The overall poor wording - odd number(s), bad words and grandeur - support the impression that it's a rage post, rather than a (at least attempted) faithful, balanced, report of the fact.
Of course it's a rage post, she feels awful, she even says it herself that she is still coping. That doesn't mean that it's any less credible, if you discredit it for those reasons the issue will just remain and keep going.
You are correct, of course. It doesn’t make it less credible, but it also doesn’t make it automatically credible.
I have not yet had a chance to read the letter and all commentary, but I hear echos of Max Howell’s “google didn’t hire me because I cannot invert a binary tree”.
It was obviously a rage post; it was obviously his impression of the interview (even though “inverting a binary tree”, being an ill-defined operation, is unlikely what they asked him to do).
And following that affair, my impression was that he wasn’t hired for reasons other than his programming abilities - being a team player (and specifically not being a loose cannon) matters at least as much.
I have no idea what the story is here, but taking one side or the other based on a single post (and prejudice) is not really helpful.
It makes her post less credible, since it significantly raises the likelihood that she got fired for being toxic at work instead of whatever reason she didn't even mention.
"Tone policing is an ad hominem (personal attack) and anti-debate tactic based on criticizing a person for expressing emotion. Tone policing detracts from the validity of a statement by attacking the tone in which it was presented rather than the message itself."
This isn't a post about, say, lock-free algorithms, which are, in nature, decoupled from human behavior.
Her attitude _is_ part of the contention itself; for example, there's mention of a career block because she was perceived as intimidating, there's frequent self-flattery, there's an unprofessional insulting of the employer, and so on. Her position is supposed to be covered by a people's person.
Of course, there is also at least one mention of colleagues' behavior that is, I suppose, straight illegal, and this is alarming.
As I wrote, verbatim, this supports an impression. I didn't write she's wrong.
When a person complains in a toxic way about being unfairly fired then I'll believe that they got fired for being toxic rather than whatever thing they want to tell you. It isn't tone policing, it is just common sense.
In other words, in this scenario her tone adds extra information, discussing it is therefore not an ad-hominem.
Really, even in the comments of the thread the fact that so many people are hung up on that is absolutely baffling. Of all the awful stuff that is said in there, that's the comment they want to make?
Yes. In her Twitter thread she implies that she was able to judge the HBCU curriculums to be equal to that of white universities while also not understanding the basics of percentages. Maybe I've got outrageous demands but I expect any making decisions on a CS curriculum to understand percentages.
Could be correct, technically she says before her role existed Google had hired zero from HBCU and that she hired 300 increasing the number by 300%.
In other words timeline is: Google hires nobody from HBCU, she joins, Google hires 100 apart from and she hires 300. Now, both statements are true. Google hired none before her and she tripled Google's HBCU hiring.
Odd that she both hired 300 and increased by 300% so maybe she misstated something, but it's not logically impossible.
> The reason Google never hired an HBCU student straight out of undergrad into one of their key engineering roles is because they didn’t believe talent existed at these institutions- until I showed up.
I pity white working class American males: no classic class privilege and no modern victim privilege.
Ironically, my understanding is they're also the most likely to vote against minimum wages, social security, universal health care, Pell Grants and so on, and to have bought into specious arguments about meritocracies.
Hat tip to this book[0] "issues of race point to underlying problems in society that ultimately affect everyone, not just minorities".
I'm probably biased, but I find that honorable. I'd rather be on the street than accept a dime forcefully extracted from a hardworking stranger. I find it unconscionable that so many foreigners come to Western countries with already-generous welfare systems and countless programs specifically established to materially benefit non-indigenous people, and still vote overwhelmingly in support of increased public benefits.
It's a slow ransacking under the guise of democracy. And some people still wonder why there's a mysterious uptick in White collectivism...
That's disingenuous. Federal spending isn't spent on persons, it's spent on infrastructure. If the city decides to renew or clean the sewer pipes running under my street, how many dimes have I accepted, personally?
Not ironic when you consider people don't always just vote for what will improve their present financial position. Wouldn't you agree that some vote based on their principles?
She writes "Google treats badly black, queer women", but the story is "Google treated ME badly, and I'm a black queer woman". Also, I'm not comfortable supporting or empathizing with anybody so certain about their "stellar, fantastic, greatest in history" profile.
It would be interesting to hear what were the performance/carrier paths of those 300 people she hired, to understand whether they really just needed a leg-up. That would validate her hunch about untapped potential. On the other hand I'm afraid that it's likely that if they were not promoted it would be again blamed on racism, because if you have that one differentiator, it can be used in any situation.
