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Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber

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

#601

Post by ggreer »

true_religion wrote: post #492
Mz wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good comment, but: That being said, I don't know if I'd call "she should sue" victim-blaming, even though the reason is probably about the same. This reminds me of some of the BS I have seen where people insist a woman should prosecute her rapist. One of the problems with this line of reasoning is that it makes it the victim's responsibility to try to right this wrong. What if she just wants to put the whole damn thi…

> This reminds me of some of the BS I have seen where people insist a woman should prosecute her rapist. I was under the impression that criminal cases were pressed by the state, not any given individual. The only thing the state may ask is testimony from the victim. If the victim is unwilling or unable to give that, then the case may just fall apart due to lack of evidence.

That's correct. In a case with a surviving victim, the victim is almost certainly going to take the stand. The 6th amendment to the constitution contains the confrontation clause[1] which says, "…in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right…to be confronted with the witnesses against him." If someone strikes or stabs or shoots you, and that person stands trial, you will be on the witness stand and you will be cross-examined.

Public support for the confrontation clause isn't popular these days, but I am very glad the courts have continued to uphold it. To quote Crawford v. Washington[2], "Dispensing with confrontation because testimony is obviously reliable is akin to dispensing with jury trial because the defendant is obviously guilty."

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confrontation_Clause

2. http://federalevidence.com/pdf/2007/13-SCt/Crawford_v._Washi...

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

#602

Post by user5994461 »

sn9 wrote: post #382
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…

Thinking about the attrition rate of female engineers, I wonder if there's a similar rate of male engineers who leave due to how badly their female colleagues are treated in addition to the other factors listed in this thread and Fowler's piece. If so, that would imply that the engineering culture is being distilled into an evermore toxic workplace, since those who stay are those who make the place toxic or are simpl…

Men can be mistreated and leave on their own, they don't need to have female colleagues suffer.

A lot of what is in this article is not even exclusive to women.

Culture has a long inertia, it replicates and grows by itself. So yes, toxic workplace become ever more toxic and no a toxic culture cannot be improved.

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

#603

Post by home_boi »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #440
bifocald wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem in Uber's engineering orgs is that Uber hired too many people for too few real projects. From what I learned from my friends in Uber, many teams had largely overlapping responsibilities, and therefore created bogus projects to justify their existence. Their standard MO is picking a missing feature in a service, and then creating a new system that implemented that feature. It might be okay if all the…

Woman accuses Uber of systemic misogyny, but, no, "the real problem" is poor project management? So, systemic misogyny not a real problem for you?

There is a difference between misogyny and sexual occurrences. If OP had been a male, she would have had as bad, if not worse experience.

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

#604

Post by jldugger »

pm90 wrote: post #394
rosser wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> HR within companies has never done anything for me when I approached them.... The thing you need to keep in mind about HR is this: they aren't there to help you, to have your back. They're there to protect the company from you . Incidental to that, they've traditionally managed the benefits the company is either required or chooses to give you, and acts as a place for you to take concerns such as sexual harassment.…

How does one protect oneself in cases of sexual impropriety then? This seems like a pretty dangerous flaw. To be completely honest I've always felt that HR has been the "police" of the workplace, there to keep issues like this from getting out of control (as it most certainly did in the case of OP). Now I feel much more exposed...

HR's role is to advise management on how to adhere to labor law. Often times they also handle record keeping for legal purposes, including reporting of sexual harassment. But they're not there to protect you. They're there to protect management from itself.

> How does one protect oneself in cases of sexual impropriety then?

Document, document, document. Not because you're going to sue, but because this is rarely a 1-off situation and when the class action comes around you will be prepared with ammunition.

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

#605

Post by aioprisan »

nostrademons wrote: post #542
YPCrumble wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame that he condones harassment until it reaches the top of hacker news.

It's also going viral on Facebook and getting picked up by media; I've had 4 Facebook friends share it in the last couple hours, and my wife (not in tech) was just reading it.

