I was under the impression that Uber has to act as a pure play buyer-seller matching system. Otherwise the drivers aren’t independent contractors, they’re being controlled like employees.
That is a great argument... but one that has not yet completed its way though U.S. courts.
My understanding is that both Uber and Lift vary the arrangement from market-to-market (sometimes within a country, but mostly between countries), but that at least in the U.S. the drivers have no ability to set their prices at all, but rather only have the ability to accept/decline a ride that has a price already attached. And if they decline too many rides (as defined by opaque decisions by the companies), that they then are penalized by being shown less possible rides.
To me this is a worst combination of being an employee and a true independent contractor.
I don’t think this is a fair retort. Personal communication is not what is being looked at here.
No business I’ve ever worked at has encouraged or tolerated the use of personal messaging platforms for business.
Why do these execs get an exception? What are they doing that warrants hiding? I think any normal bystander would see this as suspicious.
Why are so many companies trying to hide their executive decision making? It keeps showing up in the news.
Why did Arthur Anderson and Enron shred all those documents? Who knows? I have no idea what was in those reams, and nobody ever will. I’d bet it would not look good for the folks at the top if we could.
With the amount of power these businesses yield, they absolutely should be held to basic record keeping standards. Companies are groups of people, their lifeblood is communication. The only way they can perpetrate large scale wrongdoing is via communication.
Our elected government representatives should be able to inspect and question how these powerful entities are run and respond to any wrongdoing they find.
We ask a lot from our elected representatives. Likewise, we must ask a lot from our unelected corporate overlords. Yes this is uncomfortable for them. Being powerful should be.
A disclaimer about me:
I work for a megacorp as a leaf node IC. Opinions are my own and I don’t speak for anyone else and all that.
I get the general idea, but in this case I feel that isn't strictly applicable.
OP and the parent comment are focused on tenants that don't appear to have done anything wrong or unreasonable, they're just in a bind and the landlords in question are choosing not to be fair.
Since I enjoyed OP's story, I thought I should clarify a bit.
I'm speaking broadly of how I remember (from the outside) Uber's fast-and-loose IP attitudes in the 2010s.
I don't think OP did anything of a similar sort. From comments here it sounds like they used some code they built in their free time that a previous employer didn't want.
At Uber it sounds like they asked and were permitted to post their no-longer-needed code to GitHub. It's got its own GH org and everything.
This whole chain is legally risky (I wouldn't do it and would strongly advise others not to do it).
I feel OPs actions are not Ethically Wrong, though. I wouldn't enjoy living in a world where OP gets sued for this, since it sounds like nobody at work wanted the work and it's not giving competitors an advantage. I won't claim the world isn't like that, though.
I really wish I could share OP's attitude and sense of ownership. I built something really cool (entirely in my free time) for a previous employer's hackathon. That code lives on some server they own now, possibly deleted. I deleted my copy after submitting it to the hackathon because I didn't want to risk anything. Company lawyers make just building things for fun feel so risky! It takes the soul out of our work.
I'm of two minds on this, I both agree and disagree.
Once a code base is a certain size, explicit but bigger can be a boon. Magic dynamic dispatch systems and other tools that simplify plumbing make onboarding and routine, drive-by maintenance way harder IME.
I find that once you understand systems that have a dash of "magic", though, it is easier to add features and stuff. Single points of maintenance and all that.
It's a continuum, with each side having different benefits.
It prompted a lot of discussions in my workplace cafeteria and I recall it was discussed at length on Blind. The consensus I saw at the time was that Amazon has a really rough culture and something needed to change.
I have not worked at Amazon, so I cannot speak directly to any of this, though.
Workplace conditions at Amazon (both tech and non-tech) are quite awful. There are countless reports of workplace bullying, harassment, and retaliation[1][2][3][4]. Regarding PIP/Focus, managers will make things up and falsely report status to HR. It's an incredibly toxic experience. Amazon also uses its tremendous power to do things like execute unlawful surveillance on current and former employees, and falsely accuse them of crimes[5]. Can you imagine trying to raise kids while Amazon is trying to take everything you own, without legal cause? Unreal this is allowed to happen.
Regarding "death," warehouse workers are seriously injured twice as much as workers in other warehouses[6]. Amazon received numerous citations from OSHA last year for reasons including underreporting and mis-classifying incidents involving serious injuries and illness, as well as withholding information to OSHA. It's gotten bad enough even shareholders are pushing for change[7].
> It prompted a lot of discussions in my workplace cafeteria and I recall it was discussed at length on Blind. The consensus I saw at the time was that Amazon has a really rough culture and something needed to change.
There have been multiple reports in the Seattle Times about how brutal of a place to work for. It's been a while but I recall a headline about how often an employee broke down and cried at their desk.
It is the SI prefix for giga, and commonly used instead of B for "Billions" outside of the US when writing "Harvard's endowment fund is currently worth fifty-three billion US dollars".
Another possible issue: arcing/stuff burning on to one of the lightning pins. IDK why it happens, it’s probably lint or something, but it’s easy enough to mitigate: If a cable stops working all the sudden, the first thing I do is wet my fingers and rub both sides of the lightning cable’s connector. Most of the time that does the trick, no new cable or tools needed!
Yep, there's definitely a scorch mark. I already tried cleaning it and the port. It intermittently works and seems to depend on which way the cable is plugged in (still intermittent but better; other cables are usually better but still intermittent).
I was under the impression that Uber has to act as a pure play buyer-seller matching system. Otherwise the drivers aren’t independent contractors, they’re being controlled like employees.