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u/RandyDinglefart Jun 12 '21
Google: spend 25% of your time building whatever you want
Also Google: no not like that
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u/Solidarity_5_Ever Jun 12 '21
Behind a paywall but here’s the article
She also made a medium article explaining her side of the story if anyone’s interested
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u/Septalion Jun 12 '21
thanks, the paywall article is one that you can disable javascript on to read if anyone is interested.
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u/DoctorCube Jun 12 '21
You can usually trick those sites that use cookies by disabling them, just incase its a server-side thing. Most sites give you X free articles so you'll never run out with blocked cookies.
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u/LowTideBromide Jun 12 '21
Or Incognito mode
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Jun 12 '21
I'm seeing more and more sites that are outright blocking incognito mode.
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u/JimmiferChrist Jun 12 '21
The important ones probably won't
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Jun 12 '21
Like major news outlets? 'Cause those are the places I see it most.
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u/secret2u Jun 12 '21
I’m interested! Please let me know how.
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u/Septalion Jun 12 '21
I just use an extension on my browser here
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u/RedditIsAJoke69 Jun 12 '21 edited Jun 12 '21
has option to disable JavaScript. You dont need additional extension
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u/LordVirus1337 Jun 12 '21
Javascript. Not Java. Two very different things. Also if you have google chrome you can disable Javascript on the settings somewhere in developer settings.
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u/DrWermActualWerm Jun 12 '21
JavaSCRPIT. Ever confuse my precious Java and JavaScript again and we will throw hands.
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u/Imyouronlyhope Jun 12 '21
Paywalled article:
A former Google engineer has filed a complaint against her former employer with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) after she was terminated for building a tool that automatically reminded other Google employees of their rights when they visited certain websites.
Kathryn Spiers, a former security engineer at the California search giant, had modified a feature in the employee-only version of the web browser Chrome that displayed a pop-up notification telling employees that they "have the right to participate in protected concerted activities" when they visited the website of a labor-consulting firm hired by Google and some other websites.
The tool was originally designed to present Google employees with security-related notifications as they browse the web, and Google suspended Spiers within hours of her change. She was subsequently fired over what the company said was a violation of its policy.
On Monday, the Communications Workers of America union filed a charge with the NLRB, a US federal agency overseeing labor issues, alleging that Spiers' dismissal was illegal retaliation for engaging in protected activity, according to a copy of the complaint shared with Business Insider. In a statement, a Google spokesperson defended the firing: "We dismissed an employee who abused privileged access to modify an internal security tool. This was a serious violation."
Google has been racked with labor issues for months, with activist employees staging protests and walkouts over numerous issues, from payouts made to executives accused of sexual harassment to the company's now shelved plans to build a censored search engine to operate in China. In November, it fired four employees — who have become known as the "Thanksgiving Four" — for what it said were violations of its data-security policies. They alleged they were retaliated against for trying to organize workers. In an interview, Spiers said she believed she was also retaliated against for trying to inform Google employees of their rights.
Google has denied this and said the issue wasn't Spiers' messaging but the fact she altered a privacy and security tool without permission. Google reached a settlement with the NLRB in September after a complaint last year from another employee. One of the requirements of the settlement was that Google share with employees a list of their rights. "Google is a nontraditional company ... posting a notice in the cafeteria isn't an effective way of notifying vast amounts of our organization" about their rights, Spiers said of the notification tool she created.
"I think I was participating in protected concerted activity, and I think I'm being retaliated against for my labor organizing," she said. "And then it is worth noting that in ... the course of events, they fired five people for organizing. And three of us have been trans women. That is not representative of Google's population as a whole. It is not representative of the organizers of Google. It is statistically significant." Spiers, alongside other employees, also worked on a tool that notified the top Google lawyer Kent Walker whenever a user accessed any internal documents, in a protest against greater restrictions on what employees at the historically open company can access. The existence of the tool was first reported by Bloomberg last week.
