27 ms·

Google Employee Writes Memo About ‘The Burden of Being Black at Google’

• nmc 7y ago
  The Memo [PDF] itself: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6278613/The-Weight-of-Silence-Reflecting-on-D-I-at-Google.pdf https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6278613/The-Weigh...
  • jaclaz 7y ago
    Thanks for the link. However I fail to understand two of the three points made: 1) Ok, fine 2) I cannot visualize how VR can help in "diversity training" 3) I am failing to see how/why Google should be involved in the issue, I mean, what about the mental health of all the other people (part of "overrepresented" and "fairlyrepresented" besides "underrepresented" groups) working for google and all the ones not working for Google? They are all exposed to the same news. And is it actually the news causing this influence on mental health (as opposed to the way the news are reported or - sadly - to the terrible things that happen in the world)?
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • elliekelly 7y ago
      > 2) I cannot visualize how VR can help in "diversity training" Empathy. Most people are selfish and it can be difficult for us to care about an issue that hasn't impacted us directly. VR could give people the opportunity to experience what it's like to be someone totally different and "walk a mile in their shoes."
      • jaclaz 7y ago
        Yes about "walk a mile in their shoes" but I thought that the VR technology allows to see/experience something "different", i.e. project yourself, as you are, in an environment to which you wouldn't otherwise have access, but it doesn't change "you" (which should be actually the objective). Let's take as a counter example a hypothetical (very realistic and VR as much as you want) shoot-em-all game, you may well play it at length and become (inside the game) the toughest soldier/killer in the world, but it is not like (mostly) you then go out and start shooting everyone. But even if there wasn't this (hopefully) separation between "real" reality and the "virtual" one, I have difficulties in visualizing a "story board" of a virtual experience that could actually increase empathy towards a minority if you don't already have it, and that can do it more effectively than traditional education/culture (lessons, meetings, books, movies, etc.)
        • elliekelly 7y ago
          > I thought that the VR technology allows to see/experience something "different", i.e. project yourself, as you are, in an environment to which you wouldn't otherwise have access, but it doesn't change "you" Yes, I think that's exactly why VR would help with diversity training. A lot of implicit bias comes from superficial differences in a person's outward physical appearance. Age, skin color, gender, even height and weight. VR could allow "you" (same skills, same knowledge, same capabilities) to experience the frustration of knowing that you're more than capable yet held back by something as silly as your avatars "skin." > But even if there wasn't this (hopefully) separation between "real" reality and the "virtual" one, I have difficulties in visualizing a "story board" of a virtual experience that could actually increase empathy towards a minority if you don't already have it I can. A VR room escape game would be a good opportunity. You would be assigned to complete ten room escape "levels" of approximately equal difficulty with a team of four other participants. It would be a new team for each level so at the end of the training you'd have worked on ten different "rooms" with 40 different people. At the beginning of the session you would be assigned one of a handful of generic avatars - whichever one most closely resembles your gender & skin color. You'd play as this avatar and your teammates will see and interact with your avatar. At the end of each task you would quickly rate the group as a whole, rate your own performance within that group, and individually rate each of the other people on your team. I'm imagining five minutes to quickly respond to scale of 1-5 type metrics along the lines of technical skill, interpersonal skill, leadership skill, etc. as well as another few minutes to journal personal reflections - Did you enjoy working with that group? Did you feel like your team listened to your ideas? Valued your input? Do you feel accomplished? Frustrated? But, unbeknownst to you, your teammates will only see "your" avatar for half of the tasks. For the other half, they'll be shown a slightly different avatar. For example, if you're a white woman your avatar might appear as a black woman for five of the tasks. And you won't actually work with 40 different people, you'll work with the same four. At the end of the session you'd see how your teammates rated your abilities for each level and how the ratings differed based on which of the two avatars they were shown. You'd also see how your ratings of your teammates differed based on the avatar you saw. We all like to think we're immune to bias. We're not racist or sexist. We don't discriminate. And we all like to think people will judge us on our abilities. That it doesn't matter what we look like because we're smart and capable and of course people will be able to recognize that. But I think it would be eye-opening for people to experience the impact of unconscious bias from both sides at once. Because whether we're willing to admit it or not, none of us are immune. But the more aware we are of our bias blindspots - and the consequences of those blindspots - the better equipped we'll be to recognize them (in our own actions and the actions of others) and react to them accordingly.
    • dar7 7y ago
      Jordan Peele tier VR experiences I'm sure.
  • Rainymood 7y ago
    >I never told my team the truth of where I was going that night. And though I spent my night shouting protest chants, straining my voice until Garner’s final words, “I can’t breathe,” cracked against the throat, I returned to work the next day in silence. And after struggling to cope with the fear that my team might not accept me — the activist me and the black me — silence became my strategy for survival. So, crudely put, the author expected Google and his teammates to read his mind? And now he is punishing people's apparent lack of mind-reading skills by leaving Google. This is of course an incredibly crass way of putting it, but while I feel like the author is touching upon a real issue I think he handled it quite poorly as well.
    • Balgair 7y ago
      > This is of course an incredibly crass way of putting it... Aside: Perhaps then spend the extra time to find a better way to put it then? HN is an open board like many others, but one of the many reasons people come here is for the good community and commentary that is somewhat rare online. First to comment is not (generally) that big of a deal here, we all can wait for a measured response.
      • whamlastxmas 7y ago
        HN is a cesspool of bad opinions about anything political or social.
• JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  An important essay. My takeaway isn't that Google is awful. It seems Google is just like every other place, full of intolerant biased people. Which is a sadder conclusion really.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • rtpg 7y ago
    I think there’s an expectation that the community at google would be more open. It’s kind of like how that one Alexander Scott article, people of like minds tend to coalesce, leading to things like almost nobody on reddit being anti-abortion despite it being one of the most popular websites in the US. I’m sure a lot of us work in places where basically everyone is uncomfortable with police brutality. The fact that the Google team wasn’t (along with other points in the article) could lead to the hypothesis that Google in fact has a bit of a more conservative culture
  • malandrew 7y ago
    > is just like every other place, full of intolerant biased people because that's human nature and it shows itself more acutely at scale when not everyone can possibly be on the same page about things.
    • mikelyons 7y ago
      Collective ego is super fascinating when you're used to stepping back and seeing how pervasive it is in our lives. That requires the mental tools and a habit of picking it out though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDj6LBW55aU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDj6LBW55aU
  • gowld 7y ago
    By "full", do you mean "not empty"?
