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If they really complained about not getting compensated for buying their own food during lockdown I think "entitled" is a fair descriptor. This is the first ti

by slibhb 6y ago

If they really complained about not getting compensated for buying their own food during lockdown I think "entitled" is a fair descriptor. This is the first time I've read one of these blogs where the author complains about it being "practically impossible to fire someone". To me, that adds an air of authenticity to the complaining. In my experience too, the inability to fire people for reasons other than "this person is a real jerk" has been a looming problem. As far as work-life balance goes, I think I agree with him there too. I have a lot of privileges and I assume Google employees have even more. But the flipside of that is that, when there's a deadline, I'm very invested in meeting it, even if that means working a lot of hours. To me those two things are related: the privileges are justified by the periods of intense, focused work.

asidiali 6y ago
Agree and disagree. Without pushing a point too hard, I will ask you this - what if your employment contract states you are to receive $X,000 per year in food or food stipend? Would you be in favor of employees pushing for subsidized food while remote? Ok, and there’s a deadline at work. There’s also a deadline at your spouses work, your kid is sick, and they took off work to look after them last time. What do you do?
- etripe 6y ago
  Roll initiative! On a more serious note, that all depends on the type of contract you've got. If you're salaried and get a constant wage, you're not exactly being compensated for going above and beyond, especially in terms of hours worked. Surely, if the work to be done is important, that means the employer is willing to pay for the privilege of having it done during off hours? If not, I would argue the employer, not the employee is feeling entitled.
  - asidiali 6y ago
    Totally agree with what you’ve said. Sure yeah, if you’re getting the equivalent of overtime or time-and-a-half, ok, it may become worth your time and like you said you are getting compensated for the extra effort and sacrifice. But the author of the article is talking about salaried FTE Google employees. I’m a salaried tech employee, I don’t earn extra comp for working weekends. I assume that is the norm. Hence why the authors attitude is indeed entitled, and not the employees, as you’ve stated.
- throwaway667555 6y ago
  Any reasonable person understands that "compensation includes food stipend of $8000" in a contract means they get $8000 if they're home. Clearly GP is referring to less cut-and-dry scenarios, i.e., nearly all scenarios in this domain.
  - asidiali 6y ago
    Agreed yeah, hence the loose question. I’d assume this is a less formal scenario of oh, we have cafeterias, you’re welcome to eat there, but this isn’t some formal stipend. Makes sense, more curious on if that changes GP’s position on the topic with that added info. I’ve worked for places that did alternatively have a formal stipend amount.
sciprojguy 6y ago
On paper that's fine. Do that too much, though, and your willingness to burn personal time for the company's benefit will become the norm and factor into their planning. Getting management to un-learn that is difficult and tricky and often not accomplished without the loss of several employees with that reason pointed out in the exit interview.
serverholic 6y ago
If google provides food for employees then that's essentially indirect compensation. Employees can now use the money they would have spent on food to buy other things. So now that they're remote and have to buy their own food they have effectively received a pay decrease. How is it entitled to complain about a decrease in compensation for the same work?
- sneak 6y ago
  Google has been known to point out the perks, such as catering, when asked by candidates for more salary during negotiation, as well.
  - serverholic 6y ago
    Yeah it's interesting that the person I was replying to used the word "privilege" when describing those perks. As if Google was doing this out of the goodness of their heart.
    - sneak 6y ago
      It can be privilege to have a job, any job, that comes with perks like included food, or healthcare, even if those are part of one's negotiated compensation package.
      - serverholic 6y ago
        Then you're just asking to be taken advantage of. You are more important than your employer. Therefore you should be looking to extract as much value from your employer as possible. If you don't think your employer is doing the same then you're just naive. Google isn't catering food out of the goodness of their heart. It's a calculated cost-benefit analysis to attract and retain top talent. Edit: It's also a tactic to get people to work longer hours.
        sneak 6y ago
        I also think it's a privilege to be born healthy, to have access to clean water, et c, and I don't think that makes me "asking to be taken advantage of". I don't for a second think that Google is doing anything out of the goodness of their hearts, just that most people's jobs have no perks and few or no benefits whatsoever. Anyone working anywhere that pays them a six figure salary and provides food and healthcare is pretty fortunate, all things considered here on Earth. It's nothing to do with Google.
gambiting 6y ago
>>If they really complained about not getting compensated for buying their own food during lockdown I think "entitled" is a fair descriptor. I very much disagree. If you were getting food at work previously, as in - it was clearly your agreed part of compensation - then I would absolutely complain if suddenly I had to buy my own. >> But the flipside of that is that, when there's a deadline, I'm very invested in meeting it, even if that means working a lot of hours. Again, that's fine and if you want to do that yourself, great, everyone would love to have you as an employee. But the second your manager walks in and says "john, I expect you to work this weekend" I'd start looking for a different job. Taking personal responsibility and working harder and more hours to finish something is one thing, being told you have to because your manager demands it is unacceptable.
- slibhb 6y ago
  > But the second your manager walks in and says "john, I expect you to work this weekend" I'd start looking for a different job. Of course. A condition of my personal investment in meeting deadlines is exactly my not being treated like this.
- matwood 6y ago
  > But the second your manager walks in and says "john, I expect you to work this weekend" I'd start looking for a different job. It's definitely a failure of management, but if John was playing games all week and now is being asked to work this weekend to finish, that's also on John. His manager should have stopped the all week playing, but people want to be treated like adults and be given personal responsibility, etc...
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  For what it's worth, food in the United States is very clearly never a part of your agreed-upon compensation in the way that health/retirement benefits are; it is a "team-building office perk" offered by the employer. If it were actually part of your compensation, then you'd be taxed on it. I know it may be easy to misunderstand this, and to think of it as part of your compensation, because in a way it feels like it, but in a real legal sense as currently structured it very definitely is not part of your compensation.
UncleMeat 6y ago
A small number of people did this on the imageboard, which is widely known for collecting and upvoting fringe complaints. It is a company of like 130,000 people. A few of them are going to ask for things that seem unreasonable to others. Google is somewhat known for being slow to fire. I personally like it. Managers are expected to try to get their reports to survive PIPs rather than using them as a boot out the door.
esotericn 6y ago
My employer has killed off office perks during lockdown; it doesn't seem intentional, more of a bureaucratic thing. People are still in the office, but the management aren't, so things don't get done. I've told them that this is an issue for morale - the old "buying the cheap toilet paper" adage comes to mind - but I'm not holding out much hope that anything will happen. Is it a significant hardship for me to buy lunch? No. It wouldn't be a significant hardship for them to give it either. To be brutally honest - we all need _more_ support during lockdown and restrictions, not less. In the UK, work and the supermarket are pretty much the only legal reasons for most to be outside at the moment.
darkwizard42 6y ago
I mean in your last sentence, it really isn't a privilege if you have to do "intense, focused work" to get it... it then becomes compensation Loss of said compensation does certainly warrant some conversation about it. Also I don't really appreciate it being painted as ALL Googlers when, like most things in life, a small passionate minority affected by this brought this up and most people didn't think twice about it

