
Sexism at Uber from Female Management - clayallsopp
https://medium.com/@contactkeala/sexism-at-uber-from-female-management-uberstory-238874075bbb#.o8ckyc6az
======
brilliantcode
Usually toxic work environments are a symptom of an underlying issue-they
resemble the people who created it. Even if they are nice, grossly overlooking
toxic individuals might be part of a results over process type of mentality.

Another possibility is Uber is fucked and people are kicking the can down the
road based on chauvinism. Reading her nightmare reminds me of this quote from
The Sopranos.

 _" Money flows uphill, shit flows downhill."_ \- Tony Soprano

We all know how DiMeo crime fmaily met it's fate. While great at navigating
diplomacy and making a thriving organization, Tony's downfall was not
realizing eventually the shit no longer has any room to flow downwards and the
leader finds themselves neck deep in it before it's too late.

~~~
RickS
During my exit from a previous employer over a CEO whose sexual misconduct
makes Uber look like the ACLU, one of our investors gave me the advice that
"the CEO sets the culture". The context there was that if the CEO and I didn't
see eye to eye on something, that was never going to change while this person
was CEO.

In the time since, I've found that advice to be so reliably true that it's one
of the core things I use when deciding employers. A kind, pragmatic, ego-free
CEO is mandatory for a culture that values the same. Likewise, the personality
flaws in a CEO will propagate downward through the staff because everyone
looks up to the CEO to signal what does and doesn't fly.

Anecdotally, I expect that Uber will not change while Travis is employed
there, and as long as he makes more money than the lawsuits cost, (most of)
his investors will find that perfectly agreeable.

~~~
zaidf
_...if the CEO and I didn 't see eye to eye on something, that was never going
to change while this person was CEO._

This advice may be reliably true but I would also argue there are major
exceptions. For example, take founder & ceo of any billion dollar company and
you will find that they evolved drastically (in good and bad ways) over the
years. Zuckerberg has radically transformed himself from an immature frat boy
to a charitable, intelligent billionaire CEO. I am sure people who have known
him over some period of time would disagree with your investor's line of
thinking.

~~~
RickS
Totally agree with your point about zuckerberg. Zuckerburg evolved over time,
but the culture did not, to my knowledge, radically diverge from zuckerberg.
Facebook as a whole made that same cultural journey to maturity, which I think
only reenforces the point.

Re: "founders can change" \- I don't think it's the role of the staff to wait
around while a guy spends years in management learning not to be a dick. If
they put up with it, and it happens, fine that's great, but it doesn't impact
the linkage between CEO and culture.

~~~
smallgovt
I don't think anyone will deny the linkage between CEO and culture. The prior
comment was pointing out that CEO's can change, and culture will change
alongside, hence refuting this statement "that was never going to change while
this person was CEO."

~~~
RickS
Fair point.

------
armandososa
How do you know (asking seriously, since I work alone 99% of the time) when
somebody is sexist (or any other _ist_ ) or if he/she is just a generally
unpleasant person?

Also, I got to say that if I'm in the same room with a woman who has a very
visible cleavage I will look into the ceiling to avoid even the vague notion
that I'm looking into their breasts.

~~~
stagbeetle
> _How do you know (asking seriously, since I work alone 99% of the time) when
> somebody is sexist (or any other ist) or if he /she is just a generally
> unpleasant person?_

Neither is mutually exclusive or objective. Someone can be sexist and be a
pleasant person and someone can be an unpleasant person, but not sexist.

Similarly, someone can be unpleasant and racist to one person, but be pleasant
and not racist to another.

There's not solid way to determine these things. If you're not in a position
where you're being scrupulously watched over for signs of being an _ist,_ then
just try to be a good person instead of being not a sexist, or not a racist.

> _Also, I got to say that if I 'm in the same room with a woman who has a
> very visible cleavage I will look into the ceiling to avoid even the vague
> notion that I'm looking into their breasts._

That sounds more like social anxiety/ conditioning.

