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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

#871

Post by socksy »

facepalm wrote: post #821
kevinburke wrote: post #820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My "data" is every woman I know in tech sharing this story with a comment like, "A version of this happened to me" or "I know so many people who have had this happen to them." Also multiple stories of women reporting harassment and being forced out of companies, as well as multiple women I know signing NDA's as a condition of receiving severance pay to avoid discussing a company's poor treatment or management of hara…

Then don't write "I guess it is common", state the number of women who told you such things. Personally I haven't heard many such stories from women in tech. Also differentiate between some colleague being interested in them and boss proposing sex on first day.

Have you tried asking them? It feels vaguely ridiculous to expect hard data and facts on things of "people told me". I know I have female friends who have told me similar stories, but I couldn't for the life of me remember how many, nor would I want to start iterating these anecdotes to a stranger on the internet. In exactly the same way it would be to start statistically analysing any other statement on "people told me [x]".

As for the latter, putting lines in the sand is a good way to be seen as not wanting to listen... I'm not saying that's what you're doing in this case, just how it comes across. Like, you've decided in advance what you want the result from the discussion to be, and no woman will be able to cross whatever standard you've chosen for inappropriate propositions (even when this is totally untrue).

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

#872

Post by tptacek »

mysticmarvel wrote: post #814
tptacek wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only is this true, but the NLRA also bars employer retaliation against concerted actions by employees both to organize and also to take actions in protest of work conditions. It's a huge exception to at-will employment. I had no idea about any of this stuff until I started talking to the Tech Solidarity people. I'd always thought the reason nobody goes on strike is that you'd simply be fired for doing so. But, no…

This is all totally true. It is also totally true that you are not squeaky clean in your employment (never been late once? Never missed a deadline?), and that your performance management targets are set by the people against whom you are protesting. You can be performance managed out of a position in months, even if your right to protest is protected and you are literally a Saint in the workplace. I'm not saying it's…

So, I believe this, but what gives me comfort here is having seen companies try to performance-manage people out (for legit reasons!) and fail because of protected-class problems. As soon as you can credibly allege retaliation, your case gets 100x more expensive to dispose of. In two companies, one of which I had a senior role at at the time, I've seen the companies cave and pay out to make them go away.

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

#873

Post by Paul-ish »

1024core wrote: post #293
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…

> If an Uber recruiter contacts you, bring this up and tell them their nonfunctioning HR department makes working for their company a non starter. This. Companies don't change until there's a huge price to be paid for not changing. When top recruits start turning down Uber because of their sexist policies/politics, then Uber will be forced to change.

In addition, the only people left at Uber will be people who think this behavior is acceptable. In that case, it will only be a matter of time before there is a lawsuit.

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

#874

Post by kentt »

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 believe I was rejected after a job interview because of not drinking.

Another boss I had any a different job told me he fired someone for not partying with everyone else. If you went to these parties and didn't drink, the boss would harass you all night.

I agree with you that many people are just self conscious, but it's not exclusively that way.

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

#875

Post by rdiddly »

67726e wrote: post #863
Steuard wrote: post #858

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Party A accuses Party B of misconduct and Party B claims that the accusation is false (explicitly or implicitly), then someone is lying. If you aim to be nobly impartial until compelling evidence is available, the logically appropriate response is not "assume the story is false" but "assume the truth of the story is unknown". There's no purely logical reason to treat one story or the other as the one that should b…

Until you have proved something has happened, it must be assumed that it did not happen. There is no reason to assume something is true just because someone claims it happened. Especially when it is a claim that can severely damage reputations, livelihoods, and lives.

There is also no reason to assume something is false just because someone claims it happened. It's irrational to assume ANYTHING about a claim, was the point. But okay, I'll start assuming everything is false. Starting with your comment.

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

#876

Post by tptacek »

tristor wrote: post #696
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ye…

Note that you can cease to be exempt if your employer begins treating you as if you were hourly and not salaried --- for instance, docking your pay in small increments, for instance because you went on strike for half a day.

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

#877

Post by trjordan »

rosser wrote: post #217
unityByFreedom wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That speaks to me. After salary negotiations, HR within companies has never done anything for me when I approached them. They seemed to be there only to defend the boss and register me as a complainer. It took me several jobs and this post to learn that.

> 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.…

This is true, but I think you've overstating HR's loyalty to other individuals in the company.

When an employees places a complaint against another employee, neither of those parties is "the company", even when one is in management. If the subject of the complaint is breaking laws, HR (who has the company's back) is rightfully incentivized to show that person the door. That person is a liability, and the company will have to pay if it is sued for that individual's behavior.

If you're running the HR to mediate a personal fight, sure, there's a decent chance they'll side with the person with more organizational clout. But if you're bringing to light evidence of legal wrongdoing, HR is _absolutely_ supposed to be on your side. The company needs to know that, and protecting the company looks like firing the offending party.

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

#878

Post by tptacek »

patio11 wrote: post #630
tptacek wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does not square even a little bit with the software employment market I'm familiar with, not only in California but in the Midwest. If you believe that H1-B employees are abused in software development shops, that's all the more reason to organize.

I think we're getting a bit of a "you see a trunk, I see a tail" view of a very large elephant here. Think of the most scutwork of scutwork programming jobs in the industry, or even quasi-programming quasi-IT jobs like, I don't know, Sharepoint administrator at a regional insurance carrier or line programmer at a university (where most projects are "execute a SQL query to get a list of students in a particular course…

I acknowledge that there are portions of the industry dominated by outsourced/offshore workers.

What I don't acknowledge is that the parts of the industry that aren't offshored are suddenly going to become offshored as a reaction to labor organization. The idea that strikers will be replaced with H1-Bs is a hollow threat.

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

#879

Post by Steuard »

67726e wrote: post #863
Steuard wrote: post #858

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Party A accuses Party B of misconduct and Party B claims that the accusation is false (explicitly or implicitly), then someone is lying. If you aim to be nobly impartial until compelling evidence is available, the logically appropriate response is not "assume the story is false" but "assume the truth of the story is unknown". There's no purely logical reason to treat one story or the other as the one that should b…

Until you have proved something has happened, it must be assumed that it did not happen. There is no reason to assume something is true just because someone claims it happened. Especially when it is a claim that can severely damage reputations, livelihoods, and lives.

Treating someone as a liar, however tentatively, can also severely damage reputations, livelihoods, and lives. There is not a neutral option here. (Or at least, a neutral balance is very delicate and hard to find, and your approach is emphatically not.)

And I will point out that the course you advocate places those consequences on the party who, if truthful, has already suffered harm. That outcome is certainly not better than people assuming bad things, however tentatively, about the target of a false accusation would be.

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

#880

Post by ahh »

tptacek wrote: post #188
unityByFreedom wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? It's literally your right to vote to join a union. If a majority of coworkers vote for one, you've got a union. Look up the National Labor Relations Act.

Not only is this true, but the NLRA also bars employer retaliation against concerted actions by employees both to organize and also to take actions in protest of work conditions. It's a huge exception to at-will employment. I had no idea about any of this stuff until I started talking to the Tech Solidarity people. I'd always thought the reason nobody goes on strike is that you'd simply be fired for doing so. But, no…

Wait a minute, wait a minute: if I just decide I'm not going to work anymore, they can't fire me if I say it's because I'm protesting for higher wages? And they have to keep paying me?
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