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My Google job was tedious and pointless

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Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#231

Post by jondubois »

majewsky wrote: post #206
jondubois wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm almost 30, the longest company I worked for was almost 2 years; it was a startup and they're doing very well now - I would have stayed even longer but I wanted to move to Europe. Other than that I never stayed longer than 6 months at a company and I'm really glad because most of these companies were stagnant or failed. I've quit my job probably about 10 times now. Employers don't care at all how often you change…

Is your username your real name? Just asking for your future employer.

I don't care. I enjoy being able to express my opinions and I only want to work for companies who support that.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#232

Post by BearGoesChirp »

vkou wrote: post #19
ogre_magi wrote: post #12

I worked at Google in a more technical role but I sympathize with this guy. The culture was awful and empty. It was sugar-coated candies and colors and happy, happy, happy like it was meant for a kindergartener. The politics were thick and covered everything. Executives got on stage at a company meeting and cried about the election. It was a cult, and not in the good way that a startup can sometimes be, but in a stal…

As someone who was deeply disturbed by the United States electing a jingoistic, misogynistic racist and abuser, I really appreciated that I got some fucking emotional support from my colleagues. Never mind that he ran on a platform of throwing a significant portion of the company out of the country. Step into the shoes of someone holding an H1B for one moment, please.

>Step into the shoes of someone holding an H1B for one moment, please.

Step into the shoes of the person who was demanding a fair market wage until the company used an H1B visa to bring in someone who accepts far worse conditions because the threat of deportation is always present.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#233

Post by cromwellian »

s73ver_ wrote: post #209
fav_collector wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the OP post as "not everyone deserves an interesting and fulfilling job" rather than "only engineers deserve an interesting job"

Me too, but they definitely skewed toward "those that deserve an interesting and fulfilling job are engineers".

It's impossible for every job task that needs to be done to always be interesting and fulfilling, even engineering jobs. Sometimes there's dirty work that had to be done that just sucks, and someone has to be paid to do it. My point is, if I advertise a job to clean toilets, don't show up and complain that cleaning toilets is boring. I know its boring, but I have to paid someone to do it, or buy self-cleaning Japanese toilets. I've had coding jobs before that were metaphorical equivalent of toilet cleaning, and I hated them, but sometimes you need to make rent. I did the work, hated it, and then went on to other more interesting things (founded a startup). I didn't bother submitting an editorial to a newspaper on the experience. It just seems self indulgent to me.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#234

Post by jondubois »

stuffedBelly wrote: post #200
jondubois wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked for big tech corporations a few times before, no matter how much they pay, I can never stay there longer than 6 months. There is so much inefficiency. It's good for 6 months but after that I feel myself getting dumber by the day. Not all corporations are like this but most of them are. Handing my resignation felt great every time. It's addictive in fact. Just seeing the disappointment in my boss' face and…

hmm...you certainly burnt lots of bridges. If you did contractor work for those companies that would be fine, but a full-time hire that does this would be a serious red flag.

Many of the companies I quit told me that I am welcome back any time. Just don't leave any lose ends on your way out and you'll be fine.

You meet a lot of different people when you switch companies often. I think you build many more bridges than you burn.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#235

Post by hw »

ogre_magi wrote: post #12

I worked at Google in a more technical role but I sympathize with this guy. The culture was awful and empty. It was sugar-coated candies and colors and happy, happy, happy like it was meant for a kindergartener. The politics were thick and covered everything. Executives got on stage at a company meeting and cried about the election. It was a cult, and not in the good way that a startup can sometimes be, but in a stal…

It's almost impossible to have a company with the scale of Google to have good culture. Good perks and you get spoilt in that aspect for sure, but I doubt culture is an important aspect of any company's hiring practice once you get to Google's scale and needing to hire as many people as possible to grow. Where there's diversity, there's also diverse opinions and political leanings and personalities, which leads to conflict, misunderstanding, people trying to one-up the other, and it all leads to a toxic culture (unless you're the ones coming out on top). But hey, there's always therapy (aka the internal groups) to help you along.