• whatshisface 7y ago
  Damore provided copious evidence that Google was hostile to his demographic, those sexual assault protests showed that it was hostile to women, this shows that it's hostile to minorities... It sounds like Google is a battlefield where everybody is getting shot by everyone else. At least it's not divided into perpetrators and victims along identity lines.
  • anarchy8 7y ago
    When your demographic is known to be hostile dicks to the other demographics you mentioned, it's understandable as to why he felt that way.
    • malvosenior 7y ago
      No demographic is known to be "hostile dicks" to another demographic. There are individuals of every demographic that cover the "dick spectrum" on any particular issue. Issuing blanket statements about everyone of a particular demographic is racist/sexist/ageist....
      • Miner49er 7y ago
        This is untrue. Looking at the history of America and understanding what race actually is shows that white people are definitely the "hostile dicks". And don't take this as me bashing individual white people, it's me bashing the entire idea of whiteness.
    • umvi 7y ago
      > When your demographic is known to be hostile dicks Pause on what you just wrote. Substituting "your demographic" with an explicit call out of a race or gender would be openly racist/sexist, would it not?
      • weberc2 7y ago
        Many would argue that it depends on the race/sex. They would also fail to grasp the irony of their argument.
• SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  The Vice article says that “he regularly encountered racism during his experience as a Black worker at the company”, but the memo seems to just contain proposed diversity action items and a story about how his coworkers didn’t care enough about Eric Garner. Is there something I missed?
  • Miner49er 7y ago
    Yes. His co-workers reaction to the protest and the fact that he heard other racist stuff during his time there.
    • SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
      Being annoyed by a protest on your commute isn’t racism. It’s certainly true that he could have heard other things which were racist and decided not to share any of them, but I don’t really know how to evaluate that. It’s not fair to demand ironclad proof from anyone sharing their personal experiences, but it’s also not fair to condemn Google based on a nonspecific claim with no details that racism happens there.
      • Miner49er 7y ago
        Yes it is. By complaining his co-worker was saying that her commute was more important then Garner's life and more important then fighting the problem of police brutality against black people. It was 100% racist and extremely selfish.
        • deleted 7y ago
          [deleted]
        • Aperocky 7y ago
          And there couldn't be anything more exaggerating than your comment here. If tomorrow a climate change protest (which I consider to be of greater importance, by the way) shuts down the whole city, knocking out roads and public transport and prevent me from going to work for a straight week I would be very annoyed. And it's not because my work for this week is greater than the climate change of Earth, it's because these two things are separate and not connected whatsoever. Say anything you want about a subject but never force that into other peoples life.
• malvosenior 7y ago
  > “I realized that my team simply did not have much to say on the issue of police brutality. This was odd—mostly because I’d watched them debate countless other topics, newsworthy and not, with a proud deftness and alacrity,” the memo reads. “From disappearing Malaysian airplanes to the spread of Ebola to the marriages and divorces of celebrities I’d never heard of, my teammates always had something to say about everything. But when it came to the violent policing of black bodies, they were silent.” I don't think it's reasonable to expect your co-workers to openly protest any issue. People have families to take care of, paychecks to earn and rent to pay. They for the most part, want to do their job with minimum of drama. I'm sure there are a million issues that the memo author was not openly protesting that other co-workers may have cared deeply about. I would hope they wouldn't hold that against the author. I'm not questioning whether this person experienced racism at Google, as that seems likely in an organization of that size. I just don't think it's ok to be upset about your co-workers not being openly vocal in the workplace about a political issue you feel strongly about. There seems to be a strong push to politicize silence that seems very unhealthy. You don't know how people feel and act outside of work and the public sphere. Silence on an issue is not a political statement.
  • Barrin92 7y ago
    >They for the most part, want to do their job with minimum of drama I think this here is the point where the author would disagree. Google employees and the staff at many larger tech companies produces their fair share of drama on virtually any political topic, and that's what makes this more off-putting. I'm not black but I come from a fairly poor background, and in the tech field obviously that is rather the exception than the norm and I've noticed a similar thing when it comes to class issues. You have people who start political mailing lists on gender pronouns and technicalities that nobody on the street has ever thought about, but then that same person talks about homeless people in front of the office with a sort of callousness and elitism that is pretty breathtaking. If we were just talking about your random corporate culture where everybody just sips their coffee and comments on nothing then in a way that'd make these things much less noticeable. But when you have workforces that are hyper-vigilant and politically correct show disregard on topics that touch a really wide population, like the African American community in the US in this case, that makes for a stark contrast.
• cj 7y ago
  > Over the last 5 years I’ve heard co-workers spew hateful words about immigrants, boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly imitate people who speak different languages, reject candidates of color without evidence because of ‘fit’ and so much more This sounds more like a description of (the sad reality of) American society than it does an anomaly unique to one company. When a company reaches Google-size, I imagine the challenges of insulating the company culture from the negative parts of broader society would become quite difficult. That's not to say that Google bears no responsibility for this. And it definitely tarnishes the overwhelmingly positive hollywood / silicon valley stereotype of Life As A Googler.
• par 7y ago
  Apropos of nothing, I actually find myself using DuckDuckGo and Firefox a lot more lately, over Chrome and gSearch. I also want to get to hosting my own email, and move off of Gmail. Not going to lie though, I really like the Gmail interface and would appreciate any good replacements.
  • ccffph 7y ago
    Fastmail is great. I switched to using my own domain and their service a couple months ago and couldn't be happier
  • malvosenior 7y ago
    I use Fastmail and while it's very different and not as "modern" as the Gmail interface, I did end up getting used to it and enjoy the straightforward control it offers. I've also switched to DDG as my main search engine but often find myself using `!g` as the results are quite as good in many cases. Still, it feels great to be escaping Google's stranglehold.
    • par 7y ago
      ahh !g, thanks for that reminder. I find that DDG isn't indexing Github Issues as well as I'd like, and for that I still found myself going back to G.
  • balaksakrionon 7y ago
    Just remember to avoid fastmail (due to the terrible Australian tech laws - essentially anyone can be coerced into installing backdoors / surveillance tech into any system and they're required to maintain secrecy). So add the avoidance of any Australian service to your matrix of considerations. It's very noble to switch away from google as much as possible; good luck
    • Fnoord 7y ago
      Wait, do you mean every piece of software coming from Australia? Andrew Tridgell is Australian. Would it therefore include Samba and Rsync? Does that mean Sublime Text could have a mandatory backdoor? Is there a list of software affected by this Australian law?
