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Former Engineer Says Uber Is a Nightmare of Sexism; CEO Orders Urgent Investigation (susanjfowler.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report on The Verge: A former Uber engineer has published an explosive account of sexism and power struggles in the workplace, with allegations beginning from her very first official day with the company. The engineer, Susan Fowler (who left Uber in December and now works for Stripe), posted the account to her blog on Sunday, calling it a "strange, fascinating, and slightly horrifying story." It is indeed horrifying. Sexism is a well-documented problem in Silicon Valley, but the particulars of Fowler's account are astounding. She says problems began on day one, when her manager accosted her with details of his sex life: "In 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. He was trying to stay out of trouble at work, he said, but he couldn't help getting in trouble, because he was looking for women to have sex with. It was clear that he was trying to get me to have sex with him, and it was so clearly out of line that I immediately took screenshots of these chat messages and reported him to HR. When I reported the situation, I was told by both HR and upper management that even though this was clearly sexual harassment and he was propositioning me, it was this man's first offense, and that they wouldn't feel comfortable giving him anything other than a warning and a stern talking-to. Upper management told me that he "was a high performer" (i.e. had stellar performance reviews from his superiors) and they wouldn't feel comfortable punishing him for what was probably just an innocent mistake on his part. The things only get worse for Fowler. Read the full account of her story here. In the meanwhile, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said the company would "conduct an urgent investigation" into the allegations, and promised to fire anyone who "behaves this way or thinks this is OK."
Journalist Paul Carr summing up the situation, says, "Uber's ability to be on the wrong side of every moral and ethical issue is bordering on magical."
Journalist Paul Carr summing up the situation, says, "Uber's ability to be on the wrong side of every moral and ethical issue is bordering on magical."
As much as Slashdot likes to believe that sexism is imaginary, this behavior is pretty common in tech. Frankly, I've seen worse.
Most female employees know that crying sexism will bring the authorities running and catch the media's attention. It's really a shame that a small number of them take advantage of this and absuse the system. My guess is this person lost their job for performance of incontinence reasons and is trying to create a shitstorm in order to extract revenge. We need to make sure that when the system is abused, the abusers pay a heavy cost.
From her piece, Fowler indicates that the percentage of women working in her unit dropped from 25% to 3% within a year. That's a fairly simple thing to check and lends a fair amount of weight to her criticisms.
If you read the article you'll learn that HR lied about this being the first offense. It was just one of many.
Did you read the rest of the article which makes clear that this was not, in fact, this guys first offense?
Is her competence not obvious?
A: she got a job at stripe right away after quitting Uber.
B: What would she get from posting this online? More people buying her very specific microservice book?
C: SHE WROTE AN O'RIELY BOOK AND SHES ONLY A FEW YEARS OUT OF COLLEGE.
If you read just a smidge further in TFA, you'll see that in discussions with other female coworkers, she discovered that he had propositioned them as well, and also been told by HR that it was his first offense when they complained. How many "first offenses" is this guy good for?
It would be interesting to see productivity numbers for that unit spanning this period with a couple months on either end for comparison.
Given that HR lied, and this wasn't his first offence, yes he should have been fired.
Another appropriate action would be to move the manager somewhere else.
Isn't silicon valley in the middle of a progressive's wet dreamland? Ultra-left. Ultra sensitive to different lifestyles. But issues like sexism that is usually associated with the right still run rampant. Why is that?
No it does not. All it tells us is that some women left the company. It doesn't tell us how many people were in her unit, and it doesn't give their personal accounts.
I know Slashdot loves a controversy, but it would be nice to have some facts for a change.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
The issue is that her manager was propositioning her. There are all sorts of terrible power dynamics that come into play when a manager wants to take advantage of a subordinate. She did the right thing and nipped it in the bud. HR should have come down like a hammer on such a toxic and illegal action.
How quickly people jump to the guy's defence.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Wrong. The boss is in a position of power. Asking a subordinate for sex is a power play and by its nature harassment, even more so on the first day on the job. She was right to contact HR. Especially after she later discovered this wasn't his first offense.
Perhaps it is the HR manager that should be fired.
Wait until you're a salesman competing for an account against a saleswoman. It's an aspect I never see printed, yet everyone knows it exists.
...My guess is this person lost their job for performance of incontinence reasons and is trying to create a shitstorm in order to extract revenge...
So I'm guessing she won't succeed given her history.
Well that means that the summary didn't summarize - it changed the message.
So you think that is an immediately sackable offence?
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He was oversharing unsolicited details of his sex life with someone he didn't even know. That definitely crosses the line into harassment in my book even without a proposition.
Any sane company would fire this guy immediately. Uber is liable for not getting rid of him. Hope this woman sues the shit out of them.
I don't respond to AC's.
California is an "at-will employment" state. That means someone can be fired for any reason at any time. Afterward, someone may sue for things like discrimination of a protected class, but otherwise that's it.
accused by one of those persons that shout sexism!, racism!, bigotry! around fifty-eleven times a day.
Do you have any evidence that this is true, or do you just enjoy slandering people for fun?
I don't respond to AC's.
From the Slashdot FAQ:
You are welcome on my lawn.
Oh, silly AC. Any boss asking any subordinate to fuck them is harassment.
I don't respond to AC's.
Any sane company would fire this guy immediately. Uber is liable for not getting rid of him. Hope this woman sues the shit out of them.
I disagree. I think any sane company should say something like "seriously, knock that shit off, if you keep it up we're going to have issues". The guy was propositioning for sex which is highly unprofessional and is out of order but it's hardly end of the world stuff. There're a whole bunch of things which could tip the scale but the situation as described doesn't call for more than a warning in my opinion. Would you advocate the same punishment if it was female looking for sex I wonder?
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True, although apparently TFS doesn't mention that this wasn't his first offense and he's like this all the damn time, so HR lied. First mistake, you learn; second mistake, you fucked up twice the same way.
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Would you advocate the same punishment if it was female looking for sex I wonder?
Yes, I would. Immediate firing, no questions asked. Completely unacceptable, and if a person doesn't know that, that's just as good reason for letting that person go. Somebody with such poor decision making skills is a liability in many ways.
I don't respond to AC's.
https://www.lyft.com/
What is, "capitalism"?
It really does boggle my mind that people haven't figured out that the whole system of capitalism might as well be designed to create opportunities for abuse. Since we have reason to believe that human nature hasn't changed appreciably throughout history — the more we look, the more ways we find in which we're similar to other primates, let alone humans of old — we know these opportunities will be taken.
The dictionary definition is that capital controls the means of production. That always used to come down to human hands, which meant people controlled by money. Now it's going to mean cogs and gears, and they're going to work for the people who are already wealthy. What will they choose to grind out? I guarantee it won't be sunshine and happiness for all mankind.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yes. Is that hard to understand?
You and the morons who modded you up need to RTFA. Here, I'l bold the important parts so you don't have to work so hard.
Over the next few months, I began to meet more women engineers in the company. As I got to know them, and heard their stories, I was surprised that some of them had stories similar to my own. Some of the women even had stories about reporting the exact same manager I had reported, and had reported inappropriate interactions with him long before I had even joined the company. It became obvious that both HR and management had been lying about this being "his first offense", and it certainly wasn't his last. Within a few months, he was reported once again for inappropriate behavior, and those who reported him were told it was still his "first offense".
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
"Former" engineer - tells you all you need to know.
That tells us everything we need to know about your thinking ability.
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Don't they have wives, sisters, daughters? Don't they care if other guys behave toward them that way? Have they not learned to think with their brains, rather than their dicks? How utterly stupid can they be?
You did not read the article, did you?
It wasn't his first offence, although HR lied about this, claiming that it was.
He didn't knock it off. Also, her career at the company was affected because she made the report.
What he did should have resulted in an instant dismissal. Retaliation should have resulted in dismissals. Covering up the prior acts by the man should have resulted in dismissals in HR.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Says right there in the mantra: *What the market will bear* Abuse, violence, cheating, lying... If the market will bear it, what's the problem? It's all perfectly good if the government stays out of it, amirite?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I know, right? Communism never led to any abuses ever! Neither did theocracies, anarchy, or monarchies!
Well, let's leave aside the fact that it wasn't the guy's first offense. What would you, as a professional HR person or senior manager, do about that situation?
I tell you what I wouldn't do: I wouldn't issue a warning and assume it just magically fixed the problem. I'd follow up and continue monitoring the situation.
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It also means that the commenters didn't comment on the article, just on their perceptions of it from the summary.
The extent that she went to in her attempts to find resolution were sort of above and beyond. The scenario was prime grounds for a suit, yet she didn't go that route.
There are obvious EEOC and labor law violations all over the place. If she wants, she could make lots of bucks by helping out the EEOC.
uber does not give a dam about the laws with there drivers so it's likely the office is the same way
No, she did the correct thing by going to HR right away.
It is better to make it known immediately that you will not put up with that kind of garbage. Putting up with it increases the power he will have over you, and can make it more difficult to get him to stop. It's the "show no weakness" rule.
There is no reason not to expect professionalism, even from your boss. If you can't get it, then move on to a more professional setting asap. It's better to leave because unprofessional work places can instill bad habits, expectations and reputations that will follow you around.
He was in an open relationship, he said, and his girlfriend was having an easy time finding new partners but he wasn't. He was trying to stay out of trouble at work, he said, but he couldn't help getting in trouble, because he was looking for women to have sex with. It was clear that he was trying to get me to have sex with him, and it was so clearly out of line that I immediately took screenshots of these chat messages and reported him to HR.
No fucking way. This has got to be some kind of alt-right/4chan/cuck joke parody, right? Woman convinces beta male to have "open relationship" so she can fuck alphas on the side, SHOCKING beta with no game can't score, harasses actually capable women and helps ruin otherwise successful company.