(Yes, I'm aware that this comment is not going to be palatable to politically correct majority).
That is the most shocking part, but it's not the emphasis of the rant - it's the added value that gives the author credibility.
Please note that I'm coming from a 3rd world country, Google probably has my university well below it's radar, and I know people from there hired by Google (in double-digit numbers). So not being on the "A list" is quite normal for a vast majority of the world, yet you can make it happen.
On a personal note - I interviewed and got reject by Google, but I'm a white male so I do think they actually rejected me because of my performance and not because of my other attributes.
This sounds like someone I would not want anywhere near my business either. What a disgracefully unprofessional reaction. And what an awful person to have to try to work with.
Imagine you land a well-paid cushy job at one of the best employers in the world, with the explicit task of recruiting other members of your race to also enjoy that prestigious privilege to the exclusion of others (not to mention the social prestige you gain with that power), imagine being informed that you intimidate coworkers and blaming them, imagine being told that you're difficult to understand and becoming irate rather than considering improvement, imagine being put on performance improvement plans and having your generous pay reduced and managing to blame racism rather than even considering you may have some shortcomings, and imagine after they've put up with this behaviour for years before finally having enough, you go and unleash a highly damaging expletive-laden rant on social media. I can't.
I don't want to hear about 'white privilege' ever again.
That's not what white privilege is. From the thread:
> Before my role existed, Google had NEVER, and I mean fucking NEVER hired an HBCU student into a tech role-
_thats_ white privilege. Even if the number isn't correct, if google isn't even looking in these places, by virtue of going there and graduating even top of your class, you have little to no chance.
There's definitely two sides to this story, but that doesn't mean you should dismiss systemic issues.
In that case, I don't want to hear another word about 'white privilege' until we're mature enough to also confront the growing issue of 'black privilege', especially with everything that has happened this year.
What happened this year which leads you to believe in a "black privilege," and why would such a topic need to be discussed at the exclusion of discussing white privilege?
Black privilege is feeling you have the right to be hired because of the color of your skin. Black privilege is having roles at companies reserved only for you because you are black. Black privilege is feeling you are beyond criticism because of your skin color.
Reading this twitter thread, I am embarrassed.
On one hand, as another user noted, I am reluctant to take too seriously somebody who present herself as a the best at her job and suggest the racist culture of the company led to her sacking. This is both generalizing and impossible to check at first glance.
On the other hand, the absence of any tech hires from HBCUs is a potentially verifiable fact that is deeply concerning.
Is there any way to confirm this assertion ? The other ones seems hard to investigate (although just as problematic if they are true).
She mentions that someone told her about being “intimidated” by her. Is this really something we shouldn't tell other people or should we work on it?
If someone has a tick accent that I can't understand or uses too much of slang that I cannot interpret without thinking about it or if someone acts as if they are simply a puppeteer of a persona(like if they bring up their identity all the time as if everything is about this persona definition but without personality) I also get very intimidated because I don't know what to expect at my encounters. I may intend to have a quick chat about something technical and it may end up me trying to understand what I did wrong to upset this person.
It's not about races or communities or genders, some people are acting as if they try to get upset, they are fishing for a chance to bring up their agenda or make everything about themselves.
In cases where there's no stigma to confront this kind of people, you can fight back but when this person is from a community that is ready to make it a big deal, it's really intimidating to confront people that make everything about themselves or their persona.
From the way she describes her standing point, I got the impression that she would be one of the people that I would try to avoid.
The new thing is that 'professionalism' is a "white" thing and so it somehow suppresses other races. Somehow brown people like myself, Asians, hispanics, and most black people don't have an issue with it but for others it's a hill they wish to die on.
So now you have to understand slang of about 10 different cultures because speaking correct English is apparently oppressive. Also, being polite and not aggressive is also racist to other cultures, but not really other cultures, just a vocal minority of one culture. It's pathetic and it makes it really hard to Just Get Shit Done.
> It's not about races or communities or genders, some people are acting as if they try to get upset, they are fishing for a chance to bring up their agenda or make everything about themselves.
Behavior is often determined by incentives. Today one of the quickest ways to get positive attention, affirmation, encouragement, etc is to be a victim. For real victims who would've been stigmatized in the past, like people with mental illness, this is great. However it also means everybody has a low-risk/high-reward incentive to portray themselves as victims in almost any scenario too.
