4 ms·

How incredibly simplistic. Of all of the women I know who have left (and there are quite a few), maternity leave never came up as a reason. How about meaningf

How incredibly simplistic. Of all of the women I know who have left (and there are quite a few), maternity leave never came up as a reason. How about meaningful work, not being evil, and being respected?

thinkingisfun 14y ago
Too radical.
dominik 14y ago
Out of curiosity, what reasons did come up? (And also, is there a possibility that reported reasons are not actual reasons?)
- rachelbythebay 14y ago
  Just off the top of my head, from what I can remember, these are all different people: "We're having to worry about money. We never had to do that before." (Router wrangler, left in 2008. One of the earlier casualties of the great shrinking.) The whole China thing. (The office there, not the Christmas/Aurora attacks.) The real names thing. (G+) Hostile environment / "My boss was a dick" (This one was in a news story linked from HN not too long ago... and happens to have been said by one of my friends). Bozos, bozos, everywhere. Plus, the new focus on the relentless pursuit of evil, and more. (Me, covered in my writing: http://rachelbythebay.com/w/ http://rachelbythebay.com/w/ ) Tired of being stuck as a go-nowhere sysadmin job with no hope of upward mobility. (Bailed out to go back to school to learn web stuff.) Acqi-non-hired. (They bought a company and then put one of their dev relations people in a one-year fixed term because they didn't like her approach to tech.) Really bad manager. Incompetent, unable to have a meaningful conversation, goes in circles. (Wound up being PIPped. Probably would have quit anyway.) Sorry, I can't come up with any more right now. But that should be a start.
  - davidw 14y ago
    Offhand, those strike me as things that could equally apply to a man leaving. Do women leave Google in disproportionately higher numbers?
    - rachelbythebay 14y ago
      I don't have exact number, unfortunately. All I have are the experiences of working there for several years while watching people show up, get burned, and leave. This means I can't really answer your question about proportions with hard data. I can tell you that the ratio in engineering, and particularly in the kernel team / cluster management area (where I was at the end) was seriously lopsided just by looking at things. This meant when a woman did leave, it was pretty obvious. I know this isn't much to go on, so I started digging around. Lucky for you, I found a short video I shot when there was some kind of release celebration in September 2009. I counted 25 people in my shot (so I'm not including myself), all standing around in front of what used to be my office. Of those 25 people, there was one woman. So, add me behind the camera, and that's 8%. That's the best I can do for now. Hope that helps.
    - mhurron 14y ago
      Well to be perfectly honest, extend 'more maternity leave' to 'more vacation time' and you'll have better retention of men as well. Men and women, not all that different.
      - davidw 14y ago
        Don't have kids, do you?:-) The first few months of having a kid is no vacation!
  - skrebbel 14y ago
    I'm curious about that article about the relentless pursuit of evil, but for reasons that I don't understand, you linked to your blog's front page. Ctrl+f 'evil' didn't help. Could you maybe give us the actual URL(s)? I'm genuinely curious, because you're pushing a button that I didn't know I had.
    - rachelbythebay 14y ago
      There are quite a few, so I'll just grab some examples of corporate hell: http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/04/21/empires/ http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/04/21/empires/ That talks about Collabra eating Netscape from within by destroying its culture. You might argue that Doubleclick has been steadily doing that to Google. http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/04/20/screw/ http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/04/20/screw/ There's the whole antitrust lawsuit about no-poach agreements among valley companies. http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/04/19/leave/ http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/04/19/leave/ There's the five year leave program evaporating. http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/10/17/badging/ http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/10/17/badging/ If your company starts doing this, worry. Reports on wages and working conditions are fair game. Plug: my 2011 posts are organized in meaningful categories in my book (link in profile). You might give it a shot if you prefer that arrangement.
      - gruseom 14y ago
        What's "badging"? Also, re acquired company "eating [acquirer] from within" and "You might argue that Doubleclick has been steadily doing that to Google" ... that's pretty interesting. I remember thinking "weird cultural mismatch" when Google acquired Doubleclick. Could you expand on this?
        rachelbythebay 14y ago
        Badging is when you take your ProxCard (which is glued between two photo badges) and pass it over a reader in front of the cafe. The attached laptop then plays the DING! noise from Gattaca. No, really, it does. Except when it played the vuvuzela sound. As for Doubleclick, well, that one's harder to explain. It sure seems like the company ate something it couldn't handle. "Ugh, bad pie."
nodata 14y ago
Look at the numbers! A poll of a few women you know doesn't count, sorry.
AznHisoka 14y ago
Penelope Trunk says our sex lives contribute more to happiness than work fulfillment :)
danielbarla 14y ago
I think it's not a reason only because people's expectations in that regard are extremely low, and also, because anything remotely reasonable is seen as a perk. As such, women might might not leave over something they never knew they should have had. Just as a point of reference, several European countries measure maternity leave in years, not months.
- hnal943 14y ago
  And if you're looking for reasonable fiscal decisions, Europe is definitely an A+ place to look.
CodeMage 14y ago
How about not criticizing the article for what it's clearly not about? The title is misleading, but if you get past it and read the article, it becomes clear that the message is not "Google's sole initiative to retain women is to extend maternity leave", but rather "maternity leave is important and most employers are doing the wrong thing, kudos to Google for daring to do the right thing".

