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Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

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Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#31

Post by cmrdporcupine »

ryanmercer wrote: post #6

There's algae in the tube feeding the ice machine in my company's break room, multiple wet ceiling tiles all year long, signs telling us to literally not wipe our feces on the walls in the bathroom, shared desks with other shifts, a constant smell of mold and I make 35k a year, no chance of promotion at all without taking on tens of thousands of dollars of debt to get a 4-year degree in literally anything, at a rabid…

If it makes you feel any better, I work at Google, but have found toilets with pee all over the floor and toilet seat and much worse I'd rather not talk about. :-)

Googlers are the first to admit we're spoiled. _Most_ of us are conscious of our privileges compared to other workers.

But as others have pointed out that doesn't mean we should turn a blind eye to issues of sexism and lack of diversity, attitudes towards minorities, etc. which are issues more _parallel_ to the privileges you're describing than in contradiction to it.

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#32

Post by segmondy »

My eyes are hurting from seeing these articles whining about their misery while collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Most companies have issues, and these issues are not "Company" issues but PEOPLE issues. Once you're large enough, you are going to have people with differing opinions, beliefs and values. These are going to clash. If you happen to be on the losing side and don't learn to accept it, you will find yourself miserable. Accept it and solider on to change if you truly believe in your fight.

There are folks out there working minimum wage jobs who are truly miserable, back breaking labor, standing on their feet all day, standing in the hot sun or out in the cold weather, avoiding dangerous machinery and avoiding trying to be maimed or worse loose their life. Dealing with stupid harassment and constant abuse from their boss who makes a $1 more above minimum wage.

Folks out there are really going through it. It doesn't mean that we don't have tough challenges in tech, but we have become spoiled and a bunch of whiners. The majority of the population are outside the industry and they roll their eyes when these type of articles come out and these incessant complaints don't endear them to us.

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#33

Post by option_greek »

ryanmercer wrote: post #6

There's algae in the tube feeding the ice machine in my company's break room, multiple wet ceiling tiles all year long, signs telling us to literally not wipe our feces on the walls in the bathroom, shared desks with other shifts, a constant smell of mold and I make 35k a year, no chance of promotion at all without taking on tens of thousands of dollars of debt to get a 4-year degree in literally anything, at a rabid…

I don't understand why people are down voting you. Your post rings 100% true for a lot of folks out of silicon valley bubble.

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#35

Post by tudelo »

jlokier wrote: post #29
tudelo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you know your situation sounds not as good as a googler, so what are you doing to actively better it?

I think the GP's point is they don't think there is anything they can afford to do to better their situation in ways that matter. All actions other than status quo lead to something worse. (Loss of job, unaffordable debt, etc.) And it's a perfectly normal situation in their part of the world for their skills and occupation, so it isn't them, it's just real life for the peasants. That's why they struggle to find sympa…

It's so easy to make excuses for ourselves and others but I don't think making 35k vs making 150k is really anything like being a peasant vs being royalty... but maybe I don't know enough about that topic.

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#36

Post by cmrdporcupine »

peterwwillis wrote: post #15

> To invent products like Gmail, Earth, and Translate, you need coddled geniuses free to let their minds run wild. A cute meme that people like to repeat because it 'sounds right', not really accurate. Gmail was someone's pet project, Earth was purchased, and Translate was a boring statistical analysis program for 10 years. I mean, really, how "wild" does your mind have to be to write a crappy CRUD app or design an a…

You're being downvoted but I agree with you. Most of the work here at Google is frankly of the very boring day to day software engineering slog -- bisecting crashes, fixing emergency issues, reading and writing long documents. Coddled geniuses doesn't really describe how things get done. It's more like, keep the geniuses (or not-geniuses) coddled, so they don't get annoyed with doing what is really not-very-sexy work :-)

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#37

Post by barry-cotter »

ryanmercer wrote: post #6

There's algae in the tube feeding the ice machine in my company's break room, multiple wet ceiling tiles all year long, signs telling us to literally not wipe our feces on the walls in the bathroom, shared desks with other shifts, a constant smell of mold and I make 35k a year, no chance of promotion at all without taking on tens of thousands of dollars of debt to get a 4-year degree in literally anything, at a rabid…

It sounds like there are multiple OSHA violations at your work so you could report them.

You could buy your own chair for work and I believe you can write it off in tax as a work expense.

Given your long years of work experience you could almost certainly get into a distance learning Master’s degree in the U.K., e.g. the Queen Mary University of London MBA.

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/mba/

If you don’t have managerial experience of any kind I can recommend CeFIMS

https://www.cefims.ac.uk/programmes/ipa/

You can start with an individual professional award and transfer to a Master’s proper and be done in three years for ~£10,000.

Alternatively you can get a US Bachelor’s for far less than tens of thousands of dollars through transfer credit and credit by examination like the community on degreeforum.net. People have done it in under a year.

It sounds like you’re in a bad situation. I hope things get better for you soon.

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#38

Post by Loughla »

LandR wrote: post #21
torben-friis wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> signs telling us to lierally not wipe our feces on the walls in the bathroom This is not like the other details. What the hell caused that?

Ha! I worked for a healthcare company in an office with a couple hundred developers... And yep, at one point, we had a shit on the walls issue... I dont know if notices went up telling people not to do it though! I could never work out if it was intentional or some people just don't know how to shit??? I dont understand it either... On the current office it's a piss on the floor issue, no urinals in the men's toilet…

My experience in high education tells me that if you see shit being wiped on the walls, it's generally a sign of mental health issues - in the case of workplaces, this is definitely a sign of depression or some form of anger toward the company.

When people get to the point where they literally smear their feces on the walls, they're grasping at ways to make a statement about how god-awful their environment is.

Source: Our toxic geology department constantly had shit on the walls, until we completely gutted it and restructured/replaced the administration and policies. Better workplace, no more shit on the walls.

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#39

Post by akhilcacharya »

TheBranca18 wrote: post #18
ryanmercer wrote: post #6

There's algae in the tube feeding the ice machine in my company's break room, multiple wet ceiling tiles all year long, signs telling us to literally not wipe our feces on the walls in the bathroom, shared desks with other shifts, a constant smell of mold and I make 35k a year, no chance of promotion at all without taking on tens of thousands of dollars of debt to get a 4-year degree in literally anything, at a rabid…

Your entire premise is fallacious. It's responding to someone complaining about an injustice by saying there are starving children in Africa. Your situation sounds awful and if you are that miserable I would be happy to help with anyone that I know that has open positions, depending on your concentration. That being said, saying things like: "Sure, sexism and racial discrimination is bad bad bad, but this happens at…

I think the premise has merit. I work at a Big4 with a, as of yesterday, larger market cap than Google and our company culture isn't dysfunctional as this article would suggest.

The Schmidt idea that they have to keep their "divas" like Andy Rubin seems not to be yielding results.

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#40

Post by wruza »

segmondy wrote: post #32

My eyes are hurting from seeing these articles whining about their misery while collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Most companies have issues, and these issues are not "Company" issues but PEOPLE issues. Once you're large enough, you are going to have people with differing opinions, beliefs and values. These are going to clash. If you happen to be on the losing side and don't learn to accept it, y…

In developer words, it’s zeroth world problems.
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