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My Google job was tedious and pointless

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Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#71

Post by johan_larson »

bistro wrote: post #6

Wouldn't working as a recruiter be tedious at any company?

If the recruiter is given specific hiring criteria that are hard but not impossible to satisfy, I could imagine looking for people who fit those requirements and persuading them to sign up would be a satisfying job of search, selection and salesmanship.

But that's not what these Google recruiters are doing. They are trying to find any vaguely qualified people they can who are willing to dive head-first into the meat-grinder that is the Google interview process. And their job is mostly futile because that process will ultimately reject 90-95% of the candidates.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#72

Post by jrs95 »

s73ver_ wrote: post #61
georgiedown wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need emotional support from your work colleagues because the country has elected a president you don't like, you have a problem.

There's a HUGE difference between "a president you don't like" and "a president who's entire platform was removing people like you from the country".

I didn't realize Google employed illegal immigrants.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#73

Post by EasyTiger_ »

jerf wrote: post #38
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 work at a Silicon Valley company where nobody cried about the election (even if they were upset), and we don't go around acting like jerks towards one another. You're definitely positing a false dichotomy here and I'm not even sure how you came up with "either people are crying over Trump xor they are assholes to each other every day".

As a non-American I'm so glad I don't work in an country where politics seems to create such hysteria in the workplace. I know Trump was a big unexpected shock to many but come on... crying executives, I mean what the hell

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#74

Post by nradov »

snorkel wrote: post #34
foobaw wrote: post #9

Most of the responsibility, minus the technical interview, seems like it could be done by an AI sometime in the future anyway. No more complaints afterwards!

I found Google's dev interview to be especially difficult, I personally hate doing hours of whiteboard coding (sorry, I tend to code on computers instead, silly me) ... So I wasn't hired, but those who worked as devs there told me that's a blessing because after all the rigorous interviewing bluster they'll assign devs to remedial code refactoring anyway. I'm not a rockstar coder above doing the housekeeping work but…

I don't work at Google, but code refactoring is critically important in the real world. It's not intern work.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#75

Post by s73ver_ »

cromwellian wrote: post #31

Recruiting is outsourced at many companies. I'm not sure why this person thought it would be a hugely interesting job. Perhaps if they were an engineering major and were working on ways to automate recruiting searches, or improve the false positive/false negative rates, it would have been interesting, but it doesn't sound like this person was hired for anything but to man the phones. From that standpoint, it seems li…

This narrative that only engineers deserve to have interesting and fulfilling jobs needs to end. It's nothing but elitism, and adding the "#firstworldproblems" doesn't do anything to help your cause.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#76

Post by cycrutchfield »

alexanat wrote: post #57
untog wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is still not appropriate to complain (or rather cry...) about in a professional setting, imo. How can you expect to have confidence in an executive when they put on an act like that? Nothing says "I don't know what to do" more. Yes, you are now facing some additional hardships in your job of creating a good workplace where employees can succeed. Those concerns should be addressed within the scope of what the compa…

That's just your uninformed opinion then. Showing empathy is also a great quality in a leader. You weren't there, so how can you judge?

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#77

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

untog wrote: post #44
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.

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 li…

> 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.

Immigration is a political issue that hasn't been properly addressed in decades. H1B visas are good in theory, but companies exploit the system to import cheap foreign labor, hurting American wages and job prospects in the process. Illegal immigrants concentrate to pockets of the country, displacing American workers and lowering wages for those who have been hurt the most by globalization.

Should these political issues be ignored just to avoid hurt feelings? I don't think they should.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#78

Post by weberc2 »

alex_hitchins wrote: post #49
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.

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.

I agree that executives are people, but we regard lots of normal, human behaviors as "unprofessional", and our standards for professionalism are traditionally higher for higher ranking employees. In particular, I think there's already a lot of negative misinformation circulating about conservatives generally and Trump supporters specifically (mind you, I'm neither), and no one is helped by executives propping up these rumors.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#79

Post by cromwellian »

greggarious wrote: post #51
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…

>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 coworkers verbally over the coals. The idea that as long as you aren't yelling, swearing, or actively insulting someone you are not treating them poorly is on…

Google has lots of polite disagreement internally, just look at Steve Yegge's memos.
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