6 ms·

You missed the part where he kept talking about race and unequal treatment and the ScanOps people of being mostly 'people of color'. He said these things explic

by tkahn6 15y ago

You missed the part where he kept talking about race and unequal treatment and the ScanOps people of being mostly 'people of color'. He said these things explicitly in his letter that Google Legal reviewed. That is exactly why he was fired. Google did the absolutely correct thing. They don't want to deal with that shit. There's no conspiracy.

gradstudent 15y ago
No accusations were leveled and, as far as I can tell, at best, Google overreacted. To make an analogy: the guy points out the sky is blue and he's promptly fired. Wtf?
- tkahn6 15y ago
  > No accusations were leveled It doesn't matter. That's exactly what was being implied. Google wants to prevent any legal disputes or inquiries into their operations which can be very costly. The guy is a low-level low-importance asset so they had him terminated. It makes perfect sense.
  - gradstudent 15y ago
    His importance to the Google machinery is irrelevant. According to the post, he was fired for using Google video equipment during working hours. Even though he'd been given explicit permission to do so. At worst he should have been given a warning. I hope, for the sake of consistency, "Carl" was also fired.
    - tkahn6 15y ago
      > he was fired for using Google video equipment during working hours. Even though he'd been given explicit permission to do so. Yes they used that as a reason to fire him but that's not why they fired him.
      - gradstudent 15y ago
        Perhaps things are different in the U.S. but here -- in Australia -- you can only be fired for breach of contract. If that didn't occur, as the blog post seems to suggest, then he was unfairly dismissed.
        pstack 15y ago
        As dangrossman points out, above, you can be fired for any reason whatsoever, on the spot. I believe the only protections are sex, race, gender, religion, and age. And as for sex, that means you can't be fired for being a male or a female. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation, for which you can still be fired in something like two or three dozen states. (Look into the ENDA which has been repeatedly proposed for the past 17 years, but never passed -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Non-Discrimination_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Non-Discrimination_A... ). And for those things which are protected, there is often little you can do. Prove that they fired you for being too old and not just because you smelled bad or performed poorly at work or pissed the wrong person off. It therefore isn't really concerning that someone would not want to deal with the hassle of some jackass and would just ask for him to be fired, instead.
        doe88 15y ago
        > the hassle of some jackass nice
        scotty79 15y ago
        US seem like horrible country to work in. You are expected to donate unpaid overtime to your company, you can be fired on a whim. What else?
        davidw 15y ago
        It's easy to get hired because employers aren't afraid that they're wedded to you for life. And you generally make pretty good money - depending on your job of course. I think 'job protection' is a bit misguided. What makes more sense to me is 'people protection' - that even if you lose your job, you'll still be able to pay rent, eat, etc... It would make more sense to aim for that goal directly rather than force employers to keep people they don't want.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
- pstack 15y ago
