Emails reveal extent of Google's toxic work culture

[Notional]

@FeralWombat sounds a lot like sweden.

[Energycore]

2 minutes ago, Kumaresh said:

@Energycore

https://www.scribd.com/document/368688363/James-Damore-vs-Google-Class-Action-Lawsuit

For your reference

Cool, I bet Leonard French will do his take on this eventually

[Sauron]

All right, I think I'm going to play devil's advocate here since the article itself seems pretty biased and I see a lot of witchhunting in the comments - overall personal thoughts at the end.

 

First of all, there is a big difference between writing extremist political statements in a private chat room and actively discriminating against a group - be it white people or what have you. Without evidence of toxic behaviour and active marginalization of certain employees it's hard to claim there is a "toxic work culture" at google. Secondly, the 100 pages of messages probably mostly include conversation from the same few dozens of people - to put this into perspective, Alphabet/Google give work to over 70000 employees. Even if all those people were, without a shadow of a doubt, guilty of discrimination and calls to violence, they would be a pretty small minority (and to be honest, I think the article only picked the ""best stuff"" for the sake of spectacle).

 

I think it's relevant to specifically address the dreaded "trial" comment; here it is:

Quote

"I am considering creating a public-inside-Google document of 'people who make diversity difficult'," she wrote.

"I am thinking of something like a Google doc that accepts comments, and which calls out those Googlers who repeatedly make public statements that are unsupportive of diversity, with links to those statements so that readers can decide for themselves.

"The list will be open to contributions from others, but I personally will be the judge of what is included and what is excluded. I will do my best to represent the individuals fairly, compassionately, and in context.

"I expect the list to start with just a handful of people, and if it ever grows to more than 0.5 per cent of Googlers then I will delete it as a failed idea. Things I'm still pondering: should inclusion on the list require something resembling a trial? Should people be removed after some period of time if they start behaving better?"

There is NOTHING in this comment about conservatives specifically (despite the article claiming there is) and the "trial" part is referred, mostly, to hearing the "accused"'s side of the story before calling them racist, which sounds like a better idea than "blacklisting" them without further investigation. The stated purpose of this list is simply to call out people who the author finds undesirable and, since she also indended to include links to everything she personally found objectionable so that readers can decide for themselves, I see nothing inherently wrong with that, even though I may disagree with the metrics or the way of presenting them. It's funny how some people are so ready to call out and insult "SJWs" and laugh at them for being "offended", then cry when someone calls them assholes in a google doc. A bit of self awareness can't hurt.

 

Another interesting comment is this one:

Quote

"If you subscribe to an ideology that, as a matter of fact, wants to kill people because they are different — and has, by the millions — then you deserve being punched in the face. Repeatedly."

Notice how it's specifically targeted towards "an ideology that [...] wants to kill people because they are different". One may disagree with the idea of punching anyone for any reason save perhaps immediate self defence (I do), but quite frankly claiming to be under attack because "they want to punch me for my genocidal ideals" is a little absurd... if the claim is that this person is advocating violence towards a group they perceive to represent that ideology but actually don't, then more proof than a 30 word message can offer will be required.

 

Finally, the last few "incriminating messages" in the article:

Quote

Elsewhere, Antonio D'Souza reposted a message from another board, praising the "mea culpa submission" from a fellow employee which said, "I (a white Googler), in an attempt to build rapport with a Black Noogler and demonstrate my lack of ignorance of Black History, ended up whitesplaining Black History to him ... thereby demonstrating my ignorance of Black History in the process.

"A few minutes later, feeling like a complete idiot, I went back to him and apologised for whitesplaining."

In another post to an internal message board called "poly-discuss", one employee asked for advice on "outing yourself as a poly" — apparently referring to "polyamory", or having more than one partner.

In response, a colleague said they usually say something "explicit" to the people they work with, such as, "I'm crashing at the office tonight because my wife is having her boyfriend over and I wanted to give them the house."

