Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My Google job was tedious and pointless

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 348 posts

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#41

Post by vkou »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #35
vkou wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was deeply disturbed by the United States electing a jingoistic, misogynistic racist and abuser, I really appreciated that I got some fucking emotional support from my colleagues. Never mind that he ran on a platform of throwing a significant portion of the company out of the country. Step into the shoes of someone holding an H1B for one moment, please.

I'm friends with someone who's entire department (Disney IT) was laid off in exchange for bringing over H1Bs from India, where the people who had worked there for decades had to train their (much lower salary) replacements in order to get their severance pay. I'm well aware this isn't how H1Bs are supposed to work, and that many H1Bs (particularly in the Valley) are properly used, but there's definitely some other sh…

> I'm well aware this isn't how H1Bs are supposed to work, and that many H1Bs (particularly in the Valley) are properly used, but there's definitely some other shoes you can step into on the H1B issue.

Yes, and given Trump's demonstrated understanding of nuanced issues, nobody was expecting him to magically come up with a solution that deals with the abuse, without collateral damage.

That is exactly the time when you want your boss to say that yes, they will have your back.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#42

Post by cromwellian »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #24
cromwellian wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, a lot of people were upset over the election, and given what's happened over the last ten months, those feelings seem to have been justified. But yeah, god damn a company for having a culture where people don't go around acting like jerks towards one another. God forbid we grow out of Kindergarten and get back to the real world where people are unhappy and take out their frustrations by raking their cowor…

Given that a bunch of current and former Googlers have claimed that employees all the way up to the executive level keep and share lists of people they won't work with, there are alleged witch hunts, and people have made the statement they will quit the company if someone else isn't fired, it's hard to see how Google's culture has grown out of kindergarten. (Sources: Various internal G+ leaks during the Damore thing,…

Mostly bullshit in my opinion. I've been at Google since 2009. Never heard of so-called blacklists, but in a company with tens of thousands of employees, you can probably find a few people who hold grudges against other people. What's your point? You don't think at other companies, corporate politics doesn't create animosity of people who don't want to work with others?

I previously worked at IBM and Oracle for years and I can tell you, that kind of behavior is exponentially worse, complete with engineered backstabbing and deliberate sabotage against coworkes. So if that's Kindergarten behavior, Google is college by comparison.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#44

Post by untog »

vkou wrote: post #19
ogre_magi wrote: post #12

I worked at Google in a more technical role but I sympathize with this guy. The culture was awful and empty. It was sugar-coated candies and colors and happy, happy, happy like it was meant for a kindergartener. The politics were thick and covered everything. Executives got on stage at a company meeting and cried about the election. It was a cult, and not in the good way that a startup can sometimes be, but in a stal…

As someone who was deeply disturbed by the United States electing a jingoistic, misogynistic racist and abuser, I really appreciated that I got some fucking emotional support from my colleagues. Never mind that he ran on a platform of throwing a significant portion of the company out of the country. Step into the shoes of someone holding an H1B for one moment, please.

This post is being downvoted and I wish it wasn't, because it's a great example of the exact issue at hand.

You might say that it is overly emotional, or too reactionary, or that the tone isn't appropriate, but think - really think! - what it would be like to wake up one morning to the unexpected shock that a President has been elected on the very possible platform of kicking you out of the country and ruining the life you built for yourself.

"No politics" is a fine ideal to aim for, but you can't expect anyone to leave stress like that at the door when they turn up to work.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#45

Post by Kyragem »

YuriNiyazov wrote: post #27
Kyragem wrote: post #15

It doesn’t say anything about what it is to actually work at Google. Maybe rephrase to working in HR sucks. I doubt this person even worked at MTV. I worked at Google and it is an amazing place to work at (beercart Friday!) the only reason I left is because living in the Bay Area sucks.

So, the single example that you reach for when describing google as an amazing place to work is "beercart Friday?"

Yes the bar at Google is very high and after busting my ass all week solving ridiculously hard problems having someone drop a cold beer and nachos on my desk on a Friday afternoon shows that Google takes employee satisfaction very seriously

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#47

Post by komali2 »

>Google HR uses the TextExpander program, which populates email templates with salutations, job description links and questions. All we have to do is press two keys (mine are semicolon followed by the letter “C”). There’s also space for fill-in-the-blanks: one for the candidate’s name (“Hey Mark”) and another at the end for the day of the week (“Enjoy your Thursday!”), so the message is personal.

This step should have been 100% automated and I don't understand why it wasn't. As a recruiter this shit was my least favorite part of the job. The next step - the candidate calls - was my favorite part.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#49

Post by alex_hitchins »

maxxxxx wrote: post #18
cromwellian wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, a lot of people were upset over the election, and given what's happened over the last ten months, those feelings seem to have been justified. But yeah, god damn a company for having a culture where people don't go around acting like jerks towards one another. God forbid we grow out of Kindergarten and get back to the real world where people are unhappy and take out their frustrations by raking their cowor…

I don't think an executive should ever complain about an election. They should focus on making their company successful and a good work place.

Executives are people at the end of the day, they will have emotions and feelings (hopefully).

I'd hazard a guess it wasn't the fact a Republican won, rather than who won. However that is total conjecture on my part.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#50

Post by gsich »

untog wrote: post #30
maxxxxx wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think an executive should ever complain about an election. They should focus on making their company successful and a good work place.

What if the result of an election hinders their ability to be successful and create a good work place? I think there is a fair debate to be had about where the line should be drawn, but pretending that politics doesn't exist if you don't talk about it is deluded. For example, Google employs a good number of immigrants. After the election many of them would have been worried about their future in the country. Wouldn't…

Still no need to cry. One day after the election there is no way to tell for sure what will happen.
Post reply on HN