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As a former Googler, the way the company ended holiday gifts was irritating just because of the pretense. Leadership spun it as "we're redirecting the funds int
by dlubarov 8y ago
As a former Googler, the way the company ended holiday gifts was irritating just because of the pretense. Leadership spun it as "we're redirecting the funds into Chromebook donations". As if money wasn't fungible, and the decision to donate Chromebooks was somehow intertwined with the decision to end the holiday gift.
- ocdtrekkie 8y agoThe idea that they call distributing hardware that locks people to their ecosystems is a "donation" is also comical. Giving a school a bunch of Chromebooks is a way to expand your services business, not an act of generosity. It's like giving away a free printer: The money is in the ink.
- cmrdporcupine 8y agoYep most of us would have just been fine with them just saying "you're all paid well enough, the company is too big, we're stopping the holiday gift". Instead it was a long slow process of "pick your charity from the list" w/ a song and dance around it.
- UncleMeat 8y agoGiven the nearly continuous stream of internal shitshows getting leaked to the press by unhappy people, I'm pretty confident that the response wouldn't have been positive if they had said this.
- ehsankia 8y agoI thought they made it pretty clear that the logistics for distributing actual gifts at Google's growing scale was just not worth it anymore. It probably cost more in time and resources than the gift themselves were worth, let alone the extra tax offset they had to pay on it. I'm not sure why you were lead to believe the Chromebook solution was a "spin". I do agree that giving you a choice of charity though is much better, but I assume they couldn't have pulled it off on short notice.