Google to workers: "this is a workplace, not college."

www.axios.com

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floofloof @lemmy.ca

1y ago

Google, after protester firings, now looks just like every other company

www.axios.com /2024/04/19/google-fires-employees-protest-israel

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CEO Sundar Pichai said, "We have a culture of vibrant, open discussion... But ultimately we are a workplace and our policies and expectations are clear: this is a business, and not a place […] to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics."
Our apolitical business decisions
Their disruptive protests
A billion-dollar contract with Israel is a political decision. There is no way to oppose it except politically. Own the decisions you make Google.
- IBM CEO Thomas J. Watson, on the context of selling machines to be used in Nazi concentration camps, said "We have a culture of vibrant, open discussion... But ultimately we are a workplace and our policies and expectations are clear: this is a business, and not a place […] to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics."
  
  They made jeopardy bot CEO??
- not a place […] to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics.
  Then stop forcing your workers to maintain the sorce of those "disruptive issues or debateable politics". I hope someone makes a parody of Google with the Nazis. Akin to the whole "Are we the baddies" skit.
  "Look you don't have to like skulls or the mas murder of entire groups or operating and maintaining the machines of those murders. But this is a WORKPLACE and not a college campus."
  
  This is a concentration camp, not summer camp.
Oh I'm sorry I was confused because of the constant need to learn shit and the fact you appropriated the word campus to describe your wankerdomes.
- "workplace" that makes you constantly update an internal résumé would like you to think you have a job
Remember waaaaaaaaaay back when people had a generally favorable opinion of Google?
- The internet used to be really fun. I'd spend a night online and feel fulfilled after. Did some posting, checked out if the sites I like updated, search around randomly for new stuff, check for replies and log off. It was great. Capitalism sucks, especially now that they're on the giving a shit model. Everything seems so micromanaged to the finest point. At least earlier shitheads were more likely to turn a blind eye to people having fun as long as the cash flow was steady. Nothing is fun anymore and there's nobody in power who is happy with thst enough to just not give a shit.
- 1999? Just barely remember searching for Pokemon and DBZ stuff in the computer lab
  
  Yeah and earlier as well as through the first half of the 2000s. They just had a good search engine, by all reports it was a solid place to work and the branching out they did was having stuff like image searches. Anyone remember the image search game they had for a while? You'd be hooked up randomly online with someone and both get sent the same random image from their image results and would both type in one word descriptors until you got the same one and then you'd move to the next image and there was a time limit and a scoring system for time amount of images completed and a leader board. They used the results to improve keyword accuracy. If you wanna crowd source some data, host a fun game that is hosted on Google so it's not blocked by school computers, it's sorta free lavor but it seems more humane than paying someone a cent per image tag and you'd get better data as well.
Yeah, you can't just do a toothless peaceful protest, you gotta kidnap your boss if you want them to change their policies!
- In some places, they go after the shareholders.
  
  Interesting topic, but this made me laugh
  in the West a shareholders' meeting is usually an earnest discussion between the shareholders and the management,
  lmao okay natopedia whatever you say
imagine still wanting to work for google in this, tyool 2024
google hasn't done anything even interesting nevermind not obviously shitty for what, five years?
- i don't think anyone cares about what they do. they care about the money and prestige
  
  which is why google hasn't done anything interesting in years
  say what you will about the valley but this was not the prevailing attitude among computer engineers for most of its history. too many normies and business school freaks got into it
- they released kubernetes to the world which has singlehandedly kept the tech sector from accomplishing anything for like a decade at this point, gotta hand it to them honestly
  
  I won't complain about me making a living off of editing YAML files due to that.
  
  why should I be upset about k8s?
i love the framing of a workplace as obviously, necessarily apolitical. as though workplaces are anything but the most intensely political battleground of our fucking lives.
a boss dictates your every move and word so that you can access food, shelter and healthcare: not political!
Way better framing than I've seen from other corps, chuds will bite on that anti-education line. I wonder who came up with that.
- tech anti-intellectuals get way too much credit for their intelligence
Standing between a Silicon Valley company and money is a job's death sentence.
Quietly but conspicuously dropping "don't be evil" from corporate directives for no reason at all
Yeah here we profit off genocide and Skynet is good money so sorry honey, time to grow up and understand empathy is the profit killer.

32 comments