"Sluts and cucks ruin everything for everyone." This has to be a joke, right?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
I know, right? Communism never led to any abuses ever!
Communism has never been faithfully attempted at scale. It has always been a cynical ploy to fool the populace while the rich stayed rich. (Sometimes they are killed and their wealth absorbed by other rich people, but the wealth doesn't make it into the hands of the people.)
Neither did theocracies, anarchy, or monarchies!
I didn't say any of those things were good, did I?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Note that sexism was a *small* part of the situation described. What amazes me was the continued desire to work for a company because of the 'great engineers'.
The reality is you can find a *good* company that also has great engineers. Other companies also face interesting challenges that are worthy of your time. I've seen people fall into this trap of toiling under crappy management because 'their team is so great'. The problem is that crappy management gets all the benefits of your awesome teams work (in fact, in crappy management, the management gets nearly *all* the glory and your 'awesome engineers' are the first under the bus when good times are over, after months on end of 60+ hour workweeks, where the management is only around for part of maybe 3 days a week. You need to find a company that has both a great team *and* good management.
If it had been an isolated incident with one manager, and switching teams fixed it, but she reports a pattern of management dysfunction that seems pervasive, at least to wherever she could go. Now it *might* be the case that her perspective by itself is skewed, but in her view of things, it was a terrible situation and she stayed *way* longer than anyone should have.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
We're living in a zero-tolerance punitive culture now. It's a substitute for have to actually think about offenders and weigh crime vs. punishment. You are either Good or Evil, and your sentence must reflect this.
If you read further in the article, they were lying about the first offense. Once she started talking to the other women engineers several had already reported him before this incident, and then new hires got the same treatment. Apparently every time he begged for sex it was the first time.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Ah, the old predictable "no true communism" argument. It's always hard to tell if the person advancing that claim is a shameless liar or an utter moron.
Why didn't you note that true capitalism has never been faithfully tried, either?
It really does boggle my mind that people haven't figured out that the whole system of capitalism might as well be designed to create opportunities for abuse.
It boggles my mind that people haven't figured out capitalism is the only system that introduces voluntary behavior such that one even has a hope of avoiding abuse. At least in a capitalist system when you're harassed you can quit, and inform others, and the business suffers. There's some kind of financial incentive to avoid tolerating harassment. Propensity for abuse is inherent to humanity, not the economic system.
What happens when you're sexually harassed by your commie party official? Better put out or it's gulag for you, comrade.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
What is "humanity."
What do you think would make communism any less exploitative, comrade? At least with capitalism you can shop around for an unabusive employer, and choose not to spend your dollars with abusive companies. No such choice in worker's paradise.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
If we showed any tolerance, we wouldn't be in a no-tolerance society.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Well, there's the fact that this person allegedly did this to several women. More importantly though, was a lack of anti-retaliation protection by HR. In sane companies, they are very upfront and very explicit about protecting anonymity and if that's not possible, strict anti-retaliation rules. So regardless of the level of punishment the manager should/should not have gotten, her position in the aftermath of reporting it sounds unacceptable.
Also in sane companies, if you are trying to transfer out and you have the target management on your side, your current team can only block the transfer for a few months to transition. Also, your *current* manager's performance review can't factor into another team requesting you (and *certainly* not it a way where bad performance reviews are a tool to retain, that's counter productive, if a person is a bad fit in one team, why would the rules *lock* that person to a team?).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Considering that every scandal posted here during the last few years about sexism and harassment in the CS field turned out to be massively exaggerated at best and flat out fabricated at worst, I am going to ask for a little more evidence than personal statements in a blog.
Not to mention that SV is already a SJW-infested Marxist hellhole which reduces the probability for such stud-like behaviour considerably already. (Not it does not mean it cannot happen, just that it is less likely than it happening on a cattle ranch in Texas for example)
Considering it happened several times before, this time absolutely.
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
Most of the time, I couldn't agree with you more. However, you didn't read her blog post.
This kind of thing started on her first day and she took screenshots.
Really, you have to read her blog post. The HR person who handled this issue needs to be sacked pronto.
Don't create sexism and harassment cases where they do not belong.
Being propositioned by your boss, even the first time, absolutely is harassment.
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
I won't be shocked when this woman is found to be a feminazi plant. Shooting for the SJW crowd.
Even if it was his first offence, at the very least they need to move him or move her with no negative consequences because, as their own HR department pointed out, her first review by him is very likely to be negative.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
If only God had given us more than two choices for economic systems.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Does TFA count?
Not included in the original blog: ANY EVIDENCE.
No, because there's nothing in TFA that suggests what you're suggesting. Are you perhaps confused, and reading a different article?
I don't respond to AC's.
Wrong. Sexual harassment is an UNWANTED advance. If the advance is welcome, it's not sexual harassment.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
And it appears that Uber is investigating said allegation. We don't have enough information to know whether it happened or not. That's what investigations are for.
After the Duke Lacross Lynching and the UVA rape hoax, I'm inclined to reserve judgement until an accusation becomes a lawsuit and is litigated.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
No no no a thousand times no. Sexual harassment is an UNWANTED advance. Did you people ever get an HR seminar? How can you be this ignorant?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Why exactly would you expect to see sexism or racism that is not directed at you?
The author of the article was being harassed through text messaging. Unless you are the recipient of those messages you have zero idea what's going on.
Week after week, Uber shows that it doesn't give a shit about its employees (or, as they claim, their independant drivers).
Why would Uber management give a shit about this poor woman? Why do people accept to work for Uber, given the constant reminders that Uber doesn't respect any rule, nor anyone?
I'm white. Behind the black guy's back, the shit I hear. I even had a supervisor try to get me to blame a bad defect on him - that I caused. I couldn't do it. I couldn't live with myself and in a World where a smart hard working guy gets blamed for shit he didn't do just because he was born with a certain skin color in the wrong society.
The fucker knew he was doing wrong too. And what could I really do? Bitch to HR? Remember folks, HR works FOR management. Remember that. They are NOT your friends and they are NOT there to protect you but to protect management.
So far, it has happened only once in my career. But never the less, bigoted shit like this happens and not everyone -including the victim - may be aware of it.
What's the economic system that's free from exploitation?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
She says she has screen shots. Please stop yelling inanities.
I don't respond to AC's.
So this guy is harassing someone as to have sex with her. How is this sexism? Apart from the word being similar that is? Did he claim she is a lesser person because she is a woman?
"I have a girlfriend who fucks other guys. I can't find a girl that will have me, since I'm your manager I'm going to hit on you and if you saw no there will be consequences, though I won't flat out say it. Oh and I can do this because I do not view you as an equal worth of respect"
There is your answer.
Blaming economics on God, that's a new low.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
This story proves you wrong. The guy who propositioned her has done it many times before, and many times since, with zero consequences. Apparently he was too valuable to the company, or they just didn't care.
The other comments also prove you wrong. People are making nuanced arguments, suggesting that merely politely asking for a date once is not a problem, for example. The world is clearly not as polarized as you think.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
A person asking a direct subordinate to fuck them is always harassment. Has been forever, Has been a litigatable offense for the past few decades.
I don't respond to AC's.
After actually reading the story and finding out the one time thing line is a lie I'd be inclined to agree.
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I love the black and white thinking displayed here. That's why HR has policies and training so employees understand them.
First offense: sent home for a week
Second offense: sent home for a month (hopefully they will spend the time looking for another job)
Third: shown the door.
It's obvious nobody at Uber worked a real job before....
love is just extroverted narcissism
I think the headline and summary gives a wrong impression. Sure, sexual harassment is tolerated but the wider picture the writing paints is about dysfunctional organisation. Specifically:
Well, let's leave aside the fact that it wasn't the guy's first offense. What would you, as a professional HR person or senior manager, do about that situation?
I tell you what I wouldn't do: I wouldn't issue a warning and assume it just magically fixed the problem. I'd follow up and continue monitoring the situation.
I'd do the same, assuming it was actually the first offence it'd be a warning and monitoring, second offence some kind of sanction and final warning, third time doing the same thing, out the door.
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Communism has never been attempted at scale because it is not scalable. It utterly fails outside of small groups where a high feedback bandwidth between the members can be maintained.
By definition it has to be peer-to-peer, which is unscalable beyond a certain point. Any attempt to make it hierarchical is an immediate fail, at that point it is no longer communism.
You did not read the article, did you?
It wasn't his first offence, although HR lied about this, claiming that it was.
He didn't knock it off. Also, her career at the company was affected because she made the report.
What he did should have resulted in an instant dismissal. Retaliation should have resulted in dismissals. Covering up the prior acts by the man should have resulted in dismissals in HR.
In that case, you are right. HR fucked up big time. The guy fucked up too obviously. Well, one time is a fuck up, consistently doing it, yeah, he should be sacked.
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Only for peers, parent post is correct.
The legal consequences of sex discrimination and harassment in the workplace are so serious that it is unbelievable that HR would not have taken more decisive action. Given that neither Fowler nor the many other women she says have been harassed have sued over sex discrimination and instead chose to attack the company on her blog, it seems plausible that she is exaggerating in order to get back at her former employer (a form of indirect aggression).
You can do whatever you want in your company, but if this is the policy in your company, be prepared to get you butt sued off.
I don't respond to AC's.
The amount of Anonymous Cowards posting the same couple lines makes it obvious. This thread is being astroturfed.
Women are making more money than men for the same job and same amount of work today, especially in cities. Stop reading a bogus 30 year old paper crafted for a narrative and check current reports. or This or This or This and of course This Interestingly most of these are LEFT leaning sites, not Right/Conservative.
