Has Google Lost Its Mojo?

CWmike writes "Google looks as if it's on top of the world right now, holding an ever-increasing lion's share of the search market. So why do I think it's lost its mojo? Let's start with the way it treats its employees, writes Preston Gralla. Another example: Google employees, such as Sergey Solyanik, have started deserting the company. And its share price is down double that of the Dow or Nasdaq since November 2007. Even if Google has lost its mojo, why should you care? It won't make your searches any less effective, will it? Nope. But Google has its eyes on bigger things than search, notably your IT department. It's looking to displace Microsoft with hosted services like Google Apps, Gmail and Google Docs. Solyanik warns that Google's engineers care more about the 'coolness' of a service than about the service's effectiveness." Of course Google employees version of being mistreated is often laughable, and quite a shock when they look for their massage therapist at wherever they end up next.

Comments

Yes.

[Zarf]

Google has lost some of it's Mojo. But the good news is that they still have plenty of Mo-Nay. They are also high on the "X does not suck as bad as Y" matrix.

Re:Yes.

[Ethanol-fueled]

The link on TFS which refers to this page describing "the way [Google] treats its employees" only details how Google raised the charge for in-house daycare by 75%.

Parents lose big when a company downsizes or restructures their benefits. This is an indirect form of age discrimination because older folks are more likely to have families.

A company I worked for in the past restructured their benefits by changing employees more for their health and dental insurance and "offset" the losses by giving every employee a flat pay raise but after some calculation I found that employees with no dependents benefited from a good raise and only slightly higher insurance payments while those with families(who insured their families, at least) suffered net losses.

Re:Yes.

[Otter]

This is an indirect form of age discrimination because older folks are more likely to have families.

Subsidized child care and similar benefits reward parents at the expense of other employees. It's hardly "age discrimination" to do less of it.

Re:Yes.

[larry bagina]

it seems like it's becoming a benefit that only older employees (ipo-millionaires) and executives (high salary, stock options) can enjoy. Sure, it's offered to everyone, but they're intentionally choosing a very expensive day-care program when a less expensive one was more than adequate. So people who would otherwise use it now go elsewhere (paying full price) while still subsidizing wealthier people who can afford it.

Re:Yes.

[mapsjanhere]

Well, the question is really one of ethics. If I get recruited with "we have the greatest child care in the world at X dollars", and a year later the X becomes X+1000, then I'd be thinking someone lied to me to the tune of $12,000 a year.
Quite obviously not many of Google's employees were using the service anyway (1% daycare spots based on the number of employees, that number should be around 10% realistically), and they still needed to heavily subsidize it. Someone can't do their math, what's bad for business in any case.

Re:Yes.

[Farmer Pete]

I can't believe you wouldn't ever, ever, ever, ever claim that a person with no dependents gets off better with a company's medical plan...People with zero dependents get screwed royally. In most companies, you have two or three payment tiers. 1 person, 2 people, 3 or more people. The cost increase from 1 to 2 doesn't even come close to covering the extra costs. The costs from 2 to 3 are the same. Don't forget to add in for if someone (gasp) has a large family. Do you have 5 kids? Guess what, you pay the same exact premium as someone with 1 kid. The no-dependents person will end up bearing a portion of the cost of other people's dependents.

I don't like the system, I understand why it has to be, but I will NOT stand and let someone try to make it look like people with no dependents are getting away with something. Even in your situation, the only difference is that the single people have been grossly overpaying for years and years, and now they are getting a slight reprieve from being over charged.

Re:Yes.

[rakslice]

You've hit the nail on the head. If Google's employees are typical of those at non-unionized tech companies, when interviewing for a job they are prepared to have to negotiate for pay and benefits, and even if their job offer comes with few benefits, if they accept the job, they will be prepared to accept benefits other than vacation time at that same level for the entire time they work at the company. But what they won't do is smile and nod if their employer wants to change the rules after the game has already started.

With that said, business needs are what they are. However, Google should at least consider offering a lower quality child care option at a lower price if parents would settle for that (as I assume the lion's share of the value of on-site child care is convenience.)

Re:Yes.

[NetSettler]

Subsidized child care and similar benefits reward parents at the expense of other employees.

Only if there is not a compensating benefit that rewards non-parents but is of no use to parents. It really depends a lot on how the benefit package is constructed.

The interesting metric is whether a business has policies that allow its employees to "grow up". If they do not, then eventually as people get older, they will be forced at some point to say that in order to merely accommodate the ordinary and anticipatable life events, they must go to a different company or face a pay cut because the benefits they used to like are now no longer benefits.

For example, why should an employee who has a family at home shopping and fixing food be penalized because of the availability of free food at work that surely must be paid for somehow. Google has an open cafeteria, and tons of free junk food in the hallways, which people who have a life do not need. But it has been said of Google (and I am trying to be neutral about expressing an opinion myself, only observing that it's a topic worthy of discussion) that it prefers employees who are willing to work long hours and sleep under their desks to employees who want to have families and lives outside of work. Now if this were true, you might not see it as age discrimination. And it might really not be. But it's a reasonable observation to make or question to ask, given that the set of people who don't mind this kind of lifestyle is probably unevenly distributed agewise.

So if Google is offering both the daycare and the cafeteria, then maybe it's balanced. But if it's giving up the daycare expenses to focus on cafeteria expenses, then maybe there are questions to ask. Just as one example for conversation--if I knew their benefit policy, maybe something else better would present itself.

In fact, I bet whether you think this is an age issue varies by age, suggesting at least the possibility that some people who thought it wasn't an age issue changed their mind with experience, as well as the possibility that some who are quite sure it's not will eventually come to decide they were wrong.

Google offers itself as an ethical company. Here's my definition of ethical: Ethical means you continue to ask yourself hard questions and to not quite be sure you're ethical. So people will evaluate the answer to these questions differently, but the day Google thinks the questions are inappropriate to ask is the day it's lost its ethics. Ethics are an exercise in continuous choice, and everything about intent. Once choice is sacrificed, you're at best coincidentally aligned with those whose outcomes are the same, but as the result of an actual thoughtful choice. If outcome without choice can be deemed ethical, then there are rocks that may be more ethical than some people...

Re:Yes.

[jellomizer]

Well as Google matures so do its employees. As they get older they find the Google culture no longer fits their needs. The projects get boring, working long hours on projects that may or may not give any fruit gets redundant and unappealing. Having to prove to the new Whippersnappers that that crazy way of doing things will not work just as they didn't work when you started working a decade ago. Things like code purity, open source, trying a new windows manager every week... start to see more trivial and has lost its spark or interest, you are happy to use a Mac, even if you are running windows your cool with that to. You focus on your job and doing a good job, but at the end of the day you want to go home with your family.
Over the years you got a lot better at your job you are 3 times more productive then those whippersnappers and when you were a whippersnapper, but the company culture reprimands you for leaving work on time. Younger managers come in straight out of business school trying to prove themselves by trying to change everything even what currently works, just because it worked for FedEx, or SAS.

Re:Yes.

[Original Replica]

Parents lose big when a company downsizes or restructures their benefits. This is an indirect form of age discrimination because older folks are more likely to have families.

Then by that logic it is a form of discrimination to have those benefits, like child care, that are unusable by employees who choose to not have children. But really it isn't discrimination at all in either case. For it to be discrimination the motivation would have to be centered around age, but really age is just a correlation. I realize that's it's popular to cry "it's discrimination" whenever you want the world to conform to your needs, but really the change is just about money. Sure it might cost a parent more money for daycare, but every dollar my employer spends on daycare is a loss to my stock value or equipment quality or potential for a raise. If anything the subsidizing of child care, family insurance, and other family-centric benefits is discrimination in favor of parents. So please, don't cry about discrimination when the favors done to you are scaled back. Add the difference in market value of the insurance package a family gets to your annual income and see if you still have a net loss vs the "no dependents" employees. You should come out even. The same job deserves the same annual salary + benefits total, anything else would be favoritism.

Re:Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has lost some of it's Mojo

Speaking as a Googler, "some" is an understatement. The best and brightest have been exiting Google at the earliest for months, leaving behind the political climbers, backbiters and the just plain incompetent. Now Google mainly runs on interns, everybody else is too "smart" to do the grunt work like coding, debugging, or much at all beyond getting face time. The reason for this is simple: narcissistic managers whose main talent is claiming credit for the work of their subordinates while punishing anyone who shows initiative, and thus possibly could get promoted. These days at Google, showing skill and dedication is a great way to get a bad review from your manager. Eric and friends seem blissfully unaware of the developing train wreck.

Re:Yes.