• cletus 7y ago
  One point: the memo mentions some person saying "these protests aren't going to solve anything" and goes on to say how they're just blocking people from getting home. I think it's inaccurate to attribute this to racism or lack of diversity. It's something far simpler. This person and many like them are just completely self-centered. You'll probably fine the disruption just affected their commute home. Nothing more, nothing less. Don't get me wrong: I'm not defending it. In my time at Google I lost count of the number of times that, say, some engineer 3 years out of college couldn't afford a 5 bedroom house in Palo Alto for them, their partner and their dog and how they were underpaid and this was unfair and a problem (and I'm not exaggerating as much as you might think) while not thinking twice about the 2.5 hour commute of the workers who prepare the free food and drive the buses to and from SF. It's actually infuriating how much people can buy into these things as being "problems" while being completely oblivious to what's actually a problem right under their noses.
  • bluntfang 7y ago
    >This person and many like them are just completely self-centered. I would agree if this were a unique experience, but this is a mentality held by a large section of the population. It is systemic.
    • pjmorris 7y ago
      Is there a society in the world where self-centeredness is not common? What do you mean by systemic?
    • TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      It is systemic, and the promotion of identity activism at the expense of economic activism has done a lot to cause it. Realistically, "corporate diversity" usually means "we have diverse kinds of privileged middle class people in our offices." E.g. a female CEO is considered a necessary diversity win, but generally no one cares if the food servers and cleaners - most of whom usually happen to be female too - are treated with respect and decency. Does Google - or any other FANG - actively and practically support anti-poverty activism and awareness to anything like the same extent they support a relatively safe form of activism like LGBT pride?
• 40acres 7y ago
  There was a stretch from 2014-15 that made it really difficult to go to work on a day to day basis for me. There is something psychologically triggering about seeing people who look like you routinely killed by the state, regardless of the circumstances or politics. I began to feel some contempt for my white co-workers despite knowing that they had nothing to do it. I did not expect nor wanted to have a conversion with them about race and police brutality, and I don't know many of my black friends who would to be honest -- perhaps Google just has an argumentative culture.
  • umvi 7y ago
    > There is something psychologically triggering about seeing people who look like you routinely killed by the state, regardless of the circumstances or politics. Yes, the media indeed loves to intentionally psychologically trigger people. Police brutality happens to white people and latino people as well (at lower rates, but in greater numbers), but such stories wouldn't psychologically trigger/racially divide people and so they remain unpublished.
    • hnbroseph 7y ago
      > such stories wouldn't psychologically trigger/racially divide people and so being profit-seeking corporations, american news is pursuing eyeballs and clicks. truthiness, accuracy, bias, etc. are all variables in the profit equation, and not always a major influence. if idpol (or whatever) is stirring up the viewership, it will influence how they approach the "news", in different ways depending on who the producers view as their principle audience. inserting the whole "seeking to divide" as a concrete motive seems like a dogwhistle (particularly being a narrative beloved of antisemites).
    • ssully 7y ago
      It was literally a national story 2 or 3 weeks ago about a cop who suffocated and killed a white guy who called the cops on himself because he was off his medication, having a mental health episode, and needed help. Also we are currently at a point where you can find weekly stories about police abusing Latino people (typically in conjunction with ICE). No idea how you came to the conclusion that these stories are unpublished.
• malandrew 7y ago
  > But when it came to the violent policing of black bodies, they were silent. Because it's way too risky to have an opinion on that topic unless it precisely tows the woke party line. It's a minefield. You'd have to be stupid to touch that topic in the workplace in 2019.
  • tasubotadas 7y ago
    It's strange why are you downvoted because it's exactly this. Nobody wants to risk being misunderstood and the get fired because he phrased his opinion wrongly.
  • sdinsn 7y ago
    Exactly. Politics shouldn't be discussed in the workplace period; it's not productive.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• alfromspace 7y ago
  This is why diversity is our greatest weakness.
• thepaperone 7y ago
  Daily reminder that Google and other "progressive" companies are eating themselves alive.
  • malandrew 7y ago
    Which is why companies should start treating politics in the workplace as a liability. You can't have a workplace where someone "brings their whole self to work" at scale.
    • SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
      It is strange that when I was going up companies were about the product they make - not the perceived change they could be.
• jorblumesea 7y ago
  > “I realized that my team simply did not have much to say on the issue of police brutality. This was odd—mostly because I’d watched them debate countless other topics, newsworthy and not, with a proud deftness and alacrity,” I'm not surprised countless of other topics are far safer conversation topics. They are here to do a job and not get involved with politics and touching incendiary topics would be downright stupid. They certainly have an opinion in some way. But they're not stupid enough to share it. Why on earth would you ever expect your coworkers to talk about gun rights, abortion, police brutality etc over Malaysia 370 in an office environment?
• geckel 7y ago
  I think this article missed the mark by leaving out all context. They don't mention the black employees role. Some roles at Google are relatively more diverse. It would be interesting to hear if his peers were diverse but not opinionated, or perhaps they were opinionated but not as much as he was. Or if his peer were not diverse and not opinionated, etc. The article mentions a team but doesn't clarify if he was on a team or if it was a team of subordinates. If my boss was black and the topic of police brutality came up, I'd avoid saying anything as well. Lastly, "And though I eventually grew more comfortable using challenging moments to educate my co-workers..." comes across poorly. Depending on how I felt a coworker was consistently trying to "educate" me regarding social issues, I could see myself purposefully avoiding those topics around them and not engaging.
• keiferski 7y ago
  I can't help but feel like the continuing rise of situations like this will end up in a return to a professionalized work environment, one in which sociopolitical and personal opinions are kept to oneself and the focus is purely on the work. Most of these conflicts seem to arise because the line between personal and professional has been eroded almost entirely in contemporary American culture. While in theory an organization that can openly allow its employees to discuss and debate all of their strongly-held opinions, it seems to mostly result in chaos, even somewhere like Google which ostensibly employs some of the smartest people in the world. It would seem far more efficient for a firm to simply ban discussion of controversial and personal topics. Of course, this is entirely contrarian to the zeitgeist, in which local and familial social bonds have largely been replaced by co-workers and the idea of a "professional" as in "not personal" is perceived as an antiquated tradition.
