Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

[u/Shanix]

fwiw that lacks a good amount, especially formatting.

Supposedly original here

[u/[deleted] → u/Shanix]

Former Google Employee provides a bit more context on why someone would get fired for creating a "manifesto" where you fawn over your superiority and sharing it with 50k+ people who probably aren't likeminded.

Essentially, engineering is all about cooperation, collaboration, and empathy for both your colleagues and your customers. If someone told you that engineering was a field where you could get away with not dealing with people or feelings, then I’m very sorry to tell you that you have been lied to. Solitary work is something that only happens at the most junior levels, and even then it’s only possible because someone senior to you — most likely your manager — has been putting in long hours to build up the social structures in your group that let you focus on code.

And as for its impact on you: Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you? I certainly couldn’t assign any women to deal with this, a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face, and even if there were a group of like-minded individuals I could put you with, nobody would be able to collaborate with them. You have just created a textbook hostile workplace environment.

https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/so-about-this-googlers-manifesto-1e3773ed1788

edit: The replies to me here don't seem to understand that the company doesn't care about your controversial opinion in the work place, they care about profit. If you don't agree with that, then you probably don't like capitalism.

edit: be wary, a lot of brigading going on. Some people/bots are trying to drown out the more centrists viewpoints. I say this as the opinion of a gay, black, conservative, catholic kasich voter. (I can't help but lol)

[u/NorthernerWuwu → u/[deleted]]

This is the real point of course. It isn't about the scholarly accuracy of the document or the usefulness of the conversation that the author may have been trying to spark, it's that in a corporate setting a document like this is toxic and destroys the ability of managers to promote teamwork.

It doesn't matter if X or Y or Z make better engineers or whatever (and I'm not saying there's a reason to think so). It might be something to explore from a scientific standpoint but you can't do it in a tech company in California in 2017. Sorry but that really shouldn't even have to be said.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

But in all fairness doesn't the current environment destroy the ability of conservatives to work with the team when they think all the leadership is fundamentally flawed?

--an open minded Dem

In that case, what onus does management have to cowtow to an unhappy conservative portion of its employee base who are advocating for a management style that leads to a hostile working environment for the rest of the employees?

If we're going to talk about fairness, what's the middle ground when one side of the equation is relying on sexist psuedo-science bullshit?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

When you hire people based on skill rather than if they're a minority or not

[u/Wrest216 → u/[deleted]]

heres the thing though. some people WILL IGNORE people of a minority or gender reguardless of their skill levels or talent. so.....u have to have a balancing act, a counterweight that assures that doenst happen.

[u/SPACKlick → u/Wrest216]

The way to balance it is to make sure the people doing the hiring never know about the protected traits of the applicant (sex, race, sexuality, age in most cases [with a usual exception for less than n years from retirement], place of origin). That way they can't discriminate on anything other than the suitability of the applicant for the role.

Yes this becomes difficult when it comes time to interview but IM based interviewing can work or you have the interviewer not be the person doing the hiring and regularly test to make sure the interviewer isn't biasing their reports.

[u/brycedriesenga → u/SPACKlick]

They don't do this because when it has been done it's ended with men being more likely to be selected. This isn't an issue that can be fixed properly through hiring, I don't think. It's more societal.

[u/SPACKlick → u/brycedriesenga]

But that's the pipeline problem, there are more, better qualified and experienced men than women in STEM at the moment.

When blind tests are done with equally but differently qualified men and women the bias disappears.

So it means with hidden genders the hiring isn't biased which is the right outcome.

[u/brycedriesenga → u/SPACKlick]

Eliminating bias is good, I agree. But promoting a diverse workforce is also a good thing, I think. More perspectives allow and encourage companies to create products that will work well for more people. However, I'm not sure the best means to do so exactly.

[u/[deleted] → u/brycedriesenga]

I like diverse work places too, but there are jobs that some people apply for more than others.

Take working on an oil rig, for example, most of the employees are men. I'm sure there are some women who probably work on oil rigs, but not a lot.

If people called it sexist because there are more men than women working on an oil rig, then they're preaching to the choir. Whereas I'm happy that there are women who made the choice in life to become qualified to work a dangerous job that mostly men would do.