[Xaria]

A well thought-out comment.

Here's an example from the other side. My husband's work offers free alcoholic drinks (they have an entire fridge full) on Friday afternoons. The single workers often hang around on Friday night for games of table tennis and go through a heap of wine and beer. My husband has a wife and kids who need him at home, so he misses out. Do I say this is unfair, that $20 worth of alcohol is going to his workmates every week but not him? No! Because on the other hand, he has a boss who understands that when he has to leave to pick our kids up at daycare it's not negotiable, and he LEAVES. It balances out at the end. People who haven't had kids may say "but he has the OPTION of drinking" but I say that no, he doesn't. Or rather, he does in the same way that they have the OPTION of breeding, but choose not to.

Re:Yes.

[bnenning]

Google has an open cafeteria, and tons of free junk food in the hallways, which people who have a life do not need.

Gratuitous insult aside, employees with families still need to eat, and their spouses are probably not delivering meals to their offices. Free food is a far more egalitarian benefit than subsidized daycare.

But it's a reasonable observation to make or question to ask, given that the set of people who don't mind this kind of lifestyle is probably unevenly distributed agewise.

The set of IT workers in general is unevenly distributed agewise (and gender-wise). That doesn't make every tech company guilty of discrimination.

Re:Yes.

[Whitemice]

Companies aren't obligated to compensate workers who have to take on additional responsibilities to cover for the workers who chose to have children and then feel entitled.

Re:Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a fellow Googler, I feel compelled to give an alternate perspective.

Every day at work I'm given the opportunity to work with some of the most brilliant, passionate people in my industry solving problems no one has solved, at scales most can only dream of.

All of the managers that I've worked closely with (on up the chain*) are experts in their field, and are very protective of Google's egalitarian culture. If I wasn't prepared for promotion in one cycle, my manager was dedicated to giving me the resources I needed to be ready when the next one came around. Furthermore, a negative review from a manager is hardly damning since promotion is driven primarily by reviews from peers your own choosing. We're very fortunate to have nearly complete control over the promotion case we present. If your peers and manager don't support you for promotion, you're probably doing something wrong.

If you think executive management is overlooking some systemic rot within the company, your stock options (and mine) would thank you for bringing up such problems at the multitude of confidential forums provided to you in lieu public ones. I've found senior VPs within engineering (such as Alan) to be extremely responsive and down to earth. If that doesn't work, it's hard to be ignored when you take a mic at TGIF. If you really work at Google, you should know that the greatest fulcrum for change is the effort you're willing to expend. If you see a problem, fix it. After all, you have a vested interest in the success of the company.

I don't know that the few people leaving for "greener pastures" are a significant cause for alarm. The people that define Google's culture and are responsible for its success aren't here for the fringe benefits; they're here because they love doing what they do alongside smart people they can learn from, who fancy a cold beer and engaging conversation on the balcony (and maybe flying finger darts, or a game of pool) to break up a particularly challenging day of work.

[1] Did you know Eric co-wrote Lex?

~G

Re:Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as a Googler, "some" is an understatement. The best and brightest have been exiting Google at the earliest for months, leaving behind the political climbers, backbiters and the just plain incompetent.

If Jeff or Sanjay left, you might have a point. Otherwise it really comes across like you're either not in engineering or you don't know what you're talking about. It's true that the people who only wanted money or publicity have now left, along with some genuinely good engineers, but I can't say I really worry that much. Mostly, the "famous" ones next projects have demonstated just how awesome they were (Cuil anyone?). It's true that we have also lost some good people hired in recent years (~the last two), since stock compensation and the "startup feel" isn't what it used to be. There's only so much you can do about that though. That said, I have never worked with a better group of people, and I even have several coworkers who could retire tomorrow if they wanted to -- yet they choose to keep working. That says a lot to me.

That isn't to say things might not change. However the only exodus I've seen is the "startup people" who would leave any company after it is no longer a startup. Anyone who has ever worked in the SF Bay Area knows the type of person I'm talking about. A company does have to grow up, so you can't keep everyone.

Now Google mainly runs on interns, everybody else is too "smart" to do the grunt work like coding, debugging, or much at all beyond getting face time.

I don't think you work at Google, unless you are on some sort of crazy-ass side project that is going to die. We've never had more than 10% interns in our group, and it's the ye-olde-developers who debug most problems. The idea of interns debugging other's code is almost laughable given the company's devotion to TDD.

The reason for this is simple: narcissistic managers whose main talent is claiming credit for the work of their subordinates while punishing anyone who shows initiative, and thus possibly could get promoted. These days at Google, showing skill and dedication is a great way to get a bad review from your manager.

How does your manager cause you to get bad peer reviews (which is the #1 thing promotion committees will look at)? Maybe if you're getting a bad review from your manager *and* your co-workers, you might want to take a look in the mirror and read some of that feedback.

But you knew how promotions work, right?

Eric and friends seem blissfully unaware of the developing train wreck.

I feel sorry for your group/project/office or whatever, but your experience doesn't reflect any of the groups I've worked with any time recently. Maybe you should request a transfer or a change in managers.

But you know you could do that, right? Or maybe you didn't since you're making shit up.

Re:Yes.

[TheRaven64]

JWZ identified the turning point for Netscape, where the decline started, as the point at which they started hiring people who wanted to work there because it was a great place to work, rather than people who wanted to work there to make it a great place. I interviewed at Google about a year ago[1] and I made a point of asking my interviewers why they wanted to work at Google. All five told me that they were there because it was such a great place to work. Looking around, it was hard to disagree with this (it really did seem like a great place to work), but it was sad to see that this was the main reason people went there. I only got to talk to half a dozen people, so maybe I got a skewed perspective (although, I believe, the interview process is meant to select a good cross section of the workplace for each interviewee).

[1] I'd really recommend this to anyone, by the way. I didn't get in, but the mental work-out from the interview was incredible, and I spent much of the next two months implementing ideas I came up with during the interview (and got a journal paper out of one of them).

Re:Yes.

[corbettw]

Subsidized child care and similar benefits reward parents at the expense of other employees.

I'm sorry to have to point this out to you, but people with children are worth more to society than people without children. Perhaps you should read or watch Children of Men to get a grasp on how important having children really is. The greatest advancements in the arts and sciences will mean very little if there is no one around to appreciate them.

Re:Yes.

[swb]

So they can have a standard of living that isn't hand-to-mouth? It's really fucking hard to make ends meet at a level that doesn't feel suspiciously like poverty or society-dropout-cult-membership without both spouses working.

There's also both spouses who have paid dearly for post-secondary education and want to put it to use so that they add some meaning and value to their life outside of childcare and homemaking.

I know a lot of people, usually women but some men too, who would love a part-time job that would enable them to do a lot more childcare, but we have a labor market that is quite hostile to part-time employment at meaningful wages.

I don't know where the idea came from that having children was some bad economic choice made by self-absorbed assholes who want to suck up more resources at the expense of all the "smart" people who decided that children were a bad idea. But clearly its seen that way by many people, and the labor market largely reinforces this.

Mistreated? You want mistreated?

[BigBadBus]

Look at http://www.paullee.com/computers/index.php and follow the link in the second bullet point. The f*ckers are trying legal tricks to shut me up.

Re:Mistreated? You want mistreated?

[QuantumG]

That was a great write up man. BTW, you will find that this is the norm. You, as a software engineer, have to learn to manage your manager. You need to correct their expectations by giving them constant feedback. You need to say to them that you're having trouble and won't be achieving the timeline they have proscribed.. and if they casually don't proscribe a timeline, you have to make one up yourself.

Good luck in the future.

Re:Mistreated? You want mistreated?

[BigBadBus]

Thanks my friend. Two years on, and they're still treating me as a liar.

Re:Mistreated? You want mistreated?

[glittalogik]

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Media Darling

[bendodge]

Google has been a media darling for a long time. Now that they are finally out of the whiz-bang stage, you're ready to say they're going downhill? No, they've just gotten just about all of the internet that they can, and they are now waiting (and actively pushing) for mobile internet so they can do it all over again.

I'm personally all for trying to expand the economy itself instead of making a complete monopoly (and Google can't get much stronger without becoming a monopoly).

Now we all just get to sit and wait until wireless matures and Google takes over it. I'm speculating they'll start pushing platform-neutral stuff big-time after that (which may mean overt Linux pushing). They can't compete well with MS's enterprise dominance until they've dislodged Windows, but the wireless apple is much riper at the moment.

Re:Media Darling

[Anonymous Coward]

One wonders how Google helping China to field underage gymnasts by making sure their caches were all purged of copies of the real documents is going to play in the media.

