5 ms·

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 f

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.

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.