------
omouse
Surprise surprise, managers behave badly and it doesn't matter what their
background is.

Usually engineers have to go through rigorous interviews; maybe it's time that
was stepped up for managers with better behavioural questions.

~~~
bgun
Or stop promoting engineers to management roles they aren't educated for or
socially prepared for.

~~~
kchoudhu
But that results in MBA culture! ::nerd shudders::

It's a source of constant amazement to me that people who will drill
incessantly on red-black trees won't put in a modicum of effort to learn even
a little bit about the inherently more complicated business of managing
people.

~~~
voidlogic
>It's a source of constant amazement to me that people who will drill
incessantly on red-black trees won't put in a modicum of effort to learn even
a little bit about the inherently more complicated business of managing
people.

This isn't really an issue if you promote an engineer to mgmt when they have
demonstrated that can manage people, rather than before and assume they can
grow.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
There's an alternative: put them in management and enforce mandatory
management training.

A former employer of mine had a rule that anyone at a "management level"
(including engineers of a certain rank, even if they weren't actually managing
anyone) had to complete a set of training courses within a certain period of
being promoted. As an engineer entering management, I found the courses to be
surprisingly useful in terms of understanding and managing people and so did
others. Classes like communication, negotiation, basic finance, employment
law, etc.

Then HR decided they were useless and stopped offering them. And they went
back to the state the GP is complaining about...

~~~
voidlogic
>There's an alternative: put them in management and enforce mandatory
management training.

IMHO, I think your faulty assumption here is every good engineer can be
trained into a good manager, and I think thats just not realistic...

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I'm not assuming anything: I'm saying that there's an answer to the question
of how you put an untrained person into an unfamiliar environment: train them.

Whether or not a good/bad X can be retrained into a bad/good Y is a wholly
different question.

------
jedberg
Protip for all the younger workers out there:

HR is not there to protect you or help you. They are there to protect the
company. Sometimes protecting the company happens to mean helping you, and
sometimes the HR people are good people who look for solutions that makes
everyone happy. But don't count on it.

~~~
mi100hael
That's not wrong, but it seems like in these recent cases, HR has done a
terrible job protecting Uber from liability and lawsuits.

~~~
vkou
It has, however, done a great job of protecting its managers (At the expense
of the company.)

That's what happens when you let the clowns run the asylum.

~~~
gotofritz
Hey, those clowns _built_ that asylum!

------
hellcow
Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't see anything that the manager is
doing wrong. We can debate whether the manager is effective at her job, but it
seems clear to me this is not an example of sexism.

The only citation I can find relevant to the claim of sexism is that she was
asked not to wear a tank-top to work. It may very well be that a tank-top is
inappropriate attire at Uber's workplace. At IBM and many other companies, it
certainly would be inappropriate, and it doesn't sound out of place at all for
a manager to ask an employee to wear more professional clothing.

The employee writing this is openly hostile to HR about her manager and for
reasons I can't understand. "All of the insolence and harassment I face has
damaged my views of Uber and made it really difficult to continue working
here." Because she was asked to work at her desk and not wear a tank-top?

~~~
huffmsa
Easy fix:

Mandatory dress codes. Men in suit, with tie from the time you enter the
office until the time you leave. Women in suits, pants or skirts.

Or go whole hog and require everyone to wear grey coveralls when in office.

Institutions with dress codes generally have less BS distractions because the
distractions simply can't exist.

~~~
mahyarm
If tech companies were to ever have a dress code, it would be jeans, a graphic
tee and a full sleeve hoodie. Or a collared shirt. The hoodie might still be
required.

~~~
huffmsa
Because IBM wasn't a tech company who's (unofficial) uniform was blue suit,
white shirt, red tie, brown wingtips for nearly two decades.

Come now child, learn your history.

------
tomp
So... Tina's an asshole/jerk/bitch, but where's the sexism?! (I'm not
disputing sexism in Susan Fowler's case.)

~~~
MBCook
The comments about the tank top were blatant sexism. The rest just seemed like
terrible management.

