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Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

theguardian.com

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Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#111

Post by kelnos »

roymurdock wrote: post #56
onemoresoop wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fast forward a few years and I’d moved to New York, cycled through Creative Lab and landed at YouTube. As I neared the ten-year mark, my first boss, Sally Cole, who’d left Google many years before, joked that I was surely due for an existential crisis. But when I got back to work after having my son Malcolm in 2017, it wasn’t me who was having an existential crisis. It was Google itself.

"The short explanation for my decision is my health: I’m having another baby in the fall (I acknowledge that there’s incredible privilege in being able to walk away from a job like this)."

Cherry-picking the first sentence is a bit dishonest:

"I made the choice after the heads of my department branded me with a kind of scarlet letter that makes it difficult to do my job or find another one. If I stayed, I didn’t just worry that there’d be more public flogging, shunning, and stress, I expected it."

... are the next two sentences, and sounds like this weighed on her just as heavily as a pending childbirth.

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#112

Post by atklp »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #94
busterarm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our elders really knew how to do some things right.

It's always entertaining when Silicon Valley companies learn that hundred-plus year companies have these stiff adult things called "rules" around for a reason. I can't imagine seriously engaging in significant political discussion at work, and can't imagine a positive outcome to it.

It's easy when you've made sure the entire company leans the same way though. It would be odd to be a right-winger and work in Google--knowing that they're doing everything they can to hurt me. But of course money is money and everybody has a price.

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#113

Post by gamblor956 »

utopcell wrote: post #82
gamblor956 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forwarded this story to my HR department with the suggestion that we find a way to expedite our company's transition away from GSuite. I've been using GSuite (and Gmail) since they launched, so when even a long-term user thinks Google isn't worth it anymore--to the point of actively evangelizing against the use of Google services--Google's got serious issues. If they can't resolve this soon, they'll be the new IBM.…

I don't know what is more hilarious: the fact that you would pass judgement on a ~$1TN company based on the experience of a disgruntled employee [1], or that HR makes technical decisions in your company. [1] mind you, I feel Claire is honest in upholding her views and doesn't have an agenda.

1) In my company, IT is organized under HR. Also, in most companies, IT exists to implement the technical needs of the rest of the company, not to decide what tech the rest of the company uses.

2) I get to pass judgments on Google because I'm a customer and I'm voting with my wallet, and because in the nearly 2 decades that I've been a customer they've gone from being a bastion of idealism and representing the possibility of the internet to being one of the fundamental problems. They're very close to embracing "be evil" as a motto.

3) Google's not going to be a $1 trillion company for long if it keeps this shit up. People vote with their wallets.

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#114

Post by papito »

fyoving wrote: post #74
busterarm wrote: post #54

Google also recently terminated the maintainer of the republicans@google list.

No politics talk at work seems to be the rational and only solution here.

People should stick with religion talk! And of course the Tabs vs Spaces thing. Do that instead, yeah.

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#115

Post by billy_beef »

27182818284 wrote: post #59
billy_beef wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? It comes out like often in my world?

> often in my world? I work in tech and have friends in the Bay area that work in tech and it never comes up. I honestly had forgotten Google had a walkout until this Hacker News post today. Your online search bubble / real life bubble might be heavily biasing you.

It comes up at work consistently in "future of the industry" kinds of discussions or when I get drinks with old coworkers and we talk about parts of our jobs we don't like. I've worked at pretty major companies, but also not saying my experience is universal here.

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#117

Post by klodolph »

klipt wrote: post #95
klodolph wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you've phrased it, it sounds like you think what you're saying is obvious, but it's not obvious to me. What are you saying?

If universities are producing graduates who can't advocate for themselves, can we fix that while they're still in university? Or maybe even secondary/primary education?

I think that’s the assumption, but it takes a lifetime to do that. Being an advocate for yourself is the defining characteristic of adulthood, to me. I don’t think it’s something you pick up in the classroom, it’s very experiential. So I would be happy if people did things like work and live on their own during a gap year, then go back to college.

I definitely think this skill shouldn’t be tied to university.

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#118

Post by vonmoltke »

busterarm wrote: post #97
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always entertaining when Silicon Valley companies learn that hundred-plus year companies have these stiff adult things called "rules" around for a reason. I can't imagine seriously engaging in significant political discussion at work, and can't imagine a positive outcome to it.

Well, when a company actively tries to make its employees private life a service provided by the company, that's inevitably going to include their activism as well. The bigger companies in particular are your employer, your restaurant, your gym, your laundry service, your transportation, your social life...

> The bigger companies in particular are your employer, your restaurant, your gym, your laundry service, your transportation, your social life...

What companies besides Google and Facebook could qualify as all of those?

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#119

Post by SeanAppleby »

sleepybrett wrote: post #5
heer4it wrote: post #3

These companies are so huge and such an integral part of society that they need to be made more accountable to the public, and forcing them to be more accountable to their workers is part of that. I think the recent proposal to require employee representation on the board of directors of $1B+ companies is a good start.

Why should you wait until the company is worth a billion. Why not a function of employee/contractor count?

For startups decisions need to be made quickly and definitively in order to survive.

You might reduce entrepreneurial success and make the economy correspondingly more inertial/monopolistic/feudalistic if you raise compliance overhead and management friction for young startups.

Re: Google Walkout Organizer Claire Stapleton Resigns

#120

Post by busterarm »

vonmoltke wrote: post #118
busterarm wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, when a company actively tries to make its employees private life a service provided by the company, that's inevitably going to include their activism as well. The bigger companies in particular are your employer, your restaurant, your gym, your laundry service, your transportation, your social life...

> The bigger companies in particular are your employer, your restaurant, your gym, your laundry service, your transportation, your social life... What companies besides Google and Facebook could qualify as all of those?

Let's see...Genentech has: onsite child care, car wash facilities, haircutting, spa treatments, bike repair, a gym

United Shore: their own starbucks, a gym, outdoor basketball courts.

Commvault has: ping pong, foosball, pool tables, a gym, a softball field, a basketball court, a walking trail

Procore has: a gym, catered lunches, bring your dog to work policy, fitness _classes_, massages & haircuts onsite.

Adobe: a gym

Tesla: employee lease program, shuttle services

Intel: gyms, fitness classes, spas, dry cleaning, banking.

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