UPDATED 00:04 EDT / MAY 31 2017

APPS

Intimidated Uber employees hire own lawyers as sexual harassment probe raises tensions

Working at Uber Technologies Inc. could be quite an intense experience at the moment, as staff are routinely pulled out of the office and grilled by lawyers over the now well-publicized sexual harassment allegations, as well as other alleged wrongdoings. Not surprisingly, this has compelled some staffers to hire their own attorneys.

That’s according to an article in The Wall Street Journal, which said Uber is also making good on its promise to thoroughly investigate the claims of sexual harassment that have further besmirched the company name amid a seemingly never-ending series of scandals. According to some employees that spoke anonymously to the Journal, the pressure on Uber to unmask the bad seeds and set them up for public opprobrium has been an “intimidating” experience.

“Recent events are proving to be a catalyst for a necessary change that will help propel Uber towards a more principled future,” Uber said earlier this year after former software engineer Susan Fowler Rigetti’s lurid claims of poor management, sexism and sexual harassment she had to endure at the company.

Uber employees told the Journal that mandatory interviews are now being conducted at the San Francisco offices of law firm Covington & Burling LLP. Another law firm hired by Uber, Perkins Coie LLP, is looking into not only Rigetti’s claims but the whole gamut of wrongdoings Uber has been tainted with.

In perhaps what is a less hostile form of tete-a-tete, Uber’s human resources department is also making good on its promise to weed out the “brilliant jerks,” a maelstrom of combined male egos has reportedly made Uber a veritable house of horrors for some female employees. HR chief Liane Hornsey is leading a series of “listening sessions,” which sound more like counselor couch sessions than than hot-seat interrogations. But according to one employee, even these group listening sessions have resulted in the lambasting of various staff. Uber said a report will arrive in the very near future.

Meanwhile, Uber has other battles to contend with, notably fighting a court case over alleged technology it stole from competitor from Waymo Inc., the self-driving car arm of Google Inc. Uber has just fired the man at the center of the scandal, its top self-driving car engineer Anthony Levandowski. Prior to this, leaks emerged that Uber’s autonomous tech, stolen or not, was leading to constant crashes and was a long way from what is expected of it. If tech hews to classic parables, the story of Uber falls somewhere between the myth of King Midas and the mark of Cain.

Image: Michael Coghlan via Flickr

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