4 ms·

Google employee collapsed on the job; coworkers say corp. culture is to blame

35 points by SeanBoocock 10y ago

mc32 10y ago
It looks like VB is taking one incident somewhere in Atwater/Merced and attributing it to work culture of the co at large. From my limited interaction with googlers as well as hearsay, it would rather seem very atypical of what goes on over there. For me most part they seem somewhat coddled rather than overworked. And then as if that unfounded generalization were not enough, they also sprinkled something about harassment and bro culture --which as far as I understand, google fights very hard against. I mean, it would seem the last big co one could accuse of sex harassment and bro culture would be google. Someone wanted to try to write something explosive where there isn't.
- sjg007 10y ago
  12 hour days in 100+ weather and you think they were coddled? The more disturbing parts are the political pieces. Because of this manager you've now lost a bunch of good people (and maybe a good team). And of any company google should be able to find a new job for a qualified person who requested a less demanding role due to a health issue. There should be HR and executive review of these actions.
  - mc32 10y ago
    I'm not saying this didn't happen and that that can't be overwork, but they are trying to paint it as a company culture issue, or at least an X issue --where this might have been one manager and one team. I think unless they have more evidence this is a very isolated incident. Google is not known as a company which works people to death, most of the accusations, even by VB is that people at Google have "first world" problems and overwork is the least of their issues. VB is peddling this as part of a larger "tech companies are bad and foster bad behavior in their ranks, to an extent it's noticeable and worse than industry in general" meme.
- Veratyr 10y ago
  The events the article described do appear unusual for Google, I hear mostly good things too but there have been quite a few reports of terrible working conditions in the "bets" that have some amount of autonomy. The main one that comes to mind is Nest, which was asked to work weekends: http://www.businessinsider.com/whats-going-on-at-nest-2016-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/whats-going-on-at-nest-2016-2 I feel like perhaps Google isn't as strict on their management as it is on its own. I'll also note that while I hear mostly good things about Google, they are mixed. It seems a bad manager can certainly make life pretty bad for engineers, despite the company as a whole being generally good.
walrus01 10y ago
If you have a sufficiently large number of employees (in the tens of thousands), basic laws of statistics say that eventually you will see nearly all of the types of medical emergencies that are experienced by people going about their ordinary day to day lives everywhere. Heart attacks, strokes, grand mal seizures, etc. It's unfortunate and sad but I don't think trying to equate "Google = Bad Thing that Stresses Employees Until they Break" is fair. In fact I bet if you had access to the aggregated private medical data of 10,000 google employees and compared it to 10,000 randomly chosen people from the population at large, the google people experience less medical emergencies. To put it crassly, because they have higher salaries and better access to preventative medical care than 10,000 randomly chosen American citizens from all socioeconomic classes.
- Para2016 10y ago
  Your last sentence isn't crass, you are right and there are plenty of public health studies to back you up. An unfortunate truth I suppose, but not insensitive.
- Veratyr 10y ago
  This is true but in this case the health issue doesn't appear to be an instance of something statistically normal just popping up for a work-unrelated reason. It seems very clear that the manager acting on Google's behalf directly impacted the health of the employee in a negative way by placing an unreasonable amount of stress on him and the employees around him, while ignoring their complaints. I suppose the question is whether the manager's behaviour is something permitted by Google as a company and the quotes from HR in the article imply that it is.

35 points by SeanBoocock 10y ago

mc32 10y ago

It looks like VB is taking one incident somewhere in Atwater/Merced and attributing it to work culture of the co at large. From my limited interaction with googlers as well as hearsay, it would rather seem very atypical of what goes on over there. For me most part they seem somewhat coddled rather than overworked. And then as if that unfounded generalization were not enough, they also sprinkled something about harassment and bro culture --which as far as I understand, google fights very hard against. I mean, it would seem the last big co one could accuse of sex harassment and bro culture would be google. Someone wanted to try to write something explosive where there isn't.

sjg007 10y ago
12 hour days in 100+ weather and you think they were coddled? The more disturbing parts are the political pieces. Because of this manager you've now lost a bunch of good people (and maybe a good team). And of any company google should be able to find a new job for a qualified person who requested a less demanding role due to a health issue. There should be HR and executive review of these actions.
- mc32 10y ago
  I'm not saying this didn't happen and that that can't be overwork, but they are trying to paint it as a company culture issue, or at least an X issue --where this might have been one manager and one team. I think unless they have more evidence this is a very isolated incident. Google is not known as a company which works people to death, most of the accusations, even by VB is that people at Google have "first world" problems and overwork is the least of their issues. VB is peddling this as part of a larger "tech companies are bad and foster bad behavior in their ranks, to an extent it's noticeable and worse than industry in general" meme.
Veratyr 10y ago
The events the article described do appear unusual for Google, I hear mostly good things too but there have been quite a few reports of terrible working conditions in the "bets" that have some amount of autonomy. The main one that comes to mind is Nest, which was asked to work weekends: http://www.businessinsider.com/whats-going-on-at-nest-2016-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/whats-going-on-at-nest-2016-2 I feel like perhaps Google isn't as strict on their management as it is on its own. I'll also note that while I hear mostly good things about Google, they are mixed. It seems a bad manager can certainly make life pretty bad for engineers, despite the company as a whole being generally good.

walrus01 10y ago

If you have a sufficiently large number of employees (in the tens of thousands), basic laws of statistics say that eventually you will see nearly all of the types of medical emergencies that are experienced by people going about their ordinary day to day lives everywhere. Heart attacks, strokes, grand mal seizures, etc. It's unfortunate and sad but I don't think trying to equate "Google = Bad Thing that Stresses Employees Until they Break" is fair. In fact I bet if you had access to the aggregated private medical data of 10,000 google employees and compared it to 10,000 randomly chosen people from the population at large, the google people experience less medical emergencies. To put it crassly, because they have higher salaries and better access to preventative medical care than 10,000 randomly chosen American citizens from all socioeconomic classes.

Para2016 10y ago
Your last sentence isn't crass, you are right and there are plenty of public health studies to back you up. An unfortunate truth I suppose, but not insensitive.
Veratyr 10y ago
This is true but in this case the health issue doesn't appear to be an instance of something statistically normal just popping up for a work-unrelated reason. It seems very clear that the manager acting on Google's behalf directly impacted the health of the employee in a negative way by placing an unreasonable amount of stress on him and the employees around him, while ignoring their complaints. I suppose the question is whether the manager's behaviour is something permitted by Google as a company and the quotes from HR in the article imply that it is.