4 ms·

Why is employee dissent such a problem in google and not a problem in other companies?

dekhn 3y ago
because the company pitched itself as "socially responsible" and attracted a large number of people who believed they could work there and change the world to look like what they wanted it, and then google sort of changed directions for business purposes that aren't compatible.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  Also, because lots of people work there. And also, it isn't true that it's unique to them.
- pvarangot 3y ago
  Also I think the "we are all Google" borg/hivemind thing plays a part, other companies like Amazon or Apple are organized more like a lot of smaller companies so when people join they have different expectations towards corporate and feedback up and down and internal dissent work different.
- anon-sre-srm 3y ago
  [flagged]
oluwie 3y ago
"Do no evil" went out the backdoor a long time ago
- thinkingemote 3y ago
  For the record they changed it to (paraphrasing) "googlers shouldn't do evil" without much commentary at the time but significantly shifting the emphasis away from the corporation to individual employees. From a mission statement to HR guideline.
pixl97 3y ago
Because many other kinds of companies have unions that give the employees a means to redress issues without such stunts. Our tech lord masters have done a good job of convincing us in the industry that crushing unions as if they were the robber barons of the past is a good idea.
khazhoux 3y ago
Google deliberately instituted a cultural policy where employees were told to "bring your whole self" to work. The belief was that a person does their best work (and the company performs best as a result) when people bring the totality of their values and interests to work. This made it so internal discussion forums covered topics that would be completely inappropriate at most other workplaces, and people are encouraged to voice their opinions in company meetings. Likewise, there was a spirit (in principle though definitely not in practice) of "everyone here is equal," which again encourages people to be very loud.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
duxup 3y ago
I don't have a good answer although I will say that in past such stories discussions about internal forums of various types, some employees came to say that the more "advocacy" (I don't know of a good word here) type forums were dominated by a few voices and had relatively low participating rate compared to say ... everyone who could participate. They indicated that many employees had / wanted nothing to do with those forums. In this example we have one person, that might be telling. So while it might be a problem, I'm not sure how widespread it is.
rdtsc 3y ago
Because it encouraged people "to bring your whole self to work", and during previous years it supported and encouraged employee being vocal and protecting about certain issues. They like to "amplify" certain voices and suppress others, so to speak. It's in their DNA both as a company culture as well as their main business - moderating social sites. What some employees haven't quite learned yet is how to read between the lines. They are certain topics which are ok to protest and be vocal about, but others, are not, like unions or this case. To be safe, it's better to think of "bring your whole self to work" as a gullibility trap. It may not be that, but effectively it will function as such. It catches the naive troublemakers so later on they can be filtered out.
- name_nick_sex_m 3y ago
  Agree, it was part of the culture, and now it is a trap. Googlers will learn pretty quick (with examples like these) that their freedom from the old days is gone.
goethes_kind 3y ago
Because smart moral people don't let themselves be used for evil and smart people also have options to work elsewhere. The guy knew he was going to get fired and he did not care because he was already determined not to work for an evil employer. He could have left quietly, but he decided to take a personal hit to bring awareness to the issue. That makes him a hero in my eyes.
- fasthands9 3y ago
  I admit I think there are reasons beyond that. I realize it's anecdotal, but I rarely hear about this type of event at Amazon or Microsoft or even Apple. Google attracts a lot of disputes like this. I would speculate it has something to do with what age range they like to hire or their branding. But I'm not sure.
Jochim 3y ago
Besides reasons put forth by others, most of their employees can also afford to be fired.
hayst4ck 3y ago
Because computer science was one of the most in demand fields for many years, attracting the most ambitious and talented undergrads -- that is to say, the average google employee is pretty well educated likely via a liberal education institution. Those who are educated are more able to clearly understand the consequences of their actions or inactions and understand lack of solidarity for others means lack of solidarity for yourself. The purpose of liberal education is to teach people how to critically think and build a world that they themselves would like to live in, so when a liberally educated ambitious person realizes that they are contributing to building a lesser world it becomes problematic and they correctly feel a need to take responsibility for building a better future. Add in a legacy of declaring that "don't be evil" is a founding principle and you are going to find people being pretty upset about being lured in with promises of social responsibility and like-minded peers, only to find an ethically devoid pursuit of next quarters profit that can be found at nearly any company in America.
smsm42 3y ago
Do you think any other company wouldn't fire an employee who made a scene at a PR event? I suspect, though, that in most companies the employees already know what would happen, and would not do things like that - first, because they don't feel entitled using the company's resources for personal goals, and second - because the consequences may be too heavy for them. But in Google, one probably can be both rich enough already to be fired and not sweat about it too much, and entitled enough to feel like something like this is the right thing to do.
CydeWeys 3y ago
Who says it's not a problem in other companies? I think it just doesn't make the news as much. At my previous company, at an offsite retreat, one of the guys got drunk and started chewing out the company's founders and the main office manager. Sure enough, he was fired by the time the retreat was over, and was never seen in the office again. A similar thing happened to someone who had a huge blowout argument and emailed the entire company his manifesto (of sorts).