  • core-questions 7y ago
    > a return to a professionalized work environment, one in which sociopolitical and personal opinions are kept to oneself and the focus is purely on the work. This (a) may or may not really have existed in the austere sense you're describing it, and (b) if it did exist, it existed in a world where people had much stronger community life than they do now. In a world where everyone is atomized, where nobody knows their neighbours, nobody attends church (and if they do, their neighbours don't, so it doesn't achieve the goal), and so forth... is it any wonder that people have turned to those who they spend 8 hours a day with for some sort of socialization? If we "return" to not discussing anything with our peers and just being professional robots, to avoid 'chaos', we'll have lost our last healthy outlet for this sort of thing. Expect more depression, more radicalization, etc. when the only people who provide you with what feels like genuine social expression are those you find online who agree with you already. > it seems to mostly result in chaos I attribute this far more towards the current climate of virtue signalling: being outraged or outraged-on-behalf-of-others brings you social rewards, stimulating the part of your brain that evolved to feel good when you are socially accepted. We're abusing our own chemical reward mechanisms in an unhealthy way; where in the past people used to have thicker skin and knew it was unacceptable to get outraged in a professional environment, now people see it as part of the package, and HR backs them up. You want a return to professionalism, let's fix that, rather than stripping work of its social components.
• DC-3 7y ago
  This feels like a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. Every day we get told that cis-het white guys should shut up and stop 'splaining oppression.
  • jayventura 7y ago
    Yes, cis-het white men do not have a seat at the table when discussing whether or not communities are oppressed. But they do have a seat at the table when discussing what they can do to help tear down structural inequalities. That's called being an ally.
    • rjsanders 7y ago
      Why should it matter who made an argument if it is evidence based and sound?
      • the_snooze 7y ago
        Credibility matters. If you have no credibility with your audience on the topic at hand, then your sound evidence will go unheard. It's not an issue of "should" it matter, but rather that it does matter. That's reality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethos#Rhetoric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethos#Rhetoric
        • manigandham 7y ago
          If your credibility is determined by your skin color, that says more about the audience.
          • the_snooze 7y ago
            Well yeah, it's the audience who gets to determine how credible you are, by whatever (arbitrary and/or misguided) standards they choose. As someone speaking to an audience, it's your responsibility to determine if it's worth your energy to engage with them. Sometimes it works out even in the most bizarre circumstances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daryl_Davis
• southphillyman 7y ago
  Google is only 2.5% black according to a quick search (and 3.5% Latino). That's all employees, not just developers. I'm not sure how that's even possible for a company of that size in America. AA may be underrepresented in tech overall but they certainly aren't in business, HR, legal, etc in my corporate experience so that number seems very low to me. I wonder if any analysis has been to done to determine if any biases or recruitment strageties resulted in those low numbers. To Google's credit they are developing various pipelines to recruit underrepresented communities.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • dragonwriter 7y ago
    > AA may be underrepresented in tech overall but they certainly aren't in business, HR, legal, Other than on admin support roles (and maybe even there), African-Americans are underrepresented in all of those fields. Less so than in tech, but still.
  • luckylion 7y ago
    HR, legal etc are often not employees at Google, but employees of other companies that work as contractors.
  • singron 7y ago
    Check out the diversity report: https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/diversity.google/en//static/pdf/Google_Diversity_annual_report_2018.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/diversity.google/... They show hiring and attrition numbers, but they don't break down every category by tech/non-tech. I'll highlight these: 2018 (Tech): 2.5% (1.4%) black 2014 (Tech): 1.9% (1.1%) black I guess there is some improvement here. For reference, California is ~6% black and the USA is ~12%. If you grew up in a black neighborhood or went to an HBCU, you are probably accustomed to much higher percentages than the average and being diffused into a huge organization might be jarring.
  • tathougies 7y ago
    I'm guessing it's because Latinos and blacks in general are underrepresented in the white collar labor pools that Google draws from. Most Google employees, if not developers, are still in white collar office-type professions. https://www.ibtimes.com/racism-us-job-market-blacks-hispanics-underrepresented-white-collar-jobs-tech-2518568 https://www.ibtimes.com/racism-us-job-market-blacks-hispanic... According to that study, black people make up 2-3% of the white collar workforce. This indicates that Google's diversity initiatives are broadly working, but Google alone cannot overcome the societal issues that keep various people out of these well paying career paths. Hispanics represent about 5% of the white collar workforce, so again, the 3.5% indicates that Google is not exactly where one would expect, but still not as off as a naive analysis would seem. The narrative that Google is not hiring people of certain skin colors because of racism on their part falls apart the moment you look at numbers over which Google has little control.
• zettatron 7y ago
  As a biracial and transgender individual working for a startup: I would prefer (and am appreciative of my company's ability to) not discussing these things at work to begin with. I can't imagine why on Earth anyone would want to bring such a personal topic into the workplace. As a matter of fact, it kind of disturbs the integrity of a professional environment to have these kinds of discussions during working hours anyway. For the record, I have never felt discriminated against or left-out, or anything other than being another member of my team in a meaningful way. I think focusing on these kinds of sensitivities can pull a sense of mistrust and underhandedness to the team. I'm not going to invalidate his feelings on the issue, because we are all allowed to feel how we feel; but I would caution anyone in engaging those feelings at work for the benefit of all parties involved.
  • bluntfang 7y ago
    right, just ignore your feelings. put your head down. do your work. nothing to see here.
    • dang 7y ago
      Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      • bluntfang 7y ago
        maybe an explanation of your opinion would help bring more substantive comments to hacker news?
        • dang 7y ago
          Alas it would bring more unsubstantive comments to Hacker News.
  • JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
    My company held an optional meeting / fireside chat to discuss being LGBT in the workplace, as part of the office's Pride celebration. Compared to my old company --which never even acknowledged Pride occurred-- it was kind of nice to have an hour to reflect on that. Otherwise, personal topics like this never come up. I think it's okay if it's a group of people who choose to opt-in for a discussion for 1 hour once a year. Then you're not "forcing" coworkers who don't want to be there to listen, or worry about sewing mistrust, as you have mentioned, which is a valid concern. You don't want people worried about preemptively stepping on your toes to the point where it could impact you professionally.
• 40acres 7y ago
  Really frustrating to see this flagged: either we don't trust the moderators to moderate or someone simply doesn't want to have this discussion. We're all (mostly) technologists here, diversity in tech and the issues surrounding it are not going to go away, as this post shows -- people ain't gonna talk about this in the office, the least HN can do is provide a forum for tech workers to discuss the issue with guardrails on decorum.
  • freehunter 7y ago
    Political topics on HN often get flagged because they tend to devolve into flamewars pretty quickly.
    • umvi 7y ago
      Also it's largely pointless. Unlike technology arguments, where you can easily convince me to try switching from Sublime to VSCode or to give Rust a try instead of C++, etc. political beliefs are much more entrenched. Each side has a very hard time understanding and empathizing with the viewpoint of the other side.
