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As Christmas Bonus, Google Hands Out "Dogfood"
theodp writes "You know times are tough when the best place to work in America replaces holiday bonuses with a request for unpaid labor. Blaming the economic crisis, Google management has canceled the traditional cash holiday bonus — reportedly as much as $20K-$30K per Googler — and substituted an unlocked Google Android cell phone, retail price $400. An accompanying email calls for employees to celebrate the 'chance for us to once again dogfood a product and make it even better!'" Update: 12/23 01:09 GMT by KD : A reader pointed out that comments to the article note a couple of inaccuracies: the Android phone being offered is an unlocked dev model, which goes for $400; and the reporter may have confused holiday bonuses with performance bonuses. The former have traditionally been in the range of $1,000, according to two comments.
Is this suppose to be a "don't be evil" article or something? Thousands of people have become unemployed and you people are bitching about a Christmas bonus, pathetic.
I know it's no $20-$30k, but I wouldn't be upset over an unlocked smartphone. It's a hell of a lot better than many past employers gave me.
Kudos to Valleywag for taking a non-issue and trying so valiantly to spin it negative. And a tip of the hat to the submitter for managing to paraphrase without getting in the way of the spin.
This story demonstrates the need for some type of public relations filter on Slashdot stories. Too often, a company's PR statements are taken as fact. Here, perhaps the people who run google may have been wanting to end yearly bonuses for a long time. Fearing employee backlash, they needed a plausible cover story. The economy is easy to blame. Look, I know that it's entirely possible their motivations are accurately stated in the press release. I contend, however, that it is equally likely that the economy gives Google the opportunity to change its bonus program without suspicion. Given past violations of the "don't be evil" rule, this wouldn't be surprising.
How the hell is this interesting? Because the economy is catching up to Google? Last year or the year before, everyone clamored because they were charging more for day care services. That they did not have to give any way. Are you referring to the dog food comment? That's just, or should be, common practice. You don't wanna see someone that writes a piece of software and use a competing product.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
Ok, dog food! Poor google employees are getting a free 400 $us phone for Christmas! Not only that, but they allegedly used to get 30K in the past. This is exploitation!
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Hey, if google wanted to hire me, I'd totally take it.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
My Christmas bonus was a reduction in pay.
My ex's Christmas bonus was a reduction in work days.
My friend's Christmas bonus was a pink slip.
You'll forgive me if I fail to care that Google game their employees a smaller than expected bonus.
http://downwithpants.org Overthrow the tyranny of your pants
considering google pays 30k-50k less(not including bonuses) than the industry standard in the area for software engineers, the bonus was just a convenient way for them to underpay if an issue arose.
I don't think the interest of this story is that googlers have it so bad; rather, that the recession is touching everybody, even at the most high-flying companies. It's one of those formulaic "how is hot topic X affecting notable party Y" stories.
Yeah, I really hate it when employers give out stuff at Christmas. That really sucks. How evil.
Oh, wait, no it doesn't. A $400 phone is a slap in the face? Wow. All of your examples sound like a nice thank you from an employer who's not actually obligated to give you anything.
The value of a device you cannot sell and are not interested in using is $0.
Pretty big difference compared to a $1000 holiday bonus.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
If there about $25k employees, management just wasted $10m on phones, but since they are internally purchased, I bet they spent 10% of that. It's not like I can resell that phone on eBay and make $400. Can I donate it to charity and take a $400 tax deduction?
So now they've given us free phones. Once again taking the tact of offering us perks who's sole intent is to keep us working. Note the phrase in the letter,
We're really excited about getting the phone to more Googlers in more countries, and also seeing all the cool new things you do with it.
So instead of giving us a check for which we can do whatever we want with it. We're now being given phones so that we can do more work on our own time. I'm a bit jealous of those people that received cash instead, at least then I can go take my wife and kids out on the town or use it to purchase gifts. Try putting one fucking phone under the tree. I'd rather have not received anything, at least then I can tell my wife, "due to the economic climate, no bonuses were given out this year."
Hey Google management, how about coming up with a business plan to solve this stock problem? Android isn't going to solve this as it appeals to the /. crowd, which is NOT the masses. You can take this phone and shove it right up your ass.