PolitiFact has given you the nuts and bolts about the 77 cents statistic -- you can read the two most important works in this area here and here. Basically, there is a wage gap, but it tends to disappear when you compare women and men in the exact same jobs who have the same levels of experience and education. (emphasis mine)
Just like 60% of all College students are women, 56% of all College graduates with advanced degrees are women. Yet we continue to hear that we need more women in college.
I'm an egalitarian, not a MRA. I also happen to believe in Socrates' definition of Philosopher, who must seek truth even at their own peril. Sadly the left avoids all truth and distorts everything they can for division and agenda.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Goood!
After relentless attacks from progressive media, why would any female engineer apply?
Furthermore, Uber is seeing that mixing unmarried 20-something males with unmarried 20-something females causes problems, and the rational way to fix that would be to go to a unisex workplace.
Neither of those is a problem per se, except perhaps for Uber, which has to select from a slightly smaller talent pool when hiring.
Unless they are a Democratic President (see: Bill Clinton).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Actually knew a guy that got sent home for a week or two(can't remember which) for harassment, and this was on a government contract. Don't forget the person you fire can sue you too. Obviously you have never had a real job either...
love is just extroverted narcissism
Is the accuser ugly? If so laugh. Else, Ignore. Also >a NIGHTMARE >blog trash it You don't have any rights. No one does. Negotiate for your interest rationally. The news media can't provide cover fire for you forever. Do things for yourself like all the men have to.
Google for example has hired every single black person who has ever applied... But since any black with C and D averages can get into MIT...
Got any citations for those claims?
I would argue that its entire history is an attempt to "faithfully" try it, and that the excesses reveal themselves so quickly and awfully that it's quickly reigned in. Capitalism is self-defeating in a way that, I think, is not shared by other systems - for all their own faults.
Yeah, but it sounds like the HR person is doing exactly what management wants.
That doesn't seem unreasonable, but in this case the her immediate superior opened on day 1 with "I'm in an open relationship, please have sex with me". Later she finds out that HR is basically encouraging him by taking no action against a "high flyer", which explains why he (correctly) thinks he can get away with it.
Allegedly.
After Ellen Pao, UNLV, Duke LaCrosse, and countless false police reports (resulting in legal action) about discrimination I'm waiting for evidence. Chat logs, screen shots, and email logs should be enough to prove the case. TFA reports no such evidence.
Innocence until proven guilty should have meaning to all Americans, but seems like many are fine prosecuting without evidence let alone proof.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Why didn't you note that true capitalism has never been faithfully tried, either?
Do you mean there's always some means of production owned by the government, even if it's very small, therefore it's not pure capitalism?
If you read the article, you'll see that that is what Fowler claims; it's not an established fact.
Which is precisely why there is significant doubt over the veracity of her story.
Precisely.
This underlies the perennial complaint about consultants borrowing your watch to tell you what time it is. Somehow in the thick of managing things on a day to day basis you lose sight of the obvious.
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Reporting your boss to HR on the first day is usually a very bad way to start at a new company for any reasons
WTF? Is there an expectation in Silicon Valley to be subject to some kind of weird hazing when you start a new job, by your boss?
"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. He was trying to stay out of trouble at work, he said, but he couldn't help getting in trouble, because he was looking for women to have sex with"
This is how Fowler claims the person she was reporting to was propositioning her on day one. She didn't apply to be a sex surrogate for a clueless loser whose own girlfriend preferred to have sex with other people.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
No, I mean that governments inevitably interfere with the market system. That's about the same minimal level of deviation from an ideal that communism's defenders invoke to say that true communism has never really been tried.
I haven't seen any attempts that weren't authoritarianism, even the USSR didn't appear to really have soviets as described in Marx. Now, it may well be that his ideas are entirely unworkable, but I'd tend to agree that no one appears to have tried beyond getting rid of the previous power structure.
You did not read the article, did you?
It wasn't his first offence, although HR lied about this, claiming that it was.
He didn't knock it off. Also, her career at the company was affected because she made the report.
What he did should have resulted in an instant dismissal. Retaliation should have resulted in dismissals. Covering up the prior acts by the man should have resulted in dismissals in HR.
Yep. Heck, even if it was his first offense, the subsequent retaliation is where the company crashed and burned.
IAAL, and I've studied sexual harassment law. Contrary to popular belief, it's actually really difficult to prove harassment, since you need a repeated series of events. Even if the same guy propositions a bunch of different people, if he only does it once to each, it's arguably not harassment, since he's apparently taking no for an answer from each of them and just being persistent generally. However, where companies end up killing themselves is the subsequent retaliation. Here, they explicitly told her that she could keep working for the guy, but he would give her bad reviews and there's nothing she could do. They also berated her for reporting things to HR, which is another no-no. A harassment suit might not succeed, but a retaliation suit is a slam dunk.
For example, one of my professors in law school was the attorney for a group of city employees bringing a harassment and discrimination suit against their boss. The suit initially ended in a deadlocked jury... however, every time the boss had to do something related to the suit - answer discovery questions, give a deposition, even talk to his lawyer - he'd do something nasty, like move someone's office to the basement or strip someone of a project they'd be working on. It was like clockwork.
So, after the deadlock, they amended the complaint to add retaliation claims. Next trial, got a unanimous verdict on those and judgement for $8 million.
As long as the means of production are privately owned, that's capitalism. It may not be free market capitalism, but that's more specific.
I agree with the people on here saying we need more evidence that one person writing a blog about their side of the story to know what REALLY took place. But that's a whole lot of writing just to make up a fictional tale of how sexist things are at Uber. I'm inclined to believe it's probably at least generally true.
But assuming it's factual? Why put up with all of that for a year and then write a blog about how you were wronged? If you really did the right thing, saving all of the chats and email conversations -- the obvious next step is a lawsuit.
I *hate* dealing with attorneys and their shady billing practices ... but if there was ever a time to deal with them, I think *this* would be it! You're making accusations that H.R. staff broke the law multiple times in handling your complaints, and you were blocked from a promotion by someone going in and modifying a FINAL performance review (without even telling you it would be changed first). I see a whole lot of "sexual harassment" complaints that are largely baseless "he said, she said" garbage. (I used to work for a firm where one of the I.T. guys bought some flowers for the front office receptionist after she was out sick for a while. The card with them was your basic "Get Well Soon" message. She ran to H.R. and filed a complaint against him. THAT is the kind of stuff that's NOT a valid complaint. That's how you ruin things for nice guys and encourage an office environment where nobody gives a crap about each other.) But this story sounds like, especially in the state of California, you've got the law clearly on your side.
Any sane company would ask for evidence, record any submitted, then decide.
What you are advocating for is total INSANITY, that is, just believing anything you hear and acting on it to effect peoples lives profoundly
>blogs are proof
Wrong. Sexual harassment is an UNWANTED advance. If the advance is welcome, it's not sexual harassment.
There's a time & place to make an advance and there has to be a basis for it. Propositioning women at a nightclub on ladies night is reasonable and even there you have to make opening moves that aren't blatantly sexual.
Regaling a brand new subordinate, of whose personal life you know nothing with your sorry story of being outscrewed by your open-relationship "girlfriend" at the office is Category 5 stupidity and deserves, at the very least, a demotion.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I see an allegation with no facts. Anyone working in IT understands how to make a screenshot, if not how to log a chat session. Yet no evidence is presented, and what would the easiest thing be for this person to do? Save evidence, because sexual harassment is ILLEGAL.
Your claim (repeated) that you have to be the victim to see sexual harassment on the scale she is claiming is moronic. It would be visible to at least everyone on that team. There would be more than one claim from more than one person if it was that rampant. In the event it was just her and she over-hyped the scale, she could have this thing called evidence. Yet there is no evidence, just allegations. I'll wait for the court case, and would be willing to bet a paycheck that no evidence is forthcoming.
Sorry, but there are no groups of dudes hanging around conspiring on how to fuck over, and fuck, women in the company. Quite the opposite, since the virtue signalling SJWs are rampant in SF and would have busted the boss to make a name for themselves.
You clearly didn't RTFA. She has extensive email and chat records to back up her claims. Yes, I am taking her word for it. But if you are accusing her of lying about it, it is you who need to provide evidence.
And yes, there actually are groups of dudes conspiring how to fuck women at the company. Not at every company of course. But I have seen such things at jobs I have had.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Yeah... And here you are posting as an AC on /. when you could instead write a book (as it's so trivial right?) and earn some cash.
While anybody with some clue do know that the points above _do_ indicate competence unlike being an anonymous poster writing illogical shit.
If she actually had any evidence Uber would have investigated already.
She isn't displaying any proof at all. Yet the supposed conversations could easily have been documented reliably.
Look how the authors of this farce are astroturfing up and down trying to make it seem like it's a normal thing to do to believe denunciation without proof.
Welcome to the media, controller of the thoughts of people who make 100,000+ dollars annually.
The older companies have been there and done that already. Previous incidents have honed policies about such behavior in the workplace to a fine edge.
As a result, your older companies make sure you understand they will not tolerate it. At all. Annual reviews and signed acknowledgements of said training with the threat of termination of employment for any violations pretty much keep folks civil.
It's just a matter of the new ones getting a taste of what happens when you don't have clear policies on the issue.
Watch for a zero tolerance policy to be born rather quickly ( as it should ) now that there is a spotlight on it. Will be a non-issue shortly as they will likely fire the guy in question if the allegations turn out to be true.
No fucking way. This has got to be some kind of alt-right/4chan/cuck joke parody, right? Woman convinces beta male to have "open relationship" so she can fuck alphas on the side, SHOCKING beta with no game can't score, harasses actually capable women and helps ruin otherwise successful company.
"Sluts and cucks ruin everything for everyone." This has to be a joke, right?