Of course, the way the media fawned over the Chinese during the Olympics (Tibet?!?! Huh?), I doubt Google's going to take any heat about that.

Re:Media Darling

[brian1078]

One wonders how Google helping China to field underage gymnasts by making sure their caches were all purged of copies of the real documents is going to play in the media.

Anyone can request to have information removed from the google cache: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=61062

I'm not saying this is how it was removed, but it is possible that there was no explicit action taken by google.

Re:Media Darling

[lgw]

Google enterprise products aren't stopped by the "dominance" of Windows (in the enterprise?) as much as simply missing the mark. Enterprise products are expected to plug into existing mangement frameworks, API styles, etc. Doing some new cool thing isn't useful if it doesn't cleanly interoperate with the rest of the enterprise. Google doesn't seem to get this yet.

evil?

[philspear]

One of the "benefits" for working at google is they'll give you up to $5000 to adopt a kid.

Clearly google is paving their own way to cheap underage chinese laborers in a few years.

That's a bullshit story, Sergey!

[Fyz]

Sergey Solyanik just left because the colleagues never referred to him as the cool Sergey.

Re:That's a bullshit story, Sergey!

[omnipresentbob]

But.... Who the heck is he? I wikipedia'd him, and found nothing. Reading his blog, he seemed like the main reason he left was because Google was giving stuff away for free. And that annoyed him. Made him feel incompetent.

Migrating flock

[DeadDecoy]

This actually reminds me of a story of the wandering engineer. They'd work for google, then move to MS because they lack quality control. The engineer would then transfer to Yahoo because MS isn't doing anything interesting. They'd then move to Google and start the cycle anew because Yahoo wasn't on the cutting edge. Maybe the novelty of working at Google, or any other place for that matter, wears off once you've been there for quite a few months and you have the qualifications to change things up. Engineers can be a fickle lot where the interesting aspects of a project outweigh how much it pays.

Re:Migrating flock

[poot_rootbeer]

This actually reminds me of a story of the wandering engineer. They'd work for google, then move to MS because they lack quality control.

And because MS offered a 10% higher salary than they were making at Google.

The engineer would then transfer to Yahoo because MS isn't doing anything interesting.

And because Yahoo offered a 10% higher salary than they were making at MS.

They'd then move to Google and start the cycle anew because Yahoo wasn't on the cutting edge.

And because Google offered a 10% higher salary than they were making at Yahoo.

Re:Migrating flock

[Kethinov]

I've lived this cycle, having worked for Yahoo!, then Google, then back to Yahoo!, and now PayPal. Personally, I don't think my migrations and wanting to change things up every now and then particularly makes me fickle. I'd rather be engaged in my work than eternally loyal to my employer. Too much loyalty isn't a good thing anyway.

Re:Migrating flock

[Surt]

This guy needs to learn how to ask for a raise, apparently. Moving from job to job is such a hassle.

So all this article has to go on...

[Overly Critical Guy]

...is one guy who returned to Microsoft, the price of an employee service was raised, and the stock price is lower than it was at a point in the past.

I don't think that's enough to declare that Google has lost its mojo. Think of how many times Apple was "dying" according to the press. I think this author is just bored with Google and wants to cause a stir.

This guy is impressed....

[budword]

He's impressed with the rock solid stability of the.......office suit software ? Enterprise level word processor and spread sheets ? Setting the bar pretty low.....

Not to worry

[garett_spencley]

All they have to do is find Dr. Evil's secret volcano layer and get it back. They're frickin' Google. If they can't do it no one can.

Vacation...

[serviscope_minor]

Interesting. Looks like it starts at 15 days, and moves up to 25 days after 6 years. Their 6 year level has reached the mandatory minimum number of paid vacation days in many EU countries.

Is that mistreatment? If you've come from Eurpoe, then it may feel that way.

Re:Vacation...

[xaxa]

I wondered if the equivalent days in the UK (there are 8) were in addition to the 24 days (28 from next year) or included -- it turns out that they can be included in the mandatory 24 days. I don't know what standard practise is, but the last company I worked for gave 24 days + the 8 days anyway.

Re:Vacation...

[vidarh]

You may be right, but I've never seen anywhere where the mandatory vacation includes the public holidays.

In fact, even very low paid retail jobs don't generally do that. Large retail outfits like Marks and Spencers even have significantly more generous vacations than the norm. Not long ago their vacation days topped out at 35 days a year for long serving employees, but even after a year or two you'd be at 27. Don't know if that's changed recently.

short answer: no

[petes_PoV]

google is still an astounding success and will be until something better comes along. Think: years.

As for how it treats it's employees, maybe it's escaped your notice but we're in a recession. Expect to get *****ed on from a great height - you'll get your revenge when the next boom happens.

all about money

[Anonymous Coward]

From Sergey Solyanik:

"I need to know that the code is useful for others, and the only way to measure the usefulness is by the amount of money that the people are willing to part with to have access to my work.

Sorry open source fanatics, your world is not for me!"

"All of them are free, and it's anyone's guess how many people would actually pay, say $5 per month to use Gmail. For me, this really does make the project less interesting if people are not willing to pay for it."

bottomline is...

Rule 1: I should earn $$$ for a project to be interesting. And I don't know the semantic difference between "open source" and "free".

Rule 2: I should earn $$$ when I'm earning even more $$$...

Re:Wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them

Because, as we all know it is impossible to raise children if one of the parents doesn't stay at home.

Other than that, I'd say your argument is pretty solid. Employers aren't responsible for an employee's children.

infant care

[Lord Lode]

Quoting: "Parents who had been paying $1,425 a month for infant care would see their costs rise to nearly $2,500"... WTF? How much do people in the US earn? This amount of money per month, is what is almost the total monthly salary in Europe is for many people! How could you give that for just infant care?? Renting an apartment is like 400 euros per month, much cheaper than this infant care (even the so called cheap $1425 one)! How do you pay for rent, survival costs, and saving, if you have a baby and use that infant care?

Re:infant care

[roach2002]

In Mountain View, a 2 br, 1 ba would cost:

$400k for a condo in a crappy area
$650k for a townhouse
$800k for a standalone home.

Re:infant care

[Un pobre guey]

In Europe, you work to live. In America, we live to work.

There are good and bad aspects to both. Choose your poison.

Re:infant care

[rtechie]

As another poster has said, that's a GROSS underestimation.

In Mountain View you would really expect to pay between $650,000 to $850,000 for such a home, depending on the square footage and whether it was a standalone home or townhouse. You might be able to get something cheaper if it were literally falling down.

Re:infant care

[Milkweed73]

I would bet your off by about 20,000.00 a year for an engineer salary.

Either way, these are the numbers you have to start crunching when you live in the bay area.

Hmmmm:

2 engineers make 120,000.00 together

7,500.00 Net
-1,425.00 day care for 1 kid
-2,500.00 Mortgage
-1,000.00 food
- 500.00 heath insurance
- 250.00 car insurance
- 400.00 gas
- 400.00 misc utilities
- 350.00 misc baby items (diapers, clothes, etc)
_________
675.00 Net a month

Woohoo livin the high life in the bay area :) Of course with the increase in day care.....

Livin in the Bay Area = Priceless oops I mean Bankruptcy.

Re:infant care

[TheGratefulNet]

In Mountain View, a 2 br, 1 ba would cost:

funny ... I'm now doing an apartment/home search and we're starting out from mtn view and slowly moving 10, 20, 30mi away in our daily searches.

I saw this:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3192/2796221986_d76ae43a95.jpg

I believe that was a $2000/month place, or very close to that range. 2 or 3 br, 2flr, 2car garage, middle unit. but, well, I *guess* you could get all the 'internets' and free cable/phone service you wanted. not hard at all. maybe this was a hidden benefit?

THIS is what I'm seeing, or stuff close to this, in my apt search. the bay area is *tough* right now on rent prices since everyone is afraid to buy and the housing market is on the downward spiral. the fact that places with 'junky exposed wiring' (the house, inside, was close to the outside condition) are going for about $2k/mo in the bay area.

Food

[quarrel]

It's always all downhill once startups start cutting back on the food perks.

From the linked Valleywag article:

"
Google's food perks on the chopping block

There's no such thing as a free dinner. A worker at Google tells us the company is taking evening meals off the menu: "Google has drastically cut back their budget on the culinary program. How is it affecting campus? No more dinner. No more tea trolley. No more snack attack in the afternoon." The changes will be announced to Googlers on Monday. Workers at the Googleplex will remain amply fed, with free breakfast and lunch -- dinner will be reserved for geeks only -- but it's still a shocking cutback.

