would understand someone doing it), not that I would actually do it.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#778

Post by Joo2eiyu »

arthur_pryor wrote: post #755
gaius wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really need a link to Torvalds abusing people? Here's kernel dev Sarah Sharp https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/linus...

i'm not defending linus' management style, but it is a significantly worse crime in my book to be sexist/racist abusive or a sexual harasser than it is to be a garden variety verbally abusive boss who is abusive solely based on and in relation to the quality of work performed. i suspect many others feel similarly.

To judge the seriousness of a crime based on the victims gender is sexist. There is no garden variety abuse, and if there were than it means we have accepted abuse as normal as long the victim is not of the protected gender.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#779

Post by dustinmoris »

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…

Because only a disgusting company like Uber would pull such a thing off and since Uber wouldn't criticise Uber we can safely assume this is probably legit.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#780

Post by lr4444lr »

laughinghan wrote: post #706
lr4444lr wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I appreciate your thoughtful response. I was careful not speak to "belief", which is unfortunately ambiguous; one could interpret "belief" of this testimonial as supporting millions in damages being awarded to the author right now on the basis of nothing else, which I hopefully have been clear about not supporting. It surprises me that you have no compassion for an anonymous grievance, though, especially one that is…

I can distill it this way:

Compassion for the suffering of the unknown is one thing. To make damaging public accusations behind the veil of the unknown is something else entirely.

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