Note to young videographers: When a company asks whether you're working on an expose, the phrase "I’m interested in issues of class, race, and labor" will not defuse the situation.
Of course! What kind of traction would his insinuations have if he hadn't baited them for termination and he had to end the "expose" with "we had a sit down where I explained my intentions and we sorted it all out and had a beer and a laugh". The "and they fired me!" that is intended to add to the suspicion. It causes most viewers to ask "wait, if there was nothing to hide, then why'd they fire him?".
You can claim 'sociological issues' all you like, but when people see you're a fantasist with a laughable view of how the world works, and you're dealing in sly insinuation and race baiting... 'sociological issues' aint gonna cut it.
Well, I say that, but with the naivety on show in this thread perhaps this guy is onto a winner with 'sociological issues'.
> 2)... are mostly people of color and cannot eat Google meals
That's a bummer, because those were indeed people of color who were not allowed to eat Google meals. Well, at least I know why it took you guys in the States 100 years to actually give equal rights to your fellow black citizens: you were all too afraid of losing your jobs.
Assume each "Google Meal" costs $5 in preparation labour, materials, plates & utensils (washing), fittings and fixtures, etc...
261 working days a year
1 employee
$5 = $1305 per employee, per year
How many workers in the 3.14 building? At 400 employees, that's half a million dollars. Does the board of director's fiduciary duty to their shareholders allow them to pay for the Scan Ops lunches?
I don't know what minimum wage in the states is, but I'm pretty sure most of those workers would rather have that extra five dollars in their pockets and brown-bag it. It's also a lot easier to justify an extra dollar an hour above minimum wage.
"Catered lunches" is a perk that (as far as I know) is very rare. Your company "not buying you lunch every day" is the norm.
I can't see any outrage in their perfectly normal behavior.
You've presented some arithmetic and no information at all. If the story is that these employees are being employed at minimum wage then that's something that contradicts the "Don't be evil" ethos.
That perspective assumes pay is the only thing that matters in the bundle of benefits that counts as a job. Given that one can make a job better or worse in zillions of ways, mandating a minimum wage probably makes both the employer and the employee worse off compared to allowing them to reach a free mutual agreement on terms.
It might make employees worse off by reducing their hours, by reducing the training budget, reducing flexibility of work hours, reducing job security...or by reducing perks such as free food.
Here's an example: Suppose you're running a videogame company and you need to test your new videogame. If it were legal, one strategy might be to pay a small army of junior-high kids, say, $1/hour to test your videogame after school. The kids would go for it because they get the ability to play hot new video games in a relaxing, low-pressure environment, with free snacks and drinks and even a small amount of pay, where ordinarily it would cost them money to play videogames. As a side benefit, they'd get valuable exposure to the work environment, make business contacts, possibly discover a new career.
Now pass laws demanding a minimum wage. The junior high kids are priced out of the market; if you have to pay a large wage you'll hire fewer but more qualified people rather than more, less qualified people. Now it's much harder to get started in the field. A $13/hour testing job is a different job than the $1/hour job. More stressful, harder to get, and quite possibly less effective.
So change your quote to "You'd prefer to take less (in exchange for offsetting benefits that are more valuable to you than to me), but offering you that deal would be illegal!"
Wait, how do you know they're getting minimum wage? I've done lots of temping in my life. Anyone handling anything that requires some brains never gets minimum wage. Hell, once I counted ballots -- and didn't even get miniwage for that. I really doubt Google is giving them minimum wage.
I don't know that they're getting minimum wage, in fact I'd assume they're paid a fair and reasonable wage. Their cars were nice, their clothes not shabby.
All said and done though, my point was that the lunches are an unnecessary and significant cost.
According to the author, they were "contracted to Google by another company." So that could be a consideration for excluding perks that are normally folded into salaries.
I don't get this sentiment. I thought that most people with jobs like this weren't getting free meals. I mean, do data-entry workers in your country really get free food, hair cuts, gym access, and cleaning services, among other things? A while back Google offered a million dollar counteroffer to one of its engineers who was going to leave. Do you really expect them to offer millions to a data entry person who is going to leave?
exploit? i'm sorry...not having access to free meals, shuttle buses, smartphones, etc isn't exploitation. There's nothing in this that says anything close to exploitation.
No, it screams these employees are working on something confidential. Google keeps them from socializing with everyone else in order to keep them from talking about their work.
IANAL. I'll grant you that this is sketchy. Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act protects employees from engaging in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.
In the US you can't stop person A from talking to person B if the purpose is to make your job better (better benefits/working conditions/almost anything).
IANAL (again)..but, yes, if they aren't allowed to talk to other employees about non-NDA stuff, I agree that maybe a line is slightly being crossed.
No one was forbidden from communicating with other employees. In this case, it seems what happened was the woman correctly decided that the situation was unusual (some guy you don't know asking all kinds of questions about your work), and should be checked out by management.
"the first girl I had spoken to had followed the instructions on the back of her yellow badge – which is to call a certain manager if anyone asks about the work of the yellow badge class"
This scarely reminds of "Jedem das Seine" and "Arbeit macht frei"
Both phrases actually match the described situation perfectly
Actually, this comparison is way out of place. Not giving people benefits (but still paying them!) is completely different from imprisoning and torturing people for their race, opinions, or beliefs.
AFAIK, segregation was physical separation, not forbidding people to talk to each other.
On a large corporate campus, you can't just randomly walk around in the buildings. Your access card doesn't even work everywhere. So segregation (physical separation) is pretty standard.
So not being permitted to speak to other employees is the same as not getting rides to Disney Land? Way off doesn't begin to describe how screwed your comparison is.
Specifically, they're not permitted to speak to other employees about the apparently confidential work they're doing, which presumably was mentioned to them when they went to the job interview round about the same time they were advised they'd be missing out on a few other social events. Even the original author doesn't seem to be suggesting they're being held and silenced against their will...
You can call a thing confidential, prohibit speaking about this thing, and prohibit speaking about the fact of prohibition.
Therefore declaring something confidential is like putting it into opaque box - we can not figure whether the thing in the box exists and is really confidential.
Therefore they can not prove that they've segregated employees to prevent confidentiality breach, and we can not prove that they segregated employees to prevent people becaming aware of the class society.
I don't know how to resolve this problem. We just don't know, so it's a question of trust.
I don't trust that Google has a big amount of highly confidential but unqualified data-entry labor, and they can't prove otherwise unless they lift the confidentiality wall.
Wow. This sounds like some kind of sweatshop operating within the Google campus and they are afraid of this getting exposed. Still not able to reconcile the public image of Google and what is described in this post.
Theres probably more to it than just that. Given Google's history, I have to account for other factors - maybe these are temporary employees being hired to a special program (as in a remedial or 'second chance' program).
Or maybe this is Google's new way of boosting revenue!
Lets not jump to conclusions, this will definitely get picked by major news outlets and then Google will have to respond
But if the programmers that get free lunch are working for below-industry wages, and the data-entry people are getting industry wages, isn't it the people with the free lunch that are getting screwed over?
They are, so the only honest option is to pay industry wages as a rule and provide (or not provide) a reasonably comparable level of perks to everyone.
I find that compensation means how much your work is valued. Workplace perks usually mean how much that company wants that the people working there enjoy the place.
For me they are two different things. Although having different salaries/compensation for different kinds of jobs is perfectly normal and is hidden from people's view by the privacy that is applied to how much people make..... the workplace perks like free lunch and bus are totally visible (how could they not be?) and create a social divide between people that once accentuates their grief/delusions/issues and contributes to make people feel "different" in the human level.
So if everyone is treated equally, with the same pay and the same benefits, why would anyone choose to work a hard job? What incentive do you have to spend years and considerable amounts of money learning a skill set when you could just be an artist or something instead?
Sorry, but not everyone's work is worth the same. It isn't fair or equal, and it shouldn't be.
This is literally one of the craziest things I have ever seen. Google is doing absolutely nothing wrong or unethical at all. The guy got fired because he started accusing Google of racism.
Wow. Just wow. The sense of entitlement and self-righteousness is just mind blowing.
You have to admit it /could/ be like something out of Brave New World, so, it demands exploring. I mean they come in at 4 and leave at 2. It conflicts with Google's ethos (perhaps) to have truly 2nd class citizens, so they hide it. That's curiosity-provoking.
The guy making the video implied that the security guards and janitors have "red badge" status, getting the same perks as any other contractor, but not the perks reserved only to full-time employees.
Ok? The point is that Google has tiered benefits. The outrage that guards have more benefits than other people in their building makes zero sense to me.
The fact that some employees have have lower benefits than others is not necessarily outrageous or even that unusual. The fact that Google apparently really wants to avoid having this documented is rather strange, though.
Except this guy wasn't a journalist and he wasn't a whistle-blower and he wasn't a documentarian. He was an employee of a company providing a service who was exploiting the access (and presumably paid-resources) to pursue his own agenda. They don't owe him an explanation or benefit of the doubt or anything else and he doesn't raise any questions and there isn't anything of interest in his commentary that suggests it's deserving of any followup. This smells of someone wanting to play 'Morgan Spurlock'.
Google might be evil. They certainly aren't pure of heart and all that. But there's nothing in this ten minute monotone "expose" that really gives any legitimate concern.
I was responding to the suggestion that it "deserves exploration" simply because some disgruntled contracted employee was trying to cut his teeth on what he tried desperately to make into a juicy expose.
Simply making an accusation or insinuation doesn't in itself warrant exploration of something. Insinuations about anyone can be made by anyone and they don't all deserve a response or an investigation. This guy has no particular credibility and with is particular attitude, under the particular circumstances and with the distinct lack of . . . anything . . . that he has to back up his concerns . . . falls into the category of "not worth the time".
Now, if some employees come out tomorrow -- even under anonymity -- and start sharing the tales of terrible treatment to some SF Chronicle reporter or something, then you might have something.
I don't mean 'deserve' in a legal sense, just, when you've got captive Oompa Loompas in front of you anyone'd feel curious. As for evidence, Google took it, right? But you thought I meant /legally/ deserve which, sure, there's no sign any wrongdoing.
The author's main gripe seems to be that contractors don't get treated like employees.
Does he realize that it's illegal to treat contractors exactly like employees?
Does he realize that if Google started giving contractors exactly the same treatment, they could get in big trouble with the IRS and other regulatory groups, have the contractors retroactively declared employees, be forced to withhold payroll taxes on their behalf, pay big fines?
He seems to be shocked, shocked that Google acts...the way every other tech firm acts, and for the same reasons.
My impression was that he's a contractor (under salary) for one contract firm while they're contractors (probably on an hourly wage) for a different contract firm. Why would he expect the two to have the exact same benefits package?
Your impression could be wrong so there's no point in arguing both cases. All the guy know is that both groups were contractors. Do you know of any law that distinguishes contractors based on hourly or salary rules? If not, I don't see your point.
>Do you know of any law that distinguishes contractors based on hourly or salary rules? If not, I don't see your point.
The point is purely practical, not so much legal. When employees are on salary, it's worth doing whatever you can to make it convenient for them to stick around and stay longer. Providing perks such as free food helps with that - it helps get more work hours out of people for a given salary. The perks are in some way a substitute for extra salary, and likely to save the company money in the long run. Especially perks that save employees time, like letting them start work on the bus during their commute or letting them have meals right on campus so they don't lose time driving elsewhere.
Whereas hourly employees get paid for each specific hour they work so there's little benefit to encouraging them to stick around longer than they would otherwise be inclined. In fact, you generally want to discourage hourly workers from doing any overtime, since you'd have to pay them time-and-a-half.
To me it's much more shocking to what great length you go to defend the rights of the company. It seems to me that freedom of speech should come before the right of firing at will. Or is your opinion that companies are about as souverign as states?
IANAL, but I think there are some things you can't fire people for, like race, age, being pregnant, etc. But other than that, I'd think you're free to 'fire at will'.
Google is not a branch of government in any way whatsoever and, like any other business or private organization, can tell you how to speak and how to dress and how to behave without it being censorship.
My company requires that employees not speak with the press unless they are granted direct permission to do so and that they should, instead, refer them to an internal rep who will speak with them. That is not censorship. That is my company looking out for their best interests so that some dumb ass like me doesn't say something stupid that misrepresents them. My company also has the right to tell me to watch my crude language while working for them and not to dress like I'm attending a beach party.
There are already whistle-blower laws and protections to address what you are referring to, which is the exposition of unethical or illegal business practices by an employee.
Both rights are fully in tact. A company or individual has a right to enter into and terminate contracts with anyone it wishes at any time. An individual has a right to say anything he wants. No one stopped him from saying anything or from posting a video to his blog for example. You seem to infer some other right that doesn't exist - the right to never be fired. But a law forcing such a measure would decrease the freedom of individuals to freely enter into and terminate contracts with each other. If both parties enter into a contract by their own free will, why should there be some law restricting their freedom to structure that contract in a manner that both parties agree to?
This will be good promotion for his art in general. I agree with your assessment of self-righteousness. I do think some of the concepts he's exploring are interesting, though. In my opinion, FlowSpot is too critical. I find Mental Tootscapes charming.
Honestly, I'm not sure this is a big deal. They're hiring unskilled labor and giving them a role at an extraordinary company. A rational management team wanting to generate profits for risk taking investors and generate new growth, cuts costs by eliminating benefits when possible.
They could easily get this done in India or China. If they are really doing book scanning, I'm shocked this isn't being done in the far east. With that perspective, this isn't far from "don't be evil".
It's not the best practice in the world but this isn't exploitation.
Perhaps it should inspire some investigative journalism.
Perhaps Google could fund a program and give these data entry people the opportunity to innovate, rewarding them accordingly with a small scale founders' award?
Despite the assumed background of these employees, they're at Google inspiring their kids. With so few benefits outside of their salary, they can always work elsewhere. But why would they take fast food or something of the sort over this?
I imagine the cleaning crew that vacuum at Goldman Sachs at night get treated way worse.
But then how do you explain the overreaction from Google which led to the firing of this guy. There has to be something which Google was trying desperately to keep secret.