No, it's reality.
And right here you have the *only* good or at least moderately useful thing about abrahamic revelation cults (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) as a primitive operating system of society: Executed well, they keep the sexual imbalance in check with sexual moral codes, see that every pot has a lid and prevent an all-out anarchic fight over women in which a few men get most of the women. A circumstance hat usually eventually gives rise to fanatism and degeneration/destruction.
"Girls, kiss the fascists where ever you find them!" - Kurt Tucholsky
Smart man.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
No, I mean that governments inevitably interfere with the market system.
I don't think you'll find much government interference in anything in your failed state of choice, e.g. the DRC.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Facts or no action required. In the case of facts, each case should be reviewed. Dishonesty is not a male only trait, and we have plenty of cases of dishonest allegations of sexual assault and harassment. Here.
Every company I have worked at in the last 3 decades has had a zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment. IT work is the easiest place to _prove_ sexual harassment. Do you know anyone working in IT that does not know how to take a screenshot? How to use a thumb drive or send an email to their private email from work? I'd give much more leeway to a different line of work without the same ability to have evidence of wrong doing but still would not prosecute or form opinion without hearing both sides.
Given the political climate, I am suspicious of any claim devoid of evidence or corroboration. We have seen false allegations over and over. Not just with women in the work place either, and not with a single media source promoting a specific narrative. Uber should have chat logs and email to validate her claim, and I'll wait for the evidence before supporting _either_ side. Justice does not come from ignorance, and I'm baffled by the continued push by people of a certain political leaning to prosecute based on allegation and one side of a story.
Those same people accuse others of being "part of the problem" simply for requesting evidence to substantiate a claim. That is a Nazi tactic and quite frightening to continually hear.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
It boggles my mind that people haven't figured out capitalism is the only system that introduces voluntary behavior such that one even has a hope of avoiding abuse. At least in a capitalist system when you're harassed you can quit, and inform others, and the business suffers.
You can quit in a socialist system too. The difference is that with a welfare state you might get some benefits in between your jobs to make things easier.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You really have no fucking clue. Given the moderation there are obviously many with no fucking clue on here.
Who's saying that there's no evidence or investigation involved? What kind of bizarre strawman is that?
I don't respond to AC's.
Unless he's stalking them...
Learn to read and do basic calculations then. Over 150 and 25% means there were over 37 women there. A year later it was 3% so maybe 5 were left. We aren't talking about 1 or 2 women leaving and temporarily skewing the stats, we are talking roughly 32 out of 37 which is a mass exodus.
I see an allegation with no facts. Anyone working in IT understands how to make a screenshot, if not how to log a chat session. Yet no evidence is presented, and what would the easiest thing be for this person to do? Save evidence, because sexual harassment is ILLEGAL.
The article mentions that she does indeed have that evidence. Why does she not present this evidence? Probably because to do so might be illegal. I believe she has the legal right to retain that documentation for the sole purpose of legal action (as either defendant or complainant) and no right to publish it (as it is technically copyright of Uber as she was work-for-hire at the time).
If she was lying, Uber would most likely sue her for defamation/libel/slander in short order, and she would get burned because she wouldn't have the long trail of evidence that she mentioned in the article.
Your claim (repeated) that you have to be the victim to see sexual harassment on the scale she is claiming is moronic. It would be visible to at least everyone on that team. There would be more than one claim from more than one person if it was that rampant.
She explicitly states that there was, and that she had talked to several coworkers who had experienced it.
Sorry, but there are no groups of dudes hanging around conspiring on how to fuck over, and fuck, women in the company.
It doesn't have to be a conspiracy -- negative attitudes aren't conscious.
Quite the opposite, since the virtue signalling SJWs are rampant in SF and would have busted the boss to make a name for themselves.
For example: you're sexist, but you think you're not, because you think it's all "SJWs", rather than people who have been genuinely mistreated. In this case, the woman gives a very detailed account, directly referring to matters on company record. Within an hour of picking up the phone, Uber's legal team would have had enough information to know whether this was credible or not. As Uber's official response was "conducting an internal investigation" rather than "completely baseless", I don't believe her claims can be easily dismissed at this point. And yet you believe you are taking a rational approach, even though you are disregarding the facts at hand -- attitude, not conspiracy.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Uber is a rapidly growing company capable of making many employees extremely wealthy.
The rational choice for Uber may be to be forgiving of a high performing employee with a demonstrated track record when his accuser is a new and unproven hire who has made no contributions.
It may even be that management's cost-benefit analysis is that it's even worth paying off a few people if they get to retain highly productive employees whose short-run value exceeds their long-term liability.
This seems like a case where there's special math involved due to Uber's growth status. At an established, nominal growth company, you're less concerned with high performers and their shorter-term harassment costs exceed their long-term value and they can probably be more easily replaced.
Because the systems that called themselves communistic didn't follow any of the basic definitions of the term.
Marx: the natural consequences are that workers will rise up and revolt, take over the means of production and spontaneously self-organize into a distributed state.
Soviet union etc.: intellectuals will create a revolution, take over the the means of production and forcefully create an authoritarian state lead by the intellectuals as workers are dumb.
There's a slight difference...
1st: It is possible for this to be completely imaginary and not imaginary at the same time... complex numbers. Life sucks. I had a fight over the offensive nature of Game of Thrones, the book. There are a couple of sexual scenes in the book. One party deemed those seems highly offensive. I on the other hand read them closely and wondered how anyone could consider consensual sex offensive. Not just consensual, but proactive consensual. Martin managed to demonstrate explicit consent by both parties inside a paragraph with almost 0 dialog. The entire dialog was "No?" I could not manage to get the other party to comprehend how brilliant that example was. All they could see was the colloquial words for the genitalia involved.
2nd: 1st step in any of this is for someone to say "STOP!". But then I remember the sexual assault video done by Popeye. He was doing the military press will Olive Oil as the bar bell. She kept saying "DON'T"... kiss... "STOP!" ... "Don't"... kiss ... "Stop!"
On one side, clearly Popeye should have stopped RIGHT? On the other side, it was also potentially clear to say that Olive Oil did not want him to stop. Both interpretations were left wide open. COMPLETELY OPEN. Both interpretations were correct. Both interpretation were completely correct. Had he stopped she would have wanted him to stop. Had he not stopped there is a good chance she didn't want hime to stop.
Unraveling this is not easy. Making the chain of evidence happen to a paint a company as 'evil' is actually pretty easy.
No matter what, there is an equation that makes it even harder...
Revenue > Expense. The people who keep revenue flowing into your system are granted a little more leeway than the people who aren't keeping revenue flowing into the system. Uber needs every dollar it can get flowing into its system.
God: "I don't leave footprints!"
Exactly. The same of course applies to most other political philosophies including pure capitalism.
The one actively ensuring that exploitation isn't allowed of course.
She had better work extra hard at hanging on to her new job because after this she will never find another in tech or any other white collar work. Making a public scene like this about a former employer makes you positively radioactive to future employers. They will find this on even the most cursory Google search and won't bother to look any further. Nobody wants to hire a boat rocker with a chip on her shoulder who creates PR nightmares, that's just asking for trouble and business is hard enough without hiring mistakes like that.
Yeah, because hiring HER was such a mistake but not making a manager of the dysfunctional cuck who has HR lying to cover his repeated harassment of the female staff.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Well, there's an example of the kind of absolutism that is now considered a normal part of discourse. Well done, and thanks for the data.
Not only that, but people complained about the manager after her and were told that it was his first offence. The "first offense" line was clearly being used to protect the manager no matter how many complaints were lodged against him.
That, plus all of the other red flags that her piece raised makes it obvious that Uber is NOT a good company to work for.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
The DRC has never been short on government interference. There has basically always been lots of state-sanctioned violence and corruption. Heck, they even got help from other governments in the interfering-with-things department. Except for the "other governments" part, the same is true of other failed states. That is typically why they failed.
I don't think true communism has ever been tried on a large scale simply because it wouldn't work on a large scale. At some point, it just collapses into a "rich people rule the poor."
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Yeah that's something SANE people do when a mob is out for witch-blood...no evidence in this case whatsoever....
The culture that is supposed to hold people accountable for bad behaviour laughed it off as 'boyz bein boyz' is sexism in action. That the organized response of HR was to imply she was conspiring with the other *6* women in the company to give a good guy a hard time is sexism in action.
Sure, and you only touch on my point in passing: It seems impossible to implement communism on any kind of large scale without that kind of failure. Given that all the governments (larger than a kibbutz) that have claimed to be trying communism end up brutally repressing their citizens while also greatly reducing quality of life for the non-elites, I would rather take my chances with capitalism.
and the guy who started all this!
It really does boggle my mind that people haven't figured out that the whole system of capitalism might as well be designed to create opportunities for abuse.
It boggles my mind that people haven't figured out capitalism is the only system that introduces voluntary behavior such that one even has a hope of avoiding abuse. At least in a capitalist system when you're harassed you can quit, and inform others, and the business suffers. There's some kind of financial incentive to avoid tolerating harassment. Propensity for abuse is inherent to humanity, not the economic system.
What happens when you're sexually harassed by your commie party official? Better put out or it's gulag for you, comrade.
Because rampant capitalism and out-and-out communism are literally the only two systems possible?
Its a pretty classic dilemma - Got the route of the law and you are painted as over-reacting and unhinged.... Go above and beyond to have your issue and opinion respected and, again, you are then perceived as over-reacting and unhinged.
The faustian bargin of being a women developer.
This isn't a court. This is a discussion board on a web site.
I don't respond to AC's.
Considering both the legal costs with defending lawsuits and the potential awards/settlements, this asshole boss would have to be worth millions to Uber on order for it to make any sense to keep somebody like that.
