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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 compl

by 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.
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    I hope it's obvious that when I proposed the idea, I did not do so with the anger that I am showing now. Also, I'm not that angry about the mishandling of G+ Games. I wasn't even on that team, so it's not a big deal. That's just one symptom of an underlying problem, which is the dishonesty that exists when a company is marketed as open and engineer-centric but was taken over by managers several years ago. Google is a bank with worse pay. If it admitted as much-- you'll be working in a closed-allocation environment, because we're now a bank-- I would fully respect that.

by yid 13y ago

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.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  I hope it's obvious that when I proposed the idea, I did not do so with the anger that I am showing now. Also, I'm not that angry about the mishandling of G+ Games. I wasn't even on that team, so it's not a big deal. That's just one symptom of an underlying problem, which is the dishonesty that exists when a company is marketed as open and engineer-centric but was taken over by managers several years ago. Google is a bank with worse pay. If it admitted as much-- you'll be working in a closed-allocation environment, because we're now a bank-- I would fully respect that.