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Comment by hartator | Hacker News Reader

Didn’t she gave an ultimatum? Do this or I resign? And they are like we can’t do this so we consider you terminated?

My uninformed interpretation is that Google wanted her gone and jumped at the first opportunity they got. If they wanted her around I don't think the reasons they've given for letting her go would have been dealbreakers.

Ethics work will inherently raise questions that challenge a company's narrative or image. Clearly both employer and employee had conflicting opinions on how to deal with said work. You can portray any large corporation negatively given the right thesis and research. I have the same hunch that this was a long-running contention between the two sides—one side had enough and fired the other; the other side went public to retaliate. Sure, you can add nuance, but I don't think it's much more complicated than that.

Technically speaking, how is that a problem? If your theory is right that Google was looking for a reason to fire her, then she shouldn't have given them a 'legal' one. At the end of the day, it boiled down to - she gave them an ultimatum and they called her bluff (this has nothing to do with whether her reasons were right or wrong; if her reasons were right and she really didn't want believe she could work under such conditions, then the focus of her statement and public debate should be about that and not whether Google fired her or she resigned.

What makes you think it was a bluff?

The debate about her being fired or resigning is a debate about who to believe about what led up to it. People who think she resigned see her saying she was fired as evidence of a victim complex and publicity seeking. People who think she was fired see Google saying she resigned as evidence of unfair treatment and dishonesty.

If someone says "if you don't fix this thing I will look for work elsewhere" that doesn't mean that you can say "I accept your resignation." If you want that person gone immediately, you have to fire them.

The following are equivalent:

- I will look for work elsewhere

- I will work on a last date

- My last date is <X>

- This job isn't working out

- I don't want to work here anymore

- I offer my resignation

- I quit

Legally speaking, that is not true at all.

Edit: if you say "I don't want to work here anymore." And you get your "resignation date moved up" you still get your unemployment benefits because you were fired.

> if you say "I don't want to work here anymore." And you get your "resignation date moved up" you still get your unemployment benefits because you were fired.

I can't speak for California, but in my state, if you are fired and not laid off[1], you don't get unemployment benefits. I've anecdotally heard this is also the case in California. However, I've also heard that many tech companies state they will not dispute unemployment claims when fired (my company certainly says that), so people in these "privileged" companies often do collect unemployment even when fired.

[1] I hope people know the difference.

I think there is a term in California - fired “with cause” - but I’m not sure if that has bearing on unemployment eligibility.

Generally, if you are fired for poor performance, or poor conduct, you are not eligible for unemployment benefits. If the company is eliminating your position or downsizing, then you are.

There might be specific criteria that needs to be met for each, so details matter. My guess is the reason my employer does not dispute unemployment claims is they've calculated that the cost to dispute them exceeds the amount they expect their unemployment insurance contributions to go up.

In California and other states fired just means it was against the employee's will. Employees fired for misconduct don't get unemployment benefits.

This is hard to believe - which state are you in? Are you confusing "fired" (generally used for any non-layoff termination) with "for cause"?

I've stated before that I don't want to work at a job without intending to actually leave the job or having a last date. In those cases I was venting and was burnt out. I've even admitted this to managers I could trust to talk about how to unburn me instead of declaring I've 'resigned', because I bring a lot of value to teams I'm on.

I am quite sure you didn't send email to fellow employees asking them to immediately stop work on the projects they were working on.

I am assuming that was the red line, I am not a manager but it would have been for me.

That's a completely separate issue as to whether or a set of statements all mean the same thing. I entirely agree that there was serious unprofessional behavior in venting out to a listserv of direct reports. But that doesn't mean all the criticisms laid out are correct, such as "saying X means Y".

So, that's getting fired for cause, maybe, but not resigning. Google's official story is that she resigned. You have to stretch things pretty far to say that taking an action that might get you fired is the same as resigning. Resigning is handing in your badge and laptop and leaving the building. Getting fired is being called into a 4PM Friday meeting with HR and they escort you from the building afterwards.

