Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google's Civil War

fortune.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 158 posts

Re: Google's Civil War

#51

Post by MagicPropmaker »

lemony_fresh wrote: post #29

[flagged]

This was my first thought. While most employees of Google are just normal people who just want to get their work done, there's a vocal minority to whom it's their life. And they are infantatilized by Google. They take the bus to work, get their Free Lunch, get their nap time or yoga time. And they like to cause trouble.

Most of these protests stem from a case where one employee harassed another and the company handled it. The harasser was persuaded to resign, but since there was no criminal or civil determination in a court, they didn't withhold from him promised compensation for work done, per a prior agreement. This makes business sense--the money was already allocated, and withholding it could lead to a messy distracting lawsuit. This vocal minority was angry he got money, and imagined in some way it was as if they themselves were subject to his bad behavior.

And while this case involved "sexual harassment", it in no way affected other employees. The fact that one "harasser" seemingly got away with it with a pile of money has no bearing on how other employees are treated.

Similarly Damore (while I believe his memo was idiotic) -- his speech in no way could cause harm to any employee. He was summarily fired which is an extreme action to take, considering the person who leaked an internal google message board was never punished. He's now gone. People should put a period on it and move on with their work lives, or find another job.

Re: Google's Civil War

#53

Post by itronitron »

pjc50 wrote: post #34

> And in an attempt to quell the increase in uncivil interactions on its internal platforms, its new “community guidelines” ban slurs and references to sex acts in any work document Rather surprised that people were getting away with that in the first place. Edit: just realised that, like codes of conduct, the key difference is that now the rule also applies to the people at the top.

also, how about banning slurs and references to sex acts in any work communication?

Re: Google's Civil War

#54

Post by paleotrope »

mcguire wrote: post #42
pjc50 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a long history of naming yourself after the negative term your enemies use for you in order to neutralise it. Also "entitled vocal minority" works nicely as a parody of "moral majority".

The Bolsheviks were actually a minority.

That statement by itself requires knowledge that bolshevik means something like "majority" in russian.

Re: Google's Civil War

#55

Post by wbl »

mcguire wrote: post #42
pjc50 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a long history of naming yourself after the negative term your enemies use for you in order to neutralise it. Also "entitled vocal minority" works nicely as a parody of "moral majority".

The Bolsheviks were actually a minority.

No they were the majority in 1917. Earlier they had been the minority, but post Kornilov they were a majority at the time of the storming of the winter palace.

Re: Google's Civil War

#56

Post by conanbatt »

pjc50 wrote: post #34

> And in an attempt to quell the increase in uncivil interactions on its internal platforms, its new “community guidelines” ban slurs and references to sex acts in any work document Rather surprised that people were getting away with that in the first place. Edit: just realised that, like codes of conduct, the key difference is that now the rule also applies to the people at the top.

I'm surprised a rule is the solution for that.

Re: Google's Civil War

#57

Post by conanbatt »

fyoving wrote: post #7

I don't understand how someone can proudly be a nuisance to those who sign their paychecks nor how can an employer tolerate any of it, at the very least this situation is unfair to the majority of employees who are just "going to work". Not sure what's behind Google's inaction here, they really shouldn't be worried about the trouble makers defecting to somewhere else that most likely won't tolerate their bullshit.

Google is not a company that has such hard lines against employees. Fostering a "culture of safety" is very important to tech companies, and if a protest of 100 employees was met with their dismissal, it would have ripple effects on all the rest of the employees.

I personally never interviewed at Google, but the damore scandal was a pretty big dissuasive for me to attempt to get one. It does not look like a safe space to me.

Re: Google's Civil War

#58

Post by idlewords »

pjc50 wrote: post #14
fyoving wrote: post #7

I don't understand how someone can proudly be a nuisance to those who sign their paychecks nor how can an employer tolerate any of it, at the very least this situation is unfair to the majority of employees who are just "going to work". Not sure what's behind Google's inaction here, they really shouldn't be worried about the trouble makers defecting to somewhere else that most likely won't tolerate their bullshit.

The whole point of somewhere like Google is that they don't want people who will do what they're told, because such people are only capable of doing what they're told. You can't order someone to innovate unless they have no other choice. Silicon Valley has spent years setting itself up as an inheritor of the counterculture, a place where it's possible to "think different". Employees are given a share of the business…

I don't think you hire bold out-of-the-box innovators to run AdSense.

Re: Google's Civil War

#59

Post by Nullabillity »

fyoving wrote: post #7

I don't understand how someone can proudly be a nuisance to those who sign their paychecks nor how can an employer tolerate any of it, at the very least this situation is unfair to the majority of employees who are just "going to work". Not sure what's behind Google's inaction here, they really shouldn't be worried about the trouble makers defecting to somewhere else that most likely won't tolerate their bullshit.

> at the very least this situation is unfair to the majority of employees who are just "going to work".

So people shouldn't have to take responsibility for their actions, just because they're paid for their troubles?

Post reply on HN