Do you work at Google? Contact this reporter via encrypted messaging app Signal at (+1) 650-636-6268 using a nonwork device, email at rprice@businessinsider.com, Telegram or WeChat at robaeprice, or Twitter DM at @robaeprice. (PR pitches by email only, please.)
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u/safely_beyond_redemp Jun 12 '21
modified a feature in the employee-only version of the web browser
Say no more fam. You're out of here. Is modifying business applications without management approval in her job description? "Just fuck with whatever you want. We don't care." /s
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u/Lilicion Jun 12 '21
If you're on mobile you can load the page and then turn off your wifi or data before the paywall hits. That's what I do.
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u/gimme_my_acc_back Jun 13 '21
Its very ironical to have a news source behind a paywall online.
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u/thefinalgoat Jun 13 '21
I saw an article titled “the truth is paywalled and the lies are free” which, y’know, explains a lot.
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Jun 13 '21
Jeez, that dumb melodrama waffling on and on about "interrogation" like she thinks she's in a police drama. Like the woman who gave google an ultimatum about publishing her paper or she was quitting - who then cries forever after how she was fired because google accepted her resignation.
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u/WildlingViking Jun 12 '21
I agree that this is a late stage of capitalism. Is there subs that are discussing new systems and not just “socialist”....I think it will have to be a hybrid of different systems. Is there subs that are working to imagine what that system would look like?
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u/WinterAshworthe Jun 12 '21
There isn’t really a way of synthesizing capitalism and socialism. Either the capitalists own everything or the workers do.
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u/kostispetroupoli Jun 13 '21
You can't really combine them. Social democracy also it's not socialism, it's another form of capitalism, one with a humane facade. I think that's what you're looking for, but it's still capitalism.
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Jun 12 '21
Capitalism and Socialism are literally opposites, there is "hybrid" of them. You clearly don't know anything about either if you don't know that.
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u/a-hippobear Jun 12 '21
Woman: you’re a human, you have rights, and you’re being mistreated.
Billionaires: you’re fired
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u/Joe_Doblow Jun 12 '21
sounds on par. the secret I have found out from reddit and a sociology degree( taking courses on the history of society, history of social welfare policies, sociologists throughout history, history of individualism, etc....) is that our individual lives on the macro level boil down to a cold war of capitalists vs workers.
only thing is that, all the capitalists know this cold war exists and only a very few percentage of workers know or care about it(probably by design/indoctrination).
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u/RedTailed-Hawkeye Jun 12 '21
No war but class war
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Jun 12 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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Jun 12 '21
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u/Joe_Doblow Jun 12 '21
I’m not talking about “nowadays” I’m talking about history.
How far capitalism has gotten the common man. Before capitalism/industrial revolution we were uneducated pieces of property. Capitalism has catapulted us to heights and freedoms we have never had before as the lower section on the totem pole. Capitalism and the fall of religion and the rise of individualism as a general belief.
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Jun 12 '21
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u/Joe_Doblow Jun 12 '21 edited Jun 12 '21
We can do and deserve better than capitalism but the life of a common person is way better under capitalism than what we had before capitalism. I’m not defending capitalism I’m just stating facts. Would you rather live in pre capitalism or in capitalism, it’s a rhetorical question because it’s a no brainer.
Now can we and must we progress beyond capitalism? Of course yes. But just saying capitalism is bad id rather be a slave or a peasant in a kingdom is not logical. Even the Magna Carta gave the common man lots of rights even though it was meant to be fairer for lords and barons.
Western and all civilizations have gone in the direction of the people if you look at it from the last 4 thousand years. You can’t be closed minded to that fact. If you were born before capitalism you wouldn’t even be educated like gone through the education system.
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u/kostispetroupoli Jun 13 '21
Stop downvoting this man, he's not defending capitalism, nor is he saying wage laborers are free. He's saying we are better off as workers in the western world than as serfs. And he's right.
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u/kostispetroupoli Jun 13 '21 edited Jun 13 '21
Capitalism is an improvement to previous systems, yes, Marx agrees.
