
Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber - grey-area
https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber
======
sergiotapia
>On my first official day rotating on the team, my new manager sent me a
string of messages over company chat. He was in an open relationship, he said,
and his girlfriend was having an easy time finding new partners but he wasn't.

Totally normal behavior! Who hasn't spoken about their sex life the very first
day of interactions?

"Welcome to the team, we use Git for source control, all of our company
knowledgebase is on Confluence, and I'm in an open sex relationship! See you
at lunch!"

I can't fathom what kind of weirdo does something like this, male or female.

~~~
kevinburke
I would guess that this happens more often than you imagine. Women often don't
share stories like this for fear of retribution at their current company or
future companies, or because they think you won't believe them. In addition
NDA's are often a condition of receiving severance.

Most women in Silicon Valley have had experiences similar to those mentioned
in the article (HR disbelief, multiple women reporting same man to no effect,
retaliation, legal threats, &c, &c).

The OP probably declined a severance package to write this.

~~~
kbenson
Well, it sounds like she quit, wasn't fired/laid off, so a severence package
probably doesn't apply (although if the rumors about how bad Uber is to work
at are true, perhaps they do offer severance packages to those quitting...).

~~~
kevinburke
I know multiple women at other companies who have been offered severance after
they quit just to keep quiet about how bad things are. Not rare.

------
jacquesm
What's with all the 'this is unbelievable' comments here?

This is absolutely believable, Uber has pretty much made it their standard to
break the laws where-ever they can, why should work place conduct be any
different? In for a penny, in for a pound.

You'd never hear something even close to this from Stripe or some other
company run by upstanding folks.

Fish rots from the head.

~~~
tptacek
I fully expected this thread to be a shitshow, but comments here are
overwhelmingly supportive of Fowler, and except perhaps for the very bottom of
the thread, I don't see much much "this is unbelievable" at all. I'm
pleasantly surprised.

~~~
shoover
It is good to see the support here. I am unpleasantly surprised at the
comments admonishing her for not lawyering up, though. She bothered to write
publicly, which is more than anyone outside the situation could rightly ask.
She wrote very well on painful, personal events and I think can be proud of
how she handled it. It opens the door for others, and Uber management is going
to have to deal with it one way or another this week.

~~~
tptacek
I give stuff like that a pass. We're the "well, actually" capital of the
Internet (or at least one of the "well, actually" major metros). I think we
all just want to be able to participate in the discussion and are not very
tactful about crowbarring our way into it.

I don't feel like I read a lot admonishment (which would take forms like "by
not suing you're complicit in harm to other women" or "if your story was
really credible it would involve a lawyer"). I do feel like I read a lot of
"you know, you could also..." or "this is a good example of why...".

~~~
visakanv
> "if your story was really credible it would involve a lawyer"

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. "Aha, she's got a lawyer! She's making
up this nonsense to try and get a fat cash payout from Uber!"

------
jmduke
I am struggling to think of something productive to contribute to this
discussion, because this absolutely _incensed_ me.

In lieu of anything else: Susan deserves to be commended for her bravery in
writing this.

~~~
kevinburke
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 tell
them that this behavior is unacceptable, opens the company up to ridiculous
amounts of lawsuit risk, will hurt recruiting, depress morale, and that you
will quit if harassment complaints aren't taken seriously.

~~~
sn9
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 simply people who try to work around it.

It would take an extremely focused and persistent effort on the part of upper
management to change this trajectory before the company implodes, as I suspect
is inevitable in the long run should my assumptions prove accurate.

~~~
kevinburke
I really doubt this. A lot of men are totally unaware of how women are
treated, which fellow men on their team are harassers, or don't believe women
when they report harassment. My evidence for this is every man in tech
reacting with shock to this story, and every woman I know saying "yep, I have
a story like this," or "I know many women with stories like this"

~~~
lacampbell
> My evidence for this is every man in tech reacting with shock to this story

You've interviewed us all, have you?

I don't find the accusations surprising or outside the realm of possibility at
all.

~~~
grzm
An alternative (and I believe intended) reading of this line is

 _My evidence for this is every man in tech who is reacting with shock to this
story_

rather than

 _My evidence for this is that every man in tech is reacting with shock to
this story_

------
logandavis
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. A friend of mine was actually warned off by her software engineer
father. I've heard stories from friends who've worked there that corroborate
Susan's tales of infighting teams and inexplicable reorganizations due to
high-level backstabbing. The one woman I know who works there wants out. Susan
is a high-profile and credible source; hopefully her post takes Uber's work
culture issues from "open secret" to "problem that has public consequences for
the company".

The CEO should crack down and take serious steps towards addressing this
problem - not just for PR, but because his company is seriously suffering as a
result of these issues. Unfortunately for Uber, from what I've heard, Travis
is part of the problem as far as Game-of-Thrones internal politics and
backstabbing goes. His "move fast and break things" persona sounds like a poor
model for subordinates. Between that and the company's relative external
success, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for anything internal to get better
any time soon.

Until it does, I simply hope that my acquaintances at Uber find somewhere less
shitty to work.

~~~
uber_eng_throw
Hijacking this top comment to provide some personal experiences.

I started as an engineer in the spring of 2014 and this was definitely the
case there.

Top engineers were being poached from Google/FB and these people were trying
to carve out territory in a quickly growing engineering team.

The misogynistic culture, in my mind, comes from most of the early employees
being former frat bros. Culture was extremely heavy on the drinking; see
"Work-cations" where most of the team would go to an exotic location which was
half-hackathon/half boozefest. There were happy hours every week with open bar
because all new employees would be flown to SF (no matter where home office
was) for orientation.

Crazy, most ex-employees (even the early ones) acknowledge that the culture is
bad but they got their $$$ so they won't have to work again for a long time,
if ever.

~~~
bootload
_" Culture was extremely heavy on the drinking;"_

For me this is a red flag.

    
    
        Booze + programming == pissed programming
    

This leads to bad code also bad team dynamics. Ultimately this will reflect on
the product and bottom line. For individuals this reads like a culture where
the barrel is creating ^bad apples^. Not a good look on a resume.

~~~
blhack
I have to be honest, I know a lot of people who claim that they can write
really good code if they've been drinking.

I just absolutely do not understand how that is even possible. If I have ONE
beer, it throws off my ability to write good code, or hold all of the concepts
in my head.

One of the weekly coworking meetups I go to always ends at a brewery (there is
a brewery next door to the hackerspace where it is held), and while it is
certainly a lot of fun being there _brainstorming_ things, I don't understand
how anybody gets actual code written after drinking.

~~~
jacques_chester
Alcohol increases confidence in one's abilities.

Everyone has some skill they _insist_ they are "better at" when drunk.

~~~
Illotus
Back in university days I often wrote assignments while tipsy and then edited
them when sober. Cider was just perfect for silencing the inner critic to get
some thoughts to paper.

~~~
jacques_chester
Well, there you have me. My secret better-when-drunk talent is writing poetry
and first messages on OkCupid.

These are only weakly connected.

------
uber_031917
Uber employee here.

This was a disheartening story to read to say the least. I hope that she sues
as her case is abundantly clear and the response by HR and the management
chain was absolutely unacceptable. If what happened is true, they should be
held accountable.

Unfortunately, from my perspective, Uber has a track record of lack of
accountability when it comes to leadership/managers. Pretty much everyone I
know at Uber believes that Josh Mohrer [1] and Emil Michael [2] should have
been fired. It's probably fair to say both are generally regarded as being
high performers, but what they did was extremely damaging to the reputation of
the company and the fact they weren't held accountable only worsens that
reputation.

I think that generally Uber is a positive influence in the world. It has
created work opportunities for millions essentially out of thin air has
fundamentally changed how people think about transportation in cities for the
better. Uber is certainly disruptive and its methods and behavior have been
brash at times which has often resulted in a disproportionate amount of
scrutiny, both deserved (comments and actions targeting journalists, sexism)
and otherwise ("support" of Trump, #deleteuber, and surge price "gouging").
For me, Uber is still a place filled with many talented people working on
interesting, challenging problems. But a story like this is a tough pill to
swallow.

[1]
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-11-25/colleague...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-11-25/colleagues-
defend-ubers-emil-michael)

[2] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-11-19/uber-
said...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-11-19/uber-said-to-
investigate-new-york-manager-who-tracked-journalist)

~~~
someone13
I mean this in the nicest way possible, so please don't take this as anything
personally directed at you, but: any employee of Uber that feels strongly
about this should find another company to work at. If you're working in tech,
in the current employment market in the Bay Area, finding another job is not
hard. Not easy, both in the sense that leaving a job can be scary, and that
interviews can be draining - but doable.

There are other companies out there that solve interesting, challenging
problems and don't have this toxic culture. There are other companies with
talented people. And if enough of your coworkers disagree with Uber's culture,
policies, etc., then the talented, moral people that you work with at Uber may
even come with you.

The only way Uber will ever pay attention is if it affects their bottom line.
Employees leaving, or people turning down offers is, person-for-person, one of
the most impactful ways to do this.

