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My Google job was tedious and pointless

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Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#91

Post by bogomipz »

EasyTiger_ wrote: post #73
jerf wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>"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."

Your America bashing is completely uncalled for and unwarranted.

It's pretty sad that you don't realize that executives getting on stage and crying in front of employees the day after an election is a complete aberration. This was was not and is not commonplace.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#92

Post by FeepingCreature »

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…

Sure you can.

If you can't be professional in the workplace, take a damn day off. If you can't be professional in front of a crowd, then don't take the stage.

Crying is for funerals. And national politics is for soapboxes, not for corporate presentations.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#93

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

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…

> I'm not talking James Damore "I'm just expressing an alternative opinion" low boil misogyny. That kind of thing is unacceptable.

Why is his cultural questioning of potential causes for gender disparities bad, yet we're supposed to avoid falling into an echo chamber for other issues? If issues can't be questioned, doesn't that itself form an echo chamber?

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#94

Post by weberc2 »

EasyTiger_ wrote: post #73
jerf wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Mind you, America is a vast and diverse place; California/Silicon Valley/Google are at an extreme end of the spectrum, and they also get a disproportionate amount of attention. Rest assured, much of America is saner.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#95

Post by steve_musk »

miketery wrote: post #66
untog wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Except, that's the point - people are overly emotional. All this waking up the next morning and the world is different is such a stretch. Nothing has changed.

Maybe for you, but for a large portion of America it was definitely like waking up in a new world. Its easy to call people overly emotional when you aren't living in a world where the President of the United States was elected by stoking the hate and fear that a large portion of your fellow citizens have against your race/religion/culture/etc...

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#96

Post by [deleted] »

trgv wrote: post #88
cromwellian wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sundar Pichai had to deal with dozens of Google Employees who were away on holiday visiting family who were being blocked by Trump's executive order from returning to the country, like a dual-nationality Canadian/Iranian scientist. Did it ever occur to you that in a company with a huge immigrant population, or 2nd generation immigrants with family, many of whom were impacted by this wave of xenophobia and nationalism…

So Trump is objectively bad and it's important for business executives and higher-ups to openly acknowledge this. In the workplace. Got it.

[deleted]

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#97

Post by cycrutchfield »

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…

If that's the attitude you brought to the interview, then perhaps that's why you were not hired?

What percent of software engineers' time do you think is spent doing green-field development with no refactoring, writing tests, documentation, etc.?

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#98

Post by dcow »

aresant wrote: post #40

While the fluffy headline promises a revelation about Google, this article is actually a poignant lament on the future of work automation. The piece's author holds a humanities degree in Psych/Neuroscience. I point that out because while we've accepted that blue collar jobs are/were "going to be automated" or "going overseas", there's still a pervasive trope that an undergraduate degree provides some protection and i…

And yet people seem more interested in bickering about politics than addressing the root of the problem.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#99

Post by CalChris »

georgiedown wrote: post #23

Why the Damore video without any kind of context? It's like they're trying to push a narrative here.

Just as this HR underling's life is a soulless tedium of selecting stock phrases, that video was chosen automatically (which is to say, even less soullessly) by a context matching algorithm.

Now if you think that a narrative is being pushed here then I have a Rorschach test I'd like you to take.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#100

Post by komali2 »

rising-sky wrote: post #33
user5994461 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the author says all he has to do is type 2 letters to send invites and rejection, maybe with a few words to make it look personal. The process is streamlined, that doesn't make it more interesting.

Sounds like the recruiter would rather type the entire correspondence.

As an ex-recruiter, here's what my dream job would have been like:

1. No arbitrary process numbers. Job and cost numbers fine, but "10 calls a day" "5 BD calls a day" "20 resume sends a week" is stupid - would rather have a manager helping me make strategic decisions, using my time intelligently.

2. Automated bullshit. No more downloading resumes to upload to our system. We either pay linkedin and use that exclusively, or outsource somebody to fill out our own CRM (actually good CRM that has functional searching, not that Bullhorn bullshit that barely worked).

That's all it would take. If a recruiter annoys you, it's probably because you're Candidate Call #9 of the day and she has to get to 10 or she'll lose her job.

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