5 ms·

Google sounds more and more like a boys club lately. I think some of the employees need to come back down to earth and realize that not everyone at Google is a

by adbge 16y ago

Google sounds more and more like a boys club lately. I think some of the employees need to come back down to earth and realize that not everyone at Google is a coding rockstar and there are people doing more important work than Google. Of course, I've never worked at Google, so maybe they all are coding rockstars and save the world on a daily basis. I find that thought a little unsettling though.

angelbob 16y ago
The "boys club" analogy doesn't end there. According to several of my female techy friends who have worked there, it's a pretty awful place to work if you're female, in terms of sexual discrimination. At least one of them experienced, consistently and repeatedly, behavior that she could easily have sued over despite multiple complaints to HR.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  One of the things I've learned is never report things like that to HR. Report them to the police. The job of HR is not to help you, the employee. It is to protect the company. The more credible your complaints to HR look, especially if there was some negligence in your management chain, the more they will try to damage your story or credibility. That's their job.
  - Jun8 16y ago
    That's awful! I hate HR, too, but to report what you perceive as harassment directly to the police seems so over the top as to be ridiculous.
    - hugh3 16y ago
      Unless it's actually, say, rape. In which case by all means bypass HR and go to the police. Though you should probably report it to HR as well.
  - dschobel 16y ago
    Helping the company and helping the harassed are not exclusive. If there is someone who is truly harassing employees, it behooves the company to get rid of them as quickly as possible because people like that are a tremendous liability. I know a number of people who work in employment law and I hear stories all of the time how getting accused of sexual harassment will get you rail-roaded out of any modern workplace. I'm sure there are some totally degenerate companies which will try to cover it up and discredit the accuser, but I can't imagine a place look google is one of them. Besides all of which, sexual harassment suits are civil suits so I'm not sure what you expect the police to do.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      "Helping the company and helping the harassed are not exclusive. If there is someone who is truly harassing employees, it behooves the company to get rid of them as quickly as possible because people like that are a tremendous liability." You would think, but reality is sometimes different. The problem is that these things are often he said/she said, and HR does not want to do anything that creates the appearance that one-side is telling the truth, because this opens them up. Or if there was negligence in the past, this makes them vulnerable to federal law. Or if they have a pending lawsuit. I'm not saying every company is out to screw you, but why take an unnecessary chance? And sexual harassments suits are civil suits (that's kind of a tautology), but sexual harassment itself can be criminal. This is a common incorrect belief you noted. It can even be a felony in some cases. This is why I suggest talking to the police (or an attorney) as you're not likely to know the law in your state (and there is also federal law on the books too). And why don't you imagine Google is the type to cover something like this up? Is it because of their motto? I don't have as much faith in multibillion dollar corporations as you do.
- hugh3 16y ago
  I'm not surprised. I can imagine that many of those engineers cooped up in the googleplex for the vast majority of their waking hours, not leaving for lunch, not leaving for dinner, might kinda start to forget how to interact with women altogether.
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    You do know that there are women engineers, right?
- Jun8 16y ago
  It's 20K people and you're hiring the geek squad, there's bound to be weird people. However, from what I've seen, they were very sensitive about this, especially the women/men employee ratio. I was told during a visit some years ago that this was about 40%. I found that incredible.
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    It's probably 40% overall, but that includes large concentrations of women in HR and sales. I've heard that engineering is about 10% female. They also tend to clump together on certain teams, for some reason: my first two teams (and second cubicle) were each about 40% female, then my last two teams have been 100% male, at least among the engineers.
martincmartin 16y ago
What are the great products to come out of Google? Search, of course. Google Maps, and with it, AJAX: pretty impressive. GMail too. But Google Earth was an acquisition. So was YouTube, despite the effort they put into Google Video. So was Google Docs word processor, although the spreadsheet was home grown. Google has, what, 20,000 engineers? That's a LOT of effort for what they have to show for it.
- cma 16y ago
  Another acquisition, but how about Android?
  - rayval 16y ago
    Android was also an acquisition.
    - cma 16y ago
      That's why I said "another acquisition". Android was presumably a less developed acquisition, and the team was significantly beefed up inside Google before producing any first results. Or is that way off?
- shalmanese 16y ago
  Google Maps was also an acquisition.
  - mikepurvis 16y ago
    It was acquired young, though, and has been completely rewritten at least once. And as of three years ago, none of the originals were still working on it. Lars went on to build Walkabout/Wave, and I'm not sure what happened to Jens. In any case, I consider Google Maps to be through and through a Google product.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    Does it matter if it was an acquisition? I assume they acquired most of the engineers with it, so it's a partial answer to "what the hell are all those engineers doing?"
e40 16y ago
How about a "young, unmarried, with no kids boys club"? I can't really see having a family being compatible with this.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  If you have a family, you simply don't stay for dinner. You work 9-5 and go home to your family at night. Oh, and take advantage of the awesome health plan ($0/month HMO, or something like $25/month PPO), long maternity/paternity leave (it's something like 6 weeks of paid paternity leave, and several months of maternity leave), flexibility to schedule your time so you can make it to all of your kid's events, free shuttle so you don't waste all your time commuting, job stability, and relatively generous salaries.
  - plinkplonk 16y ago
    "relatively generous salaries" This seems new. Last I checked, Google offered (relatively) low salaries.
    - starkfist 16y ago
      It pays pretty well for experienced people.
nostrademons 16y ago
"there are people doing more important work than Google." I think there are people doing more important work than Google, but I think that very few of them are in the computer industry. I have immense respect for teachers, doctors, nurses, tradespeople, babysitters, etc. But people in financial software, SEO, Web 2.0, defense software? You think that what they're doing is more important than search?

