171–180 of 421 posts
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
yeah - it's (some) americans. [edited] their response to power and its abuse depends on the source: they don't care about corporations, but go crazy with the government. it's as though they have been completely indoctrinated by massive corporate interests... welcome to the internet :o(
... their response to power and its abuse depends upon the source: they don't care about governments, who have the power to kill you, seize your wealth, or do anything they'd like, leaving you with no claims for redress, but go crazy with corporations, who at worst can offer people shitty jobs (!) or charge too much for shitty products.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
yeah - it's (some) americans. [edited] their response to power and its abuse depends on the source: they don't care about corporations, but go crazy with the government. it's as though they have been completely indoctrinated by massive corporate interests... welcome to the internet :o(
... their response to power and its abuse depends upon the source: they don't care about governments, who have the power to kill you, seize your wealth, or do anything they'd like, leaving you with no claims for redress, but go crazy with corporations, who at worst can offer people shitty jobs (!) or charge too much for shitty products.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Assume each "Google Meal" costs $5 in preparation labour, materials, plates & utensils (washing), fittings and fixtures, etc... 261 working days a year 1 employee $5 = $1305 per employee, per year How many workers in the 3.14 building? At 400 employees, that's half a million dollars. Does the board of director's fiduciary duty to their shareholders allow them to pay for the Scan Ops lunches? I don't know what minimum…
You've presented some arithmetic and no information at all. If the story is that these employees are being employed at minimum wage then that's something that contradicts the "Don't be evil" ethos.
I would presume training for on-site contractors includes the security policies about job knowledge and ability to talk about it. Likely a handbook or something...
Or, if Andrew was within limits of the policy, Google overreacted.
At any rate, certainly if someone I didn't know came up and wanted to ask me questions about my job (which by the way would be company confidential), I'd be suspicious; I'd likely call security, depending on if I'd seen him around before or not.
I appreciate that it is interesting about the socio-economic divide. I would want to ask questions too, but, uh, I'd like try not to be utterly oblivious to the obvious security concerns.
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 k…
You missed the point: the guy was fired for recording conversations with other employees. After being given permission from his supervisor to do exactly that. On his lunch break. Wtf is that all about?
The only reason this is even in the general ballpark of surprising is that this particular multinational advertising firm has exceptionally good PR, and people want to believe that it would never do this. I mean, they've repeated "We're the good guys" tens of thousands of times, surely it must be true, right?
It's a wonderful company. They make cool products. If you get in their way, they will bury you.
Breaking news!
Google has hourly employees! - You don't say?!
Google has contractors! - Really?!
Let's explore the narcissistic exploration of self-hurting section by section:
"In September 2007 I was hired jointly by Transvideo Studios and Google"
No you weren't. You were hired by Transvideo Studios who filled a contractor slot on their video production contract with Google.
"I had access to a personally unprecedented amount of privileges, but was not entitled to the ski trips, DisneyLand adventures, stock options, and holiday cash bonuses"
That's because you weren't a Google employee. You were a Transvideo Studios employee. Do you expect to receive benefits from another company just because you happen to be walking around on their campus?
"The workers wearing yellow badges are not allowed any of the privileges that I was allowed – ride the Google bikes, take the Google luxury limo shuttles home, eat free gourmet Google meals, attend Authors@Google talks and receive free, signed copies of the author’s books, or set foot anywhere else on campus except for the building they work in."
So hourly employees aren't entitled to the benefits package of salaried exempt employees? And the way Google is setup is to pool employee benefits in and around their building, ergo the only way for hourly employees to not receive the benefits package is to work in a different facility?! Stop the presses! It's a conspiracy!
I almost stopped reading there, hand stuck to my forehead, but then I saw this as I was closing the page and was hooked to the rest of this like watching a train wreck happen.
"To Whom It May Concern,
Yesterday I was outside the Google Book Search building, which is adjacent to the building I work in, and had the chance to talk to a few employees while they were leaving work. 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 aware of internal mechanisms for discussing labor issues with Google, and had no intention of defaming the company. I was not aware of how secretive the Book Search project is, but now understand how seriously my curiosity could jeopardize not only my own job and Transvideos’ relationship with Google, but also my legal situation because of the non-disclosure agreement I signed.
I apologize for bothering you with this innocent mistake and can assure you that in the future I will be more cautious about respecting confidentiality at Google.
Sincerely,
Andrew Wilson"
You're also a liar. Your intention was not to explore your passing interest in labor, class or race, but to feed your own self-importance by uncovering a made-up conspiracy of class warfare at Google, where the man is oppressing a silent minority of underclass poor people from enjoying the rights and privileges of the ruling overclasses. Did you mention that you were secretly video taping this?
You wanted to document this in as dishonest a way as possible, "exposing" this "dark secret" to the world the way PETA exposes animal cruelty in meat processing plants, with hidden cameras, a blog post loaded with terms-and-phrases-of-controversy.
"But Marco called back in a frenzy, saying that Google security had proof of me outside, filming yellow-badged workers leaving the 3.1459~ building on two separate occasions. I told him this was true and he said that Google legal was now involved, and they needed the video tapes immediately."
So of course your immediate innocent reaction, which you didn't think was important to share with anybody, was to secretly videotape people coming and going from their place of work without their permission.
"Burt then presented me with a document that would terminate my employment on the basis of me using __Google’s video equipment__ during working hours __(although it was during my lunchbreak)__"
It's still Google's equipment you nitwit.
"I told him I could take the shuttle home, as I’ve gotten on without my badge numerous times, but he insisted on driving me to the CalTrain station."
Really? You don't understand why they wanted to escort you personally off campus? After you were abusing company equipment, violating security, secretly filming your coworkers and pretending not to find the film, then documenting your lie by putting the video you couldn't find up on your site, then lying to your managers about the entire thing? What are you 8? It boggles the mind.
I wonder how many of the yellow badges got fired as a result of this asshole?
Wake me when this guy grows up and starts seeing a psychiatrist. And yes, please keep this post up so other companies know not to hire you either.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1153/is_n10_v120/ai_2...
(EDIT) they also likely canned the guy for being an idiot and causing trouble
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…
It's not clear why this contract agency runs on a different schedule than the rest of the company - 4am to 2:30 or whatever - maybe it's just traffic flow, or maybe they work a lot with a group in a different timezone. But the fact that they do run on a different schedule implies it could cost quite a lot to "let everyone ride the same bus and have them eat in the same place". People arriving at work at 4am would need to arrive on different buses than those arriving at 8 - you'd have to hire extra buses just for them, find drivers willing to start driving well before 3am, and hope there's enough concentration that this one building of people rates its own bus stop locations - if they're spread out all over they'd be better served by carpooling. (Not to mention that the reason for Google buses is so employees can get work done during what might otherwise be a long, aggravating rush-hour commute, whereas the commute at 3am/2:15pm is easy and fast)
Similarly, people who arrive at 4am are on a different lunch schedule than the rest of the company so you'd have to operate the cafeteria longer, pay overtime, hire more workers, etc.
That's a lot to do for people who don't even work for Google directly.
UPDATE: Another poster wrote that this group is working in multiple shifts, presumably to get through more books faster with the available facilities. That makes perfect sense - this is the morning shift, then the evening shift arrives, maybe a swing shift after that. Which would make running the kitchens and the buses long enough for everybody really expensive.