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She's got a CompTia Security+ certification. That is not a trivial amount of specialist education. You certainly aren't expected to have a college degree to be

She's got a CompTia Security+ certification. That is not a trivial amount of specialist education. You certainly aren't expected to have a college degree to be an "engineer" if that's the thrust of your argument. Tbh it sounds like other ulterior motives are clouding your judgement here. She seems like exactly the sort of engineer who would benefit from unionization and while I might need it less, I fully support her and I'm disappointed in Google for firing her. As I've said elsewhere, these sham reasons for firing folks adjacent to union activity are opening up the company to massive liability and imo the board and shareholders should hold more people accountable.

fargle 7y ago
A CompTia Security+ cert is actually pretty trivial. It's complete regurgitation, and not even of industry standard best practices, but of CompTia defined "best" practices. It's the lowest and most basic tech cert you can get. It certainly isn't evidence of any engineering discipline. The board and shareholders will have to decide whether this action was, or was not, in their best interests. But history has shown that Wall Street would generally agree with this one. It's certainly not a "massive" liability. Should the employee prevail, years from now, in a wrongful termination suit the cost to google will be trivial compared to the employee. That's why other companies often flagrantly intentionally ignore NLRB protections. It's a very limited civil liability with a very high burden of proof on the employee.
- KirinDave 7y ago
  > It's the lowest and most basic tech cert you can get. As opposed to... what? Do college degrees promise engineering discipline? Surely not. Many successful engineers have nothing more than a high school diploma and industry experience. This has clearly gone into sexist territory now. She's a she, and therefore her experience and education is going to be audited by arbitrary and increasingly vague standards to make sure she's considered valueless. > It certainly isn't evidence of any engineering discipline. There is literally no credential that does this. It's a ridiculous standard to offer forward. Engineering discipline is a property of teams and organizations. On an individual level there is no distinct standard of it. You are moving the goalposts outside the stadium. > It's certainly not a "massive" liability. Should the employee prevail, years from now, in a wrongful termination suit the cost to google will be trivial compared to the employee. I disagree. With the rash of these firings, we may start to see a collective lawsuit. Should systemic problems be found, Google is in genuine danger of both large fines (both the left and right in the US and other countries are eager to give Google a black eye for perceived wrongs) and of severe reputational damage putting it at a competitive hiring disadvantage. > It's a very limited civil liability with a very high burden of proof on the employee. Right up until you get enough claimants for various collective actions, I agree this is the sad case for American enforcement.
  - fargle 7y ago
    OK, I have to rebut some of this. I have no axe to grind about whether the engineer is male, female, trans, white, black, whatever. Fact is that when I wrote this I didn't know she was a female. Don't care. How insane to claim that simple negativity toward a member of a protected group is an -ism. I'm not saying she isn't an engineer because of ANYTHING related to her sex. She's getting raked over the coals because what she did was stupid and shows incredibly bad judgement. To imply that this is less bad, or maybe we shouldn't discuss it, or maybe we'd have a different opinion if she was not female is itself far more sexist. I fully support non-degreed engineers. Yes, I agree there is no litmus test for "Engineer". I'm clearly stating that a CompTIA+ is not sufficient to call someone an engineer. Regurgitating questionable facts does not make you an engineer. I didn't move the goalpost. But I can recognize something that isn't one. She screwed up bad, because if there is ever any collective action, her case won't be in on it. She gave google an ironclad excuse to be fired. I'm not even arguing right vs. wrong but the way employment lawsuits work, she has zero chance.
    - KirinDave 7y ago
      > How insane to claim that simple negativity toward a member of a protected group is an -ism. I'm not saying she isn't an engineer because of ANYTHING related to her sex. If the only way we can distinguish your actions from sexism is via your internal state, you have a problem larger than this conversation and you should expect pushback. > I'm clearly stating that a CompTIA+ is not sufficient to call someone an engineer. Regurgitating questionable facts does not make you an engineer. I didn't move the goalpost. But I can recognize something that isn't one. But just before this you said there isn't a clear test. So really, it's just your feelings. > Yes, I agree there is no litmus test for "Engineer". This is more arbitrary goal setting to gatekeep a word. The debate is not if she is somehow an amazing engineer or a mediocre engineer, a well trained engineer or a rushed training job, well paid or not. No, that's not the debate. The debate is, "was she given an engineering position in which she had autonomy to make changes and when she made changes a union buster didn't like, she was fired in retaliation. If her job was strictly to type things that were handed to her in a field, this might technically evade the law. But that's obviously not her job. You're obviously eager to categorize her as a not-engineer because (despite protestations) you're obviously eager to shut down any pro-unionization messages, even legally protected ones. > She screwed up bad, because if there is ever any collective action, her case won't be in on it. She gave google an ironclad excuse to be fired. I don't think this is true. She acted within her job capacity. She wrote a true and (importantly) legally protected statement. It was in a system that was specifically mean to advise workers about rights, options and obligations. And unless she was already being evaluated for poor performance, even a single infraction is an extremely rare circumstance for dismissal in modern corporate America.

