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A subtle but important aspect of her complaint that I would like to point out is she offered to resign, but after some period X. I'm not sure if that was two we

A subtle but important aspect of her complaint that I would like to point out is she offered to resign, but after some period X. I'm not sure if that was two weeks or a month. Instead, Google layed her off on the same day. Firing her much sooner than the date she requested seems really foolish on Google's side. Arguably, one of the primary reasons a profit-oriented company would hire someone for this kind of job is for the good PR. If they offer to resign why would you not simply accept the terms of resignation, why would you rush it to happen faster. Even if she is acting in bad faith Google could have saved themselves a big headache by at least giving her a month or something, even two weeks, to exit the company.

virgilp 6y ago
Because she became toxic. It can happen - when one's relationship with mgmt turns sour, sometimes that one person can become really negative. A respected, "star employee" that turns sour can really destroy morale in entire departments if given time to do so. Yes, she can complain on Twitter and still do some harm; but without her, management at least has a chance to control the internal conversation.
nightski 6y ago
If someone has a negative attitude towards their employer it could be a liability to let them run with that negative attitude for weeks or months. From what I understand she had already told other researchers at the company to stop their work and was being quite disruptive. NOTE: I am not trying to take sides as I don't know enough information. Just saying I believe there are good reasons why you'd let someone go immediately.
notahacker 6y ago
The 'Google Ai ethicist resigns...' headlines wouldn't have been any better unless she was willing to sign a gag clause as a condition of getting her preferred leaving date (which sounds highly unlikely) and I doubt they had any particular need to pay her to finish anything off or hand over to fellow staff. Ultimately if she felt strongly enough about something to indicate she would leave if they didn't budge and they felt strongly enough about not budging to let her go then the finishing date is moot. Edit: also you put the stuff about 'agreeing a leaving date' instead of 'I will quit' in your ultimatum to make it clear that you're dead serious about leaving and are trying to be reasonable rather than threatening, not because you need next month's paycheque.

virgilp 6y ago

Because she became toxic. It can happen - when one's relationship with mgmt turns sour, sometimes that one person can become really negative. A respected, "star employee" that turns sour can really destroy morale in entire departments if given time to do so. Yes, she can complain on Twitter and still do some harm; but without her, management at least has a chance to control the internal conversation.

nightski 6y ago

If someone has a negative attitude towards their employer it could be a liability to let them run with that negative attitude for weeks or months. From what I understand she had already told other researchers at the company to stop their work and was being quite disruptive. NOTE: I am not trying to take sides as I don't know enough information. Just saying I believe there are good reasons why you'd let someone go immediately.

notahacker 6y ago

The 'Google Ai ethicist resigns...' headlines wouldn't have been any better unless she was willing to sign a gag clause as a condition of getting her preferred leaving date (which sounds highly unlikely) and I doubt they had any particular need to pay her to finish anything off or hand over to fellow staff. Ultimately if she felt strongly enough about something to indicate she would leave if they didn't budge and they felt strongly enough about not budging to let her go then the finishing date is moot. Edit: also you put the stuff about 'agreeing a leaving date' instead of 'I will quit' in your ultimatum to make it clear that you're dead serious about leaving and are trying to be reasonable rather than threatening, not because you need next month's paycheque.