I have a hard time believing HR really behaved the way they are portrayed in that article. They really claimed that if she elected to stay in her current department she should expect to receive a negative review from the boss she rejected for a sexual relationship? This is just too much. And for someone as savvy and with as large an internet presence as the author, I can't imagine she would accept this resolution. The crowd is quick to crucify Uber here, but we have seen similar claims before that have turned out to be false or exaggerated greatly. It's also suspicious that the claimant tends to only last in jobs for a median of 6 months before moving on and has just released a book. This deserves a full investigation and we will have to wait and see what evidence surfaces.
Thank you. The swiftness with which the hammer has fallen on Uber, is disturbing. Yes, at face value, this looks bad for Uber. But, the claims here are serious enough that we really should be holding our judgement before an investigation, or some other evidence surfaces.
This does not mean I think her claims are false. In fact, I BELIEVE them to be true, but I withhold my judgment and public criticism until I can be sure.
Healthy Skepticism is well... healthy, but I think at this point there is enough evidence out there to confirm the story.
Case in point, a quick look at glassdoor reviews seems to confirm the story. (there's even one that says it's "Not Great for Women" - Sep 2016 although it's not as devastating as this article but the info from that and other reviews seem to support what she's saying)
It's disturbing when it seems people are jumping react before all the facts are there, but it seems the story is verifiably true. If there is still doubt, I think the discussion is better served by bringing up specific items than a whole cloth rejection of the story.
The only thing that review says in reference to women is "Emotionally unintelligent male managers (all the way up to the CEO) make it hard for women to feel heard and valued." This has nothing to do with sexual harassment.
There is also talk of long hours, but it is not clear if the reviewer meant that is a negative specific to women or not.
I don't mean to imply that 1 review on glassdoor is the smoking gun. But a bunch of reviews talking about the same issues (not specific to sexual harassment), and other comments and testimonials not on glassdoor seem to point in the same general direction. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt doesn't mean it needs to be incontrovertible.
Let's not miss the forest for the trees here, this isn't about a single case of sexual harassment (at least to me it isn't). It's about how Uber is operating as a business and culture and from that what are its long term prospects.
How does a glassworks review of 'not great for women' confirm her story? It looks bad, and is LIKELY bad, but come on... Just like rubicon says, no matter how much you'd like to believe, wait for confirmation.
If this was a he said she said case then you would have a point. We should all wait until the facts come out before making a judgement. But, there are so many corroborating accusations from her fellow female peers that makes it very hard to not to believe her story. You do not make a public statement that you have corroborating accusations from your fellow female peers without being absolutely certain because if those claims are discredited then you've instantly lost your credibility.
HR could totally act in the way the article describes. They exist to protect the interests of the organization, and to minimize boat-rocking. It would be easy for HR to dismiss her claims in the very same way that you are. Before we start down the path of victim-blaming, lets at least consider the possibility her claims are valid.
Telling a victim that they should expect to be abused further (in the form of a negative review) does not minimize boat rocking or protect the interests of the organization. It leaves them open to lawsuits and antagonizes the victim into further action. And if it was true that they were protecting the manager because he was high-performing, why would you make this explicit. It just makes no sense and reeks of one side of a story.
I see you've never actually dealt with HR departments before.
I worked at a company where the director of IT/Dev hired his wife to the department; they were swingers and engaged in a variety of unethical and harassing behavior. If you got on his wife's bad side he would punish you by taking away bonuses. He was also regularly drunk at work (and later died of liver failure around age 45). They both propositioned women in the office.
Nothing was done. HR papered over any complaints and ensured anyone who did complain was given a bad performance review to ensure if a lawsuit were ever filed they could point to bad performance and claim it was just sour grapes. He was seen as critical to the success of the department and the company had grown quickly. The head of HR was old golfing buddies with the CEO and both were friends with the director in question.
He was only fired once he grabbed one of his manager's breasts while in a huge meeting with a bunch of people. This was not the first time he grabbed women around the office, but there were too many witnesses to punish the victim in this specific case.
I agree that HR should not behave in the ways it's claimed they did. However, based on my perception of Uber's willingness to ignore rules, I find it believable that they could have an HR department that thinks such actions are a good choice; I also wouldn't be surprised if they don't do any of the state mandated harassment training either for all employees or the addition training for managers.
I also believe the claims because they are very specific, egregious, and should be verifiable; and they were related in a simply facts manner: there were no questions of intent or what the other people were thinking, and only a limited amount of heresay. Additionally, it felt more like a "this kind of thing is happening, you should watch out for it" than a call for pitchforks and torches.
Willingness to ignore rules does not lead to these actions. It's nonsensical. There is no way you would tell a complainant that you were protecting a manager because they were high performing. You would be extremely secretive about that. There is no way you would tell a complainant that they should expect a negative review for reporting sexual harassment. You would placate them to make the problem go away.
I have a harder time believing that someone would set themselves up to be so royally screwed as she would be if it turned out she was lying. If she were to later claim she "lost" the copies of these emails, or change her story significantly, that would be the time to get skeptical. But people do not generally stake their professional reputations on things lightly.
It's easy to believe. The thinking HR probably was expressing that Susan couldn't expect positive reviews just because she had a valid harassment complaint. You have to look at HR as CYA for the company. Looking at it any other way is naive.
Don't you have a hard time believing that on a woman's first day in a place with a small minority of women, her direct supervisor, ON COMPANY CHAT, in a highly educated, white-collar highly compensated office job for programmers (she must have earned well into the six digits), said he was in an open relationship and always getting in trouble for looking for a woman to have sex with? That is very hard to believe.
Why aren't you incredulous - isn't that far harder to believe? Oh, right, because she has those screenshots in black and white. So instead you have to be incredulous about what she doesn't.
This is like a black attorney receiving mail saying "You're not welcome in my classroom and if I could, I'd hang you from a noose. Because you're black." signed by a law professor. And the law professor then giving an F - no credit - on every assignment this person handed in. While, incidentally, the law student publishes a book on the area of law the professor teaches in.
So, we get this write-up. And at that point, here you come with your statement "I have a hard time believing that a law professor really gave zero credit for well-written papers that aren't plagiarized. I find it far more likely that either the papers really were unworthy of credit, or perhaps were plagiarized. It just doesn't make sense for a professor to assign no credit otherwise!"
I use this analogy because in this case you are not questioning the racist signed letter, what the author has in black and white. You're shifting and moving the conversation to whatever part has the least evidence, then adding that you find it hard to believe.
How can you honestly do that? Why don't you question the part that has screenshots? The new hire being directly propositioned - on their first day!!! - by their direct manager?
Citations not needed. There are allegations, nothing more.
If this happened to me, I would find the moral import of the matter significant to the point that it would not occur to me to use it to plug my book.
This may well be an endemic issue at this company, and it does seem that these sorts of situations do in fact exist in some places, but so far there is only one person's story's and without proof.
My interpretation was that the "citation needed" was in reference to "we have seen similar claims before that have turned out to be false or exaggerated greatly".