      • magduf 7y ago
        Exactly, it's a lot like religion, except that at least with politics you can at least attempt to bring facts and data into the discussion in an attempt to disprove the other side's points. But people still treat it like a religion so it generally just isn't productive to discuss it, unless you're among people who are generally like-minded, and you're only hashing out finer points (e.g., would policy A or policy B be more fruitful for reducing global warming? Rather than arguing over whether global warming is real or not).
  • mLuby 7y ago
    Even if this topic is worthy of discussion, the risk of damage to the community may be unacceptably high. >A strange game. The only way to win is not to play.
  • samfriedman 7y ago
• ilikehurdles 7y ago
  [flagged] because the socio-political perspectives of non-white engineers are not as valuable to share on HN as those of white engineers. The views of minorities are relentlessly supressed and attacked in the comments on this forum while others simultaneously criticize any piece that shines a light on this bias. While the discussion here was disappointingly predictable, I was still hoping it was discussion that could at least be attempted.
  • faramarz 7y ago
    yea, kinda of disappointing to see this get flagged. I already shared the Memo with my circle of friends. taking the discussion there.
    • jimbob45 7y ago
      It doesn't belong on HN. It's not tech-related and explicitly is against the rules. I know election season is coming and more of these types of threads will be made but they belong on reddit, 4chan, and others, not here.
      • faramarz 7y ago
        got it. against the rules. perhaps the rules need a review imo because this directly reflects our industry. passing this conversation to another platform is the easiest thing to do. When do we start having brave conversations?
        • pvg 7y ago
          It's not against any rules. You can follow the links on the bottom of the page to read them.
          • krapp 7y ago
            There are the actual rules of HN, and then there are the unspoken rules. One of the unspoken rules is that the topicality of a political relates inversely to the degree to which it challenges the particpants' biases.
• AimForTheBushes 7y ago
  There is definitely a problem with policing in the United States that needs to be fixed and there are a ton of cases that illustrate why. But for the life of me I can't understand why Michael Brown is championed as one of them. I don't want to be crass but Michael Brown was a bully that got caught up in his own anger and paid for it. Out of all the examples to choose from why would they choose him.
  • gowld 7y ago
    When wealthy white bullies get caught up in their anger, they don't get killed as often. Sometimes they get elected President.
  • i_am_nomad 7y ago
    There’s a theory that mainstream media outlets deliberately (or algorithmically) select and highlight news stories that are maximally divisive. The Eric Garner story got much less press than the Michael Brown case did, because the Garner one was quite clearly a case of police abuse. Only the most fringe elements would claim the police acted fairly in that situation. Meanwhile, Michael Brown’s death was (at least at first) in a much more fuzzy area. So, more controversy, more clicks and comments.
    • AimForTheBushes 7y ago
      "Riots are good for business" - MSM
• tgafpg 7y ago
  "I’ve heard co-workers spew hateful words about immigrants, boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly imitate people who speak different languages, reject candidates of color without evidence because of ‘fit.’" A company the heralds its Progressive values in one of the most Progressive areas of the country. Yes, this is exactly what you should expect to happen.
• ummonk 7y ago
  I was sympathetic until I read this: “I realized that my team simply did not have much to say on the issue of police brutality. This was odd—mostly because I’d watched them debate countless other topics, newsworthy and not, with a proud deftness and alacrity,” the memo reads. “From disappearing Malaysian airplanes to the spread of Ebola to the marriages and divorces of celebrities I’d never heard of, my teammates always had something to say about everything. But when it came to the violent policing of black bodies, they were silent.” It is perfectly reasonable for employees to choose to abstain from discussing fraught political subjects at work.
• SamuelAdams 7y ago
  From the original memo: > Provide additional mental health support for Googlers of color — especially following critical moments impacting their communities > Throughout my time at Google, my mental health has been heavily influenced by what I read in the news. And in America, that means frequently reading about innocent black men and women who’ve been killed by police officers. Whether the issue is police brutality, or mass shootings targeting the LGBTQ community, or racist comments from the President debasing immigrants, Google needs to provide mental health support equitably, which means making a more concerted effort to create opportunities for underrepresented groups to seek counseling and support. With respect, I don't think this is an employer-based issue. Because this was caused by a non-work related source [the news], I think it should be the responsibility of the individual to seek therapy and other resources on their own time and on their own dime. Now if the employee was experiencing mental health issues as a direct result of coworkers or the work environment, then yes, the company should provide support. In fact, Google does provide free counseling for the staff who have to filter through illicit images on Google's search engine. Since those employees are regularly exposed to horrendous issues as part of their work, they get company-sponsored help with it.
  • GuiA 7y ago
    > Now if the employee was experiencing mental health issues as a direct result of coworkers or the work environment Literally the opening quote: ”Over the last 5 years I’ve heard co-workers spew hateful words about immigrants, boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly imitate people who speak different languages, reject candidates of color without evidence because of ‘fit.’”
    • SamuelAdams 7y ago
      That's not what he's asking for, though. Here's his recommendation for change: > my mental health has been heavily influenced by what I read in the news. ...Google needs to provide mental health support... mak[e] a[n] ... effort to create opportunities ... to seek counseling and support. If he stated instead that his mental health was influenced by his coworkers hateful remarks, or rejecting candidates due to "fit", then yes, I would absolutely agree this is a great direction for Google to head towards. But that's not what the employee is asking for.
• b_tterc_p 7y ago
  Does google insurance not provide for mental health care? I know it’s not standard for many corporations but I’d imagine google’s healthcare is very competitive. If so... idk what this person wants.
  • anon12345690 7y ago
    they want to complain more about being offended because they cant handle other people saying things they dont like if you downvote this then youre doing the same thing
• nilkn 7y ago
  Can someone explain why Google seems to be such a hotbed for stuff like this? I ask this question in earnest. Perhaps this is just bias in what the media chooses to report, or perhaps the cross-section of news that I read fails to find other examples, but social uproar seems overwhelmingly more common at Google than most other workplaces in both the software industry and most other industries in general. As for the memo itself, I do highly recommend reading it directly first rather than commentary on it: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmjvy3/heres-the-memo-about-the-burden-of-being-black-at-google https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmjvy3/heres-the-memo-abo...
  • hguant 7y ago
    Google has long had a policy of 'bringing your whole self to work.' The company actively encourages (or at least, encouraged) its employees to be political, and to be 'true to themselves' in the workplace.
    • kgwgk 7y ago
      They are encouraged to express their political opinions as long as they choose wisely what are their opinions.
      • josteink 7y ago
        They are encouraged to express their political opinions as long as they are not republican views. I think that more accurately sums it up. Edit: Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/conservative-google-employees-are-blacklisted-lawsuit-alleges-2018-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/conservative-google-employees...
