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Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

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Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#91

Post by tomnipotent »

ExtremePopcorn wrote: post #58
dvt wrote: post #20

HR is not your friend and HR will never be your friend. In a post-2008 world, it baffles me that people still think that somewhere, deep-down, multi-billion dollar conglomerates have employees' best interests at heart. How quickly we forgot people losing their lifelong savings and entire pension funds going bust. Only to have the government bail out the exact same charlatans that dropped the ball in the first place.…

Don't be baffled! No one thinks this. Everyone has seen a variation of this comment a million times by now, and everyone knows it, but companies will never be able to admit it. It's all about putting stress on the lie. If a corp won't solve its issues and employees quit because of it, "well duh of course they're gonna protect stakeholders' interest" isn't really helpful or new.

> No one thinks this

History and experience tells me the exact opposite - most folks still think HR is there for them, which is the root of many issues.

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#92

Post by reccanti »

jm4 wrote: post #67
TallGuyShort wrote: post #3

I don't really know what anyone* can do to address some of these, as unacceptable as the occurrence of these stories are. Reading through the document (linked to by SolaceQuantum), there's one case where someone felt unprotected by HR because they asked HR not to investigate and HR did, and claimed to have fired the person for other HR problems. I'm not sure what HR should have done there. Are they supposed to not at…

That's a complaint from someone who doesn't understand the function of HR. HR isn't there to protect the employee. They are there to protect the company while giving the impression they are there for the employees. Sometimes that means they protect both at the same time. It always means they operate in the company's interests, sometimes to the detriment of an employee or employees. A lot of what I hear about google s…

> In normal companies, people get moved around, demoted or ignored all the time and they don’t always blame it on retaliation for political beliefs or for reporting abuse. They blame it on some asshole manager or decide the company isn’t for them and move on.

Even if what you’re describing is normal corporate behavior, it’s still not great. Maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to accept the idea of “asshole managers” or toxic corporate cultures, and we should be reporting on this sort of thing more? As a single individual, it’s difficult to change a culture that spans across different companies, and sometimes you’ll need to pick your battles, but I don’t think we should tear down people who are trying to change the status quo for the better. Google employees are in a good position to do this too, since their protests will draw more attention than from someone in a small, unknown company and can shed a light on these practices in other places as well.

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#93

Post by wolco »

drevil-v2 wrote: post #69
TallGuyShort wrote: post #3

I don't really know what anyone* can do to address some of these, as unacceptable as the occurrence of these stories are. Reading through the document (linked to by SolaceQuantum), there's one case where someone felt unprotected by HR because they asked HR not to investigate and HR did, and claimed to have fired the person for other HR problems. I'm not sure what HR should have done there. Are they supposed to not at…

> There are other stories where someone claims something that can't be proven and that was either not witnessed, or must have been denied by everyone. Yeah it sucks if everyone on your team is protecting a douche, but... is HR supposed to intervene and fire someone because only one person claims something happened? That's the gist of the #believeallwomen movement. No due process or innocent until proven guilty, just…

That's a lawsuit of a movement if it happens in the workplace.

What seemed like an enlightened powerpoint presentation that couldn't fail is turning against them. By activity seeking out these viewpoints google should have expected to make internal changes that promoted fairness over value. Google refuses to prioritize empowerment over functioning process and there is a mismatch between what they say and do.

Google can't have teams decide by a manager picking who they want because they may be biased. Culturally that's a big change.

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#94

Post by wolco »

User23 wrote: post #76
dvt wrote: post #20

HR is not your friend and HR will never be your friend. In a post-2008 world, it baffles me that people still think that somewhere, deep-down, multi-billion dollar conglomerates have employees' best interests at heart. How quickly we forgot people losing their lifelong savings and entire pension funds going bust. Only to have the government bail out the exact same charlatans that dropped the ball in the first place.…

HR as an organization is not your friend. However, the individual you encounter in HR may be more or less favorably inclined towards you. As an example, I suffered a serious health issue and it just so happened that the HR person assigned to my case had gone through the exact same thing. That person was extremely helpful advising me of my rights and how to exercise them. Organizations are prone to various pathologica…

One on one sure but in packs they will eat you alive.

