Uber reported to the state that I was fired for "annoying a coworker." | Hacker News Reader

Uber reported to the state that I was fired for "annoying a coworker."

anon-ex-uber.medium.com

109 pointsanon-ex-uber73 comments

It seems like this employee was in a no-win situation. If he engaged in the non-work-related conversation the co-worker was trying to initiate, he would have been fired. If he ignored the co-worker, they would have found a reason to fire him. Instead, he responded saying he was advised to keep communication to just work topics... and he was fired. The company was clearly planning on firing him for any possible reason.

His first mistake was complaining to HR about another employee griefing him. HR is always going to consider the initial complainer as "the problem."

People have this mistaken belief than HR is for them when they are there 100% for the employer. The only people who are there for you in these situations is the union (if you have one).

this cliche is so often repeated that i'm now questioning whether this is even true.

unions are counterproductive many times - they serve the interests (only temporarily) for the incumbents while failing to or ignoring the larger consequences like the whole company or industry declining.

i wonder if the HR cliche is similar.

If you belong to a union, you are the incumbent that the union exists to serve. Depending on the union's bargaining power, it may or may not succeed in representing your interests, but it has your interests as a central goal.

The cliche about HR doesn't mean that HR can't ever be helpful to you, just that they are incentivized to be helpful in ways that help the company. For example advising on how to best use benefits to keep employees healthy or recover from an illness or injury so they can return to work.

But if your needs as an employee go against what is best for the company by costing money, productivity, or creating risk for bad publicity, or they go against high level managers or executives who hold outsized sway with HR, then it will be difficult for you to get help from them.

> they serve the interests [...of] the incumbents

Yes. The employees. That's the point.

> while [...] ignoring the larger consequences like the whole company

Good. That is, again, the point - to advocate for the employees when their interests are in opposition to those of the company.

You say they're counterproductive - sounds like they're working exactly as intended.

>You say they're counterproductive - sounds like they're working exactly as intended.

it can lead to the whole company or industry to be destroyed, so while it may protect the specific incumbents it puts the whole industry/country in jeopardy. in aggregate these things can work against favour.

if everyone ends up doing this the system can't work

Can you name a time it's destroyed an industry?

I also think HR has this same mistaken belief about themselves. There are things they're aware they know that the employee(s) don't so they have some sense in which they're part of a misdirection, but anything that seems "a little unethical, but those are the rules" they kinda attribute to "I'm just doing my job and so it's not unethical". The job can of course be to do unethical things.

Depends on the company, but HR (and some other functions) can be relatively low power and it frequently seems that the low power person is facilitating groups that are above them, which leads to them serving as a pillow for the higher powered person to abuse the medium powered one and let the low powered absorb the blame/blows. It's unfair in a certain way, but realistically I think the low powered one refusing (in spite of them having the most to lose) is kinda the main way to keep things from getting worse and so things get worse. They can refuse or they can not take the job or they can somehow not pass the high powered person's problem on to the medium powered one, but they're disincentivized. I can empathize with the situation and expect them to take the deal that enables the high powered ones to take advantage of others while still assigning blame for not fixing the little part they could fix. Fwiw, it's also true of most middle managers and PMs, though they might not technically be the lowest powered one in the triangle. If they don't stand up for the thing they say is ethical, then I think it's straightforward that they're a/the problem.

> His first mistake was complaining to HR about another employee griefing him. HR is always going to consider the initial complainer as "the problem."

I can say this definitely isn't always true. In the companies I've worked at HR has always been extremely reasonable and cooperative with harassment claims. But corporate culture probably matters here, and I've never worked at a place like Uber.

That said, I would be curious to actual know the correspondence that was sent between the two. I can also say being a manager who has had to deal with a situation between two employees (more than once), they often both claim to be the one being harassed -- and usually even a little bit of digging reveals really clearly who the aggressor is.

The phrasing "HR isn't there to protect you, it's there to protect the company" applies more here.

My experience is also that HR is very reasonable and cooperative with harassment claims. But the thing is that when you have a legit harassment claim, the law is there to protect you. You could make things very expensive for the company in court, and so protecting the company does mean protecting you and treating you respectfully and cooperatively.

