Workers Leaving the Googleplex

He implied that google leaned on his employer to fire him. He never himself got in touch with google, so we don't know if this is true, do we? For all we know, his managers felt that he was being an unnecessary troublemaker and not wanting to jeopardize the company's relationship with google, decided to fire him on their own.

Germany (I'm blissfully unaware how that compares to the rest of Europe. It might be that we're on the more aggressive side of the 'protect the employee' scale) here:

No way would that get me fired. They could try, but it would be very painful, I'd make sure that I get a good compensation at least (or sue them to rehire/keep me). You'd have a hard time fireing anybody for a _single_ offense. Ignoring the question of whether this really is a big deal anyway, unless I do something very, very stupid (strip in front of my coworkers. Grab some cash/remove the projector from a conference room and install it at home/physically threaten/engage someone) you've a hard time to send me home. For things that aren't valid reasons for immediate termination but still considered baaaad you'd need to reprimand me first. Maybe you got a case the second time I do the same thing or something similar.

I understand that this is a different world and as others have pointed out: This view conflicts with the entrepreneurial 'I want to start a company and manage my team as I want to'. But it should be an interesting exercise to understand that this rules exist. And while I'm largely ignorant politically and cannot judge or compare this situation (I never experienced something else):

It does seem to work without grinding the local business to a halt after all..

> Passive-aggressive is something like "I respect your right to your opinion, no matter how steeped in white male professional privilege it may be."

Or something like "found it interesting that these workers, who perform labor similar to that of many red-badge contractors, such as software engineers, custodians, security guards, etc., are mostly people of color and cannot eat Google meals, take the shuttle, ride a bike, or step foot anywhere else on campus."

Or "I was not aware of how secretive the Book Search project is"

Or "understand how seriously my curiosity could jeopardize not only my own job and Transvideos’ relationship with Google"

> His statements are completely factual, even underplayed.

His statements are very slanted. "chubby white man", "extremely confidential area", "filtered and separated neatly into their bracketed accounts", "Ralph, the millionaire who owns Transvideo", and others I mentioned previously are carefully crafted to paint Google (and Transvideo) in the light of not only an exploiter of minorities, but also a petty company that cares more about their data integrity than people.

> I didn't even hear any ill-will towards the company

There's plenty of ill will and contempt there, seething beneath the surface in that passive-aggressive voice.

I'm 90% sure the parent was being ironic. I agree with your points, but I think your response might be out of sync with the tone of the parent.

That's what it looks like at face value, but consider these facts and tell me your perception of this story doesn't get swayed a bit:

- This guy was an employee of Transvideo, a company subcontracting for Google.

- He was filming other employees from another company, we'll call it ScanOps, also subcontracting for Google.

- Neither he, nor the ScanOps employees he filmed were employees of Google.

- As per the arrangement between Transvideo and Google, he had access to certain privileges that the ScanOps employees didn't.

- He never disclosed what he eventually learned from the ScanOps employees. His story had nothing on their working conditions, salaries, workload, benefits, health. Nothing. He entirely focused on what was happening to him. He only leaves to the reader to infer from his implications that there's some mistreatment and discrimination going on. For all we know, ScanOps employees might have a better package overall than Transvideo's.

- The steps leading to his termination were all handled by his own superiors at Transvideo. Google's involvement is only implied by third parties. He never directly spoke to someone at Google (other than the security guard). Even his letter was first given to his own managers for approval, before it is implied that it was forwarded to Google. For all we know, the big Kahunas at Transvideo may have decided of their own accord that he was trying to be a smart-ass, potentially causing more trouble than necessary for them, and decided to preemptively terminate him.

End of Facts.

Now for my biased opinions, I think this guy is a manipulator. He carefully chooses words to play in his favor:

- hired jointly by Transvideo Studios and Google: somehow I doubt it. I think he was hired by Transvideo to work on their Google account.

- I found this social arrangement interesting: the implication is that there's some social stratification going on, when in fact we're talking about employees from a different operation working on sensitive enough issues that their badge specifies a number to call if someone asks questions.

- I'll just mention in passing the many hot buttons he pushes to manipulate both the article's readers and the different administrative layers who read his letters. Using the race card, social inequalities and acting as if he's just a simple bystander interested in observing these issues. He'd be my employee and behaving like that towards one of my major clients and he'd be fired, even without my client requesting it.