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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

#551

Post by drharby »

MAGZine wrote: post #344
bifocald wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Culture is CEO's responsibility. Period.

Once a culture exists, it is very, very difficult to change, even (especially) if you get a new CEO or an acquisition, etc. It is true that if you are going to _attempt_ to change a culture, it must be motivated from top-down. However, placing that responsibility on the CEO alone is misunderstanding of how culture works. It's a little akin to saying that culture is the President's responsibility. No, it's everyone's…

>Once a culture exists, it is very, very difficult to change, even (especially) if you get a new CEO or an acquisition, etc.

clearly Stalin missed the memo

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

#552

Post by mathgenius »

kbenson wrote: post #176

The saddest thing about this to me is that she decided to stay for so long, and let the incidents stack up. I'm not sure if that's indicative of her personality, or what women in the industry have come to expect, and thus have a much higher tolerance for bullshit of this caliber. Unfortunately, from the repeated stories we hear I suspect it's the latter, and that's fucking tragic .

The older we get the less we put up with bullshit, the more we trust our own intuition about when it's time to get out. Unfortunately this only comes (at least for me) after many painful experiences. (Nothing like what OP has had to endure tho.)

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

#553

Post by jbronn »

tptacek wrote: post #257
jbronn wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While technically true, the enforcement is up to the Department of Labor. Do you honestly believe that Puzder (now Acosta) is really going to enforce these rules? It's the whole reason they were chosen for the position in the first place.

No, enforcement is not up to the Department of Labor. If you're terminated for organizing and protesting against working conditions, your recourse includes the courts. People should, of course, talk to labor lawyer before organizing. Tech Solidarity is working with several now, and collecting employment contracts from the best-known tech companies in order to provide standardized organizing advice.

Really? Alright I'll bite. They only promulgate the regulations that are enforced. And if you're being pedantic enough to insist it's the DoJ, then my point still stands under one led by Sessions.

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

#554

Post by freyr »

cjbprime wrote: post #427
freyr wrote: post #242

> "or (ii) I could stay on the team, but I would have to understand that he would most likely give me a poor performance review when review time came around, and there was nothing they could do about that." I fully believe that her manager sexually harassed her and should have faced much harsher consequences, but it's almost inconceivable that HR would frame her options this way. No doubt she feared retribution, but…

Please try to get better at conceiving things, it's important. This is totally plausible given the rest of the extremely credible account.

> Please try to get better at conceiving things, it's important.

Snotty replies probably don't have the effect you intend.

The author was brave to write this, and the article is important.

My negative post was probably unwarranted, but it was only meant as stylistic criticism, not to cast doubt on her credibility. There are several quotes that seem paraphrased in a way that benefits her point of view. Another example: her manager says he won't order the women's jackets because they cost "a little more than the men's jackets." Did he really say they cost a little more? Or did he say they cost more? People rarely add superfluous adjectives that weaken their own argument.

This probably seems like I'm nitpicking, and I am. Maybe her manager really did say they'd only cost "a little bit more," and maybe HR suggested the idea that her manager would probably give her a bad review. I don't know. But if not, my point is this: if you're writing as damning an account as this, you can afford to write it neutrally, particularly when a sentence that begins with "He said...", "They said...", etc. It will actually come off stronger.

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

#555

Post by m0zzie »

rstuart4133 wrote: post #370
m0zzie wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are seeing the exact same thing here in Australia. An app called GoCatch which was a taxis-only app for around 5 years but moved into the ride share market last year. It used to be very difficult to get one of their cars in Sydney, but now I can get one most times I try. Many people seem to like the idea of a locally-owned company versus the tax-dodging (in their eyes) juggernaut from overseas.

So GoCatch works well now? I must give it another go. There is very little price difference between Taxi's and Uber here, and recently the Taxi companies have changed their tune from "it's all so unfair" to "we can and will adapt and compete". Interesting times ...

Yeah I'd say it's significantly better than it was 6 months ago. It's my go-to every time now. Very occasionally still get a driver that isn't great (no different to Uber) but I just rate them and move along. I do still have an active Uber account but to be honest I guess I fall into the category of trying to support the local guys, so I aim to exclusively use GC and just use Uber when I'm in a bind (ie. no GC private cars or taxis around)

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

#556

Post by holografix »

pbiggar wrote: post #403
holografix wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fellow Australian I must add that in three separate occasions, at two distinct tech companies, I have seen people be terminated immediatelly following a complaint of this nature to HR. These were men and women in high management positions and by immediately I mean within 48 hours or a fortnight or so in a bullying case.

Who was fired? The victim or the harasser?

The perpetrator was fired

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

#557

Post by damosneeze »

Interesting to note that Uber has scheduled an "Uber Women in Engineering & Leadership Conference". I noticed this last year, and it was supposed to happen in November 2016. They bumped it to February 2017, before bumping it again to December 2017. Coincidence?

https://www.meetup.com/UberEvents/events/230301225/

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

#558

Post by adrienne »

jordigh wrote: post #339

> how sometimes certain people of certain genders and ethnic backgrounds were better suited for some jobs than others What the ever-loving fuck. They're talking about programming computers. HR at the company actually hinted that your ethnic background or gender can make you better at computers?

Why wouldn't they? I'm pretty sure a majority of Hacker News commenters believe that bullshit, too, and many of them are quite happy to say it here over and over again.

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

#560

Post by DelaneyM »

I hate stories like this, because there's such an easy solution: hire more women.

Nobody should ever have to work with a single-gender reporting tree; in the five or so steps between each individual contributor and the CTO there should be at least one woman.

It's not an impossible, or even implausible, goal. Throw a little money at it and widen the funnel, and you'll find plenty of absolutely incredible women. It's even self-perpetuating - each woman brings a network of peers to the table and makes further recruiting that much easier.

But that first hire is a doozy... I've turned down jobs in the valley before because I'd be the only woman in my org (it was only a tie-breaking factor, but a big one.)

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