        • TomMckenny 7y ago
          Where the call for "diversity" is twisted to mean that more overtly bigoted persons and statements should be brought in and entertained? The call that claims "diversity" should include movements towards less diversity?
• VladimirIvanov 7y ago
  Does anyone else feel uncomfortable around people that talk about politics at work? I would much rather talk about the latest sports balls games. There's so many conversations that you can have and many different statistics. You can even have sports balls debates that are enjoyable such as who is the best ball thrower.
  • magduf 7y ago
    No, because that's even worse. Sports are incredibly boring and mindless; I'd rather talk about paint drying than some stupid, pointless sports game. At least politics is something that actually affects everyone whether they want it to or not. Only a minority of the population gives a rat's ass about sports, though the sports fans always delude themselves into thinking that everyone likes them, and try to push sports on everyone constantly. How'd you like it if I kept trying to talk to you about my favorite bands?
    • throwaway5752 7y ago
      Then talk music? TV? There is a reason that "water cooler talk" is the conversational equivalent of elevator music. You need to get along with people on a professional basis to accomplish a goal, and things that are divisive and hinder that should be discouraged. Politics creates rifts in families, of course it will cause work problems.
      • magduf 7y ago
        I'm not disagreeing that talking about politics at work is a minefield, at best. However, trying to get everyone to talk about sports is annoying as hell. I'd rather have ugly political arguments than talk about some stupid sports game; that's my point. You're trying to paint sports as some kind of thing to unite over, but I'm pointing out that it isn't, all it does is create another division, between the sports fans and everyone else. Now, of course, I don't care if a few sports fans have a conversation among themselves at work. However, with some of them it seems to be a religion of sorts and they have to push it on everyone.
• rpmisms 7y ago
  So, it's not about being black at Google, it's about Google not doing enough because the news spins everything into a racial issue?
• INTPenis 7y ago
  This isn't about Google, I'm not even sure it's about race or class. This is just how people are. Put enough of them in a place and let them get comfortable with each other and you will hear this. That has been my experience in the industry for 17 years now. 8 years at a very large company with plenty of employees. Stressed and bitter employees tend to talk this way. Others don't. Some might not feel comfortable talking about it, some might talk about it with their other friends. But in general I've noticed that people who are comfortable and being themselves can vent racist and "class-related" opinons freely around the office. In teams of 6-8 people there might be one or two of the types of people who tend to take charge in these discussions. Or initiate them.
  • robertAngst 7y ago
    Going from picked on lifelong nerd to buff dude, each had their own strange stereotypes and treatment from people. I don't know if I've become cynical when I say- You can never make everyone happy. EDIT: as an example, I've had to stop wearing polos entirely.
• cardiffspaceman 7y ago
  I'm surprised at how long it seems to have lasted, this idea that your workplace is a giant encounter group. Is there evidence that this is a good idea or bad idea? Is there evidence that leaving your sports interests, movie interests, politics, and family problems at home is good or bad?
• shubidubi 7y ago
  I find other ethnics to be more discriminated nowadays. mostly Asians(that include Indians) and Latin American.
• neilv 7y ago
  Quoting "https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6278613/The-Weight-of-Silence-Reflecting-on-D-I-at-Google.pdf" https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6278613/The-Weigh... (which I prefer to the vice.com article): > As I went to pack my bag, I noticed that my co-workers had stopped working long enough to stare at the television screen, which showed thousands of protestors filling the New York City streets just blocks from where we sat. Suddenly, one of my teammates spoke up: "Ugh. This is getting a bit ridiculous," she said. "I'm sorry. Does anyone else think this is ridiculous?" > My hands stopped zipping up my backpack, and I turned my head far enough to see her in my periphery -- sitting behind me with her head shaking and arms folded in exasperation. > "These protestors aren't going to solve anything," she said. "Like, what are those people even trying to do? Seriously. What are they trying to do? Make people mad about getting stuck in traffic? Piss people off because they can't get to Grand Central? It's annoying. I just can't stand it." I think this could be a problem of sensitivity or awareness, rather than heart being in the wrong place. The person speaking might have felt they were aligned with the goals and intended message of the demonstrators, and was only expressing frustration with what they thought were ineffective or unwarranted methods, but... I suspect that the speaker wasn't in that moment being sensitive to the anguish and sense of urgency some people might've felt, over brutality and related injustice. The demonstrators might've been crying "pay attention to this", and then a coworker seemed to dismiss that. It's too bad that the writer of the piece couldn't speak up in the moment. Though they alluded to some of why, and I think I understand. (I probably wouldn't have spoken up then, either, even with lesser stakes for myself. I learned this from a workplace incident, when I was walking up to a group of (presumably straight) coworkers chatting casually about some gay issue in the news (this was before the first US gay marriage), and one of them, who was normally thoughtful, started riffing glibly on how "it's unnatural". I doubt this struck me as deeply as the writer had been, and I hadn't really felt part of an oppressed group, nor had to fear anything around that -- but I was still shocked in the moment, and speechless, as I felt like my face flushed, and I walked away quickly. In hindsight, they were probably within earshot of another coworker, who I knew to be secretly lesbian or bi, but I don't recall whether that registered in my mind at the time. Elsewhere in life, I try to do what I can, but I couldn't speak up in the moment.)
  • will4274 7y ago
• hbosch 7y ago
  >In the memo, the former employee cites a few moments where he felt uncomfortable at Google, particularly after big news events such as the police killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, and during the ensuing protests against police brutality. The Vice article, from what I saw, doesn't clarify if the writer themself felt threatened by his coworkers, or if he/she just felt comfortable talking about police brutality against people of color. Obviously, if the writer was experiencing some hostility at work that would be one thing – and surely would be a serious problem worth discussing. But I'm not a person of color, and I'm very uncomfortable talking about police brutality at work. The topic is very sensitive and I don't think it's appropriate to distract my coworkers from their jobs by stressing them out. I work with some people that simply couldn't finish their day if I started a discussion about police brutality, or the murder of innocent people of color, or about X-phobic issues. Work is somewhat of a social place, but it's not really acceptable anywhere to just openly discuss politics, gender, identity, violence, etc. in my opinion. I don't even like talking about my music and movie tastes at work! Work is also, for me, a place where I can come in and be good at what I do, separate myself from the outside world, and have a little fun here and there (and get paid). My office isn't really a place for activism, to me. Does that make me a racist? Or classist? Or sexist? About the only important things I'm willing to discuss that isn't work related are my garden, my family, and where we want to eat lunch. Otherwise... it's headphones on.