If I hire you to film some promotional company material for me and find that you're using the access we granted you and the time and resources we're paying you for to play documentary-film-maker/sociologist, I'll probably fire you, too.
We can all speculate and make up theories on a late friday night but the fact is Google has a lot going on. Some of which is probably currently unknown by their competitors. They want to keep it that way. Who knows what these guys are working on. Naturally, this isn't the best PR story ever. They could have handled it better.
Clearly, from this guy's perspective, it was wrong for him to get fired but I'm sure the vendor that was providing him as contracted labor had to make a statement that they wouldn't tolerate this kind of thing. Would you hire a firm to video your office if they didn't fire a guy recording stuff you wanted confidential?
They guy was clearly insinuating that Google was being racist. He kept reiterating that the ScanOps workers were people of color and mentioned it in his letter. Google did the absolutely correct thing in getting him fired. You don't want that insanity walking around your campus and Transvideo didn't want to lose their contract with Google.
Why was it an overreaction? This guy was a contract worker who decided to pursue his own investigation during work hours, taking advantage of the privileges granted to him by Google. They're well within their rights to request his termination or removal from their contract.
To me the most interesting part is that these are not the only unskilled labor being employed by Google. As the video points out, the janitors at google are given access to the many perks. It seem strange that this one group is singled out.
At the same time, this guy was fired, so lets take his testimony with a grain of salt.
What I find mind-blowing in this story is not how "4th class" workers are treated like at Google, but rather how the author was fired with no serious reason whatsoever, and the whole secretive atmosphere around the issue.
Apparently Google feels that this situation does not fit the public image they want to project so the want to keep it under wraps.
My opinion is that their behaviour isn't exactly evil and probably not unusual but it's uninspiring, uncreative and not up to standard with their approach to other matters. It's a missed opportunity. They have all these people together on the campus so why would they reinforce the existing social segregation instead of weakening it?
It's not simply a matter of cost or security. What does it cost to let everyone ride the same bus and have them eat in the same place? Maybe the kids of those workers would be more inspired if their parents could tell them about a chat they had with some of the Google engineers on the book search project.
Of course it costs more - more busses, drivers, meals.
Of course its a 2nd class of worker - if they were Engineers working on a super-secret project, they'd have catered meals, separate busses, social arrangements of their own. Because Engineers are special and desirable and highly paid.
> What does it cost to let everyone ride the same bus and have them eat in the same place?
It's not clear why this contract agency runs on a different schedule than the rest of the company - 4am to 2:30 or whatever - maybe it's just traffic flow, or maybe they work a lot with a group in a different timezone. But the fact that they do run on a different schedule implies it could cost quite a lot to "let everyone ride the same bus and have them eat in the same place". People arriving at work at 4am would need to arrive on different buses than those arriving at 8 - you'd have to hire extra buses just for them, find drivers willing to start driving well before 3am, and hope there's enough concentration that this one building of people rates its own bus stop locations - if they're spread out all over they'd be better served by carpooling. (Not to mention that the reason for Google buses is so employees can get work done during what might otherwise be a long, aggravating rush-hour commute, whereas the commute at 3am/2:15pm is easy and fast)
Similarly, people who arrive at 4am are on a different lunch schedule than the rest of the company so you'd have to operate the cafeteria longer, pay overtime, hire more workers, etc.
That's a lot to do for people who don't even work for Google directly.
UPDATE: Another poster wrote that this group is working in multiple shifts, presumably to get through more books faster with the available facilities. That makes perfect sense - this is the morning shift, then the evening shift arrives, maybe a swing shift after that. Which would make running the kitchens and the buses long enough for everybody really expensive.
It's the combination of all these strange rules and Google's reaction in this case that makes me think the issue is slightly larger than bus schedules.
They pride themselves of creative thinking, they hire lots of academics, even economists and sociologists. Some of these people should be able to figure out a reasonably cost effective way of organizing these things without making the place resemble a 19th century cotton plantation.
> They pride themselves of creative thinking, they hire lots of academics, even economists and sociologists. Some of these people should be able to figure out a reasonably cost effective way of organizing these things without making the place resemble a 19th century cotton plantation.
Wait, so being offered a job that pays reasonably well with decent work conditions but for which you must solve for yourself the problem of how to get to work and what to eat for lunch is now considered oppressive? On the scale of, say, being whipped for not working hard enough?
Are you suggesting that if Google provides any perk at all they need to provide it to every employee or contractor at every company they contract with, including the guys who cut the lawns and the guys who sell them stationery supplies?
No, I'm suggesting that the way they stucture these perks and their security arrangements is not as good as it could be. It creates more segregation than necessary. I think that money works pretty well as a general equivalent and perks that require social segregation are not the best way to pay according to different levels of performance or competence.
I basically agree with this thought, although the perks at Google are great PR and appear to be genuinely adored by the employees. At a certain scale of income (enough) perks probably can make a positive enhancement above what they actually cost (and above what the increased salary if the perks were eliminated would "feel" like).
So, if we assume the perks are working for Google at the high end -- at the low end it seems logical that if those said perks are extravagant enough the feasibility of adjusting the money on the low end down enough to compensate for the low end also receiving those perks becomes very negative to those employees. At the low end pay scales where things like being able to pay rent and afford children, receiving cash money is likely preferable than receiving less money and a limo ride to work.
It is possible more perks in lieu of cash at the high end, and more cash in lieu of perks at the low end is actually the optimal solution to compensation package.
The surprising thing here isn't that the yellow badges can't use the cafeteria, it's that OP's group could. The rule "the cafeteria is only for Apple employees" would be pretty natural and easy to enforce. If you want to make it so everybody has the same benefits, the easy way to do that would be to remove cafeteria privileges from OP's company. As for "and this person can witness this daily", if OP weren't muckracking, the yellow badges wouldn't know that his group was getting extra benefits they weren't. Anyway, how do they "witness this daily"? It's a big campus and you'd have to go out of your way to go to the cafeteria if you had no access or business there.
Consider that I don't have a company car. I'm sure I could "witness it daily" that other people are being driven to work in their company cars if I knew where to look for it. But since I don't know about it, I feel fine.
Personally I would work the other way around, trying to detach myself for all the mundane pleasures (and failing constantly) and seeing how unimportant some perks are. But that's just me. What I see around is lots of hatred speech when people have been forbidden access to these things. It would be wise of Google or any other company to avoid these situations altogether.
There's also some deal in California with commuter tax benefits (I am nowhere near versant in this). That's why employees get free buses but contractors don't (as their company doesn't opt for the benefit, 'cause it costs money).
A Google employee is contributing to short-term disability fund with every paycheck, and in case he slips on cafeteria or bus floor, state of California will cover their portion of worker's comp.
A contractor is not eligible for worker's comp, hence any possibility of injury at workplace would make Google liable for contractor's entire medical bill.
This is like saying - 'I gave you a job so now I can treat you the way I want'. This sort of attitude is what fueled passions for communism. It keeps labor unions alive and general strikes perfectly acceptable. Because the employers some how have a attitude that they own employees and they are doing some great favor without which employees would have to starve to death.Giving job to someone is two way business, The guy needs you and you need the guy.
I would take serious offense if my employer tries to behave like god and then treat me like a dog. It hurts more if the treatment is subjective, meaning a few people are treated well and a few aren't. And even more if I'm meted out such treatment solely on the basis of my color, religion or any other thing like for example sexual preference.
They're hiring unskilled labor and giving them a role at an extraordinary company.
Really? They're hiring labor, but treating them as if they have no association with Google. They might as well simply be contractors that work for Jim's Labor Pool.
But why would they take fast food or something of the sort over this?
I don't know what they're paid, but at least from this article I get the feeling that fast food has more upward mobility. I know at least a couple of fast food workers as kids who moved up the ladder and eventually have owned their own profitable franchise. I have a feeling there really isn't much upward growth in this job.
I imagine the cleaning crew that vacuum at Goldman Sachs at night get treated way worse.
Quite possibly, although they're also likely not GS employees. Probably contractors, often contracted by the building.
He said tapes not copies. They wanted a the tapes from both days they only got the one day. He didn't say that they asked him to destroy all the copies.
Burt had a questionnaire to which my answers were :
-I was given permission to use the camera by Carl, a superior.
-The tape I used was mine.
-I do not have possession of the footage I shot anymore and it does not exist in any other form.
Anyway, i'm not looking for foul play, just curious what it is he posted.
Was the voiceover being done in a closet in a Google lobby or is there another reason for the depressed monotone? I mean, I understand we're trying to be moody and ominous here, but the voiceover could have been retelling the story of the Human Centipede and I'd have probably fallen asleep (or wanted to shoot myself).
I'm not defending Google, here, because I don't know anything about them beyond what everyone else knows from the outside. However, what do you expect the reaction to be when you are an employ for a company contracted to provide services to a client who grants you certain access and privileges which you then abuse to pursue your own interests and investigations outside of the scope of what you were employed to do?
Hell, at the end of this video, I'm still unclear what point is trying to be conveyed. Is it just "the racial balance of the employees that I saw exiting the building for two days didn't meet some proper balance I had in my head, so I decided to start doing a socio-economic documentary on my employer's dime and after everything went to shit, because of how I was conducting myself, I put together a ten minute video to explain myself to future employers"?
I saw a lot of smiling faces exiting the building and getting into nice cars. I don't see what the big deal is that people who are temporary or part of menial data-entry labor are not part of the greater events and benefits and festivities of the company. I'm sure it's that way at most companies. I'm on the development side of things and I don't get to go to the big sales-team getaways in Cancun or wherever else they go. And I doubt that the janitorial staff and security staff are sharing in the staff-bonus compensation that I am. And none of us are getting the several million dollar company loans to buy our mansion that CEOs have gotten.
Perhaps this will be an unpopular sentiment, but I just got a strong vibe of "this is my chance to be a documentary film-maker".
You missed the point: the guy was fired for recording conversations with other employees. After being given permission from his supervisor to do exactly that. On his lunch break. Wtf is that all about?
You missed the part where he kept talking about race and unequal treatment and the ScanOps people of being mostly 'people of color'. He said these things explicitly in his letter that Google Legal reviewed.
That is exactly why he was fired. Google did the absolutely correct thing. They don't want to deal with that shit. There's no conspiracy.
No accusations were leveled and, as far as I can tell, at best, Google overreacted. To make an analogy: the guy points out the sky is blue and he's promptly fired. Wtf?
It doesn't matter. That's exactly what was being implied. Google wants to prevent any legal disputes or inquiries into their operations which can be very costly. The guy is a low-level low-importance asset so they had him terminated. It makes perfect sense.
His importance to the Google machinery is irrelevant. According to the post, he was fired for using Google video equipment during working hours. Even though he'd been given explicit permission to do so. At worst he should have been given a warning. I hope, for the sake of consistency, "Carl" was also fired.
Perhaps things are different in the U.S. but here -- in Australia -- you can only be fired for breach of contract. If that didn't occur, as the blog post seems to suggest, then he was unfairly dismissed.
As dangrossman points out, above, you can be fired for any reason whatsoever, on the spot. I believe the only protections are sex, race, gender, religion, and age. And as for sex, that means you can't be fired for being a male or a female. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation, for which you can still be fired in something like two or three dozen states. (Look into the ENDA which has been repeatedly proposed for the past 17 years, but never passed -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Non-Discrimination_A... ).
And for those things which are protected, there is often little you can do. Prove that they fired you for being too old and not just because you smelled bad or performed poorly at work or pissed the wrong person off.
It therefore isn't really concerning that someone would not want to deal with the hassle of some jackass and would just ask for him to be fired, instead.
It's easy to get hired because employers aren't afraid that they're wedded to you for life.
And you generally make pretty good money - depending on your job of course.
I think 'job protection' is a bit misguided. What makes more sense to me is 'people protection' - that even if you lose your job, you'll still be able to pay rent, eat, etc... It would make more sense to aim for that goal directly rather than force employers to keep people they don't want.
It's a different settlement. You can be fired more easily, but on the other hand it's easier to be an entrepreneur. Also, because it's easier to fire people, it's easier to hire people, because you know if they don't work out you have options. France is an example of a country where it doesn't work like that.
I'm not sure about being entrepreneur in US. Once I saw blog where someone listed costs of incorporating. Amount you should set aside for health insurance sent chills down my spine.
Also more or less obligatory (if you are sane) usage of legal advice for any contract and such seems like a huge burden usually not present in other countries.
I think you are misinterpreting the story. They have a separate building where low level data entry people work. The segregation is by work function, not race.
And they don't get free ice cream sandwiches when the ice cream truck pulls up. Is that racism or is it economics?
Scanning books is a manual process that is much like sewing or factory work in the repetitiveness. (Maybe less skilled than sewing).
The "racism" of the situation happened years before anyone walked onto the Google campus. The socio-economic opportunities of things like safety, education, nutrition, books, time, parental involvement all feeds in to the situation where the workers in building 3.14 get one level of education and the engineers get another.
If it were true that they were segregating "people of color" then it absolutely would be outrageous. However, it is absolutely NOT true that they are segregating for reasons of color.
It's a red-herring argument.
What if the 4 to 2:30 schedule is to control traffic flow. Setting a non trivial number of workers to arrive and leave at a certain time means that the twice daily 'mega traffic jam' arriving and leaving doesn't happen.
Which puts everyone at their desks longer. Which saves money.
What if the reason that yellow badged workers aren't allowed to freely wander the rest of the google campus is down to security? Would you want low paid wage workers wandering around amongst your industrial secrets?
In a corporation the size of Google there will be a lot of other low-paid workers, secretaries, post-room, catering, etc.
Are they all yellow badge too?
And do they all steal secrets as you seem to imply every low-paid person is bound to do?
Seriously, just because someone is low paid doesn't mean they're any less trust worthy. That's one fucked up world view you have there. Also it doesn't make much sense as it's the higher paid workers who can do the serious economic damage as they know what's actually valuable.
