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I often wonder how someone who was only at Google for 5 months, and never went through the semiyearly review or transfer process could spout so much inaccurate

I often wonder how someone who was only at Google for 5 months, and never went through the semiyearly review or transfer process could spout so much inaccurate BS about it. If you are performing well and get poor calibration scores (which aren't secret), then that's something to bring up with HR and your manager's manager. The sad truth is that your poor calibration scores were an accurate reflection of your poor performance (I'll spare you the embarrassment of posting evidence of this). Your inability to transfer teams was a combination of that and the fact that it's almost impossible to transfer teams before you've spent at least 1.5 years on that team.

michaelochurch 14y ago
I often wonder how someone who was only at Google for 5 months, and never went through the semiyearly review or transfer process could spout so much inaccurate BS about it. Six, and I saw more of Google than most. I'll leave it at that. If you are performing well and get poor calibration scores (which aren't secret) You get a range for your calibration score. Whether your manager tells you the specific number is up to him, and you have no way of knowing whether he's telling the truth. Most Googlers will get Meets Expectations (3.0-3.4) which ranges from the 2nd to 70th percentile. For most, it means "solidly OK, but not yet promotable". 3.5-3.9 is Exceeds (70th-95th percentile) and means "on track for promotion" and 4.0+ is Strongly Exceeds (95+) which means "promotable". Almost never are numbers below 3.0 or above 4.5 used, because sub-3.0 requires PIP/termination proceedings (which are a lot of work for the manager) and 4.5+ makes an employee eligible very large cash bonuses (and, occasionally, double-promotes). If your manager gives you 3.0's but positive verbal feedback, you'll think you're getting 3.3-3.4 (which is perfectly respectable) but you won't be able to transfer. Except for the first quarter, 3.0 means, "you suck but I'm too busy to deal with the PIP/termination process"; 2.x requires the manager to do a bunch of extra work so 3.0 is understood as the "he's awful but I don't feel like doing anything about it" score. However, there are managers who give positive verbal feedback and 3.0-3.1 ratings to keep good people captive. You didn't see what I saw. I have data but I'm not allowed to share it because I'm not supposed to have a lot of that stuff myself. It's not most managers who do that shit, but it's a sizable contingent and executives are aware of the problem. They don't do anything about it, in my opinion, because they're afraid that it would sacrifice project expediencies to reduce managerial power. then that's something to bring up with HR and your manager's manager. Try this out. In any company. Please, I encourage you to do it. You sound like just a wonderful person and I'd love to see you take a crack at it. Nah... I'll tell you what happens, not because I give a shit about you, but because other people are reading. If you go to HR, you get fired. Not "officially terminated" because the company doesn't want the lawsuit risk, but HR and your manager will make it look like (a) no one else in the company wanted you so (b) they can PIP and eventually terminate you. You won't be able to transfer because "you have to solve the problem where you are before you move on" and because there will be feces smeared across your personnel file. This known in HR-speak as "passive firing". With passive firing, the employee is technically permitted transfer but it is made impossible. It's a way to give managers unilateral termination without the lawsuit risk. If you go to your boss^2, you are similarly fucked, because your boss^2 picked your boss, idiot. Who do you think he'll side with? If you seriously think that a boss^2 is going to take the side of an underling, then please, try to make it happen the next time you are checkmated. If you have a shitty boss, your boss^2 knows and is tolerating him because it's expedient, if wrong. If you want to jump your boss, you have to go to the boss^3 or higher, and the probability of that working is low because the social distance and credibility gap is high. But you have much better odds with a boss^3 than a boss^2. The boss^2 will tip off your boss and you are fucked; the boss^3 will just say, "Who are you?", and tell you to get back to work. it's almost impossible to transfer teams before you've spent at least 1.5 years on that team. At least you admit to that problem. Yes, that is correct.
- Googler123 14y ago
  > You get a range for your calibration score. Whether your manager tells you the specific number is up to him, and you have no way of knowing whether he's telling the truth. No, the calibration score can be displayed in the internal performance tool based on a manager's preference. And if it's not and you believe your manager is lying to you about your specific score, I'm sure he'd be happy to get you to STFU (hard, I know) by showing it to you directly. Regardless, as long as one is "Meets Expectations" or higher, they will have no issue transferring teams after their 1.5 years of service to their current team. Your problem was that you were both new to the team and were performing at the level below "Meets Exceptations". > If you go to HR, you get fired ... More bullshit about Google from someone who has no clue. I (and plenty of people I've worked with, including those that have successfully gone through a PIP) have had very pleasant experiences with HR and their boss^2. > At least you admit to that problem. Yes, that is correct. I don't believe requiring someone to stay on a team for 1.5 years before transferring is a problem. The honest truth is that no team wanted you, because if they did, there would have been an exception made. We get it, you had a horrible time at Google, performed incredibly poorly, and continue to blame others/the system for your issues. Even worse, your attempt to garner sympathy and support from other Googlers didn't work out as your illusions of grandeur would have suggested. Now you continue to jump at any opportunity to smear Google as if getting agreement from people who've never worked there will somehow make it all better.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    Dear Cowardly Anonymous FAL-Dude, Name yourself or stop with the ad hominem attacks. Thanks. You know nothing about my situation, nor why I left Google. Please stop speculating. Even I never found out what calibration score I got. My manager promised a 3.4, gave something lower (his boss confirmed) and it was being appealed at the time I left. Call it -6.2 for all I care. I was in the process of internal transfer and it was going alright; however, I got an offer from another company and left. I figured that a clean start would be better than an HR file that, while it wouldn't affect me in the short term, would have long-term implications come promo time and that it'd take months of grueling, bureaucratic effort (some of dubious ethical character) for me to fix. It was like this: Option A is that I transfer, stay at Google, but may have an early-term smear of my Perf history and might have to cut bribes to people with HR database access in a few years when I rise to a level where even early, cosmetic, irrelevant stuff counts. Option B is that I get another job. Option A is unethical and unlikely to work. Option B is much easier. So I chose B. Some time after I left, Google did something about a few horrible managers on the issues that I'd raised, but I don't know how much progress they've made and it makes no damn difference to me at this point.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
marssaxman 14y ago
Recruiters and enthusiastic long-time Googlers should stop claiming that it's easy to transfer teams, then. I was specifically told that it would be easy to leave the "starter project" if I didn't like it, and that all I would have to do would be to find another team willing to take me; in fact, I wouldn't even have to get my starting manager's approval to move, just the approval of the destination team's manager. When I tried to actually do this, it.... didn't work that way.

