One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions • Hacker News Board

Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions

#51

Post by thephyber » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 2:04 AM UTC

xhkkffbf wrote: post #3

I've liked many things about Google over the years and I still admire many parts of their stack. But this crazy internal political culture is bound to end in a big kaboom and it looks like this might be it. Evolution has created the rules that one doesn't mix politics with business. Google has skirted this rule for some time but now it's not going to be pretty.

> Evolution has created the rules that one doesn't mix politics with business.

I don't know anything about what's happening at Google, but this either involves some talented mental gymnastics or it's obviously false.

Places of business have politics. Always have, always will. Internal politics and very frequently most companies involve themselves in local/state/national/international politics.

  - Joining a chamber of commerce or a trade organization is participating in politics.
  - Having a PR campaign or a lobbyist which affects public attitudes or legislation is politics.
  - Sponsored an ice rink in the middle of small town Texas[1] (hint: it's a symbol that the company, even though it is based in South Korea, depends very much on the good will of jurors and judges in that smallish town).

What's happening at multiple tech giants is that traditionally the sway in company-politics remains within the board and a few key org units (PR, governmental outreach, legal, etc). The differentiators now are:

  - high quality talent is scarce (hence all of the famous Yahoo/Google/Facebook/etc perks for engineers),
  - the transparency of associations[2][3],
  - the political climate of associations (eg. [4][5]), and
  - boycotts (of many forms) can hurt the bottom dollar[6]. Sometimes it has the opposite effect[7].

Let's not pretend like Google is unique nor that businesses have a strict "Chinese Wall" between politics and business. As Mitt Romney said, "Businesses are people", and politics exists because people are people.

[1] https://ipcloseup.com/2015/02/25/for-samsung-charity-begins-...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/04/facebook-employees-reportedl...

[3] https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat...

[4] https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/14/us/harvard-professor-ron-sull...

[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2017/08/14/charl...

[6] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/insi...

[7] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/business/nike-reports-dou...

Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions

#52

Post by mason55 » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 2:04 AM UTC

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #22

seibelj wrote: post #11

How about everyone goes to work and does their job and goes home. You can believe X, I can believe Y, and both of us believe Z, but XYZ doesn’t have anything to do with doing our jobs so we shouldn’t let it prevent us from doing our jobs. Super cool that everyone likes their own things though, I support liking things unrelated to job, just weird that people demand that their job adheres to whatever weird thing they l…

I generally agree. Just like a cashier at Chick-fil-a doesn’t necessarily condone the company’s religious and political beliefs. From personal experience, I work for a big tech company which very publicly says it stands for certain things and the CEO recently has been going around saying a lot of political things. It’s unrelated to the job although it feels like an explicit part of the “company culture”. It doesn’t r…

FWIW this is why job mobility is super important. Both sides of the employee/employer relationship should be relatively unconstrained so that employees can "vote" against bad employer policies.

If your employer is out there making political statements or doing political things that you disagree with you should feel empowered to leave and find a new job. If you don't want employers making political statements or taking controversial political stances then vote for policies that encourage labor mobility so that the labor market can be free.

Unfortunately there are lots of policies and laws in place that prevent this kind of labor mobility and give the employer a huge amount of power.

Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions

#53

Post by driverdan » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 2:04 AM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #29

At our company if the HR goes through your social media, and finds any evidence you may be socially activist or virtue signaling or otherwise very loudly proclaiming your disapproval of something some entity is doing, you will not be hired. You will not even get a call back. You will be labeled as a potential troublemaker (not in the good way) and be placed on the blacklist.

Which company? Let us know so we can avoid it.

Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions

#54

Post by big_chungus » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 2:05 AM UTC

mason55 wrote: post #33

seibelj wrote: post #11

How about everyone goes to work and does their job and goes home. You can believe X, I can believe Y, and both of us believe Z, but XYZ doesn’t have anything to do with doing our jobs so we shouldn’t let it prevent us from doing our jobs. Super cool that everyone likes their own things though, I support liking things unrelated to job, just weird that people demand that their job adheres to whatever weird thing they l…

> You can believe X, I can believe Y, and both of us believe Z, but XYZ doesn’t have anything to do with doing our jobs so we shouldn’t let it prevent us from doing our jobs. It's easy to say this if your coworker likes football and you think sports are dumb. But what if your coworker likes attending KKK rallies and you're African-American? Or your co-worker is out there on the weekend holding signs that say "Death t…

Every company for which I have worked has a clause where it can dismiss any worker which poorly-represents the company. That would certainly qualify.

Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions

#55

Post by mason55 » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 2:07 AM UTC

big_chungus wrote: post #42

glitcher wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just weird that people demand that their job adheres to whatever weird thing they like What about "weird" things like not being comfortable with taking on a new project with the military that ultimately helps kill people, or amassing as much personal data on the entire population as the NSA? I mostly agree with your sentiment on the surface. Dont talk politics or religion at work, do your job, and things usually go…

If you're not comfortable doing that project, ask to be re-assigned; most good managers will make that accommodation for an excellent employee. If you're not comfortable working at a company that does that, don't work there. On the other hand, I have no issue working on a military project; your actions could cost me a job if the project gets cancelled. Don't force your views on others; let me keep showing up and doin…

> Don't force your views on others

Don't you think that civilians who die due to the military project think the same thing about the people who worked on it?