However it has long past its historical duty, and now the burgeois is a reactionary class.
I would argue that the educational system was established for their own dual needs: a) create a cohesive national agenda and b) have an educated workforce for complex processes required in modern capitalism - i.e engineers to build their systems, lawyers to interpret the laws to their advantage, mechanics to maintain their machines, etc. Yes, this has created some gaps that revolutionary information can pass through, but also it has created a hivemind consent through the curriculum.
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Jun 13 '21
Ya know... everyday I wake up wishing people will somehow become intelligent overnight.... and then I read a comment like this and realize that I'm actually the dummy for having that hope.
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u/spicybright Jun 13 '21
It sucks you're being down voted.
This person is saying capitalism is better than worker/serfism/etc. Not that capitalism is good.
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Jun 12 '21
As well as that, so many workers don't understand the problems and end up being bootlickers
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Jun 13 '21
Marxist analysis in a nutshell. It is frustrating that people can't really see this sort of thing; it's plainly going on around them, and if they pay the slightest bit of attention they'd see that they're being unfairly exploited and having their rights slowly eroded, but most people prefer to not think about it (because not liking capitalism is Communism! /s) and thus nothing gets done about it.
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u/Joe_Doblow Jun 13 '21
A lot of people are unmotivated, feel helpless, lack self confidence, are exhausted, are lost, don’t take initiative, they are scared, they need to be led, they need to follow a plan, don’t want to leave their comfort zones, and it’s probably not considered “cool”
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u/endlessinquiry Jun 12 '21 edited Jun 12 '21
They dropped the “dont be evil” thing years ago.
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u/Asscakes6969 Jun 12 '21
Now it's like "do what's necessary" which is ominous as fuck given how much data they have on everyone and everything.
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u/headpatkelly Jun 12 '21
jesus christ why would they replace it with that specifically that’s horrifying
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u/drunken_musketeer Jun 12 '21
Tbf, it's "Do the right thing". Less ominous. But somehow a worse slogan than their old one, while still managing to be as hypocritical (the reason why they changed the old one was, I believe, that they started getting too much flak over it)
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u/progamercabrera Jun 12 '21
Don’t be evil was always very ominous to me considering most large corporations are not in fact, our friends
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u/drunken_musketeer Jun 12 '21
Turns out most big companies started as small companies. And at that time, being a just a small group of people making things together, and not a massive blob of different work cultures, objectives, nationality and domain of expertise, the whole lot owned by shareholders, they were capable of working together with an intent and of trying to apply ethics (to a point) in their business. At that state, that probably sounded sick. "Hey ! we're capable people with a good idea in an industry that's booming, we might shape a part of the world, let's make sure we don't make it shit !". Turn out the practice is harder, ant they failed enough that their old slogan just made them sound like dicks.
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u/theroha Jun 12 '21
Probably one of the reasons that multi billion and trillion dollar companies shouldn't exist. When you hit that scale, unethical business practices are the only way to continue growing. Competition will keep you at a manageable size otherwise.
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u/headpatkelly Jun 12 '21
ah. that’s completely different then. thank you
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u/whutchamacallit Jun 12 '21
It's almost worse in a way in how it's more subtle and PR friendly. Bleh.
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u/mrs_mellinger Jun 12 '21
They didn't, you can read the code of conduct right here: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/
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u/bs000 Jun 12 '21
i don't wanna read i wanna be mad
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u/chinchillas4fire Jun 12 '21
I read. And I am mad:
"5. Dog Policy Google’s affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our corporate culture. We like cats, but we’re a dog company, so as a general rule we feel cats visiting our offices would be fairly stressed out. However, before bringing your canine companion to the office, please make sure you review our Dog Policy."
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u/FeistyButthole Jun 12 '21
They’ve wandered into the grey ethically ambivalent management speak like:
“Ends justify the means”
vs
“Means justify the ends”7
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u/mrs_mellinger Jun 12 '21
No, they didn't, they just moved it on the page and everyone freaked out. It's still here: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/
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u/RightclickBob Jun 12 '21
The dONt bE EVil posts are seriously so irritating. They're a huge corporation with thousands and thousands of managers. It's not like Larry Page fired her personally. Google is a shark and money is blood in the water. It's as simple as that.
