5 ms·

No, it's not surprising at all. Every company has a preferred candidate in pretty much every election, at least the CEO and top leadership certainly does. What

by rsj_hn 8y ago

No, it's not surprising at all. Every company has a preferred candidate in pretty much every election, at least the CEO and top leadership certainly does. What is surprising is turning an all hands into a kind of mass grieving funeration for all of their 90K employees, replete with publicly weeping executives and the entire executive leadership being vocally outraged. Turning an all hands into a political event like this is both unprofessional and, frankly, creepy.

skybrian 8y ago
To add some context: remember that Google has employees who felt personally threatened by election results (immigrants and transgender employees). Nobody knew what Trump would do. The worst fears turned out to be overblown, but it was hard to make the case for not worrying at the time. Telling people they had nothing to worry about would have simply been offensive. There are few election results that employees would consider to be threatening like that. It was very much a special case.
- ctlby 8y ago
  It was trivial to make the case, and that people didn’t see this represents a massive epistomological failure. Perhaps it would have been offensive, but adults should not be indulged when they engage in hysteria.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    Eh. Maybe you could have used platitudes like "America has survived worse" and "most people in government will follow the law, even if he doesn't." But those aren't particularly comforting.
    - rsj_hn 8y ago
      I was around when Bush won re-election. After he lied us into war. I couldn't believe it. I was absolutely stunned, depressed, and horrified that something like that could happen. Yet not once did I expect my employer to "comfort" me. I mean, my God, that's not the job of an employer. Friends comfort you. Your employer is not your friend.
      - rphlx 8y ago
        Google appears to have a long history of infantilizing its workforce, partly - one hopes - as a sort of group-bonding in-joke, and partly - one suspects - as a darker psychological management strategy with objectives that are not always unambiguously in the infant's best interest.
- rsj_hn 8y ago
  There are people personally threatened in every presidential election, and most of those fears are overblown pretty much all the time. Lots of extremist views in this country and lots of people feeling threatened about pretty much everything. Should google have held the same weeping festival in case Hillary won, and someone was personally threatened that she would start a new war in Syria or lead to war in Russia? Which could lead to a nuclear war? Of course not. That would be as ridiculous as what happened now. You don't cater to those kinds of views in the workplace. The correct response is not to hold a company meeting about how threatened anyone feels in an election, but to talk about the new products being rolled out and what you expect from your employees in their business life. And there are lots of blogs and opportunities for Google employees to express their political views outside the company. No public weeping of executives is required.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    Oh come on, you're doing a terrible job of understanding how your political opponents think.
    - dang 8y ago
      Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN, and certainly not uncivil ones.
- monochromatic 8y ago
  > Telling people they had nothing to worry about would have simply been offensive. The truth is offensive to some people. Trump Derangement Syndrome was in full effect.
  - akhilcacharya 8y ago
    Considering he continues to have a severely underwater approval rating I’d wager it’s less derangement and more the majority view. If anything the “it’s all normal, everything is fine” folks whose reactions are more interesting here. It’s certainly not the consensus view.
    - swebs 8y ago
