5 ms·

Not my experience of Google, at least having worked there as an intern multiple times. All of the peer bonuses on our teams and affiliated teams have been for p

by moab 6y ago

Not my experience of Google, at least having worked there as an intern multiple times. All of the peer bonuses on our teams and affiliated teams have been for people going out of their way to help out with some project even if it was not part of their day-to-day work. I can only speak for the research-y side of Google, which in my experience seems to avoid most of these problems probably due to having managers that also do research and write papers. Having a separate academic status system other than your internal work position probably helps in this regard.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago
It's true peer bonuses in particular seem to be mainly reponsibly used. Probably because there's $$ and an accounting chain attached to them. But just last week I watched the hard work of a coworker get completely bowled over by another manager's "congrats on amazing work" email chain to someone else who used the work of my coworker without recognition.
- moab 6y ago
  That's really unfortunate. I agree that the $$$ and accounting help make sure the system is not abused in the usual case. Unfortunately jerks are unavoidable, and even if the manager knew the true story they could ignore it to emphasize the contributions of their own reports. It's hard to imagine a promo system that rewards hard work, where feedback comes from ones peers, and only promotes a fixed number of people where these kind of zero-sum issues don't appear.
  - cmrdporcupine 6y ago
    Unfortunately I don't think it's a case of jerks vs not-jerks. Many years at a BigCorp has underlined to me now that the ethics and "professional economy" of working in one is entirely different than SmallCorp. SmallCorp you all work for the bottom line or company goes bust. That acts as a damper on empire builders who build for their own sake, though there is still that behavior. BigCorp it's unlikely your contributions are going to impact much of that kind of thing, even if you're up in senior management. So you're there for your Career(tm) first, company $$ success second. And in fact that is directly promoted through Perf, etc. So the aggregate behavior of individuals is not only to self-promote but to encourage the self-promotions of others, that's how we get ahead by the measures defined as "getting ahead" by the company: internal promotion, project glory, internal and external speaking engagements and publications about your project, etc. So a 100 person "congrats" and "that's amazing!" email (or its equivalent on LinkedIn) or whatever is just reasonable professional behavior. You're not a jerk for promoting yourself, you're just doing what is expected of you. The professional behavior of the modest but "plug along and do my job and help out and not self-promote" person is the one that's suspect in this scenario. The company _wants_ you to self-promote.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      This is so strange. I feel weird enough telling people to send me a gThanks when they ask what the best way to recognize me for something is, doing it unsolicited is just crazy.
- gowld 6y ago
  Start a new "congrats on amazing work" email chain to thank your coworker, and cc: their manager

by moab 6y ago

cmrdporcupine 6y ago

It's true peer bonuses in particular seem to be mainly reponsibly used. Probably because there's $$ and an accounting chain attached to them. But just last week I watched the hard work of a coworker get completely bowled over by another manager's "congrats on amazing work" email chain to someone else who used the work of my coworker without recognition.

moab 6y ago
That's really unfortunate. I agree that the $$$ and accounting help make sure the system is not abused in the usual case. Unfortunately jerks are unavoidable, and even if the manager knew the true story they could ignore it to emphasize the contributions of their own reports. It's hard to imagine a promo system that rewards hard work, where feedback comes from ones peers, and only promotes a fixed number of people where these kind of zero-sum issues don't appear.
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  Unfortunately I don't think it's a case of jerks vs not-jerks. Many years at a BigCorp has underlined to me now that the ethics and "professional economy" of working in one is entirely different than SmallCorp. SmallCorp you all work for the bottom line or company goes bust. That acts as a damper on empire builders who build for their own sake, though there is still that behavior. BigCorp it's unlikely your contributions are going to impact much of that kind of thing, even if you're up in senior management. So you're there for your Career(tm) first, company $$ success second. And in fact that is directly promoted through Perf, etc. So the aggregate behavior of individuals is not only to self-promote but to encourage the self-promotions of others, that's how we get ahead by the measures defined as "getting ahead" by the company: internal promotion, project glory, internal and external speaking engagements and publications about your project, etc. So a 100 person "congrats" and "that's amazing!" email (or its equivalent on LinkedIn) or whatever is just reasonable professional behavior. You're not a jerk for promoting yourself, you're just doing what is expected of you. The professional behavior of the modest but "plug along and do my job and help out and not self-promote" person is the one that's suspect in this scenario. The company _wants_ you to self-promote.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    This is so strange. I feel weird enough telling people to send me a gThanks when they ask what the best way to recognize me for something is, doing it unsolicited is just crazy.
gowld 6y ago
Start a new "congrats on amazing work" email chain to thank your coworker, and cc: their manager