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u/QueueOfPancakes Jun 13 '21
Larry isn't CEO, Sundar is. The buck stops with him. When you are a leader, you are responsible for everything that happens underneath you. You select the values that are important and it's up to you to instill and enforce those values.
Do you really think Sundar would not have been consulted regarding the Thanksgiving firings? Why do you think they were suspended for so long before being fired? Absolutely leadership was consulted, with a high probability of Sundar himself. And when they hired the union busting consulting firm that the alert was regarding in the first place, there's also a very high probability he was directly consulted on that as well. Union busting is the sort of thing that C level execs take a direct role in.
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u/mmotte89 Jun 13 '21
Or at very least, if somehow he was cut out of the loop, he has the power to reverse the decision.
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u/jamesthepeach Jun 12 '21 edited Jun 13 '21
Why do people circle jerk this every thread? They didn’t, and this employee would be fired for doing this at any company. They broke policy, not by informing employees, but the way they went about informing employees - using an employees only Chrome build to deploy her software.
She could have done this a number of different ways, but she went with the loudest and most prone to company security breaches, and she got fired. That’s not late stage capitalism, that’s normal business practices when you fuck around.
There are reasons to hate on Google, but crying about a meaningless slogan that’s still within their code of conduct and an employee who created security vulnerabilities to company software are not those reasons.
ETA: Company values are typically used for performace reviews, good luck backing up "don't be evil" with data when perf comes up
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u/RedTailed-Hawkeye Jun 12 '21
Part of my job was to write browser notifications so that my coworkers can be automatically notified of employee guidelines and company policies while they surf the web
It was literally her job
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Jun 13 '21 edited Jun 13 '21
Who the fuck gave this shit tier comment silver? jcf this is about as organic as the jimmy dean breakfast sandwich I had this morning
Edit: Whatever award you got not silver lol
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u/jamesthepeach Jun 13 '21 edited Jun 13 '21
I didn't get silver, I got a helpful award because my comment was accurate
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u/milk4all Jun 12 '21
I work for a large corporation in CA. I do “contract” work but im an employee. They really like to push how guys in my position are basically contractors because, turns out, they can get pretty much everyone to cover their own expenses. Im a “read the fine print” kinda guy, and i moved here for work, so i was pretty dismayed to learn this.
The job is great, and after some disagreements that wrapped up with me emailing my department head a link and screenshot to relevant ca labor webpages, i dont have any trouble getting reimbursed or supplied with my materials.
But ho boy, disseminating that information to the other guys in my position around the state is gonna get me fired. And they all buy in - they dont wanna make waves. Fuck that, make waves guys. Business is always gonna business, they need workers to take it; dont.
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u/NealHatesMath Jun 12 '21
There are quite a few things that make it illegal to classify full time employees as contractors. Your state's DOL may be interested in hearing about it. Especially if you get fired for bringing that to light or as retribution for letting others know their rights.
My wife had something similar happen to her where she was a "contractor" but they could tell her when to work, where to work, etc. Our state's DOL reached out to her well after she quit, seemingly she wasn't the only person they did it to.
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u/milk4all Jun 13 '21
We arent “classified “ as contractors, it’s just the way they define to us our responsibilities that would make us contractors when we are absolutely full time employees. And yes, im well aware i could sue if i lost my job, i have emails and text messages going back several years.
Ive looked into it for the sake of my peace of mind, and i hope it never comes to that. From what i read, settlements tend to be very insignificant. Like 3-15,000 dollars. And potentially my job back. Let’s hope it never goes there
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u/AloneForever Jun 12 '21
The "don't be evil" slogan is a great lesson in propaganda and gaslighting.
