"Please make a public example of this termination with the group."
Yikes. Sounds positively medieval.
Steve Jobs personally asked Eric Schmidt to stop poaching employees
11–20 of 172 posts
Re: Steve Jobs personally asked Eric Schmidt to stop poaching employees
#12This is 100% why you shouldn't work for a big corporation. You're a resource rather than an employee.
Same in small companies. In our company of 14 people, my last HR meeting had the officer dismissing my mention of doing 30-60 minutes unpaid daily overtime as 'it's a small company, that happens'.
They were trying to nail me into a contract doing even more unpaid work: 'Sometimes that happens in a small company' -> 'Yes, I do the in-house IT, and it's part of the job, but I'm letting you know that it's every day' -> 'Yes, sometimes that happens' -> 'Every day is 'sometimes'?' -> 'Yes, sometimes that happens...'.
The other great comment was 'You have to expect a little overtime when you're on a good salary'. My salary is right on the national average wage - neither good nor bad by definition.
Re: Steve Jobs personally asked Eric Schmidt to stop poaching employees
#13This is 100% why you shouldn't work for a big corporation. You're a resource rather than an employee.
Same in small companies. In our company of 14 people, my last HR meeting had the officer dismissing my mention of doing 30-60 minutes unpaid daily overtime as 'it's a small company, that happens'. They were trying to nail me into a contract doing even more unpaid work: 'Sometimes that happens in a small company' -> 'Yes, I do the in-house IT, and it's part of the job, but I'm letting you know that it's every day' ->…
...you have HR meetings in a company of 14? It sounds like the culture is what's causing that, not the company size. I've worked in companies of 50 that don't have "HR" people (of course, they have people who cut checks, etc. but they didn't create and enforce crazy policies like that!).
Re: Steve Jobs personally asked Eric Schmidt to stop poaching employees
#14I can only imagine how hard it is to have fair negotiations when a prospective employee applies at a competing company only to be told "no thanks" simply because of a hush hush agreement between the executives of said companies. This flies counter with Google's "do no evil" statement and certainly doesn't paint a positive posthumous picture of Jobs.
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Re: Steve Jobs personally asked Eric Schmidt to stop poaching employees
#15The problem is not just that the employees have less options where to find a job. The real problem is that the employees don't know about the agreement!
If I work at Pixar and prospect Intel for a job, they will tell my boss and my carreer at Pixar will be messed for ever.
I had a boss that liked to fire employees who he knew were searching for jobs elsewhere. He would announce in job sites good offers asking for candidates with the skills used in his company, and didn't disclosed the company name. When he got answers from his own employees, he would fire them in the best opportunity. A great way to create a culture of fear.
Re: Steve Jobs personally asked Eric Schmidt to stop poaching employees
#16Everyone is commenting on the "no evil" thing, so I want to give my take on that.
Yes, companies are large entities that maximize shareholder profit and therefore talking about "good companies" or "bad companies" is meaningless. But I always understood the "no evil" slogan to be accepting of that. To me, "do no evil" was the mentality that no matter how corporate the company may become, the humans who are part of it wont let anything blatantly horrible happen. The company might become a giant corporate machine, but the human cogs will always retain enough power to stop horrible mistakes.
Increasingly, I'm starting to believe that every company mutates into the same corporate mass given enough time. Pick a large corporation with dirty business practices. If you look far back enough in history, it was probably a wonderful place to work with great work ethics.
Re: Steve Jobs personally asked Eric Schmidt to stop poaching employees
#17[deleted]
Re: Steve Jobs personally asked Eric Schmidt to stop poaching employees
#18I can only imagine how hard it is to have fair negotiations when a prospective employee applies at a competing company only to be told "no thanks" simply because of a hush hush agreement between the executives of said companies. This flies counter with Google's "do no evil" statement and certainly doesn't paint a positive posthumous picture of Jobs.
I'm tired of people bringing up 'don't do evil' EVERY time Google does something they dislike. New search results using personal targeting - EVIL! Anti-poaching agreement with Apple - EVIL! Closed down a bagel cafe next to my cubicle - EVIL!
Can we all agree that the word Evil has a more sinister use - ie knowing endangering lives, environmental damage, maybe closing press freedoms? And, therefore, we should be more selective in its application?
This is turning into another version of the Godwin's law - whereby it only takes so long before Google is accused of being evil (by breaking the not-be-evil pledge).
Re: Steve Jobs personally asked Eric Schmidt to stop poaching employees
#19I can only imagine how hard it is to have fair negotiations when a prospective employee applies at a competing company only to be told "no thanks" simply because of a hush hush agreement between the executives of said companies. This flies counter with Google's "do no evil" statement and certainly doesn't paint a positive posthumous picture of Jobs.
I'm tired of people bringing up 'don't do evil' EVERY time Google does something they dislike. New search results using personal targeting - EVIL! Anti-poaching agreement with Apple - EVIL! Closed down a bagel cafe next to my cubicle - EVIL! Can we all agree that the word Evil has a more sinister use - ie knowing endangering lives, environmental damage, maybe closing press freedoms? And, therefore, we should be more…
No. The "do no evil" was a way of saying let's not be like Microsoft and allow ourself to engage in unfair business practices.
Google is now like Microsoft.
Re: Steve Jobs personally asked Eric Schmidt to stop poaching employees
#20I can only imagine how hard it is to have fair negotiations when a prospective employee applies at a competing company only to be told "no thanks" simply because of a hush hush agreement between the executives of said companies. This flies counter with Google's "do no evil" statement and certainly doesn't paint a positive posthumous picture of Jobs.
I'm tired of people bringing up 'don't do evil' EVERY time Google does something they dislike. New search results using personal targeting - EVIL! Anti-poaching agreement with Apple - EVIL! Closed down a bagel cafe next to my cubicle - EVIL! Can we all agree that the word Evil has a more sinister use - ie knowing endangering lives, environmental damage, maybe closing press freedoms? And, therefore, we should be more…
People are just holding Google to their own standards and terms. If the standards and terms are strange or otherwise inapt, that's on Google.