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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

#171

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#172

Post by oh_sigh »

sulam wrote: post #38
macspoofing wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Seems risky to hire a recent Uber employee at this point because bringing a toxic sexist into the company can inflict massive damage. Jesus. They are still people. You want to ostracize them from all society and prevent them from earning a living in their chosen career? 'Sexual harassment' is also a catch-all term that can encompass all kinds of actions. It could involve a clueless, inexperienced 20-something asking…

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. If an entire chain of management and HR don't treat a claim like that seriously (no one has disputed the claim), there is absolutely a cultural problem.

I have independently verified that Elvis is living on an island in the south Pacific with tupac and biggie.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#173

Post by kevinburke »

randyrand wrote: post #168
tehwebguy wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard not to reply with sarcasm. Other people not caring about sexual harassment makes it worse.

If no one cared, the problem would be solved. That's simple logic right there. An odd unexpected consequence of this is that by trying to get fewer people to care, it is in fact helping to solve the problem.

Apply this logic to any other crime and you'll see it's nonsensical.

"If no one cared about extrajudicial gangs roving the streets murdering people, the problem would be solved. After all, I wasn't murdered. That's simple logic right there"

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#174

Post by oh_sigh »

fixermark wrote: post #80
macspoofing wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Seems risky to hire a recent Uber employee at this point because bringing a toxic sexist into the company can inflict massive damage. Jesus. They are still people. You want to ostracize them from all society and prevent them from earning a living in their chosen career? 'Sexual harassment' is also a catch-all term that can encompass all kinds of actions. It could involve a clueless, inexperienced 20-something asking…

For what it's worth, "prevent them from earning a living in their chosen career" is not the same as "ostracize them from all society." A person who has been cut from a grad school program for rampant academic honor code violations can be a perfectly-functional member of society, and if no school wants to trust them as a teacher, that's not the fault of the schools. Personally, I don't have a high opinion of the tech…

Part of the problem is it is difficult to determine if someone has been fired for cause, or because they are a scape goat, or if they just weren't liked by management, or many other reasons

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#175

Post by walshemj »

macspoofing wrote: post #137
bogomipz wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Is there? I've seen people claim this but I haven't seen any evidence for it." Can you explain why you feel that 20 people being fired as a result of a company-wide investigation into to sexual harassment doesn't constitute evidence of a problem?

Because it's 20 people out 12,000 and I (we) have no idea what it is they were fired for exactly. We don't know the context, the exact infraction, and how it was dealt with initially. I can't even tell if that rate is high, average or low when compared with any other company of similar size who would create a special sexual-harassment probe to investigate itself.

> 20 out of only 12,000 is a huge number

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#176

Post by watwut »

macspoofing wrote: post #155
watwut wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think it is correct to use words dumbass and unethical as synonyms. They are not.

I defended dudes here, because they were treated as normally unethical or normally dumbass. Since women were not implied to be less capable, there was no need to defend then.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#177

Post by walshemj »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #104
polishTar wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firing 2 or 3 people might be symbolic. Firing >20 isn't.

Not that I really agree with parent but Uber has 12,000+ employees so 20 people is, what, 0.16% of their workforce at most? There are a lot of stories about Uber's culture and conduct so I honestly expected a lot more especially since culture issues usually run very deep and touch quite a lot of people. But who knows, maybe it's the correct amount of people. But I can sorta understand it coming off as almost symbolic…

To be serious enough for immediate firing its a hell of a lot - this is with my industrial relations hat on BTW.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#178

Post by watwut »

macspoofing wrote: post #165
watwut wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why would you think I was referring to 'dudes'? I was referring to 20-somethings, men and women. Women can be (and are) dumbasses too. I think you and I are too far apart on this. I disagree with your thought process and your conclusions.

Neither men nor women are thay much stupid. We are talking about unethical and morally wrong behavior, not stupidity anyway.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#179

Post by walshemj »

macspoofing wrote: post #115
vkou wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a manager, if you have a clueless 20-year old making an inappropriate proposition to one of your reports, and you hear about it, you are legally obligated to deal with the situation. It could mean reprimands, demotions, pay cuts, and re-assignment. It could mean termination. Harassment happens in every single company. The difference between companies is whether or not management takes the problem seriously. I assu…

>As a manager, if you have a clueless 20-year old making an inappropriate proposition to one of your reports, and you hear about it, you are legally obligated to deal with the situation. It could mean reprimands, demotions, pay cuts, and re-assignment. It could mean termination. Sure. I don't disagree with that, even the termination. But I hate the idea of now treating these individuals as modern equivalent of 'untou…

12k is quite small I have worked in big companies where we had more engineers in our single division that Google has employees.

Re: Uber Fires More Than 20 Employees in Harassment Probe

#180

Post by kbenson »

optimuspaul wrote: post #151
kbenson wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

Fair enough, that's a deserved criticism. I thought I had used slightly different wording, and didn't confirm before responding.

What I was attempting to communicate is that there are a few first hand accounts, and numerous news articles and blogs expounding on what those mean. I didn't mean to imply that those that had those experiences were not referring to their own experiences, or that they were being untruthful, but I understand how either of those might have been interpretations of my words. I'll leave them as they are because I don't believe in whitewashing, and let this stand as the correction.

While I think it's important to get both sides of the story, I don't view both sides with the same level of trust. I think those with the accusations are far more likely to have accounts closer to reality in this case, but closer to reality doesn't mean they are accurate representations of the situation when taken by themselves. Confirmation bias is real, and doesn't have to have such an extreme effect as to change someone's opinion to still have a large effect on how people perceive the situation.

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