Another "leader" who complains about employees wanting work life balance and they are extremely entitled. These are the type of managers you want to avoid. I'm sure many Googlers are happy you left.
Get your test levels checked.
Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
171–180 of 840 posts
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#172Another "leader" who complains about employees wanting work life balance and they are extremely entitled. These are the type of managers you want to avoid. I'm sure many Googlers are happy you left.
"I don't believe long hours are a badge of honor but I also believe that we have to do whatever it takes to win, even if its on a weekend." lmao what a terrible, horrible manager. I would hate working for them, and I would not miss them leaving. Maybe I'm just playing into their "young people don't want to work" stereotype, but if that's what working means, I don't want to do it with them.
I don't think it's a "young people" stereotype. I'm an oldster and I wouldn't want to work for someone like that who is trying to squeeze every last drop out of his "resources."
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#173This is an amazing post - it describes exactly how bad manager looks like and what kind of expectations does he have from his employees. No emergency PTO (despite being a benefit), ability to just get rid of people who don't suit him, cursing at people, not having a proper work/life balance. It just keeps on giving. And all for what? A mapping application having features which really don't save lives 99% of the time.
I agree with all of that except the swearing part. Is swearing in work a big deal in US? I'm Scottish (even worse Glaswegian) so perhaps have a skewed view.
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#174Another "leader" who complains about employees wanting work life balance and they are extremely entitled. These are the type of managers you want to avoid. I'm sure many Googlers are happy you left.
I didn't read it as that bad - he states it should be a balance.
Balancing work and life means if you get the Yoga session at 11am, then you're also OK with getting paged at 11pm to fix server downtime.
When I've managed teams, I always held that it's quid-pro-quo. If I want the team to stay late to meet the deadline, then I'm OK with them leaving early to pick the kids up from school (though not on the same day, obviously). If they need to take the morning off to go to the dentist, that's cool as long as they're OK with getting a call on the weekend if there's a problem. It's a give-and-take. If the give-and-take gets too much, one way or another, then that's something we can talk about at a regular one-to-one and work out.
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
A different way of putting it would be whether an employee takes personal responsibility towards their work. It's not incongruent with a balanced life. To me It just means occasdinally you might stay late at work, once in awhile an interesting problem gets you working on the company laptop all Saturday, and if something breaks you're not able to log off until you fix it. Doesn't mean you cant take Friday's off of or…
> once in awhile an interesting problem gets you working on the company laptop all Saturday, I will never do this. I havent done this since I was very very young at my first job and i didn't know better. I couldn't think of anything sader or more depressing that giving away my own personal time for someone else. I'm not going to work on the weekend. I've got much better things to do, like play video games or literall…
Let me give you the perspective from the other side of the trench:
I never ask my employees for overtime, never control their work hours. The typical work week that organically arises out of this is about 35 hours.
I would absolutely fire anyone who would close the laptop for the weekend and left a critical operation pending on Friday. It's about work ethics and personal responsibility of the outcome of personal work.
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#176It was so hard for him to act like an adult and be considerate about the way he speaks. Such a tragedy requiring immense sacrifice from this poor soul.
Maybe others could consider growing "thicker skins", not applying their personal standard to everyone equally, and not getting offended at every single (and/or little) opportunity. Exposure therapy is a wonderful thing.
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
The “I’m a passionate guy so I can’t communicate without cursing” part was entertaining.
I worked for a guy like that named Mike Homer. There were Wired articles about “is Homer a jerk or just passionate?” It turns out he actually had Mad Cow disease (really).
Creutzfeld Jacobs. Please think of the cows.
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they really complained about not getting compensated for buying their own food during lockdown I think "entitled" is a fair descriptor. This is the first time I've read one of these blogs where the author complains about it being "practically impossible to fire someone". To me, that adds an air of authenticity to the complaining. In my experience too, the inability to fire people for reasons other than "this perso…
If google provides food for employees then that's essentially indirect compensation. Employees can now use the money they would have spent on food to buy other things. So now that they're remote and have to buy their own food they have effectively received a pay decrease. How is it entitled to complain about a decrease in compensation for the same work?
Google has been known to point out the perks, such as catering, when asked by candidates for more salary during negotiation, as well.
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#179> online ahead of us was overheard saying “What? Sushi again???” which became our inside joke around entitlement.
Yeah, I dont like Sushi either. Not sure why not liking Sushi is entitlement, but as I said, normal food tastes better.
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#180"As I had kids, I learned the importance of being at home for them and that's how I understood Work Life balance - its a balance, sometimes you need to work weekends and nights, sometimes you can head out early or work from home - we balance the needs of the employee and the company." sometimes you need to work weekends and nights while your wife take care of the kids alone so that your career progress and her's not.…
Contrary to popular belief, kids are not some tamagotchi pet that needs constant attention and helicoptering after they're babies. You can perfectly be a good parent and raise independent well minded kids without needing two parents always present every moment of every weekend.
And this is a good enough reason to expect people to work on the weekend? Kids are not some tamagotchi pet that exists as it is for a long time... kids are constantly growing and if you blink, you miss it. Some people would rather spend their weekends with their kids for purposes other than just keeping them alive.