In this piece there is NO call to violence, NO calling out of anyone except the poster himself for the first one, nothing illegal and nothing aggressive towards anyone. Disagree with the ideas involved all you want (I do, once again) but there is nothing inherently bad or toxic about them.

 

Now, as for the person who sued Google over this - the difference between his aggressive message and these aggressive messages is that he posted it online and he explicitly targeted it at the whole company he was working for. If he can't see that, then I can't blame Google for firing him on the spot despite (allegedly) tolerating the message boards. Last but not least, for all we know there could be just as many pages of message board posts coming from the opposite side of the political spectrum that are being tolerated just like these. I'd be much more interested to see if the guy who got fired could provide a list of some sort of people who were fired for no other reason than being "conservatives" and actually prove it.

 

If you made it to the end of this freakin' essay, as a reward you get my final thoughts on the matter .

Before assuming either side is right we'll have to wait for the trial, as in any civilized society. I'm not very convinced by the suer's stance and "evidence", but if he is right in claiming there is racial bias at Google then something should be done about it. I strongly disagree with any calls to violence or riots, especially when they are based in racism or sexism, and I think everyone should be given the same opportunities in life whenever physically possible without collapsing society.

 

Since I don't want to fill this with more quotes, I'm going to mention everyone who wrote a comment that I believe I gave some answer to: @Anjelllo @RorzNZ @cj09beira @AresKrieger @Fooshi @2Buck @hey_yo_

[Sauron]

11 hours ago, Maxxtraxx said:

Google awarding monetary bonuses to employees for actively speaking against Damore

 

If you read the content of the e- mail, what was dubbed as "[Damore's memo]" actually reads "g/pc-harmful-discuss", which is NOT the memo but rather the discussion thread about it - at least from what I can tell. As for giving out bonuses to employees doing what is effectively PR for the company, I don't see how this is particularly outrageous... I'm sure there are plenty of companies rewarding employees for "spreading the message". Defending Google's official position is obviously beneficial to Google, it's only natural they would reward employees for taking time out of their day to do it.

[Mihle]

@FeralWombat If true that's shit.

 

But just saying, If you consider China as a hole overpopulated, I am just going to tell you that China have lover population density than lot of European countries, including Italy,  Switzerland, Luxemburg, Germany, UK and Belgium.

China does have a lot of people, but it's also huge in area.

The countries that is actually some of the most population dense is Bangladesh, Taiwan, Lebanon  and South Korea.

[johnukguy]

Gotta love these fake neo Nazi propaganda efforts.

[DrDerp]

Palms are sweaty just by reading comments here...

That’s a lotta politics!

[Jessop]

a few words that mean a lot and are overlooked by most  - forget color , forget race  - focus on the following words

Merit

Integrity

Honor

Accountability

Justice

.......etc........

Do not Judge - look with your soul and inner sense

This world is chaos - we are born into it with one thing only - our brain - our ability to adapt and survive relies on intelligence and the ability to adapt to adverse environmental conditions -

Physical strength is dead and gone aeons ago - our intelligence is what helps use move forward and survive -

Intelligence , creativity and inspiration enables mankind to push the boundaries - 

when your child is sick - the doctor that helps and usually cures / relieves pain etc is able to do this because of intelligent people learning and teaching throughout civilization and passing down knowledge. irrespective of color or race

EVERYONE is different - we cannot and will not all like and enjoy the same things - BUT - most of humanity wants the same things - Love , Health , Wealth , to be respected etc....

there have been many wars - most races have been enslaved -  - it's somehow forgotten that the Jews were slaves to the Egyptians , the Greeks were slaves to the Turks for hundreds of years - the list goes on and on - look back in History - Every race at one time or another suffered under some kind of oppression -

 

 

 

 

 

[Maxxtraxx]

3 hours ago, Energycore said:

Is there a place where I can go through these emails? I'd rather take this straight from the source instead of an outlet.

