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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

#151

Post by optimuspaul »

kbenson wrote: post #141
moomin wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sooner or later you've gotta decide who to believe. The person with nothing to gain by reporting it, or the company with everything to gain by denying it. Besides, it isn't hearsay, the allegations have been made by some of the victims. Hearsay is something else.

I didn't say it was hearsay. I didn't say I didn't believe the people reporting the problems. I'm just noting that there's a lot of room between "some employees were harassing others, largely unknown to most management" and "there's a pervasive culture of harassment that goes all the way to the top, and includes much of management". And I can fully believe everyone reporting problems believes they are right while wit…

It's hard to maintain credibility when you say things like "I didn't say it was hearsay" when your words are just above and say "it's all a big swirling mess of hearsay at this point"

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#152

Post by macspoofing »

watwut wrote: post #146
macspoofing wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my point exactly. Tech companies are full of dumb 20-somethings who will make dumb 20-something mistakes. This may result in them getting reprimanded or terminated which will serve as a learning experience. But OP went further. She/He characterized them as "toxic" and potentially inflicting massive damage on the new company's culture with the implications that no company should hire them. Disgusting.

Reality check: overwhelming majority of 20 years old dudes don't harass women. They are not as dumb as you imply and they know what harassment is. If you would be right, then radical feminists are right in that college students need special classes to tell them what is rape, what is harassment and what is proposal. Majority of non radical people opposed that on the grounds that it is insulting and dudes know. If at t…

I neither accept your 'reality check' nor the ridiculous binary choice your presented where everyone just knows how to act or radical feminists need to run university workshops (completely ridiculous).

Social interactions and social boundaries are largely a learned behaviour - it is not something that is innate in us. Because there is a huge emotional component when dealing with things like attraction, love, infatuation, jealously, rejection - you really just learn through experience. And by the way, no where am I advocating that companies shouldn't set clear boundaries on conduct in the workplace. Shit happens, and people will fuck up purposely or accidentally and should be held accountable (which may involve termination or even involvement of the justice system - depending on severity). I'm disgusted by OP's characterization of individuals that were fired in this probe, the ugly words she/he uses to describe them and for implicitly advocating to ostracize them from society - people he knows nothing about.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#153

Post by wikibob »

tedivm wrote: post #60
ASinclair wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The easy way to avoid this would be to hire people still employed by Uber. I'd say most people don't quit their job then start the interviewing process. Usually people quit once they have a new job lined up.

I have the exact opposite experience- most of the people I know here in the bay area embrace "funemployment" by having a break between leaving their jobs and getting a new one. At a minimum I wouldn't use it as a heuristic for whether the person is hirable or not.

I've wondered how common this is in the bay. Can you expand on this with an anecdote or two? Do the people who you know that have done this seem to ever have problems getting hired again?

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#154

Post by kevinburke »

randyrand wrote: post #142
wakkaflokka wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The natural follow-up question I have, is why don't you care?

That's a great question! I can't speak for everyone, but personally I don't think asking another adult if they want to have sex with you is morally wrong, even in the workplace. I think Americans are way too sensitive when it comes to sexuality. They repress it way too much. For reference, here is the accusation from the blog post: On my first official day rotating on the team, my new manager sent me a string of mess…

Harassment encompasses a wide range of behaviors besides "asking another adult if they want to have sex with you," from _continuing to ask someone after they've turned you down_, to inappropriate touching, to quid-pro-quo, where career advancement, or good work assignments, are tied to sexual favors. These offers don't need to be explicit.

It's difficult to do your best work when you don't feel safe in the workplace. It's also difficult to advance your career when your boss is demanding sexual favors in exchange for promotions or favorable work assignments. Fundamentally these are unfair to the people being harassed, which is why laws and workplace norms exist to discourage them. They also expose the company to a large amount of legal liability.

I'd suggest listening to people who have had to deal with this issue in the past, or paying better attention during harassment training the next time you are asked to do it at your workplace.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#155

Post by macspoofing »

watwut wrote: post #149
macspoofing wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm surprised that we are still at a point in society where people legitimately don't understand the difference between workplace-appropriate behaviour, and harassment. I'm not, especially when it comes to tech which is full of young 20-somethings, some of whom may be brilliant when it comes to programming and mathematics, but dumb when it comes to social cues and social interactions. A lot of this stuff gets figure…

I work in tech. While there are problems, dudes are way better at social skills then you imply. Thay includes dudes with asperger.

Yes. Of course. Generally people are good and decent. And this case doesn't contradict this since we're talking about 20 fired employees out of 12,000.

And I didn't only refer to 'dudes'. I referred to 20-somethings. Women can be dumbasses too.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#156

Post by AcerbicZero »

randyrand wrote: post #109
5ilv3r wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Risky move.

