4 ms·

Was she hired to only add things other people told her to add? Or was she hired to add things she considered relevant?

by C14L 7y ago

helen___keller 7y ago
That's a good question, I don't know, but she claims the latter. In her Medium post she claims that "Part of what makes me a great fit for Google is that the company is always telling us to take initiative to deliver high impact work." and also that she received stellar (4/5, 4/5, 5/5, where 5/5 is apparently top 2%) performance reviews, which reinforced her view that she should act on her judgment.
- mrandish 7y ago
  If she really was "a great fit for Google" then she'd have realized the obvious fact that her naive attempt to fulfill an NRLB regulatory requirement would be something that should be checked with Google's legal department so a lawyer specialized in labor regulation can confirm that doing what she planned would actually meet the regulatory requirement as well as confirm this requirement wasn't already met in another way. For example, did her design record sufficient analytics for regulatory compliance reporting? If a regulated company can't verify they did it correctly, it didn't happen. Did it distinguish between contractors, part-time and full-time employees? How did it handle employees outside the U.S.? By IP address or did it look up their country of residence in HR records? What about interns? Did it count these different populations correctly or was it at risk of over-reporting and getting the company fined? Did her design meet the requirements for Spanish-speaking ESL employees based in the U.S. Did her design read-out the text for blind and vision-impaired employees or did it initiate notification via an alternate channel? In my opinion, she's being extremely disingenuous with her claims.
asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
A little of the former and a little of the latter, most likely. However, that doesn't mean her judgment r.e. what is relevant is immune to review. And if it's sufficiently incorrect, consequences like what happened shouldn't be surprising.
- blackearl 7y ago
  I'd disagree. Another post shows stellar performance reviews, so if this is considered a mistake, it should be remedied and she should be reprimanded. Outright firing seems heavy handed
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
    My take on this is that she was trying to ruffle feathers, and she succeeded. I suspect her firing took into account that intent. Putting myself in the shoes of whoever decided, I can only think that factor would have weighed heavily against her. She might be naive enough to believe that this was actually protected concerted activity, but I don't think so. I'm not sure I think firing her was the right play, but I also don't have all the information. I will say that I don't think this outcome should surprise her. It should definitely been one of the likely outcomes she modeled when deciding to submit that code.
    - matthewdgreen 7y ago
      This firing has created a small storm of bad PR for Google, and I'd be willing to bet it's created a large storm of bad feeling among Google employees. (Although a smaller matter, using "security violation" as a spurious reasoning for the firing probably also slightly downgrades the credibility of the company's internal security efforts.) So if her goal was to cause disruption at Google, it sounds like management just gave her a major assist. Like a Falcon Heavy's worth of assist.
    - NoGravitas 7y ago
      The article quotes a law professor who says that it probably is protected activity, so I'm not sure "naive" is the correct word.
      - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
        The analogy Prof. Dubal uses is not apt. They seem to believe that the extension was some kind of public notice board where anybody could post something, but that is not what it is. Since they did not have sufficient context, I would be disinclined to trust their judgment on this issue. Also, FWIW, this may provide some interesting reading: https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/are-employers-required-to-allow-union-signs-on-company-property-31847 https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/are-employers-required-to-...
shadowgovt 7y ago
As a level 3 software engineer, the latter (with oversight, which it would appear was in place here. A change like this one doesn't hit the live codebase without at least one other engineer signing off on it).

Was she hired to only add things other people told her to add? Or was she hired to add things she considered relevant?

by C14L 7y ago

Was she hired to only add things other people told her to add? Or was she hired to add things she considered relevant?

That's a good question, I don't know, but she claims the latter. In her Medium post she claims that "Part of what makes me a great fit for Google is that the company is always telling us to take initiative to deliver high impact work." and also that she received stellar (4/5, 4/5, 5/5, where 5/5 is apparently top 2%) performance reviews, which reinforced her view that she should act on her judgment.

mrandish 7y ago
If she really was "a great fit for Google" then she'd have realized the obvious fact that her naive attempt to fulfill an NRLB regulatory requirement would be something that should be checked with Google's legal department so a lawyer specialized in labor regulation can confirm that doing what she planned would actually meet the regulatory requirement as well as confirm this requirement wasn't already met in another way. For example, did her design record sufficient analytics for regulatory compliance reporting? If a regulated company can't verify they did it correctly, it didn't happen. Did it distinguish between contractors, part-time and full-time employees? How did it handle employees outside the U.S.? By IP address or did it look up their country of residence in HR records? What about interns? Did it count these different populations correctly or was it at risk of over-reporting and getting the company fined? Did her design meet the requirements for Spanish-speaking ESL employees based in the U.S. Did her design read-out the text for blind and vision-impaired employees or did it initiate notification via an alternate channel? In my opinion, she's being extremely disingenuous with her claims.

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago

A little of the former and a little of the latter, most likely. However, that doesn't mean her judgment r.e. what is relevant is immune to review. And if it's sufficiently incorrect, consequences like what happened shouldn't be surprising.

blackearl 7y ago
I'd disagree. Another post shows stellar performance reviews, so if this is considered a mistake, it should be remedied and she should be reprimanded. Outright firing seems heavy handed
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  My take on this is that she was trying to ruffle feathers, and she succeeded. I suspect her firing took into account that intent. Putting myself in the shoes of whoever decided, I can only think that factor would have weighed heavily against her. She might be naive enough to believe that this was actually protected concerted activity, but I don't think so. I'm not sure I think firing her was the right play, but I also don't have all the information. I will say that I don't think this outcome should surprise her. It should definitely been one of the likely outcomes she modeled when deciding to submit that code.
  - matthewdgreen 7y ago
    This firing has created a small storm of bad PR for Google, and I'd be willing to bet it's created a large storm of bad feeling among Google employees. (Although a smaller matter, using "security violation" as a spurious reasoning for the firing probably also slightly downgrades the credibility of the company's internal security efforts.) So if her goal was to cause disruption at Google, it sounds like management just gave her a major assist. Like a Falcon Heavy's worth of assist.
  - NoGravitas 7y ago
    The article quotes a law professor who says that it probably is protected activity, so I'm not sure "naive" is the correct word.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
      The analogy Prof. Dubal uses is not apt. They seem to believe that the extension was some kind of public notice board where anybody could post something, but that is not what it is. Since they did not have sufficient context, I would be disinclined to trust their judgment on this issue. Also, FWIW, this may provide some interesting reading: https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/are-employers-required-to-allow-union-signs-on-company-property-31847 https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/are-employers-required-to-...

shadowgovt 7y ago

As a level 3 software engineer, the latter (with oversight, which it would appear was in place here. A change like this one doesn't hit the live codebase without at least one other engineer signing off on it).