Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PragmaticPulp | Hacker News Reader

I worked for a company big enough to be in the HN headlines (sorry, have to stay somewhat anonymous) where development virtually stalled for a couple years after a mass exodus event. The CEO went on a rampage and fired some people on the spot for something they weren’t even responsible for, which destroyed the already fragile morale and created a steady exodus of good talent over a couple of years.

It didn’t kill the company for several reasons, but primarily because:

1) The company had enough momentum, revenue, and cash in the bank that they could go on hiring sprees to replace everyone. The new hires had a lot of churn when they realized what was going on, so they just kept hiring until enough replacements stuck around.

2) Many of the employees who didn’t quit saw this as their opportunity to rise through the ranks and fill the voids. They weren’t wrong and it paid off for many of them in the form of rapid promotions and advancement. The CEO became more hands-off as he realized his micromanagement wasn’t helping, so they basically inherited a slightly better situation.

After this experience, I don’t really see a developer exodus killing any big company with good momentum and decent cash reserves. As long as a company has cash flow they can spend their way into hiring replacements as long as it takes.

I honestly, can't believe how many companies I've seen that have had the problem with new hires churning really quick.

When I lived in the UK, I saw one company that was like that. When I moved to Berlin, it's pretty much been like that at most companies. Various reasons from the tech being crap, the culture being crap, or managers being crap.

While the company normally survives for a while, since if you have the cash you can survive for a while no matter what. The company never really reaches it's true value. Most do end up being acquired by a competitor for very little money or going out of business.

Ah yes, the companies with bimodal tenure distribution; it's either 3 months or 13 years, and nobody with 3 years. You either accept the bullshit and stick around, or you get out of there fast.

So the good ones left when they realized what was going on and the mediocre ones stayed.

I, being Deaf, would have been forced to stay with the mediocre ones because interviewing is difficult for me.

I am lucky that I don't need a job now.

Don't they accommodate you knowing that you are deaf?

Granted, I don't know where you're situated, and from what I hear the hiring process in the US is sketchy, but this sounds like an easy problem to fix, if it's even a problem at all.

I’m not deaf but have other impairments and most companies literally don’t even know what to do, it’s like an alien just showed up on their doorstep. In my experience most of the time if you’re disabled you’re just quietly looked over.

It's just plain discrimination. If you have to equally skilled people, do you pick the one where you need to make special accomodations? Probably not, even if you are free of prejudices or other malicious thoughts.

As I’ve posted my story below, I also wanted to point out that I was uniquely Deaf, but nonetheless a rockstar programmer then.

Interviewing is hard. Notably Google’s digital interviewing where they insist that they call you for an interview. I aced all their backend questions so they kept trying to call me until I insisted that I call them. Then it went silent. Their loss.

This approach doesn’t leave us Deafies a whole lotta time to arrange for an American Sign Language interpreter to come and sit with us before the phone rings.

Can you play audio explaining the situation asking for a call back number or email?

I imagine this situation comes up frequently and not only with hiring.

My lawyer advised me not to reveal my handicap during any interview process. it really is about the skillset.

It becomes a bonus for the company if HR finds out, but not necessarily for the line management.

Problem is Google does not segregate such sensitive info (race, sex, handicap) between the hiring team and its HR.

Google, however, elected not to use email and I am unwilling to reveal the real reason for me calling them directly … much less by email.

I see, it seems like choosing to not reveal your handicap during the interview process is a major challenge to getting the accommodations you want during the hiring process.

Also not sure how google HR could firewall obvious disability from the hiring team if they are at all involved in the interview.

if and when the design team of Google hiring are not made up of HR personnel, it could be construed as a violation of Federal labor law. It becomes a violation if the hiring (non-HR) team are privy to sensitive info of applicants. and if HR design team and hiring (non-HR) team are one and the same playing fast and loose with privilege info, many lawyers will be all over this.

Of course, I am unwilling to find out because my priorities lies elsewhere but if and when I learn of the next Deaf applicant that got turned away because of lack of direct call support, then my priority of my legal team will change.

Federal law says accommodation must be made … after the hire. No need to tip your hand earlier.

I think you are grossly misinformed.

>when the design team of Google hiring are not made up of HR personnel, it could be construed as a violation of Federal labor law.

There is nothing illegal about the design team participating in or even running the hiring process.

>HR design team and hiring (non-HR) team are one and the same playing fast and loose with privilege info, many lawyers will be all over this.

There is nothing illegal about this either. You have to show discrimination took place. Many companies separate some roles simply for additional legal protection.

>Of course, I am unwilling to find out because my priorities lies elsewhere but if and when I learn of the next Deaf applicant that got turned away because of lack of direct call support, then my priority of my legal team will change.

You weren't turned away. You refused to tell them you needed direct call accommodation, and then act like a victim when they didn't know. Do you expect them to read minds? Do you expect them to accommodate every possible request from applicants without need for explanation?

If you go to court, google will show it's HR policies and process for accommodating applicants that notify HR of their needs. They will point to applicants that asked for accommodation, and all the times HR provided it. They will then point out the fact that you or the next similar applicant did not inform them, and explain to the court that they are not mind readers.

That was on the advice of my lawyer.

You, however, probably need to consult your legal team.

This type of discussion is typical. If all goes well, no worries, Signed Language is so beautiful, how can I learn to sign? and so on. If there are problems, Deaf people are used to rough treatment. And if they complain they are told off not to be so sensitive, that what they say is not correct, or they get the silence treatment.

It seems there is something like an impedance mismatch between Deafies and Hearies and sometimes the sparks fly furiously.

C'est la vie.

C’eat la vie.

That is strategic advice, not advice on the law.

If the intent of hiding your disability is to prevent possible discrimination during the process, you are defeating the intent staying quiet and guaranteeing the application fails.

IMO they did nothing discriminatory.

Sure. They’ve neglected to mention accommodation in their hiring website.

That … was on the advice of my lawyer.

Meanwhile, this:

https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/accessibility/googl...

It's not possible to have a Signed Language interpreter around you all the time. Or did you? If not, how did you communicate with your coworkers?

When I was working in companies I just lipread and talked German, and it worked mostly fine except meetings. But a few years ago I realized that lipreading is too hard for me, so I now avoid that. Recently I got interrogated by the police but they put up an additional computer monitor for me to follow the notes. I declined the offer of a Signed Language interpreter because I was not sure whether the interpreter really knows the correct legal terms. The monitor was very helpful. I caught many little misunderstandings this way like I said, he wanted to void the ticket himself, but the minute taker wrote, he wanted to buy the ticket himself.

Anyway, I am lucky that I don't need to work in companies anymore being semi-retired.

Sounds like many dysfunctional startups, many of which have impetuous CEOs who have been handed far too much VC money and have far too little management experience. Just take a look at what is / has happened with DataRobot.

This is kind of my experience as well — lots of times these management mistakes manifest as opportunity costs, which means there might not be much in the way of visible costs. This means that there's often little consequence to the mismanagement, and the organization can absorb the problematic consequences as long as they have sufficient outside reputation and/or resources to attract a critical mass of new hires that will just flow with that dysfunction, or the poor management goes away for other reasons.

The continued success or longevity of an organization doesn't say much about how it's functioning, mostly because it doesn't address how much better it could have been doing or who is not in the organization.

Extremely similar situation happened to me at a startup.

i havent actually done this but just pointing out that with 55k HN karma and 7 years of HN comments, you're pseudonymous at best :) maybe if youre far enough from the company i'd give it like 5 years statute of limitations before you can start naming and shaming?

Zynga?

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