because the company pitched itself as "socially responsible" and attracted a large number of people who believed they could work there and change the world to look like what they wanted it, and then google sort of changed directions for business purposes that aren't compatible.

sanderjd 3y ago
Also, because lots of people work there. And also, it isn't true that it's unique to them.
pvarangot 3y ago
Also I think the "we are all Google" borg/hivemind thing plays a part, other companies like Amazon or Apple are organized more like a lot of smaller companies so when people join they have different expectations towards corporate and feedback up and down and internal dissent work different.
anon-sre-srm 3y ago
[flagged]

oluwie 3y ago

"Do no evil" went out the backdoor a long time ago

thinkingemote 3y ago
For the record they changed it to (paraphrasing) "googlers shouldn't do evil" without much commentary at the time but significantly shifting the emphasis away from the corporation to individual employees. From a mission statement to HR guideline.

pixl97 3y ago

Because many other kinds of companies have unions that give the employees a means to redress issues without such stunts. Our tech lord masters have done a good job of convincing us in the industry that crushing unions as if they were the robber barons of the past is a good idea.

khazhoux 3y ago

Google deliberately instituted a cultural policy where employees were told to "bring your whole self" to work. The belief was that a person does their best work (and the company performs best as a result) when people bring the totality of their values and interests to work. This made it so internal discussion forums covered topics that would be completely inappropriate at most other workplaces, and people are encouraged to voice their opinions in company meetings. Likewise, there was a spirit (in principle though definitely not in practice) of "everyone here is equal," which again encourages people to be very loud.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

duxup 3y ago

I don't have a good answer although I will say that in past such stories discussions about internal forums of various types, some employees came to say that the more "advocacy" (I don't know of a good word here) type forums were dominated by a few voices and had relatively low participating rate compared to say ... everyone who could participate. They indicated that many employees had / wanted nothing to do with those forums. In this example we have one person, that might be telling. So while it might be a problem, I'm not sure how widespread it is.

rdtsc 3y ago

Because it encouraged people "to bring your whole self to work", and during previous years it supported and encouraged employee being vocal and protecting about certain issues. They like to "amplify" certain voices and suppress others, so to speak. It's in their DNA both as a company culture as well as their main business - moderating social sites. What some employees haven't quite learned yet is how to read between the lines. They are certain topics which are ok to protest and be vocal about, but others, are not, like unions or this case. To be safe, it's better to think of "bring your whole self to work" as a gullibility trap. It may not be that, but effectively it will function as such. It catches the naive troublemakers so later on they can be filtered out.

name_nick_sex_m 3y ago
Agree, it was part of the culture, and now it is a trap. Googlers will learn pretty quick (with examples like these) that their freedom from the old days is gone.

goethes_kind 3y ago

Because smart moral people don't let themselves be used for evil and smart people also have options to work elsewhere. The guy knew he was going to get fired and he did not care because he was already determined not to work for an evil employer. He could have left quietly, but he decided to take a personal hit to bring awareness to the issue. That makes him a hero in my eyes.

fasthands9 3y ago
I admit I think there are reasons beyond that. I realize it's anecdotal, but I rarely hear about this type of event at Amazon or Microsoft or even Apple. Google attracts a lot of disputes like this. I would speculate it has something to do with what age range they like to hire or their branding. But I'm not sure.

Jochim 3y ago

Besides reasons put forth by others, most of their employees can also afford to be fired.

hayst4ck 3y ago

Because computer science was one of the most in demand fields for many years, attracting the most ambitious and talented undergrads -- that is to say, the average google employee is pretty well educated likely via a liberal education institution. Those who are educated are more able to clearly understand the consequences of their actions or inactions and understand lack of solidarity for others means lack of solidarity for yourself. The purpose of liberal education is to teach people how to critically think and build a world that they themselves would like to live in, so when a liberally educated ambitious person realizes that they are contributing to building a lesser world it becomes problematic and they correctly feel a need to take responsibility for building a better future. Add in a legacy of declaring that "don't be evil" is a founding principle and you are going to find people being pretty upset about being lured in with promises of social responsibility and like-minded peers, only to find an ethically devoid pursuit of next quarters profit that can be found at nearly any company in America.

smsm42 3y ago

Do you think any other company wouldn't fire an employee who made a scene at a PR event? I suspect, though, that in most companies the employees already know what would happen, and would not do things like that - first, because they don't feel entitled using the company's resources for personal goals, and second - because the consequences may be too heavy for them. But in Google, one probably can be both rich enough already to be fired and not sweat about it too much, and entitled enough to feel like something like this is the right thing to do.

CydeWeys 3y ago

Who says it's not a problem in other companies? I think it just doesn't make the news as much. At my previous company, at an offsite retreat, one of the guys got drunk and started chewing out the company's founders and the main office manager. Sure enough, he was fired by the time the retreat was over, and was never seen in the office again. A similar thing happened to someone who had a huge blowout argument and emailed the entire company his manifesto (of sorts).