If HR investigates and finds you don't have a legit case and that in fact you may have been the instigator, then protecting the company probably means getting rid of you. Your judgment and account of the facts is questionable in that case, and you're a liability from the other side.

I don't know exactly what happened in this case, but in the harassment case I've had to handle as a manager, the (male) employee said that the (female) victim had initiated everything and had this weird fascination with him, while the paper trail that everybody could see clearly showed that he was both the instigator and the one behaving improperly. Projection is strong in cases like these. So it's entirely possible we're not getting the full story from this anonymous blog post.

> The phrasing "HR isn't there to protect you, it's there to protect the company" applies more here.

I agree (although had interpreted the statement originally differently). Unfortunately, the part about "XYZ isn't there to protect you" applies to so much in life. Even police don't have a responsibility to you protect you (but just the public as a whole). The lesson from stuff like this is often to make sure your best interest are aligned with the most powerful and active stakeholder in the "room".

Or don't engage with people whose interests are not aligned with yours. You can do an awful lot, and carve out a pretty good life for yourself, if the powerful people whose interests are not aligned with yours don't know that you exist. Considering that everybody else has an incentive to align with the most powerful and active stakeholder in the world, this is the only way to avoid a unipolar dictatorship.

Relating it back to the story at hand, the blogpost's author would've done well to just disengage from the coworker who didn't like him, and also to not report them to HR. What I had to tell my report when HR got involved: "The right thing to do here was nothing."

> and that in fact you may have been the instigator, then protecting the company probably means getting rid of you.

That protects other employees. If you are instigator and then go to complain to HR trying to make them punish the victim, firing you protects everyone around you. And it protects the culture from becoming toxic.

HR can play negative role, but this scenario is not one of those.

That's not true at all. I don't like HR departments, and I think they're the scum of the corporate world, especially the latest batch of HR geniuses to slither out of whatever business school swamp spawns them.

But their job is to protect the company. If you report behavior that presents a liability for the company, HR will take it seriously. I know people who've been fired through these processes.

What you shouldn't do is report frivolous complaints. A lot of people misunderstand HR the same way they misunderstand the legal system in America. They use it in place of having a grown-up conversation. Like judges, HR people will have little patience with matters that could've been resolved by putting on your big boy or big girl pants.

> I was fired for following HR’s own verbal instructions.

This is why, even when there are verbal instructions, politely request that they give you something in writing; you know, for your reference, just in case you forget ;-)

Or send your own email recapping the conversation.

This article is vague enough to be useless. No actual evidence of the convo from the author’s side. Seek an unemployment lawyer

9 times outta 10, when you get somebody vagueposting about "I was fired for NO REASON," they're just incapable of actually admitting the reason.

I am hesitant to share company DMs for obvious reasons.

The advice to seek legal representation is still probably your best course of action. If you're clearly in the right and have a paper trail showing it, you have a chance. Of course, the first thing your lawyer will advise you to do is take down the Medium post.

Off topic.

Did anybody read the linked fortune article about Uber ceo expecting people to work on weekends.

It has that paid PR post and satirical piece vibes at the same time. With words like "unparalleled work ethic" working on weekends, wisdom and the part about checking emails right after waking up at 5 in the morning, I was expecting it to wrap up with a hint of obvious sarcasm but sadly it never came.

This isn't off topic in as much as clearly it reveals how disconnected from reality that CEO is:

"Khosrowshahi says: Just work hard, and success will follow. "

...is hilarious for a company like Uber, where the whole point of the business model is to optimize away drivers income so much that they will always be on the edge of something very much else than success, no matter how hard they work!

Uber is a failure here in this part of Scandinavia. They were made redundant by our lowmakers and try to run some kind of cab business in accordance with our laws.

What ridesharing services thrive there? None as far as I know. The taxis in Scandinavia are in my experience a total scam with drivers charging absurdly high rates and taking the long route on top of it. The riders are worse off in every way.

Taxis are not a scam. They are expensive because they have to pay people to drive for a living.

You should ask to drive a specific route and know the area. This is the same in all countries.

