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Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

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Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#251

Post by DangitBobby »

busterarm wrote: post #88
xnx wrote: post #40

Yikes. The lack of judgement involved in personally releasing something that could be confused for an official release (I was confused) by your employer is someone who has huge wildcard risk in the future. I would expect significant disciplinary action if they didn't follow procedure, and termination if they were directly warned at any point.

Not only that but not clearing with your management that you're not working on something that is actually being worked on as a product. Definitely they put some manager and/or team in a very uncomfortable position releasing this.

Management literally announced it for him.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#252

Post by Arainach »

DANmode wrote: post #243
sib wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that relevant here, given that Google was creating an official thing quite close to his thing at the same time? (And why are we writing like this?)

> Google was creating an official thing quite close to his thing Just link to it.

It's mentioned in the original link for this post.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#253

Post by [deleted] »

socalgal2 wrote: post #217
dekhn wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The policy was always crystal clear, but at the same time, tons of people found it confusing. "I wrote this at home on my personal computer in my free time? Why does google own it? how can that be legal" came up a lot. People would get into huge fights with OSPO over this.

Writing at home is irrelevant if what you're doing is related to the company's business. You can't be working for Google and making a browser, a document editor, a spreadsheet, a mapping site, etc... It doesn't matter if you do it on your own time. Yea, you can grow coffee and sell it at retail stores on your own time. No you can't complete directly with your employer. If it's some gray area then you either get permi…

[deleted]

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#254

Post by Arainach »

DANmode wrote: post #236
Arainach wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Build cool shit and follow the proper release procedures for it . There is a huge difference between something unrelated to your employer on a personal repo, youremployerrepo/api-samples, and calling something "Employer Majorproduct CLI" on an official employer repo which is bound to be confused for an official release. I would have been fired from every employer I've ever worked for of any size for doing something l…

> follow the proper release procedures for it What happens when your thing or nothing close to your thing will ever see the light of day?

None of that is relevant. You're working on things for their employer, they control when and if anything is released. Most of us have worked on projects that were cancelled - even when that happens you don't just release it anyway.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#255

Post by frollogaston »

frollogaston wrote: post #143
pydry wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Struggling to see how google was harmed by this but yea it's true he didn't dot the i's and cross the ts. I actually thought when it was released that it was a pretty clever move by google in a sea of bad decisions but they've cleared that misapprehension right up.

As a customer and dev, it's confusing to me when I look at Google's stuff and see official-looking unofficial CLIs.

* when it's also alongside an official CLI for the same product

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#257

Post by seanhunter »

sib wrote: post #242
DANmode wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> follow the proper release procedures for it What happens when your thing or nothing close to your thing will ever see the light of day?

Is that relevant here, given that Google was creating an official thing quite close to his thing at the same time? (And why are we writing like this?)

Fair to point out,

the official google thing,

was quite a lot worse

than his thing.

(I’m quite into the whole “Posting in free verse” idea)

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#258

Post by jedc »

bonsai_bar wrote: post #159
cdata wrote: post #131

I'm noticing a few commenters who work (worked?) at Google (inferred from comment history) who are critical of this person's actions. First: you ought to disclose that information when commenting on a topic that relates in some way to your financial incentives. Second: when I worked at Google under Chrome it was very common for individuals and teams to publish projects to open source repositories under Google-managed…

Is it so extreme? If you work at Google, there's a very clear policy for doing any outside "work" (volunteering, an open source side project, a business, being on a board, etc.): if it's related to your day-to-day work and/or related to Google's business (which virtually anything software is), you need to fill out a disclosure form and get a go-ahead from legal. Obviously a Google Workspace CLI is related to Google.…

It looks like the account where this repo was published was the one used by Google Workspace DevRel? (And that’s the team this guy worked on.)

That makes this quite a bit different situation than publishing the repo on a personal account.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#259

Post by BLKNSLVR »

uejfiweun wrote: post #150
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like exactly why they're now a lumbering ineffectual beast, rather than the center for innovation that they used to be.

It depends on what you consider ineffectual to mean. Ineffectual at making new products and innovating? Yes, definitely. Ineffectual at preserving business momentum and continuing to grow profits? Well, the latest numbers speak for themselves.

Can't argue with that. You'll never go broke appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Re: Fired by Google for creating the Google workspace CLI

#260

Post by altmanaltman »

DANmode wrote: post #244
sib wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure that the agreement that Google employees sign (a "contract") when hired reflects exactly that. At least at did when I joined (I left > 3 years ago, speaking here only for myself...)

Is it legal (or moral) for an employer to keep you from being a board member of a dog rescue or a glove repair company without review?

Legally, yes. I mean it still depends on a lot of things but mostly at will employment contracts will have clauses about such things. You will have to get approval from legal before you can get on a board of even a dog rescue or a glove repair company. A practical consideration is simple like if you are a google exec and you are on board of a dog rescue company and that company gets hit with allgeations that you are just shooting all the dogs and selling their meat to some foreign nation. News will cover it as "Google Exec on Board of Evil Dog Rescue Company" so you extend that repuation risk to Google as well since you are actively employed there. Obviously an extereme example but that's the kind of logic they think of.

Morals imo often have nothing to do with law, but fairness does.

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