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Google employees are staging a sit-in to protest reported retaliation

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Re: Google employees are staging a sit-in to protest reported retaliation

#91
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what happened, though. Google management was quite happy to completely ignore Damore. He was punished only once his screed became public and embarrassed the company. That's exactly the opposite of retaliation!

The "screed" [sic] became public through no fault of Damore's . Why focus on him then, if not as (late) retaliation?

Screed is a word

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/screed

Re: Google employees are staging a sit-in to protest reported retaliation

#92

I wish there was more negative backlash when Google retaliated against James Damore The privilege to speak up against the status quo is important. Especially when you have less power, and even if your opinion is unsavory to some

This guy literally said the hiring bar was lowered for women. It says that in his doc. And it's false. After everyone was upset about this, he never apologized or walked back that part of the doc at all.

Without objective data to back it up, claims on either side would be hearsay, no? For someone convinced they are at a disadvantage, how can you convince them that the system is fair?

Re: Google employees are staging a sit-in to protest reported retaliation

#93

The implicit unionization benefits of being too smart to readily fire. Interesting.

They could just quit then organize together and form a competing company with stronger ethics. Would be good to see this happen to a lot of near monopolies.

Re: Google employees are staging a sit-in to protest reported retaliation

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry I left for a few minutes. I don’t agree with Kay Cole James on any issue socially. My read on the situation though is that, by not recommending a viable alternative. I read that as Googlers saying they are not open to have conservative viewpoints on the council, hence them disbanding. That forcible suppression of an opposition viewpoint instead of coming to the table together to debate differences when crafting…

That forcible suppression of an opposition viewpoint instead of coming to the table together to debate differences when crafting policy, I see as having elements of Fascism. It's certainly authoritarian.

They have become what they protested against; closed mindedness. Animal farm all over again.

Re: Google employees are staging a sit-in to protest reported retaliation

#95
post #27

It's almost as if... bear with me here... Some sort of collective action by employees of a monopolistic company can't be ignored... because - uh - they'll stop working en masse? Voluntarily in lieu of pay? Madness, it'll never catch on.

2014 Demoulas Market Basket Protests [1]. 15,000 un-unionized employees in New England walked off their family-owned supermarket jobs after a board-flip and resulting capitulation of existing (family owned) leadership. Customers joined forces with the employees en-masse. The company is an icon and in many ways a prime mover in the area due to their intense real-estate investment strategy. This multi-billion dollar bu…

Everything about the Demoulas family and Market Basket seems to be chaos yet they continue to make money. It's quite impressive really.

Re: Google employees are staging a sit-in to protest reported retaliation

#96

I've enough friends working at Google to know that they have a pretty strong mandated daily dose of kool-aid, where you are elite and only valuable if you work at google and adopt the one true Googler world view. Certain factions at Google demanded and ensured that anyone not in conformance at Google no longer work there. Then they are shocked and surprised when the same executives use the same mechanisms to hurt the…

I managed to interact with lots of people who work for Google daily. The culture "The Circle" illustrated is spot on but I guess making 4x or 5x federal median wage would do it.

4-5x federal median wage is new grad level at Google.

Re: Google employees are staging a sit-in to protest reported retaliation

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meredith Whittaker and company could not find peace in their hearts with the appointment of (the president of the long standing, prominent conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation) Kay Cole James. So they made a big problem about it, and here we are. Tolerance, for my views but not yours.

Toleration of intolerance is self-defeating, but you probably knew that.

> Toleration of intolerance is self-defeating, but you probably knew that.

That rather suggests that it is Meredith Whittaker's intolerance that we should not be tolerating, no?

Re: Google employees are staging a sit-in to protest reported retaliation

#98
post #12

I don’t understand how a company where 5% of the workforce is responsible for the product that drives 95% of the revenue is so seemingly vulnerable to employee pressure. I can’t imagine Bell Lab employees had all that much leverage against Ma Bell.

I’ve often wondered this myself. Google has literally thousands of engineers working on search alone. I can’t even fathom what they’re all doing. And then what is everyone filling their time with?

Worked there, It might be that I was in a wrong place (and folks I know), but high quality standards, sometimes vague deadlines that can be moved desire to do the best thing result in a very slow dev process.

I might be wrong, but there is a reason AWS is far ahead of GCP. And I feel gap is increasing

Re: Google employees are staging a sit-in to protest reported retaliation

#99

I wish there was more negative backlash when Google retaliated against James Damore The privilege to speak up against the status quo is important. Especially when you have less power, and even if your opinion is unsavory to some

This guy literally said the hiring bar was lowered for women. It says that in his doc. And it's false. After everyone was upset about this, he never apologized or walked back that part of the doc at all.

> And it's false

Is it possible that Damore witnessed specific instance(s) of an explicit bar-lowering (or a trend for one team/manager) but no general policy at Google?

I am asking out of curiosity, I don't want to skewer or stick up for Damore.

Re: Google employees are staging a sit-in to protest reported retaliation

#100
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what happened, though. Google management was quite happy to completely ignore Damore. He was punished only once his screed became public and embarrassed the company. That's exactly the opposite of retaliation!

The "screed" [sic] became public through no fault of Damore's . Why focus on him then, if not as (late) retaliation?

You can't prove that. I also can't prove Damore or someone who agreed with him did it on purpose.
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