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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

#691

Post by Philadelphia »

Baeocystin wrote: post #665
scrollaway wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With rare exceptions, I'm a non-drinker. Nowhere in Europe have I ever had an issue ordering a coke instead of an alcoholic drink, even when hanging out with people getting completely shitfaced. Is this seriously a thing in the US? Feeling like you have to drink if you're surrounded by people drinking? I keep hearing stories like that. Nobody is going to judge you for not consuming alcohol - if anyone does, they're c…

It's not a problem for anyone other than the overly self-conscious, who are looking for reasons to explain their anxiety. Literally no one cares.

I was once rejected from a job interview at a DC startup because I didn't order a beer when they took me to lunch.

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

#692

Post by genericpseudo »

flukus wrote: post #688
jaxn wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once received a bottle of wine as a Christmas bonus from the founders of the small startup I worked at. I was the only person on the the who didn't drink and was pretty offended. Especially since it was well known that I didn't drink since this company celebrated "beer thirty" every Friday.

Well known you never drank or well known you didn't drink at work?

There is very little good that can happen when a company serves or provides mind-altering drugs to its employees. That includes alcohol.

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

#693

Post by DelaneyM »

macintux wrote: post #649
DelaneyM wrote: post #560

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 e…

Given how poorly she was treated by women in HR, and how many women left Uber per her statistics, I don't think "hire more women" sounds like a solution to their ills.

A woman in HR is still in HR, she's responsible for protecting the company from employees (and not the other way around).

A woman as her boss' boss is responsible for the health & effectiveness of the team, and is likely to be far more aware of the impact these sorts of things have on cohesion and morale.

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

#694

Post by macintux »

DelaneyM wrote: post #693
macintux wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how poorly she was treated by women in HR, and how many women left Uber per her statistics, I don't think "hire more women" sounds like a solution to their ills.

A woman in HR is still in HR, she's responsible for protecting the company from employees (and not the other way around). A woman as her boss' boss is responsible for the health & effectiveness of the team, and is likely to be far more aware of the impact these sorts of things have on cohesion and morale.

To be clear, more women in management is a positive. I just don't think it's sufficient.

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

#695

Post by linkregister »

withdavidli wrote: post #383
jacquesm wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting angle that I had not considered. That money is such a weird thing from another viewpoint as well, it means that Uber doesn't have to perform at all for the next decade or so, they can basically wait out all of their competition. It removes every incentive to actually perform which might be just what it takes to kill them.

>it means that Uber doesn't have to perform at all for the next decade or so more like little over 1 year [0]. Originally wanted to say 2 years, didn't know loss climbed to $3B last year. [0] https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/21/uber-losses-expected-to-hi...

I imagine that the real loss was higher, considering there was "revenue" in the form of selling UberChina.

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

#696

Post by tristor »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #435
Eridrus wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what organising principles should a software developer union have? It's easy to say they could be anything we want it to be, but I'm not sure there's a real consensus on any particular principle. Lots of people who talk about unions seem to value privacy protections for consumers, but there are clearly software developers writing this software who have a different view. Ubers reputation has been trash for almost a…

There are a lot of labor practices that most software developers would agree on changing: unpaid overtime, unreasonable on-call requirements, lack of transparency in equity compensation, unreasonably short windows for exercising vested stock options after leaving the company.

Thanks to the Fair Labor Standards Act, anyone who is a software engineer is exempt from overtime pay as long as they make at least $455/week on a salary basis.[1] Hint, I don't know any software engineers making less than $23660/yr.

It's a heinously stupid regulation, and it's one which was lobbied for heavily by the tech industry to reduce labor costs. But that is the federal law of the US currently, which means yes you can be required to perform unpaid overtime.

[1]: https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17e_computer.pdf

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

#697

Post by Throwadev »

tyingq wrote: post #390
bifocald wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Culture is CEO's responsibility. Period.

The story got picked up by the Verge, and there's a response from Uber's CEO... http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/19/14664474/uber-sexism-alleg...

Typical Travis. Reacting too late, and pretending to care only when a situation threatens revenue.

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

#698

Post by Throwadev »

tedivm wrote: post #162
AsyncAwait wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that due to the perception that they broke the recent anti-Trump taxi strike, rather than their internal work culture?

In the bay area at least a lot of us know at least one or two Uber engineers, and Uber has has an awful reputation around here for a lot longer than the month or so since that strike occurred. As a result of that (plus talking to drivers who work for both services and have strong preferences for Lyft) means that most of my friends were quietly boycotting Uber for years at this point. I have one friend who worked at U…

I also hated the permissions increase they asked for about a month ago. They want to know my location for up to five minutes after I've finished taking a ride with their app? F--- that, uninstalled immediately.

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

#699

Post by Tehnix »

bogomipz wrote: post #654
PaulRobinson wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" Is drinking actually bonding though?

Very much so! Not talking shit-faced, but just normal drinking. It's one of the fastest ways to get to know a person, a lot of people naturally let their guard down, and it provides a casual atmosphere to get to know each other.

It also provides a shared experience that is an easy conversation starter when meeting sober later on "hey, thanks for last night! Where did you end up going after.." etc.

Obviously YMMW, in EU/Denmark it's a very common way to "crash course" people on each other when you suddenly find yourself in a new environment with nobody you know (university, new work). Then again, I'd say EU drinking is a lot more mature than the US one. We usually get introduced to it a lot earlier in life, and have a gentler intro curve rather than going from zero-100 real quick, when entering college or the likes.

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

#700

Post by diminoten »

kevinburke wrote: post #463
diminoten wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's effort, entropy, and uncertainty with changing jobs. My only point was that saying, "Why don't you just get another job?" is just a little dishonest.
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