• lacker 7y ago
  I'm surprised that "anti-immigrant sentiment" was a problem they observed at Google. While I was at Google the sentiment was very, very pro-immigrant. The company has a huge number of immigrant employees, after all, and Mountain View is a very pro-immigrant area already.
• gist 7y ago
  From the original: > As I went to pack my bag, I noticed that my co-workers had stopped working long enough to stare at the television screen, which showed thousands of protestors filling the New York City streets just blocks from where we sat. Suddenly, one of my teammates spoke up: "Ugh. This is getting a bit ridiculous," she said. "I'm sorry. Does anyone else think this is ridiculous?" Valid question. And not everyone thinks the same way. And people should not under any circumstances have to walk on eggshells because someone might be offended. Where is the line drawn? By the person who is offended? We should just all not open our mouths. > My hands stopped zipping up my backpack, and I turned my head far enough to see her in my periphery -- sitting behind me with her head shaking and arms folded in exasperation. So what? So what??? (Not to mention that there could be many explanations for 'exasperation or even if it really was 'exasperation'. > "These protestors aren't going to solve anything," she said. "Like, what are those people even trying to do? Seriously. What are they trying to do? Make people mad about getting stuck in traffic? Piss people off because they can't get to Grand Central? It's annoying. I just can't stand it." Perfectly fine to say and I would have said that. To bad most people are not willing to admit that they either think similar things and/or don't think that is bad to say under any circumstances. Bottom line: Stop trying to make everyone stop voicing their opinion with your thought police about what is acceptable.
• Mountain_Skies 7y ago
  This has a strong undercurrent of "you're either with us or against us" where no one is allowed to simply be neutral. While I understand the theory that doing nothing means you support the status quo, forcing people to explicitly choose a side more often than not ends up pushing them to support the other side, which as a result grows stronger in power. Forcing someone who doesn't want to support you to support you generally breeds resentment and generates negative value for your cause. Those who can be pushed into support tend to be the first to abandon your cause when the opportunity arises. Welcoming those who are leaning towards your direction instead of trying to force those who are ambivalent has a much higher return on investment of your time and resources.
  • MrLeap 7y ago
    The theory you mention is a koan MEANT to radicalize. - Support for any tenet of my opposition proves you directly support the opposition's atrocities. - Moderate, centrist or apolitical people are responsible for ALL atrocities.
  • drak0n1c 7y ago
    An accusatory and pushy street preacher does not win people over, rather the opposite. Self-righteous crusaders have historically failed to grasp this fact of basic psychology.
• xwdv 7y ago
  The burden this man suffers is self placed. Unless words are spewed in his direction specifically or he is the target of some injustice personally, he could simply ignore everything and just go on living his life happily and at peace. I recommend it.
• neilv 7y ago
  Quoting the original PDF: > Over the last 5 years, I've heard co-workers spew hateful words about immigrants, boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly imitate people who speak different languages, reject candidates of color without evidence because of "fit," and so much more. Not to detract from this particular situation, but I've been thinking "fit" is also part of a more general cultural problem. At my first real industry job (software engineering of commercial technical workstation software), shortly before dotcom gold rush, half my team was female, the engineers were mostly 30s through 40+, and everyone was skilled, but with no strutting. I know not all places were like that, but "tech" hiring the last decade or two has really seemed to operate more like a stereotypical frathouse, complete with pledging and hazing (and sometimes even in-office frat-like parties, at at least one prominent company, as a friend described it). I suspect we've gotten very bad about "fit", using it to dress up old exclusionary biases, and that a lot of people get an impression of our field being like that, and are turned off.
• m0zg 7y ago
  This is what Googlers refer to as "my pony is overcooked" syndrome. It's when the person detaches from outside reality so completely, they think Google is somehow "bad" on any of these hot button issues. It's not. I worked there for almost a decade, and I have not seen _any_ real racism, misogyny or discrimination. You will retort that it's sample size of 1, to which I will say that if the issues the authors of these memos describe were as pervasive as they claim, I'd notice _something_ at least. That having been said, I'm not black myself, and during my time at Google only very few people around me happened to be black. I _could_ be they're experiencing issues that are so unique to them I can't even grasp the extent of their "burden". But knowing Google, I find it really, really hard to believe. I'd even go as far to say that if you're looking for a company that takes gender/race discrimination seriously, for real, you'd have a hard time finding a better company to join.
• manfredo 7y ago
  I have increasingly noticed people categorize competing political or social opinions as racist or disparaging. Many of my co-workers label support for enforcing existing border controls as racist, opposition to affirmative action or racial reparations as white supremacist. This memo seems to do the same: > “These protestors aren’t going to solve anything, ” she said. ”Like, what are those people even trying to do? Seriously. What are they trying to do? Make people mad about getting stuck in traffic? Piss people off because they can’t get to Grand Central? It’s annoying . I just can’t stand it.” She rattled off a couple of other disparaging comments about the peaceful protestors I was preparing to join, repeatedly referring to them as those people before a chorus of my team’s nodding heads, each bobbing affirmingly behind their desks. With each nod, my co-workers validated my irate teammate’s frustration — and her disgust. How could the team I’d grown to trust and respect care so little about an innocent man who’d lost his life? The fact that one's co-worker does not approve of protestor and thinks their tactics are ineffective or counterproductive is not disparagement. Diversity means there is going to be a diversity of viewpoints and opinions on controversial topics. Lack of diversity is not the root of this employee's distress. Quite the opposite, the fact that the author encountered people with different viewpoints is the cause of this. The author later states that, "Over the last 5 years, I’ve heard co-workers spew hateful words about immigrants, boast unabashedly about gentrifying neighborhoods, mockingly imitate people who speak different languages, reject candidates of color without evidence because of 'fit,' and so much more." But in the absence of sharing the details of those events, we're left to wonder whether this "hateful words" about immigrants and "boasting unabashedly about gentrification" amount to genuine harassment or differences of opinion that the author finds intolerable. I think it's great that the industry is making efforts to become more diverse. But that comes with creating an environment in which people are going to come into contact with co-workers with very different views on controversial topics. It seems to me that the solution isn't more diversity (although more diversity is welcome in its own right), it's either curtailing discussions of these topics in the office or establishing a set of approved viewpoints and forbidding espousing or sharing views outside this set. The last solution is to cultivate an environment where people respect each other regardless of differences and do not treat encountering an opinion they find harmful or bad as a personal attack - but this last solution seems increasingly difficult to achieve.
