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I am an Uber survivor

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Re: I am an Uber survivor

#521

Is a "ubersurvivor" hashtag really what's needed? WARNING: this comment is not a safe place and contains my opinions. Victim praising will do nothing to change Uber's behavior. Expecting Uber to change anything as the result of your words is a fools errand. The more likely outcome is Uber will only harden it's shell. Do you expect one of the most highly praised startups of the last decade to suddenly find religion an…

For those wondering, Fat Tony is a character in The Black Swan (and not meant to be the rapper of the same name).

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#522

I think the bottom line is that some founders believe that you have to tolerate abusive personalities in order to hire the best. I had a person on my team once who I did not hire but who had a reputation for being one of the smartest and most capable engineers. As his new manager, I expected that I'd soon promote him. But then I saw that he treated others on the team very poorly and often said highly inappropriate se…

I'll be real with you. I worked at Uber for a while. I never noticed any sexual harassment while I was there, but what I did notice was that the company culture was quite excellent until the number of employees got up to 1000 or so. It wasn't until there were many layers of management that things got shitty. I left once the culture no longer felt friendly.

I haven't spoken to Travis in quite a few years now, but I find it very hard to believe he is responsible.

Shitty, evil, manages are great at being two-faced. When their boss is around they act one way, but you better watch out when no one is looking.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#523
post #177

Why aren't any of these shitbags getting named? This type of thing should ruin the guy's career. Fair or not I'm just going to assume Travis and anyone working for him is just like this disgusting mike#2 fellow.

innocent until proven guilty. this means that we have to hold 2 competing ideas at the same time until due process has been given, like shrodeinger's cat only for justice: 1) the woman is a victim and the "shitbag" should be punished appropriately. 2) the woman is lying and the "shitbag" is a victim of false accusations. until more details are known, it is possible that the accused is the victim. If this ends up bein…

That applies in the case of a court of law or if I were an individual in the media reporting on the alleged incident (in which case I would likely try to corroborate with other alleged victims).

It doesn't make sense in the situation (here) where someone is making the accusation. She knows it happened, she was there, from that perspective this guy should be getting wrecked. It would be a public service. There's no reason for her to fear that she herself is lying.

(Irrelevant to my argument but perhaps relevant to yours: I'd also argue that de-facto assuming there's a good chance the accuser in the situation is lying flies in the face of everything I've read about it being difficult for abuse victims to come forward. There's little to no gain for the accuser. The accuser is often assumed to be lying, they now have to fear reprisal from the accused and others. Making this type of thing up isn't a rational move with a useful end. Unless it is true, in which case the useful end is to take down the accused, in which case the accused should be named).

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#524
post #181

Some of the responses to that article express a sentiment that women should fight back and not just silently take it. I wonder (doubt) if they've ever been abused. It's hard for someone who has been abused to come forward, let alone stand up to an abuser. Besides, men outnumber women in tech by a very large margin. It's on our shoulders to help women fight back. Strength in numbers is a thing, and having men who spea…

The best way for men to counter this in a toxic environment is to call it out when they see it. This sends a message that being outwardly dehumanizing and dismissive is not okay, and is not the accepted norm.

I'm quite shocked that nobody stepped in when Mike2 called her a "whiny little bitch" in a meeting. She said the other men "were shocked" spare a couple that giggled. What the fuck kind of person stands around and does nothing when witnessing that kind of abuse in a professional environment?

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I saw a manager do what she described, no matter how high up the food chain he was, I'd frog march him to HR myself. I don't even care if they fire me for it. We don't tolerate stuff like this in this century.

Have you seen who is President these days?

Putin

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#527
post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fowler's post established that this was happening to many women in the company. If we accept that Fowler is a credible witness, which I think is a fair assessment, we already know that this is a systemic problem. It's safe to assume then that if more women come forward, they are more likely to be telling the truth than not. Additionally, it's in Lyft's or other detractors best interests not to fake additional claims.…

I'd argue Fowler's claims are similarly unchallenged.

[deleted]

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#529
post #259

> I remember how the interviewers constantly tried to trigger me and insulted my intelligence to see if I break under pressure. What the fuck? I'd walk and never entertain an offer from a company that spent the interview insulting and provoking me. Who would be stoked to get an offer after an experience like that, much less accept it??

Have you not been in a stressful technical interview situation? I have even heard of people doing this on purpose to weed out people who don't "perform under pressure".

In my mind there's a pretty clear difference between being challenged to justify your answers or go into deeper detail in a response and being intentionally insulted. I'm not thin skinned, but I'm not about to go to work for someone after they spend an hour or more calling me retarded.

Re: I am an Uber survivor

#530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are they going to do? Sue you? This stuff is hard to prosecute. And if they start prosecuting... well... then their sexual harassment behavior will be made public.

Unfortunately, as but one option, yes. Assuming it gets to that. Your tape won't see the light of the courtroom because it'll be ruled inadmissible (fruits of the poisoned tree). It'll be sealed by the court over the felony hearing because it contains statements that could be materially damaging to be released (that the person said them is not in question, unfortunately, more their 'expectations', right or wrong, whe…

You don't leak it during the trial. You do it before any trial even happens, or before anyone even knows that you have the video. You just create your secret video, and then release it to the media.

Then they COULD come after you later, but they almost certainly won't succeed. Recording crimes or sexual harassment pretty much never gets you in trouble.

This whole court situation where sexual harassment never gets punished works both ways.

Yes, it is difficult for these people to get punished. But it is equally difficult to punish people who retaliate against harassers.

The courts aren't the point anyway. Sure you aren't going to win a court case. But uber would still fire the guy. At will employment.

It doesn't matter if the secret video is illegal evidence. Uber can still fire the guy anyway, because they can fire people for any or no reason at all. And other companies can also refuse to hire him.

Also, if the culprit is an uber exec, it is not like they could sue anyone. That would look extremely extremely bad if Uber started suing women who were harassed. There goes billions of dollars.

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