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My Google job was tedious and pointless

washingtonpost.com

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Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#261

Post by zaroth »

majewsky wrote: post #212
peoplewindow wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem an odd choice to publish. Sourcers (that's what Google calls people like that regardless of what his job title was) have existed for a long time there. I was recruited to Google by someone just like that. And yes it's clearly a very boring job: they're basically human search engines. Quite what the author thinks he'll gain by publishing this story is a little beyond me though. It doesn't sound like he wa…

> Sourcer If I were the manager of that department, I'd up-title them all to "sourcerers". :)

And in doing so, make the author's point for them?

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#262

Post by jrs95 »

s73ver_ wrote: post #240
jrs95 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But deporting Muslims? He definitely didn't campaign on that. And that he targeted LGBT people is a real stretch. Even Obama was more anti-LGBT in 2008.

Yes. Remember when he was saying he was going to ban all Muslims? And remember the Muslim ban that prevented lawful residents from coming back into the country? You may not want to believe it, but it is true. Lots of groups of marginalized people felt targeted by Trump and his supporters. And Trump has not done a thing to assuage those fears.

It wasn't "ban all Muslims" it was "ban all Muslims from entering", which is a pretty important distinction & not anywhere near as severe as deportation. The travel ban was really stupid in my opinion -- but I don't dislike it is as much as I dislike the notion that having any policy about who can or can't come here is immoral.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#263

Post by s73ver_ »

jrs95 wrote: post #262
s73ver_ wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Remember when he was saying he was going to ban all Muslims? And remember the Muslim ban that prevented lawful residents from coming back into the country? You may not want to believe it, but it is true. Lots of groups of marginalized people felt targeted by Trump and his supporters. And Trump has not done a thing to assuage those fears.

It wasn't "ban all Muslims" it was "ban all Muslims from entering", which is a pretty important distinction & not anywhere near as severe as deportation. The travel ban was really stupid in my opinion -- but I don't dislike it is as much as I dislike the notion that having any policy about who can or can't come here is immoral.

When that policy is based merely on one's religion, and not on anything that matters, then yes, it is immoral.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#264

Post by JBlue42 »

dudul wrote: post #256
trgv wrote: 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…

That's really something that surprised me a lot after moving to the US. In my culture, politics is very much like religion, it is unthinkable to talk about it openly in a place of work.

I think it depends on the office.

When I worked in the South, but in a liberal area, you might talk about it with coworkers you trust, privately, but no one of any authority would get up and say anything.

The 100+ person company I worked at during the last election, there were statements by the senior executives as well as emails. Yes, the office had people openly crying, or absent, and the mood was like a funeral but I also don't think it's the place for especially C-level people to make those type of statements even if 99% of the office felt the same way.

There was also much hubbub around the (one) Women's March, solicitations, emails, etc. I'm happy for the women and men that marched for themselves but I wonder if they might've done some actual justice by asking the higher ups if internally women and men were being treated the same in terms of pay and opportunities, a conversation that I had with more than one female colleague in private.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#265

Post by gspetr »

tenpies wrote: post #239
jondubois wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked for big tech corporations a few times before, no matter how much they pay, I can never stay there longer than 6 months. There is so much inefficiency. It's good for 6 months but after that I feel myself getting dumber by the day. Not all corporations are like this but most of them are. Handing my resignation felt great every time. It's addictive in fact. Just seeing the disappointment in my boss' face and…

My first job out of university was at IBM. I distinctly remember thinking "this is just like being a part of the Borg" about a month in. You're connected to the hive mind through Sametime (internal IM client). Anything you need is available in w3 (intranet). External ideas or processes are assimilated (rebrand, and usually made worst through IBM-ification). Drones are constantly indoctrinated in how good IBM is and t…

> how good IBM is and the proud history of the company.

I bet this gem didn't make the cut: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/08/tripp...

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#266

Post by nejenendn »

Balgair wrote: post #250
wils1245 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

18 months is a lot different than 6 months. You can’t even ramp up fully on a codebase in 6 months, arguably.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#267

Post by AnimalMuppet »

to3m wrote: post #55
komali2 wrote: post #47

>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 hav…

It’s just as it says: the personal touch.

But it sounds like the "personal touch" was done the same way for every email, and therefore was such that it could have been automated. Not very "personal" of a personal touch...

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#268

Post by gspetr »

pm90 wrote: post #236
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk, I didn't see an issue with it. He discussed the issue on an internal forum designed for such discussion using plenty of citations and sociological terminology. The fact that it made some people uncomfortable shouldn't mean it shouldn't be discussed.

> The fact that it made some people uncomfortable shouldn't mean it shouldn't be discussed. On the contrary, I think that alone is sufficient reason. Its hard for me to go into detail about this right now. But as an employee working with other people, one must be aware of the effect one's actions and words have on fellow coworkers. In this case, the correct approach would have been for him to perhaps engage with a sm…

> Depending on the feedback, he could have change the wording to be perhaps more appropriate, and engaged in an honest conversation with HR.

This is terribly naive. HR is there to protect the company, and it's PR image, not to have discussions with you, you're not the one paying them money.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#269

Post by evgen »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #245
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!

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 t…

It could have been automated, but having the human make the call leads to a slightly decreased level of people madly trying to google up answers to 'what is the expected exit code for a program that had no errors?' so that the next phase of the process is not a complete waste of time for all parties involved. The recruiters are just trying to see if there is any chance that you might actually have the skill set claimed on your CV; if you can't answer their simple questions then your resume is complete BS and they will move on, but after asking the same questions over and over and over the recruiting team also knows the response of someone for whom the questions are insultingly easy and can move those candidates to the front of the queue for the next stage.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#270

Post by jrs95 »

s73ver_ wrote: post #263
jrs95 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't "ban all Muslims" it was "ban all Muslims from entering", which is a pretty important distinction & not anywhere near as severe as deportation. The travel ban was really stupid in my opinion -- but I don't dislike it is as much as I dislike the notion that having any policy about who can or can't come here is immoral.

When that policy is based merely on one's religion, and not on anything that matters, then yes, it is immoral.

If it "didn't matter" then there wouldn't be such a massive difference in the opinions of Muslims and non-Muslims about secular topics. Islam in particular is also more like religious and political ideology intertwined, and the political aspect of it does not mix well with Western culture or values. I'm not just making this up either, there are a variety of polls from allegedly "moderate" Muslim countries as well as within European countries that show disturbingly high levels of support for terrorism, honor killings, oppression of women, killing of apostates, etc.
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