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What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

wired.com

201–210 of 382 posts

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#201

This is not journalism. Do not treat it as such. Molly McHugh and Wired need to reach out to this woman and ask a few questions. They need to reach out to Google and ask a few questions. Otherwise, this information is just a shade better than useless. There's a lot of detail missing in these tweets. There's a lot of handwaving where the audience is essentially invited to fill in the blanks with whatever stereotypes -…

Certainly it's damning if it's an accurate depiction but I agree with you that just using Storify on a bunch of tweets isn't really anything like "journalism."

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#202
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people also agree that in ideal circumstances you wouldn't have to negotiate your wages (because you're effectively being rewarded for your negotiating skill, which is probably completely irrelevant to your actual productivity and value).

At my first "adult" job, I was actually offered more than I asked for, because the employer used this thing where all employees should fit within limits of a median for any given position (they were ranked somehow so many positions shared same rank).

I had a somewhat similar experience. I was doing good work at a place for about a year and got nothing not even a pat on the back. Next year started to get fed up, had a rough patch in my personal life, started getting short, angry and bitchy with people. Ran into technical difficulties on the project I was working on. My idea for solving it weren't listened to and even worse had people listened it would have been a small disaster because my idea was crap. I started staying home either "working" or just plain calling in sick. When I showed up for work people were walking on eggshells around me. So I was an unproductive douche basically. That year I got the biggest raise I've ever had. Don't know why. About two weeks after that I quit.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#203

Nothing good comes from knowing other peoples salary. Only jealousy, resentment, unhappiness, and greed.

Or an actual understanding of market position and--in the case of less privileged folks--a way to smoke out systemic bias.

You know--things that any worker should want to know.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#204
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the whole thing just crumbled into a victim story for me Are you sure you're not being an Angry Jack[0] and using that as an easy excuse to reject the story firsthand? > 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 Were do you see her telling her manager to fuck off at all ? She's…

I'm pretty sure the "telling her manager to fuck off" comment was a reference to refusing to be illegally intimidated over salary information sharing. Assuming that's an accurate reading of GP's comment, I think it's quite telling that, again, an employee's refusal to be illegally intimidated should be constructed as "telling her manager to fuck off". The sympathies and attitudes thus revealed make me very glad that…

My understanding from reading the vague tweets was the "fuck off" statement was referring to some other occurance of racism that she mentions, unrelated to the salary spreadsheet.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. What? Sharing salary information is a protected employee activity, and retaliation is illegal.. so maybe she expected there wouldn't be retaliation?

The fact that she's a woman is neither here nor there... on the surface where it can be seen. Behind the scenes however, you have politics. When you piss people off that are in power, they find ways to make your life uncomfortable - that goes whether you're male or female. To expect there will be no retaliation for pissing off higher ups would be incredibly naive. Even if what you are doing (strictly speaking) is leg…

You're absolutely right that these sorts of things are all too common but that isn't really a reason to shrug off her story.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. What? Sharing salary information is a protected employee activity, and retaliation is illegal.. so maybe she expected there wouldn't be retaliation?

That is probably exactly what she expected. And if this were a small group politely sharing with each, there likely would not be retaliation. But once you make it "a thing", and are impacting the culture of an organization, then you have stepped into politics. The reactions at that point are going to be exaggerated, and not necessarily relevant to the original topic. I don't like politics, and stories like this are e…

If you don't think there are politics at small orgs you must not have worked for one.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#207

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 WA…

>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.

"tl;dr I support the establishment"

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#208

This is not journalism. Do not treat it as such. Molly McHugh and Wired need to reach out to this woman and ask a few questions. They need to reach out to Google and ask a few questions. Otherwise, this information is just a shade better than useless. There's a lot of detail missing in these tweets. There's a lot of handwaving where the audience is essentially invited to fill in the blanks with whatever stereotypes -…

Reposting tweets is not valid journalism. For that matter, including tweets from random people in reaction to a news event is also not valid journalism either. I don't care what muffycat1974 on Twitter has to say about the Iran nuclear deal, unless muffycat1974 is the Secretary of State.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#209
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those two things don't overlap as much as you think they do. Just because I want all the info for myself doesn't mean I want all the info public or for everyone (no matter what I say). In fact if getting info is getting money/an advantage/..., then wanting all of it while not wanting others to have it, and not liking yours being given away, makes total sense. Not taking side for or against Google here (and if I did,…

> you can't blame them or accuse them of being hypocrite when they do what they believe makes sense for them Well, the whole definition of being a hypocrite is to subscribe to a belief for others while doing something entirely for yourself.

That depends on your motives... they believe that all information should be available to them so they can leverage that information to make a squijillion dollars. Nothing about that mandate suggests that all information should be available to all... information wants to be free - to them. The fact we all want it is not their concern. It is not in their financial interest to give up that information to anyone, it doesn't further their bottom line, which is the only real mandate they care about. If they could monetize salary transparency, trust me, they would have made that information free too.

In fact, it potentially hurts their bottom line because then they'd have to have pay equality amongst their ranks - and I don't mean pay equality from a male/female standpoint (though that is a concern), I mean from an employee to employee standpoint. Pay transparency gives everyone an equal footing on the negotiation playing field. This also means that even the worst negotiator in the room can potentially earn the same as the top superstar on the team. What do you think that does to Google's bottom line? They could have been paying the superstar with the shitty negotiation skills peanuts to earn them millions, now they've gotta pay him the same as the pretty good developer with excellent negotiation skills because he has them over a barrel and he knows he is the only one that has the ability to provide what they need to get where they need to go.

I wouldn't say this is hypocritical, this is accounting. Accountants want to keep the bottom line at the absolute minimum. When this means paying people different amounts to do the same job, salary discussion pisses people off. In the interest of keeping the peace and getting the job done, salary discussion must be suppressed or people figure what they're worth amongst themselves and they have more negotiation power. More negotiation power causes the bottom line goes up, counter to the accountants' mandate. You would have to completely upend accountants' viewpoints on capitalism to turn that perspective around, and until you do, law or no law, practices like this will continue.

Salary negotiation since the dawn of capitalism has been like a game of poker. You need to figure out their motivations and what value they're trying to extract from you. Once you know what your value is to them and what return on their investment you are capable of providing them, the negotiation begins. People make the mistake of comparing themselves against others in order to negotiate their salary when in fact it comes down to the game you play at the negotiation table. The game is to understand what value you provide to the company in the role you're pursuing and figure out a number you're both comfortable with. Too high and you don't get hired, too low and you get exploited. It doesn't matter whether you're male or female, it all comes down to figuring out the value they know you will provide them and exploiting that.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#210
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that she's a woman is neither here nor there... on the surface where it can be seen. Behind the scenes however, you have politics. When you piss people off that are in power, they find ways to make your life uncomfortable - that goes whether you're male or female. To expect there will be no retaliation for pissing off higher ups would be incredibly naive. Even if what you are doing (strictly speaking) is leg…

> To expect there will be no retaliation for pissing off higher ups would be incredibly naive. Even if what you are doing (strictly speaking) is legal and retaliation is illegal. You can't expect to not suffer any repercussions for pissing off those that ultimately are in charge of your pay cheque. That's just not how people operate - even if that's how the law (and society, on the surface) says they should. The whol…

I don't disagree at all with what you're saying. What I'm saying is that human nature and politics are an incredibly complex game. Look at the dirty politics involved in presidential campaigns (see, this behaviour is even in evidence at the very top of the food chain!) as an example. Until you fix the mentality of the people at the top, shit will continue to roll downhill. This goes for corporate environments, political environments, society as a whole.
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