> I was fired for following HR’s own verbal instructions.
This is why, even when there are verbal instructions, politely request that they give you something in writing; you know, for your reference, just in case you forget ;-)
Uber reported to the state that I was fired for "annoying a coworker."
21–30 of 80 posts
Re: Uber reported to the state that I was fired for "annoying a coworker."
#22Paywall links shouldn't be allowed on Hacker News. It's not possible to subscribe to every service that could be theoretically be submitted. We're not all on $350k SV wages either. That said it's hard to gauge this story as it's a one sided affair, author maybe 100% in the right but that can't really be determined.
God forbid we support journalism that -- gasp -- costs money. Regardless, in this instance it's someone's blog.
How is some random ex-Uber-engineer's self-written story "journalism" in any shape or form?
Re: Uber reported to the state that I was fired for "annoying a coworker."
#23What made HR act in this way? They clearly felt they were protecting the company by firing this person, but they've done nothing wrong and it's unclear they posed any kind of threat to the company. Certainly the complaint about his co-worker would not be perceived as a threat. I will give some weight to the possibility that Uber HR are utterly disfunctional, but on balance I'm left with the impression there's more to…
[flagged]
Re: Uber reported to the state that I was fired for "annoying a coworker."
#24Off topic. Did anybody read the linked fortune article about Uber ceo expecting people to work on weekends. It has that paid PR post and satirical piece vibes at the same time. With words like "unparalleled work ethic" working on weekends, wisdom and the part about checking emails right after waking up at 5 in the morning, I was expecting it to wrap up with a hint of obvious sarcasm but sadly it never came.
This isn't off topic in as much as clearly it reveals how disconnected from reality that CEO is:
"Khosrowshahi says: Just work hard, and success will follow. "
...is hilarious for a company like Uber, where the whole point of the business model is to optimize away drivers income so much that they will always be on the edge of something very much else than success, no matter how hard they work!
Re: Uber reported to the state that I was fired for "annoying a coworker."
#25Shit, HR doesn't even exist to protect the company sometimes. Sometimes they get so cancerous that they start to operate as if the company works for them. Hence my megacorp's most recent CEO fired the CPO, and hired a long time former company employee with no HR background to go clean house of the infestation of Vice-Vice-Vice-Vice-Vice-Vice-Vice-Vice Presidents in HR.
I have just experienced this.They raised HR exec up to VP level so they could investigate another VP to ultimately fire them.
Then once the BAD VP was fired the owner fired the HR VP and the the replacement was not a VP.
DirtyDeeds.DoneDirtCheap.
Re: Uber reported to the state that I was fired for "annoying a coworker."
#26It seems like this employee was in a no-win situation. If he engaged in the non-work-related conversation the co-worker was trying to initiate, he would have been fired. If he ignored the co-worker, they would have found a reason to fire him. Instead, he responded saying he was advised to keep communication to just work topics... and he was fired. The company was clearly planning on firing him for any possible reason…
People have this mistaken belief than HR is for them when they are there 100% for the employer. The only people who are there for you in these situations is the union (if you have one).
this cliche is so often repeated that i'm now questioning whether this is even true.
unions are counterproductive many times - they serve the interests (only temporarily) for the incumbents while failing to or ignoring the larger consequences like the whole company or industry declining.
i wonder if the HR cliche is similar.
Re: Uber reported to the state that I was fired for "annoying a coworker."
#27> I was fired for following HR’s own verbal instructions. This is why, even when there are verbal instructions, politely request that they give you something in writing; you know, for your reference, just in case you forget ;-)
Or send your own email recapping the conversation.
Re: Uber reported to the state that I was fired for "annoying a coworker."
#28It seems like this employee was in a no-win situation. If he engaged in the non-work-related conversation the co-worker was trying to initiate, he would have been fired. If he ignored the co-worker, they would have found a reason to fire him. Instead, he responded saying he was advised to keep communication to just work topics... and he was fired. The company was clearly planning on firing him for any possible reason…
> His first mistake was complaining to HR about another employee griefing him. HR is always going to consider the initial complainer as "the problem." I can say this definitely isn't always true. In the companies I've worked at HR has always been extremely reasonable and cooperative with harassment claims. But corporate culture probably matters here, and I've never worked at a place like Uber. That said, I would be c…
The phrasing "HR isn't there to protect you, it's there to protect the company" applies more here.
My experience is also that HR is very reasonable and cooperative with harassment claims. But the thing is that when you have a legit harassment claim, the law is there to protect you. You could make things very expensive for the company in court, and so protecting the company does mean protecting you and treating you respectfully and cooperatively.
If HR investigates and finds you don't have a legit case and that in fact you may have been the instigator, then protecting the company probably means getting rid of you. Your judgment and account of the facts is questionable in that case, and you're a liability from the other side.
I don't know exactly what happened in this case, but in the harassment case I've had to handle as a manager, the (male) employee said that the (female) victim had initiated everything and had this weird fascination with him, while the paper trail that everybody could see clearly showed that he was both the instigator and the one behaving improperly. Projection is strong in cases like these. So it's entirely possible we're not getting the full story from this anonymous blog post.
Re: Uber reported to the state that I was fired for "annoying a coworker."
#29What made HR act in this way? They clearly felt they were protecting the company by firing this person, but they've done nothing wrong and it's unclear they posed any kind of threat to the company. Certainly the complaint about his co-worker would not be perceived as a threat. I will give some weight to the possibility that Uber HR are utterly disfunctional, but on balance I'm left with the impression there's more to…
There are a lot of missing parts to the story. If we assume the author left out everything that made them look bad, and including only what makes them look good then the result is a very incomplete feeling article.
For example: they asked for guidance and then the very next thing is them being fired. How did they respond to the coworker? Something is off here - the coworker who had messaged him about non-work topics TWO days in a row - then immediately reported him for his reply. What?
Re: Uber reported to the state that I was fired for "annoying a coworker."
#30Paywall links shouldn't be allowed on Hacker News. It's not possible to subscribe to every service that could be theoretically be submitted. We're not all on $350k SV wages either. That said it's hard to gauge this story as it's a one sided affair, author maybe 100% in the right but that can't really be determined.
hn/dangs stance on this: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=paywalls%20by:dang&dateRange=a...
tldr: paywalls are allowed as long as they can be circumvented easily, eg via archive.ph or similar services