Last year, when we aired the mildest speculation about Google cutting back on free food, commenters were outraged. Google has long milked its cafeterias for their publicity value; company executives have crowed about the company's resistance to recessions and its commitment to coddling its employees. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin even promised shareholders they'd add perks, rather than cut them.

In 2004, they wrote:

        We provide many unusual benefits for our employees, including meals free of charge ... We are careful to consider the long term advantages to the company of these benefits. Expect us to add benefits rather than pare them down over time. We believe it is easy to be penny wise and pound foolish with respect to benefits that can save employees considerable time and improve their health and productivity.

What went wrong? ...
"

--Q

Re:Food

[nate nice]

"What went wrong? ..."

Share holders are penny wise and pound foolish. It isn't about the longterm investment but the quarterly or annual review. Eventually, when the stock starts to lose value, you simply have to make changes (drop operating costs) to make revenues reflect a larger profit.

The good news is most companies just fire a bunch of people. Google just happens to be taking away free dinner.

Re:Food

[BlueBoxSW.com]

Dinner for Geeks only? For once it pays to be in that population.

The real problem is Click Fraud. One of these days their advertising program is going to have to cut out click fraud, and their profits will drop by 75%.

Re:Food

[blamanj]

They've already posted a correction. Google is still feeding their employees.

http://valleywag.com/5041464/dinner-saved-for-googles-geeks

I can pinpoint the exact day

[jgarra23]

When they bought that stupid 767 jet.

Do no evil? Is it only polluting when someone from the middle class does it or do all these environmental gripes apply to rich people too?

How about donating 10% of what B. Gates does to charity Goog? Do no evil?

Re:I can pinpoint the exact day

[Danzigism]

google.org is your answer. but there isn't one person at Google that is worth as much as Bill Gates is. yes they are a large company that makes a lot of money, particularly more than Microsoft, but the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is what raises and donates money. As individuals I should add. Respectfully. MS as a whole doesn't do much donating besides charging less for their licensing in 3rd world countries. google has given the world free access to loads of information and tools. their profit pays for their massive amounts of employees. we're comparing apples to oranges here. but i understand and agree with you to a certain degree. but to say they aren't sticking to their motto is just a little preposterous.

Re:I can pinpoint the exact day

[Oswald]

For what it's worth, Microsoft makes more in a good quarter than Google makes in a year. I can't tell if that affects your point because I couldn't actually figure out what that was.

What I'd like Google to do

[bogaboga]

While I understand that Google must increase shareholder value at all cost, I would like to see Google do the following:

Respond to Yahoo Mail's new web mail's interface. I find Yahoo Mail's scrolling calender events found at the bottom while composing email really sweet. The whole [new] interface is quite impressive.

Google should put more efforts into getting KDE 4.1 up to "standards". Right now, KDE 4.1 really needs lots of work. The Summer of Code efforts leave the situation still wanting.

Get GMail out of beta. Heck, it's been over 2 years!

Google should walk the walk...that is make ODF documents, .ogg streams searcheable from www.google.com.

What do you think?

Re:Wait a minute

[BitterOldGUy]

such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them

Because, as we all know it is impossible to raise children if one of the parents doesn't stay at home.

Other than that, I'd say your argument is pretty solid. Employers aren't responsible for an employee's children.

Yeah, technically all of you are right. What has been found is that having childcare greatly reduces the stress of workers: they don't have to worry about working late, they can visit their kid on lunch breaks if the daycare is on site, company care is just one trip, it's usually cheaper, etc...

Having company sponsored childcare doesn't mean other employees are getting paid less, is just means the stockholders are not seeing as big of a profit as they could have. If Google really had to pay less because of childcare then they wouldn't be able to get anyone good, especially the childless - they'd all go to higher paying companies, wouldn't they?

As for me, I like in house childcare because you don't get the BS (most of the time) of folks with kids having to run home every time their kid is sick; which makes my life less stressful because then I don't have to make up for them.

Why pick on one benefit?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

All these benefits are just there to attract and retain staff. It is ridiculous to pick on just one or two because they don't apply to you.

What about their laundry service? Why should they provide that? What about the people who have their own washers at home?

What about the car servicing thing? What about the people that don't have cars?

What about the bus service with Wifi? What about people who live close and don't need the bus?

By your logic all these are discrimination against people who don't need these services.

Normal Evolution of a Publicly-Traded Company

[darrylo]

I don't understand the fuss. Like it or not, this seems to be the normal evolution of any "startup company" that becomes a publicly-traded company. Often, when any type of economic difficulties hit, benefits can be lost or reduced, and -- surprise, surprise -- they don't often come back. One big issue is that the investors have, of course, a lot of control, and investors want profit (think Carl Icahn, people). Management doesn't look good if they can't deliver sufficient profit, and so there's incentive to not increase benefits.

I'm not even going to touch the google services issue. Let's just say that some google services appear to be stagnating (minor tweaks don't cut it), and google is opening itself up to a competitor leapfrogging them. (Yeah, with Yahoo in not-so-good shape, Microsoft is probably the only company that could do that .... Bleah.)

Re:Google will lose all of it's Mojo

[clem]

Actually, since the machines are incapable of generating their own mojo, we'll all be enslaved in a virtual reality as our mojo is harvested from us.

Re:Wait a minute

[QuantumG]

If they're quiet and polite, then yes, I have no problem with them being in the office. If they're running around and yelling and, ya know, being children then that is not appropriate to an office setting.. people are trying to work.

As for spending time in the office.. no.. I'm not a big fan. I don't expect people to stay late just because everyone else is. But, in modern software engineering, its a team effort. If someone goes home because they need to pick up their kids or whatever, then either someone else is going to have to do their work - and that means it won't get done to the same level of quality - or it means that everyone will be stalled until that person is available again to work. I believe it is a failure of management to require people to work late but, frankly, it does happen and if people are not available to work when it does, then it happens more and more.

Re:Wait a minute

[rtechie]

Why in blazes should people who don't have kids, or who responsibly make arrangements for them to be cared for (such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them), have to pay in the form of a lower salary for yours?

Because life isn't fair.

Because our society has determined that providing child care to working mothers benefits society as a whole and Google is simply conforming to social pressure.

Because Google wishes to attract working mothers as employees and are offering child care as an incentive. Young single workers are attracted by Google's "coolness" and don't need additional incentives.

BTW, Using child care provided by your employer is "make[ing] arrangements for [children] to be cared for".

Re:Wait a minute

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Why in blazes should people who don't have kids, or who responsibly make arrangements for them to be cared for ... have to pay in the form of a lower salary for yours?

Yeah! And while we're at it, why should I have to pay taxes that go to old, sick and young people I don't even know! It's unjust!

Re:Wait a minute

[AmberBlackCat]

I think the problem is they started out by offering these services and changed things later. Kind of a bait-and-switch.

yeah baby

[heptapod]

> At a T.G.I.F. in June, the Google co-founder Sergey Brin
> said he had no sympathy for the parents, and that he was
> tired of "Googlers" who felt entitled to perks like
> "bottled water and M&Ms,"

> a number of Googlers have left recently to join start-ups,
> hotter companies like Facebook -- and even Microsoft.

GET THIS MAN A CHAIR TO THROW, STAT!!!

When you're on the top of the hill...

[QuietLagoon]

... the only direction is down.

What's wrong with charging for day care?

[Jane Q. Public]

Parents who expect to get day care for their kids as a free ride really piss me off. Why should the childless pay for somebody else's kids, so that the parents can have a cushy job?

I realize this is an unpopular view with some, but if you can't afford to have kids (and raise them, and school them) then you shouldn't be having kids. And if I worked at Google, I would be damned if I would want to pay for YOUR kids, so you can have a job at Google. That is not the way life works.

What ever happened to those particular values of the 50s, when one parent would say to the other, "Well, Johnny is 3 now, and you just got a raise... maybe we can afford to have another kid!"

I am with Sergey... I am not very sympathetic. They want the very best day care -- to the tune of $37,000 a year! -- then they can pay for it.

Day care is NOT like public education, in which everybody has a stake. It is the duty of the parents to care for their kids until they get to school age. If they cannot, they should put the kids up for adoption. It is not ethical to expect the public (or their co-workers) to subsidize their children.

Re:What's wrong with charging for day care?

[Eli Gottlieb]

It is not ethical to expect the public (or their co-workers) to subsidize their children.

18 years from now, do you want there to be a civilization, or not?

Re:What's wrong with charging for day care?