Smart companies increase marketing spend during recession. It's a cheap way to grab marketshare.
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
I got a $25.00 gift card for a local grocery store, and was surprised by the gesture. We're hurting right now and to think they gave that to 380 employees was impressive to me. Go google! (am I supposed to use a G for google?)
That sinking feeling deep in your gut when you KNOW you screwed up bad summed up with: {head desk} {head desk}
I got a pink slip a few months back, lol.
Glad my house and car are paid for !
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I certainly don't think tech companies include in compensation the value of the phones (and associated phone plans) they make their techs carry as part of their job. If an engineer at Ford or GM is given new car models to test out in day-to-day use, does it get counted as income? Or can it get counted as research?
I would think the tax accounting of the Android "giveaway" would depend on how it's done. If Google still "owns" the phone, they get the tax benefit of the asset depreciation and might even be able to count it as an R&D cost as well. It should be easier to get away with this by handing out the unlocked "developer" models like they did. The employee still gets a nice shiny leading-edge phone to use; they just can't re-gift it to someone else. Once it's depreciated, the employee gets ownership of the phone. As a bonus, it might help Google boost their year-end units-shipped count for marketing purposes, and they get free word-of-mouth advertising from people seeing their employees use the new phones. Sounds like a win-win if its doable, and if it is, whoever thought of it probably earned their yearly salary that day.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Smart companies will especially focus on marketing spend that they can measure closely, to track the return on investment.
If you've got a marketing channel that provably makes you a dollar in profit for every seventy-five cents spent, why would you ever stop putting money into it, as long as you've got the cash to spend?
normal(adj)- people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots [DECS]
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yeah, stop complaining, I'd work at google for an android phone :D
Google are you watching? It must sure be better, more fun and interesting than sitting here :D
No kidding. I wish my employer did something for Christmas. Last year, it was a steak dinner and 50% of my paycheck as a bonus. Not exactly a huge haul--but it's nice they gave me something.
This year however, times are tough. No Christmas dinner/party, and no bonus--which isn't a big deal, because they owe me nothing in exchange for my work except a paycheck.
So the employees should be glad Google was a compassionate enough company to give them anything at all.
There's no place like
The thing is, most people can't work that way. You spend an awful lot of your life at work, and most people like to think that their employer appreciates the work they do.
That appreciation(when sincere) generally has a greater impact on workplace morale than would a higher salary and is, generally speaking, cheaper for the employer over the long term.
I highly doubt that google paid their employees 20-30k as a Christmas bonus(that's a huge amount for anything not tied to some sort of performance metric and would be the kind of devastating loss which would cause mass resignations.) It's been posted by others that the Christmas bonuses are closer to 1k, which is far more reasonable.
That said, even though a free phone is better than a lot of people get, this is a fairly major policy shift for Google, even if the normal amount is only around a grand. Google generally hires only the best(by whatever subjective version of the best they choose to use) and they expect an awful lot of work hours out of their employees. They make up for this mainly through perks as opposed to salaries, and cutting those perks could have a major impact on their business model.
that may not be the interest of the actual situation, but Valleywag certainly seems to be trying to portray Google as mistreating their employees with statements like:
why the hell is /. even posting stories from Vallywag anyway? they're a freaking tabloid written by the silicon valley analog of paparazzi reporters. this is supposed to be news for nerds, not gossip rag for "fashionable" venture capitalists. if i wanted to read unsubstantiated rumors or find out about who Kevin Rose is dating, i'll visit digg.
slashdot needs to go back to posting stories on technology and real tech/science issues, not sensationalist drivel from Vallywag or, worse yet, The Sun. please don't prove to the world that geeks are just as mentally vacuous as the britney-spears-fawning, paris-hilton-obsessed, access-hollywood-watching masses.
I rather doubt Google signed any contracts stating that each employee is due a HUGE bonus at the end of the year. It's a "bonus".
"We made a shit-pot of money this year, and you contributed a lot. Here's part of the shit-pot, thanks."
"We didn't make a shit-pot of money this year, you contributed a lot though. Here's a nice new phone, maybe next year if you and several others write something really cool with it, we'll have a shit-pot of money to give you part of."
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.