If it wasn’t for politics then they shouldn’t take government contracts
Or lobby.
Indeed ! This Would be much easier to take seriously if Sundar hadn’t meet with Sunak, Modi, Biden et al. In the first year or so since getting the job.
Or fire people because of politics.
I’m just hearing Google advocating for a strict ban on lobbyism.
I mean, otherwise it’s discrimination, no?
The workplace, or at least career progression, is like 50% politics lol. Google is no different.
In fact, I’ve heard Google is especially bad here. You only get ahead by shipping a product, and getting a project approved is largely politicking. It’s one of the more political business environments around.
My company seems a lot better. We don’t have aggressive ladder climbing like the big tech firms, we instead value consistency.
You only get ahead by shipping a product, and getting a project approved is largely politicking
Yep - I had a friend who worked for three years at Google, none of the products he worked on ever shipped and eventually he gave up on ever receiving a good salary (bonuses/stock options/etc are supposed to be most of the pay, but you only get that by working on a successful product)
They have ten major campuses worldwide that focus on product development, but only one of those actually ships products regularly.
And working on stuff that never gets shipped/used is demoralising too. No product to be proud of making/maintaining etc.
It’s the digital equivalent of working in a coalmine.
Ok, so if I find out I work for Nazi contractor and object to that, it is politics?
Clearly
Yes. What about that do you think is non-political? Abhorrent politics are still politics.
Really great point that adds a ton to the conversation. Clearly the semantics of the word “political” are what’s important here.
Discussing politics at the work place has been an HR violation for some time, but speaking against the company policy or its customers has always been a fireable ofense. I’m not sure why this surprises anyone.
Sure, google is an evil corporation and there’s lots of reasons to hate them, but why are we focusing on this specific thing which is common across all workplaces?
And yes, if you find out your employer is constructing concentration camps and you openly speak against that, you’re probably going to lose your job. Why is this even a question?
It’s just a Tuesday in the Capitalist Hellscape © of U.S.A.™
Lol you’re getting tossed in jail doing this in a communist society…this isn’t about capitalism at all. It’s about keeping people from creating a hostile work environment, look how polarized politics is online, shit gets heated in a work setting? It’s a no go for any sane company wanting to keep the peace between employees.
Just because communism also sucks does not mean that capitalism has not ruined our lives.
Discussing politics at the work place has been an HR violation for some time, but speaking against the company policy or its customers has always been a fireable ofense. I’m not sure why this surprises anyone.
Looks like a navel-gazing USA thing. Here in Europe I cannot imagine that there’s many companies who’d fire workers for protesting or tells them to shut up forever.
Here in Sweden, firing an employee for giving an opinion on company policy is illegal. Just look at the Tesla union wars.
That’s not actually true. Even in Sweden, employees can be fired for misconduct and what constitutes misconduct is a complex matter. But more importantly, in the Tesla case, those employees are on strike which is a different issue.
You should be aware of the fact that Google & the others have offices in Europe and they have the same policy here too. These type of policies fit well within the legal framework in most EU countries. And I guarantee that people would get fired over protests disrupting the workplace if found unwarranted.
Why is this a surprise to us? We had faith in humanity.
And is it really common in all workplaces?
which is common across all workplaces?
In your shithole country, maybe.
Oh, please, enlighten me. In what country do you think you’re allowed to violate company policy?
Even if we ignore what @prole wrote, in civilized countries you’re allowed to break company policy if it infringes your rights, regardless of what a contract says.
you’re allowed to break company policy if it infringes your rights
No country guarantees you the right to openly discuss politics in the workplace though.
In what country do you think you’re allowed to violate company policy?
Lol did you already forget what you said? Or did your original comment actually say, “Violating company policy at the work place has been an HR violation for some time…” Because yeah, no shit. Somehow I don’t think that’s what you were going for…
Did you purposefully completely change the topic, or was that some kind of “sly” attempt to pivot? Shit is real weird.
Maybe you were about to ask the actual logical follow-up question of, “In what country do you think you’re allowed to discuss politics at work?” before doing a quick google search and realizing you’d make yourself look even stupider.
