Google probably has their corporate app for iOS too. Just have a phone with an obscure OS and escape all compatibility with their corporate crap. They should provide you with a phone if they want you to install their corporate app.
So, as a Google employee, they do. If you don't want to run corp software, you can easily just request a corporate phone and that's that.
It is unfortunate (and a reflection of the power imbalance in US employment) that Google doesn't simply offer a corporate phone as a matter of practice - it benefits both the employee and the employer in the long run (with dishonest actions put aside).
Isn't it great when even something as huge and life-changing as a job is subject to a contract of adhesion with no negotiation allowed? I'm sure glad to live in such a free country with great worker rights. (Sarcasm intended.)
The person redlined a contract instead of spending +$2000/yr (out of a likely $250,000+ salary) on a second personal phone. Such short-sidedness is a bad trait in an employee. Second, their protest is laudable. But their decision was consciously: "the legal department of this $xxx billion company (that spends $xx million maintaining this employment contract template) will bend to my will, or I will {quit OR relent}".…
> The person redlined a contract instead of spending +$2000/yr (out of a likely $250,000+ salary) on a second personal phone. Such short-sidedness is a bad trait in an employee.
True story, a person I know who was offered a job at Google got the employment agreement (prior to arriving which was pretty standard at the time) and read that bit about "allowing Google to protect it's IP by installing a rootkit" and they red lined it to change it "May only access Google related information and no personal information." When they showed up HR started with "But that isn't how we use it, we would nev…
I'm not. Legal doesn't want to deal with everyone having a different employment contract. Google has always leaned towards being ok with a ton of false negatives to avoid false positives. They'd rather give up 10 good hires than make one bad one. This is just an extension of that. They don't want any exceptions and they aren't willing to make any.
And a great reason for collective bargaining from the employees.
This headline is super confusing. I interpreted it as meaning Google spied on people and then fired them. However, what the article itself seems to be saying is that Google fired people for spying on others. The spying was, "for reviewing other employees’ calendars." The NLRB then found that illegal.
At least, that's how I'm interpreting this article. Otherwise there's no actual explanation of what spying actually occurred.
The trick is that there's an auditable trail of things that she did. Notably, she bypassed restriction in our code change system which would've required review. The policy around bypassing that is explicitly to only be used in emergencies. Again, reasonable for her to be fired.
Is there anyone else that has every bypassed this step, but wasn't fired? What's the definition of an emergency? Also it seems reasonable to me her complaint that this hurt her reputation, after all you're a Google employee and here you are smearing her in a public board. I know you're gonna say "I don't speak for my company", to which I will reply: It seems you're a Google employee, and you're speaking as a Google e…
People bypass this step all the time. The difference is they all have a good faith belief their managers would approve the change if they were available. Spiers 100% knew her changes wouldn't be approved by project leadership, and she used an emergency push to bypass their review.
Honestly, the fact that she has the gall to complain to the NLRB about this firing is pretty despicable. Google should be suing her for defamation.
Does it flag me as an old that the last thing on earth I want to do is check work messages/docs from my phone? There's a concept of 'checking out for the day and going home' that's important to not going crazy, especially now. If something goes wrong, or there's an emergency, folks have a number they can text/call. But constantly check messages? No way.
I'm in the middle. I have developers that work whenever they feel like it, and they email me with questions at all hours. I like to be there for them when I can (but I don't feel bad when I can't). I've set up my email client on my phone, so that it only notifies me if one of my developers emails me. I use the VIP feature of Samsung's email client, which seems to be unique to that specific client, since I haven't bee…
Readdle's Spark mail client for iOS/MacOS has many of these features. Doesn't help for your samsung, but in case any other iOS folks are scrolling by. :)
Isn't it great when even something as huge and life-changing as a job is subject to a contract of adhesion with no negotiation allowed? I'm sure glad to live in such a free country with great worker rights. (Sarcasm intended.)
If you don't like the way Google does business, you are free to not do business with them, either as an employee or customer. I don't understand your snark.
> If you don't like the way Google does business, you are free to not do business with them
And you are free to discuss bad behaviors publicly. I don't understand your snark.
Honestly, that is the sort of solution I would expect the legal department to suggest as a counter-offer, with Google paying the difference. Having the legal department review contract changes is something I would expect to be standard for them, not a deal breaker. It is the reason for having the legal department there in the first place.
Some details of an offer & acceptance of employment are trivial and not worth spoiling good will. Me: "Hey manager, can I make an expense report for this work phone?" No matter the response, I'm ok with it, because I make Google money, and that's policy. I should work towards becoming management if I want that to change. But I probably have better things to do than such a trivial disagreement. I wish corporations wer…
I think I'd agree that it is a weird spoiling of goodwill, but would put this one entirely as Google's fault. Requesting a minor change to a contract the first time you see it is the expected behavior, not an outlier. That's the entire point of contracts, in order to come to a meeting of the minds. This is the equivalent of haggling at a flea market, and being thrown out as a result.
The whole thread here seems to revolve around whether or not Spiers should have been fired for what she did. And while I have a clear opinion on that and had fun sparring with y'all here about it, can we also talk about how unionization is actually something that we need to think about as a profession / group of professions? The days where "being in IT" made you a rockstar that could command a premium in individual n…
The problem I have with trade unions is that those usually start mandating how work is performed, rather than just acting as protectors of workers' rights. As a silly example, an IT Union could mandate that we all use tabs for indentation. In general the idea of unionising is appealing, but I don't want to end up in such a degenerate situation. I want an organisation that will protect my rights as a human being while on the job, while also giving me some amount of power to steer the corporation that profits from my labour. It would be nice if this could be done as one generic overarching union that all workers are a part of and that guarantees basic rights for everyone, which could perhaps then be further refined by profession if strictly needed. My thought is that a generic union will not have a desire to meddle in the actual work process, but keep their activity on the political level.
Isn't it great when even something as huge and life-changing as a job is subject to a contract of adhesion with no negotiation allowed? I'm sure glad to live in such a free country with great worker rights. (Sarcasm intended.)
The person redlined a contract instead of spending +$2000/yr (out of a likely $250,000+ salary) on a second personal phone. Such short-sidedness is a bad trait in an employee. Second, their protest is laudable. But their decision was consciously: "the legal department of this $xxx billion company (that spends $xx million maintaining this employment contract template) will bend to my will, or I will {quit OR relent}".…
This is just name calling and blaming the victim, which is almost every employee of every tech job in the world, while celebrating the power of the employer. Insisting that a contract be negotiable when it comes to complete and total spying on you, in the context of an article where the employer is illegally spying on you, is not the trait of a bad employee