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Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

susanjfowler.com

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Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#461

Post by mst »

bootload wrote: post #290
projektir wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anecdotal. Sure, but I'm not entirely sure what else you expect. Isn't your statement also anecdotal? > If drinking is done outside work/events this isn't what is being described in the article. Sorry, what article? It's not mentioned in the main OP, and the person a few parents up is talking about what sounds very much like events or after work happy hours. I can absolutely see how that can turn bad, I'm just sayi…

Are you really supporting drinking at work? Tell me about the great experiences through the eyes of other people. "talking about what sounds very much like events or after work happy hours" The number of engineers bleeding from uber suggests, drinking isn't ^the problem^ but one part of a bigger culture problem. Do you work at Uber?

I think projektir is talking about how a team-drinks-together-outside-of-work culture can still be healthy.

Their "maybe Uber is more like the latter" description of an unhealthy culture I think makes it obvious they don't work at Uber.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#462

Post by majewsky »

mikeash wrote: post #273
karussell wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until no one else is in the market. Then have fun with your positive thing/thinking :)

I don't see that happening. There's no natural monopoly here and almost no barriers to entry. The moment Uber tries to leverage being the only one left, someone new will undercut them.

There will be a natural monopoly (or rather, a natural oligopoly) once the car makers all have their own autonomous carsharing fleets and sell cars only with an EULA that forbids ridesharing. The entry barrier for car manufacturing is way higher.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#463

Post by kevinburke »

diminoten wrote: post #443
kevinburke wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If an Uber recruiter contacts you, bring this up and tell them their nonfunctioning HR department makes working for their company a non starter. If you work at Uber, quit, and/or contact the board and tell them that this behavior is unacceptable and the people responsible need to be fired. If the culture won't change, the CEO needs to be fired. If you work in tech, bring up this article with your manager or CEO and t…

Sure, definitely. Where do I send the bills for my groceries, then? Would you prefer email or snailmail?

The people with the most leverage at Uber to make a difference would have their pick of companies to work for; as the OP notes, she had a job offer within a week. If you are actually an engineer at Uber, I bet recruiters are constantly emailing you about job offers.

Obviously, if you don't think you can easily get another job, stay.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#464

Post by keldaris »

blhack wrote: post #277
bootload wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Culture was extremely heavy on the drinking;" For me this is a red flag. Booze + programming == pissed programming This leads to bad code also bad team dynamics. Ultimately this will reflect on the product and bottom line. For individuals this reads like a culture where the barrel is creating ^bad apples^. Not a good look on a resume.

I have to be honest, I know a lot of people who claim that they can write really good code if they've been drinking. I just absolutely do not understand how that is even possible. If I have ONE beer, it throws off my ability to write good code, or hold all of the concepts in my head. One of the weekly coworking meetups I go to always ends at a brewery (there is a brewery next door to the hackerspace where it is held)…

I've found I'm markedly better at two specific types of programming activities while mildly drunk (the "mildly" part being quite crucial, for me this means two beers or a couple of slowly sipped glasses of whiskey). One is getting a large amount of boring mindless boilerplate out of the way quickly because the alcohol helps me not get too distracted from sheer boredom. The other is re-architecting high level design after getting stuck on a flawed approach - it seems easier to devise and consider more "out there" ideas without getting too bogged down in implementation details prematurely.

Obviously, that's just my personal experience and while I'm quite confident in my sample size, I wouldn't generalize it to anyone else. YMMV.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#465

Post by toothbrush »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #297
bootload wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Culture was extremely heavy on the drinking;" For me this is a red flag. Booze + programming == pissed programming This leads to bad code also bad team dynamics. Ultimately this will reflect on the product and bottom line. For individuals this reads like a culture where the barrel is creating ^bad apples^. Not a good look on a resume.

We have a "whiskey club", and regularly go to the pub where I work. We don't do it at lunchtime. We don't do it during the working day. 5:30pm on a Friday? Let's have a glass of whiskey together. Somebody joining/leaving, or we haven't been out together for a while? Let's go to the pub after work one evening. There is a #drinks channel in Slack where people who fancy a drink after work co-ordinate, and several of wil…

> As for team dynamics, it means we know each other better and bond more frequently. Not a problem, I think.

Except for the non-drinkers in your team. I suspect that they either

a) feel left out, because a non-drinker at a pub has a boring time, and has to keep justifying their empty glass

b) probably miss out on important decisions if a majority of the important people in a team are present, which is bad dynamics

c) maybe your team doesn't have any non-drinkers. What does that tell you in terms of diversity / inclusiveness?

I'm not pointing fingers at you specifically because you mention explicitly making plans around people who don't/won't drink, but i think there should be more awareness around this, especially since it can seep into the culture quite insidiously, and invisibly.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#466

Post by mst »

jacques_chester wrote: post #386
blhack wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to be honest, I know a lot of people who claim that they can write really good code if they've been drinking. I just absolutely do not understand how that is even possible. If I have ONE beer, it throws off my ability to write good code, or hold all of the concepts in my head. One of the weekly coworking meetups I go to always ends at a brewery (there is a brewery next door to the hackerspace where it is held)…

Alcohol increases confidence in one's abilities. Everyone has some skill they insist they are "better at" when drunk.

My best results at pool always come between pint two and pint four.

I do not in any way shape or form endorse doing the same thing with writing production code.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#467

Post by parent_dead_on »

knucklesandwich wrote: post #133
calcsam wrote: post #15

In case anyone isn't sure why the original interaction is harassment: relationships within a reporting chain are generally prohibited, for both legal, ethical, and practical reasons. Sex becoming part of the effective job description crosses both legal and ethical lines, and team effectiveness is hindered when people wonder whether someone is getting special treatment because they're sleeping with the boss. A manager…

Tech workers (across all disciplines) need to unionize to combat this kind of thing. As has been pointed out below, HR that is staffed and incentivized by the company management only serves the interests of the management. A union is the only structure that can actually win demands for workers by organizing workers to withhold their labor. It's not a panacea, and there are several historical examples of union leaders…

Right on brother (sister?)! Most in the industry are believing the management story and working their asses off for a dream that's rarely realized. And when it is, they don't see nearly the payout their more business savvy peers do. The model might be closer to doctors and lawyers than auto workers, but it's clear to me that industry wide solidarity could result in great standard of living and working condition improvements.

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#469

Post by DenisM »

x0x0 wrote: post #409
ChuckMcM wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Top engineers were being poached from Google/FB and these people > were trying to carve out territory in a quickly growing engineering > team. It is always a bit sad when one of the top characteristic of an engineer from organization X is their political ability to carve out an empire. I'm a bit surprised she doesn't have at least one law firm trying to get her to be the lead claimant in a class action lawsuit. See…

My partner was in a somewhat similar position. When she spoke to a lawyer, the lawyer asked her two questions: 1 - did she ever want to work in X industry again / was she comfortable with being blacklisted, legal or not; 2 - was she comfortable with this being what she did with the next two years of her life It's a harder decision to make than you think. Not to mention the unrelenting wave of assholery that would be…

Most lawsuits don't reach the court room and end with a non-disparagement agreement. Perhaps it was worth asking another lawyer?

Re: Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

#470

Post by elsewhen »

mikeash wrote: post #273
karussell wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until no one else is in the market. Then have fun with your positive thing/thinking :)

I don't see that happening. There's no natural monopoly here and almost no barriers to entry. The moment Uber tries to leverage being the only one left, someone new will undercut them.

i think you are right about the barriers to entry, but uber will have tremendous resources to kill/acquire any upstart. any prospective competitor is going to have to be very well-financed to deal with uber's ability to price them out of the market.
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