31–40 of 181 posts
Came here to say this... as a former google intern... if this was your reasoning for hating google, you weren't right google in the first place.
The author complains that she was dissatisfied with her offer six years prior but took the job anyway. Then it turns into a rant about how she was robbed of her entitlements. "But what happens when the economy improves? Those wounds will never heal. Anyone with half a brain will say "hey, these guys are evil!" and will bail for greener pastures." Because they don't have bagels in the microkitchen Google is evil? As s…
For me it was just a "shrug, whatever" moment. I realized that as a growing public company Google wanted to control costs more.
And I might be weird, but excessive perks creep me out a little. I worry about it warping my mind too much. One day during my time at Google, I was in a grocery store and felt mild outrage at the thought that they were going to charge me for food.
Once you're used to a perk, it's another fishhook the company has embedded into your flesh.
It is amusing that Google offers "free lunches". I wonder how many compensation discussions include the quip, "there is no such thing as a free lunch". Just out of curiosity, does Google gross up salaries for tax purposes? I really think the IRS needs to crack down on companies using excessive perks as non-taxable compensation. If Google is using the perks to justify a "lower but equivalent salary" then they should b…
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p15b/ar02.html#en_US_2011_pu...
Tax tip going way back to Learned Hand: you don't have to feel guilty about structuring your affairs to take advantage of every legitimate opportunity to decrease your tax burden.
Here's a related example: US tax law allows you to deduct 50% of meals incurred on business trips. I travel internationally for a significant portion of every year, on business trips. There are two ways to calculate how much you spend on meals: 1) Actual cost 2) An approximation method which takes a per-diem rate supplied by the US government based on your location and adds one or two wrinkles not relevant here. Either is acceptable to the IRS. I keep appropriate records of business expenses, so running both the exact cost and the approximation method was trivial. The approximation overstates my actual cost on meals by several thousand dollars -- using it as the basis for my deduction saves me about a thousand bucks. That's totally kosher.
P.S. You know those beating-the-system-is-worth-bonus-points neuroreceptors that most of us hackers have? Doing taxes gives you the opportunity for that sort of thing in spades. (Though I'd probably still suggest getting someone competent to do yours -- advice which I will be taking for myself from next year on.)
Has rachelbythebay ever written a post that is not about bashing Google as evil or all engineers as sexist? Notice what she does not mention: Google massively increased salaries during the same time period, including the 10% across the board bump.
Good luck Engineers!
At the end: Or, worse, they'll assign blame to "rogue contractors" and say it was never their policy to do that. Right. Now where have we heard that before? Rogue contractors? I may be wrong, but... Is she implying that (in her personal opinion), Google knew and instructed them about OpenStreetMap sabotage? That's controversial at least. Edit: I mean, I'm not defending anyone, but without proofs, I think that's a ver…
Look at google + mocality: it's easy to understand why the contractors where doing what they were: it helped them sell something or hit quota.
Compare to Google contractors + open street map: what incentive does a contractor have to go screw up their data? In the first case I see directly why unethical people would do what they did. What exactly is the motive here? Just griefing? It makes me wonder.
The author complains that she was dissatisfied with her offer six years prior but took the job anyway. Then it turns into a rant about how she was robbed of her entitlements. "But what happens when the economy improves? Those wounds will never heal. Anyone with half a brain will say "hey, these guys are evil!" and will bail for greener pastures." Because they don't have bagels in the microkitchen Google is evil? As s…
I wouldn't go so far as to call Google "evil" for reducing perks, but the microkitchens were a lot better before. They used to be overflowing with goodies, many perishable. After the bean-counter moment it was all dry cereal and prepackaged snacks. For me it was just a "shrug, whatever" moment. I realized that as a growing public company Google wanted to control costs more. And I might be weird, but excessive perks c…
It is amusing that Google offers "free lunches". I wonder how many compensation discussions include the quip, "there is no such thing as a free lunch". Just out of curiosity, does Google gross up salaries for tax purposes? I really think the IRS needs to crack down on companies using excessive perks as non-taxable compensation. If Google is using the perks to justify a "lower but equivalent salary" then they should b…
My wife works at Google. We both live in San Jose, and she frequently gets the shuttle to work in the Mountain View office. For tax reasons, I'm not allowed to get the shuttle with her to or from work, so I'm pretty sure that some if not all perks are offset somehow. Various things like the holiday gift (this year it was a galaxy nexus) are also offset for tax on your payslip. Net it works out at zero to you, as Goog…
I'm having a hard time sympathizing. At the end of her negotiation, this was the state of the world: the company didn't want to go any higher, and some handwaving about how much food was worth was enough to convince her to fold. Why bother calculating "effective salary"? Personally, anything that isn't cold, hard cash I view as tangential to my compensation. Even options are questionable - sometimes the salary hit ov…
> Why bother calculating "effective salary"? Personally, anything that isn't cold, hard cash I view as tangential to my compensation During the work week, I typically grab breakfast on the way to work ($5.10 at McDonalds, plus $1.25 for a drink out of the vending machine at work). If I have lunch, it might be Subway (around $7). Maybe dinner from Wendy's ($7). Toss in a snack somewhere in there and I'm at over $20/da…
Slightly off-topic, I rather like the opportunity to get out of the office to eat lunch. That's a perk in and of itself (for me, at least). How would you value that? I could argue that it's worth the hour we spent eating out, which is surely more than the value of some catered food (unless it's some seriously fancy stuff). And you could argue back that since I'm salaried, it doesn't count... In any case, it's just not a worthwhile endeavor for me to try and conjure up numbers, when I can just reap the emotional value instead.