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Was stringing together a couple dozen tweets really the best format to share a story like this? There is a lot that's left out. Once she vaguely mentions that

Was stringing together a couple dozen tweets really the best format to share a story like this? There is a lot that's left out. Once she vaguely mentions that another employee who was "involved" was still getting all of his peer bonuses (which may or may not have been PB's for his "involvement", we don't know), the whole thing just crumbled into a victim story for me. OF COURSE the MALE coworker can do WHATEVER HE WANTS, as long as we don't actually have any details about it. Also, generally shit will hit the fan if you tell anyone to fuck off, especially if they're your manager. Again, we don't know that she told her manager to fuck off for being racist (??) because this is a terrible story told in a shitty format. But it's implied. Just like everything else in this "article". tl;dr she got exactly what you would expect when you're intentionally stirring shit up at any company. I'm not sure what she expected.

aaronem 11y ago
Yes. Heaven forfend staff should behave in a way potentially inimical to the interests of management, instead of the other way around.
- deadmik3 11y ago
  Staff works for management. While it's nice to have times where the management "works for" their employees, the whole point is that management is supposed to be happy.
  - aaronem 11y ago
    Staff being subordinate to management in an organizational sense is one thing. Staff members being forbidden even to approach anything, which might grow into a discussion of how and where management's interests are actively inimical to their own, is quite another. You're making the best arguments for unionization I've heard in the tech industry for quite a long time.
  - nathan_long 11y ago
    > the whole point is that management is supposed to be happy What? Workers sell their labor to a company for a price. The whole point of any transaction is to satisfy both parties. Sharing market information is something that both buyers and sellers do. Why do you think this should be unilateral?
    - pjc50 11y ago
      Presumably he believes that managers are there to expropriate the surplus happiness of the workforce. It's not alienation of your labour until you're feeling properly alienated. /s
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    Don't conflate management with the company's owners, whose happiness is the actual goal. (Granted, sometimes these are the same people, wearing different hats.) As anyone who has worked in private industry can tell you, management often acts in its own interests, even when those interests conflict with those of both employees and owners.
  - oh_sigh 11y ago
    No, staff and management work for the shareholders, essentially
spinchange 11y ago
This post isn't journalism by any stretch of the imagination. It's actually like a perfect caricature of whats wrong with digital publishing. Serious topic on a serious masthead with less than amateur treatment.
- mhluongo 11y ago
  Someone sharing something on Twitter isn't supposed to be journalism. AFAIK the original author isn't a journalist, she's a technologist who got fed up.
  - RubyPinch 11y ago
    I believe the comment about improper journalism is about wired's take on the topic
  - Mikushi 11y ago
    Then why her writing is taken seriously by anyone? This piece at best is an opinion, mostly trash. Hearsay, rumours, implication, this is professional gossiping. I don't deny the claims she makes, but the form in which she makes them really doesn't help her case, and the form clearly calls to create an online shitstorm. We should shame publications who use "stories" like these. It's damaging for everyone involved and whatever the subject matter is. I refuse to take seriously what should not be.
    - pessimizer 11y ago
      I think you're confusing complaints about copying twitter posts verbatim and calling it a story with an attack on somebody making a public worker's rights and possible discrimination complaint. The reason we listen to people is to learn things.
    - Frondo 11y ago
      People's stories, especially people in disadvantaged communities, aren't "mostly trash," they're worth listening to. They're a way to know what's going on in those disadvantaged communities if you're not a part of them.
vanderZwan 11y ago
> the whole thing just crumbled into a victim story for me Are you sure you're not being an Angry Jack[0] and using that as an easy excuse to reject the story firsthand? > Also, generally shit will hit the fan if you tell anyone to fuck off, especially if they're your manager. Again, we don't know that she told her manager to fuck off for being racist Were do you see her telling her manager to fuck off at all? She's the one who didn't try to blame her manager, it's that white male co-worker who wanted to do that, and she declined. You are literally accusing her of doing the opposite of what she did. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfPAoz9GnWM&t=236 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfPAoz9GnWM&t=236
- aaronem 11y ago
  I'm pretty sure the "telling her manager to fuck off" comment was a reference to refusing to be illegally intimidated over salary information sharing. Assuming that's an accurate reading of GP's comment, I think it's quite telling that, again, an employee's refusal to be illegally intimidated should be constructed as "telling her manager to fuck off". The sympathies and attitudes thus revealed make me very glad that I don't have to depend on the good feeling of random Silicon Valley magnates and would-be magnates to work in my industry.
  - braythwayt 11y ago
    Leaving gender out of this (which is a massive hand-wave on my part), HN skews very heavily towards people who bifurcate the world into two kinds: Entrepreneurs and little people (I am referencing Bladerunner, not persons short in physical stature). Had this story been rewritten to describe the situation as Google (and other BigCos like Apple) erecting arcane and anti-competitive mechanisms to manipulate a market for talent, and the protagonist quitting to found a web-based startup to disrupt their 19th century attitude to business, we might be toasting her as starting the next Uber for people. How dare those fat cats do dirty deals to prevent the ordinary person from sharing a spreadsheet! SecretSalary to the rescue!
  - raisedbyninjas 11y ago
    It's a fuck off comment because the manager asked an open-ended question and tweeter bluntly retorted that retaliation is illegal. The manager could be ascertaining the awareness and intent behind stirring up this substantial turmoil. It would be polite to give the manager the benefit of doubt until threats are actually made.
mhluongo 11y ago
> tl;dr she got exactly what you would expect when you're intentionally stirring shit up at any company. I'm not sure what she expected. What? Sharing salary information is a protected employee activity, and retaliation is illegal.. so maybe she expected there wouldn't be retaliation?
- braythwayt 11y ago
  This is like telling me that water is wet. Water is wet. Assholes are assholes. Companies stretching or breaking the law with respect to retaliation are companies stretching or breaking the law with respect to retaliation. Smug HN commentators are smug HN commentators. None of this actually says anything about whether she acted correctly, or incorrectly, or whether the company behaved with propriety, or whether information wants to be free, or anything else that--to borrow a phrase from the original HN guidelines--“piques one’s intellectual curiosity." Here’s my contribution to “she got exactly what she should expect:” Americans got exactly what they should expect when they refused to pay taxes to the King. What happened next? Why did things turn out that way. What might have happened instead? What could have been done to prevent it from happening? What could have been done to make it happen with less bloodshed? Those are the interesting questions to ponder.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
    - braythwayt 11y ago
      Are you suggesting that I am blaming the Google employee in this story? Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m claiming that “She should have expected this” is weak sauce. It’s factually true, but could just as easily be said that entrepreneurs who try but fail could have expected it, or protestors who get beaten and then jailed could have expected it, or people who ask someone out on a date but are turned down could have expected it. All very true, but saying nothing of interest one way or the other.
      - 11y ago
vtlynch 11y ago
>tl;dr she got exactly what you would expect when you're intentionally stirring shit up at any company. I'm not sure what she expected. "tl;dr I support the establishment"
pyre 11y ago
> OF COURSE the MALE coworker can do WHATEVER HE WANTS, as long as we don't actually have any details about it. I read that differently. My reading: * The fact that he was still getting them points how how arbitrary this was, and that she was being retaliated against. * The whole story leaves me with the impression that she had ownership/credit for the spreadsheet, and that is why she was specifically being targeted with the rejected Peer Bonuses. * He may have still be getting the Peer Bonuses because he was under a different manager/supervisor that was more forgiving.