As if the entire conversation wasn’t about whether or not something should be allowed to be a company’s policy. Not whether or not employees should be able to break their work’s HR policy. Do you not see the distinction here?
You must be very confused. I did not forget anything. I’m simply making the claim that your impression that this happens only in my “shitty” country is wrong and if you tell me what country you live in, I can give you multiple examples of it happening there too. You’re probably misinformed or ignorant of the law if you think it doesn’t.
“A company should not be able to make X part of their policy.”
In what country is an employee allowed to violate their company’s policy?
That’s you. If only there was a word for this… Shmallacy?
The actual question would be,
In what country is an employer barred from firing a person for talking about politics?
Maybe I’m giving you too much credit, but I feel like you knew this and realize how stupid you sounded. The better thing to do would probably just have been to quietly exit the conversation.
By the way, check usernames, I just entered this thread.
Wow, you’re one of those annoying idiots who think being aggressive makes them right. Good thing this platform has an “block” feature
“The workplace isn’t for politics” is about social etiquette, not criticizing what your own company is taking part in you stupid fuck.
google the company needs to be garroted with their old “don’t be evil” line.
Don’t
be eviltell me your opinionsDon’t ask don’t tell in corporate form!
I would argue that firing them seems like a pretty strong political statement.
Insightful 👍
The little-known genocide assistance exception to “don’t be evil.” You have to read the fine print these days.
They dropped that line some time ago
If I’m not mistaken there’s a more long winded watered down version at the end of a bunch of bs now. I may be misremembering or out of the loop on subsequent updates and changes though
Yes it’s still there, it was just moved, albeit from a very noticeable position to quite an obscure one.
Gotcha. Yeah thats more or less how I remembered it… 🙃
Its a bummer, I used to consider myself a fan of Google’s direction. But lesson learned I suppose, money is power and power corrupts.
I feel like the turnaround was somewhere around 2008-2010. Before that they seemed a lot more amicable.
Twenty hard years of spinning on this planet has shown us the truth.
“Google isnt the place for your politics. It is only a place for my politics. So get in line with my thinking or get the fuck out!” - Googles Chief Cunt.
“THE WORKPLACE IS NOT FOR POLITICS”
— With love, your employer who is investing amounts of money beyond your comprehension in a government of a county now being tried for genocide with undenial and ongoing human rights violations.
“The workplace isn’t for politics” says company that exerts coercive political power to expel its (ex-)workers for disagreeing.
@[email protected] @[email protected] Since most people spend most of their best hours at the workplace, what this person is really saying is that there shouldn’t be any politics at all. I.e., this is a confession: “I am an authoritarian”.
“Officially, of course, I have no opinion.”
I see the alt-right is out of school early today!
Still waiting for first period to start
Riiight… the fact that corporations are petty dictatorships isn’t political at all.
Right.
Never worked for one of the big tech firms, but I have been in the working world for ~16 years and one of the few things anyone that has been around for awhile can and will agree on is you don’t talk about salary within earshot of the boss, you don’t badmouth company decisions within earshot of the boss, you don’t talk about politically charged topics, and you certainly don’t combine 2 of those 3 and protest company decisions on politically charged issues literally in the office.
You also don’t do those things on company provided equipment, software, or services. If you want to bitch about something the company is doing, you go out to lunch or do it after hours, preferably without written or video evidence.
While I think it is gross that Google fired them for this, given the history of the company almost encouraging such things, I can say these people just got a hard lesson that most of us learn about the corporate world long before we make it to working for the likes of Google.
Rightly or wrongly freedom of speech, assembly, etc protects you from the Government, not your boss. And your boss is a petty little ego maniac that controls your livelihood, so best to stay out of his gaze on matters you know he/she would view negatively where at all possible.
Unless the goal is to make a political statement with your departure.
exactly, which is what those workers did, they could’ve just resigned but they wanted to make a political statement and they did so
All of which is a problem, not something we should passively accept as the status quo. These employees were advocating for change to fix exactly those sorts of problems.
Is it really that surprising? Since when profit isnt the highest value?
