6 ms·

20% time can easily destroy your career. Most managers view it either as a waste of time or a flight risk. If the manager has to put someone on the 5% shit-list

20% time can easily destroy your career. Most managers view it either as a waste of time or a flight risk. If the manager has to put someone on the 5% shit-list (which has more to do with his performance than yours) and you're 20%ing, then you're probably screwed. Blind allocation is imbecilic, but I think even the idea that people need to be "allocated" to projects is moronic. It doesn't belong in this fucking century. Closed allocation makes managerial dinosaurs think they control something, but they lose control of the most important thing, which is their ability to retain talent and enthusiasm. If Google wanted to actually deserve its reputation, they'd man up and go for Open Allocation: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/tech-companies-open-allocation-is-your-only-real-option/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/tech-companie...

xenen 14y ago
Wow, I never would have expected Google's perf management to be as bad as what I've read here - Glassdoor reviews all sound so peachy.
- ori_b 14y ago
  Take what Michael Church says with a grain of salt. I was around to observe his threads on the eng-misc mailing list while he was still at Google. Without his consent, I'd rather not say what went on, but I would advise you to get your information elsewhere.
  - mietek 14y ago
    Michael O'Church seems quite happy to share what went on. What's stopping you? Michael O'Church's arguments are internally consistent, and more persuasive than vague statements impugning his character.
    - trhtrsh 14y ago
      > What's stopping you? Respect for the confidentiality of internal communications. Anyone is free to share their own impressions, but it is inappropriate to pull someone else's privileged documents and wave them in public.
      - chii 14y ago
        what about anonymizing and cleaning the communication such that you cannot decipher any actual information, but can grasp the gist of the topic about which this thread discusses?
      - mietek 14y ago
        Just how respectful and appropriate is it to make public claims about someone's character without giving evidence?
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
  - vidarh 14y ago
    I find it quite disconcerting when people write comments like this. If you're not willing to share what was said, so that we can judge whether or not it supports your veiled allegations, then don't make the allegations. It is in bad taste, and reflects badly on you. I know it can be hard to resist talking if you believe you have inside information, but giving "warnings" like this without sharing details that are directly relevant to the claims he made in effect boils down to nothing more than an ad hominem supported by appeals to authority about the reasons for his claims.
  - ermida 14y ago
    Yet you leak the name of an internal mailing list. Well done!
- nostrademons 14y ago
  The negative comments here haven't really been my experience either. I once heard a VP say that perf is an "eventually consistent system", meaning that mistakes are often made over the short term (1 review cycle), but over the long term high performers get promoted. That's basically what I observed: it can be maddeningly slow for people to notice you've been working your ass off, but if you keep at it, they do notice and the rewards do come. If you stick around long enough for them. The real world isn't all that different - if you found a startup, you're likely to go through 3-4 years of nobody giving a shit before everybody suddenly discovers your a genius.
  - kenko 14y ago
    If you identify high performance by the performance review system, and people who perform highly according to that system are more likely to be promoted than those who don't, then of course over the long term high performers are the ones who get promoted. And it might well be merely "eventually" consistent if a few dings early on (or later on!) don't destroy your chances to, over time, be considered a high performer by that system. It would be very hard for such a system to be anything but consistent, since the consistency is just self-consistency. The relevant question isn't "do promotion decisions get made consistently with the tools used to rank performance" but "do the tools used to rank performance adequately track potential, and does the environment generally adequately make potential actual?". A system in which lots of people are dissatisfied and bored but some luck into positions for which they're suited, excel, and are promoted is, indeed, consistent, but it's also pretty wasteful.
    - nostrademons 14y ago
      I don't identify high performance by the performance review system. I identify high performance by "Who would I like to have on my team if I were to found a startup?" I've found a fairly high correlation between these people and the people who get promoted.