I'm sorry you took my statement to read that I think they're less trustworthy. I don't in any way shape of form believe that they are less trustworthy than anyone else on campus. However, from a security point of view, if you could successfully eliminate 100% of the risk for a given group of individuals, wouldn't you?
Anyways, I've either misspoke or you've misunderstood.
First up segregation is not the issue here but this guy's choice of words. The real problem here is if Google responds to any of his comments, on paper it really does look like there's a class issue and then the company can potentially find themselves in hot water. I would shut right up in that situation as well.
The way he keeps saying 'people of colour' and talking about different classes doesn't lend to his cause either, nor going right out with a video camera as it really does look like he is filming an expose. If he was smart, he should have replied he was simply curious as to what these guys do and why the rules are different for this particular group. To elaborate any further than that, well, he dug his own pit there.
> If it is true that they have a separate building where the 'people of color' work segregated from the others, that is pretty outrageous.
But it's not true and the allegation is so obviously ridiculous that it marks OP as a moron.
When you say "people of color", does that term include people of Chinese descent? Japanese? Indian? You should find plenty of those in the main building, because those races are reasonably well represented among the class of "people who got a CS degree from Stanford (or similar)". Whereas if you look at any section of the business that doesn't require advanced tech degrees, you'll tend to see a different mix.
> It really does say something about the corporate culture there.
I'd be very surprised if the the building was filled with only 'people of color' but that's not really the point anyway. If you've bothered to actually do any research, you'll find that tons of 'people of color' who are brilliant engineers, lawyers and execs are everywhere in the company, including the top management. If more people of color apply for jobs that do not require high qualifications then that situation is a reflection of society, not some racist conspiracy a certain class of people.
its ridiculous to even entertain the "seperate building where people of color work". The Googleplex itself is filled with "non-Anglos".
Lets all be honest with what we're talking about, and in America what "people of color" really means (in most cases, and probably this one). It means black people. This guy noticed a lot of black people with yellow badges. The yellow badges had a high percentage of African Americans. Much higher than in the Googleplex proper (which probably tracks much closer to their % of the US population). And they (apparently) get less perks. This pushes all sorts of historical hot buttons in the American psyche.
What's left up to us to determine (assuming the veracity of the OP) is WHY this is. The most logical reason why is that the yellow badge jobs are low paying jobs, and the company that is contracting for these low paying jobs draws heavily from the African American community in the surrounding areas.
What is possibly interesting in all of this is the original issue of why low paying jobs potentially are filled by a much higher percentage of blacks than high paying jobs, which unfortunately has very little to do with Google, and a lot more to do with educational opportunities and the breakdown of the family structure in some African American communities, imo, which leads to a skewing of the potential job opportunities from urban American African Americans to be lower paying than anyone would like.
In CA you can be fired for no reason or any reason except: Age, Ancestry, Color, Creed, Disability, Genetics, Marital status , Nat’l Origin, Race, Religion, Sex, or Sexual Orientation. Every state has a slightly different subset of these factors. Here is a good summary:
Employment may be at will, but the courts are full of lawsuits against employers for wrongful termination/dismissal. If you've ever dealt with a large HR dept you know that one of their main jobs is to prevent lawsuits brought/caused by employees.
"Wrongful termination" is largely a myth. I know a lot of educated professionals who believe they have the right to a "fair" termination, but except for very specific instances, it isn't the case, and these threats go nowhere.
In most cases, unless there is a smoking gun, employers just sidestep the issue by targeting "layoffs", rather firing for cause.
The bigger issue HR deals with is sexual harassment or discrimination cases. And, even nuisance lawsuits can be expensive to deal with, and HR/clerical staff is a lot cheaper than lawyers.
I had a boss whose philosophy was "Four weeks severance is cheaper than hiring a HR manager", and it did seem to work out pretty well. The company still had to deal with a 'nuisance' lawsuit, but was something totally out of the blue.
You're absolutely correct about sexual harassment. Many years ago I had a temp job filing records in the legal dept. of the American Medical Association. They had a large filing room chock full of settlement documentation against doctors for sexual harassment.
To put it bluntly, he was the employee of a company that Google hired to do some work for them and he was bothering employees and then he become someone else's problem up the chain and it then become his direct employer's problem who value their contract and the employment of their other employees over the personal project and whims of someone who was hired to do some film work and not to conduct an investigation into the socio-economic makeup of the campus.
Now that he's no longer employed, he can go ahead with his pursuit without doing it under the advantage of his employment or his employer and I'm sure that if his insinuations are remotely true, then there are sure to be a bunch of people beating down his door for the opportunity to speak with him about their work at Google, under journalistic protection.
Mentioning the word "race", "class", or "gender" in a tech setting is a big no-no. They're huge hot-button words.
It scares people and they counter-attack reflexively, without deeply considering the arguments. That's been my experience from work, Reddit, and HN, in any case.
Notice that I'm not saying anything about the correctness of any particular position on a specific issue. It's that the specifics are barely able to be discussed because people are already in war mode.
I think you bring up a good point, and its also worth exploring why "race", "class" and "gender" are such hot button issues in tech. These are issues that many other very large companies (ex: I've worked for large financial corps in NYC that have vibrant & entrenched diversity programs) have dealt with in much more constructive ways.
So why do these topics blow up so big amongst the valley crowd?
For one thing, wrongful firing and wrongful failure-to-hire lawsuits are common and painful. No one wants to give the employment trolls more ammunition.
> You missed the part where he kept talking about race and unequal treatment and the ScanOps people of being mostly 'people of color'. He said these things explicitly in his letter that Google Legal reviewed.
That was a huge mistake on his part.
> Google did the absolutely correct thing. They don't want to deal with that shit
From whose perspective? What I mean is that it's possible for them to do something that is "absolutely correct" for their own self-preservation / convenience, but that is not correct from an ethical or societal stand-point.
I'm not saying they're doing anything wrong. It just seems that you're angry that the OP wanted to investigate race / class issues.
OP sounded like a muckraking moron, a wanna-be Michael Moore. If you go around interviewing people with an agenda and you get to re-cut the footage however you like, it's possible to get it to seem to support whatever conclusion you want it to - that's why they wanted the tape back. If this guy wants to make a video "as a personal project" to "deal with race and class issues", whatever that means, he should do this entirely on his own, not as a part time project while employed at Google using any Google resources.
It's clear from his tone that OP has a point of view he wants to push - he wants to feel aggrieved at oppression, whether or not there is any. Given that OP was dumb enough to do things the way he did it's not clear he's smart enough to understand that he's being a moron. In this litigious culture, firing OP was a good idea and explaining to OP why he was being a moron wasn't necessarily a good idea. Besides, "some folks, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em."
Well now that we know about it, they just pulled a Barbara Streisand. You can be god damned sure someone's going to go sticking their nose into it now.
That is incorrect. He was not given permission by his supervisor to record conversations with other employees.
He only asked for permission to videotape yellow-badges leaving the building. Nothing more. Unless someone wants to show me where I am missing a statement, I don't see any point at which he even claims that he was given permission to film and interview employees - much less about the issues he has taken it upon himself to "investigate".
That it was done on his own lunch break and supposedly using his own tape doesn't seem very relevant. My free time is my own, but my company wouldn't appreciate it if I was using my lunch time to bother my employer or one of their clients.
From the video/transcript: "Eventually I asked a superior on my team if I could borrow a camera to go out in the parking lot and videotape the yellow-badged workers leaving the 3.1459~ factory."
If he had asked permission to take a camera out and videotape interviews with people leaving the building so he could investigate the socio-economic aspects of Google employment of Google's ScanOps team, I think it is safe to say that his employer would have told him to STFU and get back to his actual work and there would have been no problems. He took advantage of the situation to push an issue his employers were not aware that he was pursuing which then put them and all of their other employees and their contract with Google in a tenuous position. Not necessarily because "ooh no, he's going to find out we have lots of people of a certain race working in that building", but most likely because they hired some guys to get a job done and not be a thorn in someone's side.
You're splitting hairs. He was given permission to film the yellow badge people. On his lunch break. Using Google equipment. The latter two are the reasons given for his termination and not, as you imply, because he was "bothering people" or not doing "actual work".
The whole affair seems to me a severe overreaction considering they could have just sat the guy down and talked the issue through.
His tone and mentality feel a bit confrontational (and we're only hearing his perspective), and mentioning the skin color of various people involved seems anachronistic, but...
... at a smaller company, maybe the boss would have just sat down and had a talk with him "look, these people get good wages, and we're keeping the jobs in the US" or whatever. It doesn't sound like it was handled in a very "human" way, where someone directly above him who knows him was given the authority to straighten things out and make sure no further problems occurred.
Legal...security... all starts to sound like "lowest common denominator", and a good reason to work at a startup or small business rather than a large corporation.
(Edit: not that legal, security, etc... are not needed or don't do useful things... it's just inevitably a bit bureaucratic)
>>>His tone and mentality feel a bit confrontational
Likely that way now because he was fired. If it's true he was going to quit soon, and had he done this all the day before he was leaving to feed his curiosity, maybe the tone would be different?
Surely the context of the filming is important though. If he had gone into the bathroom and was filming people using the toilet then it wouldn't be enough that "He was given permission to film the yellow badge people. On his lunch break. Using Google equipment."
He recorded on videotape something uncomfortable, true, and potentially explosive about a multinational advertising firm, which was in a position to cause them bad PR, which is the only thing that could conceivably threaten their billions in revenue and 30% margins.
The only reason this is even in the general ballpark of surprising is that this particular multinational advertising firm has exceptionally good PR, and people want to believe that it would never do this. I mean, they've repeated "We're the good guys" tens of thousands of times, surely it must be true, right?
It's a wonderful company. They make cool products. If you get in their way, they will bury you.
The divide between people from different backgrounds was really obvious to me once I moved to Asia. There's an extreme class system at play. There are certainly places with this is exploited, but this isn't always the case. Often times they are just paid less, have less benefits, and work harder (at least, physically)...but they are still free, treated well, and seem generally happy.
From the description given, there seems to be some parallels between yellow badges and what I've seen in Asia.
I'm not sure that this is a bad thing. We can't all be PhDs earning high 6 figure salaries. There is a need for mundane labor, requiring little education/creativity. Maybe it's weird because it's google, and the juxtaposition is great. But what's the difference between doing in in the Valley and outsourcing it to China/India? If Google did outsource these jobs, people would just be QQing about that instead.
As for the race angle, it's hardly Google's problem/responsibility. This is a fundamental cancer within the US that requires serious effort/rethinking required to even begin to address the situation.
> Well actually there has not been any real need for that for years now.
Really. You think OCR technology is at the point of sophistication or expense such that it would be economically beneficial for Google to deploy such technology over hiring humans but they don't do so to maintain our "capitalistic system"?
You think there's some conspiracy of corporations to waste money on unskilled labor to maintain capitalism?
I'm pretty sure most companies reduce benefits for less skilled workers, just not as clear cut as this.
I wonder what's with the confidentiality at book search. The first two things that pop to mind is keeping the yellow badges secret and preventing their enemies from messing around(publishers are pretty mad at the whole book scanning thing).
I'm pretty sure most companies reduce benefits for less skilled workers, just not as clear cut as this.
I wonder what's with the confidentiality at book search. The first two things that pop to mind is keeping the yellow badges secret and preventing their enemies from messing around(publishers are pretty mad at the whole book scanning thing).
There's nothing surprising about a company having different classes of employees. If that was all that the article was about, it would be a minor curiosity. However, Google's extreme overreaction to someone trying to get some very basic information about the other set of employees is what's concerning. It's difficult to know how much of this story is speculation vs fact - whether or not the yellow badged employees are really data entry, whether there are really instructions on the back of the badge with a number to call if someone starts asking questions. If true, though, it's highly concerning coming from a company that flaunts the openness of their products, and whose corporate motto is "don't be evil".
> Google's extreme overreaction to someone trying to get some very basic information about the other set of employees is what's concerning.
Probably this is what set them off -
"...Most of them are people of color and are supposedly involved in the labor of digitizing information. I’m interested in issues of class, race, and labor, and so out of general curiosity I wanted to ask these workers about their jobs. I am aware of internal mechanisms for discussing labor issues with Google, and had no intention of defaming the company..."
A lot of times you can dig a hole for yourself that wasn't there by trying to explain things. Just a, "Was I breaking the rules? Okay, my bad, I didn't mean to. What was I doing? Eh, just screwing around with a video camera, exploring, I won't do it again if it's a problem" probably gets you out of there without hassle.
I mean, his simple explanation covers mentions race, labor, labor issues, defamation, legal contracts... that would scare the hell out of anyone. If he'd just written, "Hi guys, I'm just learning about Google and I like the company. I didn't mean any harm - I'll make sure not to do that again if it's against policy" then that probably would have been the end of it.
I deleted that comment before I saw you replied. But the gist of it:
-It was a descriptive comment - looking at what probably happened, not judging right/wrong.
-I think saying things like, "So you advocate ignoring issues of class, race and labor?" is bad form. If you think class, race, and labor is important, just say "I think it's an important issue." - insinuating someone else's beliefs leads to miscommunication, especially because people skim.
I believe this is important to explore, and reading this thread saw only Google apologists of every stripe. I wanted (too badly) to see something substantive said. I should have just said it.
Personally, what I got from that statement was that the author didn't think the issue was serious enough to pursue the investigation, and is an honest person so didn't feel it necessary to conceal his intent.
Google totally made the wrong call here, because as you say, someone who was looking to write a deep, hard-hitting muckraking piece probably would have lied.
I don't think it's highly concerning that a badge has a number for employees to call if someone starts asking questions.
The last three companies I've worked for are very big heavy hitting technology industry names and every single one had a policy that employees are not to give interviews and that if anyone asks you questions, you should refer them to the PR department or other relevant division within the company. This is to avoid situations where some random employee says something unintentionally stupid and it gets promoted to the top of all the sites as official company line. Or to prevent things like, you know, everyone claiming that "Wozniak wants to return to Apple, if they ask him!" when he never said any such thing.