Please. I shouldn't have to ask the taxi driver to use the fastest route. They are supposed to do that on their own. Instead, they intentionally use a slower route, and sometimes even intentionally miss turns. All this is true in Europe. Moreover, at least in the US, sometimes their behavior can be downright rude, hateful, and hostile.

You seem altogether blind to what you're missing. Uber/Lyft rates are substantially lower than of taxis, and they never intentionally take a long route, as the rate is almost always pre-decided. Their drivers too earn for a living.

Whenever competition is artificially suppressed, you're getting scammed as a default.

You seem to be missing the point that countries have laws that prohibit companies like Uber as they won't pay workers a proper wage comparable with other industries.

I don't want Uber here or any of the gig economy parasites.

No one is forcing anyone to keep working for Uber. Those who do so work and leave freely. Clearly you hate freedom.

No, I just dislike corporate bullshit version of freedom.

And I fucking hate parasites. All the gig economy companies are the same.

Come to Scandinavia and see for yourself. We have got temperate weather, no earthquakes and no gun violence.

To be honest, if they paid me a 6 digit salary, I'd be happy to "answer an email" on a Saturday, it isn't exactly doing an 8+ hour shift at the weekend.

It’s not that a single email isn’t worth the bargain (it is). It’s that this is symptomatic of an unhealthy, performative culture.

This kind of behaviour incentivises a kind of pick-me, I’m suffering the most for the shareholders type of behaviour.

How many Saturday emails really make a difference? The whole thing is a ruse.

And the fact this shithead is spouting his nonsense on Steven Bartlett’s asinine podcast surprises me not.

You're selling yourself too cheaply. To habitually work on weekends I'd need at least a 7 figure salary. Maybe even 8 figures.

Sometimes to me it feels like HN posts come from a different universe to mine. $10 million to answer emails on weekends seems insane. I would gladly do it for 2x the minimum wage where I live. The situation on the market is really, really desperate, especially on the lower end.

It isn't literally "answer 1 email on a Saturday occasionally" though. I've done that for a lot less. The expectation is to work 7 days/week and/or be available to work anytime.

I appreciate that this is the reality for many jobs with lower pay - especially retail and fast food. Software and software-adjacent jobs are not like that though. Professionals in this field have, for the past quarter century, had better opportunities. I understand it's a unique job market right now and people do what they must.

I am in software. It's just that the bargaining power of juniors and new grads has fallen through the floor, but companies are still not willing to hire any of us. I would even work the full 7 work day/week schedule (despite all its negative effects) for CA$100k - which was once considered to be just an okay rate for a mid-level dev. I bet that many people I know would also take that offer.

Your willingness to work 7 days a week might just have a correlation with companies not hiring as many people

As far as I know, from the people I know, companies here aren't actually pushing people here to do this. Working conditions are about the same as they've been. Maybe a few are doing this, but there's not a trend. It's just that many have stopped or slowed hiring to the point where lots of people can't fit into the market.

But is this about "habitually work on weekends" or "occasionally attend to an urgent email on a Saturday"? To me, it's not exactly clear from the linked article, but it would be a big difference.

That said, we moved to Europe some years ago, so I have never really seen even a 6-digit salary in my life, even though I'm formally and practically qualified and have decades of experience. So there's that.

More like 7-8 digit salary, in the case of the CEO's direct reports at Uber

Remember, you should think of HR as a friend. Just not your friend.

The fact this person could not get an attorney to represent them says a lot.

Not really. Most all companies have Binding Arbitration built into employment contracts.

What lawyer wants to have their pay limited thusly?

You can hire your own lawyer for the proceedings but no jackpot payouts in arbitration.

Arbitration agreements have largely backed off in the last couple of years, because the main benefit (avoiding class action lawsuits) has been eroded. Activists discovered that you can cause serious economic damage to company simply by mass-filing arbitration claims, and some case law poked holes in just how "binding" the agreements were (and if someone can appeal their arbitration case, it defeats the whole point).

This shift happened 2022 ish.

> Arbitration agreements have largely backed off in the last couple of years

Almost every tech company still uses them.

All the local lawyers have conflicts of interest?

