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Google Engineers Are Organizing A Walk Out To Protest The Company's Protection Of An Alleged Sexual Harasser (buzzfeednews.com)
In response to a story about Google paying and protecting former executive Andy Rubin following an investigation into sexual misconduct, a group of 200 Google employees are organizing a "women's walk." From a report: A group of more than two hundred engineers at Google are organizing a company-wide "women's walk" walkout for later this week to protest recent revelations about the search giant's protection of employees that had allegedly engaged in sexual misconduct, according to four people familiar with the situation inside Google. The protest, which is expected to happen on Thursday, comes in light of a story by the New York Times last week into the misbehavior of Android creator Andy Rubin and other executives at the company, some of whom still have positions of prominence at Google. Google gave Rubin a reported $90 million exit package in 2014, following an investigation into an allegation that he had coerced another employee to perform oral sex on him. That investigation reportedly found that allegation to be credible.
I'd be happy to take a position at Google. And I won't spend more time on SJW virtue signaling than I do on my job.
Since the company essentially fired Rubin, I'm not sure what protection they gave him.
The previous story made it sound as though the money was actually through stock options or some other benefits package that he'd previously negotiated in order to stay with the company. Unless Google had some kind of morals clause as a part of that, they wouldn't have any good reason to deprive him of what they had already negotiated.
So the company investigated a report (i.e., they didn't just brush it off), removed Rubin after finding the allegation credible (i.e., merely likely enough to have happened), and paid him what he was owed based on previous negotiations. I'm not sure what Google did wrong in any of this to warrant a protest by anyone. Normally this is the type of shit that just gets covered up, so Google should be getting praised by the people protesting this if anything.
Probably gonna be downvoted to hell but I don't care.
What's with all this witch-hunting nowadays? Notice how many things in this story are nothing but a pure speculation: "allegedly engaged", "a reported $90 million exit package", "an allegation", "reportedly found that allegation to be credible".
Nothing in this story has been proven. There's never been a lawsuit. Nothing has officially been revealed.
First, it was Hollywood actors and even directors. Now, CEOs or high ranking officers. Can anyone name a single instance of relatively recent sexual harassment allegation to be conclusively proven in the court of law?
I'm not trying to downplay this story or say that women are never oppressed/sexually harassed at work. I just want such stories to become a tad more factual than they've been so far. Someone said something to someone and now the whole Internet is buzzing about it. What the hell?
I'm not a woman, of course, but why on Earth at least a number of rape victims seek legal counsel, press charges and somehow act on the harassment in a provable manner while this recent witch-hunting has been fueled by pure speculations and seemingly nothing else?
No innocent until proven guilty, no jury of equals, no rule of law, only mob justice. And that's supposed to hold the moral high ground? Why don't they just walk to his house and lynch him, if it's so bad...
Absolutely no one should be surprised when China quickly takes over the United States as world tech leader.
To quote/paraphrase a vile and toxic SJW:
"you made your SJW bed. Now get fucked in it" Google.
I'd fire them.
Why?
It's not like Google engineers have a 9 to 5 schedule.
If their work performance doesn't suffer, I don't see what the problem is.
If their protest was blocking the entrance to Google so people couldn't get to work, then it would be effective. Not saying that's right, but it would work.
From TFS: "That investigation reportedly found that allegation to be credible."
SJWs don't WANT a solution. They don't WANT to fix any problems. They WANT to throw their temper tantrums and break down in histrionics so that they can get attention. Which is what they really want. Attention. Not a solution. Most of these SJW types didn't get enough attention as children unless they were throwing some sort of tantrum, and very little discipline. They should have gotten their asses beat. Now they've grown up and been conditioned that whoever throws the biggest temper tantrum gets the most attention.
Google's got over 85,000 employees. Probably half of them in the various south bay campuses. Two hundred being gone for a day isn't going to be noticed. Though I imagine eng-misc@ and industryinfo@ and memegen might be a little quieter.