[CityZen]

Perhaps one of us has missed the point. The article says that Google had started out with good daycare that people could afford. Then they changed that to the very best daycare that money could buy, at prices that only the very rich could afford. The good daycare was no longer an option, but probably most people still wanted that option.

When a company stops considering what the common employee wants and only considers what the richest executives want, then you might also wonder how long they will remain in touch with what their common customer wants.

Re:What's wrong with charging for day care?

[Alascom]

>I am with Sergey... I am not very sympathetic. They want the very best day care -- to the tune of $37,000 a year! -- then they can pay for it.

"They", being Googlers, do not want they very best daycare at $37,000/year. That was some recent Ivy league MBA graduate, newly into management that organized that catastrophe, not the employees. Googlers would be very happy with 'decent' daycare at a reasonable rate.

I do agree with Sergey that an ill-conceived sense of 'entitlement' exists, I have complained about it growing steadily over the past 4 year and its steadily getting worse. Its not enough to have bottled water, some employees demand a particular brand, 'Smart Water'. WTF. Google even tried to limit the bottled water usage by providing filtered water dispenser and giving out cool reusable bottles, but the complaints persist to this day.

Re:Wait a minute

[the_B0fh]

Because you live in an evil socialistic communist state of course!

Re:Wait a minute

[Internalist]

[...] or who responsibly make arrangements for them to be cared for (such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them)

Because having Mom stay at home is the "responsible" thing to do? So the choice for women is motherhood XOR employment? I won't deny that having someone at home fulltime is the optimal situation (definitely not always possible), but maybe *Dad* could stay home...?

Re:Wait a minute

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Seriously? "Women should abandon their careers to beome housewives" gets modded +5? WTF is wrong with this website?

If you really need an answer to your stupid rhetorical question:

1. The vast majority of women in the US have little interest in permanently abandoning their careers.

2. Even if they wanted to, a lot of households NEED two incomes to make ends meet.

3. On-site daycare is a good way to attract employees, because it provides a benefit (having your kids in the same building) that is worth a lot more to the employees than it costs to the company.

4. If you lure those employees in with this benefit, thus potentially drawing them away from another job with a better salary, and then ditch the benefit, you're screwing them. I dunno if it's "age discrimination," but it's at least somewhat a dick move.

Re:Wait a minute

[againjj]

If they're running around and yelling and, ya know, being children

You have an odd idea what "being children" means.

As far as the rest, it sounds like we agree that people not being team players is bad, and sometimes management does not properly handle this. However, many people come into a job with constraints (not just family -- how about someone on dialysis?), and sometimes those constraints are not negotiable. If those constraints are not appropriately discussed beforehand, then that is a failure of another kind. If someone is going home to pick up kids frequently, then that needs to be taken into account to prevent barriers to progress. I do not agree that the consequence must be that someone else has to do the work or others will be stalled -- people leave for home and come into work every day at different times and things manage to work just fine. But, sometimes constraints impact work; children are not a special case. Flexibility is necessary for a good work environment. However, I do agree with what seems implied in your statements -- people taking advantage of a situation for selfish gain is generally detrimental to team health.

Re:Wait a minute

[coleopterana]

Pardon me, but I would be very surprised if Google, unlike the vast majority of all daycare centers (daycare, mind, not pre-k or kindergarten) allowed sick and potentially contagious children. The better daycares I've had experience with will insist that you come and get your child if they have made it in with such an illness. Any illness, no matter how minor it might seem, spreads so quickly amongst kids of that age, especially in close proximity. Plus, though I really don't know if it's a stated or valid reason, I imagine that allowing visibly ill children to remain at the daycare presents some degree of liability that would rather be avoided. But I do think you are right about in-house daycare being a great deal more efficient, especially for a company of sufficient size, especially in terms of worker-parent efficiency.

Re:Wait a minute

[pyite]

Yeah! And while we're at it, why should I have to pay taxes that go to old, sick and young people I don't even know! It's unjust!

Even though you're being sarcastic, I agree with you. Why should I have to involuntarily pay for things other people take advantage of and I don't? E.g. welfare, medicare, social security, and the list goes on and on. I pay way more into the system than I get back.

Higher salary? Not bloody likely

[Wee]

You think Google would offer a higher salary? Not if your just a normal engineer guy. They'll give you what they want to give you, and you better be grateful you're getting the offer in the first place, buddy.

I made probably about 20-25% less than my similarly-employed friends. Google likes to say that it compensates in other ways. I calculated that the free food alone was worth about $8000 per year to me. The yearly bonuses were beyond generous. I negotiated a good stock grant when I was hired. But the actual pay pretty much sucks, and they're cutting back in all sorts of ways. I saw it happening starting in late 2006, and it kept on rolling. They'll cut back on perks and then try to convince everyone they have the best thing going regardless, especially with regards to recruiting (keep pushing that 20% project myth, guys...). A certain TGIF is a good example (TGIF is a big gathering in Charlie's Cafe every Friday at 4:30, where Larry and/or Sergey and/or Eric talk about company issues and take questions).

During the QA portion, a guy got up and asked about our health care plan. Apparently, it wasn't as good as Microsoft's, yet in a then-recent magazine article, Eric said that we had the best benefits in the world and was really talking up the perks - even as they were routinely being scaled back. So this guy was comparing notes with his MS buddy and our health plan wasn't all that great (the dental in particular was worse than some government jobs I've had). Eric said he'd look at it and get back to us. (One of the things I really liked about working there was that sort of transparency and openness.)

Couple weeks later, same guy gets up to ask about what they found out. Eric says they did the numbers, and it was going to cost a few 10s of millions more per year to implement a comparable health plan. So, no dice. The crowd generally grumbled, and Eric was quick to pipe up with "But just think, by working here, you get to change the world!"

Was shortly after that I gave serious thought about examining my options. I'm not sure if/how that influenced my decision to leave, but some kool-aid you should never drink.

No, the only way to get more money at Google is to work 80 hours a week or sleep with someone important. Leaving and coming back won't do it, unless you're a high-flier and they're trying to headhunt you back for some particular reason.

-B

Re:Higher salary? Not bloody likely

[chromatic]

"But just think, by working here, you get to change the world!"

The proper response is "Do you want to put ads on everything for the rest of your life, or do you want to change the world?"

Re:Wait a minute

[shellbeach]

Umm.. I work for a company where everyone is salaried and "at will". My employer can require us to do anything they like because they can let us go without notice and without reason. In the real world (which is where I work) people get whatever conditions they are willing to put up with, and people who don't "play the game" get shown the door.

Out of interest, is there any reason why you're staying with them? That sounds like utterly horrible working conditions to me, and the implications from your previous posts is that having a family/partner/life is frowned upon and discouraged.

At the very least, I hope you're being paid a sh*t load of money to compensate ...

Not even close

[Wee]

I just sold my 1500 square foot, 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath house (on a spacious 5500 square foot lot) in Silicon Valley for $875,000. I bought it for $750,000, and had to spend close to $100,000 in repairs and updates over the last 4 years. I priced it to sell, and it was only on the market for 6 days. I probably could have held out for more, but I was done and wanted out of CA for family reasons in my home state.

When I forst got to California and told people what I bought, and for what, they had one of two reactions:

1. You got a good deal!

2. How much repair does it need?

You could tell who had live in the Bay Area by which they had.

-B

Re:Wait a minute

[QuantumG]

Umm.. no dude. The company is a-ok with people running off to pick up their kids and so am I. The problem is people who saying "I have to pick up my kids" even though they have been given weeks notice that they are going to have work late on night X. They use their kids as an excuse to break their agreement that they will work whatever hours are necessary to get the job done.

And, frankly, I'm speaking in the past tense because I hardly ever go to the office these days.

Re:Wait a minute

[story645]

5. Some women just aren't cut out to be stay at home moms

I've done stints as a nanny and day care assistant so I guess I like kids, but I'd lose it if I had to stay home with my potential rugrats full time. It takes a lot of energy and skill and a personality that can handle it, and some mothers and children would be far better off if the mom worked and her kids were in day care. (Or if the dad stayed home, but of course the op didn't mention that.)

I'm just looking at the prices though and thinking google's getting ripped off. The NYT article mentioned that the average cost is a fraction of what google is paying, so if the company wanted to they could easily switch to someone else and not lose much (if anything) in competency.

Re:Wait a minute

[Naughty Bob]

All correct blahplusplus. The term is corporate responsibility.

It's a cliche, but children are the future. Call them tax-sucking, or whatever you like. They'll be paying for you ass to get wiped in 50 years time.

Re:Wait a minute

[That's Unpossible!]

Having company sponsored childcare doesn't mean other employees are getting paid less, is just means the stockholders are not seeing as big of a profit as they could have.

