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You let us know when somebody has the right to be sad or angry about loss, thanks
Googler... ex-Googler
571–580 of 1001 posts
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#572[deleted]
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
>What does this say about Google's commitment to developer excellence? Look inside the tensorflow code base for your answer. I had the Kafkaesque experience of reporting a bug, being told there is no bug by a help desk employee, while the bug was throwing up errors in the official docs. To top it off I got a message by one of the onshore team months later that they were going to solve it only for the person to be fir…
Hasn't Google given up on tensorflow for JAX now? It looks like tensorflow is going down the slow legacy/sunset trajectory at this point.
Have they given up on tensorflow.js for the browser as well? Is there any replacement?
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#574Sorry to hear. I have never worked for Google or any corporation of that scale but I got my fair share of a harsh layoff two years ago (at a reasonably small company). The company used to run a hybrid shift, with specific days for remote and onsite. We got a mail (from the higher ups) a day before saying no employee should show up at the office the next day, under the guise of a fumigation exercise. The next day shows up, I am in a meeting with my colleagues (a regular standup), a fraction of my teammates receive an email with an meeting invite link. We join the meeting, our mics and cameras were automatically turned off by the host/organizer, the CEO's face spotlit in the meeting, he then delivered the news in a very cold way, the meeting ended, we were logged out of all company accounts in the next 15 minutes, that was the last team meeting we had :)
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#575[flagged]
I’ve been seeing more of this classist rhetoric on HN and I honestly don’t get it. If you truly care about workers, focus your energy on the corporations and politicians that are producing the system you are unhappy with. Belittling other, higher paid workers doesn’t advance anyone’s cause.
And FWIW, the jobless rate in tech is higher than most blue collar jobs and the national average. This guy seems good, but he faces a worse landscape for finding new employment than your fictional Joe Everyman.
Losing a job is hard for everyone, regardless of the type of job it was. Jobs are where most of our social interactions happen, and where many people’s goals and aspirations are kept. Having that ripped away hurts, regardless of the salary the job paid. Hopefully he was good at managing his money (I’ve known high paid workers that weren’t) and will land on his feet, but you don’t know his circumstances and calling him names is just being a dick.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#576Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google is just really bad at this, but seems to think it's not bad at this. It's sad since there is no excuse for it - plenty of companies conduct regular layoffs and role eliminations in more compassionate ways, it would not take much to survey and learn from their practices. Hell, IBM was often more compassionate about layoffs than Google. Some of it they've tried to become more formal about in ways that actually m…
Google is bad at a lot of things but has a “we’re number one why try harder?” attitude. Or rather you can’t benchmark the performance of anyone there against industry peers because they are protected by a two-sided market. Bazel, Kubernetes and other startup killing tools are developed there because with monopoly services they can hire 3x the number of developers at 3x the rate of other firms and shackle them with to…
Funny how they're bad at this from start to end. Most of these comments talk about the "end" part, but don't forget: Google has a notoriously laggy hiring process with extreme delays and an unacceptably high level of silence on important issues from recruiters.
I have been ghosted so heavily from recruiters TWICE at Google when I was literally telling them "Hey I have offers from $x and $y and I need to decide in 2 weeks. Is there any chance I can get an offer from Google beforehand?" only to receive complete silence and had to go with a different offer. 1-2 months later, the recruiter gets back to me with an offer, I have to decline.
The most hilarious part about it: after I decline, I get interviewed by some team at G that tries to figure out why people declined. I guess they're expecting some teachable moment, some nuance and insight. My answer both times started with "lemme show you an email thread that is very one-sided..."
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#577Earlier quoted context omitted.
The big difference is liability exposure. If a current employee causes damage, that's one thing. But if a recently laid-off employee who retained full system access causes billions in losses, the CEO and board would face severe consequences legally and reputationally, since it would be perceived as an obvious security lapse.
This is a strange sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. Effectively, your argument says that if there is any step, whether wise or foolish, kind or cruel, that some take, all must take it or risk being found negligent. That's no way to run an (overly litigious) society.
I don't even agree with the self-proclaimed legal experts in the replies.
Employers generally assume liability for torts (civil liability arising from wrong-doings) vicariously. For example if an employee somehow puts rat poison into a customer's burger, the employer is automatically liable for that, because they are responsible for the employee's actions. (See eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicarious_liability )
But if on the other hand a recently laid-off ex-employee sneaks back to the restaurant and then adds rat poison to the burgers, the liability of the employer isn't automatic (you can claim they should have done better with their security etc., but it is probably a defense to say they did all reasonable steps to secure the facilities).
So yeah, I call bullshit. More likely is that the C-suite just cargo-culted some "layoff best practices" and it just became a thing you did without questioning.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#578[flagged]
The difficult irony here is that you think your attitude is progressive, but it is regressive because it makes solidarity (and therefore the benefits of solidarity: unions, worker power, compression of the income distribution) impossible.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#579I hate to say it...but this is how working for a company works. It's more prevalent at the largest ones and less so at the smallest ones, but it's just the norm.
In the US, it's at-will employment. You can leave, or be fired, at any time - for virtually any reason. (As long as it doesn't break discrimination laws) Investors only care about quarterly returns, and so you have to expect a publicly-traded company may let people go for that reason alone.
They're not your friends. They're not your family. You exchange hours of your life for money. That's all. It sucks, but that's just how it is. Google is no exception, it is one company like literally all others.
Re: Googler... ex-Googler
#580Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're not wrong but suffering isn't comparative. Because it's easier for someone to bounce back or have support in the transition doesn't mean it still doesn't suck.
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This would be a shocking opinion, if we weren't in unprecedented times.
I wish we had more empathy and be kinder to people going through rough times, regardless of their wealth or position, or the duopoly they work for even, but it's also hard to completely ignore when the effect and impact is so huge.
Now, if you it makes you physically ill, I also wish you either find help or can get out of the situation you're in. Sincerely.