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. But his time at Uber turned into a personal tragedy, one that will compel the ride-hailing company to answer questions before a Workers Compensation Judge about its aggressive work culture, and may be a test of limits on psychiatric claims in California.
Always adept with computers, the news story in the San Francisco Chronicle says that 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.
“It’s hard to explain, but he wasn’t himself at all,” said his wife 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. 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. 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.
Uber denied the benefits claim through its insurance carrier. In California, Labor Code 3208.3 (d) provides that workers’ compensation 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 does not apply “if the psychiatric injury is caused by a sudden and extraordinary employment condition.”
San Francisco attorney Richard Richardson, who represents Zecole Thomas and her sons, said Thomas’ situation may be one of those exceptions. This case will no doubt be closely watched since it has high media attention in Silicon Valley circles.
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.