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My Google job was tedious and pointless

washingtonpost.com

241–250 of 348 posts

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jealous after bailing after six months? Are you sure it’s not pity? How many times have you quit in a row?

I'm almost 30, the longest company I worked for was almost 2 years; it was a startup and they're doing very well now - I would have stayed even longer but I wanted to move to Europe. Other than that I never stayed longer than 6 months at a company and I'm really glad because most of these companies were stagnant or failed. I've quit my job probably about 10 times now. Employers don't care at all how often you change…

Um, many employers care very much. This pattern of job hopping is a red flag at many firms.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#243
post #158
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the root of the problem?

Jobs that once existed no longer exist because they've either been automated or outsourced.

But the lack of jobs is not a problem, assuming the same amount of things can be produced. A problem would be not having access to those things.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#244
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

I totally agree. Regardless of how you personally feel, your employees likely include people on all sides of the political spectrum. If I were an employee, I would assume the grief is primarily about increased costs to the employer.

With the possible exception of the case of an election of someone who may do direct harm to your business, it's way better to leave politics at the polls.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#245
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!

Just yesterday I had an interview with a Facebook recruiter and afterwards all I could think about was that the recruiter's entire job could have been replaced by an AI. And not one of the smart, modern, cutting edge Siri types of AIs, either. The entire process could have been just as easily accomplished by a robocaller bot that's been around for decades.

The interview process was a few generic, form-filled emails to schedule the interview time. Then during the interview call the interviewer read off a few pre-determined questions that were read directly from a questionnaire, and the interviewer recorded my answers. They didn't ask any follow-ups, only asked what was on the questionnaire. When we were done, I tried to ask them questions about the position and they told me "I can't answer those questions for you because I'm just a recruiter and I don't know details about the specific position. Hold onto those until you talk to the next person."

He might as well have just put on a robotic tone and said "My responses are limited. Please wait to talk to a real person if you have other questions."

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or maybe it's fucking stupid to have an automatic system picking related videos and inserting them in posts in a way that makes them look like they're the main video of the post.

[deleted]

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This isn't evidence against the echo chamber claim. An example of valid evidence might be rational debate about a conservative memo, as opposed to censorship, demonization, slander, etc.

Google has internal Republican and Libertarian newsgroups and has had them for years. Damore's central issues have been debated for a long time on those kinds of lists and never censored.

What I think you're finding is people used to majority privilege, suddenly finding their viewpoints in the minority, becoming obsessively sensitive and claiming victimhood for which there is paltry evidence.

Why is it that when a majority of people hold progressive views, it's an "echo chamber", but if you're a minority growing up in the Midwest, or a liberal in a Red State, it's not an 'echo chamber'? There's some kind of weird assumption going on that somehow, conservatives should be able to expouse views and not feel like they're an outlier minority opinion.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#248
post #62

While the job doesn't sound like it involves "cool things that matter" and paints a pretty believable picture of working at a large corporation, I do find it interesting that this was published by thr Washington Post. Being owned by Amazon, a direct competitor to Google on many fronts (the war for cloud computing market share is/will continue to be huge), it seems suspicious that this is truly unbiased coverage. It s…

The Washington Post is not owned by Amazon. It is owned by Jeff Bezos, who also is CEO of Amazon.

Distinction without a difference maybe?

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#249
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!

Actually, I'm wondering if an AI could be better at predicting the success of a given candidate given enough data (resume, online presence, portfolio, DNA sample, etc.) than "traditional" whiteboard interviews (which have a huge false negative problem).

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm almost 30, the longest company I worked for was almost 2 years; it was a startup and they're doing very well now - I would have stayed even longer but I wanted to move to Europe. Other than that I never stayed longer than 6 months at a company and I'm really glad because most of these companies were stagnant or failed. I've quit my job probably about 10 times now. Employers don't care at all how often you change…

Um, many employers care very much. This pattern of job hopping is a red flag at many firms.

Man, I wish that were true! I'd love to sit in one place for 2 years. I can't seem to find a job that will last more than 18 months. Some will, but the pay is stagnant and there are no promotions. You must job hop. As one anecdata point, employers all seem to know that diagonal promotions are the standard now and they don't fault you at all. If they did, well then they gave me a red flag, if anything.
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