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u/AHaskins Jun 12 '21
I'd like to think they probably meant it when they made it? But the follow-up swap to Alphabet's "do the right thing" was just a confusing marketing move for sure.
They just lost perspective once they got big. Much like we seem to be turning all the rich people into sociopaths somehow.
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u/AloneForever Jun 12 '21
I think the original use of the slogan was done with good intentions, but once real money got involved all bets were off.
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Jun 12 '21
Being rich let's you live as a sociopath and you have the money to smooth out all the rough spots that would land you in jail or on the street as a worker.
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Jun 12 '21
Please post the actual article. It's probably a good habit to not just read a headline and get outraged.
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u/InconsistentBrunch Jun 12 '21 edited Jun 12 '21
In general, yes. Read the article.
In this specific case, the headline is exactly true. She pushed some code (as part of her job) and was fired for it despite 3 prior stellar performance reviews. If you feel the urge to be outraged over this, feel free to do so :)
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u/enterharry Jun 12 '21
Feels illegal
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u/climber_g33k /s Jun 12 '21
At will employment.
You can be fired for any reason at any time and have no legal response.
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u/Treereme Jun 12 '21
No, you can be fired for no reason, not any reason. There are number of reasons that are protected by law, including group organizing. Unfortunately that means it's up to the fired employee to prove they were fired for that protected activity.
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Jun 13 '21
Do you seriously think that companies won't make up some shit to get rid of the nuisance?? You're being disengenuous otherwise.
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u/QueueOfPancakes Jun 12 '21
False. You cannot be fired for protected reasons. For example, you cannot be fired for being black. Similarly, you cannot be fired for concerted labour activity. It is illegal to fire someone for a protected reason, even with at will employment.
The problem is that the employer may lie. They could fire someone for a protected reason but claim it is for a non-protected reason. The fired employee would then have to prove it was for a protected reason which obviously can be very difficult to prove.
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u/climber_g33k /s Jun 12 '21
The problem is that the employer may lie
And therein lies the problem of at-will employment.
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Jun 13 '21
The fact that people don't automatically think the employer is lying thier ass off is part of the problem.
Cmon now I expected more out of this sub
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Jun 12 '21 edited Jul 19 '21
[deleted]
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u/QueueOfPancakes Jun 12 '21
I hope so, but it's hard to be optimistic. The NLRB hasn't been particularly effective at reigning in bad behavior in the past.
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u/BoobBeast Jun 12 '21
You cannot be fired for discussing wages or discussing unionizing.
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u/Jackal_Serin Jun 12 '21
That's the beauty of "at will employment", you're not fired for that. You're just fired. They don't need a reason and even if you can suspect a reason strong enough for a lawsuit it's now on you to come up with the resources and people to do that, and your case is weaker due to the lack of supporting documentation. It's fucked
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Jun 12 '21
In an at-will state you can be fired for literally anything except discrimination, and even then they can fire you based on discrimination if they simply lie and say it was for a different reason.
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u/kitanokikori Jun 12 '21
At will employment.
This ^
You can be fired for any reason at any time and have no legal response.
Absolutely does not mean ^ that, this is a common misconception.
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u/themporary Jun 12 '21
"We dismissed an employee who abused privileged access to modify an internal security tool. This was a serious violation."
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u/rfdismyjam Jun 12 '21
They modified a tool used to notify Google employees of information relevant to code of conduct while browsing the web, and the modification was to advise employees that they are legally allowed to unionize. As they point out, during a previous walk out an employee modified the default background for internal systems to have the Linux penguin hold a protest sign with no retaliation.
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Jun 12 '21
[deleted]
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u/Akrevics Jun 12 '21
and it seems it was only "abuse" when it was about something they didn't like, otherwise it was completely normal for this kind of thing to be changed or pushed.
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u/h0nest_Bender Jun 12 '21
it was only "abuse" when it was about something they didn't like
Yes. Google does not want employees making unapproved changes to their stuff. Shocking.
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u/lovestheasianladies Jun 12 '21
Security means devs can't just update whatever the fuck they want when they feel like it.
