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We definitely don’t have the full story in situations like this. Google can’t and won’t provide their side of the story because it’s internal company HR busines
by PragmaticPulp 5y ago
We definitely don’t have the full story in situations like this. Google can’t and won’t provide their side of the story because it’s internal company HR business. Meanwhile, the employee can and will use LinkedIn to shape the narrative in a way that is beneficial to their reputation.
Is the LinkedIn post renouncing their anti-semitism a spontaneous act that triggered the firing? Or were they internally in trouble with HR and the LinkedIn post renouncing antisemitism was a last-minute attempt to get ahead of an issue that could damage their career? We can’t know, but I suggest being careful whenever someone expertly and publicly spins themselves as the victim in a situation like this.
Either way, a company’s hands are virtually tied when someone publicly makes declarations like this:
> “I hated the Jewish people, all the Jewish people”!
And that same person is responsible for matters of customer relations and/or managing internal employees. Whether or not he genuinely renounced his beliefs, making a statement like that adds suspicion on top of past and even future actions by this person. When (not if) he has to make a difficult decision or take an unpopular action involving Jewish customers or employees, they will always wonder how much his public declaration of past hatred for Jewish people was a factor.
- brodouevencode 5y agoYou may not be wrong (to your point, no one knows), but is such a cynical approach beneficial?
- nnnnnnhfcc 5y agoIt's cynical to support the firing of an executive that admits to the worst sort of extreme racism publicly as a misguided attempt to build his own brand? Lol
- arcanon 5y agoSometimes I think the only reason platitudes like “bring your whole self to work” exist is just to weed out ppl who are dumb enough to fall for it. Never break the act if you wanna stay on top it seems.
- jjeaff 5y agoIt's about the best option I can think of to preserve one's brand if it is about to be made public that you are antisemitic.
- SQueeeeeL 5y agoIt's extremely beneficial to avoid uproar and having your emotions manipulated. Knowing when someone may be taking advantage of an absence of information helps you focus on real issues and not manufactured ones
- esens 5y agoYou are basically saying do not get upset about this because maybe it is manipulation. But if it turns out it isn't manipulation, you have successfully tamped down outrage over something that was actually deserving it?
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y agoCynical? It seems like a measured and realistic approach to me. There's no upside in getting riled up when there's every reason to believe you are missing important context.
- brodouevencode 5y agoAssuming there's more to the story than what's at face value is really the part I was referring to.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoThe question is, what really is at face value? "Employees [...] said the frustration with Awadallah’s leadership style had been building for months", and the article doesn't contain any direct claim that Google parted ways with him because of the manifesto. You could draw inferences from the timeline, and the article does seem to be written to encourage you to, but those are exactly the kind of inferences that are unreliable when you don't have all the facts.
- GVIrish 5y agoYeah I would be careful about drawing conclusions and assigning blame in this situation because it's hard to know all the factors leading to his dismissal. At the least, it sounds like there were problems with his leadership for months before this: > Employees who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said the frustration with Awadallah’s leadership style had been building for months, leading up to this week’s all-hands meeting, where employees confronted him about their discomfort with his manifesto, working with him and the leadership attrition of his reporting leaders. At the very least, if your job is dev relations you've got to be somewhat adept at how to communicate publicly. It sounds like his manifesto didn't hit the mark. And I'd have to question why he decided to do that in the first place? Did something force his hand? I feel like many people have had the experience of growing out of past prejudices but posting a manifesto about it is not something I've seen too often, certainly not in the workplace.
- commiecs 5y agoHe is a fucking devrel - how much "leadership" can he have? Fucking posers.
- TimeFlies66 5y agoThere was a fired CEO recently that hackernews was up in arms over because he came out and said that he was fired for microdosing. A couple of days later it came out that he was talking to the press for months without an okay from the board. The first story is never the real story.
- atatatat 5y agoThere are always many stories in big stories.