~~~
caminante
I'm struggling to understand how that's sexism.

Can you explain your criteria for sexism? (I'm asking in good faith.)

~~~
neutronicus
"Tina" is preying on the author's nascent anxieties about how her male co-
workers perceive her body, clothing choices, etc. It's a form of harassment
that's pretty obviously tailored to the author's gender (how many men report
anxieties about being taken less seriously because they show too much skin?).

The modern use of the word "sexism" includes gender-tailored harassment. It's
a broader term nowadays than just "holding a belief that women are worse at
X".

~~~
caminante
I also don't think sexism is limited to gender1 < gender2.

That said, I think you're argument's too broad. If you want to call it
harrassment, call it harrassment, but I don't get sexism.

> (how many men report anxieties about being taken less seriously because they
> show too much skin?).

How many guys wear tank tops at work? Some do. In order for your criteria to
be consistent, you're saying that if a man were to wear a tank top at Uber and
his boss told him not to wear a tank top, that it'd be sexist? I think that's
what you're saying. If so, that's a slippery slope as it would lead to ALL
dress codes being discriminatory.

~~~
catshirt
> In order for your criteria to be consistent, you're saying that if a man
> were to wear a tank top at Uber and his boss told him not to wear a tank
> top, that it'd be sexist?

no... the exact opposite. it's sexist because, _presumably_ , the manager
would not try to reprimand and/or embarrass a male for a tank top.

to neutronicus' broader point though, i can't imagine anyone ever making these
remarks to a male at all. because there are double standards when it comes to
dress and skin. not trying to get political... like, there's no social
expectation for men to hide their breasts at the beach.

"gender-tailored" is apt. it wouldn't even cross someones mind to say this
stuff to a guy.

------
cromulent
All this reminds me of the Australian Army's response to this kind of thing.
"The standard you walk past is the standard you accept." Not sure if it worked
but it was a compelling talk.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaqpoeVgr8U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaqpoeVgr8U)

------
nanodano
All of those things she lists are not really sexism. The only one that even
comes close is the lady telling her not to wear a tank top. Honestly, I agree
too. I think tank tops are not appropriate office attire. This girl just needs
to grow up and learn that her appearance does matter. I feel like her manager
was actually giving her some good life advice and being real with her.

~~~
watwut
Comes from culture which celebrates dudes who refused ties and oftentimes is
proud of not trusting people in business wear (e.g. tie).

I mean it seriously, if everyone wears business, then it is what it is. If you
wear flip flops and metal t-shit, thensuring female street wear should be fine
too.

Besides that, tech culture seems to be all proud about rejecting attire
formalities and about business being stupid for insisting on them.

------
thehardsphere
Is this what happens when a company gets too large too fast? I've only worked
at small companies that would not be able to afford the waste generated by a
manager like this Tina character. (Who has time for 6 hours of meetings?)

I mean, I can imagine that characters like Tina existing in the world, hiring
them, promoting them to management, and then learning that they have problems
like this. It's hard to screen for these sorts of personalities a priori, and
it can be difficult to fire them quickly also once that problems start
manifesting. That could happen anywhere.

What's particularly odd about these stories coming out from Uber is that there
are so many of them in a single company.

I'm not sure culture itself explains it. Even if you assume that "Uber has an
evil culture", you would think that they would still be incentivized to keep
turnover caused by bad management down.

~~~
karlkatzke
> What's particularly odd about these stories coming out from Uber is that
> there are so many of them in a single company.

No, it's not. When toxic ideas are given a place at a company, only people who
are toxic will embrace the toxic ideas enough to survive as managers. The non-
toxic people either knuckle under, but don't fully "live the values" of the
company, which shows. Or, they leave or are "managed out" of the organization.

Toxic management seems to happen when a company's management lives in an echo
chamber made up of only themselves, and more than one member of that group has
a personality disorder.

I had a similar experience with, sadly, a company with whom Y-Combinator
leaders are still involved. The words "If you don't want to work in the way we
want to work, you should just leave right this minute in good grace or you'll
lose the fight and you'll be unemployable" (said in a meeting, by a C-level
leader, in answer to an innocuous and helpful question) still echo in my mind.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Plus, problems like this are known by many but talked about by few. One person
goes public, and that triggers years of similar experiences that have been
built up suddenly flooding out.

------
crazy1van
Regarding the tank top comments, this is why companies have company policies
regarding things like dress code. It's different to have a policy that applies
to everyone (eg, no sleeveless tops) vs selectively admonishing one person's
clothes.

------
siculars
Why aren't managers graded on retention? If you lose too many people you're
penalized or fired.

