Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Workers Leaving the Googleplex

andrewnormanwilson.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 421 posts

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#121

Post by n_are_q »

nkassis wrote: post #120
n_are_q wrote: post #15

So if he handed off all the copies of the video he had to google, where did the video in the post come from? Is it a totally different video?

He said tapes not copies. They wanted a the tapes from both days they only got the one day. He didn't say that they asked him to destroy all the copies.

Well, except for this part of the post:

Burt had a questionnaire to which my answers were :

-I was given permission to use the camera by Carl, a superior. -The tape I used was mine. -I do not have possession of the footage I shot anymore and it does not exist in any other form.

Anyway, i'm not looking for foul play, just curious what it is he posted.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#122

Post by [deleted] »

lionhearted wrote: post #47
kylec wrote: post #35

There's nothing surprising about a company having different classes of employees. If that was all that the article was about, it would be a minor curiosity. However, Google's extreme overreaction to someone trying to get some very basic information about the other set of employees is what's concerning. It's difficult to know how much of this story is speculation vs fact - whether or not the yellow badged employees ar…

> Google's extreme overreaction to someone trying to get some very basic information about the other set of employees is what's concerning. Probably this is what set them off - "...Most of them are people of color and are supposedly involved in the labor of digitizing information. I’m interested in issues of class, race, and labor, and so out of general curiosity I wanted to ask these workers about their jobs. I am a…

[deleted]

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#124

Post by [deleted] »

nkassis wrote: post #120
n_are_q wrote: post #15

So if he handed off all the copies of the video he had to google, where did the video in the post come from? Is it a totally different video?

He said tapes not copies. They wanted a the tapes from both days they only got the one day. He didn't say that they asked him to destroy all the copies.

[deleted]

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#125

Post by JoeAltmaier »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #54
quizbiz wrote: 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…

Apparently Google feels that this situation does not fit the public image they want to project so the want to keep it under wraps. My opinion is that their behaviour isn't exactly evil and probably not unusual but it's uninspiring, uncreative and not up to standard with their approach to other matters. It's a missed opportunity. They have all these people together on the campus so why would they reinforce the existin…

Of course it costs more - more busses, drivers, meals.

Of course its a 2nd class of worker - if they were Engineers working on a super-secret project, they'd have catered meals, separate busses, social arrangements of their own. Because Engineers are special and desirable and highly paid.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#126

Post by yummyfajitas »

illumen wrote: post #105
pstack wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As dangrossman points out, above, you can be fired for any reason whatsoever, on the spot. I believe the only protections are sex, race, gender, religion, and age. And as for sex, that means you can't be fired for being a male or a female. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation, for which you can still be fired in something like two or three dozen states. (Look into the ENDA which has been repeatedly proposed f…

This person was fired for pointing out systematic racism at google. If it is true that they have a separate building where the 'people of color' work segregated from the others, that is pretty outrageous. It really does say something about the corporate culture there. I hope it is investigated more closely by other parties, and that Google can make it better If there is something like this happening.

I think you are misinterpreting the story. They have a separate building where low level data entry people work. The segregation is by work function, not race.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#127

Post by blackRust »

A lot of the discussion here is around what I would like the call the US/EU (not restricted to the EU but that is what I am more familiar with) divide in work ethics and what is expected from you.

In the US (apparently from comments) they can terminate your contract for (almost) any reason. In the EU (and apparently Australia) they have to build a stronger case for firing you.

Differences are also clear regarding overtime: usually paid in the EU and expected and unpaid in the US.

There is a more than we realise that separates us (EU) from the US and if this happened in the EU I (hope) people would be in support of Andrew. I don't know enough about the US to say whether or not this is acceptable behaviour from Google.

I would appreciate if you mention where you live/are from in your comments to enhance perspective to the discussion.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#128

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #122
lionhearted wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google's extreme overreaction to someone trying to get some very basic information about the other set of employees is what's concerning. Probably this is what set them off - "...Most of them are people of color and are supposedly involved in the labor of digitizing information. I’m interested in issues of class, race, and labor, and so out of general curiosity I wanted to ask these workers about their jobs. I am a…

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#129

Post by JabavuAdams »

[deleted] wrote: post #122
lionhearted wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google's extreme overreaction to someone trying to get some very basic information about the other set of employees is what's concerning. Probably this is what set them off - "...Most of them are people of color and are supposedly involved in the labor of digitizing information. I’m interested in issues of class, race, and labor, and so out of general curiosity I wanted to ask these workers about their jobs. I am a…

[deleted]

I believe he's advocating not sabotaging oneself while examining issues of class, race, and labour.

The author's ability to investigate this from the inside is now gone, because he got fired.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#130

Post by AlexC04 »

illumen wrote: post #105
pstack wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As dangrossman points out, above, you can be fired for any reason whatsoever, on the spot. I believe the only protections are sex, race, gender, religion, and age. And as for sex, that means you can't be fired for being a male or a female. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation, for which you can still be fired in something like two or three dozen states. (Look into the ENDA which has been repeatedly proposed f…

This person was fired for pointing out systematic racism at google. If it is true that they have a separate building where the 'people of color' work segregated from the others, that is pretty outrageous. It really does say something about the corporate culture there. I hope it is investigated more closely by other parties, and that Google can make it better If there is something like this happening.

And they don't get free ice cream sandwiches when the ice cream truck pulls up. Is that racism or is it economics?

Scanning books is a manual process that is much like sewing or factory work in the repetitiveness. (Maybe less skilled than sewing).

The "racism" of the situation happened years before anyone walked onto the Google campus. The socio-economic opportunities of things like safety, education, nutrition, books, time, parental involvement all feeds in to the situation where the workers in building 3.14 get one level of education and the engineers get another.

If it were true that they were segregating "people of color" then it absolutely would be outrageous. However, it is absolutely NOT true that they are segregating for reasons of color.

It's a red-herring argument.

What if the 4 to 2:30 schedule is to control traffic flow. Setting a non trivial number of workers to arrive and leave at a certain time means that the twice daily 'mega traffic jam' arriving and leaving doesn't happen.

Which puts everyone at their desks longer. Which saves money.

What if the reason that yellow badged workers aren't allowed to freely wander the rest of the google campus is down to security? Would you want low paid wage workers wandering around amongst your industrial secrets?

Post reply on HN