I provided a link in my first post to the 161 page lawsuit where the evidence is put forth in the form of emails, intercompany messages, ect.

[asus killer]

setting aside things like violence, isn't there free speech in the USA?

[Maxxtraxx]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

If you read the content of the e- mail, what was dubbed as "[Damore's memo]" actually reads "g/pc-harmful-discuss", which is NOT the memo but rather the discussion thread about it - at least from what I can tell. As for giving out bonuses to employees doing what is effectively PR for the company, I don't see how this is particularly outrageous... I'm sure there are plenty of companies rewarding employees for "spreading the message". Defending Google's official position is obviously beneficial to Google, it's only natural they would reward employees for taking time out of their day to do it.

The lawsuit proposed that the company is through the bonuses given actively promoting and encouraging  its employees to attack and discriminate what is a minority group within the company BECAUSE of that person's beliefs, political views, gender and skin color.

 

That absolutely is promotion of the Google agenda... BUT it is against the law... And horribly discriminatory if that is the case.

 

 

[Maxxtraxx]

1 minute ago, asus killer said:

setting aside things like violence, isn't there free speech in the USA?

Yes, there is, but right now it is growing more and more fashionable to silence voices that you disagree with via threats, voilence, shouting, censorship, ect. 

A certain popular extremist group in the US claims that an individual expressing a view that the group deems wrong should be silenced with physical violence because that group believes expressing that view is the same thing as physical violence.

[asus killer]

1 minute ago, Maxxtraxx said:

Yes, there is, but right now it is growing more and more fashionable to silence voices that you disagree with via threats, voilence, shouting, censorship, ect. 

A certain popular extremist group in the US claims that an individual expressing a view that the group deems wrong should be silenced with physical violence because that group believes expressing that view is the same thing as physical violence.

people are going crazy in the USA. Everything is an immense drama and everything is either black or white, there are only extremes.

[ravenshrike]

4 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

"Factually wrong" Umm no, even the guy who lead the studies (link 2) he based the memo off said he grossly misrepresented the study. Damore it's still basically a Layman pretending he understands scientific studies but only has very superficial understanding that's enough to push his political agenda.

I said a lot of the articles and videos about the memo were factually wrong. Like, oh, all of CNN's initial coverage with statements like him saying women are less suited to tech, or USA Today having the memo saying that women are less apt at technical issues. There are multitudes of other examples. Also note, from your own link, the one scientist who thinks he's wrong about how he used the studies explicitly states that one should be able to discuss the issue and didn't find the memo offensive.

[yian88]

google = leftist cesspool

hard to talk about this without going heavy into politics which as far as i remember is against this forums rules, so ill leave it be

[Sauron]

33 minutes ago, Maxxtraxx said:

The lawsuit proposed that the company is through the bonuses given actively promoting and encouraging  its employees to attack and discriminate what is a minority group within the company BECAUSE of that person's beliefs, political views, gender and skin color.

 

That absolutely is promotion of the Google agenda... BUT it is against the law... And horribly discriminatory if that is the case.

Not really... defending google's official point of view doesn't automatically mean attacking or discriminating. If it is against the law (I doubt it is) then the court will rule accordingly.

[Maxxtraxx]

4 hours ago, Misanthrope said:

"Factually wrong" Umm no, even the guy who lead the studies (link 2) he based the memo off said he grossly misrepresented the study. Damore it's still basically a Layman pretending he understands scientific studies but only has very superficial understanding that's enough to push his political agenda.

 

Honestly this is exactly what a lot of what I call "Pop Sociologists"* do as well but for the other side and arriving to unreasonable, unrealistic and baseless conclusion that studies just do not suggest whatsoever.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

*Pop Sociologist: Not an actual dedicated academic with experience and recognition in the field, just a sociology student, drop-out or otherwise someone with very superficial approach to the area than then talks authoritatively on the subject and often writes up scripts and such for Buzzfeed and other such sensationalist outlets that write on "Feminism" and "Intersectionality" and such

 

Whether damores conclusions and findings in his memo were correct or incorrect is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. In his memo he provided his own thoughts and opinions based off some data that he found for ways to improve diversity within the company.