Additionally, you're supposed to report anyone suspicious on the campus, whether they're trying to coat-tail into the building after you badge-in or whether they're snooping around outside and asking questions.
Imagine you hire a big pool of people who punch in a bunch of 10 key or flip pages on a book and press "SCAN" on the machine all day and someone comes snooping around to ask questions about a project (the digitizing of books) that is currently in litigation and some random jackass employee mouths off about something they haven't the slightest clue about and now it's headline news on all the tech industry rags?
Anyway, it's not peculiar or unusual practice. Its' very common. And from what I've seen, this is all speculation. And not even by an employee (or journalist). It's all speculation by a guy who was hired by a company who was hired by Google to get some footage who didn't like the racial makeup of the people he saw walking out of the building for a few days and then started to ask questions of employees who don't know him from any other random guy on the campus filming stuff and asking strange questions.
The way the accusation is made and the whole "expose" is presented is just absurd. Almost surreal, it's so silly. I can't help but think of it in the same light as the internet meme from a couple years ago, where some guys used Glenn Beck's techniques against him by starting up the website "glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com" and then posted the following:
"This site exists to try and help examine the vicious rumor that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. Why won't Glenn Beck deny these allegations?"
Except, in this case, it's "This video exists to try and help examine the vicious rumor that Google is classist and racist and abuses its employees. Why won't Google deny these allegations?"
The only reason I kept watching the video, was because I expected him to drop some huge bomb. It definitely had the "surveilance footage obtained during one afternoon of filming clearly shows two yellow badgers being violently sodomized by the white badged employees, behind the building - viewers of a weaker disposition may want to turn away, now" vibe.
in technology its normal for a badge to have number to call..when I did temp IT work I once worked as field engineer for MCI Worldcom..due to security, etc at customer sites the badge I wore had a 1-800 number to call if there was any questions..
It's in their contracts IIRC. You can't talk to the press about confidential Google projects or operations. So they probably expect their software engineers to talk to their manager before giving an interview or writing a blog post for fear of being fired. They have a lot more to lose than a yellow badge.
There probably is a number on the back of the badge to call. There is a lot of ongoing litigation dealing with Google's book scanning.
The simple explanation is that Google doesn't want these workers talking about the work they are doing. The easiest way to keep them from talking is to limit social interactions with other employees, by sequestering them.
It seems pretty obvious to me that the reason the yellow badge worker's aren't given those benefits is to keep them separate from the rest of the work force for security reasons (to keep them from talking about their work)
They allow janitors and food service workers access to these perks, it seems kind of weirdly targeted if they are just doing it to save money.
They're probably doing work that is so confidential that google doesn't want to give them the chance to socialize with other workers.
I think that many commenters are missing the point.
The question isn't whether Google is goind anything strictly illegal.
The question is whether Google is doing something what would be considered shady by a big part of Google employees; If so, how would Google acknowlege the situation; And then, how would they live thru this, with Googlers knowing that their own standards are in a serious mismatch with the actual behavior of the business body, Google.
Public reaction is another interesting thing. People's passion or neglect isn't regulated by law; instead it's regulated by their own feeling of right and wrong. It may be both legal and a PR disaster at the same time.
Of course, it might turn out that people in general and Googlers dominantly don't see any problem and don't care. It doesn't seem to be this case yet.
Yeah, I'm genuinely surprised by the tone here. I mean, clearly the things he wrote were a bit inflammatory, but it seems like most of the commenters have shockingly low standards for what constitutes a fair firing.
Am I to expect that if you were working at a company and you brought an allegation of racism to your superiors, you should be fired because that allegation makes them uncomfortable or could lead to legal trouble? Would everyone here be jumping up and down to say how correct that is?
I obviously only have one side of the story, but I can't think of a way that firing someone for talking to the wrong people or asking the wrong questions is right. Not even if it's Google doing it.
He didn't get fired for raising an issue with his superiors. He never raised an issue with his superiors at all. Instead he went about creating an inflammatory recording with a video camera in which he attempted to frame his company's client in a negative light.
Lots of people are commenting that maybe the yellow badges might be working on something secretive that Google does not want them to share with others. But this does not make sense for 2 reasons -
1) I am pretty sure there will be some software engineers in Google who are currently working on something secretive but they will not be under these draconian restrictions of not to talk to others or call the security immediately if a fellow Googler approaches them.
2) These ppl can go home and can talk to their spouses, their friends etc. and let them know what they are working on. So making sure that they don't talk to anyone in Google during their office hours is not going to help keep their projects secretive.
So there has to be some other angle to this story which does not involve secretiveness of their projects.
Second, I have to admit, I am kind of struct by most of the comments here. Most of the comment are pro google and think andrew here got it for himself.
I believe this have to do a lot with cultural differences here. Most people in Egypt, would stand with the employee against the corporation. Most egyptians would definitely be pro andrew. I believe the reason here is that most Egyptians are either employees or owners of very small businesses, and would not perceive themselves as even potentially large business owners. Egypt being a poorer country and all. This is why most Egyptian would never try to put themselves in google's foot and try to see things from their perspective.
I guess the opposite is true from most of the ppl commenting here, they must think if I was google, I would have done the same, and it's probably because they don't see it as too far fetched. Either that or the western population is becomming alarmingly submissive to authority and unwilling to question their action.
Google are clearly being unfair, this should not be acceptable.
yeah - it's (some) americans. [edited] their response to power and its abuse depends on the source: they don't care about corporations, but go crazy with the government. it's as though they have been completely indoctrinated by massive corporate interests...
... their response to power and its abuse depends upon the source: they don't care about governments, who have the power to kill you, seize your wealth, or do anything they'd like, leaving you with no claims for redress, but go crazy with corporations, who at worst can offer people shitty jobs (!) or charge too much for shitty products.
It's not that we think Google did it because they were hiding something but imaging those insinuations he was making end up in the press, and snowball, they decided they didn't want to deal with it and let him go, which is completely legal in most of the US with no reason needed.
Employment in the US is at-will or whatever it's called. You can leave your employment when you want and your employer can fire you when they want. This can obviously be overridden by a contract. I don't know what his said but it probably put some severance package in there. (1 month pay or whatever).
Not that might sound crazy why would that be OK but I prefer to work for someone who wants me to work for them then have some laws telling them they can't fire me without some crazy reason and have to go through a large process to do so.
As for the 4 classes of employees, I dunno about that but I mean those perks aren't rights they are used to entice people to work for a company and stay there. If they can get employees without them then why not. It's a for profit thing is it not?
And all this is why you can just go out and start your own company and never have to deal with that stuff ;p
You have to understand that in the US there has been a significant anti-labor campaign, both in the media and in politics for at least the last 40 or 50 years. It's been reasonably effective, and took serious hold in the 1980's - many of the posters here have grown up in a world where labor issues are mostly only discussed in a context of how worker demands are holding back corporations. It's difficult to not have your attitudes effectively co-opted if you're only exposed to one side of the argument for most of your life.
Oh, so people who view the world differently than you do so because they've been brainwashed by the media and politics their whole life, whereas you are able to see through all of that and clearly perceive the unbiased truth. That must be a heavy burden for you to bear.
But it's good to know you're around. I'll be sure to seek you out for my re-education next time I start to suspect I might have been co-opted.
We are asked to have opinions on far more things than we can possibly digest and reasonably evaluate ourselves. For this reason, we outsource most of our opinions to others we trust - our family, our teachers, our friends, the media, the state etc. This is the basis for propaganda, advertising, public relations and the like.
The fact that repeated messaging on one side of an issue will shift public opinion in aggregate towards that side is well accepted. This does not contradict the idea that some people will reach that same position independently.
It does suggest, however, that when comparing two populations the one subject to just one side of a subject since birth will be more likely to agree with that side on average than the population subject to no messaging or messaging from the other side. This fact does not actually suggest anything about correctness.
As an aside, I understand this is a heated issue for many, but I'm not sure your tone improves the discussion.
Are you saying there hasn't been a significant anti-labor campaign the last 40 years? Take a look at attitudes towards American Labor in the 50s-60s and now. Big difference, right?
Sure there's a difference, but I wouldn't attribute even half of that difference to some kind of vast propaganda campaign.
You've got most of the working class opposed to the idea of organized labor during a period of time when working class salaries have stagnated and shrunk relative to baseline inflation, and definitely shrunk relative to household costs like healthcare and gasoline.
Yeah, I'm sure they're against it because they're scholars of austrian economics. They probably read Hayek to their kids when they get home from their shift at the Sunoco.
Here's a question. Read my first paragraph again, that's all basically true.. how often is that picture painted in the media? Almost never? How often is the opposite picture painted of unions being a bunch of quote "thugs"? Hmm.. That sure sounds like a multi-decade propaganda campaign to me.
> working class salaries have stagnated and shrunk relative to baseline inflation, and definitely shrunk relative to household costs like healthcare and gasoline.
The way "baseline inflation" is measured (through the CPI) involves a growing baseline. Salaries/incomes have stagnated relative to that not-really-a-baseline, but that's not really a meaningful way to look at working class economics.
I know yummyfajitas has challenged you on this point in the past, and I don't recall seeing you ever answer it, so I'm going to repeat it: over the time period in question, can you produce any reasonable list of "household costs" under which working class families now are not better off than working class families in the 1960s?
Even gas prices aren't very far outside the norm. In 1960 a gallon of gas was 31 cents and the "national wage index" was right around 4000; at the start of this year a gallon of gas was $3.09, and the most recent NWI data I can find (2009) was just over 40,000. This summer's run-up is not out of line with past fluctuations.
Sigh. Guess I'll have to retract my comments, in light of how great the working class has done the last 15 years or so.
This isn't an argument about statistics and how to fudge them (seriously spend some time in NH or KY or MI, take a look at what your company pays for your healthcare and contemplate paying that out of pocket on minimum wage).
This is about whether or not unions have been systematically demonized for the last 30 years (they have) and whether advertising works (it does).
> This is about whether or not unions have been systematically demonized
Then why were you talking about how badly the working class is doing, particularly due to health care and gasoline costs, both in the previous post and this one? You can't argue something and then declare it off-limits for discussion because we're really talking about some other point.
If you want to talk about how the working class is doing, face my question directly, instead of dodging it with a sarcastic jab about how great the working class is doing. Explain how working class people have a harder time affording any reasonable list of goods from the 1960s vs today.
I will grant you that health insurance is ridiculously expensive, with the caveat that insurance is a stupid way to pay for most health care. I will argue further that even once you account for the massive increase in health care costs, the working class is generally much better off financially than in the 1960s (speaking of fudging statistics, how about the sudden shift from "the last 40 or 50 years" to "15 years ago at the height of an economic boom / asset bubble"?)
I've known a lot of people who became cynical of organized labor because of their personal experiences with it. Corruption and violence in labor unions exist in reality, not just in the media--as do more mundane problems.
Also keep in mind that American unions are different from European unions. I believe that in Germany, unions are routinely major shareholders in the companies their members work for. This is a very good system, because it incentivizes the union to favor fair outcomes that are beneficial to workers without damaging the value of the company. American unions actively resist this arrangement.
I don't interpret the responses here as anti-labor. There hasn't been much or any union-bashing or pro-big-corporation sentiment on this thread.
Rather, I think most of those who have criticized Andrew are responding to his seeming naivete. I say "seeming" because I'm skeptical that he didn't see this coming. Would he not have been able to guess that his emails would escalate the situation, rather than defuse it?
When you say you're videotaping employees to explore issues of race and class, it sounds like you're doing an exposé. That may or may not be your intent, but when you combine race, class, and unauthorized videotaping in your project summary, it kind of pigeonholes you into the exposé genre.
So Google was worried that Andrew was going to ask leading questions, pull some quotations out of context, tie it all together with pointed narration, and put it on YouTube with a title like "Race and Class Warfare at Google."
Maybe Google shouldn't have jumped to that conclusion; maybe they should have spent more time with Andrew and ascertained exactly what he was planning before having him fired. Or maybe they should take a more liberal view and declare a universal policy of free speech by employees and contractors. I'm not saying Google acted exactly as I'd have hoped, but it seems to me that they acted predictably, if nothing else. The only thing that surprises me is that Andrew didn't expect this to happen.
Germany here. I'm with you on this one. But you must understand that HN is full of to-be-millionaires who are pursuing the american dream. Morality has no place in their lives.
My experience in the U.S. is that Americans tend to believe a company has no moral responsibility beyond maximizing profits and not violating laws. Even when companies do violate the law (Enron, Horizon, Chevron, etc.) there is a segment of society that rushes to minimize the wrongdoing.
My anecdotal experience on HN is that a lot people on the site defend the pursuit of money over what I consider greater moral considerations. I can understand the perspective of the person you responded to. His/her comment was inflammatory and you are right about that.
To answer your question though, I do believe that it is roughly true that pursuing riches makes it harder to be a moral person. It's not impossible but I do believe it is harder. It is my belief that in a majority of cases one's morality and perception of what is right/wrong/acceptable changes for the worse as they acquire more money.
I believe it is true that the love of money is the root of all evil (as a rough approximation).
Thanks for taking the time to offer a balanced opinion. I find myself largely agreeing with your sentiments.
I think there must be a better balance to be struck between the approach taken in Europe (seen as too difficult to fire people, which isn't conducive to a healthy business environment) and to the American approach (you can be fired at-will).
I myself like to watch US-based documentaries like Gasland, Food Inc., Inside Job and Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater story. I know these stories are biased, but I'm silently horrified by the sheer extent to which the odds are stacked against the good of the ordinary person in favour of big business. For example, in the film "Inside Job" an IMF banker made the extraordinary revelation that a Wall Street banker basically said to him in a meeting: "Please regulate us. We're too greedy. If you don't regulate us we'll continue to cause markets to blow up because we can't help ourselves." This was before the bailouts, so the banker was genuinely terrified that the banking system would utterly collapse and that they would lose everything.
