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Culture Change at Google

social.clawhammer.net

311–320 of 520 posts

Re: Culture Change at Google

#311

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The mistake Google has done here is that it deploys and launches and uses to garner attention projects under it's name. There is little to no, this is an experimental project by x team. It is this is a Google product. If everything is a product and you don't support most or expect most to die, then you damage the collective product that is the Google brand. And as a result how your employees feel and are treated abou…

They do that, this is what their various Labs and subsidiaries and internal accelerators are there for. The issue is that people figure out it's associated with Google and then expect it to be maintained as such.

I do wonder how people figured out that Google was associated with Google+, Google Inbox, Google Reader, Google Talk, Google Video, Google Wave, ...

(I'm just kidding; I don't actually hold a grudge against Google for terminating projects. Although I do miss Inbox. And it does looks like Google Labs was killed too?)

Re: Culture Change at Google

#312
post #233
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because not everyone who raises a child is their actual parent. See also the need for terms like “caretaker”, and “legal guardian”.

Language should be adequate to the context of a conversation. If you were writing a legal document, or some policy for a kindergarten it might make sense to make that distinction, but this is a public forum with many non-native speakers. Parents is a concept pretty much all of us are familiar with and if you say parents we'll understand you mean people using the service because they care for young kids.

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Re: Culture Change at Google

#313
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because not everyone who raises a child is their actual parent. See also the need for terms like “caretaker”, and “legal guardian”.

I consider anyone raising a child as their parents, I honestly could care less who's physical bodies were involved. It's interesting to me that anyone raising a child wouldn't want to be considered a parent. Is the use of this term by request of people actually in this position, or wasn't created by third parties in an assumption that we shouldn't call them parents? Caretaker and legal guardian have different and mor…

> I consider anyone raising a child as their parents

As do I. Parents are the ones doing parenting. Whether or not they are the biological parents isn't relevant to that.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#314
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we have to change our language (and behaviour) for the edge cases? Is a grandparent who raises their grandchildren offended by the word parent? I doubt it. What’s the point?

The only people experiencing offense here seem to be the ones who don't like the term child raiser for some reason.

That’s a poor attempt at gaslighting.

Nobody is offended. It’s just silly.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#315
post #134
post #48

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I wonder if there's a way to prevent the growth at all costs that is demanded by the financial markets. Maybe become profitable and pay off the VCs then don't go public? Then you can resist the pressure for growth quarter by quarter, and remain the 'right size' that your internal culture demands. Did Valve corporation do something like that?

> I wonder if there's a way to prevent the growth at all costs that is demanded by the financial markets. Google (and Facebook etc) are controlled by their founders (some even as majority shareholders). There's no blaming financial markets here. Facebook was even happy to set fire to a giant pile of cash in pursuit of the 'metaverse', a project that approximately no investors wanted, but that was dear to the heart of…

Their employees and executives make the majority of their income from RSUs. You can't exactly run a company if your entire workforce gets a huge pay cut each year from a poorly performing stock.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider anyone raising a child as their parents, I honestly could care less who's physical bodies were involved. It's interesting to me that anyone raising a child wouldn't want to be considered a parent. Is the use of this term by request of people actually in this position, or wasn't created by third parties in an assumption that we shouldn't call them parents? Caretaker and legal guardian have different and mor…

The first coworker who comes to mind for me is a guy I worked with whose sister and brother-in-law died in a car accident. As next of kin, he took the kids and eventually adopted them, but as far as I'm aware, at no point did he ever call himself their parent and I think that would have seemed oddly distasteful to do so. Uncle still works even when you're raising them.

Yep I can definitely see that, I could see myself making the same decision in that situation. I would probably reach for uncle, caretaker, or guardian. I'm still lost as to when "child-raiser" would ever be needed though, and personally feel like avoiding saying parent would be more offensive to more people than the other way around.

I.e. I could see your coworker correcting someone and saying they aren't the father or parent with little or no offense taken. Though I could see referring to someone with adopted children as "child-raiser" as being really offensive to the person, as though I effectively took away the term "parent" and everything that goes along with it.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#317

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I know plenty of people raised by grandparents. So alternatives are appropriate. I’d personally stick with the common “caretaker” or “guardians” though. “Child-raisers” really comes across as just wanting to say something different.

I agree. "Child-raiser" strikes me as being demeaning/dismissive. If the author wanted to avoid saying "parent", then the well-established alternatives that you cite are strongly preferable for that reason.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#318
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language should be adequate to the context of a conversation. If you were writing a legal document, or some policy for a kindergarten it might make sense to make that distinction, but this is a public forum with many non-native speakers. Parents is a concept pretty much all of us are familiar with and if you say parents we'll understand you mean people using the service because they care for young kids.

IMO I felt that battle was lost couple of years back when my wife was pregnant with our youngest. We were looking for CDC guidelines on covid booster for expectant mothers. The website mentions "pregnant people". That's when I felt discourse is evolving to cater to the edge cases. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommend...

I don't think 'people' is really an edge case.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#319

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Youtube failed to become something big? I think you've lost yourself in your argument a bit.

It's not that it's not big. It's that it's not as big as it could be. It's not gmail-big or maps-big, at least for me. It is outclassed by many other, in their respective niches (video streaming, music, and social networking), and despite the huge efforts, Google never managed to turn it into a subscription-based service. It's not that it's not big, it's that it is not on the same level than maps or gmail, IMO.

Atleast according to average daily watch time reported in 2019, Netflix was at 164 million hours and YouTube was at 1 billion. I doubt that ratio has changed much since then

Re: Culture Change at Google

#320
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language should be adequate to the context of a conversation. If you were writing a legal document, or some policy for a kindergarten it might make sense to make that distinction, but this is a public forum with many non-native speakers. Parents is a concept pretty much all of us are familiar with and if you say parents we'll understand you mean people using the service because they care for young kids.

IMO I felt that battle was lost couple of years back when my wife was pregnant with our youngest. We were looking for CDC guidelines on covid booster for expectant mothers. The website mentions "pregnant people". That's when I felt discourse is evolving to cater to the edge cases. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommend...

What an absurd complaint. "Expectant mothers" is much less direct and more euphemistic than "pregnant people".

That's not catering to edge cases; it's just clear, easy to understand communication.

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