 

As a result of him posting his memo in an open discussion forum he was fired by the company for expressing his thoughts and beliefs after being harassed and berated in a way that was seemingly approved of by Google because of his race his gender and his personal beliefs.

 

That is the issue at hand is whether or not Google actively discriminates against those minorities within the company who do not conform to  the company's own belief system.

 

 

[Maxxtraxx]

4 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Not really... defending google's official point of view doesn't automatically mean attacking or discriminating. If it is against the law (I doubt it is) then the court will rule accordingly.

It's not defending Googles own Viewpoint that's the problem. 

 

It's that damore is alleging that he was discriminated against and fired because of his viewpoints after being attacked and berated by the Google employees and that Google actively supported those employees in attacking him.

[Maxxtraxx]

4 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Not really... defending google's official point of view doesn't automatically mean attacking or discriminating. If it is against the law (I doubt it is) then the court will rule accordingly.

I would encourage you to read the article and pertinent sections of the lawsuit which aren't that hard to find.

 

And I think after reading the examples provided and evidence provided in the ways in which he was discriminated against you will find that it would be highly unacceptable within a company to act as such and for the company to promote as such.

[Evanair]

Last I checked, political idealology isn't a protected status. You can actively discriminate based on that bias at will and not violate US law.

 

I could be wrong, but I've not seen it in the law for protected status.

[Evanair]

1 hour ago, asus killer said:

setting aside things like violence, isn't there free speech in the USA?

Yes there is but people misunderstand.  Free speech is only protected my the government, it's not a criminal act.  However a business isn't a government and can, and do, enforce speech codes and can fire you for saying things they do not like.  You don't go to prison but you also won't be employed.

[Sauron]

26 minutes ago, Maxxtraxx said:

It's not defending Googles own Viewpoint that's the problem. 

 

It's that damore is alleging that he was discriminated against and fired because of his viewpoints after being attacked and berated by the Google employees and that Google actively supported those employees in attacking him.

Yes, he's alleging it, and that email does not prove his claims. All it does is show that Google rewards employees for doing PR work. The rest will have to be proven in court.

25 minutes ago, Maxxtraxx said:

I would encourage you to read the article and pertinent sections of the lawsuit which aren't that hard to find.

 

And I think after reading the examples provided and evidence provided in the ways in which he was discriminated against you will find that it would be highly unacceptable within a company to act as such and for the company to promote as such.

I read the article (although 90% of it were quotes from the title's document) and the parts of the lawsuit you posted, so far I was not convinced. I could go and read the whole thing but honestly, even in the off chance that it would change my mind and prove beyond doubt that Damore is right, I have no influence over this trial and what I think of it doesn't really matter, so I think I'll pass. Besides, Google could just come out and prove that everything he said is a lie - we just don't know yet as they haven't had a chance to defend themselves.

 

To be clear, if what he alleges (discrimination, hate, whatever) is true then I agree something should be done about it. I'm just not convinced he is anything more than a salty mysoginist crying "racism" to get out of the professional chasm he dug for himself. If I'm wrong and the judges agree with him, all the better.

37 minutes ago, Maxxtraxx said:

Whether damores conclusions and findings in his memo were correct or incorrect is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. In his memo he provided his own thoughts and opinions based off some data that he found for ways to improve diversity within the company.

 

As a result of him posting his memo in an open discussion forum he was fired by the company for expressing his thoughts and beliefs after being harassed and berated in a way that was seemingly approved of by Google because of his race his gender and his personal beliefs.

 

That is the issue at hand is whether or not Google actively discriminates against those minorities within the company who do not conform to  the company's own belief system.