~~~
techthroway443
Perhaps because it's a poor indicator of performance. There's a lot more
factors at play when people quit than just "i hate my boss"

~~~
rco8786
That's a pretty huge factor though. It's definitely something that should be
taken into account.

------
Marconium
Let's face it, some clothes that women wear are distracting for men, including
a tank top. It is an animal instinct to look at beautiful women and be
attracted to them. It is like putting a chocolate infront of you and saying
you cannot eat it. Of course, you will resist but it will make focusing harder
for you.

~~~
raarts
A tank top doesn't make a woman beautiful. It makes some women more attractive
yes. If you are too distracted by it, it's you who are to blame for lack of
self control. Find ways around that, it's called character building you'll
find it useful in life in general.

~~~
Marconium
Well, good for you if you are perfect and there is nothing that distracts you
but willpower is a limited resource and self-control consumes that resource.
Try it yourself and put something that attracts you in front of you and start
working. It will lower your productivity.

~~~
raarts
Self control can be practiced. Do not blame her for waring a tank top. It's
better to try to grow as a person and not remove everything that challenges
your personality from your surroundings.

Also she has freedom too. A tank top is not out of the ordinary.

~~~
Marconium
If I stop wash and I will smell bad. Should I ask my colleagues to develop
self-control and just ignore my smell?

If something is distracting for people around you, it is very selfish to ask
them to change.

By distracting things I mean things that are rooted in our biology. Not things
that are opinion based.

~~~
cholantesh
Given that there are more physiological indicator that a person doesn't wash
themselves, let alone there is a legitimate impact on health and safety when
someone refuses to do so, it should be clear that this is not even close to
being an apples to apples comparison.

------
gens
Seems to me that your manager is more an asshole and/or idiot then sexist.

------
emanrocks89
Definitely not defending Uber here - but does anyone else notice that the
people who are complaining are usually the people who don't come from
traditional computer science backgrounds? Susan has a Physics degree, and this
individual has a psychology degree with a bootcamp past. My experience with
bootcamps graduates aren't that great, so maybe there's a chance the managers
aren't happy with their performance, hence the behavior.

~~~
xiaq
But the recruitment bar for everyone is roughly the same, no? If non-CS
graduates generally are worse (which might be true), only the best of them get
hired.

This only makes sense if interviewers __prefer __non-CS graduates.

~~~
emanrocks89
Yes, the hiring bar is the same. But as many of us know, the coding interview
can be passed with practice so bad engineers are practically indistinguishable
from good engineers with extensive amount of practice. The real issues come
from when these bootcamp grads are in the workforce when the problems aren't
so black and white.

------
qaq
This particular situation would be tough at any company as they would be
reluctant to let "Tina" go as it would scew their numbers even worse given the
ratio of female/male eng. in management roles. Also a person with that type of
attitude is very likely to retaliate against the company.

------
burrows
>> I know this is completely untrue because I wear this tank top almost every
day and am close with him and members of his team (we eat lunch together and
even go on the occasional run for ice cream).

You wear the same shirt everyday?

~~~
misingnoglic
Is this what you got from the article??

~~~
stagbeetle
Different viewpoints are always encouraged, lest the conversation becomes a
resonance chamber.

------
socrates1998
Why do talented, or at least competent, software engineers stick around when
they are treated like this?