      - michaelochurch 14y ago
        To be fair, Google has a lot of very good engineers, so of course there are a lot of great engineers who are getting promoted. I'm pretty sure you could find an equal number of good engineers who don't get promoted. The rank-and-file programmers are just very good, with almost no deadweight. Google's promotion process isn't, as far as I can tell, that broken. What's broken is the policy of making political-success (or, "perf") scores part of the transfer process. It's mean-spirited and creates an autocorrelation in project quality that many people never overcome. Google would be a real company with a culture actually worth caring about if the executives manned up and did the following: 1. Go to open allocation. When you have that much fucking cash, you can invest in employee autonomy. No excuses. Do it. Learn from Valve, because you're not a cultural leader anymore, Google. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/tech-companies-open-allocation-is-your-only-real-option/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/tech-companie... 2. Get rid of the "calibration" nonsense. It's stupid, and it goes against the idea of a peer-review driven company because that bus is driven by managers only. Fire the B-student management consultants who came up with it. Get rid of the 5% firing rate, too. (I know that Google rarely actually fires people, instead humiliating them with those insipid PIPs and transfer blocks. No real difference. Firing people with a real severance package is a lot more decent than wasting their time with kangaroo-court PIPs and tearing up their careers slowly.) Firing should be saved for real problem employees, rather than a threat that turns no-fault lack of fit into a problem employee. This tactic of-- without a business need (such as in a cash-crisis layoff)-- firing some set percentage (who tend to just be unlucky) to keep people "on their toes" is mean-spirited thuggery that doesn't belong in this century.
wisty 14y ago
> 20% time can easily destroy your career. Most managers view it either as a waste of time or a flight risk. So at Google, you're job isn't to make Google more successful, but to make your manager look good.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Yes, which doesn't make Google any worse than most companies, but does mean it has regressed into the meaningless, incoherent, parochial grey glop that is standard corporate working life.
  - hessenwolf 14y ago
    You know, I work for a 122 year old > 100,000 employee megacorp, and it is not so bad. It takes longer to do things, and you have to work around a lot of problems, but the vastness of the problems and systems has some appeal.
- durin42 14y ago
  This statement out of michaelochurch is just silly. Most managers I know consider 20% time to be important to those engineers that desire taking it. That said, not everyone tries, and you can lose your ability to do 20% if you underperform. michaelochurch appears to have had a very strongly negative experience with his time at Google - I'd implore you (and everyone) to not base your assessment of what the company is like on his experience alone, especially since I've got pretty much entirely opposite experience.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    Actually, my reason for spilling on Google is that someone from Google did something unethical after I left and Google refused to investigate (knowing they'd have to fire the person if they did). If Google had done the proper investigation and canned the person, I would never have said a word about them. I'm pretty much over it by this point, but I still think the terrorists who thought it would be fun to destroy Google from the inside with their imbecilic "calibration scores" need to be named, shamed, and buried. They have attacked what was once a great company, and they are destroying it. I am pointing this out as a public service. Google is a great place if you have a good manager and an interesting project. If you land on an interesting, relevant project, and your manager supports you in the political processes, it's a great place to work. I've never argued against that, because it's true. The same is true of 20% time. If your manager believes in 20% time, you have that benefit. If your manager thinks it's a waste of time and will express it by threatening you with a perf smear, then you don't have 20% time.
jrockway 14y ago
What was your 20% project?
- kamaal 14y ago
  Doesn't matter. The whole point in the 20% projects is not to ensure rewarding best projects, but to reward trying. Because eventually the good projects will flush out. If you say you will punish failed 20% projects. Nobody is going to buy into a concept where you people are likely to be punished for failing to try and do something good for the company in the spare time.
  - jrockway 14y ago
    I don't think michaelochurch did a 20% project, which is why it's interesting that he speaks so authoritatively on what happens to someone with one.

