Damn that's messed up but there gotta be more to this story. RIP
Suicide of a Black Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress and racism
- Thread starter Blessings
- Start date
J.E.T.S
Lookahere mayne...
A well known and acknowledged fact.
This is a big fukking problem for me that needs law passed to prevent. These companies and corporations are out of pocket!
Most of you Coli friends saying there's more to the story likely haven't worked among cacs and other non-Blacks at these big tech companies.
Uber's culture is already under fire for its treatment of women.
Can you imagine what the culture is like for Black men?
In other industries such as finance, consumer goods, etc., diversity programs have been in place since the 1970s. Although they still have a long way to go, there is at least some form of support for Black people at companies in those industries.
In the tech industry, companies are way behind in terms of creating enviroments in which people other than cacs and asians can thrive and reach their full potential.
Cac and Asian hiring managers bring preconceived notions to the table about Black intelligence in their interactions with Black tech talent. Whether it is in the recruting/hiring process or in the day-to-day activities on the job in terms of project assignments, performance reviews, etc.
And if a breh is actually good at what he does, a lot of those cacs and asians feel threatened and will work to undermine.
Breh just couldn't cope with such a toxic environment.
We need some Black tech companies.
Uber's culture is already under fire for its treatment of women.
Can you imagine what the culture is like for Black men?
In other industries such as finance, consumer goods, etc., diversity programs have been in place since the 1970s. Although they still have a long way to go, there is at least some form of support for Black people at companies in those industries.
In the tech industry, companies are way behind in terms of creating enviroments in which people other than cacs and asians can thrive and reach their full potential.
Cac and Asian hiring managers bring preconceived notions to the table about Black intelligence in their interactions with Black tech talent. Whether it is in the recruting/hiring process or in the day-to-day activities on the job in terms of project assignments, performance reviews, etc.
And if a breh is actually good at what he does, a lot of those cacs and asians feel threatened and will work to undermine.
Breh just couldn't cope with such a toxic environment.
We need some Black tech companies.
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Ineedmoney504
SOHH ICEY...WE EATIN
Wow man this fukked up. shyt crazy how you work so hard in life to accomplish certain things and when you finally get to those spots they are nothin like u wished for
Most of you Coli friends saying there's more to the story likely haven't worked among cacs and other non-Blacks at these big tech companies.
Uber's culture is already under fire for its treatment of women.
Can you imagine what the culture is like for Black men?
This is pretty much it.
Hard Times Nakamura
Banned
Underlying genetic vulnerability exacerbated by hostile conditions.
Either way I completely understand where he's coming from because he felt if Uber fired him he'd have a scarlett letter (especially rejecting a bid from Apple and potentially burning that bridge) become permanently unemployed, have his Wife divorce him and have to endure what the average Black Man has to deal with. Going in and out of jail from back child support and being a "has been" is a worse feeling than a "never was" because you remember when times were good and your Wife still wanted to fukk you and your kids looked up to ya.
Many of yall won't understand that a fall from grace is something that White Men fear worse than death and a Black Man typically will never have the "privilege " of experiencing. But when we fall we typically statistically don't get back up. His liabilities were high (Wife, 2 kids and mortgage) and leverage is low (affirmative action, declining white guilt and Patel Jr. H1-B ready chomping at his heels to take his job and perform at 65% for 50% of his pay).
Investigative reports will reveal he got put on a PIP and they gonna be paying OUT DEE AZZZ for this bullshyt...
A lot of yall don't realize how vulnerable brothers in Corporate Amerikkka are. One wrong move and we get knocked out the box for good. I've gotten fired early in my career was able to pivot back even stronger and laid off recently and came back from the dead again. But I'm in NYC and not Wonderbread capital of the world SF. And my fixed liabilities are low (No mortgage, no kids)
Have I thought of it at least 2x in my life ? Yes. And if you say you haven't then you're lying or never were up or had anything to lose to begin with. I have a Samurai mentality though. As I rather die by my own hand then utilized as a warm body in a White man's jail cell for being homelessness or other trumped up charges. Men in general but especially in America our identity is in our production. If we don't produce anything -We're considered dead by our Women. This man was on the verge of being let go and likely already reached out to recruiters on the low who gave him the run around and shuck jive two step. He probably concluded he'd be viewed as unemployable in the next couple of years lose everything and then what's the point in becoming another Black Male broke underemployed statistic?
I wish I had answers. My only solution is don't reproduce until you can feed your liabilities (Wife, kids, home) without full time employment. These days that's a cool MILLION easy....Good fukking luck.