I left jobs for a lot less than what this person went through.

I hope she gets a better job soon and I am glad all these stories are coming
out now.

~~~
st3v3r
After a while, it beats you down, and you feel so bad that you can't leave.
You kinda feel you aren't deserving of working in a respectful environment.

This is aside from other things like not feeling like you can get another job,
or having bills/bonuses that you'd have to repay, etc.

~~~
MBCook
It can also feel normal. Based on what you've been exposed to you might not
realize how bad it is or that you're not supposed to behave that way.

Young people who started careers at Uber may not even realize how odd this is
compared to a normal or 'good' company.

------
user5994461
> In my time there, I saw malicious fights for power, interns repeatedly
> putting in over 100 hours a week but only getting paid for 40

Let's repeat one more time, don't do 100 hours week, you'll never get paid for
it.

~~~
ndirish1842
While I don't doubt the rest of the article, I will say as a former Uber
intern (this past summer) the vast majority of us were not overworked. I (and
most of my fellow Uber interns) worked between 40-50 hours a week, and we were
paid hourly (with overtime being paid at 1.5x base pay).

~~~
user5994461
50 hours => 10 hours of overtime

Or 15 if you're in one of the lazy European countries, like France.

------
oculusthrift
It really is insane to think this type of stuff could go on for so long at
such a prominent company. It's amazing that it didn't come out sooner.

~~~
MBCook
Money hides _all sorts of problems_. Nothing would have ever happened to
Madoff if the economy didn't tank and thus break his pyramid scheme. A company
can be _incredibly dysfunctional_ and if they're in a lucrative enough market
they can still be 'successful'.

------
edblarney
These are possibly fair gripes, but they're not at all uncommon in the rest of
the world, even outside of tech.

'My manager doesn't respect me'. Well ... my bet is that 20% of the entire
world feels this way.

'Banned from other offices'?

Most companies have many offices and they usually expect people to work
primarily from their own workspace.

I worked in a fortune 50 with many offices and I was not allowed to work
remotely or from some other building, unless meetings etc. That said, maybe
the rule is applied unfairly? But it's conceivably entirely within the
managers authority to do that.

As for the 'tank top' ... that one's tricky. But no female in my F50 work
experience ever wore a tank top. There was no dress code, they just didn't do
it. There are many places wherein it definitely would not be allowed. That's a
tricky one ... I think it would have mostly to do with what was 'the norm' a
the company, and what role is being played, in what context. But yeah, it's
tricky.

------
redsummer
Some people seem obsessed with tank tops.

------
OJFord
That's an appalling email. Even if the author has been wronged, I wouldn't
expect any good to come out of something like that...

------
Arizhel
>During that same meeting, we gave “anonymous feedback” on Post-it notes. She
read off each Post-it and addressed each person that wrote the “anonymous
feedback” if she knew who it was. She has done this multiple times, and each
time it makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable. The “anonymous” part of the
feedback must be lost on her.

This sorta happened to me once in high school, in 10th grade English class.
Our teacher (a highly religious female), near the end of the school year, had
us write down our comments and criticisms anonymously. One big complaint a
bunch of people had was how she talked a lot about her religion and church
experiences in class. Being a public school, even though it was close to the
Bible Belt, it was inappropriate and a lot of students were uncomfortable with
this, and apparently commented about it (I was one of them). So she addressed
this in the next class, defending herself and also commenting that she knew
who many of the commenters were by their handwriting. So much for anonymity.

I believe some people complained to the administration, because she wasn't
there the next year.

It's really strange how people in a position of power will solicit "anonymous"
feedback, and then when they don't like the criticism will figure out how to
identify the complainers and use that against them.

Anyway, the problem I have with this "sexism" claim here is that this anecdote
doesn't seem to paint Uber itself in a bad light at all, and doesn't even have
any complaints about bad behavior by any men (did I miss something?). It just
complains about a single female boss. She sounds like a horrible boss, to be
sure, but a crappy female boss telling you to not wear a tank top isn't really
what I think of when I hear about a company that has a "culture of sexism".
All the complaints this woman has are about this one boss, that's it, and also
probably HR's refusal to do anything about it.

Honestly, this doesn't surprise me at all about the boss, and I don't think
it's indicative of a major "sexism" problem within Uber, just another data
point showing how crappy their management and especially HR are, but that's
not a problem unique to Uber at all. Personally, I'll bet that the female boss
isn't as pretty as this woman, or somehow views her as a threat. I've heard
tons of stories about women in the workplace attacking other women, and many
of these I heard from my now ex-wife (who I'm on good terms with). She has a
bunch of stories about being singled out for abuse not from men, but other
women, probably because she was prettier than them and didn't play their
stupid social games. She had coworkers literally verbally attack her
(screaming at her even), and even though she didn't do anything to instigate
this or escalate or even respond, she'd get called into HR and treated as
though she had started the problem somehow. (Other coworkers would then
testify in her defense that the other woman was nuts, and then HR would then
just tell her to "try to get along" and that "Julie is a little touchy" or
some BS like that, instead of actually dealing with the toxic employee.)
Strangely, she has no stories of abuse from men in the civilian workplace, but
she was in the Air Force for a little while and had a few problems there,
including an attempted rape (by someone she thought was a friend) wherein she
stabbed the guy in the abdomen with her keys, but overall got along just fine
with both men and women and got a bunch of commendations. But when she moved
to the civilian world, she had no end of trouble with female coworkers and
useless women in HR.

------
safeandsound
The anonymous thing is really messed up. The manager sounds super
unprofessional and shouldn't be a manager.

------
thewhitetulip
While reading the account, it seems the Manager is from India perhaps?

Edit: I am an Indian and it is a big deal in India to wear "revealing
clothes", albeit I have no idea what a tank top is neither do I care

Just FYI do you don't assume that I am a sexist and downvote me.

------
SadWebDeveloper
So she is working at infosec for uber and wears defcon tank tops.... skiddie
spotted.

------
pascalxus
Is Uber the next Amazon?

