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Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

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Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#501

Post by bborud »

40acres wrote: post #64

Sounds like Googlers spoiled the well. I'm not sure exactly why but Google employees always seem to be in the news about something and have leaked conversations that management had with them. In some instances the controversy is warranted (Rubin Payout, etc.) but it must be annoying from a management perspective.

Leaving Google it became clear how extremely entitled the culture was. People lose perspective when embedded in a culture that is permissive about entitlement.

Management will always attract its share of assholes, and enablers of assholes. And while I don't mean to excuse behaviors in management that are inexcusable, I think the sense of entitlement and overinflated egos of the rank and file did much to improve company culture.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#502

Post by bborud »

compiler-guy wrote: post #240
40acres wrote: post #64

Sounds like Googlers spoiled the well. I'm not sure exactly why but Google employees always seem to be in the news about something and have leaked conversations that management had with them. In some instances the controversy is warranted (Rubin Payout, etc.) but it must be annoying from a management perspective.

Pichai is making over $100,000,000 a year. That is more than enough to deal with all the annoying crap that goes on.

It is enough to expect him to perform better as a leader at least.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#503

Post by geofft »

buzzkillington wrote: post #420
shadowgovt wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot has changed in the US in a decade. Case in point: a person could make the above claim with a straight face now. ;) Obergefell v. Hodges was only four years ago. American conservatives are still trying to reverse gay marriage.

Not in SF.

Same SF where Mozilla's employees revolted against a CEO who donated to support Prop 8? None of that was political, then?

(And hiring mostly in SF isn't itself a political choice?)

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#504

Post by derangedHorse »

laughinghan wrote: post #448
throwaway6833 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwaway time.. The minefield about trying to predict what's going to be politically correct in the future is so true--you nailed it. You might carefully self-censor your discussions to things that are politically allowed today but everything lives forever, so something you say may fall out of fashion and years from now it could get you in hot HR water. The only solution is to just stick to work topics, really. The…

Genuine question: (you're on a throwaway, what's the harm in answering me, right?) What is there to buy into about pronouns? If my first name is Stan, named after my dad also named Stan, and my middle name is Jason, and my dad abandoned my family when I was young so I prefer people to call me Jason, you'd have no problem calling me Jason and be understanding that calling me Stan is a sore point, right? What if I don'…

Because changing a name allows the same English grammar to be used the same as it usually would and creating a new pronoun does not. Also, I feel like no one would really care that much if people called Stan by the name that’s registered to him (but prefers not to be called), whereas it becomes a political issue if someone didn’t call him by his preferred pronoun.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#505

Post by drenvuk »

verall wrote: post #490
WAHa_06x36 wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today you post a memegen where you state that triangles are better than squares, tomorrow you get fired because squares have become the symbol of some protected class. This is not how anything works. What actually happens is, today you post something insensitive and disparaging because you can get away with it as a "joke", tomorrow, people will actually stand up for themselves and tell you it's not ok to say that,…

Downvotes and no response. I don't know why HN wants to hide behind this strawman so bad. Noone is getting fired for posting about geometric shapes, unless you're trying to say something insensitive or disparaging. The line of what is acceptable to stay has changed, but turns out if you wern't being an asshole in the first place, people are very forgiving. Also, Twitter is not an example. People are constantly unforg…

It's not a strawman. Good jokes that haven't been said before are hard to find and many times lie on the edge of what's acceptable and isn't acceptable or is a combination of nearly unrelated ideas delivered through a multitude of different comedic devices. There's a reason that workplace humor is so repetitive and soul deadening.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#506

Post by xiphias2 »

seraphsf wrote: post #402
rexpop wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a distasteful sentiment. Management is punishing workers with their silence, and their lack of transparency, and you have the gall to suggest these workers deserve it? That they brought it upon themselves? It's our right to speak up about our experiences, even if that means "leaking" our bosses words. In a sense, it's our duty–Google's actions impact us all, and we're owed transparency with which management's no…

I mean this respectfully - why are you owed transparency? Google is a company, not a collective. Companies typically have various controlled ways of disseminating information, both internally and externally. Internal transparency (at a company of Google’s size) effectively means public transparency... ie all of the inner workings are known to everyone. I’m not aware of any for-profit organization that can function ef…

Googlers are owed transparency because that's what we were promised when we were hired. It was the reason we were working over time (nights, weekends). I stopped doing that when I saw that the promise was broken, as a promotion without making something amazing together just doesn't worth to give away a part of my life.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#507

Post by derangedHorse »

fooker wrote: post #466
kccqzy wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is badging for food even a small issue?

Would you want your employer to know about your exact food habits for years of your life? How about your government? How about your insurance company?

Just because you badge in for your company doesn’t automatically mean your government or insurance company will get the data. Even if they did, they could probably get it in more detail from other sources like your bank and credit card company. Also they don’t track what you get, so I don’t see what the big deal is.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#508

Post by derangedHorse »

nemo44x wrote: post #159
tanilama wrote: post #105

Nothing to see here. While most employees are chill, I would imagine Google has a disproportionation of hyper ideologists who are intolerant to different opinions and self-righteous to bring everything down to achieve personal validation. The trust is reduced, but it is both way, between employer and employees. Without that, any conversation is meaningless.

If you're an engineer at Google, you've probably had a great technical education, you feel empowered because if Google would hire you, you can assume most anyone else would too; you probably feel smart because of this and in many ways you probably are a pretty smart person. You're very well paid and compensated and you know it. There are a lot of things here that not only give someone confidence but also conviction.…

I hope those Google employees who think like that only apply their self-confidence to things relevant to their work. I think most people grow out of the phase where they think that they excel at everything just because they know how to program.

To be fair, a lot of people who don’t find a career success also have strong opinions and ideologies. People can always have their opinions to themselves if nothing else.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#509

Post by cromwellian »

I’ve worked at IBM, Oracle, and Google and have friends at Intel, Microsoft and Adobe. I’d say the reduction of openness and transparency Of management with employees is regrettable but the biggest thing I still enjoy about Google culture is still intact: is the relative lack of egotistical assholes, political douchebags, macho primadonna engineers, and other toxic people that I’ve encountered at other companies.

In general, the overall friendliness of people to work together, lend help, and accept or provide “constructive” criticism has been a welcome respite.

At the other companies mentioned, I’ve encountered a mixture of people deliberately backstabbing and sabotaging other groups projects, engineers who scream at or insult others, or just straight up refusing to admit fault.

Granted this is likely to change because Google is hiring too many people too fast which will reduce cultural assimilation.

But at this point I don’t think I could stomach working on a team at another Big company with some “alpha” macho engineer types unless their name happened to be Linus Torvalds, and even then I don’t think I’d want to be in that environment.

Microsoft seems like it has vastly improved after Balmer left.

I’m also not going to work at any company that doesn’t value work/life balance.

Re: Google cancels TGIF weekly all-hands meetings

#510

Post by username90 »

cromwellian wrote: post #509

I’ve worked at IBM, Oracle, and Google and have friends at Intel, Microsoft and Adobe. I’d say the reduction of openness and transparency Of management with employees is regrettable but the biggest thing I still enjoy about Google culture is still intact: is the relative lack of egotistical assholes, political douchebags, macho primadonna engineers, and other toxic people that I’ve encountered at other companies. In…

Is it really that bad at other companies? I also work for Google and always wondered where everyone find all these "Brilliant Jerks", but maybe it is just that there aren't that many of them here?
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