There's more to the world than you losing your job because people protested a military project. You participating in the project also has ramifications on other people's lives.

Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions

#56

Post by scarejunba » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 2:08 AM UTC

big_chungus wrote: post #42

glitcher wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> just weird that people demand that their job adheres to whatever weird thing they like What about "weird" things like not being comfortable with taking on a new project with the military that ultimately helps kill people, or amassing as much personal data on the entire population as the NSA? I mostly agree with your sentiment on the surface. Dont talk politics or religion at work, do your job, and things usually go…

If you're not comfortable doing that project, ask to be re-assigned; most good managers will make that accommodation for an excellent employee. If you're not comfortable working at a company that does that, don't work there. On the other hand, I have no issue working on a military project; your actions could cost me a job if the project gets cancelled. Don't force your views on others; let me keep showing up and doin…

Well, I find this completely unconvincing despite not being the sort of person who cares about the politics of my fellow committer (I'll accept a patch from Hitler). Why is this any more worthy of a view than "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".

In fact, to demonstrate with an extreme, if you go all the way to building gas Chambers (just as an illustration), I'm totally okay having you be unemployed because I have a personal ethical issue with this.

Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions

#57

Post by mason55 » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 2:09 AM UTC

big_chungus wrote: post #54

mason55 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can believe X, I can believe Y, and both of us believe Z, but XYZ doesn’t have anything to do with doing our jobs so we shouldn’t let it prevent us from doing our jobs. It's easy to say this if your coworker likes football and you think sports are dumb. But what if your coworker likes attending KKK rallies and you're African-American? Or your co-worker is out there on the weekend holding signs that say "Death t…

Every company for which I have worked has a clause where it can dismiss any worker which poorly-represents the company. That would certainly qualify.

I agree, the point is that it's not black and white. You can't just say "people should not bring their interests to work."

At the extreme end your "interests" might be "preservation of my basic human rights." But once we agree that that's a valid political stance to bring to the office then the discussion shifts from "don't bring politics to work" to "where is the line?" and it forces the conversation to become more nuanced.

Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions

#58

Post by spaceribs » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 2:09 AM UTC

cheeze wrote: post #38

spaceribs wrote: post #7

As an engineer, I revel in avoiding these monolithic supercorps. I don't know why anyone would want to work in centralizing innovation and creativity into the hands of a few greedy people.

Money, "Impact", resources. This is a very HN comment, but I'm not sure how you can't see why someone would want to work for bigcorp...

Money: Theres plenty of it elsewhere in our business, especially acting as a third party to these behemoths.

Impact: The company seems more interested in restricting our landscape rather than innovating on top of it, what makes you think it's a company that accepts disruption anymore?

Resources: All the resources in the world doesn't mean squat if you can't disrupt the existing system.

Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions

#59

Post by flukus » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 2:10 AM UTC

Pfhreak wrote: post #15

xhkkffbf wrote: post #3

I've liked many things about Google over the years and I still admire many parts of their stack. But this crazy internal political culture is bound to end in a big kaboom and it looks like this might be it. Evolution has created the rules that one doesn't mix politics with business. Google has skirted this rule for some time but now it's not going to be pretty.

> Evolution has created the rules that one doesn't mix politics with business. This works until you must, by necessity, either mix work and politics or suffer some indignity. Advocating for parental leave? Politics. Mothers rooms? Politics. Prayer rooms? Politics. Trans inclusive health care? Politics. Domestic partner benefits? Politics. Unfortunately, for many folks politics at work is a reality whether they want t…

> Advocating for parental leave? Politics. Mothers rooms? Politics. Prayer rooms? Politics. Trans inclusive health care? Politics. Domestic partner benefits? Politics.

Yep all politics. As political issues they should be dealt with in the political arena of whichever branch of government is responsible. If you strongly believe in these rights and priveleges you'd be spending your time advocating for universal access to them. Doing it on a per company basis is ineffective and selfish, there will always be a race to the bottom and it gives your competitors an advantage.

Re: One Google Staffer Fired, Two Others Put on Leave Amid Tensions

#60

Post by usr1106 » Wed, Nov 13, 2019, 2:13 AM UTC

robbya wrote: post #48

skissane wrote: post #28

> The documents concerned a mandatory tool that was recently installed on the Google Chrome browser on workers’ computers, the employees said. In October, some Google employees raised concerns that the Chrome extension was an internal surveillance tool designed to monitor their attempts to organize protests. It would automatically report staffers who create a calendar event with more than 10 rooms or 100 participants…

Installing an extension to monitor employee use of a company computer is legal and generally accepted behavior. If the Google calendar is for a personal gmail account, then accessing the calendar details server side is a huge privacy breach.

> Installing an extension to monitor employee use of a company computer is legal and generally accepted behavior.

Legal and generally accepted in US jurisdiction. In Germany that would require approval by employee representatives, unlikely to happen in any bigger company. In Finland a somewhat related and highly controversive law was introduced many years ago that it would be legal if registered with data protection authorities. Something like 3 companies registered in a decade. Maybe some did it without registering, but generally this is not deemed clearly acceptable practice.