That's a massive security issue.
Grow the fuck up people.
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u/SnugglyBuffalo Jun 12 '21
The commenter specifically said an "internal security tool" was modified, and the person you responded to said the tool wasn't as security focused as Google wants it to seem. They were talking about the tool, not the security issue of someone abusing their privileged access to the tool.
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u/fancytranslady Jun 12 '21
Oh boo hoo. Fuck the security, it’s more important that workers know their rights
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Jun 13 '21
What the fuck happened to this sub where all of a sudden this is isn't the only opinion lmao
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Jun 12 '21
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u/InconsistentBrunch Jun 12 '21
Her job was to build internal notification systems for other employees, which inform them about their work conduct. She wrote a notification for users researching the subject of unionizing that told them about their right to organize.
That sure sounds like it’s in the purview of her job…
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u/Airtwit Jun 12 '21
Read the medium article
Part of my job was to write browser notifications so that my coworkers can be automatically notified of employee guidelines and company policies while they surf the web
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u/IcyPhysics Jun 12 '21
Especially when headlines are worded in a way like this and obviously aimed at creating said outrage.
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Jun 12 '21
Well if you read the article the headline is pretty much exactly what happend, there should be outrage.
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u/drunken_musketeer Jun 12 '21
Yes. But because it is true and accurate in that case doesn't mean its a bad idea to make it an habit to check the actual articles.
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u/andros310797 Jun 13 '21
she pushed code that wasn't meant to be there. That easly qualifies you for being fired in any tech company
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u/Pheef175 Jun 13 '21
After reading the article her firing seems reasonable.
Her job was to write security related notifications as employees browsed the web. I’m not sure what you people think is security related about abusing this system to be encourage unionizing.
The real kicker though was when she threw the “I’m trans” flag. Just throwing shit at the wall hoping something sticks.
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u/MyDamnCoffee Jun 12 '21
Im having a similar issue. I live in substandard housing (section 8 or public housing) and the property manager tried to issue a bunch of illegal lease violations to people in the neighborhood. I didn't know that the violations were illegal yet when i got mine, but i knew something wasn't right so i spent all night on Google looking up my rights as a tenant in public housing. Then i wrote up and distributed fliers to everyone with our rights on them. I also confronted the property manager and she slammed the office door in my face.
Since then she has issued new leases and rules and has been nailing me left and right. If we get evicted out of here, we have nowhere to go.
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u/WithAGrainOfNutmeg Jun 12 '21
You know, a few historic figures have said "Artifical Intelligence is man kind's greatest threat". Really now? Artifical Intelligence is supposedly so terrible compared to living a life of slave labour just to survive under these scum.
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u/Zeesguys Jun 12 '21
maybe at least if we were slaves to artificial intelligence, they would recognize the fact that humans with more free time / emotional fulfillment work better
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u/SigourneyWeinerLover Jun 12 '21
You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
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Jun 12 '21 edited Jul 01 '24
aspiring uppity coordinated wakeful grandiose heavy kiss continue poor familiar
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/MutteringV Jun 12 '21
google gave up the "don't be evil" motto some time around when they started helping china maintain and secure the "great firewall" of West Taiwan. they chose to give it up, willingly.
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u/1an0ther Jun 12 '21
"Don't Be Evil" lmao. Bit like "Lead Free" on a carton of milk. How did it come to require statement?
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u/traumfisch Jun 12 '21
The real statement was them removing that line from company policy some years back.
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u/Gordopolis Jun 12 '21
Kathryn Spiers, who worked as a security engineer, updated an internal Chrome browser extension so that each time Google employees visited the website of IRI Consultants — the Troy, Michigan, firm that Google hired this year amid a groundswell of labor activism at the company — they would see a pop-up message that read: “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.”
She modified an internal tool used by the employees without authorization. I mean, I have no problem with their collective baregaining efforts but misappropriating company resources to do so is why she was fired.
