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Google's Civil War

fortune.com

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Re: Google's Civil War

#81

Post by jccalhoun »

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.

Clearly they value these employees and want them to be happy. I would guess that if the janitorial staff tried this there would a)be a lot less press about it and b) google wouldn't put up with it nearly as well.

They also might have contracts with these people that require certain reasons for it.

Certainly it would be very bad press for google if they fired all of the people who are involved in this.

Re: Google's Civil War

#82

Post by wswkb »

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 should be able to put, say, "this method is fucking up that variable" in a code comment without a puritan telling me not to do so. Which is funny, as it shows that we're going full circle.

Re: Google's Civil War

#83

Post by nmcfarl »

AlexB138 wrote: post #68
eropple wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an extremely...one-sided...view of things. Consider a more healthy one: capital and labor should be partners , and labor gets to have a say in the direction of the company, too. It must be said, again and again: corporations exist at the sufferance of the society that grants them their charter and only exist for the benefit of that society. A company that can't do that should have its charter revoked. And its…

> It must be said, again and again: corporations exist at the sufferance of the society that grants them their charter and only exist for the benefit of that society. I'm assuming you're talking about the US. We are not subjects of our government, or of some other sovereign, whether that be society or anything else. Our society is founded on individual pursuit of happiness, not collectivism. Put another way, corporat…

The state licenses corporations. Corporations exist for whatever reason their creators and the state decide on.

Re: Google's Civil War

#84

Post by kazagistar »

roenxi wrote: post #49
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, once employees start organising to influence management on business decisions they really need to pony up the capital and become shareholders. Deciding what management does is the privilege of shareholders, not employees. Isn't this precisely describing why unions were originally generated, so that employees can also leverage power equal to the shareholders, and therefore have a say in their own working co…

There is a big difference between that and what is being discussed in this article though. Unions are dealing with pay and conditions - important, but ultimately just aggregating topics that employers and employees were going to negotiate around anyway. This article is talking about: * Amazon workers are demanding more action from the company on battling climate change * Microsoft, employees say they don’t want to bu…

You make a bunch of statements about what can and cannot be done, and back up none of them. What can be done is what you have power to do, and collectively, workers have power greater than capital. What should be done is what is moral, since the people with capital are institutionally unable to. It's really that simple.

Re: Google's Civil War

#85

Post by microcolonel »

darkpuma wrote: post #76
itronitron wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If I twist my ankle and exclaim "fuck!", would that be in violation? It's not a dumb question, there are some people who are genuinely offended by that sort of language. Would the rules back them up, or me? In theory I'm in favor of these sort of rules, but I hope they leave some wiggle room for common sense, preferably erroring on the side of tolerance.

> If I twist my ankle and exclaim "fuck!", would that in violation?

The answer depends, of course, on the opinion the moral busybodies have of you, whether that's based on your job performance or your immutable characteristics. I've seen some pretty arbitrary outcomes from policies like this, it generally has the effect of making the IMs and intranet forums less useful, since people can't feel at ease no matter how well-intentioned they are.

Re: Google's Civil War

#87

Post by kazagistar »

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #75
eropple wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an extremely...one-sided...view of things. Consider a more healthy one: capital and labor should be partners , and labor gets to have a say in the direction of the company, too. It must be said, again and again: corporations exist at the sufferance of the society that grants them their charter and only exist for the benefit of that society. A company that can't do that should have its charter revoked. And its…

[flagged]

Plenty of far more socialist policies than the status quo work perfectly well. The whole anti socialism ideology is bullshit pedaled by the powerful to enforce the status quo.

Re: Google's Civil War

#88

Post by pjc50 »

wswkb wrote: post #82
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 should be able to put, say, "this method is fucking up that variable" in a code comment without a puritan telling me not to do so. Which is funny, as it shows that we're going full circle.

Why? Are you asking to be able to swear in front of clients too? Because the code isn't guaranteed to stay in front of favourable eyes forever.

Re: Google's Civil War

#90

Post by Apocryphon »

pjc50 wrote: post #33
rgoulter wrote: post #13

The Google organizers have taken to calling themselves the “entitled vocal majority,” after one employee publicly referred to them as the “entitled vocal minority.” I feel like this is a small example of where my views of these employees disagrees with the author's. (I'm fine with employees having strong opinions on ethical issues, but this kindof puff quote doesn't lend them respect). I dunno if the author thinks th…

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".

I think it’s a twist on the silent majority.
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