I don't respond to AC's.
Which is the economic system free from potential for sexual harassment?
This story is about human behavior, which is shit, and Ratzo turned it into some anti-capitalist thing. "Shit smells like shit! THANKS CAPITALISM!!!!"
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
incoherent grammar
infantile comprehension of civics
It's not like this was a suck me off or your sacked situation
A sexual advance by a stranger ON THE FIRST DAY OF WORK definitely sounds like whatever was happening her supervisor could not treat her impartially. There's a place for this behaviour, it's called a sleazy bar. If you think that this is a non issue then you are most definitely part of the problem.
Would you advocate the same punishment if it was female looking for sex I wonder?
A lot of men think with their brain and not their penis. These people who are capable of not whipping their cock out at every opportunity would most definitely want the same punishment. It's an office place, not a sex club.
You're showing an alarming lack of reasoning and seem to have your opinion swayed by the possibility of someone playing with your cock. Maybe you should consider going to a class on what sexual harassment and sexism is considering you either have no idea or are actually a willing participant in promoting it.
Furthermore, Uber is seeing that mixing unmarried 20-something males with unmarried 20-something females causes problems
{citation needed}. Because you're clearly talking about something other than TFA, which refers to a male in a long-term relationship mixing with a female the length of whose CV (studied at 3 universities, worked at at least 5 companies) suggests she may be in her 30s.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
This forum is not a criminal court of law. I'm personally under no obligation to treat a corporation with a history of slimy behavior as "innocent until proven guilty." How exactly would any of us "prove" this anyhow? There's almost no possible way to do that. That raises the bar so high that no reports like these could ever see the light of day. This is someone exercising her freedom of speech to let the world know about some shitty corporate behavior.
And what exactly do you think people are "crusading for justice" for? A few have wished Uber to be successfully sued by the woman, but beyond that I haven't noticed any "crusades", other than a reasonable desire for workplaces to be not be as toxic as this one.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Where's the "+1: Chutzpah" mod for someone who writes like this while criticizing grammar?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
If she truely valued her job and the company then she should have just slept with him. This just highlights the need to discard sexual harrassment laws.
Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
From the publisher's other article about this event:
Last month, after reports surfaced that Uber had allegedly broken a taxi driver strike at JFK Airport amid protests against President Trumpâ(TM)s immigration ban, the hashtag #DeleteUber caught fire on social media, leading hundreds of thousands of users to cancel their accounts with the ride-sharing giant. But just when the grassroots backlash against Uber seemed to be dying down, a former engineer went public with her tale of rampant sexism and bureaucratic incompetence within the company. And like flipping a switch, #DeleteUber is back blazing up the social networks.
Gee I wonder what this is really about. Couldn't have been about "flipping that switch back on", could it?
Note well the insane knee-jerk responses posted here. Note well the effort to suppress anyone talking about proof and rationale.
Slashdot is totally corrupt. The editors are complicit in these kinds of farces which are becoming ever more frequent. The moderation system is manipulated (astroturfing)
This forum is not a criminal court of law
It not about this forum. It's about the greater forum of public discussion.
If it's not a criminal court of law, then why is it being made to be? Why is a universal judgement being attempted to be made then?
There's almost no possible way to do that
Recording the transcripts of conversations. Recording the conversations as they happened. So impossible.
That raises the bar so high that no reports like these could ever see the light of day
EXACTLY. We only want the truth to see the light of day.
But anyway, you're literally saying there is no way to know if this is real or not. And yet you believe that it is without considering any of the interests in play here. You are insane at best.
The point is that after they've failed then there's no government interference at all. At that point if certain beliefs are to be believed, the magic pixies of unfettered markets and libertarianism should make it a perfectly functioning utopia.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You seem to be laboring under the delusion that "failed state" means "no government". It doesn't.
This is not at all a story about sexism, instead it is a case of sexual harassment - by one guy, but also bolstered by a company that supposedly refused to address it because the guy is a high performer.
To me it's far more a tale of large companies politics and fiefdoms. This seems to shock the writer but why??? Large companies have ALWAYS had those issues. It's just saying Uber is no different than any other large company, nor would I have expected that to be the case.
Also I cannot help but get a large whiff of entitlement from the story who thinks it's natural to be able to easily transfer between departments in a company at the drop of a hat... when I worked for large companies there was pretty much no way I could move into other groups without tremendous effort.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't think it'd work at scale either, but I suppose I lean more towards the cynical view that no one really tried once they seized power, versus a no true Scotsman view of communism.
She says she has screen shots. Please stop yelling inanities.
As the saying goes, "Pics, or GTFO".
I can say I have a lot of things, that doesn't mean I actually do.
The claim that all those people who say they tried to be communists weren't actually trying Real Communism is pretty close to the textbook/Wikipedia example of the No True Scotsman fallacy, particularly since it is a claim mostly made in hindsight, and contemporary reports of the Soviet Union (to pick an example) played up its communist credentials.
Most of the people on the right that I know have to provide evidence to debunk the claims and positions of the left. I read everything I can get my hands on so that I can argue against the leftists. Such as I did above showing wage discrimination. Leftists on the other hand simply repeat the same bogus numbers over and over and over. The 70c on the dollar fabrication is repeated not just by former President Obama but every voice in the Left (Clinton, Pelosi, Schumer). That gets repeated by most leftist media outlets (just about all print and broadcast), and executives are repeating the lies. If they don't, they get lambasted by the left for being politically incorrect (members of the patriarchy, misogynists, bigots, etc...)
Now what you may be hinting at is the RINOs, of which there are plenty. Considering your statement about Trump, I'm guessing that you perhaps are one.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The women who posted the blog has plenty of documentation about these interactions, but it's probably illegal for her to post that documentation. It could likely only be used in a lawsuit. What I meant is that there's no way for us to obtain any of that documentation. As such, all we have is our personal judgement as to whether the woman was telling the truth in her blog or not. There's no real possibility of ever getting any proof.
Do I believe the woman? Her story sounds plausible to me, yes, but that doesn't mean I don't acknowledge that she could be making up parts of or all of the story. She's not filing a lawsuit, so I don't see the motivation for doing that. Revenge maybe? Possible, but given the way she claims she was treated, I'd probably do the same thing. Overreactions on her part? No, she's pretty clear about the events that transpired, and there's very little room for interpretation there. This feels very different than other angry, whiny, self-entitled "safe space violation" type complaints I've seen before.
I freely admit I have no proof beyond her story, but then again, my personal judgement carries no weight beyond whether or not I'd do business with Uber (maybe), or whether I'd consider working there (no way in hell). I'm not advocating anything. Whatever happens beyond this is up to her and Uber. It sounds like she's gotten on with her life, and that Uber is going into PR damage control mode (nothing will change).
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Does she want this guy immediately fired no question asked?
At the company I work for, the stated policy is that upon receipt of a harassment complaint, the accused is immediately put on administrative leave (with out pay) and the complaint is forwarded to the local prosecutor's office for investigation. If the prosecutor clears the accused, then he is re-instated. Otherwise, he is fired. In the even the accused is cleared AND the prosecutor determines the complaint was filed with malicious intent, then the accusor is fired.
The company also has a policy of protecting the victim's privacy, so I don't know if the above procedure has been used.
The policy may seem harsh, but the company's legal department takes the position that it is better to err on the side of the victim, even if the accusations ultimately prove to be malicious.
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
You are suffering from severe thought dissonance.
>plenty of documentation about these interactions
You have serious problem with qualifying your perception. Where is this documentation? NOWHERE. She just says she has it.
>As such, all we have is our personal judgement as to whether the woman was telling the truth in her blog or not. There's no real possibility of ever getting any proof.
So then why are you getting so invested in believing it?
It's true because you "get the feeling" that it is?
>my personal judgement carries no weight beyond whether or not I'd do business with Uber
NO. You don't live in a bubble. What you say and do effects people around you. You have a duty to do right by them and adhere to the truth.
sheltered spoiled brat overgrown is what you are
You clearly didn't RTFA. She has extensive email and chat records to back up her claims. Yes, I am taking her word for it.
Considering that in Trumperican Kingdom, current first "lady" is suing a foreign tabloid for calling her a prostitute and thus preventing her from a "unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to cash in on her position of a first "lady" - you betcha you should take her word for it.
Only a complete idiot wouldn't keep a paper/electronic trail while making public accusations in the Land of Litigation.
Which goes double for someone working for a company involved in so many lawsuits.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The problem is when you create a work environment that makes it uncomfortable for people. If he keeps trying to have sex with her, or if HR punishes her for complaining, then that can be an uncomfortable place to work.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
FWIW the soviet union considered itself socialist, on the way to transitioning into communist. They never figured out how to make it into full communism, either.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
At first we kept hearing that sexism is a major problem in "STEM" and many of us were like, "what"? I mean sure, we're seeing skewed employment numbers, so we start to talk about things like what motivates people to get into STEM, and we point out that there weren't that many females enrolling in STEM programs at universities, and so on, but at least we seemed to be having a good discussion around this, focused on what would motivate young women to actually consider STEM careers. But then we kept hearing, "no, you don't get it, if a woman goes to a computer security conference she's getting groped every night, and all these startups with young guys working in them are harassing women who work there day-in and day-out." Like... "what"?
Those of us living outside of Silicon Valley just seemed to wonder what the heck was going on. We keep hearing this refrain about sexism in tech, and how blatant this harassment is, and honestly it's hard to believe in something you don't see. Many people like me in STEM fields just work at regular companies that make widgets or whatever, and we work in offices with other professionals, and this kind of stuff isn't tolerated. To be fair, there is still harassment going on, but it's going to be at the same level as the whole populace. It's not like a group of 3 IT guys in a small company are going to be ordering hookers on the company credit card or something.
