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What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

wired.com

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Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#41

Post by StevePerkins »

yc1010 wrote: post #3

Can someone please tl.dr this First we had articles spread over dozens of pages for the laugh, now we have articles split into 160char segments, grrrrrr

TL;DR - Google operates in a parallel universe called "California", where employees can share each other's salaries on a company-wide shared spreadsheet without getting fired.

Not only did Google NOT fire anybody for it, they haven't even removed the spreadsheet from their own internal network. They simply refused to approve some $150 "peer-recognition" bonuses, meant to reward the employee for creating the spreadsheet. THAT is apparently enough to engage some kind of weird quasi-SJW outrage. As opposed to the real world, where everyone involved would be fired and given a negative reference for the rest of their career.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#43

Post by bronxcoder »

I hate that wage disparity is being heralded as a gender issue. It's really a negotiating problem. My coworker and I were hired together, same position, same experience, and offered the same salary. When I was offered the position, I asked for $15,000 more and they gave it to me. My coworker didn't ask for more and is therefore now making $15,000 less than me. After six months, I asked for a raise of $5,000. He never asked for a raise. So now he makes $20,000 less than me.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#44

Post by _asummers »

bostonpete wrote: post #36
amelius wrote: post #12

Google is a company that wants to have access to all the information in the world. But if somebody rightfully publishes some information that is sensitive to Google, look what happens...

In the reddit comment thread for this u/dickbutt_md had a lengthy comment that seemed to call into question some of the details of this story. His facts weren't first hand, but then again, sometimes a little distance can help with objectivity. In any event, I tend to take comments from possibly-disgruntled former employees with a pinch of salt.

Link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3e05wg/what_hap...

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#45

Post by msutherl »

HN_bias wrote: post #21

ive just discovered HN has an awful neoliberal bias, and is full of cunty fucking capitalist money obsessed techs. its a real shame you have this ignorance amongst supposedly intelligent people. as a result i wont be using it again, and i suggest you look at articles about politically sensitive subjects and watch them being removed from the front page double quick time. the comment strategy makes sure that no alterna…

What brings us all here is the very engine of neoliberalism.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#46

Post by cmdrfred »

imglorp wrote: post #11
tempodox wrote: post #2

The article format is completely busted by Twitter's display rules and made unreadable. In this case, formatting the text in a readable way would probably get you sued. Those tweets belong to Twitter now and are good for nothing else but ferrying ads. I won't have my time wasted by trying to read that crap.

Why do people insist on using that medium for blogging? It would be better to tweet, "Guys, I updated my blog with a story about this thing (link)".

I had no idea this was a trend. How could anyone ever think this is a good idea? You'd think the editors at wired would be able to copy and paste, surely that's easier than embedding 45 tweets.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#47

Post by deadmik3 »

Was stringing together a couple dozen tweets really the best format to share a story like this?

There is a lot that's left out. Once she vaguely mentions that another employee who was "involved" was still getting all of his peer bonuses (which may or may not have been PB's for his "involvement", we don't know), the whole thing just crumbled into a victim story for me. OF COURSE the MALE coworker can do WHATEVER HE WANTS, as long as we don't actually have any details about it.

Also, generally shit will hit the fan if you tell anyone to fuck off, especially if they're your manager. Again, we don't know that she told her manager to fuck off for being racist (??) because this is a terrible story told in a shitty format. But it's implied. Just like everything else in this "article".

tl;dr she got exactly what you would expect when you're intentionally stirring shit up at any company. I'm not sure what she expected.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#49

Post by staticelf »

bakhy wrote: post #30

i hope things like this serve as a wake up call to all young talents willing to sacrifice their lives for these companies, enamored with some idealized visions of what they are and do. a company is a company. an agent for making money, first and foremost. any positive change they bring is a side-effect, and due to their ever greater power they must constantly be policed, at least by releasing unpleasant information l…

And in my opinion as a young talent, Google is highly overrated when it comes to creating good software. Sure they have some hits, but a lot of it also is kind of bad.

To be regarded as the best of the best, I think they make pretty shitty software.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#50

Post by littletimmy »

It is important that things like this come out into the open.

When the typical doe-eyed college senior steps into the real world and is tempted to drink Eric Schmidt's kool-aid about changing the world (and how the honor of working at Google offsets the lower wage), such disclosures will help him understand that Google is just another money-making corporation. No more, no less.

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