The mistake was to post it publicly. You can't write an essay about your employer being a discriminatory company without proof and making incorrect scientific claims, put it online for everyone to see, and then expect them to just ignore it. If you tell your boss he's a jackass you'll get fired and rightfully so, even if it is your opinion. He can't put you in jail for it, but he can refuse to have you as part of his work force. I'm pretty sure the exact same would have happened if the opposite were the case (i.e. someone who isn't a white man complaining about discrimination and that *insert group* is being favoured despite their lower competence).

 

You can say and write whatever you want, but don't mistake freedom of speech for freedom from consequences. What you think in your private life is your own business but the instant you write about your employer they can take action.

[Jito463]

2 minutes ago, Evanair said:

Last I checked, political idealology isn't a protected status. You can actively discriminate based on that bias at will and not violate US law.

 

I could be wrong, but I've not seen it in the law for protected status.

Too many people conflate the first amendment with "freedom of speech".  While I agree that we should all be free to speak our minds, we also need to be ready to accept any consequences of doing so.  An employer is free to inhibit speech by employees as he/she sees fit, without threat of criminal prosecution.  Having said that, by doing so they could open themselves up to a civil suit.  Just because said employer won't go to jail, doesn't mean they can't be penalized for their actions.  The only thing the first amendment guards against is government prohibiting speech.

 

Not directed at you specifically, I was just using your post as a launching board for some myriad thoughts.

[Sauron]

8 minutes ago, Evanair said:

Last I checked, political idealology isn't a protected status. You can actively discriminate based on that bias at will and not violate US law.

 

I could be wrong, but I've not seen it in the law for protected status.

Threats are definitely illegal and so is active persecution (regardless of the motive) I believe, with that said if you don't like someone's political views I'm pretty sure you're free to not employ them.

[Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, Maxxtraxx said:

Whether damores conclusions and findings in his memo were correct or incorrect is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. In his memo he provided his own thoughts and opinions based off some data that he found for ways to improve diversity within the company.

 

Well apparently not to ravenshrike which is the person I was quoting and henceforth responding to. He said multiple reports were "factually wrong" when that wasn't the case: Damore really did write lots of misogynistic, right wing talking points on his memo. Someone disagreeing with what Damore say or interpreting it as an attack on women and their abilities is not reporting something that's 'Factually wrong' at all.

 

Quote

 

As a result of him posting his memo in an open discussion forum he was fired by the company for expressing his thoughts and beliefs after being harassed and berated in a way that was seemingly approved of by Google because of his race his gender and his personal beliefs.

 

That is the issue at hand is whether or not Google actively discriminates against those minorities within the company who do not conform to  the company's own belief system.

 

The part that some people have trouble accepting is one that you casually mention as if it didn't needed to even be discussed further: "because of his race his gender and his personal beliefs."

 

1) It wasn't "because of his race and gender" at all. You have 0 evidence to support said claim and the original post on this thread at best has vague conjecture about a possible, distant correlation between his race and his dismissal that still needs to be proven in court both in terms of veracity and context which is Google's right to defend said accusation.

 

2) His believes ceased to be "personal" the minute he himself widely distributed the memo for all employees to see. I might have personal believes outside of my workplace and I shouldn't be fired because of them. If I publicly and widely distribute said ideas to all of the company, then I am basically no longer talking about my personal believes as I am putting them forth for all of my co-workers and the company itself to evaluate.

 

At the very least companies frown upon using company property and time to discuss political believes and even if that wasn't the case (Might or might not be again, we haven't heard Google's side and probably won't if/until the court case) we can't say if others circulating similar memos suffered any kind of reprimands by Google.

 

Sorry but having rights as a worker doesn't means you have the right to use your work as a political platform: it just means you shouldn't be persecuted for believes you express outside of company time and company platforms but once you bring it indoors, you're no longer talking "personal believes" you're talking a fucking political agenda you're pushing on everybody which is what Damore did.