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Um, it's not scapegoating if these people are harassing other employees. Scapegoating is when you hire underlings for projects that senior management was drivin

Um, it's not scapegoating if these people are harassing other employees. Scapegoating is when you hire underlings for projects that senior management was driving. No one forces you to harass another employee.

x0x0 9y ago
Scapegoating isn't the right word, but ThrustVectoring is right. In 12k employees there will be some dicks who sexually harass. You fire them. The problem at Uber isn't some line level eng or line level management sexually harassed someone; it's that HR and the VP Eng and the CEO all tolerated it. So unless someone whose name goes in SEC filings gets fired, they aren't taking this seriously.
- ghostly_s 9y ago
  To be perfectly clear, both of those things are problems. But one is a much bigger problem than he other.
- bigdickrick 9y ago
  This is ridiculous and definitely a false dichotomy. I know HN has a hard-on for Uber at the moment, but comments like this are just pure pitchforking. To be clear, I don't condone nor intend to downplay sexual assault at workplaces, nor do I doubt Susan Fowler's account one iota. However, there hasn't been any tangible evidence so far that the dismissal of Susan Fowler's sexual harassment stemmed from a board-level executive or Kalanick himself. All I remember vaguely was an article that was popular on HN that came out after Fowler's account, claiming that such a culture must stem directly from the uppermost echelons of management. Again, to reiterate I don't doubt that Fowler's complaints were ignored by management. My contention is that everyone on HN won't satisfied with anything short of Kalanick's dismissal, when even Susan herself didn't claim that people on the same level as a board-level executive or Kalanick himself were aware of the situation. Middle management, yes. Kalanick-level, no. Imagine if this happened at Walt Disney or Facebook. I don't think it would be reasonable to ask Zuckerberg to step down if a similar blog post came out about Facebook.
ThrustVectoring 9y ago
Err, what? Scapegoating is blaming and punishing someone in order to falsely claiming that the problem is fixed. Yes, the harassers should be fired for harassing. It doesn't fix the problem of management taking the side of harassers over the harassed.
- StevePerkins 9y ago
  You're both kinda correct... your original comment was just poorly phrased. The word "scapegoat" is commonly used to describe someone who gets blamed for something unfairly. Assuming these fired employees were harassing colleagues, then it wasn't "unfair" to fire them. But you seem to be using it in a manner similar to "fall guy". Where a lower-level wrongdoer ends up shielding higher-level wrongdoers from blame.
  - ThrustVectoring 9y ago
    Yeah, that's definitely what I'm pointing at. Low-level wrongdoers getting scapegoated for higher-level misdeeds. There's two problems, really - sexual harassment, and a culture that tolerated it. The question is which issue Uber is firing people for, and which problem Uber is getting credit for fixing. I don't think Uber should get credit for fixing the second problem by firing the people contributing to the first problem.
5ilv3r 9y ago
By "scapegoating", the parent post was proposing that they are poofing up the numbers for a nice press release about their anti-harassment activities by firing underlings, and simultaneously minimizing the probe's negative effect on management. Good press and good for shareholders. Not good for the common good.
camus2 9y ago
I think people are making the point that if the hierarchy covered the harassment up as suggested by the story so far, they shouldn't get off the hook if they allowed that environment to continue and didn't take appropriate measures as soon as they were notified. At least that's how I understand things.
deleted 9y ago
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x0x0 9y ago

Scapegoating isn't the right word, but ThrustVectoring is right. In 12k employees there will be some dicks who sexually harass. You fire them. The problem at Uber isn't some line level eng or line level management sexually harassed someone; it's that HR and the VP Eng and the CEO all tolerated it. So unless someone whose name goes in SEC filings gets fired, they aren't taking this seriously.

ghostly_s 9y ago
To be perfectly clear, both of those things are problems. But one is a much bigger problem than he other.
bigdickrick 9y ago
This is ridiculous and definitely a false dichotomy. I know HN has a hard-on for Uber at the moment, but comments like this are just pure pitchforking. To be clear, I don't condone nor intend to downplay sexual assault at workplaces, nor do I doubt Susan Fowler's account one iota. However, there hasn't been any tangible evidence so far that the dismissal of Susan Fowler's sexual harassment stemmed from a board-level executive or Kalanick himself. All I remember vaguely was an article that was popular on HN that came out after Fowler's account, claiming that such a culture must stem directly from the uppermost echelons of management. Again, to reiterate I don't doubt that Fowler's complaints were ignored by management. My contention is that everyone on HN won't satisfied with anything short of Kalanick's dismissal, when even Susan herself didn't claim that people on the same level as a board-level executive or Kalanick himself were aware of the situation. Middle management, yes. Kalanick-level, no. Imagine if this happened at Walt Disney or Facebook. I don't think it would be reasonable to ask Zuckerberg to step down if a similar blog post came out about Facebook.

ThrustVectoring 9y ago

Err, what? Scapegoating is blaming and punishing someone in order to falsely claiming that the problem is fixed. Yes, the harassers should be fired for harassing. It doesn't fix the problem of management taking the side of harassers over the harassed.

StevePerkins 9y ago
You're both kinda correct... your original comment was just poorly phrased. The word "scapegoat" is commonly used to describe someone who gets blamed for something unfairly. Assuming these fired employees were harassing colleagues, then it wasn't "unfair" to fire them. But you seem to be using it in a manner similar to "fall guy". Where a lower-level wrongdoer ends up shielding higher-level wrongdoers from blame.
- ThrustVectoring 9y ago
  Yeah, that's definitely what I'm pointing at. Low-level wrongdoers getting scapegoated for higher-level misdeeds. There's two problems, really - sexual harassment, and a culture that tolerated it. The question is which issue Uber is firing people for, and which problem Uber is getting credit for fixing. I don't think Uber should get credit for fixing the second problem by firing the people contributing to the first problem.

5ilv3r 9y ago

By "scapegoating", the parent post was proposing that they are poofing up the numbers for a nice press release about their anti-harassment activities by firing underlings, and simultaneously minimizing the probe's negative effect on management. Good press and good for shareholders. Not good for the common good.

camus2 9y ago

I think people are making the point that if the hierarchy covered the harassment up as suggested by the story so far, they shouldn't get off the hook if they allowed that environment to continue and didn't take appropriate measures as soon as they were notified. At least that's how I understand things.

deleted 9y ago

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