I was not entirely sure where the idea behind diversity in the west comes from or what it is trying to achieve. After several years, I have figured it out.
It seems to me like the west doesn't have enough people to do key jobs and to they have decided that they'll solve this problem by importing skilled labor from abroad. To do that, workplaces must be changed to incorporate people from various backgrounds, hence, "diversity".
From the state perspective, there's also a need to employ the traditionally difficult to employ: people with various disabilities, socially unaccepted sexual identities, former convicts etc. So, the state works with the industries to try to make this happen. This would mean the state has less to worry about when unemployment rates go down and the industries get more available labor.
The black employment thing is a bit different but in a similar vein. Blacks are socially segregated and politically disenfranchised. Not to mention, the relations between blacks and whites have been worsened for political purposes. This meant it was easier for tech companies to hire talent from abroad than hire blacks. When Obama was elected, the industries decided to use him to fix this. Turns out blacks were not even studying tech. He did some work there to encourage blacks to study "coding" so that America would have to import fewer tech talent.
So, I believe that the entire "diversity" thing is a scam. The industry merely wants more people to be available for work. So, they work with politicians to teach people to pretend to "tolerate" others. "Political correctness" is just lying to people by hiding what you really think is correct. So, I say this as an outsider: if you want to succeed in their environment, don't fall for the diversity scam. There is no diversity, they simply don't like it. It makes them very uncomfortable. If you have to be there, dress white, talk white, try to fix your accent (Elsa speak is great), tell them what they want to hear. Never challenge their cultish behavior and dogmas. Never criticize Apple or question climate change.
If you want to speak your mind, go to anonymous forums and hide behind a username. You'll be heavily downvoted but that's fine.
I do find it humorous that someone thought their Baltimore accent was a disability. It can be quite difficult to parse, I don't think it would be too out of bounds to consider it a speech impediment.
46 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 88.5 ms ] threadThe overall poor wording - odd number(s), bad words and grandeur - support the impression that it's a rage post, rather than a (at least attempted) faithful, balanced, report of the fact.
I have not yet had a chance to read the letter and all commentary, but I hear echos of Max Howell’s “google didn’t hire me because I cannot invert a binary tree”.
It was obviously a rage post; it was obviously his impression of the interview (even though “inverting a binary tree”, being an ill-defined operation, is unlikely what they asked him to do).
And following that affair, my impression was that he wasn’t hired for reasons other than his programming abilities - being a team player (and specifically not being a loose cannon) matters at least as much.
I have no idea what the story is here, but taking one side or the other based on a single post (and prejudice) is not really helpful.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing
This isn't a post about, say, lock-free algorithms, which are, in nature, decoupled from human behavior.
Her attitude _is_ part of the contention itself; for example, there's mention of a career block because she was perceived as intimidating, there's frequent self-flattery, there's an unprofessional insulting of the employer, and so on. Her position is supposed to be covered by a people's person.
Of course, there is also at least one mention of colleagues' behavior that is, I suppose, straight illegal, and this is alarming.
As I wrote, verbatim, this supports an impression. I didn't write she's wrong.
In other words, in this scenario her tone adds extra information, discussing it is therefore not an ad-hominem.
It's literally trying to understand the truth from the messages
In other words timeline is: Google hires nobody from HBCU, she joins, Google hires 100 apart from and she hires 300. Now, both statements are true. Google hired none before her and she tripled Google's HBCU hiring.
Odd that she both hired 300 and increased by 300% so maybe she misstated something, but it's not logically impossible.
I pity white working class American males: no classic class privilege and no modern victim privilege.
Hat tip to this book[0] "issues of race point to underlying problems in society that ultimately affect everyone, not just minorities".
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Miners-Canary-Enlisting-Resisting-Tra...
It's a slow ransacking under the guise of democracy. And some people still wonder why there's a mysterious uptick in White collectivism...
It would be interesting to hear what were the performance/carrier paths of those 300 people she hired, to understand whether they really just needed a leg-up. That would validate her hunch about untapped potential. On the other hand I'm afraid that it's likely that if they were not promoted it would be again blamed on racism, because if you have that one differentiator, it can be used in any situation.
(Yes, I'm aware that this comment is not going to be palatable to politically correct majority).
My take-away from it was "Google recruiting is essentially unaware of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)"
Please note that I'm coming from a 3rd world country, Google probably has my university well below it's radar, and I know people from there hired by Google (in double-digit numbers). So not being on the "A list" is quite normal for a vast majority of the world, yet you can make it happen.
