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I'm not anti-union, but come on, modifying an internal security tool to display a politically motivated message? That would get you in trouble anywhere. Also..

I'm not anti-union, but come on, modifying an internal security tool to display a politically motivated message? That would get you in trouble anywhere. Also.. managers are humans. You can't provoke people in such a way and not expect a response. Speaking of provocation: I suspect she might have done this to intentionally get fired. It wouldn't be the dumbest play, she's super young (21), if she doesn't want to code anymore she could use the exposure to parlay this into a new career, and if she does want to still code, she probably made some new supporters and her detractors will factor in youthful indiscretion. Wild speculation sure, but, you just read a big press article about it... Where do you think the tip came from? This isn't the kind of move you make if you intend to stick around at a place.

TheFrizz 7y ago
Also the people arguing for giving the employee a "talking to" instead of firing I think are not considering the game theory aspect to this. If the precedent is "a talking to" with future offenses resulting in a firing, then smart Google employees will realize that they can create an internal activist email list, get new hires to join it, and then when an opportunity for activism presents itself get an employee with a clean record to perform the activism, rinse repeat. Of course the message in this case wasn't terribly harmful, so I'm sympathetic to the argument of "it's not such a big deal". But the problem is, Google doesn't want to wait for the big deal (for example a chrome extension change to search exec's TextAreas for keywords a "whistleblower" might want to report on) to actually happen and then fire them. They want to prevent employees from thinking they should ever try doing that in the first place which means putting the foot down before the inevitable happens.
- overgard 7y ago
  Yeah, in terms of what she did I would agree it wasn't terribly harmful; and I applaud her for taking a principled stand. I just don't really blame management for saying: that was a step too far, you're out. I mean, unionizing is a super sensitive topic at any company, and by adding the message to the tool it added extra weight to the message by making it look like it was endorsed by the higher ups, rather than being a message from a 21 year old. There's no way management is going to be happy that someone is essentially acting as their voice on a topic that is very sensitive.
PavlovsCat 7y ago
> I suspect she might have done this to intentionally get fired. I suspect you say this because you wouldn't stand up to your boss even if someone else's life depended on it. Wild speculation sure, but I just read a huge book about it... where you do think this "suspicion" came from? This isn't the kind of thing you come up with if you actually have any backbone. Newsflash: doing the right doesn't have to be a "play" or a "move", sometimes you just do it because you're not yet broken and not yet diseased.

TheFrizz 7y ago

Also the people arguing for giving the employee a "talking to" instead of firing I think are not considering the game theory aspect to this. If the precedent is "a talking to" with future offenses resulting in a firing, then smart Google employees will realize that they can create an internal activist email list, get new hires to join it, and then when an opportunity for activism presents itself get an employee with a clean record to perform the activism, rinse repeat. Of course the message in this case wasn't terribly harmful, so I'm sympathetic to the argument of "it's not such a big deal". But the problem is, Google doesn't want to wait for the big deal (for example a chrome extension change to search exec's TextAreas for keywords a "whistleblower" might want to report on) to actually happen and then fire them. They want to prevent employees from thinking they should ever try doing that in the first place which means putting the foot down before the inevitable happens.

overgard 7y ago
Yeah, in terms of what she did I would agree it wasn't terribly harmful; and I applaud her for taking a principled stand. I just don't really blame management for saying: that was a step too far, you're out. I mean, unionizing is a super sensitive topic at any company, and by adding the message to the tool it added extra weight to the message by making it look like it was endorsed by the higher ups, rather than being a message from a 21 year old. There's no way management is going to be happy that someone is essentially acting as their voice on a topic that is very sensitive.

PavlovsCat 7y ago

> I suspect she might have done this to intentionally get fired. I suspect you say this because you wouldn't stand up to your boss even if someone else's life depended on it. Wild speculation sure, but I just read a huge book about it... where you do think this "suspicion" came from? This isn't the kind of thing you come up with if you actually have any backbone. Newsflash: doing the right doesn't have to be a "play" or a "move", sometimes you just do it because you're not yet broken and not yet diseased.