Google Employee Alleges Discrimination Against Pregnant Women in Viral Memo • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by ab_c » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 1:37 AM UTC

cdumler wrote: post #85

sandino wrote: post #60

The only support I received as the victim of my manager’s abuse was encouragement to take advantage of medical leave. This statement is quite telling: first HR goes to lengths to deny that there's any seriously wrong. Then they pretty blatantly acknowledge that yes, things are so fucked up that you'll likely want to take medical leave.

From first-hand experience, I cannot stress this enough: HR's job is to protect management. Period. Full stop. Having going through this type of situation (high-performer until on the wrong side of someone in management), I really didn't understand things until someone pointed something out. I was asked: who hired the manager? The purpose of a manager is to handle the details of the goals of hirer. A musician hires a…

I have to agree. I learned the hard way that HR is not there to deal with grievances fairly. Their job isn't to shield employees from bad behaviour or absurd demands from management. Their job is to help and protect management.

Unions are the ppl there to protect employees from abuse, not HR.

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

#172

Post by kaitai » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 1:38 AM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #92

This is a pretty tough spot. You don't want to impede someone's career because of there reproductive choices but at the same time were the teams wrong in not wanting to introduce a new manager about to take a months long medical leave? You can look at the suggested early medical leave as being pushed out (and it certainly could have been) but it also strikes me as a good option if you only want to work in a rock star…

Downgrading someone's performance review because they're pregnant, though, is just classically illegal.

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

#173

Post by manigandham » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 1:39 AM UTC

Pfhreak wrote: post #159

paulddraper wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a glib answer from a position of security. I'd love to know how you figured that one out. > “Politics” is absolutely a core part of the workplace where it starts to affect your rights I am only slightly exaggerating when I say that all politics affects your rights. Again, like religion, super important. But for a variety of reasons, the workplace makes a poor forum.

What do you suggest people do when workplace must intersect with politics. For example, you need access to a gender neutral restroom or shower facility? Should you not advocate for that internally? Let's say you are an ally for someone who needs an affordance like a gender neutral facility, should you not speak up on their behalf?

It seems this is the only example ever presented. Is gender really that big of an issue? The individual is free to discuss with their company about their needs and wants.

HR can handle this easily by following the law and drafting appropriate policies. It does not need a big battle with an "ally" at all. That's what leaving politics out of the workplace means. An individual's issues should be left to the individual.

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

#174

Post by PavlovsCat » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 1:41 AM UTC

ben7799 wrote: post #76

grape_eater wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for Google, can confirm many of the points you've made. While I haven't experienced any toxicity at Google, your analysis of the internal communication culture raises really good points. On one side, the internal social justice campaigns are incredibly pervasive due to large usage of internal message boards. On the other side, Google is one of the few companies that allows this level of internal airing of dirt…

Should have added, I worked one place we got acquired by a giant company that most here would say is really f*cking evil (TM) and even there I never detected any of the toxic stuff these Google stories talk about. That place was actually Evil enough I quit within a year to go back to another small company but it was nothing like what you read about Google. A different axis of evil.

I think it's possible to work inside a giant war machine that causes all sorts of suffering, while on the inside, it's all brightly lit, comfy, people are polite and even compassionate to each other, both at and outside of work. We can be very reflected and open to criticism even, though only within a specific framework of abstractions and euphemisms, which aren't inherent to the people working there, but rather inherent to the the culture, or the profession, etc.

Maybe like the cells in the body of a criminal and those in the body of the saint aren't really different, per se, and it's more about the state between them. I don't know how to put this well, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a word for how something can behave very differently if you rearrange its parts, or excite them in a different order, etc.

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

#175

Post by kaitai » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 1:44 AM UTC

mieseratte wrote: post #121

harryh wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This story makes no sense: - How could a single baby born with health problems bankrupt a big aerospace company? - A man is just as likely to have a child with severe health problems as a woman even though he'll never be the pregnant one.

> - How could a single baby born with health problems bankrupt a big aerospace company? Lots of companies have self-funded groups, but join onto an insurance group for negotiating power. For instance, I have a plan like this and our partner-company is Cigna so I carry around a Cigna insurance card with the $FIRM plan. Looking at the paperwork, the most expensive plan is $67 per week, with an $8,500 max out- of-pocket…

Insurance companies have reinsurance, though -- they insure themselves against low-probability but high-stakes costs. Any insurance group that would be bankrupted by a single baby is just a clown college that would certainly be wiped out by a multiple myeloma or someone who needed an immune checkpoint inhibitor... or a couple adults who are on the new Hep C treatment ($84000 for three months!).

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

#176

Post by ISL » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 2:05 AM UTC

wolco wrote: post #151

lallysingh wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole country is rather politicized (some of it actually violent). Google doesn't force employees to pretend that's not the case. Maybe a good idea, maybe bad.

Having politics free zones like work is a good idea.

If there are people, there are politics.