~~~
sgustard
That comes across as a variant of "blaming the victim." Telling an internet
stranger to sacrifice himself to some higher cause is not really a noble act.
Maybe he can do more good by trying to change the company from the inside. Or
maybe he just needs the job and doesn't need to be a hero.

~~~
hanspeter
I don't understand this line of thinking. If a company or it's management
sucks, then leave. It's not a sacrifice, it's not being a hero. It's in your
own best interest. It's also like being a conscious consumer by not buying
stuff from shit companies: You can be a conscious employee by not working for
shit companies.

I don't see any reason to try to changing a shitty company. It makes more
sense to join a great company and help them grow.

------
calcsam
In case anyone isn't sure why the original interaction is harassment:
relationships within a reporting chain are generally prohibited, for both
legal, ethical, and practical reasons. Sex becoming part of the effective job
description crosses both legal and ethical lines, and team effectiveness is
hindered when people wonder whether someone is getting special treatment
because they're sleeping with the boss.

A manager propositioned a new employee on her first day on his team -- asking
not just for a date but for sex. That's _way_ over the line.

Also, this isn't just a gendered thing -- Google the story of Keith Rabois
resigning as COO of Square.

~~~
knucklesandwich
Tech workers (across all disciplines) need to unionize to combat this kind of
thing. As has been pointed out below, HR that is staffed and incentivized by
the company management only serves the interests of the management. A union is
the only structure that can actually win demands for workers by organizing
workers to withhold their labor.

It's not a panacea, and there are several historical examples of union
leadership betraying the trust of workers and neglecting the demands of the
most marginalized members (such as the UAW in 1941), but a union correctly
structured and rooted in worker solidarity is the only proven way to fight
management on these kinds of issues.

~~~
home_boi
I'm of the opinion that the average software engineer in the USA is already
overpaid and underworked with excellent benefits and low incentive to
unionize.

I'm simplifying it a bit but if you don't like your job, just grab a copy of
Cracking the Coding Interview and apply to big companies. The big companies
pay very well, have good benefits and interview everyone because of the need
for a high head count

~~~
Apocryphon
Doctors, lawyers, professional athletes, and leading Hollywood actors and
actresses might all be overpaid relative to other professions, and yet they
all have professional organizations, even unions, representing them. What
makes software engineers so exceptional?

~~~
sattoshi
What do we, collectively, as tech workers want?

~~~
rbaud
Well, for instance, some amount of power to bargain for better treatment and
basic protections, like say a healthy/safe workplace where you don't have to
worry about being harassed by a superior and then ignored by HR.

Right now, companies like Uber can treat workers poorly -- apparently at a
policy/organizational level even -- because the only thing they feel they have
to fear is a bit of bad PR. No one has these workers' backs. HR is concerned
with protecting the company. And the workers likely don't have the time, money
nor stamina to fight a huge corporation with a lawsuit.

That's why workers need to band together to look out for one another. The deck
is already stacked against them.

------
jackweirdy
> The HR rep began the meeting by asking me if I had noticed that _I_ was the
> common theme in all of the reports I had been making

That's such a meaningless thing for an HR person to ask someone, that it
clearly only serves to be patronising and hopefully stop them bringing
problems up. I mean, how could you as an HR staffer possibly justify your
inaction with an argument like that?

"We didn't act on any of their complaints, as we noticed that in all the cases
of harassment that they reported, they were the victim in all of them!"

~~~
HarryHirsch
HR serves to protect the company, you have to think in HR's shoes. If the
complainant goes away and finds another job the problem is solved. Most
harassment cases tend not to end up in court, usually the aggrieved party
quits.

~~~
tfar

      "HR serves to protect the company"
    

That point comes up every time a bad-HR related post is placed here. However,
isn't it very short sighted to consider silencing/removing the accusers a
protection of the company. This results in a bad culture and bad PR about that
culture in developer circles. Won't the reduced diversity and all that comes
with it have bad effect on the company long term?

~~~
allenz
It isn't short-sighted, because a discrimination lawsuit has unbounded
liability and gets widely reported on. Words are temporary and can be
whitewashed, whereas few companies can afford an admission of guilt.

In a reputable company, HR will pass the message higher up (probably off the
record), and a manager will look at the evidence and make a good judgment. In
this case, the evidence is clear, the manager should have been fired, and the
employee given a sincere (but not in writing) apology and compensation.

Note that HR is a legal role. HR will never advise an employee to consider
filing a lawsuit against the company, but instead dissuade the employee by
saying that there isn't good evidence, it was an honest mistake, he has a
family to feed, try to work with someone else. The saying exists because
advice from HR is not in the employee's best interest.

------
fermigier
What do you expect from a company that has been so many times on the wrong
side of the law?

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-fine-chicago-
idUSKBN1...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-fine-chicago-
idUSKBN15W03O)

[http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/14/10772412/uber-fine-
califor...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/14/10772412/uber-fine-california-
utility-driver-data)

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/09/uber-
fined-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/09/uber-
fined-800000-in-france-over-illegal-service/)

[http://time.com/4632430/taiwan-uber-fines/](http://time.com/4632430/taiwan-
uber-fines/)

[http://economia.icaew.com/en/news/january-2017/uber-
fined-20...](http://economia.icaew.com/en/news/january-2017/uber-fined-20m-in-
the-us-for-claims-of-misleading-drivers-over-earnings)

[http://www.pcworld.com/article/2464520/rivalry-between-
uber-...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2464520/rivalry-between-uber-and-
lyft-gets-ugly.html)

...

~~~
HerraBRE
The parent comment may seem a bit flippant, but the underlying question is a
good one - why do talented, non-toxic people seek employment with companies
that are well known to have such terrible culture?

I'm not in the Valley, so all the information I have about Uber's culture is
through popular media, but ever since I first heart the company's name it was
linked to scandal, poor ethics and/or misogyny.

Talented software developers are a privileged bunch, especially on the West
Coast U.S. we are sought after and can pick and choose employers. Why would
anyone choose Uber, _especially_ a talented woman?

Do SW devs just not realize how much power and choice they have? Or do people
really just choose to work for unethical businesses because they expect a good
paycheck? If it's the latter, what does that say about their own personal
ethics?

To be clear, I don't honestly believe the majority of Uber's staff are bad
people. But that leaves me genuinely baffled as to what they are doing there
in the first place.

~~~
amyjess
> Do SW devs just not realize how much power and choice they have? Or do
> people really just choose to work for unethical businesses because they
> expect a good paycheck?

I used to work for a company that mistreated me (no, they didn't pay me well
either). Getting out felt like getting out of an abusive relationship, and I
stayed as long as I did for the same reasons people stay in abusive
relationships: I thought I was worthless and that no other company would hire
me.

Before that company, I had been unemployed for two years thanks to the
combination of the financial crisis and my own lack of experience. When I
interviewed with them, I was ready to end it if I didn't get an offer because
my extended unemployment had just run out. Thankfully, I got the offer, and I
wound up working there for 2.75 years before I got out.

I believed that I had to stick with them because they gave me an offer when I
was broke, desperate, and suicidal. As the problems kept piling up and piling
up, I stayed because I was too afraid to put myself out there because I felt
like I was a worthless person and deserved a company that would treat me like
the worthless person I am.

Eventually, things got so bad that I applied to several companies at once in a
fit of rage, and one of them got back to me with a coding test, then a phone
interview, then an in-person interview, and finally an offer, at which point I
had the pleasure of putting my notice on my boss's desk.

It's been over two years since I got out, and I'm glad for it. The company I
jumped ship to ended up not working out in the long run -- a little over a
year in, I got caught up in a layoff that took out 1/3 of the company -- but I
eventually landed at my current job, which is by far and above the best
company I've worked for, and I'm really glad I'm here and not still stuck at
that abusive place.

~~~
HerraBRE
Thank you for sharing your experience, it's enlightening. I'm glad you're in a
better place now.

------
soneca
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. It exploded. The taxi market
was/is dominated by corruption, with its medallions monopoly. Capitalism
worked.

But capitalism dont stop working when Uber is winning. Now the taxi apps,
specially the rebranded 99, that was the clear winner in the taxi apps fight
raised hundreds of millions with the chinese and is ready to fight Uber. They
now have regular taxi, a 30% discount taxi (that usually matches Uber price)
and a Uber-like service with common people cars, all in the same app.

My social network mostly went back to using taxi, now that the price matches,
because SP is not an easy city to transit. Uber drivers rely 100% on
Waze/Google Maps. This ofyen leads to errors. Taxi drivers who drive around
for years, sometimes decades are more reliable.

My point being: I dont believe in karma, but capitalism is a bitch. If you are
that arrogant to mismanage that bad your resources when you are winning, when
the market forces strike back, you wont be strong enough to stand on your
feet.

~~~
m0zzie
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.

~~~
rstuart4133
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 ...

~~~
m0zzie
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)

------
BinaryIdiot
I may have experienced a little bit of sexual harassment in my youth when
working at a local McDonald's but, being a guy, it was the only time and I was
able to put a stop to be rather quickly. However, being in software
engineering for the past 12 years, I _have_ seen the sexual harassment of
several women all of which never saw a proper resolution.

For instance I worked at a small company that was later bought by a larger
company. One of the women I worked with was propositioned by our boss. She
reported him to HR and the next day HR scheduled a meeting with her, HR, the
CEO and her boss that propositioned her. They told her that her boss denied it
then proceeded to ask her for the next half an hour why she was lying and why
she wanted to damage his career. She left for the rest of the day in tears.

Over half of his team, including me, left within the month. It was disgusting.
During my exit interview I made sure to cite it along with his frequent trips
to our area where, when she wasn't there, would pick up her photo of her and
her boyfriend and just stare at it along with his fraudulent billing of
clients. Nothing ever happened to him, he just got moved into another group
because his team got too small.

It's really disheartening to hear story after story about this and even
witnessing it yourself. I can't imagine what it's like to be on the receiving
end. I worry about this not only because of it being a bad thing but I also
have two daughters and it fills me with dread, after what I've seen, what they
may go through.

What can be done to stop such toxicity? Do we need stronger laws? Are there
groups for women who can turn to?