by adbge 16y ago

angelbob 16y ago

The "boys club" analogy doesn't end there. According to several of my female techy friends who have worked there, it's a pretty awful place to work if you're female, in terms of sexual discrimination. At least one of them experienced, consistently and repeatedly, behavior that she could easily have sued over despite multiple complaints to HR.

kenjackson 16y ago
One of the things I've learned is never report things like that to HR. Report them to the police. The job of HR is not to help you, the employee. It is to protect the company. The more credible your complaints to HR look, especially if there was some negligence in your management chain, the more they will try to damage your story or credibility. That's their job.
- Jun8 16y ago
  That's awful! I hate HR, too, but to report what you perceive as harassment directly to the police seems so over the top as to be ridiculous.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    Unless it's actually, say, rape. In which case by all means bypass HR and go to the police. Though you should probably report it to HR as well.
- dschobel 16y ago
  Helping the company and helping the harassed are not exclusive. If there is someone who is truly harassing employees, it behooves the company to get rid of them as quickly as possible because people like that are a tremendous liability. I know a number of people who work in employment law and I hear stories all of the time how getting accused of sexual harassment will get you rail-roaded out of any modern workplace. I'm sure there are some totally degenerate companies which will try to cover it up and discredit the accuser, but I can't imagine a place look google is one of them. Besides all of which, sexual harassment suits are civil suits so I'm not sure what you expect the police to do.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    "Helping the company and helping the harassed are not exclusive. If there is someone who is truly harassing employees, it behooves the company to get rid of them as quickly as possible because people like that are a tremendous liability." You would think, but reality is sometimes different. The problem is that these things are often he said/she said, and HR does not want to do anything that creates the appearance that one-side is telling the truth, because this opens them up. Or if there was negligence in the past, this makes them vulnerable to federal law. Or if they have a pending lawsuit. I'm not saying every company is out to screw you, but why take an unnecessary chance? And sexual harassments suits are civil suits (that's kind of a tautology), but sexual harassment itself can be criminal. This is a common incorrect belief you noted. It can even be a felony in some cases. This is why I suggest talking to the police (or an attorney) as you're not likely to know the law in your state (and there is also federal law on the books too). And why don't you imagine Google is the type to cover something like this up? Is it because of their motto? I don't have as much faith in multibillion dollar corporations as you do.
hugh3 16y ago
I'm not surprised. I can imagine that many of those engineers cooped up in the googleplex for the vast majority of their waking hours, not leaving for lunch, not leaving for dinner, might kinda start to forget how to interact with women altogether.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  You do know that there are women engineers, right?
Jun8 16y ago
It's 20K people and you're hiring the geek squad, there's bound to be weird people. However, from what I've seen, they were very sensitive about this, especially the women/men employee ratio. I was told during a visit some years ago that this was about 40%. I found that incredible.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  It's probably 40% overall, but that includes large concentrations of women in HR and sales. I've heard that engineering is about 10% female. They also tend to clump together on certain teams, for some reason: my first two teams (and second cubicle) were each about 40% female, then my last two teams have been 100% male, at least among the engineers.

martincmartin 16y ago

What are the great products to come out of Google? Search, of course. Google Maps, and with it, AJAX: pretty impressive. GMail too. But Google Earth was an acquisition. So was YouTube, despite the effort they put into Google Video. So was Google Docs word processor, although the spreadsheet was home grown. Google has, what, 20,000 engineers? That's a LOT of effort for what they have to show for it.

cma 16y ago
Another acquisition, but how about Android?
- rayval 16y ago
  Android was also an acquisition.
  - cma 16y ago
    That's why I said "another acquisition". Android was presumably a less developed acquisition, and the team was significantly beefed up inside Google before producing any first results. Or is that way off?
shalmanese 16y ago
Google Maps was also an acquisition.
- mikepurvis 16y ago
  It was acquired young, though, and has been completely rewritten at least once. And as of three years ago, none of the originals were still working on it. Lars went on to build Walkabout/Wave, and I'm not sure what happened to Jens. In any case, I consider Google Maps to be through and through a Google product.
- hugh3 16y ago
  Does it matter if it was an acquisition? I assume they acquired most of the engineers with it, so it's a partial answer to "what the hell are all those engineers doing?"

e40 16y ago

How about a "young, unmarried, with no kids boys club"? I can't really see having a family being compatible with this.

nostrademons 16y ago
If you have a family, you simply don't stay for dinner. You work 9-5 and go home to your family at night. Oh, and take advantage of the awesome health plan ($0/month HMO, or something like $25/month PPO), long maternity/paternity leave (it's something like 6 weeks of paid paternity leave, and several months of maternity leave), flexibility to schedule your time so you can make it to all of your kid's events, free shuttle so you don't waste all your time commuting, job stability, and relatively generous salaries.
- plinkplonk 16y ago
  "relatively generous salaries" This seems new. Last I checked, Google offered (relatively) low salaries.
  - starkfist 16y ago
    It pays pretty well for experienced people.

nostrademons 16y ago

"there are people doing more important work than Google." I think there are people doing more important work than Google, but I think that very few of them are in the computer industry. I have immense respect for teachers, doctors, nurses, tradespeople, babysitters, etc. But people in financial software, SEO, Web 2.0, defense software? You think that what they're doing is more important than search?