I am not really even sure how meaningful an email telling your coworkers to stop working on their projects is. It really depends on the tone. When I was at Google, I used the internal social media extensively. I am sure at some point someone said something like "I'm really depressed about how my project is going" and I would reply with something like "You should join my team! I have a req!" That's technically telling someone to stop working on their project, but is a completely acceptable thing to do.

Ultimately the exact details matter, and we don't have them.

The key here is that you were venting to 'managers you could trust about feeling burnt out'. If you were talking to a manager who didn't see this as just 'venting', nothing stops them from accepting your resignation.

Ridiculously untrue. This specific case aside, if you are a manager and see all of these as equivalent statements, it's a pretty clear sign you don't care about your team.

I've never regarded those as equivalent. Some are equivalent to others, but they range from expressing displeasure about your job to flat out quitting.

"My last date is <X>, BECAUSE I'M RETIRING."

If you immediately fire someone for that, that may be illegal age discrimination.

Cheers.

I didn't say anything about "immediately firing" anybody, cheers.

When someone says "I quit," (which you equated it to) I stop paying their paycheck.

What do you do?

I'm really struggling to understand why you think these are equivalent

It's fuzzy. If someone in a heated dispute says, "I resign, effective some time in the next month", what do you do? Keep them on until you agree in a date? Even if they give a date like "Dec 31", do you let them keep all their access to sensitive company data, or you lock them out for security's sake and settle the legal and payroll paperwork separately?

Easy -- if the contract has a notice period, they go on “gardening leave”. It’s common for this to be specifically covered in contracts.

If there’s no notice period (legal only in “at will” states, I believe) then it would seem reasonable to fire them immediately.

All states are at-will states but not all employment in an at-will state is at-will (at-will states allow and make default at-will terms, but specific employment contracts may still set other terms.)

> If someone says "if you don't fix this thing I will look for work elsewhere" that doesn't mean that you can say "I accept your resignation."

I think you'll find from a legal standpoint, it does.[1] At least I know that they teach in negotiations courses that any time you make a counteroffer, the original offer is legally null and void. So if I give you an employment offer that is good for 30 days, and you counter the following day with a higher salary, then I legally can say "No, and we will not hire you" (i.e. the 30 days clause became invalid once you gave me a counteroffer).

This isn't exactly the same, but we are at least taught to treat it similarly.

Also, she didn't merely say "I will look for work elsewhere". She said something to the effect of "Let's meet to decide my end date." There's a significant difference.

[1] Although being an at-will job, the legality is rather moot.

> I think you'll find from a legal standpoint, it does.

In fact, it specifically does not: https://cuiab.ca.gov/board/precedentdecisions/docs/pb39.pdf

That’s about whether pay is owed. I’m certain that Google did not simply stop paying her checks, but told her to go home and that the remainder of her employment would be paid out. I suspect that’s enough for the law to agree that she was terminated voluntarily.

It's pay and also unemployment benefits if necessary.

You can't be certain unless you handle payroll for Google.

A manager told it was effective immediately and mentioned her final paycheck.

In that case an employee gave a resignation date of 11/15. Employer cut off the employment two weeks early and court ruled that it shouldn't be considered a resignation, but instead a termination by employer.

What's the parallel between those facts and the dispute here? Just not seeing any applicable precedent.

Yeah accepting a resignation effective immediately is a firing, especially when companies ask for 2 weeks notice.

She gave a date or implied she intended to. Google cut off her employment immediately.

> In that case an employee gave a resignation date of 11/15. Employer cut off the employment two weeks early and court ruled that it shouldn't be considered a resignation, but instead a termination by employer.

> What's the parallel between those facts and the dispute here?