If the guy is found to be actually a piece of shit who sexually harasses women, and the company protects him, then I would support these people. If they are protesting with just allegations, then they should be fired.
This over-reaction is all because of an ALLEGED issue. Nothing proven. Its a witch hunt / virtue signalling at its finest.
IE
Ever here of a Poison Pete? This is that on a grand scale. If you can not separate your personal from professional life... GTFO.
Want to be a drama-lama? Do it on your own time and dime. Not your employers. This is not college where you are paying for the privlege of acting like a child throwing a tantrum.
Plus its not like Google wont have ten for everyone they fire lining up for just the chance to work there. Why keep anyone that is not a team player? Why keep anyone who will make the workplace (more) toxic?
Fire them all. Send a message that SJW'ing is for your personal time only... and get back to work... or dont work for Google.
He was contractually obligated to the $$. It had nothing to do with the BJ.
Those are not the rules which apply to the rank and file.
I've seen engineers tossed out of tech firms. Any pending compensation is null and void. It is given conditional on not being terminated for misconduct.
The protestors want the same rules to be applied to the ruling class.
You are pointedly not "innocent until proven guilty." You are presumed innocent. And that is a protection against a kangaroo court, not a viable life philosopy. All criminal trials start with the baseline that the defendant is innocent of the charge until the prosecution proves otherwise. The defendant also is never found to be "innocent." The determination is "not guilty." There's a big difference.
Like it or not, HR departments have no such standard by which they need to abide.
IRL, nobody presumes anyone innocent because they'd be a freaking idiot to do so. People may presume whatever they like, but it's better to base your judgement on the preponderance of evidence, the standard in a civil matter. If you wait for conclusive evidence as would be presented in a criminal court, you're going to get your head taken off very quickly. People also rely on so-called "gut reactions," and there's nothing wrong with that so long as you don't hurt anyone over it.
TL;DR: If I see a guy in a ninja costume, on the street, staring at houses one-by-one, I'm not going to presume dick. I'm calling the police and they can sort him out.
They had the option to do the whole you come in to work and find your desk and a security guard out on the lawn.
But did they really have that option when no formal charges were ever fired, and Rubin himself disputes the whole thing (claiming it was something his Ex-Wife made up to improve her position in divorce proceedings).
I'd say Google did what it reasonably could, got rid of him while at the same time allowing for the possibility the charges were false.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sheesh! We old hippies would have held a sit-in instead of a walk-out.
At least there's a cafeteria with free stuff inside.
The money paid may have been a contract buy out. We may never know since facts are no longer important in SJW America. I agree that 200 engineers won't make a dent. It shouldn't even be news, other than the story seems intended to make men in power look bad.
You don't even have to be hetro. They killed Kavin Spacey's career over an allegation. All you have to be is white and self-ID as a man.
Such contracts typically do not require a criminal conviction to fire someone for cause. And typically it's firing for cause that stops golden parachutes.
Many professionals get that treatment without even an allegation of wrong doing.
Other than putting their employer in bad light this makes no sense to me. How about writing an internal letter to Sundar Pitchai or the board, if there are reasons to be upset? Or just quit citing the problem. That would gain some effective PR. This just seems silly and childish as many hashtag (pseudo) feminist actions these days. I honestly don't get it.
Our is it just some teenie service personnel looking for attention?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
They want to express their extreme displeasure that Google decided to cover this up and pay out his golden parachute.
They would have preferred what would have been done to rank-and-file employees who were found to have done the same thing: Being fired for cause, which would not come with a $90M payday.
So it's about pressuring management to do better the next time this happens.
Protest is a TERRIBLE form of change, and never accomplishes much of anything.
You apparently have never spent much time in the vicinity of a history department. Every single civil right we currently enjoy came about due to protests.
4chan and similar shitholes spilling over with clueless fucktards. You did mean the idiots that think everything is a "SJW" conspiracy right?
So I look at this again in Wikipedia.
This isn't about punishing Brock. (The lifelong registration as a sex offender wasn't enough already? What remotely sane person would choose that door over a thousand other indignities?) No, this is about the penal code getting medieval on rape-culture's ass. Because the time is long overdue for unambiguous.
