Is it "tensions" if 1 or 2 out of 100's of 1000's of employees get fired?
One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions
301–310 of 603 posts
Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions
#302What we are seeing are the consequences of "Employee Capture". Google captured the hearts and minds of its employees for workplace productivity. Its side effects are varied. The real world only sees highlights. Googled created a bubble from which its employees can socialize without ever needing to do so with the outside world. Why talk politics with the outside world? Stay with us, where it is safe, people are intell…
>Google has a major lawsuit on its hands, regardless of whatever arbitration agreement it makes new-hires sign. Google is causing harm by capturing employees hearts and minds.
What's next, suing a woman because she breaks your heart?
Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions
#303What we are seeing are the consequences of "Employee Capture". Google captured the hearts and minds of its employees for workplace productivity. Its side effects are varied. The real world only sees highlights. Googled created a bubble from which its employees can socialize without ever needing to do so with the outside world. Why talk politics with the outside world? Stay with us, where it is safe, people are intell…
> Being fired from Google amounts to not just losing a job but "friends" and the only people who the company encouraged socializing with. I've never worked for Google so I have no basis for comparison but it's very common across white collar jobs for employees social circles to very closely if not entirely overlap with work. Unless you participated in extracurricular activities that weren't school sponsored, you prob…
> Being fired from Google amounts to not just losing a job but "friends" and the only people who the company encouraged socializing with.
That's something I experienced. I was laid off after 15 years and really I was laid off from my friends too. The company even monitored social media accounts which at the time seemed bizarre but now it's common. I was told by someone still working there HR declared unfriending a fellow employee was considered bullying.
I'm trying my best not to put all my eggs in one basket. I'm trying to make friends outside of work. Everyone knows you shouldn't date a coworker but really we should also not base our entire social life around coworkers either.
But as mentioned above you are in that bubble. Apple even went so far as to encircle everyone with their new building.
Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Expecting to have the same rights as if using your own devices when using someone else’s device that they are paying you to perform work on qualifies as an indignity to me. Every single second that you are working, you know that your employer might be looking over your shoulder. It's like living under a microscope. For me, this is an indignity. Having to work in such circumstances would probably drive me to deep de…
Within reason, sure. I would say that the main value that underlies all EU countries (not that we realize it perfectly, or even get close to it, of course!) is that human beings are the most important thing. American here: I strongly agree. And I don't like giving more power to corporations. They have too much already, and I believe that strong labor movements are one way to fight this. Still, I just... would never f…
There's a difference between using the computer and expecting privacy on it. It's entirely possible that you're not supposed to use certain equipment for personal use, but if you do it anyway, that doesn't erode your right to privacy.
I'm not saying this is always the case in the EU, though. Obviously there is equipment where for many reasons it's absolutely vital that you don't use it for anything personal. I'm not supposed to run a torrent client on the company server, for example. You can't just "borrow" a company car for a personal trip. But when I happen to use the laptop that the company has assigned to me to work on, to do a bank payment, my boss has absolutely no business knowing the details of that transaction.
Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions
#305This was an interesting in-depth article about series of leaks and internal turmoil that Google experienced: https://www.wired.com/story/inside-google-three-years-misery... 1. Soon after, on the plane ride back from a work trip to China, Damore wrote a 10-page memo arguing that biological differences could help explain why there were fewer female engineers at Google, and therefore the company's attempts to reach gend…
Google’s management made a mistake when they fired Damore. Picking a sacrificial lamb to appease their own employee-activist mob has created an uncontrollable monster. Meanwhile, they signaled that non-activists from flyover states should view Google with suspicion. Now, Google needs political goodwill to weather the next round of federal investigations.
Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Being fired from Google amounts to not just losing a job but "friends" and the only people who the company encouraged socializing with. I've never worked for Google so I have no basis for comparison but it's very common across white collar jobs for employees social circles to very closely if not entirely overlap with work. Unless you participated in extracurricular activities that weren't school sponsored, you prob…
The growing epidemic of loneliness is probably in part due to the rise of teleworking. No longer do people grab a drink after work. Well, it can go either way. Depends on your situation. For me, teleworking has been a help to my social life. Now that I'm a teleworker, I've got about 10 extra hours of time each week that I don't have to spend commuting. So that actually has benefits for my social life, since I never r…
Same - I do mostly remote work now and occasional client visits. I now take my kids to school every morning and have a good relationship with the school and other parents. I go into town for breakfast and have started to meet all of the local business owners. I have made closer connections to my neighbours and the local surf club.
When I was in my early 20's, my social life was all about where I worked but now that I'm an adult, I've started to build a solid social network within my town and its various groups. I would hate to socialise with people purely from my office now.
Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions
#307What we are seeing are the consequences of "Employee Capture". Google captured the hearts and minds of its employees for workplace productivity. Its side effects are varied. The real world only sees highlights. Googled created a bubble from which its employees can socialize without ever needing to do so with the outside world. Why talk politics with the outside world? Stay with us, where it is safe, people are intell…
With 20 years experience under my belt, it is my firm belief that the workplace is not a place to discuss politics, religion, or other highly personal and divisive issues. Obviously, this extends even more to the workplace itself bringing these topics up. I'm not aggressive or even obvious about this disposition, I just gently steer clear of violating it. I feel the same should apply to companies, fine if you want to…
> With 20 years experience under my belt, it is my firm belief that the workplace is not a place to discuss politics, religion, or other highly personal and divisive issues.
I, too, old this belief, but it's kind of hard when the "new culture" is overwhelmed with a sense of entitlement to "be heard". Everyone thinks their individual opinions should be able to be shared whenever they feel the need to be validated, and that everyone must hear their opinion in that moment, regardless of how controversial it may be. And if you try to stifle their attempt or even mildly disagree, then you are the bad person. Couth and tactfulness have given way to entitlement and postmodernism in the modern work culture.
Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions
#308What we are seeing are the consequences of "Employee Capture". Google captured the hearts and minds of its employees for workplace productivity. Its side effects are varied. The real world only sees highlights. Googled created a bubble from which its employees can socialize without ever needing to do so with the outside world. Why talk politics with the outside world? Stay with us, where it is safe, people are intell…
> earlier this month, more than 1,000 employees called on the company to cancel deals with oil and gas companies. what's wrong with these employees? Keep your political opinions to yourself. So they propose that my company lose money because of your activism. Don't agree! What if some employees asked that Google cancel any deals with climate change NGOs? How would these employees feel about it?
They probably don’t realize the chair their dumb ass is sitting on is derived from a petrochemical.
Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Can someone explain what the controversy is here? Google had some rather controversial projects that officially got shutdown over employees being rightfully concerned. An example would be the highly censored Chinese dragonfly search engine. Google clamping down on project information on a "need to know" basis could be seen as rather problematic when you consider that management considers that kind of project accept…
> Google clamping down on project information on a "need to know" basis could be seen as rather problematic when you consider that management considers that kind of project acceptable. it's daft, but upper management/owners can choose to do the most profitable project, and the employee's choices are to quit or comply (or give reasons why the project is not profitable, and offer an alternative). An employee cannot rea…
> An employee cannot really complain/shutdown the project on moral/political-ideology grounds, at the cost of shareholder profit, while they themselves suffer no ill consequence (since they get paid a salary regardless).
I disagree - there are certainly things which would justifiably get shut down and cause them to not have an employee base if they went through with it. They are just so unnormalized that it is not only implicit but they don't even have names for it. It is perfectly legitimate that the untoward would face demands because it isn't what they signed up for. There are all sorts of depraved things which could be done for profit which anyone remotely moral and reasonable would nope out of - often because it is already stupidly illegal. In a healthy system this aspect goes unnoticed because nobody even tries for it because it would be foregone disaster in the same way attempting a coup in a healthy democracy would just end with the instigator in jail very quickly.
The alternative logical result of the logic would be that when every cannery workers quits when the management decides to sell canned human flesh would hold the workers at fault and not the depraved cannibal manager. An extreme example but it demonstrates that the principle would have its limits.
The reverse principle doesn't hold entirely either. Sailors thinking they signed up for timber shipping and finding they would be engaged in privateering with a letter of marquee or transporting slaves would be very within their rights to demand sticking to the enterprise. However objecting to hauling finished lumber instead of timber would be unreasonable of the workers unless there was say a safety issue from load distribution and vessel design.
Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Google also has a clause in their employment agreement that says you agree to them putting surveillance software on your devices, company supplied and personal, as a condition of your employment. How would Google even know about your personal devices? That seems to only make sense if you intend to use your personal device for work.
The Google policy probably applies to personal devices used in BYOD work settings. Lots of people at tech companies use personal devices for work. This includes things like having your work calendar, email, or corporate applications on your personal phone. In my company's case there is some kind of enterprise iOS policy that gets installed as part of onboarding a device to access company systems. This has the ability…
> I use my personal phone for work because it's extremely handy to have work email and calendar on my phone, and I don't want to carry two phones.
I invite my personal calendar to any work events that I need to be aware of when I'm not at work.
Otherwise, when I leave the office, I leave work there too. I'm extremely fortunate to be able to do that.
It's tragic that my good fortune isn't an option for many.