~~~
mightykan
We should teach our sons to truly respect women. We should teach our sons to
be respectful honest decent human beings. We should teach our sons to not be
assholes who think they are _entitled_ to a woman’s body. We should teach our
sons to be humans with emotions and empathy for others. We should teach our
sons to not be toxic despicable entitled pathetic beings. It’s on us (men). If
we behave badly, it’s squarely on us. No external factor (law, regulation,
social status, etc) would have any effect if we don’t know how (or don’t want)
to be good.

~~~
xor1
You're missing a huge part of the problem here. People with power are the ones
who need to be "taught" (punished).

This behavior can only occur repeatedly when someone can get away with it,
because they have power. If they don't have power, they are punished (often
harshly), and a rational person will not repeat that behavior.

Your blanket approach is completely ridiculous. You act like the problem is
that men aren't being "taught" properly, when the real problem is that there
is little or no accountability for people who have accumulated enough money
and/or political power (whether it be on a social scale, or within an
organization, as seen in the article).

It's also very wrong for you to assume that only men can abuse their power.
Fowler's article even has an example of women abusing it (HR).

~~~
mightykan
I have zero power now but have the potential to have it. If I don't know how
to behave like a decent human around my female coworkers and peers right now,
I would have no idea how to do this when I have more power (e.g. become a
manager). But, then, I'd have the power to cause irreparable emotional and
societal damage. If I don't know how to act like a rational reasonable human
being who respects others no matter their background or gender, this won't
change. All that will change is that I have the authority to cause great
damage.

I don't know much and I certainly don't claim to know much. All I know is that
if we (men) don't curb our own behavior, we're the one squarely at fault.

I'm so tired of this "not all men" attitude. As someone who gets paid to make
fact-based decisions all day, I cannot possibly ignore this ridiculous
argument that women are at fault. No, way. Yes, anything is possible but the
scenario you're proposing is so rare that is an anomaly. Get off that horse,
dude. Stop being on the wrong side of history.

~~~
xor1
Once again, you are unable to grasp the real problem. Guess what -- men can be
victims of the abuse of power too, whether that's at the hands of men or
women.

>I have zero power now but have the potential to have it. If I don't know how
to behave like a decent human around my female coworkers and peers right now,
I would have no idea how to do this when I have more power (e.g. become a
manager). But, then, I'd have the power to cause irreparable emotional and
societal damage.

Simply becoming a manager doesn't give you power. One of the main purposes of
middle management is to take the fall for C-level mistakes, after all. You
also need to have your employer's backing. In this case, this manager is
especially powerful because Uber backs him even when it's not in their best
interest). I don't know how the manager in question here was able to obtain
that sort of empowerment, but you are sorely mistaken if you think that his
ability to stick around was simply due to a job title.

>I don't know much and I certainly don't claim to know much. All I know is
that if we (men) don't curb our own behavior, we're the one squarely at fault.

I don't know how to get this through to you. This problem is that powerful
people are unaccountable due to the way that our current society is
structured. It has nothing to do with gender. Maybe you think this sort of
thing wouldn't happen under a female CEO, but you don't know what the context
of the relationship between the manager and powerful people within the company
who provide him with agency.

>I'm so tired of this "not all men" attitude.

I have no idea what you mean by this.

>As someone who gets paid to make fact-based decisions all day, I cannot
possibly ignore this ridiculous argument that women are at fault.

Who made that argument? I honestly have no idea what your thought process is
here.

>Yes, anything is possible but the scenario you're proposing is so rare that
is an anomaly.

When did I propose a scenario??

>Get off that horse, dude. Stop being on the wrong side of history.

Ok, you're just incoherent at this point.

------
uber_burner
Using a throwaway for obvious reasons. I started as an engineer at Uber about
7 months ago and sadly none of this surprises me. I feel for Ms. Fowler and
seeing this gives me even greater motivation to leave. I can't speak for the
rest of the organization but can say that Uber's engineering org has a lot of
assholes like the ones Ms. Fowler describes.

My negative experience doesn't compare to Ms. Fowler's, but what I've seen
basically boils down to:

1) Senior engineers and managers who lack anything approaching maturity. A lot
of toxic personalities have been promoted into positions of seniority because
they were at some point considered high performers. Many managers and senior
engineers are concerned mainly with expanding their influence over improving
the organization, helping those with less experience or — god forbid —
actually getting anything done.

2) Diseased work culture. 60-hour work weeks seen as normal and encouraged as
an enactment of Uber's "Always Be Hustling" cultural value. Tons of drinking,
sometimes forced on you by your manager or your manager's manager. Too many
unhappy, burnt out people fearful of negative performance reviews.

3) A lot of this stems from our CEO, Travis Kalanick, being profoundly out of
touch. He's constitutionally incapable of acknowledging the company's real
problems (toxic culture, massive unprofitability, drivers who hate us to name
a few).

There are some fantastic engineers and plenty of good people at Uber, but the
company rewards the bad eggs far too often and it's killing us from within.

------
twblalock
If you are sexually harassed, and HR doesn't do anything about it, you should
sue. Don't expect HR to change.

If the stories in this article are true, and if the evidence is as strong as
the article says it is, this is a slam-dunk case for sexual harassment,
hostile work environment, retaliation, etc.

~~~
jannettee
Uber's employment contract includes an agreement that you won't take them to
court.

~~~
Herald_MJ
Is that legally enforceable?

~~~
emddudley
Of course not.

------
minimaxir
Travis Kalanick's response:
[https://twitter.com/travisk/status/833480964315557888](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.

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

~~~
nostrademons
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.

~~~
azernik
True virality was achieved when a non-techie friend shared the Jezebel write-
up.

------
joeld42
Just to be another anecdotal data point, I am a white male iOS engineer with
tons of experience on top-grossing apps. I live a few miles from Uber's new
building in Oakland. But I would never consider working for them because of
stories like this and others. This kind of behavior doesn't just cost them
good hires among women and minorities. Having a toxic culture makes it hard to
hire any decent people, and if only toxic people will agree to work there, it
will just perpetuate things.

Maybe they don't care now, they're growing, they're sitting on big piles of
cash, they can afford to be assholes if they want. Our culture regrettably
gives them that option, even rewards for it sometimes. But companies ossify as
they grow, disruptors become entrenched and it takes a long, long time to
shake a reputation like this. They've created a new market but they're not
entitled to it forever.

------
KirinDave
It's quite unfortunate that it requires someone to take a huge public risk to
bring attention to this, despite the fact we all live around it every day.

Many companies have this problem. Everyday we can make it better, make it less
prevalent, and change how management, engineering, designing, hiring,
recruiting, and socialization are done.

Nothing is going to change if all that comes of this is folks hemming and
hawing on chat forums. Not much will even change if you decide that this is
the final straw to delete Uber. What _will_ make a change is if you go to work
on Tuesday and ask your HR rep, "What is the protocol for this?" Make sure
they have it in writing. At a small company? Ask the founder to make sure this
is covered. Make sure that everyone agrees that these actions cannot go
unpunished because people are "high" performers.

------
KerrickStaley
I work at Lyft, and although I'm in different shoes (SW male), I really can't
see this happening _and_ HR/management stonewalling the complaints. We don't
tolerate harassment, and we stand up for each other. I know I try to. [1]

I honestly don't understand how Uber attracts talent. Lyft and Uber both work
on _really_ interesting problems. [2] The difference is that Uber are, well,
the sort of people Travis Kalanick would hire. [3] Lyft is smaller, sure, but
we're growing at a very rapid tick (and smaller means there's more for each
engineer to do). And though people generally view Lyft as being
undifferentiated from Uber, I think we can positively say that we provide a
better user experience in many ways, in spite of being a much smaller outfit.
And again: we're growing. Fast.

Bottom line: if you're looking at a job at Uber, consider applying to Lyft :)
It'll be worth your time.

[1] "Uplift others" and "Be yourself" are two of our four core values. [2] I
joined Lyft after leaving a job at Google and rejecting offers from AirBnB and
Dropbox, and I'm 100% confident I would do the same thing over again. Working
at Lyft is _fun_ —and impactful. [3] Not to say that they're all bad people; I
have lots of friends that work there. But there's a dramatic cultural
difference between the two companies, and that culture is driven by the
leadership. So the "median" employee at Lyft will be very different from the
median at Uber.

P.S. So clearly I'm a little biased on this subject :) Take with a grain of
salt.

~~~
nilved
A thread about workplace sexual harassment is hardly an appropriate place to
plug your company.

~~~
stocktech
As someone outside of the valley, the comparison is helpful.

------
shruubi
As someone who is Australian and not American, if anything like this happened
and HR failed in the trainwreck like manner that they did in this story, we
have a government organisation that oversees and enforces workplace
legislation.

It seems insane to me that the only recourse you have after HR is basically
"gather evidence and sue" which seems to be common advice in this thread.

~~~
revelation
You can't sue, there is likely a mandatory arbitration clause in the
employment contract (because why not, it's free) and it applies to
_everything_.

~~~
madeofpalk
Also not enforceable.

~~~
revelation
Well, I thought the same, then thought better of the kneejerk reaction and
instead decided to learn something new today.

And Google tells me that yes, even in cases of rape, courts have found them
enforceable.

------
kevinburke
Mike Isaac (reporter for the New York Times) is collecting more stories of
harassment & toxic work environment at Uber:
[https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/833445850130944000](https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/833445850130944000)

~~~
brudgers
One of the things that this article got me thinking about is how much less
effective that model is. Sure, some Sunday from now, _maybe_ there's a NYT
expose that reaches a national audience. Before that happens, the NYT
reporters will reach out to Uber senior management for comment and give it
time to compose some hollow PR about how seriously it takes the matter and
that will run alongside the actual stories of problems.