  To put it bluntly, he was the employee of a company that Google hired to do some work for them and he was bothering employees and then he become someone else's problem up the chain and it then become his direct employer's problem who value their contract and the employment of their other employees over the personal project and whims of someone who was hired to do some film work and not to conduct an investigation into the socio-economic makeup of the campus. Now that he's no longer employed, he can go ahead with his pursuit without doing it under the advantage of his employment or his employer and I'm sure that if his insinuations are remotely true, then there are sure to be a bunch of people beating down his door for the opportunity to speak with him about their work at Google, under journalistic protection.
- JabavuAdams 15y ago
  Mentioning the word "race", "class", or "gender" in a tech setting is a big no-no. They're huge hot-button words. It scares people and they counter-attack reflexively, without deeply considering the arguments. That's been my experience from work, Reddit, and HN, in any case. Notice that I'm not saying anything about the correctness of any particular position on a specific issue. It's that the specifics are barely able to be discussed because people are already in war mode.
  - hieronymusN 15y ago
    I think you bring up a good point, and its also worth exploring why "race", "class" and "gender" are such hot button issues in tech. These are issues that many other very large companies (ex: I've worked for large financial corps in NYC that have vibrant & entrenched diversity programs) have dealt with in much more constructive ways. So why do these topics blow up so big amongst the valley crowd?
    - dspeyer 15y ago
      For one thing, wrongful firing and wrongful failure-to-hire lawsuits are common and painful. No one wants to give the employment trolls more ammunition.
paganel 15y ago
> They don't want to deal with that shit. There's no conspiracy. I totally agree with you. Why would any Übermensch in his right mind eat and drink in the same room as a yellow-badged Untermensch? That's heresy.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
JabavuAdams 15y ago
> You missed the part where he kept talking about race and unequal treatment and the ScanOps people of being mostly 'people of color'. He said these things explicitly in his letter that Google Legal reviewed. That was a huge mistake on his part. > Google did the absolutely correct thing. They don't want to deal with that shit From whose perspective? What I mean is that it's possible for them to do something that is "absolutely correct" for their own self-preservation / convenience, but that is not correct from an ethical or societal stand-point. I'm not saying they're doing anything wrong. It just seems that you're angry that the OP wanted to investigate race / class issues.
- glenra 15y ago
  OP sounded like a muckraking moron, a wanna-be Michael Moore. If you go around interviewing people with an agenda and you get to re-cut the footage however you like, it's possible to get it to seem to support whatever conclusion you want it to - that's why they wanted the tape back. If this guy wants to make a video "as a personal project" to "deal with race and class issues", whatever that means, he should do this entirely on his own, not as a part time project while employed at Google using any Google resources. It's clear from his tone that OP has a point of view he wants to push - he wants to feel aggrieved at oppression, whether or not there is any. Given that OP was dumb enough to do things the way he did it's not clear he's smart enough to understand that he's being a moron. In this litigious culture, firing OP was a good idea and explaining to OP why he was being a moron wasn't necessarily a good idea. Besides, "some folks, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em."
DannoHung 15y ago
Well now that we know about it, they just pulled a Barbara Streisand. You can be god damned sure someone's going to go sticking their nose into it now.
throwaway1818 15y ago
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by tkahn6 15y ago