      His approval rating has been hovering around 45-50%. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/trump_approval_index_history http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trum...
      - akhilcacharya 8y ago
        That is the sole pollster that indicates this. The rest indicate low 40's to mid-high 30's. This is despite a growing economy. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
        monochromatic 8y ago
        And we still trust polls in a post-2016 world?
        akhilcacharya 8y ago
        ....yes
        monochromatic 8y ago
- aikinai 8y ago
  Seems everyone's down-voting you, but considering the huge number of immigrants and international employees at Google, it'd be crazy to expect a Trump win to be treated neutrally when the foundation of his platform was antagonism of immigrants and other countries. And it wasn't completely overblown, there were many Googlers trapped inside or outside the US immediately after Trump took power; one, for example, had no way for her parents to meet her newborn baby as they were all banned from travel. [0] [0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-google-employee-on-trump-order-its-turned-my-life-upside-down-1485665039 https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-google-employee-on-trump-or...
  - pen2l 8y ago
    I work in a research hospital, I went through a lot of similar meetings, and a lot of emails talking about where to get help if you're feeling down. I remember thinking hey this is a bit over-blown... but then I talked to this Iranian guy on my floor: he was extremely shocked and depressed. He had a situation on his hands -- he wanted his wife to come to America, but was afraid that wouldn't be possible and he was entertaining the idea of just quitting and returning to Iran. Surely at Google, where a lot of immigrants work, they went through similar experiences. So I totally am okay with what I see in the video -- I think it was the right move by GOOG executives to take that position, if only for the employees.
    - Domenic_S 8y ago
      What happened with your friend's wife? Did she come over?
      - theossuary 8y ago
        Considering Trump is still in power, and the travel ban is still in effect, I'd say that's a no. Americans have a short memory.
        Domenic_S 8y ago
        The ban has exceptions for, for ex. students; there are still ways.
akhilcacharya 8y ago
Imho it’s creepier to have a president-elect threaten to ban your employees from entering the country or threatens to lock up his opponent ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This bizarre external obsession with the internal cultures of basically just 2 tech companies is really weirding me out too. Reminds me of the campus reform folks handwringing about Ivy League admissions...perhaps there’s a pattern.
betterunix2 8y ago
Google employees are highly educated (disproportionate numbers of PhDs work there etc.), and highly educated people in America, on both the left and right, were mourning when Trump was elected. You do not have to be left leaning to think a President who does not read books, who admires dictators, who is surrounded by criminals, and whose campaign rhetoric involved the overt demonization of ethnic and religious minorities (and plenty of dog whistles too), might be a bad thing for this country. I would have voted Republican if the Democrat candidate had encouraged division in this country the way Trump did. I have intelligent Republican friends who voted for Hillary for the same reason; even my Christian Conservative father in law, who said Bush was not conservative enough, could not bring himself to vote for Trump (he only voted for congressional candidates in 2016). People across the political spectrum recognized the danger Trump poses from the moment he started talking about Mexican rapists. One problem with the "debate" on Trump is the effort by some to make this into just another political disagreement and to normalize Trump. It is not just politics and the all-hands meeting was not a "political event." People have every reason to be scared by what has been happening since Trump took office.