Here we get the raw unvarnished story of someone effected and people can make
their own conclusions. There's no middle man trying to make a buck and the
making a buck is why NYT it's ' _maybe_ there's an NYT expose.' Lawyers,
advertisers, and other more important news all are considerations at editorial
board meetings. Lots of stories get spiked.

~~~
moultano
The upside is that you get a professional team of fact checkers evaluating the
claims. This allows (for instance) people to come forward anonymously but
still credibly.

------
tsunamifury
Everything I've heard about Uber from people who have joined is terrible.
Train wreck of Human Resources, unprofessional conduct as par the course,
terrible pay locked up in a nowhere in sight IPO. I honestly don't understand
why people keep joining them.

~~~
twblalock
Where did you hear the pay is terrible? From what I've heard, it seems pretty
normal for the industry, at least for software engineers.

~~~
tsunamifury
If you dig into the package, a lot of the value is locked up in unsellable
shares. Vs immediately liquid RSUs of any public company.

~~~
twblalock
I'm referring to the cash salary only.

~~~
umanwizard
Stock is exactly the same as cash to me, since I always sell all of it on the
day it vests. Why would you only compare cash salaries when evaluating
compensation? That makes no sense.

~~~
twblalock
It's different for private companies. You can't just sell the stock on the
public market. Also, incentive stock options are subject to the AMT.

------
mirimir
OK, so I had no clue who Susan Fowler was.

And now I am impressed:

[https://fledglingphysicist.com/2013/12/12/if-susan-can-
learn...](https://fledglingphysicist.com/2013/12/12/if-susan-can-learn-
physics-so-can-you/)

[https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/13/so-you-want-
to-l...](https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2016/8/13/so-you-want-to-learn-
physics)

------
save_ferris
Stories like this are so enraging, and yet far too common today. My partner
went through a somewhat similar experience at a Big 4 accounting firm a while
back. She tried to request an internal transfer to get away from a sexist,
toxic environment only to have her managers destroy her credibility in the
organization and ruin her career chances there.

Sure, suing is an option here, but one that Uber calculates is absolutely
worth the risk. Lawsuits like this aren't punishment to billion-dollar
companies, they're factored into the cost of doing business. It can take years
to sue a company under these circumstances, and depending on the situation, it
could do more harm to one's reputation and career down the road. Most lack the
energy to relive those experiences in a law office or courtroom while trying
to move on with their lives.

Lawsuits may provide financial compensation to those who've had to deal with
these atrocious situations, but it's not going to solve the underlying
problem.

~~~
azernik
When they come with court orders and injunctions mandating changes of behavior
(and not just financial compensation) they can indeed solve the underlying
problems.

------
lloydde
While I agree with the statements that HR works for the company, when things
are working the interests of the company and employees should align. I
appreciate that too often this isn't how HR operates, but I don’t think anyone
wants to be misconstrued as implying that Ms. Fowler didn't understand how HR
works or that she didn't take all appropriate actions.

> I wanted to stay on the team

...

> it was genuinely in the company's best interest to have me on that team

I read this and the rest of the article as a testiment to Ms. Fowler's work
ethic and commitment to her employer and fellow employees.

> _I_ was the common theme in all of the reports I had been making

This is the most disgusting abuse described in the article. Not only did the
organization completely fail Ms. Fowler and all employees, but the HR
professionals participated in the physiological abuse.

~~~
crestedtazo
My thoughts exactly. Thank you for your comment, I really enjoyed it.

------
MrAwesomeSauce
This is the third most popular story in Hacker News of all time [1], and I
couldn't be happier. This can't have been easy to write but the more posts
like this, the more likely people who suffer the same issues at their
workplace will share their experiences.

[1]
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=all)

~~~
smcl
Yet in under a day it's off the front page despite >900 comments and >3700
points. The post was interesting and shocking ... and I have (anecdotal)
memories of less-popular stories sticking around far longer. Weird

~~~
MrAwesomeSauce
Yeah I was thinking the same thing, there was another post discussing the same
topic which also picked up traction fast and after a day it seemed buried and
gone. Very bizarre.

------
projektir
Wow, this is unreal. I could expect mistreatment at various companies, but
something so overt?

Thank you Susan for writing this.

> "performance problems aren't always something that has to do with work, but
> sometimes can be about things outside of work or your personal life."

Also, this seems many species of wrong. I don't really see why your personal
life should have any relevance to a performance review.

~~~
tyingq
I read it as "outside of your work" and also "outside of your personal life".
Which is even more perplexing.

What a strange company all around.

------
dkarapetyan
Susan is ~an industry veteran~ a somewhat experienced engineer and her
interactions with HR are typical of what I've seen so I would have expected
her to know how things would play out. In my experience HR is never there to
protect the employees. HR is there to make sure the company doesn't get into
any hot legal waters.

Most of the time the easiest way to do that is to just suppress any wrongdoing
and sideline whoever is being wronged. That's exactly how things played out in
her story. Once again solidifying my opinion of HR being a company instead of
an employee protector. If you see any wrongdoing then just get a lawyer. Never
go to HR.

Edit: Folks are right. She is not an industry veteran. Incorrect assumption on
my part.

~~~
Rapzid
I wouldn't qualify her as an industry veteran. This is not how things would
have played out at a lot of the risk-adverse companies I have worked for. I'm
sure it does at some places and it's no surprise to hear this about Uber TBH.
Being just a couple years out of college, I'm not sure why you would expect
her to understand all the shity ways the world can work.

~~~
jitl
What qualifications does Susan lack that would make her an "industry veteran"
in your eyes?

~~~
diziet
I would say that to be called an 'industry veteran', a minimum threshold of 5
years of work experience in that industry is a reasonable qualification.

------
jannettee
I had a couple of job offers, one was for Uber. I was super excited about the
opportunity but I spoke with one of their engineers (former) and he warned me
off accepting the offer - said it was a toxic, sexist workplace and said he
would not recommend women to work there. Needless to say I declined.

------
phereford
Not to derail the whole premise of this article, but Susan's book looks great!
Just bought it and can't wait to start reading it.

~~~
Rapzid
I'm going to look into it. I was shocked to see that Susan was a research
assistant at UP until 2015 and now has a book out about production
microservices. That's some carrier trajectory in two years.

------
anon_uber_eng
Jeez this sucks. Everything that happened was so completely unacceptable. I
really hope people are held accountable for this stuff. This kind of behavior
isn't new and shouldn't be normal. The Infrastructure group specifically has
is known for this politicking and bad culture. I work elsewhere, and though it
isn't as bad, agree there is a big management problem at play. I'm sorry you
couldn't find a team that supported you. Thank you Susan for writing all this.

------
kbenson
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_.

~~~
mathgenius
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.)

------
cbanek
I wish I could say this isn't happening all the time at many more companies in
a less obvious way. Other than being straight up propositioned for sex, most
of this other stuff has happened to me too. And I don't work at Uber.

------
pvg
For all the people saying 'HR works for the company' and 'She should have
sued!', I think you're underestimating how difficult that is to do. You're
reading the account of a person who was clearly perfectly aware of her rights
and how corporate workspaces operate.

What would _you_ actually do in their position? You leave work one evening, go
home and google 'lawyer that will get me lots of money from my company and
work for free while I'm out of a job using nothing but my certitude I will
prevail to pay rent'? Nobody (statistically) does that. In the 99% case, you'd
try to make it work and then you'd find another job. As it turned out.

~~~
dkarapetyan
Engineers, especially the ones at Susan's level, are pretty well paid. Suing
would have definitely been an option for her.

~~~
pvg
What is the last lawsuit you voluntarily started? A lot of things are 'an
option'.

~~~
dkarapetyan
As a typical white male my life is surprisingly easy even when it is not easy.
I've never been wronged the way Susan was so I've never had to think about
suing anyone really.

~~~
pvg
Very well.

------
sna1l
I think this proves that HR should be fundamentally separate from a company.
The incentives are setup for a company's HR division to try and maximize
success for the company.