So I'm glad this article says "Sexism is a well-documented problem in Silicon Valley" instead of saying it's well documented in STEM or Tech, because honestly it's not helping to get women into STEM careers *out here in the rest of the world* when you make it sound like they'd be crazy to go into these fields.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
I mean, if she said no and he persisted, then that's a different story. Yeah, bad form on this idiot's part for asking her on the first day. I put it like this because I remember an employer's policy defining sexual harassment as unwanted sexual advances. My coworkers and I briefly joked "well, you have to try and fail once for it to be unwanted." We joked, yeah, but if Uber has similar language in their policy, I'd say that guy has a good defense for himself already.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
The GP isn't crusading for justice, he's simply responding to the GGPs willful ignorance. The GGP isn't saying "Fowler lied", he's just ignoring what she wrote, and responding to a story in his own head.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
CEO Travis Kalanick calls it "Boober" because it helps him get laid.
Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
No, I mean that governments inevitably interfere with the market system. That's about the same minimal level of deviation from an ideal that communism's defenders invoke to say that true communism has never really been tried.
Philosophical communism is generally defined as being anti-statist, so state socialism like the USSR isn't really "communism" at all, even leaving aside the question of corruption at the state level.
We were much closer to true capitalism a couple of hundred years ago now, when "penny pies" sold in the street were stuffed with sawdust to try to get round the rising cost of food; when landowners were free to kick people tenants off their land to make way for sheep; when people were working seven days a week for wages that weren't enough to feed the family; when people with no other wage were condemned to the "poorhouse"; and when the only detriment to a factory for crushing a child worker to death was the loss of the carpet that was stained from the child's blood and gore.
The whole reason communist thought arose was as a reaction to the excesses of bourgeois capitalism (the French revolution was a bourgeois-democratic revolution, and the bourgeoisie are damn near the dictionary definition of capitalists).
Governments stepped in on food safety; trade unions stood up for workers rights (and the weekend break); etc.
Eventually, we got to the stage where children all go to school instead of work, the unemployed aren't herded into forced labour camps. All good stuff.
So yes, capitalism has been tried pretty much as far as it could.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
You mock, but remember the parable of the talents.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
My cousin says he has pictures of bigfoot, but he can't publish him or the government will drag him away to a secret prison under Cheyenne Mountain
The way woman are treated in Silicon Valley HAS to be exposed. It makes me cringe when I hear Mrs. Clinton talk about woman in technology, the disconnect to how it really is hard to swallow. I have seen groups of engineers cackle and shout female engineers and programmers out of a room. They tease their clothing, their hair, talk to them like their stupid etc. And I don't care if I sound racist, engineers/people from certain countries DO NOT RESPECT WOMAN. It can be borderline uncomfortable for a guy from the mid-west raised on equality.
Even if you disagree that propositioning perfect strangers who you are line manager for is poor behaviour, I'm sure you'll understand that telling someone they'll get a bad performance review for objecting to being propositioned is just ridiculous.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
So Uber's HR department was quoted in the article stating they said it was his first time offense when it was not? Oh, maybe it was the CEO at a press conference? No? Was it the accused manager doing it then, in some cathartic confession of his guilt?
Oh, so the person who is throwing all this shade also gave this uncorroborated piece of evidence along with the others? Got it. How did you miss that there is no evidence of this being substantiated in fact?
I wonder about your ability to parse reality correctly.
Please understand that I am not in any way saying that harassment in the workplace is OK. What I am saying is that you just used hearsay to forward your position without revealing or even admitting to yourself that it was hearsay.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
I'm not saying it happened, I'm just saying that if Uber aren't denying it yet, I can't see any justification for dismissing the whole thing just because she doesn't print the evidence in public.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Perhaps it is the HR manager that should be fired.
I'd think the whole department should be scrapped from what I've heard. It's not only the women who are being shat on.
There is no proof.
There will be no lawsuit.
Her account is a lie.
Meanwhile you see the total insanity of people believing her word as truth. Everywhere.
We need a culling.
She says she has them, therefore it must be true. How dare you question her evidence. Women NEVER lie or exaggerate! (sigh)
How soon some forget about the ROLLING STONE / Jane Doe rape allegation debacle. That truth only surfaced because of recognizing inconsistent "facts" that shone some light on that mentality.
Either there is a giant conspiracy and coverup of sexism at Uber among disparate parties or it's someone with a personal agenda looking for some validation in social media.
Which makes a better story? Which pushes your buttons? Verge is just trying to accumulate eyeballs after all.
I was expecting to read one of the usual stories. The proportion of men to women wasn't 50/59 so they must be sexist; the guys don't ask look comfortable taking to me; or the guys are too familiar when talking to me. I have to say though this sounds like a good engineer facing real problems of discrimination.
Doctors does not assume "medical doctor", but if you had bothered to read the link you would see that 70.8% of Medical Doctors Degrees are earned by women.68.9% are Education,etc... READ THE DAMN FACTS!
Your complaint is that women are not choosing to go into CS, Physical Sciences, or Engineering. I thought you were pro woman you bigoted simpleton! Nobody is forcing women into a specific career field. People like you are attempting to force them into it.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Under the circumstances presented in TFA?
Absolutely, and it's not even close.
Why exactly would you expect to see sexism or racism that is not directed at you?
Because complaints would be directed through me. I work in a tech company, and over the years, I have dealt with about a dozen complaints. The thing is, they were never about the engineers, programmers, or other nerds. They were always about the salesmen, the marketing dept, or the warehouse crew. I am sure some nerds are misogynistic jerks, but I don't think that is common, and I believe it is actually less prevalent than in most other professions. My experience is that most nerds are welcoming to female co-workers, and judge them by their ability, not their gender. Ms Fowler's description of her experience at Uber sounds terrible, but I don't think Uber is typical of tech companies or representative of "nerd culture". She also describes a lot of backstabbing and chaos at Uber that have nothing to do with sexism, so it sounds like a very dysfunctional company on many levels.
Crapping out an endless supply of female teachers and nurses and male doctors and scientists
newsflash - total female grads vs male ones from med school in the USA has been above 90% since at least 2002
http://kaiserf.am/2hO7ZxG
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Unless they are a Democratic President (see: Bill Clinton).
The Republicans only cared because they wanted Clinton gone. Also Lewinsky NEVER filed a complaint against Clinton.
Not that I was ever okay with his hound dog ways and Hillary should have dumped him long before that.
And someone was covering up for Dennis Hastert for a long time. And Gingrich.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
That to argue for rational dialogue and facts for consideration, people need to state things like "Please understand that I am not in any way saying that harassment in the workplace is OK." In an intellectual space the disclaimers should go without being said. Sadly, intellectuals are not the only ones in this space. I understand why you did, just pointing out something obvious for mass consideration.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Allow me to sum up:
1. woman goes to work at a new company.
2. woman immediately gets treated like shit by manager.
3. woman complains to HR (I assume appropriately)
4. woman gets treated like shit my HR
5. woman learns that many women are treated like shit by managers and HR at this company
6. woman keeps working at this company for how long?!
A lot of women like to cause trouble, instead of being trouble. Stop complaining to HR. Just walk out the door. Complain to media. Complain to friends. Complain to senators. Complain to police. HR isn't obligated to enforce anything. HR isn't on your side. Police are. If treating women like shit isn't illegal, then you've nothing to complain about. If it is illegal, then you need to complain to those who made the laws. HR doesn't do either. Company policies aren't enforced. Welcome to companies.
Start your own company. Join a company with more than 3% women. If you're treated like shit on the first day, don't be surprised when you're treated like shit a year later.
Honestly, what do you think the odds were that you'd be treated like shit on your first day, and it was a random coincidence?
There are bad people in this world. I'm not one of them. And yet, I have a hard time hiring people -- because they look for big companies.
You're talking to slahdotters here. I've spent 30 years programming. I'm happy to say that male programmers, of almost all ages and demographics, treat women like princesses. And yet, in all of my years, I've encountered very few female programmers in any office, venue, bar, or school.
You're complaining that other places treat you like shit. I don't. Come here. I can't do anything more from afar.
Do you know anyone working in IT that does not know how to take a screenshot?
Yes. Sadly, yes.
Although.. I don't know how to take a screenshot on my phone. Never needed to, never bothered to learn how.
Hmm. Ok, I need to go find out. Ok, done. Turns out it's a non-standard approach on my phone, but one screenshot successfully taken.
Anyway, yes. Sadly I do know people working in IT that don't know how to take a screenshot - on any device.
Senator Packwood's intern never filed a complaint against him either.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
She made s specific claim with regards to the *fact* she was harassed on her first day, and it was reported to HR her first day. If that fact-based claim is a lie, Uber should sue her. That they aren't, and haven't responded, is evidence that they don't object to her facts. Yes, silence is an admission of guilt (except in court). In fact, Uber has made confirming statements, where they are concerned. And they have explicitly not questioned the factual claims made.
And complaints bout SJWs seem to exceed the number of SJWs. Try facts, rather than yous snowflake tantrums.
Learn to love Alaska
Well, a manager/staff relationship isn't about being ordered around for money. Managers that think that's the case need educating and the staff that think that's the case need help too.
This isn't child abuse, employees can quit.
Many things aren't child abuse, that doesn't make them acceptable in a work environment. You want to fuck me, that costs substantially more than my current salary and I'm not going to do it as an employee.
Hmm. Try that in the UK and you'll be getting sued for constructive dismissal the moment you tried "put on administrative leave without pay".
No, you fucking pay me right up until the moment you sack me, and you'd better have fucking good cause. Let alone "because some cunt made a complaint".