On a personal note - I interviewed and got reject by Google, but I'm a white male so I do think they actually rejected me because of my performance and not because of my other attributes.
Imagine you land a well-paid cushy job at one of the best employers in the world, with the explicit task of recruiting other members of your race to also enjoy that prestigious privilege to the exclusion of others (not to mention the social prestige you gain with that power), imagine being informed that you intimidate coworkers and blaming them, imagine being told that you're difficult to understand and becoming irate rather than considering improvement, imagine being put on performance improvement plans and having your generous pay reduced and managing to blame racism rather than even considering you may have some shortcomings, and imagine after they've put up with this behaviour for years before finally having enough, you go and unleash a highly damaging expletive-laden rant on social media. I can't.
I don't want to hear about 'white privilege' ever again.
> Before my role existed, Google had NEVER, and I mean fucking NEVER hired an HBCU student into a tech role-
_thats_ white privilege. Even if the number isn't correct, if google isn't even looking in these places, by virtue of going there and graduating even top of your class, you have little to no chance.
There's definitely two sides to this story, but that doesn't mean you should dismiss systemic issues.
On the other hand, the absence of any tech hires from HBCUs is a potentially verifiable fact that is deeply concerning.
Is there any way to confirm this assertion ? The other ones seems hard to investigate (although just as problematic if they are true).
If someone has a tick accent that I can't understand or uses too much of slang that I cannot interpret without thinking about it or if someone acts as if they are simply a puppeteer of a persona(like if they bring up their identity all the time as if everything is about this persona definition but without personality) I also get very intimidated because I don't know what to expect at my encounters. I may intend to have a quick chat about something technical and it may end up me trying to understand what I did wrong to upset this person.
It's not about races or communities or genders, some people are acting as if they try to get upset, they are fishing for a chance to bring up their agenda or make everything about themselves.
In cases where there's no stigma to confront this kind of people, you can fight back but when this person is from a community that is ready to make it a big deal, it's really intimidating to confront people that make everything about themselves or their persona.
From the way she describes her standing point, I got the impression that she would be one of the people that I would try to avoid.
So now you have to understand slang of about 10 different cultures because speaking correct English is apparently oppressive. Also, being polite and not aggressive is also racist to other cultures, but not really other cultures, just a vocal minority of one culture. It's pathetic and it makes it really hard to Just Get Shit Done.
Behavior is often determined by incentives. Today one of the quickest ways to get positive attention, affirmation, encouragement, etc is to be a victim. For real victims who would've been stigmatized in the past, like people with mental illness, this is great. However it also means everybody has a low-risk/high-reward incentive to portray themselves as victims in almost any scenario too.
It seems to me like the west doesn't have enough people to do key jobs and to they have decided that they'll solve this problem by importing skilled labor from abroad. To do that, workplaces must be changed to incorporate people from various backgrounds, hence, "diversity".
From the state perspective, there's also a need to employ the traditionally difficult to employ: people with various disabilities, socially unaccepted sexual identities, former convicts etc. So, the state works with the industries to try to make this happen. This would mean the state has less to worry about when unemployment rates go down and the industries get more available labor.
The black employment thing is a bit different but in a similar vein. Blacks are socially segregated and politically disenfranchised. Not to mention, the relations between blacks and whites have been worsened for political purposes. This meant it was easier for tech companies to hire talent from abroad than hire blacks. When Obama was elected, the industries decided to use him to fix this. Turns out blacks were not even studying tech. He did some work there to encourage blacks to study "coding" so that America would have to import fewer tech talent.
So, I believe that the entire "diversity" thing is a scam. The industry merely wants more people to be available for work. So, they work with politicians to teach people to pretend to "tolerate" others. "Political correctness" is just lying to people by hiding what you really think is correct. So, I say this as an outsider: if you want to succeed in their environment, don't fall for the diversity scam. There is no diversity, they simply don't like it. It makes them very uncomfortable. If you have to be there, dress white, talk white, try to fix your accent (Elsa speak is great), tell them what they want to hear. Never challenge their cultish behavior and dogmas. Never criticize Apple or question climate change.
If you want to speak your mind, go to anonymous forums and hide behind a username. You'll be heavily downvoted but that's fine.
someone really needs to bully this person a bit for his or her own good.
life hack: speak and write like an approximation of adult professional whenever you want to be taken seriously