Also important however, is to ponder on why America is so rich and why America to a large extent drives the global pace of innovation. There are smart, ambitious people there who can get access to capital and raw talent that is unavailable anywhere else in the world. These conditions must have sprung up in America for a reason - the environment was fertile enough for them to take root. By having a thriving, innovative economy, everybody wins. The standard of living improves for everyone. You get to keep your sovereignty by being rich - just look at the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain). They lost economic sovereignty (except for Spain, but it could happen to them too) by being economically weak. (You can also lose political sovereignty if you are poor, as you can't afford all the military hardware to fight off an enemy). I would urge you to read "The Ascent of Money" by Niall Ferguson. He makes excellent points as to why money, and innovations like bonds, stock and insurance actually drive countries forward. For example, the riskiness of the Dutch voyages to the far-East in the late 1500s onwards were mitigated against by forming a limited-liability company, where stock could be sold to ordinary investors. If it weren't for this innovation, then the risk of the voyage would have turned people off from financing such a risky prospect. The voyages were highly successful overall and a remarkable new financial innovation was born. I think what you see in America today is a mix of these very good ideas with some very bad ideas too.
"To answer your question though, I do believe that it is roughly true that pursuing riches makes it harder to be a moral person. It's not impossible but I do believe it is harder. It is my belief that in a majority of cases one's morality and perception of what is right/wrong/acceptable changes for the worse as they acquire more money."
Money certainly seems to change people (can't say first hand because I'm one of those aspiring millionaires!) I think if you have a solid moral compass to begin with, and realise just because you may be wealthier than someone else doesn't make you better or more important than them, then you will be ok. This is probably difficult as you've mentioned. However, look to the likes of Warren Buffett - he's giving nearly all of his fortune to charity. Or Elon Musk, who is using his wealth trying to advance electric vehicles because the incumbents either can't or won't, and to further space exploration also. Or Bill Gates, who after a career being accused or being a bully and a monopolist, seems to be using his wealth and privileged position to try to make the world a better place. So there is cause for optimism for being wealthy doing the right thing.
"I believe it is true that the love of money is the root of all evil (as a rough approximation)."
My take is that the blind pursuit of money, to the detriment of other considerations, is the roo...
Slight nitpick, the PIIGS countries (great acronym btw) didn't lose their sovereignty just by being weak.. they lost their sovereignty by being having a bubble blow up without enough background economic strength to withstand it, plus due to some facts of life as an EU member.
Lots of countries are economically weaker than them but didn't blow up a bubble on themselves.
Your fourth paragraph touches on what I see as a deep seated problem in American society and a problem that will happen in Europe if current trends continue. Your use of the word 'rich' is synonymous with money and material things. This focus on money has lead to what I call the "I've got mine, fuck you" attitude.
Is the U.S. rich in happiness? contentment? My perception is no. The nation is getting fatter, more lethargic, less able to cope with problems, and is focused on acquiring more stuff. Not everyone in the world can live the American lifestyle because there aren't enough resources.
This is not a problem just with America but, as in many things, America is in the lead. Our consumption has led to a giant plastic garbage patch in the Pacific ocean. Our focus on money and getting the best deal has to led to us importing items made with child labor, slave labor, and in oppressive conditions. This is not unique to Americans, it's a human trait. We need better regulation to mitigate these bad traits but it isn't going to happen in the U.S. (at current trends) because the focus is on money. Money and the preservation of it is trumping decency and morality. (Again, as I see things.)
Your example of Dutch voyages in the 1500s is an excellent one. Your point appears to be that financial innovation (money pursuits) can and sometimes do lead to benefits for society. I'll have to think about this for a while before knowing whether or not I agree with it. It sounds plausible.
As a counter, I'll offer this up. The great scientific discoveries of the world were not done for money. Newton would not have been a better mathematician had he been paid more. Human progress, largely, comes from people who like to solve problems. Who are curious about the world and want to understand it. A society that gives such people the means to pursue their intellectual passions is one that progresses.
That natural conclusion from your examples and what you've written is that capitalism (pursuit of money) is a great way to accomplish this. I would argue that a better system needs to be developed because the downsides to the pursuit of money are quite bad and will lead to a world with it's resources plundered.
Lastly, I'll point out that Warren Buffet stopped talking to one of his granddaughters because she talked about wealth to a guy making a documentary on wealth and what it does to people. I don't think I'm better than Warren Buffet and so I think I'd probably do the same thing he did if I was in his shoes. So I think money would change me and my perception of right and wrong. Presently I'd never disown a relative because they talked about wealth and what it does to people.
look to the likes of Warren Buffett ... Or Elon Musk ... Or Bill Gates
To put things into perspective: Stanford, Carnegie Technical Schools and Mellon Institute of Industrial Research (merged into CMU), Duke, Cornell and I think some other of the best American universities were founded by the donations of wealthy industrialists.
I like your rephrasing of my statement on the love of money. You wrote:
"My take is that the blind pursuit of money, to the detriment of other considerations, is the root of (some/all) evil."
My feeling is that as you get more money, as it becomes more of a goal to you, the more likely it is that you will pursue money to the detriment of other considerations.
I'll have think about your last statement. The one about the lack of money. My initial response, without really thinking about it, is that I don't agree with it.
"Is the U.S. rich in happiness? contentment? My perception is no."
Happiness is relative. Struggling to scrape by on a dollar a day, and wondering where your next meal is going to come from must be pretty awful. Perhaps more people should do volunteer work to realise just how lucky we have it in the west. I think that by being wealthier, you can "move up" Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs[1], and if you reach 'self-actualisation' i.e. you are intellectually fulfilled, have pride in your work and accomplishments etc., that that is it's own kind of happiness. I agree that you are never going to achieve any kind of happiness by simply pursuing some arbitrary dollar amount. That is a fool's game. Beyond a certain point increasing your bank account balance is a meaningless exercise.
The second and third paragraph mention some things are are an unfortunate byproduct of an industrialsed nation. They are also arguably unnecessary - the means are there to combat obesity, products made by slave labour, destruction of the environment etc. I don't really have a good answer for these. It's important to note that some of these things can happen in a poor country too - I remember in the movie "Black Hawk Down" that the soldiers were admiring the lovely view of the ocean, but they were warned to not go in as it was extremely polluted. It probably wasn't the Somalians that polluted it though!
"Your point appears to be that financial innovation (money pursuits) can and sometimes do lead to benefits for society." It all depends. If you are a seller of Credit Default Swaps in Goldman Sachs circa 2006, you probably know in your heart and soul that what you are doing is highly destructive to society. But dammit, you need to hit your annual bonus, so you sell, sell, sell. Good inventions can be twisted in destructive ways.
All human systems and artefacts are imperfect. They are also morally-neutral. Think of nuclear power. When it was discovered, the idea was to bring really cheap electricity to the masses. As it turned out, the electricity wasn't cheap and the most horrific weapon ever created was unleashed. Or even a car - you can use a car to help an elderly neighbour get into town, or use it to escape from a bank robbery. And so on.
"As a counter, I'll offer this up. The great scientific discoveries of the world were not done for money. Newton would not have been a better mathematician had he been paid more. Human progress, largely, comes from people who like to solve problems. Who are curious about the world and want to understand it. A society that gives such people the means to pursue their intellectual passions is one that progresses."
True - but one must also pay the bills. You could work on your passion with great dedication and focus, if only for that pesky matter of money. Look at pg - he solved his money problem by selling Viaweb, and used his newfound time and wealth to help young up and coming entrepreneurs to launch and grow their businesses. If you ever see pictures of him, you know he just loves every minute of what he does. He does a great job because he cares deeply about nurturing entrepreneurship. But if he didn't have the time and money to do YC and had urgent bills to pay, things would be different and the world would be a worse off. Also, watch "The Secret History of Silicon Valley". Steve Blank details how Silicon Valley wouldn't exist today without defense funding from the government. We wouldn't be having this conversation if the US didn't spend so much on military research!
On a related note, I was watching the BBC one morning and the question was posed to (I think) a historian: why couldn't the renaissance have happened in England? He gave two reasons, one was that England at the time was consumed in civil war, and the other was that the Catholic church was a major patron of the arts. Money again. By having such a wealthy benefactor willing to fund them, artists like da Vinci could create works of art like La Pieta[3]. A similar virtuous cycle exists today in Silicon Va...
A problem solver needs enough money (have the means) in order to pursue solutions. I don't think a great scientific discovery has ever been made because the discoverer wanted to get rich. Capitalism provides an allocation mechanism so that money (the means of discovery) makes its way to enough problem solvers. Capitalism might even be the best mechanism for doing this to ever be practiced.
We agree on these points (so it seems to me from what you've written).
Where we appear to have divergence is in my belief that
1. Capitalism does not do an adequate job of dealing with negative externalities.
2. The general mind altering, world view altering aspect of money acquisition makes dealing with the negative externalities difficult. The "I've got mine, fuck you" attitude that is prevalent amongst the monied class in the U.S. makes me think that it is especially difficult in the U.S. for things to change for the better.
3. The rate of resource destruction, pollution, etc., along with 1) and 2) makes me think that world will become one big, giant toxic shit hole before adequate steps are taken to deal with the negative externalities and by that time it will be too late.
My personal belief is that it is highly unlikely the human race will survive the next 200 years in anywhere near the numbers it has today.
--------
As to defense spending. It is true that Silicon Valley exists because of defense spending. I don't believe it is true that it would not exist (somewhere else perhaps) without defense spending. I think progress would still have occurred in computing and technology without defense spending.
Regarding number 1, there's no divergence, I agree with you 100% on capitalism not dealing with negative externalities. I think that no financial system we will ever come up with will ever be perfect.
Regarding 2, this appears to be a disadvantage one must accept with a capitalist system.
Regarding 3, I would be more positive. I think technology and human ingenuity will overcome pollution eventually, maybe by nanotechnology or clean tech etc. Maybe even human colonies in outer space, like the movie Wall-E or something. In the 1960s there was a theory that the world's population would grow faster than our ability to feed it. The Haber-Bosch process now feeds one-third of the world's population.[1]
Good talking to you. It's good hearing different perpectives on these issues.
I'm European too (UK). Disagree with you on this one. Firstly, HN isn't "full" of people who are chasing wealth. There seems to be a broad mix of employees and employers/entrepreneurs here.
Secondly, your assumption that wealth creation and becoming 'rich' are antonymous to morality is (IMO) invalid. Sure, there are examples of 'big bad evil' capitalism being at odds with morality, but overall I would argue that wealth creation and becoming 'rich' tends to involve producing quality (software, goods, services - whatever).
And producing quality is often a win-win situation (a win for consumers as they get quality, and a win for the producers/business owners as it helps them financially). And I do honestly believe that aiming for quality isn't just a means to an end - in other words, I think that aiming for quality will benefit everyone in the company (including the employees) - not just the end users.
So fundamentally I'd disagree with your assessment on wealth generation = lack of morality.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 311 ms ] threadWell, I say that, but with the naivety on show in this thread perhaps this guy is onto a winner with 'sociological issues'.
His letter to Ralph was so passive–aggressive. I would have left out these nuggets:
1)... now that I know it's so super-secret
2)... are mostly people of color and cannot eat Google meals
3)... I wasn’t approaching this as an act of muckraking
4)... nice way to meet people who work right next to me but are very clearly not the same class as me
That's a bummer, because those were indeed people of color who were not allowed to eat Google meals. Well, at least I know why it took you guys in the States 100 years to actually give equal rights to your fellow black citizens: you were all too afraid of losing your jobs.
261 working days a year 1 employee $5 = $1305 per employee, per year How many workers in the 3.14 building? At 400 employees, that's half a million dollars. Does the board of director's fiduciary duty to their shareholders allow them to pay for the Scan Ops lunches?
I don't know what minimum wage in the states is, but I'm pretty sure most of those workers would rather have that extra five dollars in their pockets and brown-bag it. It's also a lot easier to justify an extra dollar an hour above minimum wage.
"Catered lunches" is a perk that (as far as I know) is very rare. Your company "not buying you lunch every day" is the norm.
I can't see any outrage in their perfectly normal behavior.
It might make employees worse off by reducing their hours, by reducing the training budget, reducing flexibility of work hours, reducing job security...or by reducing perks such as free food.
Here's an example: Suppose you're running a videogame company and you need to test your new videogame. If it were legal, one strategy might be to pay a small army of junior-high kids, say, $1/hour to test your videogame after school. The kids would go for it because they get the ability to play hot new video games in a relaxing, low-pressure environment, with free snacks and drinks and even a small amount of pay, where ordinarily it would cost them money to play videogames. As a side benefit, they'd get valuable exposure to the work environment, make business contacts, possibly discover a new career.
Now pass laws demanding a minimum wage. The junior high kids are priced out of the market; if you have to pay a large wage you'll hire fewer but more qualified people rather than more, less qualified people. Now it's much harder to get started in the field. A $13/hour testing job is a different job than the $1/hour job. More stressful, harder to get, and quite possibly less effective.
So change your quote to "You'd prefer to take less (in exchange for offsetting benefits that are more valuable to you than to me), but offering you that deal would be illegal!"
All said and done though, my point was that the lunches are an unnecessary and significant cost.
Screams exploitation to me.
In the US you can't stop person A from talking to person B if the purpose is to make your job better (better benefits/working conditions/almost anything).
IANAL (again)..but, yes, if they aren't allowed to talk to other employees about non-NDA stuff, I agree that maybe a line is slightly being crossed.
This scarely reminds of "Jedem das Seine" and "Arbeit macht frei"
Both phrases actually match the described situation perfectly
On a large corporate campus, you can't just randomly walk around in the buildings. Your access card doesn't even work everywhere. So segregation (physical separation) is pretty standard.
Therefore they can not prove that they've segregated employees to prevent confidentiality breach, and we can not prove that they segregated employees to prevent people becaming aware of the class society. I don't know how to resolve this problem. We just don't know, so it's a question of trust.
I don't trust that Google has a big amount of highly confidential but unqualified data-entry labor, and they can't prove otherwise unless they lift the confidentiality wall.
Or maybe this is Google's new way of boosting revenue!
