6 ms·

Well, now the company that treated me like human garbage for pointing out a doomed product direction will, at least, have to view me as human garbage that was r

Well, now the company that treated me like human garbage for pointing out a doomed product direction will, at least, have to view me as human garbage that was right. Progress, one day at a time. (My idea that was that we should engage independent developers and provide the resources to integrate them with Hangouts, thus having a double win because we'd both (a) get people comfortable with Hangouts and (b) have a higher quality of games than if we published Zynga dreck.)

Mz 13y ago
No, they don't actually have to "view you as right," even if you absolutely were. Intended as helpful: What is the point of your screed here? What do you think it will do for you? What are you trying to accomplish? People who are awful to you are highly unlikely to own up, apologize, make amends...etc.. Life rarely works that way. Not trying to make your life harder. I have done some venting myself on HN at times.
tptacek 13y ago
Apropos nothing: as many readers of my own comments will happily attest, it is easy to both be right and behave like "human garbage" (or whatever non-hyperbolic term you'd like to substitute for that one).
- jmillikin 13y ago
  One important contrast with the OP is that although your posts are sometimes blunt, they are almost always cogent and well-argued.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - waterlesscloud 13y ago
    One of the most difficult (but most rewarding) tricks to learn is to separate the merit of an argument from the manner in which it is expressed.
    - gfodor 13y ago
      A better trick is to present your argument so your audience does not need to have mastered a trick of its own.
jmillikin 13y ago
> Well, now the company that treated me like human garbage > for pointing out a doomed product direction will, at > least, have to view me as human garbage that was right. Your manifestos were treated with astonishing patience and consideration, given their content and your reaction to criticism. As I recall, your position was that Google+ Games should prefer intricate rulesets based on obscure board- and card-games on the basis that popular casual games are not sufficiently complex to pose an intellectual challenge. It seems unlikely that positioning Google+ Games as the place to go for half-baked Catan knockoffs would have made it more popular.
- obviouslygreen 13y ago
  Which is not helped by a follow-up of "the most interesting thing about this news item (or, at least, the only thing worth my time to comment on) is that I was correct, generally speaking, and shall now espouse my belief that I'm owed recognition for it."
- bdowney 13y ago
  And still is really sad that Google employees still waste time creating memes about Michael in their stupid internal memegen site many months after his departure.
  - 1010011010 13y ago
    ... says a person impersonating bdowney
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Goldstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Goldstein
    - yid 13y ago
      Since you seem to be an Ayn Rand fan, this is more like it: Toohey: "Mr. Roark, we’re alone here. Why don’t you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us." Roark: "But I don’t think of you."
yid 13y ago
I have no idea about your past, and I try to read your posts with an open mind, but it's starting to sound increasingly like you have a severe persecution complex. The entire company treated you like "human garbage" and didn't appreciate your gifts? Isn't that a little hyperbolic? Part of the challenge in working with large groups of people is convincing them that your ideas have merit. That's not unique to Google or any company -- that's just the psychology of social interactions. It sounds like you have an unreasonable expectation that everyone bow down immediately and unquestioningly to your opinions, and leads me to wonder if you have delusions of your own grandeur. Learning how to interact with people seems to be a skill that you have not acquired, and it certainly makes me want to never work with you.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  See, I neither want nor expect anyone to "unquestioningly" listen to my opinions and ideas. That would be a disaster. I have a lot of good ideas, but I have some bad ones too. What I can't stand is when people don't make the fucking effort to reach the right idea, but just fall back on rank. That will make me very angry. If they'd given me an explanation of why my idea wouldn't work or why they had to do things a certain way, I would have been happy with that. They could have brought me into a few of the meetings so I'd see how the sausage is made, and maybe I'd realize some of the constraints they were under and see why my idea wouldn't work in that context. I do, however, expect to be treated as an equal, and I'll raise hell if I'm not. That doesn't mean my ideas are taken without question. Shit, how could anyone even want that? The yes-man behavior (taking someones' ideas without question) isn't respectful; it sets a person up for future embarrassment.
  - yid 13y ago
    Interesting, your comment didn't do much to change my initial impression. Allow me to explain why, and I mean this as hopefully constructive criticism: > What I can't stand is when people don't make the fucking effort to reach the right idea, but just fall back on rank. That will make me very angry. Optimal decisions are rarely made by groups of people, which is part of the challenge of working with people. It's understandably upsetting, but if this bothers you so much, you should consider: (a) changing jobs if the person pulling rank is unreasonable, or (b) working out the power structure and on your relationships and communication to get your point across better. > They could have brought me into a few of the meetings so I'd see how the sausage is made, and maybe I'd realize some of the constraints they were under and see why my idea wouldn't work in that context. It sounds like you were cut out of the decision-making process. Perhaps your superiors were genuinely unreasonable, in which case you should have done what everyone in an unreasonable work situation should do: switch teams, or switch jobs. Alternatively, if your real-world interactions convey as much arrogance and petulance as your online rants do, then you're maybe losing out because people don't find it productive to bring you into the decision-making process. Perhaps you're right, but perhaps the way you communicate turns people off. I'm just laying out some alternate possibilities, since your posts seem to convey that everyone was against you. > I do, however, expect to be treated as an equal, and I'll raise hell if I'm not. Perhaps you're not earning peoples' respect with this attitude. It sounds a bit like what my 5-year-old does when he thinks we're being unfair to him. EDIT: You're obviously intelligent, but you have to realize that there are other intelligent people, and all things being equal, most people would rather work with someone who can communicate.
untog 13y ago
You write some great posts on HN, but every time Google is so much as mentioned you descend into this same persecution complex. I wish you wouldn't, but I'll try to talk about this in generalities: "Ha, my negativity has been vindicated by failure!" is never a good public stance to take. Not for you, nor for the people who disagreed with you. It is a victory for you, but it's one to internalise. The people who were there and complete strangers will think less or you for gloating otherwise. Know that you were right, apply the lesson in the future.
metaphorm 13y ago
well now, that is a truly unpleasant level of self-righteousness and resentment.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  My manager at Google had a 5-year-long history of using fake performance problems to tease out peoples' health issues, and then using that information to fuck with them. (For one case, there's a year-long record of meetings moved to conflict with therapy sessions.) HR did absolutely nothing about him because he had a reputation for "delivering" in spite of his known sadistic behavior. (I spent months investigating this shit, and went places I didn't belong.) Oh, and Google is one of those stuck-up companies where if you get a bad performance review, you can never move to another project. It finally ended up being up to me to expose that manager (which I did after finding my next job) and when I did, I experienced some extremely unprofessional attacks. Someone (possibly my ex-manager) found out where my next job was and called in a hit. Given that, I'm justified in enjoying Google's stumbles.
  - metaphorm 13y ago
    just move on. I'm sorry you were treated badly by your manager. taking it out with public tantrums doesn't make you look like the good guy though.
    - michaelochurch 13y ago
      If this were just about me being unlucky, I'd be able to do that. The problem is that these things are common. They happen all the time, and they keep happening to people all over the place, and nothing is done to these fuckers. That's what makes me fucking angry. The guy pulled that shit for years and HR not only did nothing, but repeatedly kept people from moving away from him. Same story, five fucking years, over and over, and they did nothing. One bad manager is just life. A company that deliberately allows them to thrive for supposed project expediency gains has no right to use the motto: Don't Be Evil.