michaelochurch 14y ago

I often wonder how someone who was only at Google for 5 months, and never went through the semiyearly review or transfer process could spout so much inaccurate BS about it. Six, and I saw more of Google than most. I'll leave it at that. If you are performing well and get poor calibration scores (which aren't secret) You get a range for your calibration score. Whether your manager tells you the specific number is up to him, and you have no way of knowing whether he's telling the truth. Most Googlers will get Meets Expectations (3.0-3.4) which ranges from the 2nd to 70th percentile. For most, it means "solidly OK, but not yet promotable". 3.5-3.9 is Exceeds (70th-95th percentile) and means "on track for promotion" and 4.0+ is Strongly Exceeds (95+) which means "promotable". Almost never are numbers below 3.0 or above 4.5 used, because sub-3.0 requires PIP/termination proceedings (which are a lot of work for the manager) and 4.5+ makes an employee eligible very large cash bonuses (and, occasionally, double-promotes). If your manager gives you 3.0's but positive verbal feedback, you'll think you're getting 3.3-3.4 (which is perfectly respectable) but you won't be able to transfer. Except for the first quarter, 3.0 means, "you suck but I'm too busy to deal with the PIP/termination process"; 2.x requires the manager to do a bunch of extra work so 3.0 is understood as the "he's awful but I don't feel like doing anything about it" score. However, there are managers who give positive verbal feedback and 3.0-3.1 ratings to keep good people captive. You didn't see what I saw. I have data but I'm not allowed to share it because I'm not supposed to have a lot of that stuff myself. It's not most managers who do that shit, but it's a sizable contingent and executives are aware of the problem. They don't do anything about it, in my opinion, because they're afraid that it would sacrifice project expediencies to reduce managerial power. then that's something to bring up with HR and your manager's manager. Try this out. In any company. Please, I encourage you to do it. You sound like just a wonderful person and I'd love to see you take a crack at it. Nah... I'll tell you what happens, not because I give a shit about you, but because other people are reading. If you go to HR, you get fired. Not "officially terminated" because the company doesn't want the lawsuit risk, but HR and your manager will make it look like (a) no one else in the company wanted you so (b) they can PIP and eventually terminate you. You won't be able to transfer because "you have to solve the problem where you are before you move on" and because there will be feces smeared across your personnel file. This known in HR-speak as "passive firing". With passive firing, the employee is technically permitted transfer but it is made impossible. It's a way to give managers unilateral termination without the lawsuit risk. If you go to your boss^2, you are similarly fucked, because your boss^2 picked your boss, idiot. Who do you think he'll side with? If you seriously think that a boss^2 is going to take the side of an underling, then please, try to make it happen the next time you are checkmated. If you have a shitty boss, your boss^2 knows and is tolerating him because it's expedient, if wrong. If you want to jump your boss, you have to go to the boss^3 or higher, and the probability of that working is low because the social distance and credibility gap is high. But you have much better odds with a boss^3 than a boss^2. The boss^2 will tip off your boss and you are fucked; the boss^3 will just say, "Who are you?", and tell you to get back to work. it's almost impossible to transfer teams before you've spent at least 1.5 years on that team. At least you admit to that problem. Yes, that is correct.