Lets not jump to conclusions, this will definitely get picked by major news outlets and then Google will have to respond
Amazing to hear that Google has a strict caste system.
edit: wow, at 1:05PST dozens of people suddenly hit this thread and started attacking the premise.
Ask yourself this--if any plantation slaves were alive today, would they agree with your comparison?
Because being treated inequally, deprived of things people around you take for granted, can damage oneself seriously.
Otherwise drama.
For me they are two different things. Although having different salaries/compensation for different kinds of jobs is perfectly normal and is hidden from people's view by the privacy that is applied to how much people make..... the workplace perks like free lunch and bus are totally visible (how could they not be?) and create a social divide between people that once accentuates their grief/delusions/issues and contributes to make people feel "different" in the human level.
Sorry, but not everyone's work is worth the same. It isn't fair or equal, and it shouldn't be.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218817/
Wow. Just wow. The sense of entitlement and self-righteousness is just mind blowing.
How is this any different than having guards and janitors that work odd hours? You think they get all the Google perks that software engineers get?
Google might be evil. They certainly aren't pure of heart and all that. But there's nothing in this ten minute monotone "expose" that really gives any legitimate concern.
Simply making an accusation or insinuation doesn't in itself warrant exploration of something. Insinuations about anyone can be made by anyone and they don't all deserve a response or an investigation. This guy has no particular credibility and with is particular attitude, under the particular circumstances and with the distinct lack of . . . anything . . . that he has to back up his concerns . . . falls into the category of "not worth the time".
Now, if some employees come out tomorrow -- even under anonymity -- and start sharing the tales of terrible treatment to some SF Chronicle reporter or something, then you might have something.
The article failed to mention that there are shifts throughout the entire day. There's lots of books to scan!
Does he realize that it's illegal to treat contractors exactly like employees?
Does he realize that if Google started giving contractors exactly the same treatment, they could get in big trouble with the IRS and other regulatory groups, have the contractors retroactively declared employees, be forced to withhold payroll taxes on their behalf, pay big fines?
He seems to be shocked, shocked that Google acts...the way every other tech firm acts, and for the same reasons.
I thought the main point was that they weren't treated like other contractors like the author was (red badges)?
The point is purely practical, not so much legal. When employees are on salary, it's worth doing whatever you can to make it convenient for them to stick around and stay longer. Providing perks such as free food helps with that - it helps get more work hours out of people for a given salary. The perks are in some way a substitute for extra salary, and likely to save the company money in the long run. Especially perks that save employees time, like letting them start work on the bus during their commute or letting them have meals right on campus so they don't lose time driving elsewhere.
Whereas hourly employees get paid for each specific hour they work so there's little benefit to encouraging them to stick around longer than they would otherwise be inclined. In fact, you generally want to discourage hourly workers from doing any overtime, since you'd have to pay them time-and-a-half.
My company requires that employees not speak with the press unless they are granted direct permission to do so and that they should, instead, refer them to an internal rep who will speak with them. That is not censorship. That is my company looking out for their best interests so that some dumb ass like me doesn't say something stupid that misrepresents them. My company also has the right to tell me to watch my crude language while working for them and not to dress like I'm attending a beach party.
There are already whistle-blower laws and protections to address what you are referring to, which is the exposition of unethical or illegal business practices by an employee.
http://www.andrewnormanwilson.com/portfolios/84941-flowspot http://www.andrewnormanwilson.com/portfolios/61101-mental-to...
They could easily get this done in India or China. If they are really doing book scanning, I'm shocked this isn't being done in the far east. With that perspective, this isn't far from "don't be evil".
It's not the best practice in the world but this isn't exploitation.
Perhaps it should inspire some investigative journalism. Perhaps Google could fund a program and give these data entry people the opportunity to innovate, rewarding them accordingly with a small scale founders' award?
Despite the assumed background of these employees, they're at Google inspiring their kids. With so few benefits outside of their salary, they can always work elsewhere. But why would they take fast food or something of the sort over this?
I imagine the cleaning crew that vacuum at Goldman Sachs at night get treated way worse.
Clearly, from this guy's perspective, it was wrong for him to get fired but I'm sure the vendor that was providing him as contracted labor had to make a statement that they wouldn't tolerate this kind of thing. Would you hire a firm to video your office if they didn't fire a guy recording stuff you wanted confidential?
I also wonder if he is going to get in legal trouble with Google for posting this.
At the same time, this guy was fired, so lets take his testimony with a grain of salt.
My opinion is that their behaviour isn't exactly evil and probably not unusual but it's uninspiring, uncreative and not up to standard with their approach to other matters. It's a missed opportunity. They have all these people together on the campus so why would they reinforce the existing social segregation instead of weakening it?
It's not simply a matter of cost or security. What does it cost to let everyone ride the same bus and have them eat in the same place? Maybe the kids of those workers would be more inspired if their parents could tell them about a chat they had with some of the Google engineers on the book search project.
Of course its a 2nd class of worker - if they were Engineers working on a super-secret project, they'd have catered meals, separate busses, social arrangements of their own. Because Engineers are special and desirable and highly paid.
It's not clear why this contract agency runs on a different schedule than the rest of the company - 4am to 2:30 or whatever - maybe it's just traffic flow, or maybe they work a lot with a group in a different timezone. But the fact that they do run on a different schedule implies it could cost quite a lot to "let everyone ride the same bus and have them eat in the same place". People arriving at work at 4am would need to arrive on different buses than those arriving at 8 - you'd have to hire extra buses just for them, find drivers willing to start driving well before 3am, and hope there's enough concentration that this one building of people rates its own bus stop locations - if they're spread out all over they'd be better served by carpooling. (Not to mention that the reason for Google buses is so employees can get work done during what might otherwise be a long, aggravating rush-hour commute, whereas the commute at 3am/2:15pm is easy and fast)
Similarly, people who arrive at 4am are on a different lunch schedule than the rest of the company so you'd have to operate the cafeteria longer, pay overtime, hire more workers, etc.
That's a lot to do for people who don't even work for Google directly.
UPDATE: Another poster wrote that this group is working in multiple shifts, presumably to get through more books faster with the available facilities. That makes perfect sense - this is the morning shift, then the evening shift arrives, maybe a swing shift after that. Which would make running the kitchens and the buses long enough for everybody really expensive.
They pride themselves of creative thinking, they hire lots of academics, even economists and sociologists. Some of these people should be able to figure out a reasonably cost effective way of organizing these things without making the place resemble a 19th century cotton plantation.
Wait, so being offered a job that pays reasonably well with decent work conditions but for which you must solve for yourself the problem of how to get to work and what to eat for lunch is now considered oppressive? On the scale of, say, being whipped for not working hard enough?
Are you suggesting that if Google provides any perk at all they need to provide it to every employee or contractor at every company they contract with, including the guys who cut the lawns and the guys who sell them stationery supplies?
So, if we assume the perks are working for Google at the high end -- at the low end it seems logical that if those said perks are extravagant enough the feasibility of adjusting the money on the low end down enough to compensate for the low end also receiving those perks becomes very negative to those employees. At the low end pay scales where things like being able to pay rent and afford children, receiving cash money is likely preferable than receiving less money and a limo ride to work.
It is possible more perks in lieu of cash at the high end, and more cash in lieu of perks at the low end is actually the optimal solution to compensation package.
When you have a person being prevented from enjoying the same benefits of others.. and this person can witness this daily, how do you think they feel?
Large companies have forgotten the human side of work. That doesn't mean it doesn't matter.
Consider that I don't have a company car. I'm sure I could "witness it daily" that other people are being driven to work in their company cars if I knew where to look for it. But since I don't know about it, I feel fine.
Personally I would work the other way around, trying to detach myself for all the mundane pleasures (and failing constantly) and seeing how unimportant some perks are. But that's just me. What I see around is lots of hatred speech when people have been forbidden access to these things. It would be wise of Google or any other company to avoid these situations altogether.
A contractor is not eligible for worker's comp, hence any possibility of injury at workplace would make Google liable for contractor's entire medical bill.
http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_independentcontractor.htm
I would take serious offense if my employer tries to behave like god and then treat me like a dog. It hurts more if the treatment is subjective, meaning a few people are treated well and a few aren't. And even more if I'm meted out such treatment solely on the basis of my color, religion or any other thing like for example sexual preference.
Really? They're hiring labor, but treating them as if they have no association with Google. They might as well simply be contractors that work for Jim's Labor Pool.
But why would they take fast food or something of the sort over this?
I don't know what they're paid, but at least from this article I get the feeling that fast food has more upward mobility. I know at least a couple of fast food workers as kids who moved up the ladder and eventually have owned their own profitable franchise. I have a feeling there really isn't much upward growth in this job.
I imagine the cleaning crew that vacuum at Goldman Sachs at night get treated way worse.
Quite possibly, although they're also likely not GS employees. Probably contractors, often contracted by the building.
Burt had a questionnaire to which my answers were :
-I was given permission to use the camera by Carl, a superior. -The tape I used was mine. -I do not have possession of the footage I shot anymore and it does not exist in any other form.
Anyway, i'm not looking for foul play, just curious what it is he posted.
I'm not defending Google, here, because I don't know anything about them beyond what everyone else knows from the outside. However, what do you expect the reaction to be when you are an employ for a company contracted to provide services to a client who grants you certain access and privileges which you then abuse to pursue your own interests and investigations outside of the scope of what you were employed to do?
Hell, at the end of this video, I'm still unclear what point is trying to be conveyed. Is it just "the racial balance of the employees that I saw exiting the building for two days didn't meet some proper balance I had in my head, so I decided to start doing a socio-economic documentary on my employer's dime and after everything went to shit, because of how I was conducting myself, I put together a ten minute video to explain myself to future employers"?
I saw a lot of smiling faces exiting the building and getting into nice cars. I don't see what the big deal is that people who are temporary or part of menial data-entry labor are not part of the greater events and benefits and festivities of the company. I'm sure it's that way at most companies. I'm on the development side of things and I don't get to go to the big sales-team getaways in Cancun or wherever else they go. And I doubt that the janitorial staff and security staff are sharing in the staff-bonus compensation that I am. And none of us are getting the several million dollar company loans to buy our mansion that CEOs have gotten.
Perhaps this will be an unpopular sentiment, but I just got a strong vibe of "this is my chance to be a documentary film-maker".
That is exactly why he was fired. Google did the absolutely correct thing. They don't want to deal with that shit. There's no conspiracy.
It doesn't matter. That's exactly what was being implied. Google wants to prevent any legal disputes or inquiries into their operations which can be very costly. The guy is a low-level low-importance asset so they had him terminated. It makes perfect sense.
Yes they used that as a reason to fire him but that's not why they fired him.
And for those things which are protected, there is often little you can do. Prove that they fired you for being too old and not just because you smelled bad or performed poorly at work or pissed the wrong person off.
It therefore isn't really concerning that someone would not want to deal with the hassle of some jackass and would just ask for him to be fired, instead.
nice
And you generally make pretty good money - depending on your job of course.
I think 'job protection' is a bit misguided. What makes more sense to me is 'people protection' - that even if you lose your job, you'll still be able to pay rent, eat, etc... It would make more sense to aim for that goal directly rather than force employers to keep people they don't want.
You are expected to STFU and be a "team player" despite what trouble the team is cooking up.
(Fortunately not California, which is one reason so many startups are located here.)
Also more or less obligatory (if you are sane) usage of legal advice for any contract and such seems like a huge burden usually not present in other countries.
If it is true that they have a separate building where the 'people of color' work segregated from the others, that is pretty outrageous.
It really does say something about the corporate culture there.
I hope it is investigated more closely by other parties, and that Google can make it better If there is something like this happening.
Scanning books is a manual process that is much like sewing or factory work in the repetitiveness. (Maybe less skilled than sewing).
The "racism" of the situation happened years before anyone walked onto the Google campus. The socio-economic opportunities of things like safety, education, nutrition, books, time, parental involvement all feeds in to the situation where the workers in building 3.14 get one level of education and the engineers get another.
If it were true that they were segregating "people of color" then it absolutely would be outrageous. However, it is absolutely NOT true that they are segregating for reasons of color.
It's a red-herring argument.
What if the 4 to 2:30 schedule is to control traffic flow. Setting a non trivial number of workers to arrive and leave at a certain time means that the twice daily 'mega traffic jam' arriving and leaving doesn't happen.
Which puts everyone at their desks longer. Which saves money.
What if the reason that yellow badged workers aren't allowed to freely wander the rest of the google campus is down to security? Would you want low paid wage workers wandering around amongst your industrial secrets?
Are they all yellow badge too?
And do they all steal secrets as you seem to imply every low-paid person is bound to do?
Seriously, just because someone is low paid doesn't mean they're any less trust worthy. That's one fucked up world view you have there. Also it doesn't make much sense as it's the higher paid workers who can do the serious economic damage as they know what's actually valuable.
Anyways, I've either misspoke or you've misunderstood.
The way he keeps saying 'people of colour' and talking about different classes doesn't lend to his cause either, nor going right out with a video camera as it really does look like he is filming an expose. If he was smart, he should have replied he was simply curious as to what these guys do and why the rules are different for this particular group. To elaborate any further than that, well, he dug his own pit there.
But it's not true and the allegation is so obviously ridiculous that it marks OP as a moron.
When you say "people of color", does that term include people of Chinese descent? Japanese? Indian? You should find plenty of those in the main building, because those races are reasonably well represented among the class of "people who got a CS degree from Stanford (or similar)". Whereas if you look at any section of the business that doesn't require advanced tech degrees, you'll tend to see a different mix.
> It really does say something about the corporate culture there.
No, it really doesn't.
Lets all be honest with what we're talking about, and in America what "people of color" really means (in most cases, and probably this one). It means black people. This guy noticed a lot of black people with yellow badges. The yellow badges had a high percentage of African Americans. Much higher than in the Googleplex proper (which probably tracks much closer to their % of the US population). And they (apparently) get less perks. This pushes all sorts of historical hot buttons in the American psyche.
