71–80 of 156 posts
Google is guilty of a lot of things but this is a drive-by shakedown by predatory law firms.
Except people on Blind brag about doing this under the domains they control. I wouldn't interpret this as a top-level policy, just some individuals in some hiring and pay/leveling decisions with little accountability. This does mean they represent Google though, and one remedy for that is a settlement by the corporate entity. Ideally shareholders would become interested in rooting this out and creating better, less e…
Google is guilty of a lot of things but this is a drive-by shakedown by predatory law firms.
The people who are running the diversity stuff at Google when I was there were very "Eye-for-an-eye". Some dumb stuff that happened while I was at Google: * There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me. * During an onboarding learning exercise because I was merely showing initiative before the rest of the group. "Ok everyone here's my idea".…
Imagine moving to say, Switzerland, to work for a massive corporation. 90% of the employees are Swiss. The other 10% come from a smattering of other countries from around the world. To help those employees acclimate to a new culture and find support, the company sponsors country-based ERGs.
Of course, there is no Swiss ERG, as it's the "default", because the entire company is essentially a Swiss ERG. But, the company encourages its Swiss employees to join the others as a show of support and cultural exchange.
If you had attended one of those groups, you might have found yourself feeling extraordinarily welcome, and even learned a few things about your fellow employees.
>A few of these people were totally inept technically at their job and I saw them convert into better jobs. It must have been nice.
If "totally inept" people are being promoted with any frequency, then that's a problem for any company. I think we have all seen this occasionally but, in my experience, it has very little to do with race (or other identity) and more to do with the Peter Principle and the fact that hiring and HR management is notoriously hard to get right.
I'm not suggesting anything about the earnestness of your observations, but you should be aware that assuming every non-white person you see at a company is the beneficiary of preferential treatment is a bit of a canard. And the idea that a disproportionate number of those are inept is yet another.
As such, whimsical people might draw rather nasty conclusions from your statements, that are other than what you intended.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The people who are running the diversity stuff at Google when I was there were very "Eye-for-an-eye". Some dumb stuff that happened while I was at Google: * There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me. * During an onboarding learning exercise because I was merely showing initiative before the rest of the group. "Ok everyone here's my idea".…
> There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me. Imagine moving to say, Switzerland, to work for a massive corporation. 90% of the employees are Swiss. The other 10% come from a smattering of other countries from around the world. To help those employees acclimate to a new culture and find support, the company sponsors country-based ERGs. Of c…
OTOH, for the same reason, skin-color-based groups don't really make sense to begin with.
Google is guilty of a lot of things but this is a drive-by shakedown by predatory law firms.
The people who are running the diversity stuff at Google when I was there were very "Eye-for-an-eye". Some dumb stuff that happened while I was at Google: * There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me. * During an onboarding learning exercise because I was merely showing initiative before the rest of the group. "Ok everyone here's my idea".…
> There was a ERG for literally every single race except White people. "Just join one of the others" was what they told me.
What would an ERG for white people even do? What would you want from it?
> Nonwhite employees in my org also got a special mentor who helped them get a leg-up in the company.
There are general mentorship programs, too. Usually focused on career development. I was a part of the main one.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. You can't just simply assume that job performance is statistically independent of various seemingly unrelated traits. If you suspect age discrimination, you also can't just assume that age is uncorrelated with performance. Or being short sighted, or even things like weight or height. They may be uncorrelated, or they may be correlated.
Fun fact: You can almost always score at least $10-20k if you're fired from a job if you try hard enough. I've been on the employer side of this... you fire someone who's performing badly, and then they come back 4 months later and sue the company for [insert made up thing here]. In our case, an ex-employee is suing us for not accommodating an anxiety and migraine disability, which they never disclosed and never requ…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would group averages be helpful when making staffing decisions about individuals?
That's obvious, no? If group X on average performs better than group Y, then objective hiring will lead to more group X bring hired. Then group Y takes you to court for discrimination.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. You can't just simply assume that job performance is statistically independent of various seemingly unrelated traits. If you suspect age discrimination, you also can't just assume that age is uncorrelated with performance. Or being short sighted, or even things like weight or height. They may be uncorrelated, or they may be correlated.
Fun fact: You can almost always score at least $10-20k if you're fired from a job if you try hard enough. I've been on the employer side of this... you fire someone who's performing badly, and then they come back 4 months later and sue the company for [insert made up thing here]. In our case, an ex-employee is suing us for not accommodating an anxiety and migraine disability, which they never disclosed and never requ…