Maybe in a vacuum. In reality, if a company is making less profit:

- They pay less dividends to shareholders (as you mentioned)

- They cut wages (perhaps not across the board, which is the only thing you seem to have considered)

- They cut the number of jobs they have available (so maybe the wages don't go down, but the openings do)

- They increase the cost of goods or services they sell

- They decrease the non-wage benefits to employees

- Their stock price takes a hit and the company loses the ability to make business deals, their employees that hold options tend not to make out well, it hurts morale, etc.

Google is already old news just ask the users.

[StrangerAtRandom]

Yes Google is on the way down Just ask several hundred thousand users who google used as gunia pigs for a "new improved" iGoogle home page. Which left users wondering why google did not leave a Opt-out of the experiment for their users who did not wish to participate. http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Web_Search_Help/topics Then there is the fact that the experiment has been on going for close to two months, and the employees at Google seem not to be reading the surveys that we were supposed to fill out. As 99% of users are asking WHY google forced this upon them and ignoring the requests asking for a link to UN-DO what Google has done to their home pages. Check it out you could be next..

Re:Wait a minute

[Snaller]

"Employers aren't responsible for an employee's children."

They can be selfish assholes, but then people chose another place to work and they close. Assuming you are skilled labor - if you are without education you are fucked.

Yes, I do know what it really means. Thanks.

[Minwee]

I had heard that Google had some pretty comprehensive benefits, designed to ease the transition from Mom's basement to corporate life, but this is just silly.

According to their benefits page, Google offers not only free lunches, massages and car washes, but also "AD&D insurance".

Because when your eleventh level cleric gets killed by a lich, you really need that coverage to help you deal with the loss.

Re:Wait a minute

[Anonymous Coward]

What has been found is that having childcare greatly reduces the stress of workers: they don't have to worry about working late, they can visit their kid on lunch breaks if the daycare is on site, company care is just one trip, it's usually cheaper, etc...

Having an in-house hooker would greatly reduce my stress level. I wouldn't have to worry about getting laid, I could get a quickie on lunch breaks if it's onsite, it would be cheaper, etc. So does that mean my company should pay for on-site hookers, and either lower the salaries of non-hooker-partaking employees, or lower their profits?

Re:Wait a minute

[Geno Z Heinlein]

Why in blazes should people who don't have kids, or who responsibly make arrangements for them to be cared for... have to pay in the form of a lower salary for yours?

You think you don't benefit from civilization? From law, order, a structured society? From the strong caring for the weak? Compassion, sympathy, friendship, co-operation? An educational system? Hospitals, doctors, nurses? The elimination of smallpox? The defeat of people who were gassing Jews? Protection from discrimination against your idiosyncrasies? The remission of the Law of the Jungle? The spare time to do something other than digging dirt for mere subsistence? The technology and luxury for you to post to Slashdot instead of being out hunting and gathering tonight's meal?

Society is a complex web of interdependent relationships and compromises from which you too benefit.

That's why.

What? What?

[east coast]

It's looking to displace Microsoft with hosted services like Google Apps, Gmail and Google Docs.

You know, I hate to tell people this but most people really don't have a hard-on to see MS die. For the most part, in the professional world, people are going to use what works best in their environment regardless of branding or cost (within reasonable limits of course). It's pretty poor when you support "the other guy" because you hate someone else so much that you simply can not stand to see them succeed. In real life when you put that attitude into action you'll find that you waste a lot of good time and money on trying to sink the other guys ship when you could have done it by improving yourself and not only defeat them but also come off with a better product. What's the saying? There's no revenge as sweet as success? Spending resources to beat on someone else is counter productive and, frankly, petty.

Life and AD&D Insurance?

[macraig]

From the Google employee benefits page:

- Life and AD&D Insurance

Hey, does this mean, if I croak from playing too much AD&D and the resulting malnutrition and poor hygiene, that they'll pay my family a big fat payout to enshrine me and my platinum-plated D-10 dice?

Re:Life and AD&D Insurance?

[markov_chain]

It means if your level 10 cleric dies, you get to start your new campaign with 1 million gold coins.

On company-supplied child care

[DesScorp]

Why in blazes should people who don't have kids, or who responsibly make arrangements for them to be cared for (such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them), have to pay in the form of a lower salary for yours?

And a reduction in this silly benefit that you shouldn't have in the first place is age discrimination against you?

My wife is a stay at home mom. We made the decision to forgo a second income for the benefits of actually raising our kids at home, at least at very young ages. We never wanted to be one of those couples that had a child, and then had it in some form of third-party care two months later for career's sake. I very much sympathize with what you're arguing.

However, this is the Bay Area we're talking about, a place that's become notorious for being both child-unfriendly, and a mecca for young, single, childless workers with high skill. In that kind of atmosphere, a top company wanting top talent should consider on-site childcare as a perk if they want to keep these studs past age 30 or so. Sooner or later, nature calls, and most of them marry and start families. Google, for all its fame in supplying wild perks, is actually wise in supplying this one. They don't have to, but they have been smart in doing so. Top companies supply top perks if they want to stay top companies. You'll never see Goldman Sachs, Mercedes Benz, or Harvard cheaping out on their benefits.

That said, if there's any truth to the quote the NY Times attributes to Sergey Brin ("no sympathy for the parents, and that he was tired of Googlers who felt entitled to perks like bottled water and M&Ms), then it sounds like something is indeed turning sour at Google. It seems like every hot company that skyrockets eventually has to come back to Earth hard. If this is indeed happening at Google, perks will soon be the least of their problems.

Re:Yes, I do know what it really means. Thanks.

[worthawholebean]

There's free breakfast and (I think) dinner. I spent a few days at the Googleplex last month, and there is free food everywhere as well as ping pong tables, pinball machines, etc. At night they often hold meetings of area interest groups. There are many, many other benefits.

Re:Wait a minute

[CheeseTroll]

I pay way more into the system than I get back.

...for now.

This is it??

[mccabem]

A disgruntled employee and stock price? Tell me again how stock price is correlated with performance? Ditto for disgruntled employee?

I'm not arguing that Google hasn't turned evil/lost its mojo/whatever - I'm willing to consider it. But are you serious these are the "arguments agaist"???

And for the last time: Benefits are a luxury. Your pay is your pay. Duh...don't let em sell you the sizzle!

Heh...on that note I'm not mad I RTFA'd, but I will say they poured more thought into the headline than the article. Sizzle in deed.

-Matt

Housewives

[DesScorp]

"Seriously? "Women should abandon their careers to beome housewives" gets modded +5? WTF is wrong with this website?"

Well, obviously we'll have to do something about that "differing opinions" stuff here. Can't have any of that. Thanks for pointing it out; the management will take care of it.

And now a question for you; what do you think about the legions of women that have decided that, well, yes they'd prefer to give up their careers because they consider raising their children job Numero Uno? Since we've been 3 decades into the sexual revolution now, many women have decided that they can't have it all, at least not in any meaningful sense. Is there something wrong with them?

Re:Wait a minute

[hedwards]

That is indeed correct. The birth rate for a geographic area tends to move inversely to the rate of development, wealth accumulation and life expectancy increases.

Meaning that nations like India which pretty much requires parents to have many offspring to support them in old age will grow rapidly. Nations like Japan and Germany, which are much more affluent and are not needing children specifically to support them tend to not reproduce enough.

Re:Wait a minute

[kd5zex]

5. Some women just aren't cut out to be stay at home moms

I consider this an excuse and a cop-out, sure being a STHM is hard work but requiring special skills and personality? Please. Working is the easy way out. The families I know where the mom works because she is not "cut out" to be a stay at home mom results in very little profit or even a net loss and is generally in a menial job.
FWIW disclaimer: I am not sexist and have offer to stay at home with the children regularly.

Re:Wait a minute

[blackicye]

2. Even if they wanted to, a lot of households NEED two incomes to make ends meet.

I'm sure what you meant was a lot of households NEED two incomes to maintain their HIGHER standards of living.

Btw, its been this way since the dawn of time when Urgg or Blaggah had more children cramming up their cave they were faced with a few difficult decisions, namely hunt and gather more, eat less, or well..infanticide.

Depending on their circumstances and their environment this was difficult to varying degrees.

At least we no longer have to resort to infanticide with birth control, family planning and more education, what's the excuse for having a family larger than you can afford to feed in the USA?

Having Children is a conscious choice and responsibility for the majority in this day and age, one you should not enter lightly into without being prepared to make sacrifices financially, temporally, in your career or otherwise.