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

#177

Post by ab_c » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 2:12 AM UTC

notadoc wrote: post #143

Not specifically about Google or this article, but how many people here have seen or experienced some sort of discrimination against parents in general? Like outwardly complaining that a man is asking for paternity leave (or insinuating job consequences if they take more than a few days)? Or more subtle approaches like deliberately scheduling unimportant meetings at obscure times to interfere with parenting and child…

Yes, there have been male parents being discriminated against because some companies don't feel that men could ever be considered a "primary" guardian -- that designation is reserved for women, only. Thus, men can't get the full allotted paternity leave time; only women can. Just recently did the courts decide this is unfair; both men and women can carry the title and deserve equal time off. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/business/fathers-parental...

That said, I've seen cases where the opposite is true. Parents are treated well but other groups aren't. I know several friends working at a large, well-known, evil gaming studio. They've had controversy in the past surrounding how they pushed employees to work insane crunch. When it became public, they (moderately) changed. Project managers would never ask women to work late, nor ask an employee who is a parent. For parents, this is great... however, they pushed all that work to others.

If you're male, single, a PM asks you to work overtime (without pay) and you decline, it will be a detriment to your career. After all, you have no kids therefore no legitimate reasons to say no. Be prepared to receive negative, nebulous feedback on your quarterly reviews.

"It doesn't feel like this employee is a team player."

"I question their commitment to the project."

"This employee seems dispassionate about their job."

I've worked with a project manager who carried a similar sentiment. In a candid conversation, he said to my face that he'd never ask women to work overtime. However, if you're male and under the age of 35, you should, "know better." If you're getting into the tech industry, you should expect to work at least 10hrs/day.

I'm very happy I don't work with him anymore.

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

#178

Post by ab_c » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 2:22 AM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #140

> Exactly two years ago today, another, much different memo, went internally viral at Google. That one was written by the now infamous James Damore, an engineer who wrote a 10,000-word, unscientific memo attempting to argue that women are naturally less disposed to be good engineers compared to men. The purpose of that memo was to get Google to scale back its diversity efforts. That's not what actually happened.

"unscientific"

Technically, yes what he said is unscientific in the sense that he didn't conduct a long-term study. However, the guy has a degree in molecular biology so it's not as if he's pulling shit out of thin air to justify his stance -- that's grossly misleading.

While I don't agree with everything he said, there's a lot that I feel is very fair. It's sad the media wrote him off as a misogynist. Misogynist don't write pages of suggestions on ways to encourage women into STEM and into leadership positions.

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

#179

Post by paulddraper » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 2:27 AM UTC

lazyasciiart wrote: post #163

paulddraper wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. Why do you feel it's required to take some stand (including whatever the majority default is) on free speech, gun rights, immigration quotas, abortion restrictions, tax laws, states' rights, welfare benefits, etc. in the workplace?

Should women be allowed to work? What if they're married and working in close contact with single men? What if they're pregnant? Should the company be allowed to give someone else their job while they are on maternity leave? Should the company even pay them while on maternity leave? All these questions are "politics"

Are you talking about city/state/national laws?

Or company policies?

"Employees here should have benefit X" or "I should get paid Y" or "Z should be promoted" aren't really political in the usual sense (it's office politics, sure).

"The government should on pain of imprisonment require everyone to X" or "political candidate Y should be elected" is politics. And creates unnecessary division in the workplace.

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

#180

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Tue, Aug 06, 2019, 2:30 AM UTC

duaoebg wrote: post #160

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your hypothesis is extraordinarily unlikely. Google has continuously expanded benefits for men and women going on parental leave over these last years. It would make no sense whatsoever for them to also systematically harass pregnant women out of the workforce. If they were concerned about the costs of maternity, they could just have expanded those benefits more slowly. That would have had dramatically more impact, a…

Expanding benefits while simultaneously harassing those who take them gives the benefit of virtue signalling with less of the cost. Most people who receive harassment keep it to themselves as to be public about it is generally a career ender.

I'm not saying we can't concoct a series of words that makes it seem likely, if you suppose that all the evidence that you would otherwise expect is absent because of flimsy reasons. I'm saying that the balance of the evidence suggests that this is not part of any systematic policy, but rather an intermittent failure of a kind that one would expect given a sufficiently long timeline, even in an organization with the best of intentions.

To the extent that there systemic anti-maternity bias within Google, it is certainly below the background rate of society as a whole. That's not a very high bar to clear, so I'll go further to say that Google is actively supportive of parenting and maternity in a way that few other organizations in the United States are. I can say that as someone whose spouse has had two kids there, and as someone whose teammates have had dozens of kids between them during our time working together.

Even with that, failures like these occur, because that's just what people are like, and we have not designed perfect systems to counter this type of behavior. That's not to excuse -- if the story is accurate, figurative heads should roll. And our systems should be improved.

But positing a systematic policy of abuse like this is cynical and doesn't fit with the evidence. Doing so is less like extrapolating a line from a single data point and more like drawing an entire picture from that point.