Live data from Hacker News

Workers Leaving the Googleplex

andrewnormanwilson.com

11–20 of 421 posts

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#13
This is literally one of the craziest things I have ever seen. Google is doing absolutely nothing wrong or unethical at all. The guy got fired because he started accusing Google of racism.

Wow. Just wow. The sense of entitlement and self-righteousness is just mind blowing.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#14
Honestly, I'm not sure this is a big deal. They're hiring unskilled labor and giving them a role at an extraordinary company. A rational management team wanting to generate profits for risk taking investors and generate new growth, cuts costs by eliminating benefits when possible.

They could easily get this done in India or China. If they are really doing book scanning, I'm shocked this isn't being done in the far east. With that perspective, this isn't far from "don't be evil".

It's not the best practice in the world but this isn't exploitation.

Perhaps it should inspire some investigative journalism. Perhaps Google could fund a program and give these data entry people the opportunity to innovate, rewarding them accordingly with a small scale founders' award?

Despite the assumed background of these employees, they're at Google inspiring their kids. With so few benefits outside of their salary, they can always work elsewhere. But why would they take fast food or something of the sort over this?

I imagine the cleaning crew that vacuum at Goldman Sachs at night get treated way worse.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#16

"the first girl I had spoken to had followed the instructions on the back of her yellow badge – which is to call a certain manager if anyone asks about the work of the yellow badge class" This scarely reminds of "Jedem das Seine" and "Arbeit macht frei" Both phrases actually match the described situation perfectly

Actually, this comparison is way out of place. Not giving people benefits (but still paying them!) is completely different from imprisoning and torturing people for their race, opinions, or beliefs.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#17
post #14

Honestly, I'm not sure this is a big deal. They're hiring unskilled labor and giving them a role at an extraordinary company. A rational management team wanting to generate profits for risk taking investors and generate new growth, cuts costs by eliminating benefits when possible. They could easily get this done in India or China. If they are really doing book scanning, I'm shocked this isn't being done in the far ea…

But then how do you explain the overreaction from Google which led to the firing of this guy. There has to be something which Google was trying desperately to keep secret.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#18
post #14

Honestly, I'm not sure this is a big deal. They're hiring unskilled labor and giving them a role at an extraordinary company. A rational management team wanting to generate profits for risk taking investors and generate new growth, cuts costs by eliminating benefits when possible. They could easily get this done in India or China. If they are really doing book scanning, I'm shocked this isn't being done in the far ea…

To me the most interesting part is that these are not the only unskilled labor being employed by Google. As the video points out, the janitors at google are given access to the many perks. It seem strange that this one group is singled out.

At the same time, this guy was fired, so lets take his testimony with a grain of salt.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#19
Was the voiceover being done in a closet in a Google lobby or is there another reason for the depressed monotone? I mean, I understand we're trying to be moody and ominous here, but the voiceover could have been retelling the story of the Human Centipede and I'd have probably fallen asleep (or wanted to shoot myself).

I'm not defending Google, here, because I don't know anything about them beyond what everyone else knows from the outside. However, what do you expect the reaction to be when you are an employ for a company contracted to provide services to a client who grants you certain access and privileges which you then abuse to pursue your own interests and investigations outside of the scope of what you were employed to do?

Hell, at the end of this video, I'm still unclear what point is trying to be conveyed. Is it just "the racial balance of the employees that I saw exiting the building for two days didn't meet some proper balance I had in my head, so I decided to start doing a socio-economic documentary on my employer's dime and after everything went to shit, because of how I was conducting myself, I put together a ten minute video to explain myself to future employers"?

I saw a lot of smiling faces exiting the building and getting into nice cars. I don't see what the big deal is that people who are temporary or part of menial data-entry labor are not part of the greater events and benefits and festivities of the company. I'm sure it's that way at most companies. I'm on the development side of things and I don't get to go to the big sales-team getaways in Cancun or wherever else they go. And I doubt that the janitorial staff and security staff are sharing in the staff-bonus compensation that I am. And none of us are getting the several million dollar company loans to buy our mansion that CEOs have gotten.

Perhaps this will be an unpopular sentiment, but I just got a strong vibe of "this is my chance to be a documentary film-maker".

Post reply on HN