And yes, I've been accused of harassment before. For holding a door open for someone. Interestingly I mentioned this to a colleague and he said that at another company he'd had a formal grievance against him for exactly that too.
Zero pay because you held a door open for someone? Where the fuck do you work, and in what imaginary world do you ask a 'prosecutor' to investigate workplace harassment?
Marx was a drunk moron with no understanding of human nature or realpolitik. He has a 100% wrong rate on his social predictions.
His books _should_ be out of print from disinterest, but for some reason they are not. I blame the teachers.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It's obvious you're a troll: nobody on Slashdot really believes that people who are wronged can sue for damages and actually come out ahead. Otherwise they wouldn't get so orgasmically indignant over civil forfeiture cases. However it certainly makes for a nice scapegoat so you can blame a woman for taking any action when no action is good enough in your eyes.
"She's putting it on a blog? If she had proof she would sue."
"She's suing? She's just looking for a payout instead of getting a real job."
"She's closing her twitter account because she's getting death threats/bomb threats/SWAT teams being sent to her house by people who think getting her killed by -militarized police in a fake 911 call is a hilarious joke? She must have been lying or she wouldn't have given up so easily."
Lawsuits are long, expensive, and are as likely to result in a payout as winning the lottery. Usually you settle, the company admits no wrongdoing, you go home with a paltry sum, and the lawyers make out like bandits. At the same time, you're out of a job, burning through cash for legal fees and being yelled at by dipshits on slashdot. Assuming I can engage you in good faith (which I can't, but it's a laugh) you need to get your head out of your ass if you think the legal system will ever, ever make a habit of favoring the underdog even with overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing by the rich and powerful.
Monica fucking her way up the ladder is absolutely sexual harassment under the law. The victim is the person who would have gotten the job Monica got at the pentagon, along with all the other non-president blowing interns who didn't get ahead by giving head. The perps are both Clinton and Lewinsky. Though the heat would fall mostly on the person with rank.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If she really did have what she said she had, she could have sued the ever living shit out of the company.
She could also keep it in reserve in case Uber ever tries to deny it. Did you know that suing someone is typically something that cannot be done in a couple of weeks between jobs?
My assumption is that a repeated, long-term pattern of harassing behavior wouldn't be tolerated unless the guy really was the goose that laid the golden egg.
On the other hand, what kind of claim does she have, really? Monetary damages are probably limited to 2x her salary because of how short her tenure was. Let's say that's $300k and it costs Uber another $50k to hire and train her replacement.
I don't know what this guy's job is, but replacing *him* may be something that has a direct cost of $100k (recruiting, signing bonus, etc) and indirect costs due to workflow disruption while he's being replaced. It's not impossible those could add up to another $200k or more -- business disruption is expensive.
Ms Fowler's description of her experience at Uber sounds terrible, but I don't think Uber is typical of tech companies or representative of "nerd culture".
If you read her article, it's clear that things got worse during her time there. Reading between the lines, it sounds an awful lot like the story of the missing stair.
In one sense, it's not Uber, it's just that one guy. But when people discuss what is "typical" or "representative", many miss the problem that it only takes that one guy. That guy may not be typical or representative, but if the organisation decides (whether deliberately or not) to ignore or enable that one guy, that one guy becomes the typical or representative experience for anyone that one guy targets.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
> except for discrimination against white men ... I'm sure you know the story of the boy that cried wolf
Well, obviously you're familiar with it.
"Old man yells at systemd"
It's alright, literacy is more of an adult thing anyway. You'll understand when you're older.
When has it become against the law to tell a girl you are interested in her in the work place? He didn't tie it to her job, nor threaten to fire her. He simply (reading the article) let her know his situation, asked about hers to see if she was game. Now if he was Brad Pitt, she'd be gushing, but was probably an unattractive guy doing it so time to scream harassment.
My you be cursed with many socially retarded aspi cow orkers.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
A boss making a pass at an subordinate is not sexism. It's a big problem, yes, and it doesn't sound like Uber handled it very well if the woman's account is accurate, but there wasn't any trace of sexism throughout the entire story that I saw (I was skimming) except for the meeting with the HR woman she briefly described at the very end.
The bulk of her story seemed to be just vague conspiratorial stuff, implying her poor performance reviews under another manager on under team was due to the original boss's evil influence which... I don't know, anything's possible, but it doesn't seem like a reasonable default assumption. In the crazed and cutthroat culture she describes, it seems more reasonable to assume it was normal bullshit, not evil anti-woman bullshit.
Oh yeah, and she seemed to think that the company's refusal to order a special feminine version of the special leather jackets they had bought constitutes sexism. Just let that sink in a moment--*not* pandering to arbitrary social conventions that insist a female's jacket has to have a slightly different cut and styling is sexism. Why stop there? Why not insist it's sexism to not give all of the women hot pink keyboard, perhaps spangled with little glittery flowers?
The first step to getting people to take sexism seriously: don't conflate normal (if inappropriate) sexual advances as sexism. That's fucking stupid, and a lot of people will instantly tune you out after they realize that's what you're implying. It's only sexism if there's discrimination involved and, unfortunately for this woman, she's not describing any documented discrimination that I can see. I don't know what I'd tell her except to look up California laws on hidden audio recording, maybe. The HR woman at the very end sounded like she was saying sexist shit, but everyone else, by her own admission, had excuses for her performance evaluations.
Were they bullshit excuses? I'm sure they were. But that's par for the course for performance evaluations in a cutthroat environment; you can't just assume that it's sexism, just because a *former manager on a different team* once made a pass at you.
Learn to stop acting like a bitch and understand that one thing does not necessarily mean the other.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Senator Packwood's intern never filed a complaint against him either.
The Washington Post published accusations from 10 former female staffers in 1992, the New York Times published a long column called The Trials of Bob Packwood in Aug 1993 and Packwood still didn't quit until Sept 1995
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
In TFA which I admittedly hadn't read at time of post, yes. In TFS, no. Morale of the story. Always RTFA.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
There *should* be zero tolerance for some behaviors. If someone is harassing one of their workers, in addition to behaving immorally and illegally, they are driving away talented people, and exposing the company to huge lawsuits.
Why should anyone ever be given a pass for this sort of behavior?
More minor offenses are a different matter, but a manger asking a direct report for sex is not a borderline case.
I have no pics of any of the laws of mathematics, the phenomenon of gravity, or _anything_ that happened before the invention of the camera.
You're right, there's a chance that this dev who, IMO seems pretty reasonable, has fabricated this whole thing but has not gotten around to fabricating screenshots of these fabricated conversations (b/c "pics" CAN be fabricated, are not proof themselves unless verified), and so this whole thing COULD unravel if further investigation--which she seems to be inviting--happens. THIS COULD BE!
It could also be that EVERYTHING that happened before this moment is a total lie being told to you by falsified systems of neurons telekinetically arranged in your brain by psychic Illuminati lizard men. COULD BE!!! So, you gonna disbelieve it all?
Seriously. How do STEM folks succumb so easily to logical fallacy?
We have openings for talented software people. She would be very welcome at SLAC, and our HR takes any reports of harassment seriously.
We don't have stock options, but our pay and benefits are good and the work is very interesting.
Yes. (assuming the charges can be proven).
No different from fraud or any other illegal action that puts the company at great financial risk.
Her post specifies that there were 150 people in her unit when 3% were women. That's about five women.
It's possible that she's the only person who left and the company only hired men from that point, which would be problematic in itself and indicate that the unit grew from 20 people to 150 within a year.
It's possible that the unit had no net change in size, which would indicate that the unit started with 37 women, which would indicate that over 90% of the women in the unit left in the course of one year. That isn't a sign of a healthy working environment.
A lack of punishment doesn't mean the thing wasn't wrong. Bill Clinton avoided punishment, not wrongdoing.
She was probably afraid of revenge.
yeah... you're going to want to talk to your doctor about upping your meds.
My anecdotal experience has predominately been to witness sexism that's centered around when the guys get together without the gals around, and that in most cases it evaporates when there are women present, and it's almost always centered in social or off-hours situations. It's literally like the idiots revert to being thirteen and start openly speculating about sex acts that they're probably never going to get an opportunity to perform with women that they're never going to have any intimacy with without having any real-world knowledge of sex. What's kind of funny is witnessing the immediate-switch if a woman that could find issue comes into earshot, it's literally as dramatic as when the character in Office Space listening to the gangster rap on his commute is faced with a couple of potential bangers and he gets as meek as a mouse...
Most of the rest of the sexism has been older guys with no filter that say inappropriate things in front of coworkers regardless of the gender-mix, occasionally making it personal about a person present. Often this is in the context of the group enjoying a mild bit of prurient humor centered around double-entendre, only for this other person to come into the conversation and just destroy any sort of plausible deniability with outright escalation of the joke or the deliberate explicit statement instead of leaving the double-entendre intact.
I have no doubt that other forms of sexism exist in tech, but I have not personally witnessed anything as egregious as the article discusses.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Well probably because he was letting his hot wife sleep with senior management he had a pass. What really needs to be investigated was was the guy pressured into having an open relationship so senior management cold bang his wife and hence thought it OK to bang subordinates.
**Life is too short to be serious**
This story proves you wrong
How can a story that contains no evidence prove anything?
Time to bail from Slashdot, seems like almost all the sane rational people have left.
Well probably because he was letting his hot wife sleep with senior management he had a pass. What really needs to be investigated was was the guy pressured into having an open relationship so senior management cold bang his wife and hence thought it OK to bang subordinates.
That stuff is hard to keep quiet. Of the 20+ rumors of harassment & dalliance that made it to my ears in the schools & jobs I've had, only 2 turned out to be untrue.