Brock would have been way better off facing involuntary manslaughter charges for drunk driving (say if he'd left tread marks on Emily Doe's corpse instead).
Involuntary Manslaughter Penalties and Sentencing
And no lifelong registration as the scum of the earth, either. Easy street. Sign me up.
While Brock almost certainly intended to initiate sexual activity with this girl, I don't think he intended to have her pass out (in fact, Cosby's sentence as a remorseless serial offender committing rape rape with the full Jabbywocky in sober calculation was hardly worse).
So Ana, if what you want is a Draconian penal code, say so (and your wish will be granted because the time is right). But don't pretend Brock was not punished enough in the first place, because any honest assessment of his life outcome would conclude the complete opposite.
That first time you go to the place in your new community where you publicly register as a sex offender.
I'm pretty sure every man who has ever done this remembers his first time.
Actual outcome: Instantly demoted from a Stanford golden child, to a lifelong felon, having served a big chunk of actual jail time (six months in the slammer in the pink petticoat for a socially maladapted Stanford nerd is not small change), whose given name is now synonymous with "dumpster rape" on the Internet for all time, and is barely employable, anywhere, ever (except on false pretenses where he dishonestly conceals his sordid history) because the social media wrath of the Sorority Sisters against any "clean slate" employer who ever associates with this person for all time would be too vituperative to even contemplate. All this for an act committed as a socially mindless young male not yet brutally familiar with neither alcohol nor women.
And if he had been a regular guy instead of that "golden child", he would have gotten 3+ years in prison and everything you list.
Are we equal under the law or not? Because right here, you are arguing that we are not.
have no freaking clue about the brain-cramping rampage of peak TSB in a young man's late teenage years.
Hey look! Incel bullshit. How surprising.
Depending on who decides to walk out, productivity might even go UP. I know I get more done when I'm not being constantly bugged by engineers who are more concerned about talking politics.
There was no evidence of job favoritism or threats; merely two adults mutually playing around.
That is not how sexual harassment works, even back then it was understood to create a hostile workplace. When a boss and a subordinate have a consensual affair the other subordinates fear there will be favoritism. This fear is real. It negatively effects retention, productivity, etc; it makes employees hate the workplace, their boss, their fellow employees, etc; it creates a risk of lawsuits for the company.
Again, this is not some new radical SJW interpretation. This is what has been taught in sexual harassment training since the 1990s.
I'd be happy to take a position at Google. And I won't spend more time on SJW virtue signaling than I do on my job.
Same here. Pity California is not a 'right to work' state. They would be canned as soon as they walked out the door....
CA is an "at will employment" state. An employer "may terminate an employee for any reason at any time" unless there is a law or contract preventing the "reason" from being used. So unless their employment contracts allows them to abandon their work duties during assigned work hours Google should have no problem firing them, in theory, political correctness aside.
My memory is different: "hostile work environment" that didn't involve favoritism or threats didn't become commonplace until a bit after.
Either way, I would agree to some degree of punishment for such as long as it's enforced consistently between parties so that it's not used as a political weapon.
Table-ized A.I.
They don't hire your kind. SJW virtue signalling and advertising are their priorities. Search hasn't improved in over 10 years - they're done with building software.
Google (and Facebook) wants to encourage virtue signaling and advertising, it lets them create a better profile on you, so that they can sell more targeted advertising tailored to your preferences.
Before you interview your applicants, you can either:
A) Decide you will hire the most skilled / qualified person
or
B) Decide you will hire the person with the favored genitals or complexion
Choice B is called a "diversity hire".
If you set out to hire the most qualified person, it's not a diversity hire, by definition.
My memory is different: "hostile work environment" that didn't involve favoritism or threats didn't become commonplace until a bit after.
Either way, I would agree to some degree of punishment for such as long as it's enforced consistently between parties so that it's not used as a political weapon.