thinkingisfun 14y ago

Too radical.

dominik 14y ago

Out of curiosity, what reasons did come up? (And also, is there a possibility that reported reasons are not actual reasons?)

rachelbythebay 14y ago
Just off the top of my head, from what I can remember, these are all different people: "We're having to worry about money. We never had to do that before." (Router wrangler, left in 2008. One of the earlier casualties of the great shrinking.) The whole China thing. (The office there, not the Christmas/Aurora attacks.) The real names thing. (G+) Hostile environment / "My boss was a dick" (This one was in a news story linked from HN not too long ago... and happens to have been said by one of my friends). Bozos, bozos, everywhere. Plus, the new focus on the relentless pursuit of evil, and more. (Me, covered in my writing: http://rachelbythebay.com/w/ http://rachelbythebay.com/w/ ) Tired of being stuck as a go-nowhere sysadmin job with no hope of upward mobility. (Bailed out to go back to school to learn web stuff.) Acqi-non-hired. (They bought a company and then put one of their dev relations people in a one-year fixed term because they didn't like her approach to tech.) Really bad manager. Incompetent, unable to have a meaningful conversation, goes in circles. (Wound up being PIPped. Probably would have quit anyway.) Sorry, I can't come up with any more right now. But that should be a start.
- davidw 14y ago
  Offhand, those strike me as things that could equally apply to a man leaving. Do women leave Google in disproportionately higher numbers?
  - rachelbythebay 14y ago
    I don't have exact number, unfortunately. All I have are the experiences of working there for several years while watching people show up, get burned, and leave. This means I can't really answer your question about proportions with hard data. I can tell you that the ratio in engineering, and particularly in the kernel team / cluster management area (where I was at the end) was seriously lopsided just by looking at things. This meant when a woman did leave, it was pretty obvious. I know this isn't much to go on, so I started digging around. Lucky for you, I found a short video I shot when there was some kind of release celebration in September 2009. I counted 25 people in my shot (so I'm not including myself), all standing around in front of what used to be my office. Of those 25 people, there was one woman. So, add me behind the camera, and that's 8%. That's the best I can do for now. Hope that helps.
  - mhurron 14y ago
    Well to be perfectly honest, extend 'more maternity leave' to 'more vacation time' and you'll have better retention of men as well. Men and women, not all that different.
    - davidw 14y ago
      Don't have kids, do you?:-) The first few months of having a kid is no vacation!
- skrebbel 14y ago
  I'm curious about that article about the relentless pursuit of evil, but for reasons that I don't understand, you linked to your blog's front page. Ctrl+f 'evil' didn't help. Could you maybe give us the actual URL(s)? I'm genuinely curious, because you're pushing a button that I didn't know I had.
  - rachelbythebay 14y ago
    There are quite a few, so I'll just grab some examples of corporate hell: http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/04/21/empires/ http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/04/21/empires/ That talks about Collabra eating Netscape from within by destroying its culture. You might argue that Doubleclick has been steadily doing that to Google. http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/04/20/screw/ http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/04/20/screw/ There's the whole antitrust lawsuit about no-poach agreements among valley companies. http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/04/19/leave/ http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/04/19/leave/ There's the five year leave program evaporating. http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/10/17/badging/ http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2011/10/17/badging/ If your company starts doing this, worry. Reports on wages and working conditions are fair game. Plug: my 2011 posts are organized in meaningful categories in my book (link in profile). You might give it a shot if you prefer that arrangement.
    - gruseom 14y ago
      What's "badging"? Also, re acquired company "eating [acquirer] from within" and "You might argue that Doubleclick has been steadily doing that to Google" ... that's pretty interesting. I remember thinking "weird cultural mismatch" when Google acquired Doubleclick. Could you expand on this?
      - rachelbythebay 14y ago
        Badging is when you take your ProxCard (which is glued between two photo badges) and pass it over a reader in front of the cafe. The attached laptop then plays the DING! noise from Gattaca. No, really, it does. Except when it played the vuvuzela sound. As for Doubleclick, well, that one's harder to explain. It sure seems like the company ate something it couldn't handle. "Ugh, bad pie."

nodata 14y ago

Look at the numbers! A poll of a few women you know doesn't count, sorry.

AznHisoka 14y ago

Penelope Trunk says our sex lives contribute more to happiness than work fulfillment :)

danielbarla 14y ago

I think it's not a reason only because people's expectations in that regard are extremely low, and also, because anything remotely reasonable is seen as a perk. As such, women might might not leave over something they never knew they should have had. Just as a point of reference, several European countries measure maternity leave in years, not months.

hnal943 14y ago
And if you're looking for reasonable fiscal decisions, Europe is definitely an A+ place to look.

CodeMage 14y ago

How about not criticizing the article for what it's clearly not about? The title is misleading, but if you get past it and read the article, it becomes clear that the message is not "Google's sole initiative to retain women is to extend maternity leave", but rather "maternity leave is important and most employers are doing the wrong thing, kudos to Google for daring to do the right thing".