Mz 13y ago

No, they don't actually have to "view you as right," even if you absolutely were. Intended as helpful: What is the point of your screed here? What do you think it will do for you? What are you trying to accomplish? People who are awful to you are highly unlikely to own up, apologize, make amends...etc.. Life rarely works that way. Not trying to make your life harder. I have done some venting myself on HN at times.

tptacek 13y ago

Apropos nothing: as many readers of my own comments will happily attest, it is easy to both be right and behave like "human garbage" (or whatever non-hyperbolic term you'd like to substitute for that one).

jmillikin 13y ago
One important contrast with the OP is that although your posts are sometimes blunt, they are almost always cogent and well-argued.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- waterlesscloud 13y ago
  One of the most difficult (but most rewarding) tricks to learn is to separate the merit of an argument from the manner in which it is expressed.
  - gfodor 13y ago
    A better trick is to present your argument so your audience does not need to have mastered a trick of its own.

jmillikin 13y ago

> Well, now the company that treated me like human garbage > for pointing out a doomed product direction will, at > least, have to view me as human garbage that was right. Your manifestos were treated with astonishing patience and consideration, given their content and your reaction to criticism. As I recall, your position was that Google+ Games should prefer intricate rulesets based on obscure board- and card-games on the basis that popular casual games are not sufficiently complex to pose an intellectual challenge. It seems unlikely that positioning Google+ Games as the place to go for half-baked Catan knockoffs would have made it more popular.

obviouslygreen 13y ago
Which is not helped by a follow-up of "the most interesting thing about this news item (or, at least, the only thing worth my time to comment on) is that I was correct, generally speaking, and shall now espouse my belief that I'm owed recognition for it."
bdowney 13y ago
And still is really sad that Google employees still waste time creating memes about Michael in their stupid internal memegen site many months after his departure.
- 1010011010 13y ago
  ... says a person impersonating bdowney
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Goldstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_Goldstein
  - yid 13y ago
    Since you seem to be an Ayn Rand fan, this is more like it: Toohey: "Mr. Roark, we’re alone here. Why don’t you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us." Roark: "But I don’t think of you."

