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> 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 i

> 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.
    - scott_s 11y ago
      For the record, I misunderstood your point, too.
      - jessaustin 11y ago
        Me three. Sometimes I wonder if obtuseness is intentional, to give one the opportunity to bitch no matter what the response. It's like one of those managers who helicopter in while you're doing something else with: "something minor; it'll take you literally no time, we need some data in that one format for tomorrow's meeting, <mumble, mumble>". After one gets burned, one will start sending confirmation emails.
        braythwayt 11y ago
        Something, something about "English being twice as hard to read as it is to write, therefore anything written to be clever is guaranteed to be misunderstood." Including this follow-up. Thanks for the feedback!
malchow 11y ago
"retaliation is illegal" I'm not sure what world you think we inhabit. Are we humanoid automatons? The whole welter of human emotion more or less always outweighs a programmatic injunction like "retaliation is illegal." Companies are still people working together. They'll probably never be anything but people working together. It does not matter how protected the activity allegedly is; a giant embarrassment campaign run against your company, especially if in pursuit of a particularly feeble branch on the tree of political correctness, means you're out. Or, at least, things won't be pleasant for you. Because your coworkers, above and below, don't like what you've done to their company. One can't write a law preventing that.
- sanxiyn 11y ago
  It seems rather clear from the article that many coworkers liked sharing salaries, so I am unsure where your "Because your coworkers, above and below, don't like what you've done to their company" came from.
  - marrs 11y ago
    I think it said 5% shared the spreadsheet. We know nothing of the other 95%
- mister_m 11y ago
  The culture has to change from within. There is no reason why that information can't be shared among employees. As the user above you said, retaliatory action to that activity is in fact illegal. Just because the culture of where she works says it is not does not mean she is at all in the wrong for doing it, or that the retaliatory bullshit that was experienced was warranted - even if it was 'expected' as you say. I for one side with the person who threw together the spreadsheet, not with Google who is trying to sneak by with not paying everyone equally. Your assertion that the poster above you lives in a fantasy world for thinking that sharing salary information is a protected activity is frankly a nauseating attitude. One that I hope we all in tech can fix.
- balabaster 11y ago
  Oh, one can write a law preventing that, but what happens when you write laws to curb human emotion? Very little. Human nature takes generations to alter their behaviour - even with laws making that behaviour illegal. It sucks that we can't be less judgmental, more accepting and more adaptable to the wants of others, but that's the way we are: Flawed. Until we can be more tolerant and accepting of one anothers needs and less bound by our own egos, we will be doomed to repeat this behaviour until we destroy ourselves.
balabaster 11y ago
The fact that she's a woman is neither here nor there... on the surface where it can be seen. Behind the scenes however, you have politics. When you piss people off that are in power, they find ways to make your life uncomfortable - that goes whether you're male or female. To expect there will be no retaliation for pissing off higher ups would be incredibly naive. Even if what you are doing (strictly speaking) is legal and retaliation is illegal. You can't expect to not suffer any repercussions for pissing off those that ultimately are in charge of your pay cheque. That's just not how people operate - even if that's how the law (and society, on the surface) says they should. It takes a long time for ideas and beliefs to become embedded in your culture - look at racism, look at sexism, look at the LBGT community. Gradually society is becoming more tolerant, more accepting and less judgmental, but we've still got a long road ahead of us before equality for all is anything more than a surface ideal that the younger generations long for. Many like the status quo, they are truly uncomfortable with what change represents to themselves personally. Getting these people to accept that future generations ideals and beliefs are not their own, and are becoming the norm is a hard pill for them to swallow. When a tiger is cornered and they perceive they have no place left to run, the only thing they will do is lash out and hurt you.
- imgabe 11y ago
  What exactly is the point of having a law if you don't expect it to be upheld? If these managers illegally retaliated for sharing salary information, then nail them to the fucking wall. Who the hell cares if they're "uncomfortable" that things are changing? Yeah, maybe a tiger attacks people when it feels threatened. You still put it down.
  - cubancigar11 11y ago
    Upholding a law is more tricky that being obtuse about how the world is going to unfold before The Judgement Day (TM). Look at Aaron Swartz. There is a way to have things done - if the world is becoming a better place it is because a lot of people are doing a lot of things behind the smokescreen.