What's left up to us to determine (assuming the veracity of the OP) is WHY this is. The most logical reason why is that the yellow badge jobs are low paying jobs, and the company that is contracting for these low paying jobs draws heavily from the African American community in the surrounding areas.
What is possibly interesting in all of this is the original issue of why low paying jobs potentially are filled by a much higher percentage of blacks than high paying jobs, which unfortunately has very little to do with Google, and a lot more to do with educational opportunities and the breakdown of the family structure in some African American communities, imo, which leads to a skewing of the potential job opportunities from urban American African Americans to be lower paying than anyone would like.
http://www.cga.ct.gov/2003/olrdata/jud/rpt/2003-R-0641.htm
In most cases, unless there is a smoking gun, employers just sidestep the issue by targeting "layoffs", rather firing for cause.
The bigger issue HR deals with is sexual harassment or discrimination cases. And, even nuisance lawsuits can be expensive to deal with, and HR/clerical staff is a lot cheaper than lawyers.
Now that he's no longer employed, he can go ahead with his pursuit without doing it under the advantage of his employment or his employer and I'm sure that if his insinuations are remotely true, then there are sure to be a bunch of people beating down his door for the opportunity to speak with him about their work at Google, under journalistic protection.
It scares people and they counter-attack reflexively, without deeply considering the arguments. That's been my experience from work, Reddit, and HN, in any case.
Notice that I'm not saying anything about the correctness of any particular position on a specific issue. It's that the specifics are barely able to be discussed because people are already in war mode.
So why do these topics blow up so big amongst the valley crowd?
I totally agree with you. Why would any Übermensch in his right mind eat and drink in the same room as a yellow-badged Untermensch? That's heresy.
That was a huge mistake on his part.
> Google did the absolutely correct thing. They don't want to deal with that shit
From whose perspective? What I mean is that it's possible for them to do something that is "absolutely correct" for their own self-preservation / convenience, but that is not correct from an ethical or societal stand-point.
I'm not saying they're doing anything wrong. It just seems that you're angry that the OP wanted to investigate race / class issues.
It's clear from his tone that OP has a point of view he wants to push - he wants to feel aggrieved at oppression, whether or not there is any. Given that OP was dumb enough to do things the way he did it's not clear he's smart enough to understand that he's being a moron. In this litigious culture, firing OP was a good idea and explaining to OP why he was being a moron wasn't necessarily a good idea. Besides, "some folks, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em."
He only asked for permission to videotape yellow-badges leaving the building. Nothing more. Unless someone wants to show me where I am missing a statement, I don't see any point at which he even claims that he was given permission to film and interview employees - much less about the issues he has taken it upon himself to "investigate".
That it was done on his own lunch break and supposedly using his own tape doesn't seem very relevant. My free time is my own, but my company wouldn't appreciate it if I was using my lunch time to bother my employer or one of their clients.
From the video/transcript: "Eventually I asked a superior on my team if I could borrow a camera to go out in the parking lot and videotape the yellow-badged workers leaving the 3.1459~ factory."
If he had asked permission to take a camera out and videotape interviews with people leaving the building so he could investigate the socio-economic aspects of Google employment of Google's ScanOps team, I think it is safe to say that his employer would have told him to STFU and get back to his actual work and there would have been no problems. He took advantage of the situation to push an issue his employers were not aware that he was pursuing which then put them and all of their other employees and their contract with Google in a tenuous position. Not necessarily because "ooh no, he's going to find out we have lots of people of a certain race working in that building", but most likely because they hired some guys to get a job done and not be a thorn in someone's side.
The whole affair seems to me a severe overreaction considering they could have just sat the guy down and talked the issue through.
His tone and mentality feel a bit confrontational (and we're only hearing his perspective), and mentioning the skin color of various people involved seems anachronistic, but...
... at a smaller company, maybe the boss would have just sat down and had a talk with him "look, these people get good wages, and we're keeping the jobs in the US" or whatever. It doesn't sound like it was handled in a very "human" way, where someone directly above him who knows him was given the authority to straighten things out and make sure no further problems occurred.
Legal...security... all starts to sound like "lowest common denominator", and a good reason to work at a startup or small business rather than a large corporation.
(Edit: not that legal, security, etc... are not needed or don't do useful things... it's just inevitably a bit bureaucratic)
Likely that way now because he was fired. If it's true he was going to quit soon, and had he done this all the day before he was leaving to feed his curiosity, maybe the tone would be different?
The only reason this is even in the general ballpark of surprising is that this particular multinational advertising firm has exceptionally good PR, and people want to believe that it would never do this. I mean, they've repeated "We're the good guys" tens of thousands of times, surely it must be true, right?
It's a wonderful company. They make cool products. If you get in their way, they will bury you.
From the description given, there seems to be some parallels between yellow badges and what I've seen in Asia.
I'm not sure that this is a bad thing. We can't all be PhDs earning high 6 figure salaries. There is a need for mundane labor, requiring little education/creativity. Maybe it's weird because it's google, and the juxtaposition is great. But what's the difference between doing in in the Valley and outsourcing it to China/India? If Google did outsource these jobs, people would just be QQing about that instead.
As for the race angle, it's hardly Google's problem/responsibility. This is a fundamental cancer within the US that requires serious effort/rethinking required to even begin to address the situation.
Well actually there has not been any real need for that for years now. With automation we could replace all those "dull" work places.
But the problem is: What do we do with the now unemployed masses? If we want to keep our capitalistic system that is.
Really. You think OCR technology is at the point of sophistication or expense such that it would be economically beneficial for Google to deploy such technology over hiring humans but they don't do so to maintain our "capitalistic system"?
You think there's some conspiracy of corporations to waste money on unskilled labor to maintain capitalism?
> You think there's some conspiracy of corporations to waste money on unskilled labor to maintain capitalism?
Think about it and answer this question for yourself.
I wonder what's with the confidentiality at book search. The first two things that pop to mind is keeping the yellow badges secret and preventing their enemies from messing around(publishers are pretty mad at the whole book scanning thing).
I wonder what's with the confidentiality at book search. The first two things that pop to mind is keeping the yellow badges secret and preventing their enemies from messing around(publishers are pretty mad at the whole book scanning thing).
Probably this is what set them off -
"...Most of them are people of color and are supposedly involved in the labor of digitizing information. I’m interested in issues of class, race, and labor, and so out of general curiosity I wanted to ask these workers about their jobs. I am aware of internal mechanisms for discussing labor issues with Google, and had no intention of defaming the company..."
A lot of times you can dig a hole for yourself that wasn't there by trying to explain things. Just a, "Was I breaking the rules? Okay, my bad, I didn't mean to. What was I doing? Eh, just screwing around with a video camera, exploring, I won't do it again if it's a problem" probably gets you out of there without hassle.
I mean, his simple explanation covers mentions race, labor, labor issues, defamation, legal contracts... that would scare the hell out of anyone. If he'd just written, "Hi guys, I'm just learning about Google and I like the company. I didn't mean any harm - I'll make sure not to do that again if it's against policy" then that probably would have been the end of it.
-It was a descriptive comment - looking at what probably happened, not judging right/wrong.
-I think saying things like, "So you advocate ignoring issues of class, race and labor?" is bad form. If you think class, race, and labor is important, just say "I think it's an important issue." - insinuating someone else's beliefs leads to miscommunication, especially because people skim.
I believe this is important to explore, and reading this thread saw only Google apologists of every stripe. I wanted (too badly) to see something substantive said. I should have just said it.
The author's ability to investigate this from the inside is now gone, because he got fired.
I thought that was clear.
Google totally made the wrong call here, because as you say, someone who was looking to write a deep, hard-hitting muckraking piece probably would have lied.
The last three companies I've worked for are very big heavy hitting technology industry names and every single one had a policy that employees are not to give interviews and that if anyone asks you questions, you should refer them to the PR department or other relevant division within the company. This is to avoid situations where some random employee says something unintentionally stupid and it gets promoted to the top of all the sites as official company line. Or to prevent things like, you know, everyone claiming that "Wozniak wants to return to Apple, if they ask him!" when he never said any such thing.
Additionally, you're supposed to report anyone suspicious on the campus, whether they're trying to coat-tail into the building after you badge-in or whether they're snooping around outside and asking questions.
Imagine you hire a big pool of people who punch in a bunch of 10 key or flip pages on a book and press "SCAN" on the machine all day and someone comes snooping around to ask questions about a project (the digitizing of books) that is currently in litigation and some random jackass employee mouths off about something they haven't the slightest clue about and now it's headline news on all the tech industry rags?
Anyway, it's not peculiar or unusual practice. Its' very common. And from what I've seen, this is all speculation. And not even by an employee (or journalist). It's all speculation by a guy who was hired by a company who was hired by Google to get some footage who didn't like the racial makeup of the people he saw walking out of the building for a few days and then started to ask questions of employees who don't know him from any other random guy on the campus filming stuff and asking strange questions.
The way the accusation is made and the whole "expose" is presented is just absurd. Almost surreal, it's so silly. I can't help but think of it in the same light as the internet meme from a couple years ago, where some guys used Glenn Beck's techniques against him by starting up the website "glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com" and then posted the following:
"This site exists to try and help examine the vicious rumor that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. Why won't Glenn Beck deny these allegations?"
Except, in this case, it's "This video exists to try and help examine the vicious rumor that Google is classist and racist and abuses its employees. Why won't Google deny these allegations?"
The ominous monotone voiceover in the video reminded me of 9/11 conspiracy theory videos.
The simple explanation is that Google doesn't want these workers talking about the work they are doing. The easiest way to keep them from talking is to limit social interactions with other employees, by sequestering them.
They allow janitors and food service workers access to these perks, it seems kind of weirdly targeted if they are just doing it to save money.
They're probably doing work that is so confidential that google doesn't want to give them the chance to socialize with other workers.
If that's true, Google has some explaining to do, methinks.
The question isn't whether Google is goind anything strictly illegal.
The question is whether Google is doing something what would be considered shady by a big part of Google employees; If so, how would Google acknowlege the situation; And then, how would they live thru this, with Googlers knowing that their own standards are in a serious mismatch with the actual behavior of the business body, Google.
Public reaction is another interesting thing. People's passion or neglect isn't regulated by law; instead it's regulated by their own feeling of right and wrong. It may be both legal and a PR disaster at the same time.
Of course, it might turn out that people in general and Googlers dominantly don't see any problem and don't care. It doesn't seem to be this case yet.
Am I to expect that if you were working at a company and you brought an allegation of racism to your superiors, you should be fired because that allegation makes them uncomfortable or could lead to legal trouble? Would everyone here be jumping up and down to say how correct that is?
I obviously only have one side of the story, but I can't think of a way that firing someone for talking to the wrong people or asking the wrong questions is right. Not even if it's Google doing it.
2) These ppl can go home and can talk to their spouses, their friends etc. and let them know what they are working on. So making sure that they don't talk to anyone in Google during their office hours is not going to help keep their projects secretive.
So there has to be some other angle to this story which does not involve secretiveness of their projects.
Second, I have to admit, I am kind of struct by most of the comments here. Most of the comment are pro google and think andrew here got it for himself.
I believe this have to do a lot with cultural differences here. Most people in Egypt, would stand with the employee against the corporation. Most egyptians would definitely be pro andrew. I believe the reason here is that most Egyptians are either employees or owners of very small businesses, and would not perceive themselves as even potentially large business owners. Egypt being a poorer country and all. This is why most Egyptian would never try to put themselves in google's foot and try to see things from their perspective.
I guess the opposite is true from most of the ppl commenting here, they must think if I was google, I would have done the same, and it's probably because they don't see it as too far fetched. Either that or the western population is becomming alarmingly submissive to authority and unwilling to question their action.
Google are clearly being unfair, this should not be acceptable.
welcome to the internet :o(
Employment in the US is at-will or whatever it's called. You can leave your employment when you want and your employer can fire you when they want. This can obviously be overridden by a contract. I don't know what his said but it probably put some severance package in there. (1 month pay or whatever).
Not that might sound crazy why would that be OK but I prefer to work for someone who wants me to work for them then have some laws telling them they can't fire me without some crazy reason and have to go through a large process to do so.
As for the 4 classes of employees, I dunno about that but I mean those perks aren't rights they are used to entice people to work for a company and stay there. If they can get employees without them then why not. It's a for profit thing is it not?
And all this is why you can just go out and start your own company and never have to deal with that stuff ;p
But it's good to know you're around. I'll be sure to seek you out for my re-education next time I start to suspect I might have been co-opted.
The fact that repeated messaging on one side of an issue will shift public opinion in aggregate towards that side is well accepted. This does not contradict the idea that some people will reach that same position independently.
It does suggest, however, that when comparing two populations the one subject to just one side of a subject since birth will be more likely to agree with that side on average than the population subject to no messaging or messaging from the other side. This fact does not actually suggest anything about correctness.
As an aside, I understand this is a heated issue for many, but I'm not sure your tone improves the discussion.
This is the wrong board to go making that kind of assertion dude.
Take a look at attitudes towards American Labor in the 50s-60s and now. Big difference, right?
Sure there's a difference, but I wouldn't attribute even half of that difference to some kind of vast propaganda campaign.
Yeah, I'm sure they're against it because they're scholars of austrian economics. They probably read Hayek to their kids when they get home from their shift at the Sunoco.
Here's a question. Read my first paragraph again, that's all basically true.. how often is that picture painted in the media? Almost never? How often is the opposite picture painted of unions being a bunch of quote "thugs"? Hmm.. That sure sounds like a multi-decade propaganda campaign to me.
The way "baseline inflation" is measured (through the CPI) involves a growing baseline. Salaries/incomes have stagnated relative to that not-really-a-baseline, but that's not really a meaningful way to look at working class economics.
I know yummyfajitas has challenged you on this point in the past, and I don't recall seeing you ever answer it, so I'm going to repeat it: over the time period in question, can you produce any reasonable list of "household costs" under which working class families now are not better off than working class families in the 1960s?
Even gas prices aren't very far outside the norm. In 1960 a gallon of gas was 31 cents and the "national wage index" was right around 4000; at the start of this year a gallon of gas was $3.09, and the most recent NWI data I can find (2009) was just over 40,000. This summer's run-up is not out of line with past fluctuations.