• downandout 7y ago
  I realized that my team simply did not have much to say on the issue of police brutality. This was odd—mostly because I’d watched them debate countless other topics, newsworthy and not, with a proud deftness and alacrity,” This is a nonsensical complaint. There are probably 10 topics that I am interested in, that are important to me, that nobody I know would be interested in discussing at length with me. I understand that police brutality may be an important issue to him, but coworkers not being interested in discussing it at length at work doesn’t seem like an indicator of racism or bad company culture to me. I wonder how much the current college environment has to do with graduates ascribing things that seemingly have no connection with various “isms” to them.
• rdtsc 7y ago
  > I realized that my team simply did not have much to say on the issue of police brutality. This was odd—mostly because I’d watched them debate countless other topics, newsworthy and not, with a proud deftness and alacrity,” [...] particularly after big news events such as the police killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, and during the ensuing protests against police brutality. Is Michael Brown a good example of police brutality though? Maybe they didn't have much to say because it turns out a lot of the facts there have been twisted and embellished, to put it mildly. Maybe they just politely refused to discuss it at work? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown#%22Hands_up,_don't_shoot%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown#%22H... https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_brown_1.pdf https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releas... https://web.archive.org/web/20190811143955/https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2015/03/16/lesson-learned-from-the-shooting-of-michael-brown/ https://web.archive.org/web/20190811143955/https://www.washi...
  • benmmurphy 7y ago
    It is interesting he brings up Garner and Michael Brown. I think Garner was a good example of police overstepping the mark that everyone could agree on and Brown was much controversial. But weirdly enough it seemed that Brown was pushed more than Garner by activists. I think this is quite common with activist organisations. They seem to deliberately push more controversial causes. I'm not sure if this is because more controversial causes are more effective or it is because there are weird personal incentives in play. Also, it could be that no-one wants to bring attention to negative effects from a popular policy. Garner had the attention of police because he was selling untaxed cigarettes. Taxing cigarettes is quite popular and I guess no-one wants to explicitly bite the bullet that some people need to die to have these laws on the book. In a country with a population over 300 million there is a good chance people are going to randomly die from run-ins with law enforcement over non-violent crime. All law is a trade off between the good effects and the bad effects but a lot of people believe any serious bad effect means the law is immoral.
• herostratus101 7y ago
  Former teacher, so I'm guessing this employee was not a software engineer.
• anon4lol 7y ago
  Wrong title. Should be "The Burden of Working in an Unprofessional Environment with Jerks." This is a natural outcome of promoting work, not as a job, but more of a lifestyle to ring out as much as productivity as you can from young, unattached people. There isn't a boundary between work/personal life like there is everywhere else. I've seen different attempts at this on both the west and east coasts. Forced communal lunches, free food, comfy couches to sleep on "if you need to," game rooms, required outings, "bring you whole self to work," etc. Working in these environments is draining, because some people seem to take pride in saying the most inappropriate and cringe-worthy things, and they go unchallenged. When you work in that context where no one is expected to be professional, it will cause problems; however, when you make the mistake of believing your job is more than a job, you will end up angry and vengeful. For some reason, this seems to be much more the norm on the north-east and west coasts.
• RickJWagner 7y ago
  First, Google (along with almost all big tech) needs more people of color. I'm sorry this guy left. Second: Michael Brown was not murdered. He was a bully who used his size to intimidate people and the evidence shows he had his arm inside the cop car. Everybody of every color should re-think that scenario and come down on the right side of it. Facts are facts. Third: I'm really sorry that guy moved on. Kelsey Hightower is a beacon of hope in the tech community, we need more examples to encourage future generations. I hope this guy lands somewhere good and finds success.
• wyclif 7y ago
  Working at Google in 2019 is no fun. Political correctness seems to have destroyed the whimsy that the company used to embody. Nowadays it's just about stifling dictatorialism and thought policing.
• firefleye 7y ago
  Any truly result-driven company's premptive measure for dealing with these sorts of annoyances (for all employe*s), should be the solution of deeming non-work-related discussion involving politics, religion, race and such divisive topics as "unsuitable for the workplace". Discussion serious-enough to spur opinionated ramblings and ideological smartassness, to say the least, that's not work-related and that's conducted during working hours, must be ideally stated in all employee contracts as a clear set of terms a prospective candidate must comply with avoiding.
• mrburton 7y ago
  I am lost at how we as a society are so quick to attack someone who has a difference in opinion. Just because someone doesn't agree with your solution, it doesn't mean they are opposed to resolving the problem. The OP, in my opinion, does have a lot of internal anger they need to resolve. e.g., how he expresses clenching his fist and not feeding into the rage. After reading the memo, it's my personal opinion the OP has a lot of unresolved issues and should consider speaking to a therapist. I feel like they are projecting their hate those nearby him. That's unhealthy and also very counterproductive. I genuinely worry that socially, people are overly sensitive, and it's hurting social progress. Instead of people learning to communicate with one another, they label the "opposition". Instead of understanding someone's perspective, they project onto them what they want to "fight against." Now is this a direct result of social behaviors bleeding into "real-world" interactions? I don't blame Google at all. I blame the behavior of the OP and his lack of effort to communicate with his peers in a mature, healthy, and positive way. It just feels like he doesn't care to understand the position of those around him. Instead, he wants everyone just to accept his perspective. All this being said, it's time for people to cut back on social media. I had to do that because it's too easy to get sucked into arguments with angry people. It's also easy and honestly fun to insult and trigger pointless arguments to entertain yourself. Regardless, it's unhealthy.
  • linuxftw 7y ago
    > I don't blame Google at all. I blame the behavior of the OP and his lack of effort to communicate with his peers in a mature, healthy, and positive way. What's mature, healthy, and positive? Maybe it's society that is the failure? Maybe the unending docility of modern life is creating emotional volcanoes. Maybe some people like hostility, and maybe some people like confrontation. Not everyone and everything needs to be 'nice'; this is an ideal that needs to die.
    • mrburton 7y ago
      > Maybe it's society that is the failure? That implies you have no self-control and require the government to tell you how to think/behave. > Not everyone and everything needs to be 'nice'; this is an ideal that needs to die. Who said people need to be nice? I recall me saying: > communicate with his peers in a mature, healthy, and positive way.
• Mikho 7y ago
  There are more and more these strange cases when people for some reason think that if everybody around are not cheering them and don't have exectly the same personal opinions as to life, politics, or religion they are opressed in one or another way. While in reality they just participate in a discussion where people have different points of view. That reminds very much a victim mentality and inability to cope with own emotions to have reasonable arguments. People atribute regular behaviour of others that do not align with their own to agression and suprisingly to some sort of discrimination.
• badlywordedpoem 7y ago
  I am really glad that elections choose who leads America and not people who work at Google.