Just like the NFL and NBA have player's associations, HR should be managed by
external companies, or at least separated by function (supporting employees vs
management). Companies would still be paying the HR teams, so incentives
wouldn't be optimal, but seems like it would be a step in the right direction.

~~~
curuinor
Player's associations aren't companies, they're unions. They do union things
in the unioniest way and do a pretty alright job.

------
candiodari
"The ramifications of these political games were significant: projects were
abandoned left and right, OKRs were changed multiple times each quarter,
nobody knew what our organizational priorities would be one day to the next,
and very little ever got done. We all lived under fear that our teams would be
dissolved, there would be another re-org, and we'd have to start on yet
another new project with an impossible deadline. It was an organization in
complete, unrelenting chaos."

With the exception of a startup that was on the verge of failing, this is
every organisation I've ever worked for. Including two of the big silicon
valley giants (one who got cut down to size after 2000, one that's still big).
I wonder if the underlying reason is the same.

I must say I've also reported people to HR, and I have regretted EVERY
interaction with HR I've ever had. Initiated by me or otherwise. My attitude
to meeting HR now is that there's 2 options: schmooze and snooze (as in have
"a good meeting in which there is one and only one accomplishment: agreement
between both parties that no other meetings are necessary"), or please contact
my lawyer at ...

(And I do wonder if women's experiences are the same. WTF)

------
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/](https://www.meetup.com/UberEvents/events/230301225/)

------
rdtsc
> I was then told that I had to make a choice: (i) I could either go and find
> another team and then never have to interact with this man again, 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.

Holy shit. There are terrible people who make into positions of power and then
abuse it. But it is whole other layer of horribleness when there is
institutional corruption and evil which encourages and protects that. With a
nice little bonus of blackmail on the top -- "you'll get bad reviews if you
stay, be careful".

It is humiliating to have that happen to someone, then the humiliation and
hurt triples when you realize the system that you hoped is there to fix the
problem and stand behind you is helping the perpetrator.

I have seen some really good programmers, if the 10x myth was true, it
certainly was true for them. But I wouldn't bat an eye kicking them out in
cases like this.

------
syswsi
I'm curious if it's actually worth keeping high performing people on your
company if they create a lot of internal conflict and employee turnover. Have
there been studies that have looked into this? Are there HR tools that track
this?

This situation reminds me of the Jeremy Clarkson Effect
([https://blog.vanillaforums.com/help/how-to/dealing-with-
toxi...](https://blog.vanillaforums.com/help/how-to/dealing-with-toxic-
community-member/)) where you keep people on board because they are high
performers/popular until the point where the amount of damage they cause
versus value they provide is too high and must let them go. If, for example,
you lose 5 good tech people because of one amazing tech person, is it still
worth to have that one amazing person? I feel like if you could quantify
something like this, it would be easier to get rid of toxic people.

~~~
bkirkby
maybe not an exact match, but the "dark triad" traits are shown to be
effective for individual career progress, but negatively correlated to
organizational performance. Harvard Business Review did an article ("Why Bad
Guys Win at Work") about a few relevant pieces of research in this vein:
[https://hbr.org/2015/11/why-bad-guys-win-at-
work](https://hbr.org/2015/11/why-bad-guys-win-at-work)

------
Mz
I am really, really happy to see this as the top story on the front page of HN
and to see the top comments currently here. It speaks well of HN.

------
asah
There aren't enough upvotes in the world for writing this.

Susan, you're a hero.

reader note: Susan is pretty famous in SRE circles: it's doubly gutsy for her
to write this.

PS I'm a guy and a valley veteran.

------
mendelk
Uber CEO responded in this article[0]:

> I have just read Susan Fowler's blog. What she describes is abhorrent and
> against everything Uber stands for and believes in. It's the first time this
> has come to my attention so I have instructed Liane Hornsey our new Chief
> Human Resources Officer to conduct an urgent investigation into these
> allegations. We seek to make Uber a just workplace and there can be
> absolutely no place for this kind of behavior at Uber -- and anyone who
> behaves this way or thinks this is OK will be fired.

[0] [http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/19/14664474/uber-sexism-
alleg...](http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/19/14664474/uber-sexism-allegations)

~~~
mathgenius
> It's the first time this has come to my attention

the guy must be asleep at the wheel.

~~~
Kurtz79
It is at least a mildly sane response.

------
brad0
Geez, and here I was considering working at Uber.

Thanks for posts like these.

------
wyclif
The very first thing that occurred to me upon reading this account of
harassment is that the "high performer" deflection is complete and utter
bullshit, and should be called out loudly for what it is.

I don't care of you're Thomas Edison, James Watson, or Nikola Tesla. Sending
sexually-oriented messages to women in your workplace ever, let alone the
first day that person is on board, is completely unacceptable and any "bro"
who thinks it's OK ought to be subject to a zero-tolerance policy.

------
caconym_
Bald-faced lying seems to be the name of the game in HR. My first significant
encounter with any HR organization ended up with me catching them in a lie
trying to manipulate me into signing something (I never did sign it). I was
astonished by how ready and willing they apparently were to try this strategy
on me. It was a good learning experience, in retrospect, and I'm glad that I
did not fall for it.

This was at a company that generally treated me alright and was staffed with
generally reasonable people, so I can't imagine the Kafkaesque nightmare that
it must be to work at a notoriously chaotic, evil company like Uber,
especially as a woman (which I am not).

The lesson, as so many other people in this thread have already said, is that
HR is _not_ looking out for you. Keep your own counsel and get everything in
writing, and prepare for their attempts to bully and gaslight you into a
marginalized position.

------
GauntletWizard
Sue. Sue them for all they're worth. I was at Uber for six months, and I had
enough - Mostly because of the blatant backstabbing and shell games managers
were trying to play, rating their worst performers highly just long enough to
get them transferred out, pointing out only the negative aspects of what their
better workers were doing. There were some good people and some bad, but
ultimately the culture was toxic, and the rampant sexism was just one (very
large) part of it.

------
anonfunction
I've always heard HR works for the company's interest first and foremost. Go
to a lawyer first and have them communicate with the C-level execs. Although
Uber sounds like it has a pretty toxic culture all the way up.

------
joering2
> Uber was a pretty good-sized company at that time, and I had pretty standard
> expectations of how they would handle situations like this. I expected that
> I would report him to HR, they would handle the situation appropriately, and
> then life would go on - unfortunately, things played out quite a bit
> differently.

It is my time to thank Hacker News because how many times I read it here rule
number one: HR is not there to help you with your issues, but rather to
determine how your issues could negatively affect the company PR image and
company itself. The don't care about yoy or how to help you out - they care
how to make it so that company doesn's suffer because of whatever you going
through - weather fair to you or not.

So thank you guys and I'm quite suprised someone like Susan did not know that.

------
jordigh
> 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?

------
bogomipz
This sounds like it has all the makings for a successful gender-discrimination
class action suit. I would hope she and the rest of these women would consider
it.

Uber sounds like a pretty toxic environment.

------
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.)

~~~
macintux
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.

~~~
DelaneyM
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.

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

------
M_Grey
Just to add to what others have said... sue. Sue, and then don't be shocked
when you end up as the primary plaintiff in a class action.

------
40acres
Wow this is unbelievable, I know sexism is still very much real in the
workplace but I'm floored it's this overt. And the incompetence shown by HR is
baffling.

------
fasouto
Thanks Susan for writing this.

We should send this link to Uber recruiters every time they approach us.

------
Upvoter33
Thanks to the author for writing this - it'd be so easy just to move on and
try to forget about it. And thanks to the other HN readers for their
thoughtful comments as well.

------
mariojv
Thank you for writing this. I hope that you're happy in your new position.
It's important that people speak out against sexism and harassment like this
in publicly visible ways.

I look forward to reading your book on microservices.

------
rmason
Never ever take a problem to HR. HR represents the company's viewpoint at all
times, not yours ever. You will never get a satisfactory resolution.

HR exists solely to help 'manage' the work force. Most companies that I've
worked at it does a very poor job of it. Someday the HR department will get
replaced by software, in my opinion the sooner the better.

------
Gargoyle
This is getting fast attention far beyond the tech crowd. There could be some
serious fallout for Uber (well-deserved if the story is true).

------
ladytron
I'm surprised they kept her around so long. I am wondering why they just
didn't bring her in, transfer her to a new team, and tell her she was no
longer "a good cultural fit" with the team. In a at will:right to work state
that is a totally legal way to fire a high performing employee (I think).

It's almost like they enjoyed watching her complain. Glad she got out.

------
curiousDog
Uber seems like one of the worst companies to work for right now. I don't
understand why there are hordes of Google and Facebook engineers still leaving
to work there. Is the pay really that good?

~~~
fullshark
Anecdotally the fact that the office is in SF is a major reason. I also think
many later hires at those companies feel like they missed out on the early
days and want to go to Uber.

------
powera
IANAL, but this screams "you will win a lawsuit, and Uber is such a terrible
company it's worth the considerable personal inconvenience to you that you
should file the lawsuit".

------
rejschaap
I wish Susan a lot of success at Stripe. Just ordered her book and deleted the
Uber app.

------
grandalf
People are quick to point the finger at Uber's management, culture, etc.

But after reading through Susan's reflections, the core problem seems to be in
the HR department.

Allowing repeat offenses like Susan describes exposes Uber (as well as
individual managers) to significant legal liability (in CA and NY, and
possibly elsewhere).

Any qualified HR person knows and understands these liabilities and makes a
very strong case to top management that proper conduct _must_ be enforced.

Susan, you are probably entitled to legal remedies for what you went through
because the offender had already been warned. The manager in question (and his
manager) will also be subject to direct penalties under California law.

If you don't do it for yourself, do it for the many other women who will
suffer through the same indignities and might not be as empowered as you were
to take action.

------
alper
This is not exclusive to Uber. By now I'd say that most companies with skewed
diversity statistics likely are toxic and dysfunctional.

------
allengeorge
This sounds like such a broken, toxic environment. Although it's painful and
the outcome is unclear, I really hope she sues. We have to publicly shame
behavior like this and make it known that it's completely unacceptable.

------
mdlcc
Delete your account:
[https://help.uber.com/h/24010fe7-7a67-4ee5-9938-c734000b144a](https://help.uber.com/h/24010fe7-7a67-4ee5-9938-c734000b144a)

------
cjhanks
'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 have
significantly reduced quality work in their primary job.

Obviously I don't know this author and I don't work at Uber.

~~~
SwellJoe
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 Engineering_ makes me want to work at
Google (even though I _know_ I really don't want to work at Google).

Good people bring in more good people, and good people are enthusiastic and do
cool things outside of work. The author is probably someone I'd want to work
with, based on her enthusiasm for her job and her obviously effective time
management (I wrote a technical book once, and it took a year longer than I'd
planned). The people who convinced someone like her to leave a place are
people I definitely wouldn't want to work with.

~~~
cjhanks
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.