HN generally welcomes people with a wide set of beliefs and values. I don't think someone would be banned just because they say they don't care about something. Of course I could still be proven wrong.

I'm guessing he was referring to the loss of internet points for posting an opinion out of the mainstream on a topic like this, where even the normally open minded and discussion oriented HN folks expect you to toe the party line.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#157

Post by erikpukinskis »

opportune wrote: post #99
erikpukinskis wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The problem is that the firing should have been done as the issues were discovered / brought to light. Waiting to fire perpetrators until after a critical mass of media scrutiny forces you to do so only reveals uber's true motives. Clearly they don't give a shit about actual sexual harrassment, they just want to preserve whatever perceived image they have to the rest of the world (not that an anti-competitive contrac…

> Clearly they don't give a shit about actual sexual harrassment, they just want to preserve whatever perceived image they have to the rest of the world

You may be right.

But I don't think policing peoples intentions is a good plan for us. It has all kinds of problems, the main one being intentions are generally pretty unknowable. The other one being intentions don't actually cause any harm, so by policing intentions you take away resources from policing harm.

I think a much better plan is to be very serious about what constitutes right action and wrong action for you, to reward right action and to punish wrong action.

Here's what I suspect the problem is for you: I'm going to guess (and this is just a guess, feel free to correct me) that you do a lot of harmful things, by virtue of your position in society, ecology, and the global economy, but that you've forgiven yourself for these things because you believe your intentions are good, and you're doing the best you can.

This is the dominant moral framework today, so I'm not judging you for it. But I have a different moral framework: I think you are responsible primarily for the harm you case, not your intentions. I would rather you be a harmless person with horrible intentions than a harmful person with good intentions.

But I think for you to transition to that worldview, you'd have to face up to your own ongoing unintentioned harm, which would be extremely painful. So there's a lot of pressure on you not to do that.

Apologies for all of the projection/presumption. I don't actually presume to know any of these things about you, I'm really talking about two versions of myself and just casually speculating about where you might fit into that dichotomy. Again, feel free to say "that ain't me".

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#158

Post by randyrand »

kevinburke wrote: post #154
randyrand wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a great question! I can't speak for everyone, but personally I don't think asking another adult if they want to have sex with you is morally wrong, even in the workplace. I think Americans are way too sensitive when it comes to sexuality. They repress it way too much. For reference, here is the accusation from the blog post: On my first official day rotating on the team, my new manager sent me a string of mess…

Harassment encompasses a wide range of behaviors besides "asking another adult if they want to have sex with you," from _continuing to ask someone after they've turned you down_, to inappropriate touching, to quid-pro-quo, where career advancement, or good work assignments, are tied to sexual favors. These offers don't need to be explicit. It's difficult to do your best work when you don't feel safe in the workplace.…

But none of those other behaviors happened at Uber. It was literally someone asking another adult if they want to have sex. How childish are we to get upset over this?

I can understand that feeling uncomfortable is not good. Lots of things make lots of people uncomfortable. Maybe the issue is that Americans become uncomfortable too easily? Or do not know how to handle feeling uncomfortable?

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#159

Post by watwut »

macspoofing wrote: post #152
watwut wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reality check: overwhelming majority of 20 years old dudes don't harass women. They are not as dumb as you imply and they know what harassment is. If you would be right, then radical feminists are right in that college students need special classes to tell them what is rape, what is harassment and what is proposal. Majority of non radical people opposed that on the grounds that it is insulting and dudes know. If at t…

I neither accept your 'reality check' nor the ridiculous binary choice your presented where everyone just knows how to act or radical feminists need to run university workshops (completely ridiculous). Social interactions and social boundaries are largely a learned behaviour - it is not something that is innate in us. Because there is a huge emotional component when dealing with things like attraction, love, infatuat…

If it is normal to not know the difference, then they need class on it. No reason to have random girls be harassed cause duses are too emotional to know difference. However, they are both well aware and in enough of emotional control.

Seriously, if your emotions are that out of control, you are not suitable to live independently. I might be fine to use taxes to pay you counselling through.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#160

Post by pfarnsworth »

mikeyouse wrote: post #33
macspoofing wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The problem is that there's a culture where sexual harassment isn't taken seriously Is there? I've seen people claim this but I haven't seen any evidence for it. I know Susan Fowler's account is used frequently as basis for that statement and though I don't doubt her sincerity and truthfulness, you can't just extrapolate her experience to the entire (global) company.

> Is there? I've seen people claim this but I haven't seen any evidence for it. As another point of evidence, they just fired 20 people for sexual harassment to address 215 separate claims before the separate outside report into the amount of sexual harassment in their company. Maybe they don't deserve your skepticism.

It wasn't just for sexual harrassment. It was for an conduct that they deemed inappropriate, like bullying, harrassment, etc.
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