~~~
RickS
Amazon has some notoriously harsh environments, but my understanding is
they're harsh due to (perhaps unreasonable) work rigor, rather than issues
with sexual harassment by management, yes?

------
imaginenore
None of what she described is sexism. Even the tank top thing, maybe barely.
Her manager made a good point - maybe her career isn't progressing as fast,
because she dresses very casually, and people don't take her as seriously. I
don't think I've ever seen a girl in tech wear a tank top (not that I would
mind, just pointing it out).

~~~
zepto
Yeah - males have to wear a coat and tie in order to be taken seriously in
tech companies - why should it be different with women?

Oh wait...

~~~
imaginenore
Are you saying it's not true for the males? In most big corporations you're
required to ear a shirt and formal pants. Some require ties.

~~~
zepto
I don't know if it's true at Uber, but uber is not a typical big corporations
and it's often not true at startups.

My point is that it can certainly be sexism depending on the company in
question.

------
dustinmoris
If I'd be an engineer or manager at Uber now I'd quit before this whole thing
blows up in their face. If you leave now then you can credibly distant
yourself from this shit show, but afterwards it will be much more difficult.

If you've got Uber on your CV I would not hire you, no matter how talented you
are. No talent is worth the risk of poisoning the team and potentially driving
out my other talents.

~~~
xbeta
> If you've got Uber on your CV I would not hire you, no matter how talented
> you are. No talent is worth the risk of poisoning the team and potentially
> driving out my other talents.

Or perhaps 90% of the Uber folks just simply force to stay because they are
bound by immigration, etc. I don't think "will never hire X from Y because of
poisoning Z" will always stand.

I have heard that from many individual said similar comments such as "will not
hire from Amazon, will not hire from FB, will not hire from MSFT", but as the
company grows, you don't even got that choice. Because recruiters will find
them and will get them in. Can you say that to every hire you made in a
company with the size of 10000+ ?