  - jdmichal 11y ago
deadmik3 11y ago
They didn't retaliate, they just didn't give her the bonuses.
- smcgivern 11y ago
  Perhaps you could clarify what you think: > exactly what you would expect when you're intentionally stirring shit up at any company is? From this reply, it appears that you think Google did nothing wrong - regardless of whether she was 'stirring shit up' or not.
  - deadmik3 11y ago
    I don't think they did do anything wrong against her. She didn't get her peer bonuses for starting this spreadsheet?
    - smcgivern 11y ago
      So what you expect for 'stirring shit up' is that nothing bad happens to you? If you think that, then the top post of this thread was weirdly inflammatory.
    - woah 11y ago
      You don't think they retaliated, or you don't think that it would be wrong for them to retaliate?
      - Merovius 11y ago
        I personally don't believe that not rewarding an action counts as "retaliation" for said action. I also believe, based on Xooglers commenting, that there might have been very good reasons to reject the peer bonuses (no, that was not the only case, in which peer bonuses got rejected, it's not that unheard of...). (And I personally think, peer bonuses should be rejected in such cases Because otherwise it becomes a pure popularity-contest. But that's just, like, my opinion :) )
codingdave 11y ago
That is probably exactly what she expected. And if this were a small group politely sharing with each, there likely would not be retaliation. But once you make it "a thing", and are impacting the culture of an organization, then you have stepped into politics. The reactions at that point are going to be exaggerated, and not necessarily relevant to the original topic. I don't like politics, and stories like this are exactly why - things that may be legal and should not be harmful end up turning into something ugly. You have to worry more about who you are pissing off that what you are doing, whether or not their anger is justified or reasonable. Sadly, for all but very small companies, politics is the reality in the corporate world.
- emodendroket 11y ago
  If you don't think there are politics at small orgs you must not have worked for one.
  - vonmoltke 11y ago
    There are politics in every group of humans larger than one. Some just handle it better than others.
- balabaster 11y ago
  I've worked for all manner of companies from the smallest 2 person shops to the largest multi-billion dollar oil magnates and one thing is common across all of them, politics. Even at the Whitehouse one rule is common - keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Its all about who owes who what favours and what you can do to further their agenda. If they don't owe you a favour or you can't further their agenda, you're meaningless (and thus worthless) to them. If you can provide them with software that increases their margins by half a billion dollars a year or give them a leg up the ladder of their career, they'll pay you pretty much whatever that's worth to them. Politics might appear less evident in smaller companies, because you're more likely intimately familiar with the people at the top. In a larger corporate environment where you really don't know everyone intimately, your perspective of the politics are compounded because you're not necessarily part of the inner circle. The road to the top is all politics though. If you want to get there, you have to know how to play your hand and visibly provide what those at the top need to further their own political agenda.
dataker 11y ago
I'm not taking Google's position, but couldn't Erica have a hidden agenda on this initiative? Is it only about transparency? She does seem like a SJW and, if any discrepancies in compensation were found between gender/race/... , Google would be ultimately screwed. Plus, with such large dataset, one could fallaciously assume differences without considering different countries,positions,...
- pjc50 11y ago
  Equal pay is still regarded as a sinister "hidden agenda"? It's 2015, guys.
  - dataker 11y ago
    If you're intellectually honest, yes, still is a hidden agenda.
    - pjc50 11y ago
      What does this even mean in this context? Being interested in whether you're illegally discriminated against is intellectual dishonesty?
    - Merovius 11y ago
      Intelectually honestly: No. Agenda, yes. Hidden? No? It's a very unhidden, open, public agenda, when you lobby for transparency of pay.
- woah 11y ago
  "The sjw's are out to get me!!"
  - dataker 11y ago
    That wasn't really my point here. Explicitly exposing facts is the attitude I'd expect from this community, instead of ridiculing and wrongly correlating it with ideologies.
lewisl9029 11y ago
Unfortunately, legislation like this don't really have any teeth. Companies can still retaliate against salary sharing in any way they want because it's next to impossible for you to prove in court that they acted in retaliation.
herge 11y ago
Good luck proving retaliation in a jurisdiction with at-will employment.
eitally 11y ago
And, according to what I've read, she was spoken to about the salary sharing (whether by her manager, HR or both), but neither reprimanded nor fired because of it.
vtlynch 11y ago
Fuck, I just realized this piece of trash wrote his own version of "she was asking for it."