fargle 7y ago

A CompTia Security+ cert is actually pretty trivial. It's complete regurgitation, and not even of industry standard best practices, but of CompTia defined "best" practices. It's the lowest and most basic tech cert you can get. It certainly isn't evidence of any engineering discipline. The board and shareholders will have to decide whether this action was, or was not, in their best interests. But history has shown that Wall Street would generally agree with this one. It's certainly not a "massive" liability. Should the employee prevail, years from now, in a wrongful termination suit the cost to google will be trivial compared to the employee. That's why other companies often flagrantly intentionally ignore NLRB protections. It's a very limited civil liability with a very high burden of proof on the employee.

KirinDave 7y ago
> It's the lowest and most basic tech cert you can get. As opposed to... what? Do college degrees promise engineering discipline? Surely not. Many successful engineers have nothing more than a high school diploma and industry experience. This has clearly gone into sexist territory now. She's a she, and therefore her experience and education is going to be audited by arbitrary and increasingly vague standards to make sure she's considered valueless. > It certainly isn't evidence of any engineering discipline. There is literally no credential that does this. It's a ridiculous standard to offer forward. Engineering discipline is a property of teams and organizations. On an individual level there is no distinct standard of it. You are moving the goalposts outside the stadium. > It's certainly not a "massive" liability. Should the employee prevail, years from now, in a wrongful termination suit the cost to google will be trivial compared to the employee. I disagree. With the rash of these firings, we may start to see a collective lawsuit. Should systemic problems be found, Google is in genuine danger of both large fines (both the left and right in the US and other countries are eager to give Google a black eye for perceived wrongs) and of severe reputational damage putting it at a competitive hiring disadvantage. > It's a very limited civil liability with a very high burden of proof on the employee. Right up until you get enough claimants for various collective actions, I agree this is the sad case for American enforcement.
- fargle 7y ago
  OK, I have to rebut some of this. I have no axe to grind about whether the engineer is male, female, trans, white, black, whatever. Fact is that when I wrote this I didn't know she was a female. Don't care. How insane to claim that simple negativity toward a member of a protected group is an -ism. I'm not saying she isn't an engineer because of ANYTHING related to her sex. She's getting raked over the coals because what she did was stupid and shows incredibly bad judgement. To imply that this is less bad, or maybe we shouldn't discuss it, or maybe we'd have a different opinion if she was not female is itself far more sexist. I fully support non-degreed engineers. Yes, I agree there is no litmus test for "Engineer". I'm clearly stating that a CompTIA+ is not sufficient to call someone an engineer. Regurgitating questionable facts does not make you an engineer. I didn't move the goalpost. But I can recognize something that isn't one. She screwed up bad, because if there is ever any collective action, her case won't be in on it. She gave google an ironclad excuse to be fired. I'm not even arguing right vs. wrong but the way employment lawsuits work, she has zero chance.
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    > How insane to claim that simple negativity toward a member of a protected group is an -ism. I'm not saying she isn't an engineer because of ANYTHING related to her sex. If the only way we can distinguish your actions from sexism is via your internal state, you have a problem larger than this conversation and you should expect pushback. > I'm clearly stating that a CompTIA+ is not sufficient to call someone an engineer. Regurgitating questionable facts does not make you an engineer. I didn't move the goalpost. But I can recognize something that isn't one. But just before this you said there isn't a clear test. So really, it's just your feelings. > Yes, I agree there is no litmus test for "Engineer". This is more arbitrary goal setting to gatekeep a word. The debate is not if she is somehow an amazing engineer or a mediocre engineer, a well trained engineer or a rushed training job, well paid or not. No, that's not the debate. The debate is, "was she given an engineering position in which she had autonomy to make changes and when she made changes a union buster didn't like, she was fired in retaliation. If her job was strictly to type things that were handed to her in a field, this might technically evade the law. But that's obviously not her job. You're obviously eager to categorize her as a not-engineer because (despite protestations) you're obviously eager to shut down any pro-unionization messages, even legally protected ones. > She screwed up bad, because if there is ever any collective action, her case won't be in on it. She gave google an ironclad excuse to be fired. I don't think this is true. She acted within her job capacity. She wrote a true and (importantly) legally protected statement. It was in a system that was specifically mean to advise workers about rights, options and obligations. And unless she was already being evaluated for poor performance, even a single infraction is an extremely rare circumstance for dismissal in modern corporate America.