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

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

#381

Post by thinkingemote »

thu2111 wrote: post #364

I think a lot of people are missing the bigger picture here and are too zoomed in on the specific issue of unionisation. Google really had no choice here, and it's actually a problem for them that this is coming out now via a blog post by the fired employee and not by their own admission. Google is in a phenomenally trusted position in the world. Chrome is the most popular browser. It auto updates silently and contin…

She didn't weaponise a neutral extension. The extension was already weaponised. It already pushed notifications to users when they visited flagged URLs. She probably just changed a config file to add a new rule and message, 1 line.

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

#382

Post by boomlinde »

ramblerman wrote: post #345
helen___keller wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't her thoughts it was company policy, or to be specific it's required by law that this notice to be posted in the workplace. It's was her personal judgment that it should be posted in a chrome add-on rather than only by poster like is typical in most workplaces. But assuming her job was to maintain an add-on that informs employees of company policy, and assuming her job typically lets her act with personal ju…

Being in charge of the infrastructure does not mean you are in charge of the content. Those are well defined roles. Specially in a company of that size. She didn’t just make a judgement call. She went way outside her role imo.

> She didn’t just make a judgement call. She went way outside her role imo.

That's not so much a matter of opinion as of what her role is, exactly. I don't know. Do you?

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

#383

Post by wool_gather »

uxp100 wrote: post #246
itsgrimetime wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an incredibly bold claim, can you cite this?

Here is one article talking about subway construction costs in NY. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-... It's not just unions, but here is a taste: There are “nippers” to watch material being moved around and “hog house tenders” to supervise the break room. Each crane must have an “oiler,” a relic of a time when they needed frequent lubrication. Standby electricians and plumbers are to be on…

The "oiler" thing sounds stupid, sure, and overstaffing in general is a fair concern. But, devil's advocate, how much time and money would be wasted if an essential machine broke and there wasn't a mechanic standing around ready to spring into action? How many people would be seriously or fatally injured in a year without a helper on those "An extra person is required..." tasks?

I don't know the answers. Some of them legitimately may be useless sinecures, but it's worth keeping in mind that what looks like redundant waste is sometimes an important guard against some kind of failure. Just because it isn't always used doesn't mean that it's not worthwhile.

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

#384

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

dkersten wrote: post #237
qaq wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know 0 large companies who would tolerate what you just described from a security team member.

She’s young and probably a bit naive. I think it’s absolutely a reprimand-worthy offence, and I certainly understand that a security engineer maybe shouldn’t inject code like she did, but that’s why there are reviewers, but they ok’d it. I don’t think it’s something she should have been fired over. I made dumb mistakes early in my career too, after all. Should she have done it? No, absolutely not. Not like that anywa…

The problem is, she insisted to the world (and presumably to Google as well) that she did nothing wrong here. This is a pretty minor thing to fire someone over - but what other option does a company have, when someone makes it clear that they refuse to behave properly?

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

#385

Post by kettro »

dqv wrote: post #283
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…

You're right. It literally links to (what appears to be) an internal company document. go/nlrbnotice

Yeah, the go/ is a shortener for goto.google.com/, and is the main way of sharing links internally.

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

#387

Post by CharlesColeman »

panpanna wrote: post #352
CharlesColeman wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: I agree.

I know, I am agreeing with you :) But alot of people in the comments claim that she more or less hacked the system.

Sorry, my mistake :)

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

#388

Post by throwaway17_17 »

I can not seem to find any energy to be against Google here, a 21 year old individual working at one of the most prominent and successful business in the world, making more money per year than a vast amount of the global (not to mention national population) does something that will certainly subject her to reprimand and I am expected to feel some negativity toward Google. I am stuck outside of SV, as a middle age person with many, many hundreds of commits to open source projects, a descent of non-professional experience in software engineering, but because I do not have a BS or Masters in computer science and am over the age of 35 there is no chance I can ever get hired at Google (or any other FAANG realistically). If some of these ardent unionization workers end up fighting loudly and publicly and Google decides they will not deal with some nascent Software Engineer’s Union, maybe I and people like me stuck outside the valley will be able to gladly make boat loads of money working long hours for these thankless corporate taskmasters, while just sitting down and doing our jobs on whatever the company decides it wants to spend its money on, I will gladly work on Maven or Dragonfly or dark as patterns, whatever, I just want to be relevant to the industry not stuck away doing the same job for peanuts until I can afford to retire.

Rant over - but seriously, I don’t have a problem putting aside any personal feelings or beliefs to achieve my employers goal, that is what employment is. Spiers apparently decided that the security position allowed for this action and did it. Google did not want this type of behavior from an employee in that position. She knew Google management wasn’t going to approve, she assumed that risk.

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

#389

Post by TallGuyShort »

helen___keller wrote: post #265
cj wrote: post #5

> Kathryn Spiers, who worked as a security engineer, updated an internal Chrome browser extension so that each time Google employees visited the website of IRI Consultants — the Troy, Michigan, firm that Google hired this year amid a groundswell of labor activism at the company — they would see a pop-up message that read: “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.” So basically, the Go…

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…

This is very reminiscent of laws regarding jury nullification, and how the practice may be legal, but in some jurisdictions / cases it can be illegal to inform a jury of that fact.

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

#390

Post by kick »

magduf wrote: post #257
raxxorrax wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they really fired her for just this bagatelle, it speaks more against Google. I don't know why there is this pervasive desire to strangle developers. This is a pretty recent phenomena in my opinion and certainly nothing close to a requirement to develop great software. If I were an employee at Google, actions such as this would let me seriously consider to look for other work. The requirement for the code review f…

>The requirement for the code review for internal tools already seems awefully restrictive. How on earth is that restrictive? Having code review for any important code should be normal at any company. Just because the tool is internal doesn't mean it's trivial and any engineer (especially a 21-year-old: how is she even an employee and not an intern at that age?) should be able to merge anything in willy-nilly.

Why wouldn't she be an employee at 21? 21 is three years into legal adulthood. The idea of being an intern at 21 is degrading. They're adults. Treat them like adults, not children.
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