~~~
SwellJoe
So, you're saying she isn't competent to write a book or give talks, despite
the fact that she's written a book for a publisher with a very good reputation
for high standards and has been hired by two top tier tech companies to work
in the field.

On what do you base your assertion that she is incompetent?

------
uladzislau
The hiring process at Uber already raises some red flags - so if you're not
blind and totally ignorant you'll get the cue and glimpse of the company
culture and your potential future there.

------
euphoria83
I have generally been skeptical about joining Uber. I was in the job market a
couple of months back and was always apprehensive when interacting with their
HR. I have received recruiting mails from them indicating that I would be
lucky to work at Uber, instead of the opposite tone in general. Uber is
probably losing many potential employees due to this.

There is no answer to the retort that Uber is successful. If that was the only
guiding light for humanity, then we should just be living as savages surviving
on who can punch the hardest.

------
george_ciobanu
Susan, thank you for sharing and please accept a virtual hug to help you shake
the experience. I'm amazed you were this patient with such ridiculous
behavior.

------
kurthr
HR doesn't work for you, it works for the company.

~~~
notatoad
HR's job is to ensure that conflict gets resolved internally so it stays an HR
problem and doesn't escalate to a legal or PR problem. HR has failed miserably
in this instance, regardless of whose side you think they should be on.

~~~
lgleason
I've seen HR departments give severance in scenarios like this in exchange for
legal gag order. It may not be ethical, but it is legal in many states and
does happen. There is Karma, but that is another story.

------
kchoudhu
What the hell? Why isn't there a lawsuit yet? Everything is documented!

------
hunglee2
An understated issue in this account the role of HR - not only in Uber, but
across business in general. For too long they have played the role of employee
advocate when in truth they are - and can only ever be - an instrument of the
corporation.

A modern reworking of unionisation may be the only answer - a p2p network,
focused on employee welfare, independent of company interest.

------
medius
Uber is such a shit company. My wife is a software engineer and I can't even
imagine her having to deal with anything like this.

------
OliverJones
Hmm. This kind of stuff is not usually isolated. It's clear from Ms. Fowler's
article that it wasn't isolated in her case.

It seems likely that a large company that treats trusted headquarters
employees like this article described may also have ethical lapses in the way
they treat field people. Mistreatment makes people angry.

In the waning days of the late unlamented Eastern Airlines, the airplane
mechanics were angry. If you ride in an airplane maintained by angry people,
you're placing great trust in their professionalism. You're trusting the line
workers to leave their anger in their lockers.

In the same way, if you get into a car driven by an angry person, you're
trusting that person to put his anger in the glove box. I'm sure most of
Uber's drivers do that.

But isn't worker satisfaction a critical success factor for a business like
Ubers?

------
rosiesherry
Another reason not to support Uber. People need to stop using services from
companies with behaviour like this.

------
varelse
Ya know, it's not like this was some dude who asked a co-worker out, got
turned down, and that was the end of it.

Nope, this is full-on sexual harassment enabled by HR that went so far as to
ambiguously punish the victim. Every time I think the 21st century is finally
here, $h!+ like this happens.

The guy should have been terminated immediately once she produced the chat
logs. The end. Even from a pure cold-blooded business perspective, if he's
showing such poor judgment in this area, god only knows what kind of
engineering decisions he's making and how they'll come back to haunt down the
road.

Also, fire all of Uber's HR implicated in this nonsense. Sure, they're there
to protect the company, they failed here, and they'll just fail again.

------
afarrell
I wonder if it would be a red flag for an engineer to continue to work at Uber
for more than 6 months after this post comes out since it would signal that
they either:

1) Approve of the culture there and don't see a reason to leave.

2) Aren't able to find another place to work.

~~~
hamburglar
Are you kidding me? Expecting others to hang a huge decision like a job change
on a single issue like this and punishing them for not deciding the same way
you would is absurd.

------
kakarot
This is disgusting. I really hope Uber is an outlier, and not the norm, when
it comes to this level of sexist elitism. If I had to deal with that kind of
harassment and backwards pressure at work as a woman I would probably end most
work days trying not to either cry or quit.

That manager should have been fired on the very first offense Susan reported.
"Don't proposition your colleagues for sex, especially on company comms,
ESPECIALLY on the day she starts her job" is an implicit rule that doesn't
need explaining. How isn't this lawsuit material? Are the employment contracts
really that binding?

------
ejlangev
Nothing really surprising here though. Tech (and the world) has always had a
problem with sexism. Uber is particularly egregious but given the long history
of quotes from the CEO is it any surprise that this is their culture? Writing
was on the wall the whole time.

Just to add something to the torrent of links already in these comments
[http://observer.com/2016/02/ubers-10-worst-actions-
threats-l...](http://observer.com/2016/02/ubers-10-worst-actions-threats-lies-
sexism-shady-business-deals/).

~~~
projektir
I would say this is pretty surprising. Tech may have a problem with
representation, but there's a very big difference between something as overt
as this, and, for instance, not being able to find candidates from diverse
backgrounds. We should never lump the two together.

I guess it's not surprising that this happened at Uber, though.

------
shill
Never trust HR.

------
owly
Just another reason to delete uber. I highly encourage victims of sexual
harassment who aren't making progress to follow The Intercept's recent article
on tweeting anonymously. Out your company and harasser.
[https://theintercept.com/2017/02/20/how-to-run-a-rogue-
gover...](https://theintercept.com/2017/02/20/how-to-run-a-rogue-government-
twitter-account-with-an-anonymous-email-address-and-a-burner-phone/)

------
mark_l_watson
IANAL, but isn't the described behavior by HR and the management very much
illegal? I thought there were laws in place to protect workers. I hope Susan
Fowler has a wonderful career.

~~~
josephlord
Speeding is illegal too, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

------
akras14
1282 points in 2 hours and it's NOT at the top of Hacker News?

~~~
grzm
It's probably attracted a lot of flags and set off the overheated discussion
detector, both of which will push down a submission.

------
warent
I've been questioning the legitimacy of Uber recently, and this cemented my
understanding of how they operate. I'm taking my business to Lyft from now on

------
miesman
After 35 years working as an engineer one of the main things I've learned is
that HR is there to protect the company from its employees. Sorry if that
sounds cynical but it really is the bottom line. Even still, the fact that HR
was unable to step in and even mitigate the destructive behavior (let alone
doing the right thing) really speaks to the culture and ineptness of Uber's
HR.

------
jacquesm
Mainstream media are picking up this story now:

[http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/19/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick-
says...](http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/19/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick-says-orders-
urgent-investigation-after-allegation-of-harassment-gender-bias-at-
company.html)

------
projektfu
What shocks me is the talented engineers still putting in hard work for the
benefit of this system that they all hate. Companies blackball employees all
the time, but the employees are happy to go the extra mile for an antisocial
management structure and a megalomaniac boss? What's wrong with you people?

~~~
jetcata
My guess is that they really do enjoy the other parts of their job and even
the company itself, and are really sad about the bad parts that are making
life difficult. That coupled with a hope that things might get better..
Everyone has a different breaking point when it comes to these things.

Maybe you just want to stick it out until the first year cliff when it comes
to your RSUs so at least you have something to show for the below-market
salary you agreed to. It sucks that you have to suffer through this crap but
sometimes the potential financial upside you might be able to hold onto is
worth a little more pain.

------
YourInGroup
> 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"

That's funny bit

------
AlexCoventry
Since this is a clear-cut case of sexual harassment by a company with very
deep pockets, Ms Fowler must have talked to a lawyer, and the lawyer OK'd the
OP.

Does that indicate anything about how the case is going? Such as that the
settlement negotiations are at an impasse?

------
koolba
Combining this article and Conway's law[1] makes for some very odd software
being developed at Uber.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law)

------
kposehn
Uber team member here.

While I can't speak to OP's post about her particular Org, I can say that the
one I'm in (marketing) is very much non-toxic and a wonderful place to work.

I'm profoundly sad she had such a bad experience and hope she is much happier
now.

------
giis
Looks like she is fine with coworkers. Managers(and HR) are the main culprits.
I wonder what's the background of these managers? Are they came from Google/FB
or other startups? Did they behaved same manner in their previous orgs?

------
aioprisan
This is yet another reason why I would never work for Uber and will be
deleting my Uber account. There's a reason why Uber has one the worst
reputations as tech companies go and here we have clear, documented proof of
it.

------
tankerdude
I don't know about you guys, but I've been to sexual harassment training. What
Susan documented could be translated to tens of millions in fines and damages.

If it's this egregious, it's could be much, much, higher.

------
alexashka
"I went home and cried that day, because even aside from impacts to my salary
and bonuses, it did have real-world consequences - significant consequences
that my management chain was very well aware of. I was enrolled in a Stanford
CS graduate program, sponsored by Uber"

This deserves to be all caps, and in bold.

Ambitious people tend to eat shit sandwiches until they are either immune to
them, or realize there's more to life.

She pointed out that the number of women at Uber was dwindling - women are
smart, they take the 'more to life' route oftentimes.

It's just life playing itself out - as long as people are willing to eat shit,
for money, like Susan did for a whole year - Ubers are going to be around.

No amount of blogging about it is going to help - if you're willing to eat
them shit sandwiches, someone out there is going to make em for you :)

------
neom
Uber CEO:
[https://twitter.com/felixsalmon/status/833470379154931714](https://twitter.com/felixsalmon/status/833470379154931714)

------
hcho3
Just deleted Uber from my phone. Is there a good alternative to Ubereats?

