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Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

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Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#61

Post by [deleted] »

tdicola wrote: post #45
hueving wrote: post #7

I wonder if events like this turn Uber employees who leave around this time into a market of lemons. Obviously nobody will put on their resume that they were fired for sexual harassment so hiring managers will have to wonder if a person who left Uber recently was fed up or fired. Seems risky to hire a recent Uber employee at this point because bringing a toxic sexist into the company can inflict massive damage.

That's why you list references from your last job and people call them to see what kind of person you were while there.

[deleted]

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#62

Post by x0x0 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #51
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #6

The article doesn't discuss the seniority of the fired employees. It's very hard to distinguish between scapegoating and actually working to fix the problem without that information. The problem with Uber isn't that some employees engage in sexual harassment. The problem is that there's a culture where sexual harassment isn't taken seriously, is tolerated if the perpetrators are "high performing" in other respects, a…

Um, it's not scapegoating if these people are harassing other employees. Scapegoating is when you hire underlings for projects that senior management was driving. No one forces you to harass another employee.

Scapegoating isn't the right word, but ThrustVectoring is right. In 12k employees there will be some dicks who sexually harass. You fire them.

The problem at Uber isn't some line level eng or line level management sexually harassed someone; it's that HR and the VP Eng and the CEO all tolerated it. So unless someone whose name goes in SEC filings gets fired, they aren't taking this seriously.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#63

Post by ThrustVectoring »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #51
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #6

The article doesn't discuss the seniority of the fired employees. It's very hard to distinguish between scapegoating and actually working to fix the problem without that information. The problem with Uber isn't that some employees engage in sexual harassment. The problem is that there's a culture where sexual harassment isn't taken seriously, is tolerated if the perpetrators are "high performing" in other respects, a…

Um, it's not scapegoating if these people are harassing other employees. Scapegoating is when you hire underlings for projects that senior management was driving. No one forces you to harass another employee.

Err, what? Scapegoating is blaming and punishing someone in order to falsely claiming that the problem is fixed. Yes, the harassers should be fired for harassing. It doesn't fix the problem of management taking the side of harassers over the harassed.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#64

Post by erikpukinskis »

djsumdog wrote: post #14

Feels somewhat symbolic at this point. The massively corrupt shop decides to fire a bunch of people who max out the acceptable level of corruption. Even how they hired Holder feels like a PR tactic; a man who was against all the US torture techniques ( http://fightthefuture.org/articles/the-rescue-of-eric-holder... ) and yet prosecuted no one. He is the image of a career, PR frontman. I'm still going to take Lyft ove…

I disagree. This is the proper course of action when you have a harassment problem. Fire people.

It's fine if you want to take Lyft... I have been choosing Lyft from the beginning. But I applaud Uber for doing this investigation. I'm honestly baffled that people are criticizing them for it.

If there are people the investigation missed, that's a problem, but it's a separate issue and we have no evidence of it at this point, do we?

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#65

Post by exelius »

rwmj wrote: post #2

12,000 employees in Uber? (I'm assuming that doesn't include the drivers). What do they do all day?

They use a different model in nearly every city they operate (some are base fare + per mile; some base fare + per mile + per minute, others flat fee between certain areas, etc.) thanks to varied taxi laws across the country / world. That takes a lot of local employees.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#66

Post by njj023 »

djsumdog wrote: post #14

Feels somewhat symbolic at this point. The massively corrupt shop decides to fire a bunch of people who max out the acceptable level of corruption. Even how they hired Holder feels like a PR tactic; a man who was against all the US torture techniques ( http://fightthefuture.org/articles/the-rescue-of-eric-holder... ) and yet prosecuted no one. He is the image of a career, PR frontman. I'm still going to take Lyft ove…

It seems that there really isn't anything that would have you change your strongly held biases at this point.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#67

Post by MockObject »

sulam wrote: post #49
Shank wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have independently verified Susan Fowler's claim that her management chain didn't treat her case seriously. And by that I mean with a member of her management chain. Just to verify: are you an Uber employee, then?

Nope. I don't need to be to have a conversation. Of course, you could argue the person I was speaking with shouldn't have shared the information with me, but that's their concern.

We have no way of independently verifying your claim.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#68

Post by ghostly_s »

x0x0 wrote: post #62
erikpukinskis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, it's not scapegoating if these people are harassing other employees. Scapegoating is when you hire underlings for projects that senior management was driving. No one forces you to harass another employee.

Scapegoating isn't the right word, but ThrustVectoring is right. In 12k employees there will be some dicks who sexually harass. You fire them. The problem at Uber isn't some line level eng or line level management sexually harassed someone; it's that HR and the VP Eng and the CEO all tolerated it. So unless someone whose name goes in SEC filings gets fired, they aren't taking this seriously.

To be perfectly clear, both of those things are problems. But one is a much bigger problem than he other.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#69

Post by 5ilv3r »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #51
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #6

The article doesn't discuss the seniority of the fired employees. It's very hard to distinguish between scapegoating and actually working to fix the problem without that information. The problem with Uber isn't that some employees engage in sexual harassment. The problem is that there's a culture where sexual harassment isn't taken seriously, is tolerated if the perpetrators are "high performing" in other respects, a…

Um, it's not scapegoating if these people are harassing other employees. Scapegoating is when you hire underlings for projects that senior management was driving. No one forces you to harass another employee.

By "scapegoating", the parent post was proposing that they are poofing up the numbers for a nice press release about their anti-harassment activities by firing underlings, and simultaneously minimizing the probe's negative effect on management. Good press and good for shareholders. Not good for the common good.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#70

Post by j2kun »

randyrand wrote: post #57

I just want to say, for every person in disgust of Uber and their sexual harassment scenario, there are many more of us that just don't care. Of course, most that don't care don't comment. So the comment section is not a good view of public opinion. Just the vocal minority.

Or the silent folks already agree that illegal harassment is bad and don't have anything new to contribute.
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