yid 13y ago

I have no idea about your past, and I try to read your posts with an open mind, but it's starting to sound increasingly like you have a severe persecution complex. The entire company treated you like "human garbage" and didn't appreciate your gifts? Isn't that a little hyperbolic? Part of the challenge in working with large groups of people is convincing them that your ideas have merit. That's not unique to Google or any company -- that's just the psychology of social interactions. It sounds like you have an unreasonable expectation that everyone bow down immediately and unquestioningly to your opinions, and leads me to wonder if you have delusions of your own grandeur. Learning how to interact with people seems to be a skill that you have not acquired, and it certainly makes me want to never work with you.

michaelochurch 13y ago
See, I neither want nor expect anyone to "unquestioningly" listen to my opinions and ideas. That would be a disaster. I have a lot of good ideas, but I have some bad ones too. What I can't stand is when people don't make the fucking effort to reach the right idea, but just fall back on rank. That will make me very angry. If they'd given me an explanation of why my idea wouldn't work or why they had to do things a certain way, I would have been happy with that. They could have brought me into a few of the meetings so I'd see how the sausage is made, and maybe I'd realize some of the constraints they were under and see why my idea wouldn't work in that context. I do, however, expect to be treated as an equal, and I'll raise hell if I'm not. That doesn't mean my ideas are taken without question. Shit, how could anyone even want that? The yes-man behavior (taking someones' ideas without question) isn't respectful; it sets a person up for future embarrassment.
- yid 13y ago
  Interesting, your comment didn't do much to change my initial impression. Allow me to explain why, and I mean this as hopefully constructive criticism: > What I can't stand is when people don't make the fucking effort to reach the right idea, but just fall back on rank. That will make me very angry. Optimal decisions are rarely made by groups of people, which is part of the challenge of working with people. It's understandably upsetting, but if this bothers you so much, you should consider: (a) changing jobs if the person pulling rank is unreasonable, or (b) working out the power structure and on your relationships and communication to get your point across better. > They could have brought me into a few of the meetings so I'd see how the sausage is made, and maybe I'd realize some of the constraints they were under and see why my idea wouldn't work in that context. It sounds like you were cut out of the decision-making process. Perhaps your superiors were genuinely unreasonable, in which case you should have done what everyone in an unreasonable work situation should do: switch teams, or switch jobs. Alternatively, if your real-world interactions convey as much arrogance and petulance as your online rants do, then you're maybe losing out because people don't find it productive to bring you into the decision-making process. Perhaps you're right, but perhaps the way you communicate turns people off. I'm just laying out some alternate possibilities, since your posts seem to convey that everyone was against you. > I do, however, expect to be treated as an equal, and I'll raise hell if I'm not. Perhaps you're not earning peoples' respect with this attitude. It sounds a bit like what my 5-year-old does when he thinks we're being unfair to him. EDIT: You're obviously intelligent, but you have to realize that there are other intelligent people, and all things being equal, most people would rather work with someone who can communicate.

untog 13y ago

You write some great posts on HN, but every time Google is so much as mentioned you descend into this same persecution complex. I wish you wouldn't, but I'll try to talk about this in generalities: "Ha, my negativity has been vindicated by failure!" is never a good public stance to take. Not for you, nor for the people who disagreed with you. It is a victory for you, but it's one to internalise. The people who were there and complete strangers will think less or you for gloating otherwise. Know that you were right, apply the lesson in the future.

metaphorm 13y ago

well now, that is a truly unpleasant level of self-righteousness and resentment.

michaelochurch 13y ago
My manager at Google had a 5-year-long history of using fake performance problems to tease out peoples' health issues, and then using that information to fuck with them. (For one case, there's a year-long record of meetings moved to conflict with therapy sessions.) HR did absolutely nothing about him because he had a reputation for "delivering" in spite of his known sadistic behavior. (I spent months investigating this shit, and went places I didn't belong.) Oh, and Google is one of those stuck-up companies where if you get a bad performance review, you can never move to another project. It finally ended up being up to me to expose that manager (which I did after finding my next job) and when I did, I experienced some extremely unprofessional attacks. Someone (possibly my ex-manager) found out where my next job was and called in a hit. Given that, I'm justified in enjoying Google's stumbles.
- metaphorm 13y ago
  just move on. I'm sorry you were treated badly by your manager. taking it out with public tantrums doesn't make you look like the good guy though.
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    If this were just about me being unlucky, I'd be able to do that. The problem is that these things are common. They happen all the time, and they keep happening to people all over the place, and nothing is done to these fuckers. That's what makes me fucking angry. The guy pulled that shit for years and HR not only did nothing, but repeatedly kept people from moving away from him. Same story, five fucking years, over and over, and they did nothing. One bad manager is just life. A company that deliberately allows them to thrive for supposed project expediency gains has no right to use the motto: Don't Be Evil.