That it's, at best for Google, the exact same thing, except that Google gave Gebru, in writing, an explicit, non-resignation reason for the early separation, making it even less disputable that it was a firing and not merely accepting the (disputed) resignation? Paraphrased most favorably to the Google management narrative, Gebru said “do X or I will conduct discussions around setting a date on which I will resign” and Google management said “we accept your resignation and, further, based on an internal group e-mail you sent after this dispute started which we find unacceptable, we are ending your employment immediately.”

> Although being an at-will job, the legality is rather moot.

The only interesting implication is unemployment, but if it's a termination, Google might tell the unemployment office it was for insubordination.

The difference between being fired and resigning isn't moot, even in an at-will job where the employer can fire you without cause or explanation. How/why you departed can affect your severance, unemployment insurance, and other financial considerations. In some industries, it may also affect the report submitted to an industry regulator.

If you ever say something like this and you are fired, you should not be surprised. There’s basically never a reason to do this. If it’s something that your manager can fix, and you’re valued, you wouldn’t use an ultimatum. You’d have enough influence and mutual respect to have a conversation about it. If it’s something they can’t fix, your ultimatum is useless anyway.

Otherwise, this is an all-in bet, and you need to be fully committed to leaving before doing it.

Yes, actually, it does. That's how the disjunctive "or" works.

If I tell Perl to

    do_the_thing() || die();

then the Perl interpreter is well within its rights to say "Well, doing the thing doesn't work, so I am terminating your script." Indeed, that is what one would expect it to do.

This tweet [1], seems less like an ultimatum and more of asking for an explanation, which management does not seem willing to provide.

[1] https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334900391302098944

That's only the conditional part of the ultimatum, not the threat. (the "X" in "Do X, or I'll do Y").

The exact phrasing she used is (probably - IANA employment lawyer) very important. If she said something like "Do X, or I'll have to reconsider if I want to continue working here", that doesn't sound like an ultimatum. But if she said "Do X, or I'm going to quit on December 5th", then that definitely sounds like an ultimatum you're begging the company to take you up on.

That tweet is the "conditions" part of the ultimatum. The other part was the "consequences" if the conditions are not met (the consequences were that she would resign at a to-be-determined date).

When you threaten to resign the other person may decide they don't want the headache of having you around.

She had already sent an email asking other people to stop their work on diversity. It's at best naive to think that Google (or any employer) would give her a few more weeks to lower morale or cause trouble.

Yes. But they said "we accept your resignation" without waiting to see if she'd follow through on the ultimatum, and without respecting her stated plan to work on an end date.

When you put an ultimatum forward, you must expect being called on it and lose. She got called on it and lost. The least she could do is walk away with some honor and walk her talk. Not only she doesn't even seem to be able to do that, but she keeps playing victim...

AIUI, she is still on the payroll, but has just been restricted from accessing anything. There's no law (at least -in the US) that says that if an employee gives their 2 weeks notice, that you have to let them keep coming in for those 2 weeks. You can just give them 2 weeks of salary and tell them to immediately leave. From one of the leaked emails, it seems like she would have been given her 2 weeks if she hadn't written a rambling screed imploring other employees to stop working on certain projects.

That'd be smart; you can meet her timeline so it's officially a resignation, but with all the benefits of ending the relationship that day.

I've seen people walked out the day they give notice, but I assume they weren't technically fired, and paying out their two weeks is the right thing to do.

> without waiting to see if she'd follow through on the ultimatum

Sending an email to your boss saying "I'll resign unless X" is a serious ultimatum. You need to be prepared to not have a job when at the end of it, and you were the one who initiated the process. I'm not too concerned with if she technically should have been given a chance to take it back. Don't send an email threatening to resign, lose your job, then say "actually, I was fired."

> and without respecting her stated plan to work on an end date.

You don't really want to let an employee already sending inappropriate emails to a wide audience have another week to send more.

I've been in a professionally self-destructive place before and I didn't realize it until later. 100% speculation here, but I wouldn't be shocked if she had a death wish and was hoping for some version of this outcome. Could be frustration with work, covid depression, or something else.

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