Fowler claims that multiple women had file similar accusations; it's inconceivable that he'd been chasing multiple women at the same company and no one would know he was a cuck for the higher ups.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
...you do get that that's an ad absurdum argument, yeah? No?
> I know, I know, they cleverly hid it behind the first link in the story.
Claiming you have proof is not the same as actually showing it to us. It's perfectly reasonable for us, who haven't seen these screenshots, to withhold judgement until either we see them or she wins the court case.
There's no prize for being the first person to judge someone. The word 'prejudice' literally means judging someone beforehand.
Why can't we wait for all the evidence to come out in court before we condemn someone or make up our minds? I will hold no position either way and will let the courts judge this. She can show the proof to them and they can judge this, there's no need for any of us to pre-judge this.
I work with a woman who does anything she damn well pleases. Because any time they start talking corrective action she's in the HR Department threatening lawsuits.
It's cheaper to put up with her bullshit than to risk going to court, she doesn't do enough to fuck anything up, and it makes it really easy to fire men who aren't properly cow-towing to the management.
This lady in the story didn't sue because she knows that blogging about it will get her what she wants, now and in the future, and she doesn't have to pay for a lawyer or court fees.
Like the church does with pedophile priests?
Dialectician. Archology.
No, you're wrong.
Harassment is a pattern of unwanted behavior. For it to be harassment it has to happen more than once and the harasser generally has to be told it's unwanted or it's against policy, or it has so flagrant that no "reasonable person" would invite such behavior.
Being a superior doesn't change that. HR may think otherwise, but they can't stop people from fucking whomever they want. At worst, you just have to inform HR of your relationship and they reassign managers/supervisors/whatever to avoid issues.
The firehose isn't what it used to be. Our "editors" shove shit right down our throats with no regard to the firehose.
Harassment (alleged or actual) is not sexism. Those are different things.
Baskets are not skateboards.
How is it that sexism is running rampant in Silicon Valley? Isn't that where all the people that voted for Hilary live? They're a people of understanding and equality. They would never do this. It has to be fake news.
So did he stop being an engineer when stopped at Uber? That's what the headline implies.
No, but WE are asking the smart question: if so MANY women choose to avoid those fields - WHY. What is it about those fields that make so many women prefer to stay the hell away from it ?
Now, based on available evidence, we have a strong theory about what the answer may be - a theory you definitely do not agree with. Now a rational answer would be to posit and alternative theory, or show that somehow, the evidence for our theory is false.
You have made no attempt to do either - you tried to derail the conversation by focusing on something else entirely. You accuse us of trying to force choices on women - which is the exact OPPOSITE of trying to fix things which force choices on women. But you never addressed the evidence for our theory, and you posited no alternative hypotheses to explain the phenomenon and the evidence.
I can therefore only conclude that you are incapable of doing so. If we're wrong- you've done absolutely nothing to correct us, if we're right, all you've done is tried ot delay us fixing the problem. That is a very sensible thing to do... if you are part of the problem.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
1) That people would know the difference between sexual advance and harassment (note how you often can't know in advance if it is wanted or not)
2) That in boss => subordinate scenario, top to bottom sexual advancement should be considered outright harassment (for apparent reasons)
Because it wasn't recorded and written in his file, _every_ time it happened was his first offence...because 'I have no record of any other offences'.
Sued for what? Loss of consortium?
Seriously, though, sexual harassment lawsuits usually go after lost wages, wrongful termination, etc- monetary losses. Which were what in her story?
I know I might be playing devil's advocate here, but:
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, and that if I had ever considered that I might be the problem.
This worries me. What if HR are onto something? Can we fully trust her account of what happened here?
You seem to be laboring under the delusion that "failed state" means "no government". It doesn't.
One of the key characteristics of a failed state is that the central government does not have control over significant areas of the country. Go to one of those areas, then and the central government will be utterly unable to bother you.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I know, right? Communism never led to any abuses ever! Neither did theocracies, anarchy, or monarchies!
Of course there are never alternatives to strict capitalism or communism? It's one or the other, always, right?
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Unless they are a Democratic President (see: Bill Clinton).
I was going to reply to the GP, but seeing as you bought up this nugget I have to point out how stupid it is.
It is actually OK for the boss to ask for consentual sex with a subordinate. Fuck, it happens all the time, forgive the pun, between successful middle aged men and young women in private companies. If GWB had consentual sex with an intern, he also would have done nothing wrong (legally speaking, of course his party would have crucified him for it, but that's besides the point). The key word is consent. Bill had it, this Uber twat didn't. However, what the twat at Uber did wrong was to continue to make sexual advances after it was made clear they were unwanted.
Then what Uber did wrong was refuse to sack the guy because he was too highly placed.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Obviously, no one ever practices any large system in a pure form.
However, I would rather have lived in the United States any time in the last 100 years than in the Soviet Union at the same times. Life in the United States -- or Britain, or France, or the former West Germany -- has been better under more capitalist regimes (as actually practiced) than it has been in China, Cuba, Vietnam, or any of the other communist regimes (as actually practiced).
PopeRatzo and drinkypoo played stupid games, and won stupid prizes.
You gave no evidence in your claim, you simply made up a fairy tale to back a broken assumption.
For your belief, basic evidence is being avoided. Outside of personal choice (based largely on biology), Aptitude and Skill Assessments are the largest factor in determining a degree track for both men and women. I seriously hope you are not going to attempt to claim that the same tests keeping men out of certain fields are biased against women, but hell... you probably will.
90% of school teachers are women. Are women brain washing kids away from certain subjects? That's a big part of your "theory". You don't consider evolutionary biology, just claim bias.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
You just requested proof of non-existence. No evidence was provided to support the claim, just another "claim" that it existed. Let me guess, your next move will be to use circular logic in an effort to substantiate her claims.
If you don't have basic critical thinking skills you should stay off the fucking Internet.
Critical thinking skills? You are a special kind of stupid, eh? The person I responded to said she had no evidence. If one reads the article one sees that she did keep records of her correspondence. If the OP has reason to think she is lying about said records, he needs to back it up with something other than, "I don't believe her". I'm sure that will make sense to you, considering your impressive critical thinking skills.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
After Ellen Pao, UNLV, Duke LaCrosse, and countless false police reports (resulting in legal action) about discrimination I'm waiting for evidence.
I am familiar with the case, maybe even more than you are, and I can't draw any conclusions from it as to who was right here. I'm American and I've actually served on juries twice and I can tell you that in a case like this when juries have no idea who is telling the truth, they'll opt for the least harm verdict, which means that ruling against Ellen Pao is the safest course of action because it avoids ruling against defendants who may actually be innocent. People get found innocent of murder because there's nothing more than circumstantial evidence in the case and juries won't always convict just on that. Both Ellen and the defendants provided reasonable, believable versions of what happened. The only conclusion I can come to is that Ellen didn't prove her case sufficiently for whatever reason and it shows just how difficult it is to win workplace lawsuits. Some years ago we had a lawyer who actually did this kind of work post about them and he told us that his first advice to all prospective clients was to drop the matter and get on with their lives if they possibly could because most workplace discrimination cases are losses for the plaintiffs.
You already conceded the evidence. Very few women choose STEM careers.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
As for evolutionary biology: merely mentioning it as a possibility proves three things:
1) you do not understand it all as it cannot lead to such outcomes. When biology says women are on average more X than men 60 percent of women will be less X than 40 percent if men. Because thats how bell curves work.
2) that the problem of sexist biases makimg these tracks unattractive to women is very real
3) that you are, as I previously posited, part of the problem.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Women are not going into science and engineering. It is, however, difficult to tease out whether that is a true choice that reflects personal inclinations. Women are less likely to be encouraged to go into those fields from a young age. If they do, they often encounter a culture that is hostile to women.
It particularly saddens me that the culture of software development has become an unfriendly one for women. That was far less true in the early days of the field. The rise of brogrammer culture, so far as I can tell, started in the 90s; before that there was frequently indifference to the needs of women (especially about scheduling things like childcare responsibilities) but not the degree of active hostility that came later.
I have heard this from so many women scientists, systems engineers, and other IT specialists who are female.
There is a problem.
My key ROI on this is:
1. Stop using the old boys network, your frat buddies, to find recruits. Set a goal of 50 percent promotions, 50 percent board position candidates, and 50 percent new hires being female.
2. If you think having one woman in the after hours drinking means you're diverse - you're wrong.
3. If you're female, stop undercutting other women when they have ideas. Most groups won't hear a woman's idea unless at least two women agree with the idea. If a male steals credit for the idea, call it out right there. Don't wait for a "good moment to bring it up". There is no good moment.
4. If you find 1-3 impossible, then you're just pretending you're a real business.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Read TFA? This is slashdot, c'mon.
She says she took screenshots. There is no independent evidence beyond what she says, and her story doesn't seem credible.
According to her, there are independent witnesses who were both also sexually harassed by the same man and actively lied to by HR using the same lie.
This claim should be super easy to prove if true, and super easy to disprove if false.
It would be, if anybody had an opportunity to. Note how neither she nor the other women have filed a court case? Why do you think that is?
Uber, on the other hand, hired a famous legal social justice activist, Eric Holder, to look into the allegations.
I suspect her allegations will turn out to be largely wrong. And if her allegations are false, she should never hold a job in tech again.
Meditation would do wonders for your ability to respond appropriately to stimuli. You sound like a heart attack waiting (not for long) to happen.
Only I can judge you.
You are right the article says she has the evidence and it is up to her to prove to a court (not anybody here) that it is valid, the burden of proof is on her. Innocent until proven guilty.
All we can do here is have discussions, based on the article, and personal experience.
The only thing that does not quite make sense is that she said they changed reviews and that held her back from promotions, and it happened within a year. Just how many promotions did she expect within a year.