aaronem 11y ago

Yes. Heaven forfend staff should behave in a way potentially inimical to the interests of management, instead of the other way around.

deadmik3 11y ago
Staff works for management. While it's nice to have times where the management "works for" their employees, the whole point is that management is supposed to be happy.
- aaronem 11y ago
  Staff being subordinate to management in an organizational sense is one thing. Staff members being forbidden even to approach anything, which might grow into a discussion of how and where management's interests are actively inimical to their own, is quite another. You're making the best arguments for unionization I've heard in the tech industry for quite a long time.
- nathan_long 11y ago
  > the whole point is that management is supposed to be happy What? Workers sell their labor to a company for a price. The whole point of any transaction is to satisfy both parties. Sharing market information is something that both buyers and sellers do. Why do you think this should be unilateral?
  - pjc50 11y ago
    Presumably he believes that managers are there to expropriate the surplus happiness of the workforce. It's not alienation of your labour until you're feeling properly alienated. /s
- jessaustin 11y ago
  Don't conflate management with the company's owners, whose happiness is the actual goal. (Granted, sometimes these are the same people, wearing different hats.) As anyone who has worked in private industry can tell you, management often acts in its own interests, even when those interests conflict with those of both employees and owners.
- oh_sigh 11y ago
  No, staff and management work for the shareholders, essentially

spinchange 11y ago

This post isn't journalism by any stretch of the imagination. It's actually like a perfect caricature of whats wrong with digital publishing. Serious topic on a serious masthead with less than amateur treatment.