xenen 14y ago

Wow, I never would have expected Google's perf management to be as bad as what I've read here - Glassdoor reviews all sound so peachy.

ori_b 14y ago
Take what Michael Church says with a grain of salt. I was around to observe his threads on the eng-misc mailing list while he was still at Google. Without his consent, I'd rather not say what went on, but I would advise you to get your information elsewhere.
- mietek 14y ago
  Michael O'Church seems quite happy to share what went on. What's stopping you? Michael O'Church's arguments are internally consistent, and more persuasive than vague statements impugning his character.
  - trhtrsh 14y ago
    > What's stopping you? Respect for the confidentiality of internal communications. Anyone is free to share their own impressions, but it is inappropriate to pull someone else's privileged documents and wave them in public.
    - chii 14y ago
      what about anonymizing and cleaning the communication such that you cannot decipher any actual information, but can grasp the gist of the topic about which this thread discusses?
    - mietek 14y ago
      Just how respectful and appropriate is it to make public claims about someone's character without giving evidence?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- vidarh 14y ago
  I find it quite disconcerting when people write comments like this. If you're not willing to share what was said, so that we can judge whether or not it supports your veiled allegations, then don't make the allegations. It is in bad taste, and reflects badly on you. I know it can be hard to resist talking if you believe you have inside information, but giving "warnings" like this without sharing details that are directly relevant to the claims he made in effect boils down to nothing more than an ad hominem supported by appeals to authority about the reasons for his claims.
- ermida 14y ago
  Yet you leak the name of an internal mailing list. Well done!
nostrademons 14y ago
The negative comments here haven't really been my experience either. I once heard a VP say that perf is an "eventually consistent system", meaning that mistakes are often made over the short term (1 review cycle), but over the long term high performers get promoted. That's basically what I observed: it can be maddeningly slow for people to notice you've been working your ass off, but if you keep at it, they do notice and the rewards do come. If you stick around long enough for them. The real world isn't all that different - if you found a startup, you're likely to go through 3-4 years of nobody giving a shit before everybody suddenly discovers your a genius.
- kenko 14y ago
  If you identify high performance by the performance review system, and people who perform highly according to that system are more likely to be promoted than those who don't, then of course over the long term high performers are the ones who get promoted. And it might well be merely "eventually" consistent if a few dings early on (or later on!) don't destroy your chances to, over time, be considered a high performer by that system. It would be very hard for such a system to be anything but consistent, since the consistency is just self-consistency. The relevant question isn't "do promotion decisions get made consistently with the tools used to rank performance" but "do the tools used to rank performance adequately track potential, and does the environment generally adequately make potential actual?". A system in which lots of people are dissatisfied and bored but some luck into positions for which they're suited, excel, and are promoted is, indeed, consistent, but it's also pretty wasteful.
  - nostrademons 14y ago
    I don't identify high performance by the performance review system. I identify high performance by "Who would I like to have on my team if I were to found a startup?" I've found a fairly high correlation between these people and the people who get promoted.
    - michaelochurch 14y ago
      To be fair, Google has a lot of very good engineers, so of course there are a lot of great engineers who are getting promoted. I'm pretty sure you could find an equal number of good engineers who don't get promoted. The rank-and-file programmers are just very good, with almost no deadweight. Google's promotion process isn't, as far as I can tell, that broken. What's broken is the policy of making political-success (or, "perf") scores part of the transfer process. It's mean-spirited and creates an autocorrelation in project quality that many people never overcome. Google would be a real company with a culture actually worth caring about if the executives manned up and did the following: 1. Go to open allocation. When you have that much fucking cash, you can invest in employee autonomy. No excuses. Do it. Learn from Valve, because you're not a cultural leader anymore, Google. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/tech-companies-open-allocation-is-your-only-real-option/ http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/tech-companie... 2. Get rid of the "calibration" nonsense. It's stupid, and it goes against the idea of a peer-review driven company because that bus is driven by managers only. Fire the B-student management consultants who came up with it. Get rid of the 5% firing rate, too. (I know that Google rarely actually fires people, instead humiliating them with those insipid PIPs and transfer blocks. No real difference. Firing people with a real severance package is a lot more decent than wasting their time with kangaroo-court PIPs and tearing up their careers slowly.) Firing should be saved for real problem employees, rather than a threat that turns no-fault lack of fit into a problem employee. This tactic of-- without a business need (such as in a cash-crisis layoff)-- firing some set percentage (who tend to just be unlucky) to keep people "on their toes" is mean-spirited thuggery that doesn't belong in this century.

wisty 14y ago

> 20% time can easily destroy your career. Most managers view it either as a waste of time or a flight risk. So at Google, you're job isn't to make Google more successful, but to make your manager look good.

michaelochurch 14y ago
Yes, which doesn't make Google any worse than most companies, but does mean it has regressed into the meaningless, incoherent, parochial grey glop that is standard corporate working life.
- hessenwolf 14y ago
  You know, I work for a 122 year old > 100,000 employee megacorp, and it is not so bad. It takes longer to do things, and you have to work around a lot of problems, but the vastness of the problems and systems has some appeal.
durin42 14y ago
This statement out of michaelochurch is just silly. Most managers I know consider 20% time to be important to those engineers that desire taking it. That said, not everyone tries, and you can lose your ability to do 20% if you underperform. michaelochurch appears to have had a very strongly negative experience with his time at Google - I'd implore you (and everyone) to not base your assessment of what the company is like on his experience alone, especially since I've got pretty much entirely opposite experience.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Actually, my reason for spilling on Google is that someone from Google did something unethical after I left and Google refused to investigate (knowing they'd have to fire the person if they did). If Google had done the proper investigation and canned the person, I would never have said a word about them. I'm pretty much over it by this point, but I still think the terrorists who thought it would be fun to destroy Google from the inside with their imbecilic "calibration scores" need to be named, shamed, and buried. They have attacked what was once a great company, and they are destroying it. I am pointing this out as a public service. Google is a great place if you have a good manager and an interesting project. If you land on an interesting, relevant project, and your manager supports you in the political processes, it's a great place to work. I've never argued against that, because it's true. The same is true of 20% time. If your manager believes in 20% time, you have that benefit. If your manager thinks it's a waste of time and will express it by threatening you with a perf smear, then you don't have 20% time.

jrockway 14y ago

What was your 20% project?

kamaal 14y ago
Doesn't matter. The whole point in the 20% projects is not to ensure rewarding best projects, but to reward trying. Because eventually the good projects will flush out. If you say you will punish failed 20% projects. Nobody is going to buy into a concept where you people are likely to be punished for failing to try and do something good for the company in the spare time.
- jrockway 14y ago
  I don't think michaelochurch did a 20% project, which is why it's interesting that he speaks so authoritatively on what happens to someone with one.