41–50 of 603 posts
> The documents concerned a mandatory tool that was recently installed on the Google Chrome browser on workers’ computers, the employees said. In October, some Google employees raised concerns that the Chrome extension was an internal surveillance tool designed to monitor their attempts to organize protests. It would automatically report staffers who create a calendar event with more than 10 rooms or 100 participants…
How about everyone goes to work and does their job and goes home. You can believe X, I can believe Y, and both of us believe Z, but XYZ doesn’t have anything to do with doing our jobs so we shouldn’t let it prevent us from doing our jobs. Super cool that everyone likes their own things though, I support liking things unrelated to job, just weird that people demand that their job adheres to whatever weird thing they l…
> just weird that people demand that their job adheres to whatever weird thing they like What about "weird" things like not being comfortable with taking on a new project with the military that ultimately helps kill people, or amassing as much personal data on the entire population as the NSA? I mostly agree with your sentiment on the surface. Dont talk politics or religion at work, do your job, and things usually go…
My guess is that the increased closing off of various documents is to do with the increased amount of confidential partner-related information as Google scales its cloud business.
But, as is often the case with Google, much of the disillusionment here seems to be due to unrealistic expectations and nostalgia. There have always been secretive projects at Google. Chrome was super-secret; you needed special authorization to get into the Google+ area; you needed special authorization to get into areas where new Android hardware was being worked with; you needed special authorization to get into the X area; etc.
I've liked many things about Google over the years and I still admire many parts of their stack. But this crazy internal political culture is bound to end in a big kaboom and it looks like this might be it. Evolution has created the rules that one doesn't mix politics with business. Google has skirted this rule for some time but now it's not going to be pretty.
> Evolution has created the rules that one doesn't mix politics with business This 'rule' is a purely artificial construct encouraged to ensure the common employees keep their heads down and let those in charge continue screwing over them and/or society. The history of organized labor involves no less than straight murder of labor activists by company owners.
There is a lot of tension in labour relations but no-politics-in-the-workplace philosophies cover a lot more than that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> same sex partner benefits, trans inclusive healthcare Aren't things like this governed by local laws? In Canada we have private insurance for things above and beyond basic health care, but only the government gets to decide who is a partner, dependant, etc... > prayer rooms Are they going to build chapels for every religion? Who decides which religions get chapels or prayer rooms? Or does only 1 religion get a pray…
> Aren't things like this governed by local laws? In the US this is governed by a patchwork of federal, state and local laws as well as employer policies.
At our company if the HR goes through your social media, and finds any evidence you may be socially activist or virtue signaling or otherwise very loudly proclaiming your disapproval of something some entity is doing, you will not be hired. You will not even get a call back. You will be labeled as a potential troublemaker (not in the good way) and be placed on the blacklist.
And what if you do not give HR access to your social media?
> The documents concerned a mandatory tool that was recently installed on the Google Chrome browser on workers’ computers, the employees said. In October, some Google employees raised concerns that the Chrome extension was an internal surveillance tool designed to monitor their attempts to organize protests. It would automatically report staffers who create a calendar event with more than 10 rooms or 100 participants…
> The documents concerned a mandatory tool that was recently installed on the Google Chrome browser on workers’ computers, the employees said. In October, some Google employees raised concerns that the Chrome extension was an internal surveillance tool designed to monitor their attempts to organize protests. It would automatically report staffers who create a calendar event with more than 10 rooms or 100 participants…
If the Google calendar is for a personal gmail account, then accessing the calendar details server side is a huge privacy breach.
I've liked many things about Google over the years and I still admire many parts of their stack. But this crazy internal political culture is bound to end in a big kaboom and it looks like this might be it. Evolution has created the rules that one doesn't mix politics with business. Google has skirted this rule for some time but now it's not going to be pretty.
> Evolution has created the rules that one doesn't mix politics with business This 'rule' is a purely artificial construct encouraged to ensure the common employees keep their heads down and let those in charge continue screwing over them and/or society. The history of organized labor involves no less than straight murder of labor activists by company owners.
How about everyone goes to work and does their job and goes home. You can believe X, I can believe Y, and both of us believe Z, but XYZ doesn’t have anything to do with doing our jobs so we shouldn’t let it prevent us from doing our jobs. Super cool that everyone likes their own things though, I support liking things unrelated to job, just weird that people demand that their job adheres to whatever weird thing they l…
And yet, Google is still evil.