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Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

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Re: Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

#11

Post by hundt »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #7
hundt wrote: post #6

I'm wondering, does anyone have any stories of involving HR in a situation like this (less-than-overt discrimination or harassment from a person more senior/important than you) and getting a positive outcome? At this point whenever I read that someone "reached out to HR to ask for help in navigating the situation" I assume that the main outcome will be to put the company on notice that they need to start working on t…

HR exists to protect the company, full stop. They are only interested in the workers insofar as they reveal potential legal liabilities for the company. It is almost always better to first talk to outside legal representation to understand the landscape. If there are actual law violations, they will help properly document and possibly start preparing a case, and if not then you know you should prepare to leave the co…

Yeah, that appears to be the "Hacker News wisdom" on this topic and it certainly seems plausible to me. I was just wondering if this is a basically universally held opinion, or if some people with relevant experience have a different view.

Re: Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

#12

Post by kyrra »

Osiris wrote: post #4

I've spent most entire career at relatively small companies (25-100 employees). I've never seen these types of issues (I can't say they've never happened, I'm just not aware of any). In fact, reading these stories is probably why I've never had the desire to apply to work at any of the large tech companies. I can't say for certain what the differences are, but I think smaller companies tend of have less office politi…

Google has ~100,000 employees at this point. This is the story of a single manager within the company. When you have that many people at the company, there are going to be people that make bad choices, and then the story will fall under the umbrella of "Google" and make the news.

If this was a single small 25-100 person company, it would (likely) not get any notice.

Re: Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

#13

Post by ben7799 »

I'm always amazed Google management tolerates things like internal message boards aimed at letting employees create Memes on company time.

On the "evil point haired boss" level it seems these types of things like their internal message boards cause a lot of trouble for the company.

On the less evil side it seems like employees waste a lot of time on these internal sites and all the internal social justice stuff.

Maybe Google just seems to get it's dirty laundry aired out. I've been working in this field for 20 years not including my internships in college and I've never worked any company that seemed to have as much of this weirdness as Google seems to.

Maybe it's an artifact of them having a money printing machine and then a ton of employees who seem to work on items other than the money printing machine which don't really matter to the company's bottom line.

From the outside it just seems like a never ending series of stories about ultra-toxic management.. all of which greatly exceed anything I've seen in my career.

Re: Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

#14

Post by decebalus1 »

MegaButts wrote: post #9
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HR exists to protect the company, full stop. They are only interested in the workers insofar as they reveal potential legal liabilities for the company. It is almost always better to first talk to outside legal representation to understand the landscape. If there are actual law violations, they will help properly document and possibly start preparing a case, and if not then you know you should prepare to leave the co…

> It is almost always better to first talk to outside legal representation to understand the landscape. If there are actual law violations, they will help properly document and possibly start preparing a case, and if not then you know you should prepare to leave the company. Assuming you have already agreed to legally binding arbitration as is pretty much standard in all employee contracts (although thankfully a rece…

All you said is correct about arbitration. However, It never hurts to get independent legal advice. You never know like if the arbitration clause won't hold or if there are other aspects you're missing. Also, last but not least AFAIK you can and should always bring your own lawyer in arbitration.

Re: Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

#15

Post by [deleted] »

Osiris wrote: post #4

I've spent most entire career at relatively small companies (25-100 employees). I've never seen these types of issues (I can't say they've never happened, I'm just not aware of any). In fact, reading these stories is probably why I've never had the desire to apply to work at any of the large tech companies. I can't say for certain what the differences are, but I think smaller companies tend of have less office politi…

[deleted]

Re: Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

#16

Post by TAForObvReasons »

MegaButts wrote: post #9
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HR exists to protect the company, full stop. They are only interested in the workers insofar as they reveal potential legal liabilities for the company. It is almost always better to first talk to outside legal representation to understand the landscape. If there are actual law violations, they will help properly document and possibly start preparing a case, and if not then you know you should prepare to leave the co…

> It is almost always better to first talk to outside legal representation to understand the landscape. If there are actual law violations, they will help properly document and possibly start preparing a case, and if not then you know you should prepare to leave the company. Assuming you have already agreed to legally binding arbitration as is pretty much standard in all employee contracts (although thankfully a rece…

In many states that permit binding arbitration agreements, whistleblower protections and criminal activity reports pierce the agreement. That's why the specific nature of the transgression is important, and why actually talking to a lawyer is better.

Re: Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

#18

Post by takeout »

ben7799 wrote: post #13

I'm always amazed Google management tolerates things like internal message boards aimed at letting employees create Memes on company time. On the "evil point haired boss" level it seems these types of things like their internal message boards cause a lot of trouble for the company. On the less evil side it seems like employees waste a lot of time on these internal sites and all the internal social justice stuff. Mayb…

What do you mean by "internal social justice" stuff?

Re: Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

#19

Post by ben7799 »

takeout wrote: post #18
ben7799 wrote: post #13

I'm always amazed Google management tolerates things like internal message boards aimed at letting employees create Memes on company time. On the "evil point haired boss" level it seems these types of things like their internal message boards cause a lot of trouble for the company. On the less evil side it seems like employees waste a lot of time on these internal sites and all the internal social justice stuff. Mayb…

What do you mean by "internal social justice" stuff?

This current story does not sound like anything weird is going on but some of the stories it sounds like some employees spend a majority of their time setting up protests internally.

It is hard to understand how someone can spend significant time in the office fomenting internal protests (even if they are for a good cause) and actually be getting their job done.

Re: Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo

#20

Post by ocdtrekkie »

Osiris wrote: post #4

I've spent most entire career at relatively small companies (25-100 employees). I've never seen these types of issues (I can't say they've never happened, I'm just not aware of any). In fact, reading these stories is probably why I've never had the desire to apply to work at any of the large tech companies. I can't say for certain what the differences are, but I think smaller companies tend of have less office politi…

My personal opinion is that fundamentally, upper management (but people, in general) will make decisions that positively impact the people they see and work with. In a small company (like where I work) where the CEO knows the bottom tier employees by name, they are going to have a very hard time making decisions that harm those people. In a large company, upper management works with middle managers, and therefore, will optimize decisions that work well for those people, and as they do not know people on the bottom tier, have little emotional ties to decisions that will harm them.
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