Yes I do know I am making gross generalizations, but am not doing so with the express intent of trolling. I'm just trying to illustrate a point of view.

I don't think the human race is in any danger of extinction at present, and in fact we could probably do with everyone taking it easy for the next millennium or three.

Re:Wait a minute

[John Jamieson]

2. Even if they wanted to, a lot of households NEED two incomes to make ends meet.

Ahh, we are in "America", land of needless consumption.
The VAST majority of my coworkers who think/thought they NEEDED a second income, really did not. They CHOOSE the lifestyle.

I am not criticizing the choice, it is not my business, BUT, We really need to learn the difference between the words NEED and WANT.

Full disclosure, my wife has "halted" her career to raise our kids.

Re:Higher salary? Not bloody likely

[Wee]

We were allowed to bring a guest twice a month. I did that more often than not. And I ate breakfast and lunch virtually every day, plus snacks and drinks throughout the day. The SmartWaters they had are like a buck each. The Naked Juice in the lobby fridges are $3-$4. I ate dinner there a couple/three times a week. They brought in food on weekends as well.

Sometimes it actually was lobster (though more likely crab and/or shrimp on Seafood Friday's at Charlie's). Sometimes a weird meat cut I'd never heard of. I had squab one time. Sometimes it was a celebrity guest chef. Bought elsewhere, it'd probably work out to more than $8K. They served very good food. I ate at home toward the end of my stay there, but it's a conscious choice you have to make: Go home and cook, or stay a little late and eat there. Traffic was better past 8pm anyway, so the lazy choice was usually taken.

And I only weigh 190, same as when I started work there. :-)

-B

turnover? hire me?

[gelfling]

I'll work for them. Tomorrow. Contact me Google.

Re:Wait a minute

[syousef]

Why in blazes should people who don't have kids, or who responsibly make arrangements for them to be cared for (such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them), have to pay in the form of a lower salary for yours?

Because the kids that aren't raised properly are the kids that grow up to teenagers who would knife you in the chest for $5.

Why should you pay for roads? Or health care? Or emergency services? Or education? Because without these things society turns to shite. Because you indirectly use them even if you think you don't (Try living in a place without roads)

It's called living as part of a community. Any community that isn't friendly to parenthood by definition will die out.

Little boys in a mans world

[twostix]

Sorry, to all you childless bachelors out there, but my loyalty lies 110% to my son and family not to you or anybody else outside my family, I already have precious little time with him as is, I don't care if you or management or *anyone else* thinks I'm a team player or not, truly. I do my contracted work, take my pay then I'm outta there.

It does go both ways as well. People without kids bitch that people with kids leave when their child is sick (you know, to be *parents*) or whatever, but then people without kids want to work their lives away, then expect us to as well? Sorry if your to spineless to stand up to your boss that's YOUR problem, no one elses. Otherwise you enjoy doing it, and well if you expect me to work late and have my boy miss out on seeing his old man before bed because you have nothing better to do than work for an extra few hours you can fuck right off.

The worst thing here, is that the 90% of people complaining about "people with kids" statistically, in a a few years when they grow up will BE "people with kids". Then will understand, not through a selfish hypocritical flip-flop, but because when that little tacker comes along you have *no choice* as your brain changes and with it your priorities, whether you like it or not.

And we *people with kids* were all just like you once, I even used to bitch about *people with kids*, just like you.

Ironically all the people without kids bitching here will then bitch about how people don't, you know, "be a parent" to their kids in the multitude of other stories regarding kids. Well I'll tell ya it's a little hard when you all expect us to forget about them for 8-12 hours a day and see them awake for twenty minutes, because we know how much your going to cry because you choose to marry your job/company and we treat it like a means to an end and leave on time.

So much juvenile idiocy in this thread.

Re:Little boys in a mans world

[methuselah]

"So much juvenile idiocy in this thread."
So you jump right in with some other kind of your own. Look your family is no one else responsibility. No employer really cares about your priorities. Wearing them on your sleeve like some kind of badge of honor does not make you a hero. It make you a manipulable target. Life is full of choices and they come with consequences. It is not incumbent on anyone to deal with or be sympathetic with the consequences of your actions. To insist that anyone care is "idiotic". I agree that work is rendering service for pay. Pay is associated with the value of service rendered. Nothing more than that. As for forgetting about your kids for 8-12 hours a day who in their right mind would pay you to sit around and think about them.

Re:Wait a minute

[the_womble]

"Women should abandon their careers to beome housewives" gets modded +5? WTF is wrong with this website?

Actually he says, "such as". it is one of a range of alternative solutions. I would certainly advocate both parents spending more time with children, and it is just as good for fathers to stay at home to look after children as for mothers to do so.

1. The vast majority of women in the US have little interest in permanently abandoning their careers.

It would be better for the children if parents worked less and spent more time with them

2. Even if they wanted to, a lot of households NEED two incomes to make ends meet.

Even though, in the vast majority of cases, each parent by themselves earns a lot more in real terms than households with a single earner typically did, say, fifty years ago? It would be more accurate to say they need to incomes to keep up with the lifestyle of other people with two incomes.

3. On-site daycare is a good way to attract employees, because it provides a benefit (having your kids in the same building) that is worth a lot more to the employees than it costs to the company.

True, it is attractive to employees, cut it can be very expensive to provide- as it was in this case. You might be better off just paying people more.

4. If you lure those employees in with this benefit, thus potentially drawing them away from another job with a better salary, and then ditch the benefit, you're screwing them. I dunno if it's "age discrimination," but it's at least somewhat a dick move.

Of course it is not age discrimination. Google's mistake was subsidising it too much, or providing too high a level of childcare, and landing themselves with an unsustainable cost.

Re:Wait a minute

[rossifer]

I pay way more into the system than I get back.

The intelligent and wealthy argue for welfare, medicare and social security because they know that a tolerable sinecure for the poor makes it very unlikely that they will have to deal with significant social unrest and the possibility of a revolution.

You're getting a return on your money, it's in the increased stability of the society around you that makes continued economic development possible. A part of India's current development problems are rooted in the growing disparities between the new wealthy and those in grinding poverty.

Re:Wait a minute

[ultranova]

Why should I have to involuntarily pay for things other people take advantage of and I don't?

Because you live in a society, not a deserted island, so you can't always have your way.

I pay way more into the system than I get back.

On the other hand, by providing a basic living to the poor, you keep them from getting desperate enough to decide that they have nothing to lose since they're going to die of hunger anyway and can thus as well kill you and loot your corpse for spare change.

Social welfare keeps financial inequality from destroying the society. Humans are beasts, and starving beasts are dangerous. It's much more practical and cheaper too to simply feed them rather than trying to control them by force of arms.

Besides, all the rights you have are ultimately based on your perceived value as a human being. A society which doesn't value humans is unlikely to respect their rights either, and a society which lets its members starve to death obviously doesn't value them much. So, to answer your question: you have to pay taxes that support the weak because you live in a nice, touchy-feely bleeding-heart near-utopia rather than the hellpits of ancient Rome or modern-day third-world nations. You poor bastard.

Oh, sorry: even the Roman emperors provided bread to the poor, so they wouldn't riot and kill them. I guess modern-day libertarians can't quite live up to Caligula's or Nero's standards of morality and statesmanship skills.

And yes, that last bit was pure flamebait, triggered after reading one too many "My taxes support the poor ! Waaah !" post.

Re:Yes, I do know what it really means. Thanks.

[Minwee]

All cleverly designed to make leaving Google and working at any other company the single most painful experience ever, especially for someone who was hired straight out of University.

The whole thing is the perfect cover for a James Bond style villain and his army of disposable henchmen. When the Googleplex moves to the inside of a dormant volcano with Sergei's face carved on the side and the Orbital Mind Control Rays are deployed, you'll know that I was right.

Of course it has

[melted]

It is now huge (read, you have to play political games to get ahead), its share price is not going anywhere (read, there's no potential to get rich quick) and it is "blessed" with a workforce in which they have cultivated a sense of entitlement (read, once you take anything away, no matter how small the perk, the response will be swift, merciless and disproportionate).

Frankly, based on what I hear from ex-Googlers, if I wanted to work for a big company, I'd rather go to Microsoft instead. There's more structure there, wider variety of projects, and rules for promotion although not set in stone and not always followed, are better defined.

Re:Wait a minute

[sir fer]

One thing I hate is people who use their children as an excuse to leave work early or stay back late when everyone else is. It completely undermines team dynamics.

Fuck the "team" kids come first. Try having some if you ever escape the basement.