~~~
codezero
What area? Sprig is good in Bay Area.

------
jheriko
This is almost difficult to believe. Almost.

I always really struggle to imagine these sorts of things happening in a
large, organised way. Allowing this sort of thing to go on in your business
should be an enormous risk. It amounts to a conspiracy, and its hard to
believe that any one employee with the interests of the business at heart
would allow it to continue, much less that very many people in a group would,
and its extremely difficult to swallow that someone on the level of CTO would
fob this sort of thing off rather than crapping their pants and lighting fires
up under arses to get it investigated and fixed.

The other part I find hard to believe is that anyone, let alone large numbers
of people can put up with this sort of treatment at work for so long without
taking very serious action. I don't mean going to HR, or reporting it to X, Y
or Z organisation or authority - I mean really, seriously decisive action -
e.g. force some director/owner to pay attention personally, and provide them
evidence, and record how it goes in case they are part of the problem -
however that ends you are in a very strong position to proceed, with the wrong
outcome quit and /do the right thing/ and continue to pursue it for the sake
of others - with the correct outcome the problem is solved. I'll concede that
eventually in this retelling there are more serious efforts, but its not far
enough, fast enough - and I struggle to believe that "working with smart
people" or any other such thing would make up for it.

At the same time its all horribly believable... One reason being that its
happening in Silicon Valley, and more generally the USA. Compared to my
experiences of the UK and Europe, workers rights in the US are terrible,
discrimination is rife and the legal system very strongly favours the
privileged and wealthy. Don't get me wrong we have our problems of
discrimination and poor workplaces too... but, especially for office workers
and professionals, there are lots of incentives for employees and employers to
put a stop to it, and they generally carry a very low risk.

Another reason its believable is that when you don't feel safe, have to make
expenditure and/or rely on your income for survival I can appreciate not
wanting to rock the boat with your employer. I think that is a very selfish
and stupid attitude, especially when others will suffer for your inaction, but
I can appreciate why people take such positions.

However, all that being said there is something here that really irks me. I've
been in situations with horrible employers before and I've blabbed about it to
the press, and you know what I did? I had evidence, and I published that
evidence with my complaints. The author talks about having evidence in their
retelling of events, yet doesn't provide it alongside. I'm not sure I'd ever
feel comfortable attacking anyone for anything without some evidence - maybe
she just didn't think to keep it personally and left it in a work mailbox (an
engineer being /that/ sloppy though? hard to swallow still). Its nice to see
other people coming forward and backing the claims up... but I'm still left
with a niggling doubt because of this. There is always the possibility that
people will try and abuse discrimination claims for financial gain... its not
reasonable to discount that possibility without some evidence to the contrary
(i.e that the claims are valid) - as much as its more social acceptable to not
raise this issue.

Maybe I'm weird, but that first response from HR would have been given a
response offering /one/ chance to get it right without any indication that its
a single chance (threats are dumb), followed by a notification of my intent to
expose their behaviour publically (again no threat, just polite notice). Some
copy of the e-mail thread with a select personal details blocked out in black
would be posted on the internet that evening... definitely not days, weeks or
months later - after the fact.

Still, I'm more inclined to believe it, the way the story is so casually told
as if the blog post is to satisfy people asking questions needing the same
story to be told, to save time on answering them personally, and not to expose
bad behaviour is ... well ... its just sad, but its believable. The impression
I get is that the author doesn't really appreciate just how unacceptable this
sort of thing is, and is resigned to having to live with it... :(

------
misingnoglic
I've never been so happy to have been rejected by a company before.

------
jganetsk
Don't ever talk to HR in a situation like this. HR is there for only one
reason: to protect the company, NOT to protect you. If anything like this
happens to you, lawyer up. Immediately.

------
thetruthseeker1
I think part of the problem is giving too much power to middle management in
tech, which I think is unnecessary and many companies like google have tried
to obviate this problem.

------
patricius
Whenever I hear about a case of a woman being harassed at work, I can't help
but wonder how I would react in a similar situation. I am male and I have
never experienced workplace harrassment, but if a female co-worker started
writing things like those in the story I can't imagine that it would annoy me
the slightest. If she was attractive, I would probably be flattered. If it
_did_ annoy me, I would ask the person to stop and if that didn't help, I
might contact her husband as retaliation.

Is it a female-thing to take these sort of situations so seriously, or maybe a
personality trait?

~~~
mathw
Your comment pretty much sums up the prevailing misogynist attitude that gives
rise to the kind of workplace culture Susan Fowler is describing.

> if that didn't help, I might contact her husband as a retaliation

I honestly can't believe you wrote that. If it was an exact replica of the
scenario with the genders reversed, the husband probably wouldn't mind anyway
(well, maybe would be bothered by the inappropriateness of it, but open
relationships are open relationships and you can't assume the husband would
think that it was a bad thing because you don't know what his idea of
relationship ethics is), but your response to workplace harrassment would be
to harrass their spouse instead? Not to go through HR? On a purely practical
level, can you imagine working on that person's team after you'd done
something like that?

> Is it a female-thing to take these sort of situations so seriously, or maybe
> a personality trait?

Okay. Imagine that you turn up somewhere to work. You've got your tech skills
and your experience and you're all ready to go. Then your manager's initial
interactions with you makes it quite clear that she views you as a prospective
sexual partner. She's not got to know you first, you've not had time to
demonstrate your professional capabilities to her, she's just propositioning
you out of the blue. Would you really not find this problematic?

Please bear in mind, being female in US and British culture can be pretty
unpleasant at times, with a continued attitude held by a lot of men that it's
perfectly okay to proposition strangers in the street in loud voices, or shout
suggestive comments at them, or demand "just a smile, love" or a conversation
like it's their right to have a conversation with you, or that you _owe_ them
a conversation. Imagine you're a woman in the tech industry, where women are
chronically under-represented.

For you or me, as men, we might find such an incident as this slightly novel
and interesting. If we've spent our _entire lives_ dealing with unwanted and
unsolicited sexual advances and comments and innuendo, with media
representations of our gender as little more than objects of male desire, and
then we get such comments, can't you imagine that we might just feel a _little
bit fed up_?

FTR I'm a gay white cisgender male living in England, so I'm still doing this
on 'easy mode'. I've encountered almost zero homophobic behaviour in the
workplace, for which I'm very grateful. But I've also always worked in
companies which made explicit statements about supporting equality and
diversity, and in a country in which it was made illegal before I started my
professional life to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality. I've not had to
test that legislation, but at least it is there, and we also don't have at-
will employment.

~~~
patricius
> but your response to workplace harrassment would be to harrass their spouse
> instead?

Not as a first resort of course. But if you involve HR, you might get the
'harassing' person fired and take away his/her livelihood, even though that
person might be very productive and an important asset to the company. Just
because a number of people were offended. It wasn't like he was violent
towards them or anything according to the story.

> Please bear in mind, being female in US and British culture can be pretty
> unpleasant at times, with a continued attitude held by a lot of men that
> it's perfectly okay to proposition strangers in the street in loud voices,
> or shout suggestive comments at them, or demand "just a smile, love" or a
> conversation like it's their right to have a conversation with you, or that
> you _owe_ them a conversation. Imagine you're a woman in the tech industry,
> where women are chronically under-represented.

Yeah, but what are you going to do about that? Some women and men will be
flattered by such remarks by strangers, some won't. We have very different
sensibilities.

How will you solve the underrepresentation of women in tech? By forcing more
women to take jobs they may not be interested in? By forcing companies to hire
more women because 'gender diversity'?

> For you or me, as men, we might find such an incident as this slightly novel
> and interesting. If we've spent our _entire lives_ dealing with unwanted and
> unsolicited sexual advances and comments and innuendo, with media
> representations of our gender as little more than objects of male desire,
> and then we get such comments, can't you imagine that we might just feel a
> _little bit fed up_?