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.
  - scott_s 11y ago
    For the record, I misunderstood your point, too.
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      Me three. Sometimes I wonder if obtuseness is intentional, to give one the opportunity to bitch no matter what the response. It's like one of those managers who helicopter in while you're doing something else with: "something minor; it'll take you literally no time, we need some data in that one format for tomorrow's meeting, <mumble, mumble>". After one gets burned, one will start sending confirmation emails.
      - braythwayt 11y ago
        Something, something about "English being twice as hard to read as it is to write, therefore anything written to be clever is guaranteed to be misunderstood." Including this follow-up. Thanks for the feedback!

malchow 11y ago

"retaliation is illegal" I'm not sure what world you think we inhabit. Are we humanoid automatons? The whole welter of human emotion more or less always outweighs a programmatic injunction like "retaliation is illegal." Companies are still people working together. They'll probably never be anything but people working together. It does not matter how protected the activity allegedly is; a giant embarrassment campaign run against your company, especially if in pursuit of a particularly feeble branch on the tree of political correctness, means you're out. Or, at least, things won't be pleasant for you. Because your coworkers, above and below, don't like what you've done to their company. One can't write a law preventing that.

sanxiyn 11y ago
It seems rather clear from the article that many coworkers liked sharing salaries, so I am unsure where your "Because your coworkers, above and below, don't like what you've done to their company" came from.
- marrs 11y ago
  I think it said 5% shared the spreadsheet. We know nothing of the other 95%
mister_m 11y ago
The culture has to change from within. There is no reason why that information can't be shared among employees. As the user above you said, retaliatory action to that activity is in fact illegal. Just because the culture of where she works says it is not does not mean she is at all in the wrong for doing it, or that the retaliatory bullshit that was experienced was warranted - even if it was 'expected' as you say. I for one side with the person who threw together the spreadsheet, not with Google who is trying to sneak by with not paying everyone equally. Your assertion that the poster above you lives in a fantasy world for thinking that sharing salary information is a protected activity is frankly a nauseating attitude. One that I hope we all in tech can fix.
balabaster 11y ago
Oh, one can write a law preventing that, but what happens when you write laws to curb human emotion? Very little. Human nature takes generations to alter their behaviour - even with laws making that behaviour illegal. It sucks that we can't be less judgmental, more accepting and more adaptable to the wants of others, but that's the way we are: Flawed. Until we can be more tolerant and accepting of one anothers needs and less bound by our own egos, we will be doomed to repeat this behaviour until we destroy ourselves.

balabaster 11y ago

The fact that she's a woman is neither here nor there... on the surface where it can be seen. Behind the scenes however, you have politics. When you piss people off that are in power, they find ways to make your life uncomfortable - that goes whether you're male or female. To expect there will be no retaliation for pissing off higher ups would be incredibly naive. Even if what you are doing (strictly speaking) is legal and retaliation is illegal. You can't expect to not suffer any repercussions for pissing off those that ultimately are in charge of your pay cheque. That's just not how people operate - even if that's how the law (and society, on the surface) says they should. It takes a long time for ideas and beliefs to become embedded in your culture - look at racism, look at sexism, look at the LBGT community. Gradually society is becoming more tolerant, more accepting and less judgmental, but we've still got a long road ahead of us before equality for all is anything more than a surface ideal that the younger generations long for. Many like the status quo, they are truly uncomfortable with what change represents to themselves personally. Getting these people to accept that future generations ideals and beliefs are not their own, and are becoming the norm is a hard pill for them to swallow. When a tiger is cornered and they perceive they have no place left to run, the only thing they will do is lash out and hurt you.

imgabe 11y ago
What exactly is the point of having a law if you don't expect it to be upheld? If these managers illegally retaliated for sharing salary information, then nail them to the fucking wall. Who the hell cares if they're "uncomfortable" that things are changing? Yeah, maybe a tiger attacks people when it feels threatened. You still put it down.
- cubancigar11 11y ago
  Upholding a law is more tricky that being obtuse about how the world is going to unfold before The Judgement Day (TM). Look at Aaron Swartz. There is a way to have things done - if the world is becoming a better place it is because a lot of people are doing a lot of things behind the smokescreen.
- jdmichal 11y ago

deadmik3 11y ago

They didn't retaliate, they just didn't give her the bonuses.

