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You should be prohibited from viewing anyone else's calendar? It's a pretty core functionality to scheduling meetings. They obviously use Google Calendar intern

You should be prohibited from viewing anyone else's calendar? It's a pretty core functionality to scheduling meetings. They obviously use Google Calendar internally, where event details can be controlled with privacy settings. That said, when you're stalking someone, it's pretty easy to infer if it's an unlabelled block of time is for a 1:1, doctor's appointment, friend visiting for lunch, whatever. Yeah, the policy should be "employees are not allowed to stalk other employees". Sounds like that's what the policy actually was; I don't see any incompetency.

bobthepanda 7y ago
I think the part I’m not getting is why event details would be open by default in a work environment. If you need to schedule around someone’s times, all you need to know is if they’re busy or free. At my office this is what is displayed if you look at others’ calendars, but not details unless you’ve been invited yourself.
- barrkel 7y ago
  This is just a default setting, though. Often it's useful to know what meetings are occurring so you can attend or contribute info, and it's certainly useful to know who's booked a room so you can swap or shift them to video conference if you need the room more.
- kitsune_ 7y ago
  You have these options as an admin when using GSuite: > No sharing — Calendars aren't shared unless users share their own calendars. Note: If you choose No sharing, your mobile app users can't use the Find a time feature. > Only free/busy information (hide event details)—Only free/busy information displays. >Share all information — All information is public unless users change their own settings. Users can also make individual events private. Then you can manually override these settings as a user.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  Because Google is heavily employee-driven and trusts individual employees to determine what's relevant to solving the problems at hand. My teammates calendar topics are visible to me so that I can notice if they're getting pulled into meetings on topics that I should be meeting with them also. My boss's calendar topics are visible to me so that I'm empowered to ballpark the relevance of my project in context of other things my boss is managing (and so I can notice if my boss is working on something that should be relevant to my project that nobody has noticed is relevant yet).
saiya-jin 7y ago
You shouldn't be able to see exact activity with details, no reason for that. Just availability info. Another point is, how stupid is somebody when they put their personal activities in their work calendar. Google enabled this, and I am pretty sure there isn't a part in the original contract that prohibits that. At our 80k multinational mega corp, we don't see each other's calendars, and we do those meetings with staff around whole globe. No real issues with this. All this looks very much like google trying to paint leavers in as bad light as possible. This vengeful approach is very unprofessional and casts bad light on google and individual managers involved.
- CGamesPlay 7y ago
  > You shouldn't be able to see exact activity with details, no reason for that. Another point is, how stupid is somebody when they put their personal activities in their work calendar. But is there a compelling reason not to have it? Can you think of any circumstances where having access to someone's event details would make scheduling and communication with them easier? I agree with your second point, of course, and while I have never worked at google I'm pretty confident nobody would bat an eye if you just blocked the equivalent time slot with "personal". But this person didn't do that, and they were open about some of their personal information on their calendar. Probably because they didn't expect one of their coworkers to be a stalker. I guess that was naivety on their part, but this is victim blaming.
- xamuel 7y ago
  >You shouldn't be able to see exact activity with details, no reason for that. If I urgently need to meet with someone today and I see they've blocked off the whole afternoon for a 4-hour meeting, it could make a big difference if the 4-hour meeting in question is "Critical presentation to the CEO" or "Weekly HR thing that HR spams everyone with but nobody attends and doesn't matter anyway"
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > If I urgently need to meet with someone today and I see they've blocked off the whole afternoon for a 4-hour meeting, it could make a big difference if the 4-hour meeting in question is "Critical presentation to the CEO" or "Weekly HR thing that HR spams everyone with but nobody attends and doesn't matter anyway" Unless they are your subordinate, so that you are empowered to judge and direct their priorities, it doesn't. Nothing prevents you from sending them a message (or meeting request) acknowledging that you know they have som thing scheduled but you have an urgent need (and explaining the need) and allowing them to make a decision, or Maki g a similar request of their superior if organizationally appropriate. Your urgent need doesn't transform you into their boss.

bobthepanda 7y ago

I think the part I’m not getting is why event details would be open by default in a work environment. If you need to schedule around someone’s times, all you need to know is if they’re busy or free. At my office this is what is displayed if you look at others’ calendars, but not details unless you’ve been invited yourself.

barrkel 7y ago
This is just a default setting, though. Often it's useful to know what meetings are occurring so you can attend or contribute info, and it's certainly useful to know who's booked a room so you can swap or shift them to video conference if you need the room more.
kitsune_ 7y ago
You have these options as an admin when using GSuite: > No sharing — Calendars aren't shared unless users share their own calendars. Note: If you choose No sharing, your mobile app users can't use the Find a time feature. > Only free/busy information (hide event details)—Only free/busy information displays. >Share all information — All information is public unless users change their own settings. Users can also make individual events private. Then you can manually override these settings as a user.
shadowgovt 7y ago
Because Google is heavily employee-driven and trusts individual employees to determine what's relevant to solving the problems at hand. My teammates calendar topics are visible to me so that I can notice if they're getting pulled into meetings on topics that I should be meeting with them also. My boss's calendar topics are visible to me so that I'm empowered to ballpark the relevance of my project in context of other things my boss is managing (and so I can notice if my boss is working on something that should be relevant to my project that nobody has noticed is relevant yet).

saiya-jin 7y ago

You shouldn't be able to see exact activity with details, no reason for that. Just availability info. Another point is, how stupid is somebody when they put their personal activities in their work calendar. Google enabled this, and I am pretty sure there isn't a part in the original contract that prohibits that. At our 80k multinational mega corp, we don't see each other's calendars, and we do those meetings with staff around whole globe. No real issues with this. All this looks very much like google trying to paint leavers in as bad light as possible. This vengeful approach is very unprofessional and casts bad light on google and individual managers involved.

CGamesPlay 7y ago
> You shouldn't be able to see exact activity with details, no reason for that. Another point is, how stupid is somebody when they put their personal activities in their work calendar. But is there a compelling reason not to have it? Can you think of any circumstances where having access to someone's event details would make scheduling and communication with them easier? I agree with your second point, of course, and while I have never worked at google I'm pretty confident nobody would bat an eye if you just blocked the equivalent time slot with "personal". But this person didn't do that, and they were open about some of their personal information on their calendar. Probably because they didn't expect one of their coworkers to be a stalker. I guess that was naivety on their part, but this is victim blaming.
xamuel 7y ago
>You shouldn't be able to see exact activity with details, no reason for that. If I urgently need to meet with someone today and I see they've blocked off the whole afternoon for a 4-hour meeting, it could make a big difference if the 4-hour meeting in question is "Critical presentation to the CEO" or "Weekly HR thing that HR spams everyone with but nobody attends and doesn't matter anyway"
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > If I urgently need to meet with someone today and I see they've blocked off the whole afternoon for a 4-hour meeting, it could make a big difference if the 4-hour meeting in question is "Critical presentation to the CEO" or "Weekly HR thing that HR spams everyone with but nobody attends and doesn't matter anyway" Unless they are your subordinate, so that you are empowered to judge and direct their priorities, it doesn't. Nothing prevents you from sending them a message (or meeting request) acknowledging that you know they have som thing scheduled but you have an urgent need (and explaining the need) and allowing them to make a decision, or Maki g a similar request of their superior if organizationally appropriate. Your urgent need doesn't transform you into their boss.