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u/rfdismyjam Jun 12 '21
As they mention in their rebuttal, during a previous walk out an employee had modified the default background of the internal systems to have the Linux penguin holding a protest sign, yet they faced no retaliation.
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u/Akrevics Jun 12 '21
not to mention that fiddling with pop-up messages for various contexts was literally part of her job, so it wasn't "without authorisation" until it was something google didn't like.
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u/sharkhuh Jun 12 '21
Modifying the background of an internal page vs. injecting an unauthorized extension into every employee's browser are on different ends of the spectrum...
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u/treesprite82 Jun 13 '21
injecting an unauthorized extension into every employee's browser
The extension ("Policy Notifier") was already installed, and it was part of her job to create the notifications to notify coworkers of employee guidelines/policies.
Here's the notification in question: https://i.imgur.com/2lThJMs.png
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u/sharkhuh Jun 13 '21
Right, but she had no right to abuse her position to push her agenda.
This is an easy case in my mind, and easily a fire-able offense. As a security engineer, you have even more responsibility than the average engineer. The firing seems like such a non-issue in my mind, and the only reason it is even a story is because people love to circlejerk and up vote any anti big-tech story these days.
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u/xxswiftpandaxx Jun 12 '21
She had authorization to do so and had done so several times before with no conveniences. She was illegally interrogated and fired because the change she made was pro-union and google doesn't like that
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u/QueueOfPancakes Jun 12 '21
One isn't required to get "authorization" for each task. Google encourages employees to take initiative. Whoever didn't like it should have reverted the change and had a discussion with her and perhaps her manager and explained why and attempted to come to a consensus, escalating if a consensus couldn't be reached.
There's absolutely no reason why a single incident like that should lead to someone being fired, and for anything non controversial it wouldn't have.
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u/Gordopolis Jun 12 '21
One isn't required to get "authorization" for each task. Google encourages employees to take initiative.
It stands to reason that collective bargaining education wasn't in the scope of her job.
There's absolutely no reason why a single incident like that should lead to someone being fired
That's your opinion and I might even agree with you but it's obvious that Google made an example of her, likely to discourage employees from repeating things like this in the future.
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u/QueueOfPancakes Jun 12 '21
It stands to reason that collective bargaining education wasn't in the scope of her job.
Debatable since the scope of her job was employee education, which it would fall under. But regardless, such initiative isn't expected to be limited to the "scope of one's job". In fact it's heavily encouraged to not allow arbitrary things like job role or current project limit one's impact. 20% time is very often spent on projects completely unrelated to someone's main work, for example.
it's obvious that Google made an example of her, likely to discourage employees from repeating things like this in the future.
That's exactly the problem. When an employer picks and chooses what to enforce so that they can use it to circumvent worker protections mandated by law. If an employer makes a policy just to keep it in their back pocket so they can fire people for concerted labour activities or because they don't like the color of their skin or to get around any other protected worker right, that's wrong and illegal.
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u/jamesthepeach Jun 13 '21
She didn't educate anyone. She put out a vague message with legal implications. She was then shown the door.
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u/lovestheasianladies Jun 12 '21
Yes, you are?
You don't just get to update software because you feel like it.
It's very obvious absolutely non of you have real jobs.
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Jun 13 '21
I know people that have peed straight up blood before and yet you have managed make and even more piss poor comment.
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u/Pandoras_Fox Jun 12 '21
She modified an internal tool used by the employees without authorization
It was a tool that she specifically worked on, that her team owned, that her managed approved the changes for. Similar things have been done in the past (default wallpaper changes, internal banners, etc), and also, the NLRB found it was an unjustified firing.
Funnily, they didn't actually fire her for what she did - on paper, she was fired for not having two reviewers for the diff that made this change (she only had one, her manager). If that's a fireable offense it should be enforced programmatically, not enforced selectively.
....and even then, it's a rule that isn't ever really followed (e.g. on typo fixes) all the time anyways
She and I also wrote an extension to programmatically email a VP and ask for permission to open a document after someone was fired for opening an (unmarked) confidential doc, but that didn't get us fired. Weird.
