My Google job was tedious and pointless • Hacker News Board

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#131

Post by komali2 » Tue, Oct 17, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

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.

Since this is a Bay Area Tech Company Bashing Thread, let's throw in a Texas Oil Company perspective, from the Obama era

1. Complaints about the president, racial slurs included, for "working with the Saudis" to "tank oil prices locally."

2. Complaints about the president, racial slurs included, for "forcing premiums up for the contractor's insurance."

3. Complaints about liberals in general for "forcing us to have men in our girls restrooms" despite the fact that this never happened. General complaints about how it'll be impossible to get an oil platform bathroom in line with "retarded liberal standards."

4. Complaints from engineers making 250/k/year untaxed in the UAE about all the "damn Indians" taking jobs from hardworking Americans. General blaming of the Democrats.

5. Directions from management to not submit resumes with "foreign" last names.

6. Refusal on the part of a major EPC engineering manager to hire the perfect candidate for the job because he was Mexican origin (US citizen via green card route), despite the fact that he had unsuccessfully searched for a good candidate for 3 months.

So let's not pretend that politics don't invade business.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#132

Post by fav_collector » Tue, Oct 17, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

s73ver_ wrote: post #75

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.

I read the OP post as "not everyone deserves an interesting and fulfilling job" rather than "only engineers deserve an interesting job"

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#133

Post by peoplewindow » Tue, Oct 17, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #42

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You should read the Breitbart interviews then. There are screenshots of Googlers on internal G+ saying they maintain blacklists of people they won't work with for political reasons, or sometimes, even just because someone spoke up and said "hey, blacklisting your colleagues isn't a good idea".

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#134

Post by pc86 » Tue, Oct 17, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #54

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.

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…

Then run for office. But it's Google, not Congress, and taking company time (and how many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of productivity?) to whine about the outcome of an election seems at best a horrendous waste of resources, especially when it's likely 80% or more of the room agrees with you or is indifferent.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#135

Post by specialist » Tue, Oct 17, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

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…

"...but even polite disagreement can be a career limiting move in such an environment."

So. You're saying that Google is pretty much like every gig I've ever had.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#136

Post by untog » Tue, Oct 17, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

FeepingCreature wrote: post #92

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…

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.

The fixation on crying in this thread is fascinating.

If you feel like crying, but hold back, does that feeling just immediately disappear and you get on with your day? Of course not. You just bury the stress, and sooner or later it bubbles back up again in weird and unpredictable ways. Is crying at work more or less professional than having a panic attack at work and ending up hospitalised?

Crying is just an expression of stress. If your actual statement is that people shouldn't be stressed about non-work issues at work, then good luck, that's not how human beings are engineered.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#137

Post by soared » Tue, Oct 17, 2017, 6:11 PM UTC

Can't believe the author can write this article and not see the glaring problems. This is a narrow minded article that speaks to one person not fitting in, not a widespread problem like he tries to make it seem. If you wear ear plugs at lunch something is obviously not clicking. It sounds much more like the author isn't a fit for the company.. there is no mention of having friends or anyone positivity about the job.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#138

Post by cc81 » Tue, Oct 17, 2017, 6:11 PM UTC

dcow wrote: post #98

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.

What is the root of the problem?

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#139

Post by trgv » Tue, Oct 17, 2017, 6:11 PM UTC

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…

It's disturbing to me how many people here seem to be okay with executives and higher-ups expressing grief over the results of an election, in the office.

I don't think that stuff has any place at work. It's a red-flag to me if that kind of thing is commonplace in the office. Not only is it distracting, but it's insulting to employees who may have an opposite position politically.

If you're emotionally affected by something to the point where you're unable to hide it, then you shouldn't come into work.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#140

Post by emsy » Tue, Oct 17, 2017, 6:11 PM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #42

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Never heard of so-called blacklists

Dead giveaway that you are on one :P