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The Google+ project and exec team

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Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#61

Post by awinder »

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…

The email was definitely a misplay, but the manager response was also pretty rough. Google’s a big place, surely there’s a non-petty solution other than telling someone that they’ve ordained their future manager — in the heated moment with that person.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#62

Post by raydev »

throwaway080383 wrote: post #60
raydev wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Jim had seniority and apparently more clout. Just because OP wasn't directly reporting to Jim doesn't mean Jim wasn't a superior.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#63

Post by rightbyte »

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.

It means that he probably is not stable. There are things you do not write in public. I don't need to have a MD to notice that.

Writing in public that you wanted to assualt a coworker becouse he didn't like your design and cancelled a meeting for being "sick"/hangover is a flashing red warning light with sugar on top.

It's one thing to rant that to some freinds at a bar if you have no history of assaults. Another thing to publicly state it.

Do you want to work with him? I do not.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#64

Post by gedy »

whack wrote: post #10

Controversial opinion here. I know that exaggerating and complaining is a surefire way to get clicks, but it's hard to take the author's criticisms seriously when he complains about so many different things. Some as minor as the noogler orientation. Others as petty as putting down colleagues who haven't worked as designers before. Regarding the main event in question: I like that Google allows people to party in the…

I don't think it's controversial, post was unprofessional and came across very entitled and immature. It's bad for his career imho.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#65

Post by ordinaryperson »

awinder wrote: post #61
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…

The email was definitely a misplay, but the manager response was also pretty rough. Google’s a big place, surely there’s a non-petty solution other than telling someone that they’ve ordained their future manager — in the heated moment with that person.

No question (assuming the author represented the conversation accurately).

But you need to deal with jerks. There's lots of them out there, often in management positions.

He says this made him "very depressed" and working there was "completely and utterly ruined" -- an on over-reaction. Toxic leadership is bad but you shouldn't let it control you to this extent.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#66

Post by kamaal »

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…

>>Nos 2-5: these happen at almost every medium-large sized company I've ever worked at. 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.

This is one of the problems with the way their hiring is marketed. They are depicted to be asking hard CS and algorithm based questions, and a culture of a workplace is being sold which is based on a merit process along the lines of 'programming abilities'.

The reality in every people structure one will every work at, politics is how the world works. People optimize what's best for themselves. The bosses are often stupid, because bosses that exist never want smart people to grow up and become a competition to them. Money is always attached to hot projects, so bulk of the career growth, bonuses and other juice comes when you work there. Regardless of whatever the merits of that project are.

The same applies to projects too. Once a company has 2 - 3 cash cow projects, the executives won't let new set of rivaling products emerge and become a competition to their fiefdom. Most of the times the competition is killed in plain sight, but other times its back room political sabotage. Only a few days back some one mentioned how Google is a place where $100M revenue opportunities pop up and die all the time.

The same case with that 20% extra time projects. Who is going to let this happen? I'm pretty sure anybody who dares to do these projects will be marked to be a trouble maker by the very managers they report too.

In short once you have more than 2 layers of management at your company, politics is how thing will work. And its perfectly, OK. Because that's how world is.

What is problematic is if the people at the top, Larry Page and Sergey Brin don't know are too naive to understand that its happening in their company since years. Inability to deal with everyday politics can kill companies.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#67

Post by ganeshkrishnan »

Novashi wrote: post #57
ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is this your definition of "walking all over you"? How much of a bubble is silicon valley?

I have worked in the biggest bank in Australia where subcontractors were siphoning away the source codes and customer data via mobile hotspots. I blew the whistle to data security and got fired in return. Company later paid me huge chunk of money in return for silence.

Sometimes you just gotta walk away to better deals. Life is unfair more so if you have a big ego.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#68

Post by pavlov »

It’s just a side note, but this mention of his brief tenure at a “failing startup” rubs me the wrong way:

”In a couple of months I knocked out more work than they could have built in a year with their eng team.”

No startup deserves a designer with this kind of attitude. Your job isn’t to produce pie-in-the-sky concepts for your portfolio but to work on the product together with the engineers.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#69

Post by kylnew »

rocky1138 wrote: post #49

This is one of the most unprofessional things I've ever read. Giving callouts to people who passed you up for a hire is just... unacceptable.

Yes, very odd. I suppose it’s an attempt to suggest the employer made a mistake passing on them, but the act of calling out itself demonstrates they might have made a good call.

Re: The Google+ project and exec team

#70

Post by kamaal »

ordinaryperson wrote: post #58
ot8 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, i…

Company cultures don't feel bureaucratic or political if one benefits from it.

Say one was promoted twice in an year- it's always easy to believe that it happened because you deserved it, than to believe it happened to you because the managers like you.

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