I recall the corporation I worked for when I learned that a consensual affair creates a hostile workplace, it was an unintuitive concept to me at the time. I left that company in the early 90s. Perhaps our HR department was cutting edge.
Things were looking really good over there for a while. But then they got a communist dictator for life, the social credit score turned out to be as horrific as the fear-mongers said, and they've had decades of explosive growth that's come to an end. They have a new middle class that wants to get paid for their labor. They've made strides in air pollution at least, but it was straight-up killing people at crazy-bad levels.
Oppression comes in a lot of different forms. Moving to china would not improve your liberty.
Many comments here only prove one thing, people have double standards, and when someone of a group people here believe they belong to get accused they call the accuser SWJ and lair. Then state the person being accused should continue in his position of power.
But when a Priest is accused of the same thing, the very same people who are defending these other abusers are out there with pitch forks and torches looking for him.
It is time we start taking the accuser seriously instead of defending the accused, maybe it is time to take a lesson from Europe and try to keep names and details out of the press. And if the abuser has a position of power, put them on unpaid leave until proof can be determined one way or the other. If proof is found, the abuser should be fired and loose any existing options owed to him.
Feminism: the only way the most privileged class in the world can still cry oppression.
And do NOT vote for Gavin Newsom who has sexual misconduct in his own past. Nah, who am I kidding, it's SJWs in the Bay, they'll ignore that because he's the "correct" kind of guy...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
According to the NYT who has access to his employment contract, Google's on-retainer legal department, and everything relating to the issue at hand? Or just according to the NYT?
When people start protesting and walking off the job because "accusations have been made and I don't think enough punishment of what I think it appropriate has been meted out" they should be summarily dismissed with prejudice.
They killed Kavin Spacey's career over an allegation.
Over 30 allegations, three historic police reports and six open police investigations in the UK alone, and a statement by Spacey that he was seeking "evaluation and treatment".
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Comrade, where is your sash? Directive 572.34b requires that members of the Junior Anti-Sex League wear their sash at all times when in public.
Comrade, where is your sash? Directive 572.34b requires that members of the Junior Anti-Sex League wear their sash at all times when in public.
Oh silly little boy, there is no prohibition on sex among coworkers. There is merely a prohibition between a superior and a subordinate. Fear not, when you get older and join the workforce you may still have a chance to get laid.
The only problem with that sort of policy is that once you reach a certain level of promotion, everybody is your subordinate, so if you aren't married by then, you're basically taking a vow of celibacy by accepting the promotion.
A more sensible approach is to not allow people to date their direct reports, requiring at least a couple of levels of separation if they are in the same chain of command. By ensuring that the people dating aren't writing each other's reviews, you remove most of the potential for nepotism, but without it being quite so lonely at the top.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I would argue that favoritism and fears about it is an in-built element of any organization. I have been in plenty of organizations where there was obvious and non-obvious favoritism driven by all the usual non-sexual power/influence dynamics, including fears that X was giving better assignments to Y and Z because of favoritism, etc.
Unless two employees having a consensual affair are open and transparent about their affair, I would argue there is less likelihood of favoritism as they are probably inclined to keep their affair secret and this leads to a kind of enforced hyper-neutrality to avoid giving it away.
I think the "harassment" part actually comes in when employees begin to assume that sexual favors are some kind of job requirement, and that not giving in sexual come-ons will result in termination, lack of advancement, etc. It's the coercive aspect of power combined with sexuality.
Where is this company town where every potential sexual partner works for the same company? That certain level of promotion person needs to get out of the office and find someone else to fuck.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
The French revolution all over again ... last week's hero of progress is this week's guy to lose his head ...
(You may think my old fashioned morals are crusty, but at least they don't change every five minutes.)
> You are doing it wrong.
I respectfully disagree. I hire great people and have a very effective (and cost-effective) team. We have a very good mix of skills. We hire the skills we need. I have a standard set of interview questions that I ask all applicants so we can directly compare their answers. (Though if a candidate completely flubs the easiest questions there is no point in asking much more difficult questions on the same topic.)
