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Workers Leaving the Googleplex

andrewnormanwilson.com

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Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#111

Post by guard-of-terra »

notahacker wrote: post #100
guard-of-terra wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So not being permitted to speak to other employees is the same as not getting rides to Disney Land? Way off doesn't begin to describe how screwed your comparison is.

Specifically, they're not permitted to speak to other employees about the apparently confidential work they're doing , which presumably was mentioned to them when they went to the job interview round about the same time they were advised they'd be missing out on a few other social events. Even the original author doesn't seem to be suggesting they're being held and silenced against their will...

You can call a thing confidential, prohibit speaking about this thing, and prohibit speaking about the fact of prohibition. Therefore declaring something confidential is like putting it into opaque box - we can not figure whether the thing in the box exists and is really confidential.

Therefore they can not prove that they've segregated employees to prevent confidentiality breach, and we can not prove that they segregated employees to prevent people becaming aware of the class society. I don't know how to resolve this problem. We just don't know, so it's a question of trust.

I don't trust that Google has a big amount of highly confidential but unqualified data-entry labor, and they can't prove otherwise unless they lift the confidentiality wall.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#112

Post by guard-of-terra »

jrockway wrote: post #95
reubenyeah wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but if you work at a company where even the janitors get free lunch, you should get free lunch.

But if the programmers that get free lunch are working for below-industry wages, and the data-entry people are getting industry wages, isn't it the people with the free lunch that are getting screwed over?

They are, so the only honest option is to pay industry wages as a rule and provide (or not provide) a reasonably comparable level of perks to everyone.

Otherwise drama.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#113

Post by ck2 »

Getting them to write out a confession letter is classic detective-from-tv stuff.

How naive are people not to realize you are being made to declare everything that will be used to terminate you (and in court)?

Yellow badge Google sounds very much like a microfilm company I did computer work for.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#115

Post by davidw »

scotty79 wrote: post #104
pstack wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As dangrossman points out, above, you can be fired for any reason whatsoever, on the spot. I believe the only protections are sex, race, gender, religion, and age. And as for sex, that means you can't be fired for being a male or a female. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation, for which you can still be fired in something like two or three dozen states. (Look into the ENDA which has been repeatedly proposed f…

US seem like horrible country to work in. You are expected to donate unpaid overtime to your company, you can be fired on a whim. What else?

It's easy to get hired because employers aren't afraid that they're wedded to you for life.

And you generally make pretty good money - depending on your job of course.

I think 'job protection' is a bit misguided. What makes more sense to me is 'people protection' - that even if you lose your job, you'll still be able to pay rent, eat, etc... It would make more sense to aim for that goal directly rather than force employers to keep people they don't want.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#116

Post by geuis »

What first-world, over privileged bullshit. (Paraphrasing) "The yellow badges don't get the same fancy meals, backpacks, get to ride the multi-colored bicycles, or listen to authors talking for an hour". What utter non-sense bullshit.

"Oh, its a good thing I got fired because I have to go back to grad school."

"I'm going to talk in a post-adolescent semi-deep but monotonous tone for 11 minutes to talk about how Racist Google Is".

I really want to buy this yuppie, preppie child a ticket to anywhere in America that isn't Google or Haaaaaarvard and let him see what its like to grow up on food stamps and welfare in the deep south, or better yet just drop him off anywhere that isn't a modern country.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#118

Post by exit »

jrockway wrote: post #95
reubenyeah wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but if you work at a company where even the janitors get free lunch, you should get free lunch.

But if the programmers that get free lunch are working for below-industry wages, and the data-entry people are getting industry wages, isn't it the people with the free lunch that are getting screwed over?

they're both getting screwed. getting screwed by capitalists is not a zero sum economy.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#119

Post by exit »

learc83 wrote: post #63
bugsy wrote: post #9

Wow, so these yellow badges are sort of the plantation slave labor then? Amazing to hear that Google has a strict caste system. edit: wow, at 1:05PST dozens of people suddenly hit this thread and started attacking the premise.

Yes, if you classify slave labor as someone voluntarily doing work for which they get paid.

there's nothing voluntary about participation in capitalism.

Re: Workers Leaving the Googleplex

#120

Post by nkassis »

n_are_q wrote: post #15

So if he handed off all the copies of the video he had to google, where did the video in the post come from? Is it a totally different video?

He said tapes not copies. They wanted a the tapes from both days they only got the one day. He didn't say that they asked him to destroy all the copies.
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