I know someone suing their landlord and he had to find a lawyer 3 hours away because all the local lawyers work with this property management company.

Whoa, what an interesting variation of "buying the railroads".

It’s literally a tactic in divorce reddits. Go to all the lawyers in the city and get a meeting. Now they can’t work with your partner because they’ve given you advice.

Not really. It only says that they don’t have enough to make a case where the cost of litigation will be more than what it’s worth. I’ve talked to labor lawyers before and attorneys usually won’t take the case and advise you not to pursue it unless it’s relatively straightforward to win.

Your argument is a fabrication, and also is in bad faith. The user did not say that they could not get an attorney, and it would also be altogether wrong to assume it.

why would you contact Uber's legal team to ask if you could file a lawsuit against them? do you think they would have any reason not to convince you to drop the matter?

I wasn't asking if I could file a lawsuit. I sent Uber Legal a pro se demand letter indicating that I would be following up with further legal action unless a settlement could be agreed upon.

what could be the reason from the other side if we had to think of one?

Shit, HR doesn't even exist to protect the company sometimes. Sometimes they get so cancerous that they start to operate as if the company works for them.

Hence my megacorp's most recent CEO fired the CPO, and hired a long time former company employee with no HR background to go clean house of the infestation of Vice-Vice-Vice-Vice-Vice-Vice-Vice-Vice Presidents in HR.

Ultimately it's the board of directors' call. Sometimes they are oblivious to how much HR undermines the company by bringing in unnecessary distractions and making poor hiring decisions. Like much else, it's subject to momentum.

I have just experienced this.They raised HR exec up to VP level so they could investigate another VP to ultimately fire them.

Then once the BAD VP was fired the owner fired the HR VP and the the replacement was not a VP.

DirtyDeeds.DoneDirtCheap.

What made HR act in this way? They clearly felt they were protecting the company by firing this person, but they've done nothing wrong and it's unclear they posed any kind of threat to the company. Certainly the complaint about his co-worker would not be perceived as a threat.

I will give some weight to the possibility that Uber HR are utterly disfunctional, but on balance I'm left with the impression there's more to this story than we're being told.

There are a lot of missing parts to the story. If we assume the author left out everything that made them look bad, and including only what makes them look good then the result is a very incomplete feeling article.

For example: they asked for guidance and then the very next thing is them being fired. How did they respond to the coworker? Something is off here - the coworker who had messaged him about non-work topics TWO days in a row - then immediately reported him for his reply. What?

I was the one who let HR know that I sent her the message.

Wait, did you really email Uber's legal team about this without doing it through your lawyer?

"...I decided to share it because I think it illustrates something most employees don’t think about until it’s too late: HR exists to protect the company, not you."

No shit

Sue them!

maybe

Paywall links shouldn't be allowed on Hacker News. It's not possible to subscribe to every service that could be theoretically be submitted. We're not all on $350k SV wages either.

That said it's hard to gauge this story as it's a one sided affair, author maybe 100% in the right but that can't really be determined.

i don't get a paywall when accessing (maybe ublock?) but either way:

https://archive.ph/DbTn2

God forbid we support journalism that -- gasp -- costs money.

Regardless, in this instance it's someone's blog.

You can support journalism independently of submitting to Hacker News. Paid sites aren't suitable for aggregators like this one including the likes of the nytimes et al. Even if they sometimes have great content we'd simply have to go without.

How is some random ex-Uber-engineer's self-written story "journalism" in any shape or form?

hn/dangs stance on this: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=paywalls%20by:dang&dateRange=a...

tldr: paywalls are allowed as long as they can be circumvented easily, eg via archive.ph or similar services

Dang also indefatigably links various threads together with the clear intention of making things clearer for posterity. archive.is is great at the time of writing but will it be here a year from now or will there be another successor on another domain? I hope so but I would hate to think Hacker News will become discussions on articles people can't access. I think a good rule is if it can be archived on the wayback machine it's suitable. Will the wayback machine be here 1 year from now? I think much more likely than archive.is and there is no escaping that such bets have to be made.

"Circumvented easily" is more nebulous than people give it credit for.

It's 350k now? I need to catch up

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