It's now on CNN, CNBC, the New York Times, and pretty much everywhere else.

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

#606

Post by cjhanks »

SwellJoe wrote: post #460
cjhanks wrote: post #379

'I pointed out that I was publishing a book with O'Reilly, speaking at major tech conferences, and doing all of the things that you're supposed to do to have an "upward career trajectory", but they said it didn't matter and I needed to prove myself as an engineer.' Maybe that's why she didn't get a promotion. Personally, I have had colleagues attempt similar things. When they embark on these external endeavors they h…

That's a bizarre and backward way to look at it. In a growth company, employees provide value in a lot of indirect, but important, ways. Having employees speak at conferences is a very common recruiting tactic; often, good people are at conferences, and when they hear about a great company to work for with smart people who give good talks, they want to work there, too. Books are similar. Reading Site Reliability Engi…

I suppose my in my life I have found people with ~20 months of real-world experience who write books about technical topics in domains which are well understood... are kind of problematic.

Sure, sending out your experts with 5+ years experience in a specific field is great evangelism. But that's not what's being discussed here.

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

#607

Post by Eridrus »

rdtsc wrote: post #576
logandavis wrote: post #69

By all indications, Uber has a toxic work culture that costs them both top talent and organizational velocity. I'm a college senior at a well-regarded engineering school. My CS classmates - especially women - simply do not apply to Uber, in large part because of its reputation for internal misogyny and general assholery. Four classmates interned there last summer, and as far as I know none are interested in returning…

> My CS classmates - especially women - simply do not apply to Uber, The sad thing is why do men want to apply there after what is know about it? I wouldn't want to be near any company that treats any of their employees like that.

A friend of mine worked there for less of a year, turns out he didn't realise they had a shitty reputation before joining...

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

#608

Post by brudgers »

tarr11 wrote: post #591
brudgers wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HR already investigated. Putting the Chief Human Resource Officer in charge implies what the investigation will conclude: rouge employees. Because if it was institutional, the CHRO would be responsible. Then again, it isn't a commitment to cleaning out HR beyond anyone there who says, 'Oh I think it is ok.' And the whole 'thinking' thing is a way of backing off under the cover of 'We don't want to be thought police.'…

Looks like the CHRO was hired in November.

If the investigation was serious, chief council or the CEO would be doing it. The new hire provides more cover for the rouge employees conclusion by providing a plausible 'it did not happen on my watch'. C-level positions hit the ground running and the sort of events described in the article are bread and butter regardless of industry. After three months there's no way this was a blind side.

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

#609

Post by voltagex_ »

m0zzie wrote: post #299
soneca wrote: post #167

In São Paulo, where I live, taxi apps appeared a couple of years before Uber entering the market. It took the market by storm, so every single cab had to be in at least one the two major apps (Easytaxi and 99taxi). It was easy, fast and safe to call a cab anytime. But it was still expensive. Uber came with its black cars. No one bothered. But Uber came with UberX and then Uber pool. It was a revolution, 50% cheaper.…

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.

GoCatch seemed to me to be a response to pretty terrible taxi dispatch.

Slowly, at least where I live, the dispatches for companies are being merged and centralised, often to places far away.

One of the cab companies here has moved away from the Windows Mobile (?) based terminal to just issuing a phone/tablet with an app that looks like it's from about 2001, but the drivers seem to like it.

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

#610

Post by aioprisan »

minimaxir wrote: post #414

Travis Kalanick's response: https://twitter.com/travisk/status/833480964315557888 > 1/ What's described here is abhorrent & against everything we believe in. Anyone who behaves this way or thinks this is OK will be fired. > 2/ I've instructed our CHRO Liane to conduct an urgent investigation. There can be absolutely no place for this kind of behavior at Uber.

Please note that Kalanick didn't take responsibility for this or said that the buck stops with him, but rather instructed the head of HR to investigate something that systematically took place in the organization for years: protecting high output engineers for the sake of valuations and their IPO. If that doesn't reek of rotten culture, what does?
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