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The Google+ project and exec team

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Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#51

Post by ot8 »

ordinaryperson wrote: post #15

To summarize some of his major complaints: 1) He accepted a salary (115K) lowered than what he thought was fair 2) Design occurred in silos, there was no unity or cohesion 3) His 2nd manager was "political" and "in love with bureaucracy" 4) An exec on a rival team tried to quash his idea 5) Managers often just wanted to slap their name on his work 6) He worked all night to satisfy an angry coworker the night his gran…

> If you know a place that isn't political, bureaucratic, siloed and filled with rivals and petty managers, let me know so I can give you my resume.

Red Hat. It is siloed and can be (increasingly) bureaucratic, but I have never experienced rivals or petty managers and it's the least political place I've ever worked.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#52

Post by allenu »

raydev wrote: post #32
allenu wrote: post #19

I tried reading this, but it is just stream of consciousness writing and littered with unnecessary details. It comes across as petty and the author doesn't seem to be good at communicating what he wants. For instance, he's whining about a 9am meeting with a coworker. If it's such a big deal, why didn't you ask for a later meeting?

The "coworker" seemed more like a superior. I'd also be wary of cancelling meetings with a hostile superior.

Was he? He was just mentioned as "one of the other designers on the team". Anyway, most superiors I've dealt with are open to feedback about a meeting time. If a time doesn't work for me, it's not out of the question to request an adjustment.

The author sounds like the kind of person who will just passively accept a situation instead of saying what he really thinks, leading to internalized anger and bitterness.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#53

Post by mcbits »

Novashi wrote: post #35
rightbyte wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The writer seems unbalanced and I can't tell if he or the workplace is the problem, or both. The thing that cought my eye is that he was telling his boss his coworker was home hung over, becouse he worked while his grandma died instead of visiting her. Like, who is being inconsiderate here really?

>The writer seems unbalanced That doesn't mean anything, and if you're trying to give it meaning, you're probably not qualified to diagnose someone over a twitter thread. Everything, all-caps profanities and all, would be part of a normal conversation where a friend is ranting to you.

Ranting makes people seem unbalanced. Especially ranting on Twitter.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#54

Post by eddieroger »

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #33
Novashi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wouldn't be the first designer to pick apart everyday things and question them. But you have to remember that he was told he'd get to work on Chrome but was then assigned to G+. You have to be extremely laid-back and financially secure to roll with that punch and not put the rest of the company under a microscope (even criticizing petty culture-identity labels like 'nooglers' builds up resentment).

How is changing projects a punch? Haven't been longtime in a permanent position but there never was a project guaranteed during recruiting, only the skills and type of work. Even if the project was guaranteed, things happen. Roll with it. Building resentment you are just hurting yourself. Fuck, posts like these piss me off so much. There are so many candidates who would give their arm and leg to work at Google. Heck,…

I've been part of recruiting processes before where even when the applicant is applying for a specific role, if there's a better fit (as described here by the G+ manager wanting this guy), then that's usually the offer that is made. Given the time gap, the lack of details, and the author's admission to taking it and waiting, I don't think this was a surprise.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#55

Post by brianberns »

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #38
brianberns wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I showed up at a new job to work on Project X, and they assigned me to Project Y on my first day instead, I might be pretty upset too. The problem isn't the reassignment itself. It's the lack of communication.

It's extremely common to get project reassigned especially since he was recruited three months later. What i guess happened was that Google found candidates for their chrome project and put him in their backlog. Later when they had one more vacancy they went thru this backlog and made offers

I agree. They just need to make this clear to him before he agrees to the job.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#56

Post by natecavanaugh »

The one thing he did, which is admirable, is that he didn't call out most people by their real names, but some of the remarks do seem a little petty. But this hopefully was a learning experience for him to not sacrifice what he wants in order to make people like him (it's a struggle I fight with).

This does sound like a failure of leadership WRT the product and internal management, but, I think we should all try to read past the memory coloring, because I'm sure other members might have a different experience. But I think the main point still holds. Google+ was created as a reaction to FB, and while there were a couple of half decent features, but I can't remember anything they created that was enough to overcome FB's network advantage and draw people away.

Either way, this article is fascinating to hear internals and understand the dynamics behind the scenes.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#57

Post by Novashi »

ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #48
Novashi wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bait and switch, where they try to convince you to take a lowball offer because you'll work on prestigious projects like Chrome, then turn around and put you on G+ is most definitely a punch. Just because it happens (regularly) doesn't mean you should just roll over and take it. There could be inaccuracies here, it's a twitter rant after all, but as presented, that would demoralize a lot of people. You don't have to…

Then reject the job offer? Would you take up the job if the salary was reduced on day one? Some devs would roll with lower salary, some with different projects. You can still call the shots instead of going ahead and whinging publically

>Would you take up the job if the salary was reduced on day one?

I'd certainly tell people on as many public forums as possible instead of just letting someone walk all over me and also see if I could get anyone with influence to reverse the decision.

Do I sit and take it? Hell no. And you shouldn't either because you should have more self-respect.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#58

Post by ordinaryperson »

ot8 wrote: post #51
ordinaryperson wrote: post #15

To summarize some of his major complaints: 1) He accepted a salary (115K) lowered than what he thought was fair 2) Design occurred in silos, there was no unity or cohesion 3) His 2nd manager was "political" and "in love with bureaucracy" 4) An exec on a rival team tried to quash his idea 5) Managers often just wanted to slap their name on his work 6) He worked all night to satisfy an angry coworker the night his gran…

> If you know a place that isn't political, bureaucratic, siloed and filled with rivals and petty managers, let me know so I can give you my resume. Red Hat. It is siloed and can be (increasingly) bureaucratic, but I have never experienced rivals or petty managers and it's the least political place I've ever worked.

Could be. But just as a counter-example, here's a Glassdoor review from just 9 days ago that describes Red Hat as a "bloated company with an abusive culture": https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Red-Hat-RV...

Even if Red Hat is amazing for you it might not be for other people. No company is immune to human nature.

Again I feel for the author. Sounds like "Greg" was jerk. But it's not cosmic injustice, it's more a feature of humans working in collectives, IMHO.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#59

Post by janoc »

didibus wrote: post #30
ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #16

This is really ungrateful. The author is not happy because he got to work on Google+ not chrome? Google+ for all it's short comings were business failures not tech or ux or design failure. I worked on far stupider projects at big companies and I am utterly grateful for the opportunities given to me. Absurd blog and no matter how muchi hate Google posts like these makes me realize how ungrateful some people can be.

If you read through the end, you see he is not happy because his Manager backstabed him and fired him (slow release as they say) because he felt threatened by him.

Frankly, if you are running around the office, making everyone feel like useless piece of crap because you are the obvious rock star, no wonder that folks get defensive.

My bet is that he wasn't fired/let go because the manager was afraid for his job (that's what the author claims and it is a pretty cheap shot to make) but because the guy's behavior was being toxic for the team. Unfortunately he couldn't see that over his ego ...

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#60

Post by throwaway080383 »

raydev wrote: post #32
allenu wrote: post #19

I tried reading this, but it is just stream of consciousness writing and littered with unnecessary details. It comes across as petty and the author doesn't seem to be good at communicating what he wants. For instance, he's whining about a 9am meeting with a coworker. If it's such a big deal, why didn't you ask for a later meeting?

The "coworker" seemed more like a superior. I'd also be wary of cancelling meetings with a hostile superior.

To me, it sounded like they all reported to Greg.
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