3 ms·

Stuff like this drives me up the wall. You police language and culture so nobody is talking about or joking about "bad stuff" and a bunch of jerks who already

Stuff like this drives me up the wall. You police language and culture so nobody is talking about or joking about "bad stuff" and a bunch of jerks who already hate you take this effort as indication of obfuscating whatever bad behavior they suspect you of. You let employees talk and joke freely and the same jerks will take it out of context and you'll be trying to explain someone's dank meme to some regulator who doesn't have a sense of humor. It's a catch-22. There's no winning.

salawat 4y ago
The problem is that no one goes through the effort of making an official policy against something unless that something is actually a threat. In Google's case, the impression that abuse of a monopoly position is one such threat. If one is going to make a rule "Under no circumstances, call a spade a spade;" you bet your sweet arse if I'm a regulator, you're getting extra effort in investigating that aspect. It's a "the lady dost protest too much" sorta thing. If you don't have that policy, then I have less reason to believe you are specifically trying to hide something. After all, if you weren't in a monopoly/monopoly adjacent position through continual M&A's, you wouldn't have that problem, now would you?
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  >The problem is that no one goes through the effort of making an official policy against something unless that something is actually a threat FFS. This is exactly what I mean. Is it really not that unforeseeable that some MBAs wouldn't just implement anti-trust training because "it's what all the other BigCos do"? Heck, every defense contractor has anti-bribery training that delves into avoiding optics that hint at the potential for bribery. The overwhelming majority of them aren't bribing anyone. >If one is going to make a rule "Under no circumstances, call a spade a spade;" you bet your sweet arse if I'm a regulator, you're getting extra effort in investigating that aspect. Next time you get pulled over make some wise cracks about trafficking drugs. Then maybe you'll see why they have a "don't talk about drugs" policy.

salawat 4y ago

The problem is that no one goes through the effort of making an official policy against something unless that something is actually a threat. In Google's case, the impression that abuse of a monopoly position is one such threat. If one is going to make a rule "Under no circumstances, call a spade a spade;" you bet your sweet arse if I'm a regulator, you're getting extra effort in investigating that aspect. It's a "the lady dost protest too much" sorta thing. If you don't have that policy, then I have less reason to believe you are specifically trying to hide something. After all, if you weren't in a monopoly/monopoly adjacent position through continual M&A's, you wouldn't have that problem, now would you?

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
>The problem is that no one goes through the effort of making an official policy against something unless that something is actually a threat FFS. This is exactly what I mean. Is it really not that unforeseeable that some MBAs wouldn't just implement anti-trust training because "it's what all the other BigCos do"? Heck, every defense contractor has anti-bribery training that delves into avoiding optics that hint at the potential for bribery. The overwhelming majority of them aren't bribing anyone. >If one is going to make a rule "Under no circumstances, call a spade a spade;" you bet your sweet arse if I'm a regulator, you're getting extra effort in investigating that aspect. Next time you get pulled over make some wise cracks about trafficking drugs. Then maybe you'll see why they have a "don't talk about drugs" policy.