I say a mix of skills because I learned it's silly to pay someone top dollar to fill out change requests. Instead, we have people at different levels in their career (who have different costs). The most skilled person, who has over 20 years of experience and some recognition in the industry, helps the less-experienced (cheaper) person to make sure they are doing the job well. We get a lot of good work done, more than other teams that have a similar budget.
Are you thinking about someone who *looks* like the boss, or someone who has the same *skills* as the boss? I'm not in the modelling industry, so I don't care what people look like. That's good, because I'm ugly - and highly skilled at what I do. I wouldn't want someone with the same *skills* as the boss because we only need one person running interference between our team and upper management. That's his most important skill set - corporate politics and schmoozing. We only need one of those.
Although I *used* to be in the porn industry, in my current industry we don't use our genitals in our work, so I don't hire based on genitals. I hire based on the skills we need. It works quite well.
If openness were to make favoritism less likely we still have have the fear of favoritism and all the negatives it brings and hence the "hostile workplace". Regarding other sources of favoritism, those may be prohibited as well and then there is the problem of one wrong not excusing a different wrong.
My memory is different: "hostile work environment" that didn't involve favoritism or threats didn't become commonplace until a bit after.
Either way, I would agree to some degree of punishment for such as long as it's enforced consistently between parties so that it's not used as a political weapon.
I recall the corporation I worked for when I learned that a consensual affair creates a hostile workplace, it was an unintuitive concept to me at the time. I left that company in the early 90s. Perhaps our HR department was cutting edge.
I guess you have to experience it to be a true believer. I worked for large companies with all these "why do they need that" policies. Working for a small company I saw nepotism, sexual relationship favoritism, sexual relationship retribution, and all kinds of other workplace drama. Plus political power plays by managers to gain more power by playing the employees like pawns in near-literal battles between executives. It was a very toxic environment.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
No-where in any of that did you mention how you find people to interview. Do you do anything at all to increase the size of your talent pool?
The hiring process is about much more than just interviewing. If you don't find the good people to begin with you can't interview them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
If Google has a 'no sex between employees' or 'no sex between direct reports' policy, then the dismissal was perfectly justifiable. What I have a problem with was calling the BJ 'coerced'. At some point, when you're having a sexual affair with someone, and you meet them in a hotel room, if you blow them without being physically forced to, the reasons for that specific BJ fall into a gray area - where coercion may or may not have something to do with it.
There are many possible explanations for why the woman in question didn't just say no and "it's over, Andy". One of which would involve potential harm to her career - which, face it, may come in the form of loss of any advantage her career gained by fucking the boss. None of this says that Rubin isn't a schmuck - and in violation of company policy. It does not, however, automatically make him a rapist. Maybe 'coercion' is not being used in this case to imply any kind of forced sex, but it sure sounds like it's meant that way.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
I am trying to figure out what happened to the presumption of innocence,. Perhaps we should allow a Jury decide if they are guilty or not, before we start robing people of there livelihoods. And before the "believe Women" Shouting starts to reloly to this post, these women are being beleved the start of a criminal investigation and possibly trial is the product of that belief.
We have a number of avenues we use to find candidates and recruits. One avenue I've personally added specifically targets those who are actively developing their professional skills, people who do continual professional education.
Or "fun" by some people's standards. Some like to be involved in drama.
Table-ized A.I.
So they call consensual relationships harassment. Thanks for making this clear.
Depends on the cause. Generally no.
Fiorina got hers, despite being fired for gross incompetence and running the company into the ground.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Do you have that from a credible source?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
CA's newest Senator got her start in politics as quid pro quo for fucking Willie Brown while on his payroll.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
How many charges? Zero. How many convictions? Zero. The man is innocent until proven guilty. Anything else is mob justice.
I don't even like KS, he may even be guilty as sin, but if it can happen to him it can happen to anyone. That is scary. That is the end of western civilization as we know it.
The man will not do any prison time if he is not convicted, yes. As always, that is a higher standard than the one used to decide whether or not you want to work with him or let your kids be around him.
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