This isn't an argument about statistics and how to fudge them (seriously spend some time in NH or KY or MI, take a look at what your company pays for your healthcare and contemplate paying that out of pocket on minimum wage).
This is about whether or not unions have been systematically demonized for the last 30 years (they have) and whether advertising works (it does).
Then why were you talking about how badly the working class is doing, particularly due to health care and gasoline costs, both in the previous post and this one? You can't argue something and then declare it off-limits for discussion because we're really talking about some other point.
If you want to talk about how the working class is doing, face my question directly, instead of dodging it with a sarcastic jab about how great the working class is doing. Explain how working class people have a harder time affording any reasonable list of goods from the 1960s vs today.
I will grant you that health insurance is ridiculously expensive, with the caveat that insurance is a stupid way to pay for most health care. I will argue further that even once you account for the massive increase in health care costs, the working class is generally much better off financially than in the 1960s (speaking of fudging statistics, how about the sudden shift from "the last 40 or 50 years" to "15 years ago at the height of an economic boom / asset bubble"?)
Also keep in mind that American unions are different from European unions. I believe that in Germany, unions are routinely major shareholders in the companies their members work for. This is a very good system, because it incentivizes the union to favor fair outcomes that are beneficial to workers without damaging the value of the company. American unions actively resist this arrangement.
Rather, I think most of those who have criticized Andrew are responding to his seeming naivete. I say "seeming" because I'm skeptical that he didn't see this coming. Would he not have been able to guess that his emails would escalate the situation, rather than defuse it?
When you say you're videotaping employees to explore issues of race and class, it sounds like you're doing an exposé. That may or may not be your intent, but when you combine race, class, and unauthorized videotaping in your project summary, it kind of pigeonholes you into the exposé genre.
So Google was worried that Andrew was going to ask leading questions, pull some quotations out of context, tie it all together with pointed narration, and put it on YouTube with a title like "Race and Class Warfare at Google."
Maybe Google shouldn't have jumped to that conclusion; maybe they should have spent more time with Andrew and ascertained exactly what he was planning before having him fired. Or maybe they should take a more liberal view and declare a universal policy of free speech by employees and contractors. I'm not saying Google acted exactly as I'd have hoped, but it seems to me that they acted predictably, if nothing else. The only thing that surprises me is that Andrew didn't expect this to happen.
I'm European too by the way. Your comment is inflammatory and unnecessary.
My experience in the U.S. is that Americans tend to believe a company has no moral responsibility beyond maximizing profits and not violating laws. Even when companies do violate the law (Enron, Horizon, Chevron, etc.) there is a segment of society that rushes to minimize the wrongdoing.
My anecdotal experience on HN is that a lot people on the site defend the pursuit of money over what I consider greater moral considerations. I can understand the perspective of the person you responded to. His/her comment was inflammatory and you are right about that.
To answer your question though, I do believe that it is roughly true that pursuing riches makes it harder to be a moral person. It's not impossible but I do believe it is harder. It is my belief that in a majority of cases one's morality and perception of what is right/wrong/acceptable changes for the worse as they acquire more money.
I believe it is true that the love of money is the root of all evil (as a rough approximation).
I think there must be a better balance to be struck between the approach taken in Europe (seen as too difficult to fire people, which isn't conducive to a healthy business environment) and to the American approach (you can be fired at-will).
I myself like to watch US-based documentaries like Gasland, Food Inc., Inside Job and Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater story. I know these stories are biased, but I'm silently horrified by the sheer extent to which the odds are stacked against the good of the ordinary person in favour of big business. For example, in the film "Inside Job" an IMF banker made the extraordinary revelation that a Wall Street banker basically said to him in a meeting: "Please regulate us. We're too greedy. If you don't regulate us we'll continue to cause markets to blow up because we can't help ourselves." This was before the bailouts, so the banker was genuinely terrified that the banking system would utterly collapse and that they would lose everything.
Also important however, is to ponder on why America is so rich and why America to a large extent drives the global pace of innovation. There are smart, ambitious people there who can get access to capital and raw talent that is unavailable anywhere else in the world. These conditions must have sprung up in America for a reason - the environment was fertile enough for them to take root. By having a thriving, innovative economy, everybody wins. The standard of living improves for everyone. You get to keep your sovereignty by being rich - just look at the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain). They lost economic sovereignty (except for Spain, but it could happen to them too) by being economically weak. (You can also lose political sovereignty if you are poor, as you can't afford all the military hardware to fight off an enemy). I would urge you to read "The Ascent of Money" by Niall Ferguson. He makes excellent points as to why money, and innovations like bonds, stock and insurance actually drive countries forward. For example, the riskiness of the Dutch voyages to the far-East in the late 1500s onwards were mitigated against by forming a limited-liability company, where stock could be sold to ordinary investors. If it weren't for this innovation, then the risk of the voyage would have turned people off from financing such a risky prospect. The voyages were highly successful overall and a remarkable new financial innovation was born. I think what you see in America today is a mix of these very good ideas with some very bad ideas too.
"To answer your question though, I do believe that it is roughly true that pursuing riches makes it harder to be a moral person. It's not impossible but I do believe it is harder. It is my belief that in a majority of cases one's morality and perception of what is right/wrong/acceptable changes for the worse as they acquire more money."
Money certainly seems to change people (can't say first hand because I'm one of those aspiring millionaires!) I think if you have a solid moral compass to begin with, and realise just because you may be wealthier than someone else doesn't make you better or more important than them, then you will be ok. This is probably difficult as you've mentioned. However, look to the likes of Warren Buffett - he's giving nearly all of his fortune to charity. Or Elon Musk, who is using his wealth trying to advance electric vehicles because the incumbents either can't or won't, and to further space exploration also. Or Bill Gates, who after a career being accused or being a bully and a monopolist, seems to be using his wealth and privileged position to try to make the world a better place. So there is cause for optimism for being wealthy doing the right thing.
"I believe it is true that the love of money is the root of all evil (as a rough approximation)."
My take is that the blind pursuit of money, to the detriment of other considerations, is the roo...
Lots of countries are economically weaker than them but didn't blow up a bubble on themselves.
Your fourth paragraph touches on what I see as a deep seated problem in American society and a problem that will happen in Europe if current trends continue. Your use of the word 'rich' is synonymous with money and material things. This focus on money has lead to what I call the "I've got mine, fuck you" attitude.
Is the U.S. rich in happiness? contentment? My perception is no. The nation is getting fatter, more lethargic, less able to cope with problems, and is focused on acquiring more stuff. Not everyone in the world can live the American lifestyle because there aren't enough resources.
This is not a problem just with America but, as in many things, America is in the lead. Our consumption has led to a giant plastic garbage patch in the Pacific ocean. Our focus on money and getting the best deal has to led to us importing items made with child labor, slave labor, and in oppressive conditions. This is not unique to Americans, it's a human trait. We need better regulation to mitigate these bad traits but it isn't going to happen in the U.S. (at current trends) because the focus is on money. Money and the preservation of it is trumping decency and morality. (Again, as I see things.)
Your example of Dutch voyages in the 1500s is an excellent one. Your point appears to be that financial innovation (money pursuits) can and sometimes do lead to benefits for society. I'll have to think about this for a while before knowing whether or not I agree with it. It sounds plausible.
As a counter, I'll offer this up. The great scientific discoveries of the world were not done for money. Newton would not have been a better mathematician had he been paid more. Human progress, largely, comes from people who like to solve problems. Who are curious about the world and want to understand it. A society that gives such people the means to pursue their intellectual passions is one that progresses.
That natural conclusion from your examples and what you've written is that capitalism (pursuit of money) is a great way to accomplish this. I would argue that a better system needs to be developed because the downsides to the pursuit of money are quite bad and will lead to a world with it's resources plundered.
Lastly, I'll point out that Warren Buffet stopped talking to one of his granddaughters because she talked about wealth to a guy making a documentary on wealth and what it does to people. I don't think I'm better than Warren Buffet and so I think I'd probably do the same thing he did if I was in his shoes. So I think money would change me and my perception of right and wrong. Presently I'd never disown a relative because they talked about wealth and what it does to people.
look to the likes of Warren Buffett ... Or Elon Musk ... Or Bill Gates
To put things into perspective: Stanford, Carnegie Technical Schools and Mellon Institute of Industrial Research (merged into CMU), Duke, Cornell and I think some other of the best American universities were founded by the donations of wealthy industrialists.
"My take is that the blind pursuit of money, to the detriment of other considerations, is the root of (some/all) evil."
My feeling is that as you get more money, as it becomes more of a goal to you, the more likely it is that you will pursue money to the detriment of other considerations.
I'll have think about your last statement. The one about the lack of money. My initial response, without really thinking about it, is that I don't agree with it.
Happiness is relative. Struggling to scrape by on a dollar a day, and wondering where your next meal is going to come from must be pretty awful. Perhaps more people should do volunteer work to realise just how lucky we have it in the west. I think that by being wealthier, you can "move up" Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs[1], and if you reach 'self-actualisation' i.e. you are intellectually fulfilled, have pride in your work and accomplishments etc., that that is it's own kind of happiness. I agree that you are never going to achieve any kind of happiness by simply pursuing some arbitrary dollar amount. That is a fool's game. Beyond a certain point increasing your bank account balance is a meaningless exercise.
The second and third paragraph mention some things are are an unfortunate byproduct of an industrialsed nation. They are also arguably unnecessary - the means are there to combat obesity, products made by slave labour, destruction of the environment etc. I don't really have a good answer for these. It's important to note that some of these things can happen in a poor country too - I remember in the movie "Black Hawk Down" that the soldiers were admiring the lovely view of the ocean, but they were warned to not go in as it was extremely polluted. It probably wasn't the Somalians that polluted it though!
"Your point appears to be that financial innovation (money pursuits) can and sometimes do lead to benefits for society." It all depends. If you are a seller of Credit Default Swaps in Goldman Sachs circa 2006, you probably know in your heart and soul that what you are doing is highly destructive to society. But dammit, you need to hit your annual bonus, so you sell, sell, sell. Good inventions can be twisted in destructive ways.
All human systems and artefacts are imperfect. They are also morally-neutral. Think of nuclear power. When it was discovered, the idea was to bring really cheap electricity to the masses. As it turned out, the electricity wasn't cheap and the most horrific weapon ever created was unleashed. Or even a car - you can use a car to help an elderly neighbour get into town, or use it to escape from a bank robbery. And so on.
"As a counter, I'll offer this up. The great scientific discoveries of the world were not done for money. Newton would not have been a better mathematician had he been paid more. Human progress, largely, comes from people who like to solve problems. Who are curious about the world and want to understand it. A society that gives such people the means to pursue their intellectual passions is one that progresses."
True - but one must also pay the bills. You could work on your passion with great dedication and focus, if only for that pesky matter of money. Look at pg - he solved his money problem by selling Viaweb, and used his newfound time and wealth to help young up and coming entrepreneurs to launch and grow their businesses. If you ever see pictures of him, you know he just loves every minute of what he does. He does a great job because he cares deeply about nurturing entrepreneurship. But if he didn't have the time and money to do YC and had urgent bills to pay, things would be different and the world would be a worse off. Also, watch "The Secret History of Silicon Valley". Steve Blank details how Silicon Valley wouldn't exist today without defense funding from the government. We wouldn't be having this conversation if the US didn't spend so much on military research!
On a related note, I was watching the BBC one morning and the question was posed to (I think) a historian: why couldn't the renaissance have happened in England? He gave two reasons, one was that England at the time was consumed in civil war, and the other was that the Catholic church was a major patron of the arts. Money again. By having such a wealthy benefactor willing to fund them, artists like da Vinci could create works of art like La Pieta[3]. A similar virtuous cycle exists today in Silicon Va...
We agree on these points (so it seems to me from what you've written).
Where we appear to have divergence is in my belief that
1. Capitalism does not do an adequate job of dealing with negative externalities.
2. The general mind altering, world view altering aspect of money acquisition makes dealing with the negative externalities difficult. The "I've got mine, fuck you" attitude that is prevalent amongst the monied class in the U.S. makes me think that it is especially difficult in the U.S. for things to change for the better.
3. The rate of resource destruction, pollution, etc., along with 1) and 2) makes me think that world will become one big, giant toxic shit hole before adequate steps are taken to deal with the negative externalities and by that time it will be too late.
My personal belief is that it is highly unlikely the human race will survive the next 200 years in anywhere near the numbers it has today.
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As to defense spending. It is true that Silicon Valley exists because of defense spending. I don't believe it is true that it would not exist (somewhere else perhaps) without defense spending. I think progress would still have occurred in computing and technology without defense spending.
Thanks for the discussion.
Regarding number 1, there's no divergence, I agree with you 100% on capitalism not dealing with negative externalities. I think that no financial system we will ever come up with will ever be perfect.
Regarding 2, this appears to be a disadvantage one must accept with a capitalist system.
Regarding 3, I would be more positive. I think technology and human ingenuity will overcome pollution eventually, maybe by nanotechnology or clean tech etc. Maybe even human colonies in outer space, like the movie Wall-E or something. In the 1960s there was a theory that the world's population would grow faster than our ability to feed it. The Haber-Bosch process now feeds one-third of the world's population.[1]
Good talking to you. It's good hearing different perpectives on these issues.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process
Secondly, your assumption that wealth creation and becoming 'rich' are antonymous to morality is (IMO) invalid. Sure, there are examples of 'big bad evil' capitalism being at odds with morality, but overall I would argue that wealth creation and becoming 'rich' tends to involve producing quality (software, goods, services - whatever).
And producing quality is often a win-win situation (a win for consumers as they get quality, and a win for the producers/business owners as it helps them financially). And I do honestly believe that aiming for quality isn't just a means to an end - in other words, I think that aiming for quality will benefit everyone in the company (including the employees) - not just the end users.
So fundamentally I'd disagree with your assessment on wealth generation = lack of morality.