smcgivern 11y ago
Perhaps you could clarify what you think: > exactly what you would expect when you're intentionally stirring shit up at any company is? From this reply, it appears that you think Google did nothing wrong - regardless of whether she was 'stirring shit up' or not.
- deadmik3 11y ago
  I don't think they did do anything wrong against her. She didn't get her peer bonuses for starting this spreadsheet?
  - smcgivern 11y ago
    So what you expect for 'stirring shit up' is that nothing bad happens to you? If you think that, then the top post of this thread was weirdly inflammatory.
  - woah 11y ago
    You don't think they retaliated, or you don't think that it would be wrong for them to retaliate?
    - Merovius 11y ago
      I personally don't believe that not rewarding an action counts as "retaliation" for said action. I also believe, based on Xooglers commenting, that there might have been very good reasons to reject the peer bonuses (no, that was not the only case, in which peer bonuses got rejected, it's not that unheard of...). (And I personally think, peer bonuses should be rejected in such cases Because otherwise it becomes a pure popularity-contest. But that's just, like, my opinion :) )

codingdave 11y ago

That is probably exactly what she expected. And if this were a small group politely sharing with each, there likely would not be retaliation. But once you make it "a thing", and are impacting the culture of an organization, then you have stepped into politics. The reactions at that point are going to be exaggerated, and not necessarily relevant to the original topic. I don't like politics, and stories like this are exactly why - things that may be legal and should not be harmful end up turning into something ugly. You have to worry more about who you are pissing off that what you are doing, whether or not their anger is justified or reasonable. Sadly, for all but very small companies, politics is the reality in the corporate world.

emodendroket 11y ago
If you don't think there are politics at small orgs you must not have worked for one.
- vonmoltke 11y ago
  There are politics in every group of humans larger than one. Some just handle it better than others.
balabaster 11y ago
I've worked for all manner of companies from the smallest 2 person shops to the largest multi-billion dollar oil magnates and one thing is common across all of them, politics. Even at the Whitehouse one rule is common - keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Its all about who owes who what favours and what you can do to further their agenda. If they don't owe you a favour or you can't further their agenda, you're meaningless (and thus worthless) to them. If you can provide them with software that increases their margins by half a billion dollars a year or give them a leg up the ladder of their career, they'll pay you pretty much whatever that's worth to them. Politics might appear less evident in smaller companies, because you're more likely intimately familiar with the people at the top. In a larger corporate environment where you really don't know everyone intimately, your perspective of the politics are compounded because you're not necessarily part of the inner circle. The road to the top is all politics though. If you want to get there, you have to know how to play your hand and visibly provide what those at the top need to further their own political agenda.

dataker 11y ago

I'm not taking Google's position, but couldn't Erica have a hidden agenda on this initiative? Is it only about transparency? She does seem like a SJW and, if any discrepancies in compensation were found between gender/race/... , Google would be ultimately screwed. Plus, with such large dataset, one could fallaciously assume differences without considering different countries,positions,...

pjc50 11y ago
Equal pay is still regarded as a sinister "hidden agenda"? It's 2015, guys.
- dataker 11y ago
  If you're intellectually honest, yes, still is a hidden agenda.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    What does this even mean in this context? Being interested in whether you're illegally discriminated against is intellectual dishonesty?
  - Merovius 11y ago
    Intelectually honestly: No. Agenda, yes. Hidden? No? It's a very unhidden, open, public agenda, when you lobby for transparency of pay.
woah 11y ago
"The sjw's are out to get me!!"
- dataker 11y ago
  That wasn't really my point here. Explicitly exposing facts is the attitude I'd expect from this community, instead of ridiculing and wrongly correlating it with ideologies.

lewisl9029 11y ago

Unfortunately, legislation like this don't really have any teeth. Companies can still retaliate against salary sharing in any way they want because it's next to impossible for you to prove in court that they acted in retaliation.

herge 11y ago

Good luck proving retaliation in a jurisdiction with at-will employment.

eitally 11y ago

And, according to what I've read, she was spoken to about the salary sharing (whether by her manager, HR or both), but neither reprimanded nor fired because of it.

vtlynch 11y ago

Fuck, I just realized this piece of trash wrote his own version of "she was asking for it."