mhluongo 11y ago
Someone sharing something on Twitter isn't supposed to be journalism. AFAIK the original author isn't a journalist, she's a technologist who got fed up.
- RubyPinch 11y ago
  I believe the comment about improper journalism is about wired's take on the topic
- Mikushi 11y ago
  Then why her writing is taken seriously by anyone? This piece at best is an opinion, mostly trash. Hearsay, rumours, implication, this is professional gossiping. I don't deny the claims she makes, but the form in which she makes them really doesn't help her case, and the form clearly calls to create an online shitstorm. We should shame publications who use "stories" like these. It's damaging for everyone involved and whatever the subject matter is. I refuse to take seriously what should not be.
  - pessimizer 11y ago
    I think you're confusing complaints about copying twitter posts verbatim and calling it a story with an attack on somebody making a public worker's rights and possible discrimination complaint. The reason we listen to people is to learn things.
  - Frondo 11y ago
    People's stories, especially people in disadvantaged communities, aren't "mostly trash," they're worth listening to. They're a way to know what's going on in those disadvantaged communities if you're not a part of them.

vanderZwan 11y ago

> the whole thing just crumbled into a victim story for me Are you sure you're not being an Angry Jack[0] and using that as an easy excuse to reject the story firsthand? > Also, generally shit will hit the fan if you tell anyone to fuck off, especially if they're your manager. Again, we don't know that she told her manager to fuck off for being racist Were do you see her telling her manager to fuck off at all? She's the one who didn't try to blame her manager, it's that white male co-worker who wanted to do that, and she declined. You are literally accusing her of doing the opposite of what she did. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfPAoz9GnWM&t=236 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfPAoz9GnWM&t=236

aaronem 11y ago
I'm pretty sure the "telling her manager to fuck off" comment was a reference to refusing to be illegally intimidated over salary information sharing. Assuming that's an accurate reading of GP's comment, I think it's quite telling that, again, an employee's refusal to be illegally intimidated should be constructed as "telling her manager to fuck off". The sympathies and attitudes thus revealed make me very glad that I don't have to depend on the good feeling of random Silicon Valley magnates and would-be magnates to work in my industry.
- braythwayt 11y ago
  Leaving gender out of this (which is a massive hand-wave on my part), HN skews very heavily towards people who bifurcate the world into two kinds: Entrepreneurs and little people (I am referencing Bladerunner, not persons short in physical stature). Had this story been rewritten to describe the situation as Google (and other BigCos like Apple) erecting arcane and anti-competitive mechanisms to manipulate a market for talent, and the protagonist quitting to found a web-based startup to disrupt their 19th century attitude to business, we might be toasting her as starting the next Uber for people. How dare those fat cats do dirty deals to prevent the ordinary person from sharing a spreadsheet! SecretSalary to the rescue!
- raisedbyninjas 11y ago
  It's a fuck off comment because the manager asked an open-ended question and tweeter bluntly retorted that retaliation is illegal. The manager could be ascertaining the awareness and intent behind stirring up this substantial turmoil. It would be polite to give the manager the benefit of doubt until threats are actually made.

mhluongo 11y ago

> tl;dr she got exactly what you would expect when you're intentionally stirring shit up at any company. I'm not sure what she expected. What? Sharing salary information is a protected employee activity, and retaliation is illegal.. so maybe she expected there wouldn't be retaliation?

braythwayt 11y ago
This is like telling me that water is wet. Water is wet. Assholes are assholes. Companies stretching or breaking the law with respect to retaliation are companies stretching or breaking the law with respect to retaliation. Smug HN commentators are smug HN commentators. None of this actually says anything about whether she acted correctly, or incorrectly, or whether the company behaved with propriety, or whether information wants to be free, or anything else that--to borrow a phrase from the original HN guidelines--“piques one’s intellectual curiosity." Here’s my contribution to “she got exactly what she should expect:” Americans got exactly what they should expect when they refused to pay taxes to the King. What happened next? Why did things turn out that way. What might have happened instead? What could have been done to prevent it from happening? What could have been done to make it happen with less bloodshed? Those are the interesting questions to ponder.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - braythwayt 11y ago
    Are you suggesting that I am blaming the Google employee in this story? Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m claiming that “She should have expected this” is weak sauce. It’s factually true, but could just as easily be said that entrepreneurs who try but fail could have expected it, or protestors who get beaten and then jailed could have expected it, or people who ask someone out on a date but are turned down could have expected it. All very true, but saying nothing of interest one way or the other.
    - 11y ago

vtlynch 11y ago

>tl;dr she got exactly what you would expect when you're intentionally stirring shit up at any company. I'm not sure what she expected. "tl;dr I support the establishment"

pyre 11y ago

> OF COURSE the MALE coworker can do WHATEVER HE WANTS, as long as we don't actually have any details about it. I read that differently. My reading: * The fact that he was still getting them points how how arbitrary this was, and that she was being retaliated against. * The whole story leaves me with the impression that she had ownership/credit for the spreadsheet, and that is why she was specifically being targeted with the rejected Peer Bonuses. * He may have still be getting the Peer Bonuses because he was under a different manager/supervisor that was more forgiving.