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Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

nbcnews.com

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Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#301

Post by scarface74 »

MrLeap wrote: post #271
scarface74 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you have the right to say it. But you can’t follow me to the bathroom stall and keep telling me. She didn’t post it to a common area. She took it upon herself to plaster it on everyone’s computer screen.

"But you can’t follow me to the bathroom stall and keep telling me." "plaster it on everyone's screen" did you read the same article I did? The alert was triggered off a single consultancy's site. I really doubt it was a common hang out spot.

She was using a security tool to spread her message. Does that seem appropriate to you?

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#302

Post by mtlynch »

Maxion wrote: post #20

Did no one read the article? > Spiers, 21, said she went through the standard approval process, which requires two co-workers to greenlight changes, before updating the Chrome browser extension. Another source at Google familiar with the update approval process confirmed to NBC news that those two approvals are standard practice for a browser extension update. She did it exactly according to internal policy. The exte…

>She did it exactly according to internal policy. The extension she updated warns site visitors on many websites. I do not see what she did wrong.

Getting code review approval is not the same as following internal policy.

Adding a conspicuous feature to a security tool installed on every employee's computer requires approval from higher-ups before writing the code. The approvers should have recognized that and rejected the change, but that doesn't absolve Spiers of responsibility for the change.

As an analogy, suppose that I'm a crew member on a submarine. I have authority to fire torpedoes when a higher-up orders it, but I require a peer crew member to push their own "fire" button at the same time. Obviously, if I go rogue and start firing torpedoes myself, that's a serious violation, even if I convince one crewmate to go along with it.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#303

Post by Touche »

Alex3917 wrote: post #212
Touche wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prefixing this by saying I am not siding with Google (since people make assumptions). The standard approval process sounds like most merge review processes on any engineering team. There's a sort of assumed good-faith for this process. The fact that 2 coworkers were fine with your change doesn't mean it was made in good-faith and was within the bounds of normal types of changes. Any engineer with the freedom to make…

> The fact that 2 coworkers were fine with your change doesn't mean it was made in good-faith The standard for whether a company is legally allowed to fire an employee for organizing isn't whether their action is in "good faith", but whether their action is concerted. The fact that it passed code review is therefore critical evidence.

IANAL, but California is an at-will state. Again, IANAL, but my educated understanding is that you can fire someone for any reason as long as the reason is not illegal. Lastly, IANAL.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#304

Post by glofish »

shantly wrote: post #229
glofish wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if the message was: "Make America Great Again". What if the message was: "H1B - go back to your country". would it still feel ok to you? etc it is grossly unprofessional to insert unrelated messaging and hijack a tool to push your agenda. "Going through standard protocols" in this case meant two other people approved the change - those two people also show serious unprofessionalism and bear responsibility as wel…

It's more like posting a reminder of the current legal minimum wage—and only showed up, apparently, if the user visited the site of a consulting firm Google hired to help them figure out how to avoid unionization. A great and entirely "professional" thing to do? Nah, but hardly worth the vigorous harumphing and tut-tutting it's receiving. It's not like she contributed code to Amp or spearheaded putting ads inline wit…

I think, especially in the light of how it was targeted, a better analogy would be the act of popping a message from the Democrats when visiting the Republican RNC website or vice-versa.

I find it oppressive - the mere "reminder" wants to interfere, it wants to to take away your ability to think for yourself and make up your own mind.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#305

Post by throwaway2048 »

scarface74 wrote: post #293
throwaway2048 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why, and more importantly, why is this an "immediately fire" level of offense, would this have been the result if the popup reminded you that its earth day? Its naive to think her firing had nothing to do with the fact Google doesn't like unions.

Why? It’s just like religion. If your religion tells you not to drink, I will respect that. If your religion tells you that I’m not allowed to drink I will tell you to f’ off.

The irony being of course, Google's entire business is shoving ads into people's faces that approximately nobody wants to see.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#306

Post by txcwpalpha »

javajosh wrote: post #199
dominotw wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

one time i was fired for leaving my computer unlocked to go get some coffee. true story.

Which is pretty dumb. The most important threat to a typical office dev computer is not console access, it's wayward processes and network traffic. What's more secure, a locked console (that protects you from ~1 local people that you know) or something like Little Snitch, which protects you from ~10e6 people you don't know?

I've worked in security for years. This isn't really true. The majority of all security breaches are caused by internal threats, not by some hacker group breaching your firewall. Malicious actors tailgating someone into an office and stealing an unlocked laptop, or an unlocked laptop being stolen while at a coffee shop or airport, is also a very common occurrence I've seen at most of my clients.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#307

Post by jagged-chisel »

ramblerman wrote: post #300
helen___keller wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agreed with this at first, but according to her medium post ( https://medium.com/@ksspiers/google-fires-another-worker-for... ) "Part of my job was to write browser notifications so that my coworkers can be automatically notified of employee guidelines and company policies while they surf the web" If this is true and her job is literally to create javascript notifications of company policy, then I think it's entire…

Really? So if I hire you to email out my monthly company statement it’s reasonable that you add some of your own thoughts to said email.

I think GP is saying that since 'right to organize' is in the company policy, then adding this seems right in line with the job.

If, indeed, this was not in the company policy, and it is indeed the employee's opinion, then yes, termination is apt.

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#309

Post by void445be54d48a »

ramblerman wrote: post #300
helen___keller wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agreed with this at first, but according to her medium post ( https://medium.com/@ksspiers/google-fires-another-worker-for... ) "Part of my job was to write browser notifications so that my coworkers can be automatically notified of employee guidelines and company policies while they surf the web" If this is true and her job is literally to create javascript notifications of company policy, then I think it's entire…

Really? So if I hire you to email out my monthly company statement it’s reasonable that you add some of your own thoughts to said email.

Not sure that notifying people of the law is actually "your own thoughts".

Re: Engineer says Google fired her for notifying co-workers of right to organize

#310

Post by CharlesColeman »

panpanna wrote: post #213
CharlesColeman wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like she went through a code review process for the change, would that count?

While this does not mean higher-ups approved her messages, it does show that she did it by the book. If the higher ups felt this message was inappropriate and should be removed they could follow the same procedure instead of firing the engineer

Edit: I agree.
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