Cultures dies as a company grows to a certain size. Feels like the best way to combat that would be to have teams that are small within the company and operate independently and with autonomy, especially when it comes to hiring. That probably isn't realistic though within a large company. Am keen on what ideas people have or if they've had experience with something that works with regards to retaining a good culture.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#236

Post by pm90 »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #180
pm90 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly because the language he used and the way he tried to promote his viewpoint was construed as hostile by almost every woman working at Google, or at least a significant number of them. The choice isn't b/w being an echo chamber and expressing views which make coworkers uncomfortable for their gender.

Idk, I didn't see an issue with it. He discussed the issue on an internal forum designed for such discussion using plenty of citations and sociological terminology. The fact that it made some people uncomfortable shouldn't mean it shouldn't be discussed.

> The fact that it made some people uncomfortable shouldn't mean it shouldn't be discussed.

On the contrary, I think that alone is sufficient reason.

Its hard for me to go into detail about this right now. But as an employee working with other people, one must be aware of the effect one's actions and words have on fellow coworkers. In this case, the correct approach would have been for him to perhaps engage with a smaller group of people, not post a manifesto where it could be accessed by everyone at Google, which is a large number of people. Depending on the feedback, he could have change the wording to be perhaps more appropriate, and engaged in an honest conversation with HR.

There is no evidence that he did any of these things. Again, its common decency to be aware of one's words on fellow coworkers. With social issues, its not just facts, but also how you chose to express those facts that matter.

You could say: but why shouldn't anyone be allowed to express anything? Why place so much burden on someone to express their true thoughts? Its because we choose to live in a society that doesn't censor the views of its members but also places reasonable restrictions on what/how they can be expressed. So its not that his views shouldn't be expressed, but they weren't done appropriately.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#237

Post by s73ver_ »

cromwellian wrote: post #233
s73ver_ wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too, but they definitely skewed toward "those that deserve an interesting and fulfilling job are engineers".

It's impossible for every job task that needs to be done to always be interesting and fulfilling, even engineering jobs. Sometimes there's dirty work that had to be done that just sucks, and someone has to be paid to do it. My point is, if I advertise a job to clean toilets, don't show up and complain that cleaning toilets is boring. I know its boring, but I have to paid someone to do it, or buy self-cleaning Japanes…

Right, but you specifically called out someone as "not having the skills as a SWE."

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#238

Post by ianai »

jrs95 wrote: post #69
ianai wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait are you saying politics as in D/R covered everything or politics as in the usual workplace sense?

Probably both, if my experiences in this industry in the Midwest are any indicator of how things are at Google...

Agree. I work in IT on the LV strip and intracompany politics are everything.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#239

Post by tenpies »

jondubois wrote: post #68
ogre_magi wrote: post #12

I worked at Google in a more technical role but I sympathize with this guy. The culture was awful and empty. It was sugar-coated candies and colors and happy, happy, happy like it was meant for a kindergartener. The politics were thick and covered everything. Executives got on stage at a company meeting and cried about the election. It was a cult, and not in the good way that a startup can sometimes be, but in a stal…

I've worked for big tech corporations a few times before, no matter how much they pay, I can never stay there longer than 6 months. There is so much inefficiency. It's good for 6 months but after that I feel myself getting dumber by the day. Not all corporations are like this but most of them are. Handing my resignation felt great every time. It's addictive in fact. Just seeing the disappointment in my boss' face and…

My first job out of university was at IBM. I distinctly remember thinking "this is just like being a part of the Borg" about a month in. You're connected to the hive mind through Sametime (internal IM client). Anything you need is available in w3 (intranet). External ideas or processes are assimilated (rebrand, and usually made worst through IBM-ification). Drones are constantly indoctrinated in how good IBM is and the proud history of the company.

Re: My Google job was tedious and pointless

#240

Post by s73ver_ »

jrs95 wrote: post #222
s73ver_ wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump campaigned on far more that illegal immigrants. Muslims and LGBT people were also targets of his.

But deporting Muslims? He definitely didn't campaign on that. And that he targeted LGBT people is a real stretch. Even Obama was more anti-LGBT in 2008.

Yes. Remember when he was saying he was going to ban all Muslims? And remember the Muslim ban that prevented lawful residents from coming back into the country?

You may not want to believe it, but it is true. Lots of groups of marginalized people felt targeted by Trump and his supporters. And Trump has not done a thing to assuage those fears.

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