Either way I completely understand where he's coming from because he felt if Uber fired him he'd have a scarlett letter (especially rejecting a bid from Apple and potentially burning that bridge) become permanently unemployed, have his Wife divorce him and have to endure what the average Black Man has to deal with. Going in and out of jail from back child support and being a "has been" is a worse feeling than a "never was" because you remember when times were good and your Wife still wanted to fukk you and your kids looked up to ya.
Many of yall won't understand that a fall from grace is something that White Men fear worse than death and a Black Man typically will never have the "privilege " of experiencing. But when we fall we typically statistically don't get back up. His liabilities were high (Wife, 2 kids and mortgage) and leverage is low (affirmative action, declining white guilt and Patel Jr. H1-B ready chomping at his heels to take his job and perform at 65% for 50% of his pay).
Investigative reports will reveal he got put on a PIP and they gonna be paying OUT DEE AZZZ for this bullshyt...
A lot of yall don't realize how vulnerable brothers in Corporate Amerikkka are. One wrong move and we get knocked out the box for good. I've gotten fired early in my career was able to pivot back even stronger and laid off recently and came back from the dead again. But I'm in NYC and not Wonderbread capital of the world SF. And my fixed liabilities are low (No mortgage, no kids)
Have I thought of it at least 2x in my life ? Yes. And if you say you haven't then you're lying or never were up or had anything to lose to begin with. I have a Samurai mentality though. As I rather die by my own hand then utilized as a warm body in a White man's jail cell for being homelessness or other trumped up charges. Men in general but especially in America our identity is in our production. If we don't produce anything -We're considered dead by our Women. This man was on the verge of being let go and likely already reached out to recruiters on the low who gave him the run around and shuck jive two step. He probably concluded he'd be viewed as unemployable in the next couple of years lose everything and then what's the point in becoming another Black Male broke underemployed statistic?
I wish I had answers. My only solution is don't reproduce until you can feed your liabilities (Wife, kids, home) without full time employment. These days that's a cool MILLION easy....Good fukking luck.
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Low Quality Posting
Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress
Joseph Thomas thought he had it made when he landed a $170,000 job as a software engineer at Uber’s San Francisco headquarters last year. He and his wife, Zecole, had just bought a Spanish-style house in Pittsburg, where they were living the American dream with their two young sons. A handsome and accomplished man, Thomas reminded some people of Tiger Woods for both his good looks and his drive to succeed.
But his time at Uber turned into a personal tragedy, one that will compel the ride-hailing company to answer questions before a judge about its aggressive work culture.
Always adept with computers, Joseph Thomas worked his way up the ladder at tech jobs in his native Atlanta, then at LinkedIn in Mountain View, where he was a senior site reliability engineer. He turned down an offer from Apple to go to Uber, because he felt he could grow more with the younger company and was excited about the chance to profit from stock options when it went public.
But at Uber, Thomas struggled in a way he’d never experienced in over a decade in technology. He worked long hours. He told his father and his wife that he felt immense pressure and stress at work, and was scared he’d lose his job. They urged him to see a psychiatrist. He told the doctor he was having panic attacks, trouble concentrating and near-constant anxiety. All suggested that he leave his job, but he was adamant that he could not.
“He was always the smartest guy in the room,” said his father, Joe Thomas. But while working at Uber, “he went down the tubes. He became someone with very little confidence in himself. The guy just fell apart.”
“It’s hard to explain, but he wasn’t himself at all,” said Zecole Thomas. “He’d say things like, ‘My boss doesn’t like me.’ His personality changed totally; he was horribly concerned about his work, to the point it was almost unbelievable. He was saying he couldn’t do anything right.”
One day in late August, Zecole came home from dropping their boys off at school. Joseph was sitting in his car in the garage. She got into the passenger seat to talk to him.
Then she saw the blood.
Joseph had shot himself. He died in the hospital two days later, a week before he would have turned 34.
His father and widow are convinced that the work environment and stress at Uber triggered his suicide. Zecole Thomas has filed a workers’ compensation claim seeking to hold Uber accountable for her husband’s mental decline.
“If you put a hard-driving person on unrealistic tasks, it puts them in failure mode,” said the elder Joe Thomas, who said his son described a sort of brainwashing at Uber. “It makes them burn themselves out; like driving a Lamborghini in first gear.”
Joseph Thomas, who was African American, may have experienced racism as well, according to his loved ones and their lawyer. Like many Silicon Valley companies, Uber employs only a handful of black people in technical jobs. Blacks account for 1 percent of its tech workers and none of its tech leaders, according to Uber’s first diversity report, released in March.