But is that really the case? Do media generally portrait women the way you
describe? Not in my experience. Do women go through life fighting every day
dealing with these advances and comments? Not that I've heard from my female
friends.

~~~
lkbm
> How will you solve the underrepresentation of women in tech? By forcing more
> women to take jobs they may not be interested in? By forcing companies to
> hire more women because 'gender diversity'?

So...

You're opposed to involving the part of the business tasked with stopping
inappropriate behavior because that might result in accountability for the
inappropriate behavior.

You're reframing a manager propositioning a new hire for sex as people being
"offended".

You're suggesting that because there was no actual violence, management
shouldn't be alerted.

And you're only ideas of how to solve the underrepresentation of women in tech
is to force women into the jobs or force companies to hire more women.

I suspect you know your suggestions are _meant_ to be straw men, but just in
case, the correct answer to your question is to _stop harassment of female
employees_. Stop dismissing the harassment of female employees as them simply
being offended. Stop insisting management shouldn't be alerted to harassment
because you're worried that they might _do something about it_.

My small part in solving the underrepresentation of women in tech is going to
to be to _support_ accountability for inappropriate sexual advances towards
subordinates.

> Do women go through life fighting every day dealing with these advances and
> comments? Not that I've heard from my female friends.

And you fully intend to disregard all the women saying they do?

------
FigmentEngine
its not a great statement for humanity whatever truth does come out. Why
people focus on HR when if this is true then the issue is a failed company
culture. No amount of great HR can fix bad culture - thats sits with the
founder, board and management - and every other employee who turns a blind
eye. if it is true, is the company worth or even possible to save? Changing
their name wont fix the culture.

------
stefek99
How can one be so untactful and 'proposition' via text chat? Someone may take
screenshots and go to HR... Weird.

------
moocow01
In all honesty if I were you I would sue them plain and simple. Partially to
discourage this company behavior for the other employees remaining who Im sure
continue to endure it. And partially as compensation for having to endure a
lot of unethical and illegal work environment behaviors being endorsed by the
company on the low. You really should seek being compensated for this for the
good of everyone involved.

------
bootload
_" When I joined Uber, the organization I was part of was over 25% women. By
the time I was trying to transfer to another eng organization, this number had
dropped down to less than 6%. Women were transferring out of the organization,
and those who couldn't transfer were quitting or preparing to quit."_

Uber is bleeding engineers to other startups. Will the replacements be of the
same calibre?

------
blazespin
Now you know why Uber paid so much money for Otto. It's the only way they
would ever get that talent.

------
sidcool
What a shitty HR. Fire the bastards

------
thomasvillain
There are reasons for hiding this. There are also reasons for lying. When you
purport to have a slam dunk case of harassment and retaliation, but wait until
you want to get press for your book — you lose some (but not all) credibility.
Just know that having investigated a lot of these stories, very few turn up
credible.

------
dodyg
This is 2017. How bloody hard is it to treat everybody the same and with
respect?

------
jeevand
[https://medium.com/@smsowmya/harassment-at-apple-my-
perspect...](https://medium.com/@smsowmya/harassment-at-apple-my-perspective-
ea0168e15002#.1rx8vvcxp) For all the delete Uber folks do you also throw your
iPhones?

------
gautamsomani
Uber is taking action: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/business/uber-
sexual-hara...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/business/uber-sexual-
harassment-investigation.html)

------
zilchers
Is there an official response from Uber on this?

------
Nemant
You should name every single person involved

------
_pmf_
Repeat after me: HR is not on your side

------
symlinkk
this is fucked up. why not sue? if everything in here is true, this is easy
lawsuit money.

~~~
pvg
How much 'easy lawsuit money' have you collected? Or anyone you personally
know?

~~~
symlinkk
admittedly, none. but this still seems like an open and shut case.

~~~
pvg
The operative phrase here is 'it seems'. Lawsuits don't just materialize out
of nothing without time and significant costs, simply because you happen to be
in the right.

------
JustSomeNobody
Why would anyone expect Uber to be anything BUT a sexist rathole of a place to
work?

------
rand000
Not surprising for a company who's internal motto has been, "drivers get paid,
riders get laid."

------
whitemale
> I immediately took screenshots of these chat messages and reported him to
> HR.

Instead of just telling the guy never to make such a proposal again.

> this was clearly sexual harassment and he was propositioning me

You might as well call it gang rape. Sure it's one of the most idiotic ways to
talk to women, however it's nowhere near a level that deserves to be called
harassment, it also only happened once. I remember watching a video where a
guy tapped a woman on the shoulder and people will calling it sexual assault.

It's a real shame that everything has to be about sex and race nowadays, I
would rather talk about the rest of the article where she talks about
corruption inside the company.

------
LargeCompanies
Uber is the worst company even to its customers that have the unpleasantries
in having to deal with any customer service issue.

My uber got hacked and some jerk took a supposed $1k ride in London on my
dime. As soon as I found out I wanted to cancel my account but uber didn't
allow users to cancel their accounts. I had to send an email and wait. Also
they know about the hack and blamed the users for letting their accounts being
hacked via not having a crazy strong password.

They need to burn to the ground .... run by total greedy douchebag pigs!

------
mankash666
Why doesn't she sue Uber. By law, emails under litigation are required to be
retained, so the evidence must exist.

As a guy, I've faced a different type of harassment, but have made it a point
to maintain a clear electronic trail within and outside the company in case
the company retaliate if and when I complain

------
bitmapbrother
What a despicable company. Change is happening not because a change was
needed, but because it's generating negative press. Everyone in HR and
management that participated in these lies and behavior needs to be fired.
That's how you fix the problem.

------
yuhong
Personally, I don't dislike sexual harassment laws as much as employment anti-
discrimination laws, but I do question whether they are really needed.

------
kentucky100
Sounds horrible. I do wonder if this post would have come out if uber was
using stripe for payments.

------
mtw
Who here is surprised? The CEO is a proud arrogant son of a b*tch, sexist,
supports Trump. His whole team treats drivers like dirt or disposable
"resources". The whole attitude then gets adopted by management.

What I find surprising is people being surprised or trying to understand these
kind of reports. Or why people try to get a job at Uber. Maybe they want to
find a reason why they are still taking Uber. Yes Uber is innovative and
cheaper, but you are encouraging a company with exploitative practices.

------
scurvy
What is Uber doing with 150 SRE's? Wow talk about bloat.

The rest of the story is horrible to hear, too.

~~~
scurvy
Asking why Twitter is so bloated gets 300 upvotes, but asking why Uber SRE is
so bloated gets downvoted? My, what a fickle crowd HN is.

My assumption was that Uber SRE's played roles similar to Google SRE's. If
that's not the case, someone can please say so instead of just downvoting? If
you lump all ops people (DBA, sysadmin, network, storage) into the SRE term
then 150 isn't huge. But if it's mainly sysadmin and devops, that's really
high for a company that's mainly in the cloud.

~~~
euphoria83
I think your latter guess is correct. SRE@Uber = Ops + DevOps + DBA + DCOps +
... . I spoke with their recruiter recently.

------
fred_is_fred
Say this three times in the mirror before you report anything: "HR exists to
protect the company". Yes it's shitty and unfortunate, but I wouldn't expect
much from them.

Edit: Hit enter too soon, but does anyone have a better solution that going to
HR? I've seen it several times that this is the outcome, manager protected,
employee shunned or moved. In one case the employee was given 12 months of
severance if she agreed not to sue, nothing was done to the manager.

------
freyr
> _" 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 did HR really tell
her to expect it? It's hard to know what to make of specifics like these, when
words get paraphrased.

In any case, the manager's behavior and HR's response were inexcusable.

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

~~~
freyr
> _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.

------
blazespin
Part of the problem is that men frequently misconstrue a women's natural
instinct for being social and friendly as a sexual overture, usually this is
because they're so used to other men being so unfriendly.

~~~
potluckyears
Part of the problem is thinking that women have a natural instinct for being
social and friendly. Attributing characteristics stereotypically associated
with a particular gender to "natural instincts" is part of why women get such
a bad rap in technical fields.

------
OOPMan
This blog post has further confirmed something I've thought for a long time.

Avoid working at companies with HR departments. In order to have an HR
department a company has to be big enough to support a population of what I
like to call "floaters".

No, I'm not referring to those visual artifacts... No, I'm not referring to
people who aren't attached to teams...

I am referring to turds, of course.

Furthermore, the larger the HR department the more likely there is to be a
turd infestation of horrific proportions.

------
unityByFreedom
> When I pointed out how few women were in SRE, she recounted with a story
> about how sometimes certain people of certain genders and ethnic backgrounds
> were better suited for some jobs than others, so I shouldn't be surprised by
> the gender ratios in engineering

Holy __*. How long until Uber reports this as fake news?

Jose Moran, move over. Tech companies have a new scandal.

Edit: Ok ok, HN doesn't like the jab at Tesla..

------
bsaul
Clearly there's a problem in that company, but maybe some woman working in the
US could answer to me : why isn't just answering to the first mail " sorry,
not interested" then keep working there not an option ?

to me, the term "harassment" means repetitive, morally painful actions from a
boss to his employee. Obviously the guy has a huge problem with his sex life,
but why report to HR instantly , instead of trying to see if the problem is
that big and can't be solved by a person to person conversation, like grown
up, first ?

EDIT : i'm not trying to be a jerk, and justify the behavior of that guy. I'd
just like some woman working in tech in the US to explain to me what's wrong
in my scenario.

~~~
exolymph
Would you be okay with it if you started a new job and your boss instantly
propositioned you?

~~~
bsaul
Of course not, but i'll just tell her / him i'm not interested, and see if the
person's keep insisting and make my life at work miserable, or if he's just a
desperate person having a very bad day...

There are many reason why someone would be a pain to work with honestly. I
could imagine someone insisting on people going to drink after work being a
pita for a muslim for example, or a guy talking all the time about politics
and having different views than myself, etc, etc. But it seems like sex is
handled extremely differently than the rest, and i'd like to understand if, in
practice, there are reason for that (other than the subject itself being
extremely sensitive in the US compared to some european countries, for
example).

~~~
1888franklin
You are extending _a lot_ of good will towards the "ask my female employees
for sex on the first day" boss in this situation. "a desperate person having a
very bad day"? I encourage you to reflect on your investment in extending to
this person such an excuse. Why should that person _not_ endure whatever
scrutiny would follow from an HR inquiry into that behavior? Why is your
instinct to shield that person, by suggesting that it might be the author's
responsibility to brush it off?

"sex is handled extremely differently than the rest ... [is there] reason for
that[?]" I mean US internet culture is the place where this baleful notion of
the "friend zone" exists: men who complain bitterly that being nice to women
does not secure for them a sexual relationship. Denigration or retaliation
following sexual rejection is a well-documented practice. From what history do
you think sexual harassment laws spring? Women fought for them because they
survived regular abuse, manipulation and retaliation from men (especially
superiors). Have you read any of this history? for example:
[http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/1114/The-
evolution...](http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/1114/The-evolution-of-
sexual-harassment-awareness/The-rise-of-sexual-harassment-lawsuits)