gradstudent 15y ago

No accusations were leveled and, as far as I can tell, at best, Google overreacted. To make an analogy: the guy points out the sky is blue and he's promptly fired. Wtf?

tkahn6 15y ago
> No accusations were leveled It doesn't matter. That's exactly what was being implied. Google wants to prevent any legal disputes or inquiries into their operations which can be very costly. The guy is a low-level low-importance asset so they had him terminated. It makes perfect sense.
- gradstudent 15y ago
  His importance to the Google machinery is irrelevant. According to the post, he was fired for using Google video equipment during working hours. Even though he'd been given explicit permission to do so. At worst he should have been given a warning. I hope, for the sake of consistency, "Carl" was also fired.
  - tkahn6 15y ago
    > he was fired for using Google video equipment during working hours. Even though he'd been given explicit permission to do so. Yes they used that as a reason to fire him but that's not why they fired him.
    - gradstudent 15y ago
      Perhaps things are different in the U.S. but here -- in Australia -- you can only be fired for breach of contract. If that didn't occur, as the blog post seems to suggest, then he was unfairly dismissed.
      - pstack 15y ago
        As dangrossman points out, above, you can be fired for any reason whatsoever, on the spot. I believe the only protections are sex, race, gender, religion, and age. And as for sex, that means you can't be fired for being a male or a female. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation, for which you can still be fired in something like two or three dozen states. (Look into the ENDA which has been repeatedly proposed for the past 17 years, but never passed -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Non-Discrimination_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Non-Discrimination_A... ). And for those things which are protected, there is often little you can do. Prove that they fired you for being too old and not just because you smelled bad or performed poorly at work or pissed the wrong person off. It therefore isn't really concerning that someone would not want to deal with the hassle of some jackass and would just ask for him to be fired, instead.
        doe88 15y ago
        > the hassle of some jackass nice
        scotty79 15y ago
        US seem like horrible country to work in. You are expected to donate unpaid overtime to your company, you can be fired on a whim. What else?
        davidw 15y ago
        It's easy to get hired because employers aren't afraid that they're wedded to you for life. And you generally make pretty good money - depending on your job of course. I think 'job protection' is a bit misguided. What makes more sense to me is 'people protection' - that even if you lose your job, you'll still be able to pay rent, eat, etc... It would make more sense to aim for that goal directly rather than force employers to keep people they don't want.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
pstack 15y ago
To put it bluntly, he was the employee of a company that Google hired to do some work for them and he was bothering employees and then he become someone else's problem up the chain and it then become his direct employer's problem who value their contract and the employment of their other employees over the personal project and whims of someone who was hired to do some film work and not to conduct an investigation into the socio-economic makeup of the campus. Now that he's no longer employed, he can go ahead with his pursuit without doing it under the advantage of his employment or his employer and I'm sure that if his insinuations are remotely true, then there are sure to be a bunch of people beating down his door for the opportunity to speak with him about their work at Google, under journalistic protection.
JabavuAdams 15y ago
Mentioning the word "race", "class", or "gender" in a tech setting is a big no-no. They're huge hot-button words. It scares people and they counter-attack reflexively, without deeply considering the arguments. That's been my experience from work, Reddit, and HN, in any case. Notice that I'm not saying anything about the correctness of any particular position on a specific issue. It's that the specifics are barely able to be discussed because people are already in war mode.
- hieronymusN 15y ago
  I think you bring up a good point, and its also worth exploring why "race", "class" and "gender" are such hot button issues in tech. These are issues that many other very large companies (ex: I've worked for large financial corps in NYC that have vibrant & entrenched diversity programs) have dealt with in much more constructive ways. So why do these topics blow up so big amongst the valley crowd?
  - dspeyer 15y ago
    For one thing, wrongful firing and wrongful failure-to-hire lawsuits are common and painful. No one wants to give the employment trolls more ammunition.

paganel 15y ago

> They don't want to deal with that shit. There's no conspiracy. I totally agree with you. Why would any Übermensch in his right mind eat and drink in the same room as a yellow-badged Untermensch? That's heresy.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

JabavuAdams 15y ago

> You missed the part where he kept talking about race and unequal treatment and the ScanOps people of being mostly 'people of color'. He said these things explicitly in his letter that Google Legal reviewed. That was a huge mistake on his part. > Google did the absolutely correct thing. They don't want to deal with that shit From whose perspective? What I mean is that it's possible for them to do something that is "absolutely correct" for their own self-preservation / convenience, but that is not correct from an ethical or societal stand-point. I'm not saying they're doing anything wrong. It just seems that you're angry that the OP wanted to investigate race / class issues.

glenra 15y ago
OP sounded like a muckraking moron, a wanna-be Michael Moore. If you go around interviewing people with an agenda and you get to re-cut the footage however you like, it's possible to get it to seem to support whatever conclusion you want it to - that's why they wanted the tape back. If this guy wants to make a video "as a personal project" to "deal with race and class issues", whatever that means, he should do this entirely on his own, not as a part time project while employed at Google using any Google resources. It's clear from his tone that OP has a point of view he wants to push - he wants to feel aggrieved at oppression, whether or not there is any. Given that OP was dumb enough to do things the way he did it's not clear he's smart enough to understand that he's being a moron. In this litigious culture, firing OP was a good idea and explaining to OP why he was being a moron wasn't necessarily a good idea. Besides, "some folks, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em."

DannoHung 15y ago

Well now that we know about it, they just pulled a Barbara Streisand. You can be god damned sure someone's going to go sticking their nose into it now.

throwaway1818 15y ago

test

throwaway1818 15y ago
test 2
- throwaway1818 15y ago
  test 4
throwaway1818 15y ago
test 3
- throwaway1818 15y ago
  test 5