Re:Wait a minute

[phillous]

Even if they wanted to, a lot of households NEED two incomes to make ends meet. Even though, in the vast majority of cases, each parent by themselves earns a lot more in real terms than households with a single earner typically did, say, fifty years ago? It would be more accurate to say they need to incomes to keep up with the lifestyle of other people with two incomes.

Ok, I live in england, and I'm pretty sure our house prices are way higher than the states, but here's my two cents...
I'm 22, and I work full time in banking in london. Its a long commute, a long day and often means working late and at weekends. I have a girlfriend and an 18mo boy. She stays at home because a) she hated her job and didn't want to go back after maternity, and b) we decided that having a parent around all day was better than daycare.

These are our lifestyle choices, and I accept that. HOWEVER, because of the number of two income families, if you want to buy a house you need two incomes. I have a pretty well paid job and live in a pretty cheap area, and I'm still forced to rent the scummy flat I live in now. If we were to say... double my salary, we could afford to BUY a small nice house. The Problem is that because the MAJORITY of families are dual income, people can afford to buy nicer houses, until it gets to a point where you NEED two incomes to buy ANY house.

The "sexual revolution" has been the best thing for the economy and "growth" since the industrial revolution. I'm happy with the choices our family have made, but we are very poor, financially because of it. The trade off is a happy healthy son and home life. I'd rather my son had a parent all day than we had a nicer house that none of us ever saw because of work/daycare.

Re:Wait a minute

[blahplusplus]

"The term is corporate responsibility."

The Founding Fathers (of the US) discoursed endlessly on the meaning of "republicanism." John Adams in 1787 defined it as "a government, in which all men, rich and poor, magistrates and subjects, officers and people, masters and servants, the first citizen and the last, are equally subject to the laws."

Problem is corporate money buys laws and finances government. To people who are rich, the law doesn't mean much since they have the most powerful insiders anyway. It is impotent because they can afford to buy lawyers and politicians. So they can simply make the law and reorganize the economies in their favor, so the law doesn't really sting because they can block it, anull it or buy new ones.

I'm not sure if there can ever be corporate responsibility. The profit motive is too corrupting I think. I'm reminded of John adams...

"Adams worried that a businessman might have financial interests that conflicted with republican duty; indeed, he was especially suspicious of banks. He decided that history taught that "the Spirit of Commerce . . . is incompatible with that purity of Heart, and Greatness of soul which is necessary for a happy Republic." But so much of that spirit of commerce had infected America. In New England, Adams noted, "even the Farmers and Tradesmen are addicted to Commerce." As a result, there was "a great Danger that a Republican Government would be very factious and turbulent there."

Re:Wait a minute

[HuguesT]

Being good value for money for an employer has often little to do with how "hard" people work. I'd take a happy, efficient, clear thinking dad over any youngster with no perspective and who think they are smarter than everybody else. Besides, over about 45h a week for long periods, productivity goes way down.

But that's just me and my business.

Reality bites

[amn108]

Even a child should know that everything has a beginning and an end. Empire like Google starts to eat its own self with time, and collapses under its own weight. This is part of life, and Rome and a lot of other attempts to be larger than life went this way. And the more one is trying to fight this tendency the more weight it carries, and the harder is the fall. What do you expect, Google to stay on top forever? This only happens in fairy tales. The reality has something to do with particle physics, I am sure :-)

Re:Wait a minute

[JoeZeppy]

Having company sponsored childcare doesn't mean other employees are getting paid less, is just means the stockholders are not seeing as big of a profit as they could have. If Google really had to pay less because of childcare then they wouldn't be able to get anyone good, especially the childless - they'd all go to higher paying companies, wouldn't they?

For employees without children it certainly does mean they get paid less unless the company puts that added compensation/benefit it costs them for providing that care for people with children directly onto their salary in cold hard cash.

so, if I don't wear glasses, no one should have eye care?

If I don't have any health problems, no one should get a medical plan?

If my parents are rich, no one should get social security?

Christ, do you people have any concept of what "society" actually is? Maybe we should all go back to living in caves, and the person with the best spear aim gets all the meat, and everyone else starves. And yes, in most companies I've worked in, you get a certain amount of benefit dollars, to use as you see fit, and if you don't use them all, you get a credit on your pay. But it still doesn't subsidize the entire cost.

The whole point of shared benefits, or car insurance for that matter, is that you average out the cost for some peoples care amongst the whole pool, resulting in lower average costs for everyone. The "value added" is that these people don't go bankrupt, default on their mortgages, clog up emergency rooms for minor illnesses, become criminals and rob others to support themselves, or otherwise become a burden on society. (and by "burden" I mean "cost". You're either going to pay up front to help them, or pay at the end to deal with them.)

That's a concept you either believe in, or you don't. If you don't, then go ahead and opt out. If you ever find yourself or your children with cancer or a serious illness, well you can just take a couple aspirin and go to bed until you feel better.

What's that? You don't have any paid sick days? Aww, that's too bad. Maybe we should have forced euthanasia for people who can't take care of themselves? Fuck 'em if they can't make it on their own.

Re:Wait a minute

[derrickh]

No you dont.

You pay almost nothing to the system in regards to what you recieve. I'm guessing you're in the US or some other developed country. So your taxes not only pay for mundane stuff like law enforcement and roads that allow you to travel to almost anywhere in the country. They also pay for the military that , no matter what you think of the government, has on at least 4 occasions stopped this country from being destroyed in one way or another. Your taxes paid to educate the majority of the citizens so that eventhough we all cant compile a Linux kernal, we can read, write, and do fairly high level math. Your taxes paid for a system, while flawed, tries to keep harmful drugs and fake medicine out of a young mother's child's mouth (that would be you). Your taxes make sure that people can't put up 'Whites Only' signs anymore.

All of this may not seem like a lot to you, but trust me, it adds up to a hell of a lot more than the check you dole out every year.

D

Re:Wait a minute

[ultranova]

However, the danger there is that when you subsidize laziness, you encourage people not to do anything with their lives.

I might be cynical here, but... is that a bad thing ? "Not everyone grows up to be an astronaut", as one demotivator put it. If everyone bases their lives around trying to accomplish things, in the financial sense, then most people will lose constantly - after all, there can only be so many winners, and someone has to flip the burgers too. The temptation to cheat - arrange your competitors to have "accidents" in extreme cases - is quite high in such an environment. I see the constant unethical or outright illegal behavior of various companies and can't help but wonder if the (impossible to fulfil) requirement that they increase their profits constantly is mostly to blame.

This of course doesn't mean that all people couldn't accomplish something, only that only a few of them can be financial successes. Most people are mediocre, by definition; and some fall beneath that. If they all have burning ambition and refuse to settle for their position, "cutthroat competition" gets a whole new meaning.

Remember, "bread and circuses" was meant to keep the masses complicit - to make them lazy, to put it bluntly.

a Libertarian with common sense, what a shock!

It is, here on Slashdot at least. I think that the libertarians in general would enjoy a far greater success if they'd keep the people who refer to people as "crotchfruit" and go on about the evil of taxes and the government on leash, and concentrated on talking about liberty. This is especially true when said rant is posted on a discussion forum in a government-built tax-funded Internet :).

In a way, it's a pity. Libertarians actually have a lot of good ideas (or at least ideas I agree with ;), they simply tend to take them to the point where the reduction positive freedom starts negating the increase of negative freedom. Not to mention the return to feudalism, which will happen if the central government is weakened too much, since there's no longer anything to stop the local land/factory/whatever owners from throwing their weight around.

I just don't want to see people get trapped in multi-generational dependency on the government.

One way to avoid this is to ensure that you can improve yourself regardless of your parent's financial situation. For example, here in Finland, not only is education up to and including university level (up to Doctorate, I think) free (paid by the government), but it actually subsidizes the students - just barely enough to live by, but still enough that anyone who honestly wants to better his position in life can go study. Of course keeping on getting this subsidy is dependent on showing continued progress in one's studies.

It's one reason why I think private charities are better suited to handle that sort of thing, since they can place requirements on their charity.

Government can and does place requirements on receiving the benefits. As I see it, the problems with relying on private charities are:

1. You can't mandate that they actually care for everyone, so what happens if there isn't enough ? With state-provided welfare, you can simply make it a legal obligation of the state.
2. Private charities can naturally place any requirements of their charity, such as "you must support the teaching of creationism in the science class to get this benefit".
3. Since the private charity is not anyone's legal obligation, it could dry up at any moment, for any arbitrary reason or no reason at all. Consequently, you can't plan ahead if you're getting it, and thus it becomes even harder to escape poverty. After all, if you save some money (which is often the first step of improving your position in life), the charity-givers could well decide that y