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Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

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Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#31

Post by aaomidi »

oliverx0 wrote: post #22

I realise I might get downvoted here because of an unpopular point of view, but some of these comments raise a few flags: “I reported it up to where my manager knew, my director knew, the coworker’s manager knew and our HR representative knew. Nothing happened. I was warned that things will get very serious if continued,” So EVERYONE knew and they still disagreed with their point of view. Warned them that accusations…

> Your manager thought you were overreacting, given whatever proof / accusations you provided. Just because he / she did not agree with it, does not mean they are evil.

In a company the size of google, managers aren't the people that should have an opinion on this matter. What that manager said, assuming this document is valid, is absolutely terrible. Heck, if some manager in my hypothetical company told someone that their report of sexual harassment is an "overreaction" that person wouldn't be manager for long.

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#32

Post by oliverx0 »

gowld wrote: post #28
oliverx0 wrote: post #22

I realise I might get downvoted here because of an unpopular point of view, but some of these comments raise a few flags: “I reported it up to where my manager knew, my director knew, the coworker’s manager knew and our HR representative knew. Nothing happened. I was warned that things will get very serious if continued,” So EVERYONE knew and they still disagreed with their point of view. Warned them that accusations…

So, because there is no permanent evidence of the harm, is the reporter "evil"? ("Evil" is your term.)

No, I don't think reporting is evil. I quoted the word evil because the article mentioned sarcastically Google's motto. I think raising these issues is important, but saying things like: “It’s been infuriating to watch Google make statements about the alleged things the company does to fight and prevent discrimination and retaliation" is wrong when the company is clearly trying to address them.

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#33

Post by dlp211 »

trenning wrote: post #15
dominotw wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> someone felt unprotected by HR How can this ever be true. Why would someone possibly expect HR to protect them. Isn't it basic commonsense that HR( or anyone) works for person who pays them. Their job is to protect their employers from you ( not the other way around). I've never worked at a place where this wasn't true. Maybe this should be taught in college or something.

If you ever want to proceed with legal actions against the company then you have to put it into record somewhere which typically means reporting incidents to HR. Which ultimately leads to getting fired. What else are people supposed to do? It's a shitty unwinnable situation for employees, I've been on the shit end of this stick before at a different tech co for complaining and was retaliated against. It's not fun and…

If only there was some way that employees could create their own organization that can act as an alternative resources to the companies HR department that puts the employees interests ahead if the companies.

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#34

Post by ndarwincorn »

triangleman wrote: post #18
nkingsy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like we are learning by doing how this stuff should be handled. Some people in the gray areas are going to get burned, some complaints will be considered too much, and eventually we will get through the white supremacist patriarchal backlog and move on to some other new cultural change process, hopefully carbon.

Wow so let me see if I get what you're saying: The ends justify the means. Want to make an omelette, gotta break a few eggs. And by the way, the real civil rights issue we should be focusing on is global warming?

Environmental degradation always has a civil rights dimension.

You think the folks that make money off treating the earth like shit want to live in the filth they create?

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#35

Post by gowld »

seph-reed wrote: post #10
SolaceQuantum wrote: post #2

This is covering a full document of 45 google employees' claims of sexually/racially motivated abuse, toxic workplace experiences, and retaliatory behavior upon attempting to report such. Here is the link to the full document: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6427199-Examples-Ret...

I was speaking with some friends about this recently, and how it seems a lot like the uncanny valley effect. Relatively, Google has made a lot of effort to not be racist/sexist. They're working towards not being those things (though still evil for other reasons), but somewhere in between the start and finish is this uncanny valley where scandals are super likely to happen. My friends and I all had different theories…

Yes. At a normal crappy company, this isn't news. But at a company you hold to a higher standard (for whatever reason - perhaps its PR, perhaps because they are leaders, perhaps because they are rich enough to be challenged to be better), it's news.

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#37

Post by wolco »

Many of these sound like they come from junior members disillusioned with how things work.

Things like my manager didn't listen to me so I feel belittled. I have the second most experience so he should have. The company then moved me to a different team and I wasn't second in command so I lost my leadership.

Doesn't the manager pick the team? If you don't support his vision and want to use a different approach being moved to a different team may be the best solution. What does this person want Google to do? Talk to the manager and tell them to listen to change the approach and listen to this team member because they have different ideas and they need to feel heard.

Google can't get involved at that level and start second guessing technical details just because someone needs to be heard. They will judge the manager by the project's overall goals.

The problem is google is giving too much freedom to employees who are use to a little bit more handholding and structured interactions.

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#38

Post by gowld »

jasonlotito wrote: post #19
cybersnowflake wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

okay I understand people downvoting me because they don't like what I say but I wish I'd at least get an explanation why I'm constantly being flagged if I'm just stating an unpopular opinion without any trolling, spam, or personal attacks (against other commentators. People here regularly attack article subjects so I assume thats okay).

Reasons why you are getting down voted. 1) A comment talking about being down voted (which is amusing considering your username). This is enough to get a down vote in my book. 2) An immature post. There are numerous signs, including the LOL at the end, that it's immature. 3) Fairly insulting to people who come here. 4) Your original comment is constantly begging the question. The reality is, you aren't interested in…

0) The obvious troll in the username.

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#39

Post by anoncareer0212 »

oliverx0 wrote: post #22

I realise I might get downvoted here because of an unpopular point of view, but some of these comments raise a few flags: “I reported it up to where my manager knew, my director knew, the coworker’s manager knew and our HR representative knew. Nothing happened. I was warned that things will get very serious if continued,” So EVERYONE knew and they still disagreed with their point of view. Warned them that accusations…

It might not save you from downvotes, but, you're absolutely right. Internally, the reaction was the same - people were happy to participate in the walk out, but when leaders tried creating into a referendum on their individual careers, they way overplayed their hand and tried harder than they did for the original walkout. People read the charges, smelled BS, and didn't participate.

Somewhat offtopic, but a heuristic that I've slowly learned is when people complain about promotion or org shuffles. Google is full of extremely type A people who stop getting signal of success the minute they walk in the door, and "it's been 4 years and no promotion or increase in responsibility!" is absolutely normal, and I've seen people stripped of 10+ person teams regularly and not as a punishment.

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#40

Post by oliverx0 »

aaomidi wrote: post #31
oliverx0 wrote: post #22

I realise I might get downvoted here because of an unpopular point of view, but some of these comments raise a few flags: “I reported it up to where my manager knew, my director knew, the coworker’s manager knew and our HR representative knew. Nothing happened. I was warned that things will get very serious if continued,” So EVERYONE knew and they still disagreed with their point of view. Warned them that accusations…

> Your manager thought you were overreacting, given whatever proof / accusations you provided. Just because he / she did not agree with it, does not mean they are evil. In a company the size of google, managers aren't the people that should have an opinion on this matter. What that manager said, assuming this document is valid, is absolutely terrible. Heck, if some manager in my hypothetical company told someone that…

Fair enough. Perhaps a process needs to be in place in which no matter what the accusation is, it needs to go through a proper HR process. Having said that, if a manager should have no opinion on a sexual harassment accusation, then the accuser should have gone directly to HR.
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