4 ms·

It was a bit of a Jerry Maguire moment even if you agree with some of it. At work you should be professional and not only work to make yourself and the company

It was a bit of a Jerry Maguire moment even if you agree with some of it. At work you should be professional and not only work to make yourself and the company/product better, but the people around you better. It is mostly not healthy to get political or ideological at work unless you want to divide people. A company and employees really shouldn't get political if at all possible, to prevent a divided customer base. You should treat everyone at work like a client and not go all tribal or into cliques that end up in groups that are constantly complaining. If you don't like something you can work to change it but in a company the size of Google that is not always possible. If you don't like the ideology of a company then leave. Do a good job yourself, setup your own thing if you want to control everything, but don't bring down other individuals, encourage them and make them better, create respect internally. Don't rock the boat, try to guide it, if you can't, hop on a new ship. In the end we live in a free country but work for companies that are more dictatorial/authoritarian where we are just sharecroppers on their feudal land. Companies are not democracies unless they are really small and even then they are not. Sometimes manifestos are needed [1] but for the most part it is like calling out an employer. Not only will it probably not change the company, it will follow you around for better or worse. Oh, there’s one final lesson: you never know when something you write is going to unexpectedly be published in the Wall Street Journal. So watch those split infinitives. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/what-i-got-wrong-in-the-peanut-butter-manifesto-2013-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/what-i-got-wrong-in-the-peanu...

peak_body_yo 9y ago
> A company and employees really shouldn't get political if at all possible, to prevent a divided customer base. The company and its employees have very publicly political. This is the trend for most of the big tech companies. I wish they were much less political and the companies chose more moderate viewpoints.
- tanilama 9y ago
  This is actually a good point though. The companies, should stay as much as to the political center, and it is wise to do so. Google, unfortunately, built its early image as a company with moral, where it nows turns into a burden rather than a legacy.
moduspol 9y ago
I guess the opposing argument would be that the existing policy got there politically, and the only way to oppose it (even with data and sources) will make people uncomfortable. Writing the same manifesto in support of the existing policy would not have rocked the boat. I agree a manifesto likely isn't the best idea, but you also can't just say informally, "maybe there are biological differences that affect representation at a high level." When you just say that, people assume it's a dog whistle. You have to support it, and you have to make a case for what you're proposing. You also have to state in black and white that sexism still exists, and that you're suggesting there could be other causes, too. By that point, it becomes a manifesto. To me it ultimately comes down to the context of where it was shared internally and how, but it's tough to find details there.

peak_body_yo 9y ago

> A company and employees really shouldn't get political if at all possible, to prevent a divided customer base. The company and its employees have very publicly political. This is the trend for most of the big tech companies. I wish they were much less political and the companies chose more moderate viewpoints.

tanilama 9y ago
This is actually a good point though. The companies, should stay as much as to the political center, and it is wise to do so. Google, unfortunately, built its early image as a company with moral, where it nows turns into a burden rather than a legacy.

moduspol 9y ago

I guess the opposing argument would be that the existing policy got there politically, and the only way to oppose it (even with data and sources) will make people uncomfortable. Writing the same manifesto in support of the existing policy would not have rocked the boat. I agree a manifesto likely isn't the best idea, but you also can't just say informally, "maybe there are biological differences that affect representation at a high level." When you just say that, people assume it's a dog whistle. You have to support it, and you have to make a case for what you're proposing. You also have to state in black and white that sexism still exists, and that you're suggesting there could be other causes, too. By that point, it becomes a manifesto. To me it ultimately comes down to the context of where it was shared internally and how, but it's tough to find details there.