Googler123 14y ago
> You get a range for your calibration score. Whether your manager tells you the specific number is up to him, and you have no way of knowing whether he's telling the truth. No, the calibration score can be displayed in the internal performance tool based on a manager's preference. And if it's not and you believe your manager is lying to you about your specific score, I'm sure he'd be happy to get you to STFU (hard, I know) by showing it to you directly. Regardless, as long as one is "Meets Expectations" or higher, they will have no issue transferring teams after their 1.5 years of service to their current team. Your problem was that you were both new to the team and were performing at the level below "Meets Exceptations". > If you go to HR, you get fired ... More bullshit about Google from someone who has no clue. I (and plenty of people I've worked with, including those that have successfully gone through a PIP) have had very pleasant experiences with HR and their boss^2. > At least you admit to that problem. Yes, that is correct. I don't believe requiring someone to stay on a team for 1.5 years before transferring is a problem. The honest truth is that no team wanted you, because if they did, there would have been an exception made. We get it, you had a horrible time at Google, performed incredibly poorly, and continue to blame others/the system for your issues. Even worse, your attempt to garner sympathy and support from other Googlers didn't work out as your illusions of grandeur would have suggested. Now you continue to jump at any opportunity to smear Google as if getting agreement from people who've never worked there will somehow make it all better.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Dear Cowardly Anonymous FAL-Dude, Name yourself or stop with the ad hominem attacks. Thanks. You know nothing about my situation, nor why I left Google. Please stop speculating. Even I never found out what calibration score I got. My manager promised a 3.4, gave something lower (his boss confirmed) and it was being appealed at the time I left. Call it -6.2 for all I care. I was in the process of internal transfer and it was going alright; however, I got an offer from another company and left. I figured that a clean start would be better than an HR file that, while it wouldn't affect me in the short term, would have long-term implications come promo time and that it'd take months of grueling, bureaucratic effort (some of dubious ethical character) for me to fix. It was like this: Option A is that I transfer, stay at Google, but may have an early-term smear of my Perf history and might have to cut bribes to people with HR database access in a few years when I rise to a level where even early, cosmetic, irrelevant stuff counts. Option B is that I get another job. Option A is unethical and unlikely to work. Option B is much easier. So I chose B. Some time after I left, Google did something about a few horrible managers on the issues that I'd raised, but I don't know how much progress they've made and it makes no damn difference to me at this point.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

marssaxman 14y ago

Recruiters and enthusiastic long-time Googlers should stop claiming that it's easy to transfer teams, then. I was specifically told that it would be easy to leave the "starter project" if I didn't like it, and that all I would have to do would be to find another team willing to take me; in fact, I wouldn't even have to get my starting manager's approval to move, just the approval of the destination team's manager. When I tried to actually do this, it.... didn't work that way.