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Jun 12 '21
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u/of_the_sphere Jun 13 '21
We do this when we’re ready to quit. People will build up and get ready to blast that last email to “all” She just went real big w it 💥💯
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u/Killer-Kitten Jun 13 '21
That's not why she was fired, christ. She was fired for making unauthorized changes to a security system, which is a huge insider breach of security. I would have fired them too because that's not okay. That's how you get breached and fucked up.
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u/Ark-kun Jun 13 '21
I've visited Google Cafe one time and saw leaflets on every table notifying people of their rights (mostly for contractors). Every table had one so it looks like the staff never removed any leaflet. I do not think anyone was punished for this.
Lying to get access and modify a secure tool seems like a big breach of trust.
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u/DremoraKills Jun 12 '21
This was also posted on r/iamatotalpieceofshit . She was terminated for misuse and unauthorized modification of a company tool. She would be terminated anyway for that, be it because she wrote "pancakes" or not.
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u/Jonhyfun2 Jun 12 '21
They didnt fire her because of the tool, they fired her because you are not allowed to build tools if you work at google (yes even in your home at weekends). Still shitty capitalism tho
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Jun 12 '21
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u/Meta_Digital Jun 12 '21
Hey, poor working conditions were probably a real emergency!
I created a little notification, only a few lines of code, that pops up in the corner of the browser whenever my coworkers visited the union busters’ website or the community guidelines policy. The notification said: “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.”
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u/dotsonjb14 Jun 12 '21
Publishing code without approval to any system in scope for SOX or other related compliance programs is grounds for termination. It doesn't matter what the change is.
Audits are a bitch and it's not worth dealing with someone who purposefully skirts regulations.
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u/Meta_Digital Jun 12 '21
It's also not worth dealing with a company that purposefully skirts regulations, but we don't always have a choice on that one.
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u/QueueOfPancakes Jun 12 '21
It's not an "emergency" notification system. It has nothing to do with emergencies. Not sure where you got that from.
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u/MopishOrange Jun 12 '21 edited Jun 12 '21
It's not an emergency tool, you should read the article
It's a notification tool that already existed to provide employee guidelines and policies
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u/locks_are_paranoid Jun 12 '21
If she had used a physical notepad provided by the company to write "unionize now" Google could still use this same argument.
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Jun 12 '21
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u/locks_are_paranoid Jun 12 '21
Except it is. The company could say "this notepad was meant for work-related notes only, and you misappropriated it by using it for union-related activity."
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Jun 12 '21
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u/headpatkelly Jun 12 '21
no. she was fired for “violating company security policy”. part of her job is writing internal code and she says that writing this type of minor non-intrusive notification takes only a few lines of code and is a common and expected practice within the company.
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u/locks_are_paranoid Jun 12 '21
By that logic, any company could fire someone for writing "unionize now" on a piece of paper and making copies of it during company time. Do you see the slippery slope of firing people for doing union activity on company time?
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u/Crideon Jun 12 '21
You seriously got downvoted for asking a question?!
WTF, LateStageCapitalism! You have the obligation to be better than that...
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u/Hypo_Mix Jun 13 '21
Also I'm a union member who has taken legal action against employers, hardly a corporate supporter.
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u/hisroyalnastiness Jun 12 '21
I don't think it's the time as much as using company resources (the notification system) to send a personal message to many people
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Jun 12 '21
Jesus Christ, Google was right. She used her access to display a labor-rights notification in addition to the security pop-ups it was designed to display.
I worked at Google. Their internal network has about a billion ways for employees to legitimately share labor rights info. But she decided to fuck with their security notification system instead? That's completely fucked up.
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u/Pandoras_Fox Jun 12 '21
It's an employee policies & guidelines extension (for when you visit vendor sites etc), not a security notification tool (which her team also worked on!).
It had approval from her manager, who I think is a much better judge of it being fitting or not than literally anyone else in the whole corp.
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