by rsj_hn 8y ago

skybrian 8y ago

To add some context: remember that Google has employees who felt personally threatened by election results (immigrants and transgender employees). Nobody knew what Trump would do. The worst fears turned out to be overblown, but it was hard to make the case for not worrying at the time. Telling people they had nothing to worry about would have simply been offensive. There are few election results that employees would consider to be threatening like that. It was very much a special case.

ctlby 8y ago
It was trivial to make the case, and that people didn’t see this represents a massive epistomological failure. Perhaps it would have been offensive, but adults should not be indulged when they engage in hysteria.
- skybrian 8y ago
  Eh. Maybe you could have used platitudes like "America has survived worse" and "most people in government will follow the law, even if he doesn't." But those aren't particularly comforting.
  - rsj_hn 8y ago
    I was around when Bush won re-election. After he lied us into war. I couldn't believe it. I was absolutely stunned, depressed, and horrified that something like that could happen. Yet not once did I expect my employer to "comfort" me. I mean, my God, that's not the job of an employer. Friends comfort you. Your employer is not your friend.
    - rphlx 8y ago
      Google appears to have a long history of infantilizing its workforce, partly - one hopes - as a sort of group-bonding in-joke, and partly - one suspects - as a darker psychological management strategy with objectives that are not always unambiguously in the infant's best interest.
rsj_hn 8y ago
There are people personally threatened in every presidential election, and most of those fears are overblown pretty much all the time. Lots of extremist views in this country and lots of people feeling threatened about pretty much everything. Should google have held the same weeping festival in case Hillary won, and someone was personally threatened that she would start a new war in Syria or lead to war in Russia? Which could lead to a nuclear war? Of course not. That would be as ridiculous as what happened now. You don't cater to those kinds of views in the workplace. The correct response is not to hold a company meeting about how threatened anyone feels in an election, but to talk about the new products being rolled out and what you expect from your employees in their business life. And there are lots of blogs and opportunities for Google employees to express their political views outside the company. No public weeping of executives is required.
- skybrian 8y ago
  Oh come on, you're doing a terrible job of understanding how your political opponents think.
  - dang 8y ago
    Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN, and certainly not uncivil ones.
monochromatic 8y ago
> Telling people they had nothing to worry about would have simply been offensive. The truth is offensive to some people. Trump Derangement Syndrome was in full effect.
- akhilcacharya 8y ago
  Considering he continues to have a severely underwater approval rating I’d wager it’s less derangement and more the majority view. If anything the “it’s all normal, everything is fine” folks whose reactions are more interesting here. It’s certainly not the consensus view.
  - swebs 8y ago
    His approval rating has been hovering around 45-50%. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/trump_approval_index_history http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trum...
    - akhilcacharya 8y ago
      That is the sole pollster that indicates this. The rest indicate low 40's to mid-high 30's. This is despite a growing economy. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
      - monochromatic 8y ago
        And we still trust polls in a post-2016 world?
        akhilcacharya 8y ago
        ....yes
        monochromatic 8y ago
aikinai 8y ago
Seems everyone's down-voting you, but considering the huge number of immigrants and international employees at Google, it'd be crazy to expect a Trump win to be treated neutrally when the foundation of his platform was antagonism of immigrants and other countries. And it wasn't completely overblown, there were many Googlers trapped inside or outside the US immediately after Trump took power; one, for example, had no way for her parents to meet her newborn baby as they were all banned from travel. [0] [0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-google-employee-on-trump-order-its-turned-my-life-upside-down-1485665039 https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-google-employee-on-trump-or...
- pen2l 8y ago
  I work in a research hospital, I went through a lot of similar meetings, and a lot of emails talking about where to get help if you're feeling down. I remember thinking hey this is a bit over-blown... but then I talked to this Iranian guy on my floor: he was extremely shocked and depressed. He had a situation on his hands -- he wanted his wife to come to America, but was afraid that wouldn't be possible and he was entertaining the idea of just quitting and returning to Iran. Surely at Google, where a lot of immigrants work, they went through similar experiences. So I totally am okay with what I see in the video -- I think it was the right move by GOOG executives to take that position, if only for the employees.
  - Domenic_S 8y ago
    What happened with your friend's wife? Did she come over?
    - theossuary 8y ago
      Considering Trump is still in power, and the travel ban is still in effect, I'd say that's a no. Americans have a short memory.
      - Domenic_S 8y ago
        The ban has exceptions for, for ex. students; there are still ways.

akhilcacharya 8y ago

Imho it’s creepier to have a president-elect threaten to ban your employees from entering the country or threatens to lock up his opponent ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This bizarre external obsession with the internal cultures of basically just 2 tech companies is really weirding me out too. Reminds me of the campus reform folks handwringing about Ivy League admissions...perhaps there’s a pattern.

betterunix2 8y ago

Google employees are highly educated (disproportionate numbers of PhDs work there etc.), and highly educated people in America, on both the left and right, were mourning when Trump was elected. You do not have to be left leaning to think a President who does not read books, who admires dictators, who is surrounded by criminals, and whose campaign rhetoric involved the overt demonization of ethnic and religious minorities (and plenty of dog whistles too), might be a bad thing for this country. I would have voted Republican if the Democrat candidate had encouraged division in this country the way Trump did. I have intelligent Republican friends who voted for Hillary for the same reason; even my Christian Conservative father in law, who said Bush was not conservative enough, could not bring himself to vote for Trump (he only voted for congressional candidates in 2016). People across the political spectrum recognized the danger Trump poses from the moment he started talking about Mexican rapists. One problem with the "debate" on Trump is the effort by some to make this into just another political disagreement and to normalize Trump. It is not just politics and the all-hands meeting was not a "political event." People have every reason to be scared by what has been happening since Trump took office.