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Comment by fishnchips | Hacker News Reader

> Google encouraged it.

Everyone's story is different but I joined in 2008 and it took me about a week to understand that the company did not want employees to get involved in a way that would affect day-to-day operations. As an example, you could organise an LGBT group, print out stickers and t-shirts, dance at the local Pride, take a few photos, and you'll get a pat on the back from HR. But if you asked for health benefits for your same-sex partner, that would be at least frowned upon. As a different example, you could organise Irish-speaking evenings, and again - pat on the back. But try to push for an Irish language version of Google interface, and you can get in trouble if you make enough noise that decision makers hear about it. Both of these are actual examples I saw first hand.

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I suppose what I'm trying to argue here is that adult people with average emotional intelligence understand the difference between what's said and what's meant. So I find the argument that 'Google encouraged it' rather weak, especially for the insiders. The only thing I know is that leaving Google was back then one of the most difficult decisions of my life, despite being aware of conditioning I've been subjected to. Looking back, it was the best decision of my career, except that I should have left 2 years prior.

>adult people with average emotional intelligence understand the difference between what's said and what's meant.

The problem with not defining boundaries and instead relying on some fuzzy notion of understanding the subtext is that it leads to confusion. The James Damore fiasco demonstrates this. They guy actually thought he could write an opinion on a highly controversial and inflammatory topic without repercussions. Why did he think that? The vast majority of HR departments would explicitly discourage it and the company culture (especially at a multinational) would make it clear this isn't a topic for the corporate intranet. But he was confused enough that he thought this was ok because he probably though Google is different and is OK with employees debating political and social positions on company boards. That's what I mean by 'Google encouraged it'.

> The problem with not defining boundaries

Isn't that what a successful socialisation process should equip you with?

Human society is all about infinite overlapping boundaries and rules for them and games people play and violations thereof.

"Successful socialization" is pretty nebulous. I think it's a phrase to imply that some people who are objectively functioning in society "don't count" as socialized.

Anybody can be successful in whatever respect until one day they aren't.

You can really, really not like any given person, but if you question whether Damore lacked/lacks basic socialization, then what do you make of Martin Shkreli, or Donald Trump? Are you ok until you get sentenced to prison? Or can you be a failure until you become POTUS? If you've failed at basic socialization yet held a six figure job at Google, what would you be if instead you were a supermarket cashier, but with the same beliefs and personality?

No. No socialisation process is going to equip you to maneuver around a bureaucracy with ill-defined boundaries. That's why you need a defined process with rules so that people know where they stand. Damore thought he was in the clear because others posted about controversial positions and the company didn't have any rules about it and seemingly encouraged it. It turns out there were secret unwritten rules that he crossed and cost him his job.

The fact that they even have internal discussion boards is a cultural choice of Google. Most companies don't have such a thing. But culture is always implicit, not explicit. If Google had traditions of encouraging those types of discussions and Damore engaged with that, it's still on Google for promoting that atmosphere. The fact that it got leaked and then there was blowback and the leadership reacted to that blowback in the way they did signaled a cultural shift to Google employees and prospective Google employees. That's okay. Corporate cultures change sometimes. It's unknown whether that will be good for Google in the long run or not, but just because some companies think that such a discussion is not ok does not mean that it wasn't implicitly acceptable at Google when Damore did it.

Actually, J.D. can be the one to organize software developers into a em.. guild: an organization with membership fees, staff lawyers, accountants and all that. The organization could start with the non-compete agreements nonsense. He's surely a controversial figure, but that only makes him more visible, and he has personal reasons to start such an organization. With the 250/month fee you only need 150 members to get the ball rolling. The memberships need to be sufficiently obscured and Damore has the suitable background to get the anonymity right. One idea is to use the DBAs - name aliases that can be registered with your company to hide your identity. Every member would be an LLC, but I'm sure software devs have money and ability to overcome this minor obstacle.

> As an example, you could organise an LGBT group, print out stickers and t-shirts, dance at the local Pride, take a few photos, and you'll get a pat on the back from HR. But if you asked for health benefits for your same-sex partner, that would be at least frowned upon.

Awhile back people did ask for it and did secure said benefits, prior to the national legalization of gay marriage even.

So, in this case, organizing around and asking for those benefits did work.

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