Uber declined to comment on the legal dispute and said Thomas never complained to the company of extreme stress or racial discrimination.
“No family should go through the unspeakable heartbreak the Thomas family has experienced,” said Uber spokeswoman Eva Behrend. “Our prayers and thoughts are with them.”
Uber’s work culture has come under scrutiny after explosive revelations about the world’s most valuable startup. In February, software engineer Susan Fowler wrote a blog post about sexual harassment and sexism at Uber and said its human resources department ignored complaints.
At least three former employees have filed lawsuits alleging sexual harassment or verbal abuse from Uber managers, according to the New York Times, which said other current and former employees were also considering legal action.
Even early investors Freada Kapor Klein and Mitch Kapor posted an open letter to Uber blasting it for “a culture plagued by disrespect, exclusionary cliques, lack of diversity, and tolerance for bullying and harassment of every form.”
Uber said it took the allegations seriously and hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate its workplace for issues of sexism, diversity and inclusion. That report is pending.
In the case of Joseph Thomas, medical records from two East Bay psychiatrists he visited in the weeks before his suicide show that he reported job-related “high anxiety,” panic attacks, difficulty concentrating and insomnia.
About a month before his suicide, Joseph Thomas disclosed his work stress in a Facebook chat to a close friend of more than a decade, Neil Mirchandani.
“Man words can’t really describe. I’m not dead but I wouldn’t describe myself as ok,” Thomas wrote, according to screenshots of the chat provided by Mirchandani.
“The sad thing is this place (Uber) has broken me to the point where I don’t have the strength to look for another job,” Thomas wrote.
“Joseph was such a strong personality,” said Mirchandani. “But he was a softie on the inside; when he was around a small dog or my daughter, he’d melt like a little kid. He was the last person I would ever think would” commit suicide.
Uber denied the benefits claim through its insurance carrier. In California, workers’ compensation usually does not cover psychiatric injuries until after six months of employment. Joseph Thomas had worked slightly less than five months at Uber when he killed himself.
But there is an exception to the six-month rule. It doesn’t apply “if the psychiatric injury is caused by a sudden and extraordinary employment condition,” according to California law.
San Francisco attorney Richard Richardson, who represents Zecole Thomas and her sons, said Thomas’ situation may be one of those exceptions.
“We think it was stress and harassment induced by his job, between him being one of the few African Americans there, working around the clock and the culture of Uber,” Richardson said. “And he couldn’t talk about it to anyone because of nondisclosure agreements.”
The case is still in early stages. Uber refused Richardson’s request to depose Thomas’ immediate boss, but in mid-April an administrative law judge who oversees workers’ compensation cases said the supervisor must submit to a deposition. Unlike cases in a court of law, cases before California’s Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board are not public record.
The benefits could amount to about $722,000, part as a lump sum and part in weekly checks of $1,100 until both boys, currently ages 7 and 9, are 18, Richardson said.
For Zecole Thomas, mourning the loss of the husband she met in 11th grade, it was “baffling and confusing” to be denied workers’ compensation. “He had a great work ethic; he devoted his life to work,” she said. “I was sure they would reciprocate.”
Exacerbating that, Thomas’ life insurance policy will not pay out because he died by suicide.
She sold their dream house — the first they’d owned — because California was too expensive, and moved to North Carolina. She’s working as a project coordinator with a small company and pursuing a master’s degree in analytics and cybersecurity. “I’m trying to rebuild my life and generate enough income to provide for my two children,” she said.
“I just don’t understand it. He was young, successful, smart; he had everything going for himself. I never in my life thought I would be without him. It’s devastating.”
Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress
Be mentally ill brehs
Blame racism brehs
Playeroni
Aka Nasty Neighbor #CREEPLIFE
That's what happened.
He was dealing with all that shyt and had nobody to lean on. He bottled all that shyt in.
Couldn't express it to his wife. Had he talked about quitting a $170k job, she probably would have hit him with the
No Black colleagues around with whom he could relate.
HR is not an option. They'd label him, which would follow him the rest of his career.
Breh looked around and felt hopeless.
You guys have to stop commenting on shyt when you don't bother reading.
Bobby Lashleys eyebrows
Superstar
I've dealt with worse racism living down south. Suicide is not the answer. Wypipo will always have issues, no matter how well you perform. fukk em', don't let em effect your spirit.
Sad part is it doesn't get easier as we move up.
An Inside Look at What’s Keeping Black Men out of the Executive Suite
An Inside Look at What’s Keeping Black Men out of the Executive Suite
BedRoomI'z
All Money In
Those beautiful babies has to live life without a father 
Clown