by slibhb 6y ago

asidiali 6y ago

Agree and disagree. Without pushing a point too hard, I will ask you this - what if your employment contract states you are to receive $X,000 per year in food or food stipend? Would you be in favor of employees pushing for subsidized food while remote? Ok, and there’s a deadline at work. There’s also a deadline at your spouses work, your kid is sick, and they took off work to look after them last time. What do you do?

etripe 6y ago
Roll initiative! On a more serious note, that all depends on the type of contract you've got. If you're salaried and get a constant wage, you're not exactly being compensated for going above and beyond, especially in terms of hours worked. Surely, if the work to be done is important, that means the employer is willing to pay for the privilege of having it done during off hours? If not, I would argue the employer, not the employee is feeling entitled.
- asidiali 6y ago
  Totally agree with what you’ve said. Sure yeah, if you’re getting the equivalent of overtime or time-and-a-half, ok, it may become worth your time and like you said you are getting compensated for the extra effort and sacrifice. But the author of the article is talking about salaried FTE Google employees. I’m a salaried tech employee, I don’t earn extra comp for working weekends. I assume that is the norm. Hence why the authors attitude is indeed entitled, and not the employees, as you’ve stated.
throwaway667555 6y ago
Any reasonable person understands that "compensation includes food stipend of $8000" in a contract means they get $8000 if they're home. Clearly GP is referring to less cut-and-dry scenarios, i.e., nearly all scenarios in this domain.
- asidiali 6y ago
  Agreed yeah, hence the loose question. I’d assume this is a less formal scenario of oh, we have cafeterias, you’re welcome to eat there, but this isn’t some formal stipend. Makes sense, more curious on if that changes GP’s position on the topic with that added info. I’ve worked for places that did alternatively have a formal stipend amount.