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#95

Post by wolco »

hardlianotion wrote: post #71
Nasrudith wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That raises some interesting questions about dynamics and alternatives. HR is infamous for their primary role being liability prevention or more crudely stated ass-covering. Do you know of any alternative systems in place to resolve issues? Even if Google wanted to form some sort of employee handled board or arbitration to decide how to handle accusations they would still be liable. And that is ignoring messy office…

Possibly: recognise a union.

Honestly at the highest paid tech company in the world a union isn't the answer.

They need to hire people that fit their culture better or change their culture to match their people.

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#96

Post by wolco »

oliverx0 wrote: post #40
aaomidi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your manager thought you were overreacting, given whatever proof / accusations you provided. Just because he / she did not agree with it, does not mean they are evil. In a company the size of google, managers aren't the people that should have an opinion on this matter. What that manager said, assuming this document is valid, is absolutely terrible. Heck, if some manager in my hypothetical company told someone that…

Fair enough. Perhaps a process needs to be in place in which no matter what the accusation is, it needs to go through a proper HR process. Having said that, if a manager should have no opinion on a sexual harassment accusation, then the accuser should have gone directly to HR.

A manager can be in an advisor role with some employees. In a mentor relationship I think giving an opinion should allowed.

If a manager knows this person's goals and understands the harassment process and resources involved then they may suggest not reporting. Most of the time its to save themselves but this could be a wise strategy

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#97

Post by wolco »

a4e329e1270a wrote: post #75

This boycott and these comments are being orchestrated by [redacted]. [redacted] is a transexual activist, and an offender in sexual harassment themselves. I'm posting this on a throwaway for obvious reasons. I worked at Google from 2010-2014. Over the summer of 2012 or 2013, I joined an Eve Online "Corporation" (guild) with [redacted], and another one of my coworkers. It was a crazy place. [redacted] had a fanatical…

Sounds like you got out of an unhealthy situation all around.

When working at google take advantage of their tech stack and stay away from socializing.

Sex prefs shouldn't really be that important. So whatever you did/didn't do or why you wanted fong's approval in the first place shouldn't matter.

besides 2014 was 5 years ago and him

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#98

Post by AstralStorm »

tomnipotent wrote: post #90
dominotw wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you ever want to proceed with legal actions against the company then you have to put it into record somewhere which typically means reporting incidents to HR. This is not true. You don't have to record anything with HR for legal action. Its not a prerequisite by any means. Going to HR is always a wrong move. Get a lawyer.

> Going to HR is always a wrong move. Get a lawyer. This is horrible advice. Going to HR is about leaving a paper trail, which is very important. No judge or arbitrator is going to give two hoots about i-said/they-said without (dated) documentation to back it up.

HR is not obligated to keep any paper trail, but if you went there, they can be made to testify under oath.

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#99

Post by Mathnerd314 »

Back in 2007 Google was apparently a decent place to work, not much going on politically and mostly developer-led: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=75470. In 2009 it was about the same, but managers started complaining: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=552976. In 2010 a lot more managers were hired. In 2011 Google started killing products and developers lost a lot of credibility: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2557672. Managers suddenly gained the upper hand and started pushing revenue as the bottom line. The smarter or well-connected developers started leaving: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3700277. By 2013, 20% time was "dead": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6223466.

I didn't follow Google workplace standards much after that, but my general impression is it continued declining, more management pressure and relatively lower pay/benefits for new workers. Then we started getting leaks from inside Google in 2017 and life at Google has been "miserable" since then. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20684463)

The only obvious solution is to start firing people; Google has been in growth mode for a long time and managers perform their jobs a lot better when they're worried about themselves. This could happen naturally as a reaction to ad revenue flattening out or maybe Google will shift to a high-turnover culture like Amazon.

Re: Google Employees Explain How They Were Retaliated Against for Reporting Abuse

#100

Post by basq »

hardlianotion wrote: post #66
dlp211 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only there was some way that employees could create their own organization that can act as an alternative resources to the companies HR department that puts the employees interests ahead if the companies.

It was only last week on twitter I read a well known tweeter and company owner saying he didn't see the point of unions in software companies.

A company owner who doesn't see the points of unions... unsurprising.
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