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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

#231

Post by Anechoic »

chasing wrote: post #171

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 -…

Molly McHugh and Wired need to reach out to this woman and ask a few questions.

Erica has explicitly written that she's not interested in speaking to reporters about the story: https://twitter.com/ericajoy/status/622154558140080128

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#232

Post by balabaster »

pjc50 wrote: post #178
balabaster wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, one can write a law preventing that, but what happens when you write laws to curb human emotion? Very little. Human nature takes generations to alter their behaviour - even with laws making that behaviour illegal. It sucks that we can't be less judgmental, more accepting and more adaptable to the wants of others, but that's the way we are: Flawed. Until we can be more tolerant and accepting of one anothers needs…

what happens when you write laws to curb human emotion We call this "civilisation".

Now if only we were as civilized as we'd like to be. It takes many years for these values to become the norm. We make great steps every year and will continue to do so.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#233

Post by uniformlyrandom »

learnstats2 wrote: post #221
chasing wrote: post #171

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 -…

This comment is derailing. The precise definition of journalism is totally irrelevant. Erica Joy has shared an important story that we should listen to.

She shared a part of one side of very important story.

Do you want Fox News? Because this is how you get Fox News.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#234

Post by balabaster »

q3k wrote: post #227
balabaster wrote: post #125

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…

So, are we all now just blaming it on the victim, “she should have known better, what else did she expect”? Why is that okay in a Employee / Corporation setting? Is that also okay in a rape victim / rapist setting? Where do we draw the line now?

Far from blaming it on the victim, I'm pointing out that this mentality is endemic. I don't disagree with what she did in any way. I fully believe that what she did, she did for the good of all and I applaud her for doing so. What I am saying is that the suggestion that she thought there would be no retaliation is incredibly naive. That is all.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#235

Post by Bartweiss »

billyhoffman wrote: post #208
chasing wrote: post #171

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.

I have a passionate hatred for the practice of replacing informed journalism with vox pop content. The point of following the news on subtle issues is to get better information than I can pull out of my own head, and hearing "what people are saying about this" doesn't offer that.

The ability to replace a call to an expert with a twitter search has done serious damage to local news (not that it was much good to start with), and it's increasingly spilling into sources like Wired.

As an aside, I really hope muffycat1974 is the Secretary of State.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#236

Post by pjc50 »

chasing wrote: post #229
fixxer wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you define journalism? Obviously, this isn't an article, but it is information and I found it entertaining. True, only a single point of view... shall we call it Gonzo? If you compiled all those tweets into a paragraph, it wouldn't require substantial edits to generate smooth prose.

Journalism is about getting to the truth. That involves doing a bit of legwork to assess the veracity of what someone is saying.

People keep saying this, but it doesn't correspond to much mainstream journalism I can see. Getting competing quotes is not the same as working out which corresponds best to the truth.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#237

Post by fixxer »

billyhoffman wrote: post #225
fixxer wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that same token, who cares what "billyhoffman" has to say?

You probably shouldn't, because I'm often wrong and frequently drunk :-) In seriousness though, when a news story is breaking, I'd like the news website to provide meaningful commentary from educated and informed people who can contribute to the understanding of the event. I don't care about the lay persons opinion when I'm reading a New York Times story about a world event. I want to hear for someone knowledgeable.…

With regard to meaningful commentary, that is a double edged sword. What you call meaning, I might call bias. Someone you call knowledgeable, I might call a shill. And vice versa.

I've been thinking about data driven news for years now (I'm so fucking sick of Fox, MSNBC, et al.).

Back to twitter, I actually do like the impact of 140 characters on how it compresses information. I would group the OP's article in with a first-person editorial, not journalism. I still read it and I think it merits follow up.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#238

Post by woah »

dataker wrote: post #165
mhluongo wrote: post #94

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?

I'm not taking Google's position, but couldn't Erica have a hidden agenda on this initiative? Is it only about transparency? She does seem like a SJW and, if any discrepancies in compensation were found between gender/race/... , Google would be ultimately screwed. Plus, with such large dataset, one could fallaciously assume differences without considering different countries,positions,...

"The sjw's are out to get me!!"

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#239

Post by jessaustin »

scott_s wrote: post #168
braythwayt wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that I am blaming the Google employee in this story? Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m claiming that “She should have expected this” is weak sauce. It’s factually true, but could just as easily be said that entrepreneurs who try but fail could have expected it, or protestors who get beaten and then jailed could have expected it, or people who ask someone out on a date but are turned down…

For the record, I misunderstood your point, too.

Me three. Sometimes I wonder if obtuseness is intentional, to give one the opportunity to bitch no matter what the response. It's like one of those managers who helicopter in while you're doing something else with: "something minor; it'll take you literally no time, we need some data in that one format for tomorrow's meeting, ". After one gets burned, one will start sending confirmation emails.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#240

Post by woah »

vonmoltke wrote: post #214
aaronem wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be polite for the manager not to allude to threats which would be unlawful to make outright. Where else do you see something like "Don't you know what could happen?" going in a situation like that? And let's be clear here. There is absolutely no downside to the sharing of salary information from the employee's perspective, and absolutely no upside to same from the perspective of management. So when it comes…

> absolutely no upside to same from the perspective of management Are you asserting that 95%+ of companies in the US have, and sometimes enforce, a policy that actively hurts them? I know companies do stupid shit from time to time, but you are basically saying salary confidentiality policies are some sort of mass MBA psychosis. After all, if there is "absolutely no upside" to management, why do we need labor laws to…

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