sciprojguy 6y ago

On paper that's fine. Do that too much, though, and your willingness to burn personal time for the company's benefit will become the norm and factor into their planning. Getting management to un-learn that is difficult and tricky and often not accomplished without the loss of several employees with that reason pointed out in the exit interview.

serverholic 6y ago

If google provides food for employees then that's essentially indirect compensation. Employees can now use the money they would have spent on food to buy other things. So now that they're remote and have to buy their own food they have effectively received a pay decrease. How is it entitled to complain about a decrease in compensation for the same work?

sneak 6y ago
Google has been known to point out the perks, such as catering, when asked by candidates for more salary during negotiation, as well.
- serverholic 6y ago
  Yeah it's interesting that the person I was replying to used the word "privilege" when describing those perks. As if Google was doing this out of the goodness of their heart.
  - sneak 6y ago
    It can be privilege to have a job, any job, that comes with perks like included food, or healthcare, even if those are part of one's negotiated compensation package.
    - serverholic 6y ago
      Then you're just asking to be taken advantage of. You are more important than your employer. Therefore you should be looking to extract as much value from your employer as possible. If you don't think your employer is doing the same then you're just naive. Google isn't catering food out of the goodness of their heart. It's a calculated cost-benefit analysis to attract and retain top talent. Edit: It's also a tactic to get people to work longer hours.
      - sneak 6y ago
        I also think it's a privilege to be born healthy, to have access to clean water, et c, and I don't think that makes me "asking to be taken advantage of". I don't for a second think that Google is doing anything out of the goodness of their hearts, just that most people's jobs have no perks and few or no benefits whatsoever. Anyone working anywhere that pays them a six figure salary and provides food and healthcare is pretty fortunate, all things considered here on Earth. It's nothing to do with Google.

gambiting 6y ago

>>If they really complained about not getting compensated for buying their own food during lockdown I think "entitled" is a fair descriptor. I very much disagree. If you were getting food at work previously, as in - it was clearly your agreed part of compensation - then I would absolutely complain if suddenly I had to buy my own. >> But the flipside of that is that, when there's a deadline, I'm very invested in meeting it, even if that means working a lot of hours. Again, that's fine and if you want to do that yourself, great, everyone would love to have you as an employee. But the second your manager walks in and says "john, I expect you to work this weekend" I'd start looking for a different job. Taking personal responsibility and working harder and more hours to finish something is one thing, being told you have to because your manager demands it is unacceptable.

slibhb 6y ago
> But the second your manager walks in and says "john, I expect you to work this weekend" I'd start looking for a different job. Of course. A condition of my personal investment in meeting deadlines is exactly my not being treated like this.
matwood 6y ago
> But the second your manager walks in and says "john, I expect you to work this weekend" I'd start looking for a different job. It's definitely a failure of management, but if John was playing games all week and now is being asked to work this weekend to finish, that's also on John. His manager should have stopped the all week playing, but people want to be treated like adults and be given personal responsibility, etc...
CydeWeys 6y ago
For what it's worth, food in the United States is very clearly never a part of your agreed-upon compensation in the way that health/retirement benefits are; it is a "team-building office perk" offered by the employer. If it were actually part of your compensation, then you'd be taxed on it. I know it may be easy to misunderstand this, and to think of it as part of your compensation, because in a way it feels like it, but in a real legal sense as currently structured it very definitely is not part of your compensation.

UncleMeat 6y ago

A small number of people did this on the imageboard, which is widely known for collecting and upvoting fringe complaints. It is a company of like 130,000 people. A few of them are going to ask for things that seem unreasonable to others. Google is somewhat known for being slow to fire. I personally like it. Managers are expected to try to get their reports to survive PIPs rather than using them as a boot out the door.

esotericn 6y ago

My employer has killed off office perks during lockdown; it doesn't seem intentional, more of a bureaucratic thing. People are still in the office, but the management aren't, so things don't get done. I've told them that this is an issue for morale - the old "buying the cheap toilet paper" adage comes to mind - but I'm not holding out much hope that anything will happen. Is it a significant hardship for me to buy lunch? No. It wouldn't be a significant hardship for them to give it either. To be brutally honest - we all need _more_ support during lockdown and restrictions, not less. In the UK, work and the supermarket are pretty much the only legal reasons for most to be outside at the moment.

darkwizard42 6y ago

I mean in your last sentence, it really isn't a privilege if you have to do "intense, focused work" to get it... it then becomes compensation Loss of said compensation does certainly warrant some conversation about it. Also I don't really appreciate it being painted as ALL Googlers when, like most things in life, a small passionate minority affected by this brought this up and most people didn't think twice about it