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Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

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Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#431

Post by fooker »

tirewarehouse wrote: post #351
fooker wrote: post #202

RIP I'm one of those people who go work at Google once every few years. The transformation of culture from about 2013 onwards has been somewhat sad to experience. Interestingly, most people who have been continuously employed there have not felt the very slight gradient. However, the changes in culture, freedom, food quality, etc are fairly obvious when one returns after ..say.. 18 months. Here are some semi-concrete…

If badging in for a free meal (which is "required", but not enforced) is one of your top complaints, this comment will only reinforce how ridiculously entitled some tech workers have become. Not sure what office you work or worked in, but where I'm at they regularly go over the top with decorations during celebrations. It's pretty awesome.

None of these on their own are huge complaints or issues. They just add up.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#432

Post by laughinghan »

throwGuardian wrote: post #248
nostrademons wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more that they actively courted assertive people with opinions and then created a culture where you can bring your whole self to work. They did this so that they could get the benefits of creativity, which inherently requires emotional engagement, which requires that you not repress your emotions. (It turns out that it's not possible to selectively repress emotions: "I've got to watch what I say about po…

I do not believe chronic bouts of performative outrage leads to anything creative, inside or out of the workplace. If one's "whole self" cannot meaningfully function without getting constantly triggered, the problem is with the normalization of such "whole self" concepts

Performative outrage? Constantly triggered? Are we talking about the same company?

Paying someone $90 million to leave after allegedly assaulting someone [0] isn't something that happens "constantly", and seems like a pretty reasonable thing to have strong opinions about. And there's nothing "performative" about successfully rolling back mandatory arbitration [1], which studies have found is stacked in favor of employers and muzzles employees [2], and which the ABA now recommends against [3].

[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-...

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/8/18075780/google-sexual-as...

[2]: https://www.vox.com/2018/8/1/16992362/sexual-harassment-mand...

[3]: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/law_practice/publications...

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#433

Post by paulddraper »

ekianjo wrote: post #324
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are surrounded by functional alcoholics (10% in the US drink most of the booze). They naturally tend toward career paths that support their behavior.

90% of people surrounded by 10% ? The word "surrounded" seems inappropriate.

Surrounded =/= Majority

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#434

Post by fooker »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #234
fooker wrote: post #202

RIP I'm one of those people who go work at Google once every few years. The transformation of culture from about 2013 onwards has been somewhat sad to experience. Interestingly, most people who have been continuously employed there have not felt the very slight gradient. However, the changes in culture, freedom, food quality, etc are fairly obvious when one returns after ..say.. 18 months. Here are some semi-concrete…

> No decorations.. Where does this apply? Just reception, or more? Can I have a poster or art? A plant?

Receptions and front desk, iirc. People manning them were previously allowed (and long ago, encouraged) to decorate the space to their liking.

That went away this year (and partly restored as a result of memegen-driven protests, after I left as I hear.)

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#435

Post by username90 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #387
sailfast wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume this was for a supervisory position or an HR position? These aren’t really politically charged questions but rather questions about how to manage people and the issues that come with people. While the cause of the complaint may be politically charged, how one would handle the situation should be pretty by the book.

Just to be clear you’re explicitly saying that the law says that in a workplace context you should treat people differently based on whether or not they’re in a protected class. Not the same , differently? Because the entire point of the law on protected classes is that people should be treated the same regardless of being a member or not of a protected class. Non discrimination, not discrimination.

You aren't allowed to treat protected groups the same. If you have a group of men and one of them say he is treated unfairly then you are allowed to ignore it. If you have a group of men and one woman, and the woman say she is treated unfairly then you are not allowed to ignore it.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#436

Post by ColanR »

scarmig wrote: post #365
rainyMammoth wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't get me wrong. Google is still the best workplace with top notch pay, but as it's got big, it's also morphed into a typical big corporation with typical corporate politics. Sorry but I cannot stand that level of internal koolaid. I guess you also think that Google got the "smartest" people? There are literally thousands of companies working on problems way more interesting and with more stakes and upsides for…

Google throws away obscene amounts of money on non-adtech things. Some of those are pretty interesting and useful for humanity. You can say, well, those don't count, because Google isn't making money from them! But if you take that route, you also have to exclude all the startups working on "interesting" problems that don't and won't make money. You're left with a very small set of companies. I wouldn't be surprised…

Google is an ad company with delusions of grandure.

It's nothing more, until it finds a way to turn a profit on its other ventures. (Just like those startups - realistically, until they turn a profit, they're just in the exploratory stage.)

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#437

Post by djsumdog »

pm90 wrote: post #379
SquishyPanda23 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that Google doesn't need creative all stars. It needs line workers, and there's no way its culture of whimsical creativity could have survived expanding so much and so quickly. Your point about emotions is also good. Here is another way to put it. The issue IMO is that they told people they were changing the world and by making information universally available etc etc. The people who went to work for them…

They could try to split up. The separation into Alphabet seems almost a dream for regulators who can just separate them. I mean, just think about it. Standard Oil had the same monopoly over a valuable resource (oil then, Software and Data today) that Google has today (fine, Facebook etc too... but there is no Facebook search; also they are monopolies over different kinds of digital products). They need to be broken u…

Facebook could easily be told to shed Instagram, WhatsApp and everything else they bought up to dominate the social network space. Individually those companies might not survive, but they could spin them off, as a whole, if the FTC tired to step in.

Google could be asked to do the same with some of their product lines/companies.

It's very unlikely though. These companies have a lot of influence and a lot of power .. and when was the last time the Federal government broke up a company over antitrust violations? It didn't happen with Microsoft .. and for examples of really big monopolies, you'd probably have to go back to the Bell/ATT days.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#438

Post by username90 »

VikingCoder wrote: post #92
tenpies wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google famously hired one of the activist organizers of Occupy Wallstreet: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-engineer-who-organize...

...and they hired someone who worked on Family Separation: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/miles-taylor-fa... Wouldn't that kind of negate your point?

Google changed a lot in the past 5 years, back then the activism was a lot stronger than it is today. They have worked for a few years to grind it down so it makes sense, it will probably be mostly gone in a few years.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#439

Post by baddox »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #325
majormajor wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (It turns out that it's not possible to selectively repress emotions: "I've got to watch what I say about politics" subconsciously spills over into "I've got to watch what I say" which spills over into "I've got to watch what I say about anything new and controversial", and you lose the latter well before the former.) I don't believe this. I can tune out whatever random BS my coworkers a few desks over are talking…

I don’t know if I could really trust the opinions of a co-worker who believed the earth is flat. I’m pretty sure that would influence my attitude towards them in technical discussions as well.

Do you mean that you wouldn’t trust any objective claims they made without verifying the claims yourself? Shouldn’t you not do that anyway, with anyone, including people with strange cosmological beliefs but also renowned experts?

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#440

Post by username90 »

paulgb wrote: post #249
vanniv wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google very much courted political activists in it's employee base, and encouraged its employees to participate in 'woke' culture. All seemed great for a while, and then suddenly one day, management found itself the target of the woke cancel culture they fostered.

As a former Googler, I'm curious what you are referring to by this: > encouraged its employees to participate in 'woke' culture.

People didn't get fired for participating in left wing activism on the job before, but now they are. I'm not sure if it counts as "encouraging 'woke' culture", but most companies would have put a stop to it way earlier.
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