timosman
06-25-2019, 07:57 PM
https://dailycaller.com/2019/06/25/inside-google-microaggressions-newsletter/
June 25, 2019
Google’s anonymous bias reporting newsletter, “Yes, At Google,” has been known about for some time, but details have been few and far between. For the first time, The Daily Caller can reveal what gets talked about on the monthly microaggressions report.
Googlers who choose to do so may receive the “Yes, At Google” newsletter. The listserv’s description says it is a “curated monthly newsletter of anonymized incidents of micro-aggressions & micro-corrections, collected from the anonymous form at go/yes-at-google. Anyone can join, but membership is required to view posts (see go/yag-faq). Contact fos-diversity-council@ with feedback or to get involved.”
The newsletter began in 2016 as the private initiative of one Googler. It grew over time and its existence was first reported by Bloomberg in May 2017. At that time, about 20% of the company’s workforce was on it and it went out weekly. Today it is a monthly newsletter with an editorial board.
The editor of the newsletter is Heather Cain, the leader of Google’s Respect@ program. Respect@ is a human resources initiative begun in 2015 which, according to the New York Times “includes a way for employees to anonymously report complaints of inappropriate behavior by co-workers.”
“In ~August 2017, Heather Cain who co-leads the Respect@ and go/respectadvisors initiatives, came on board to program manage the effort,” reads a document shared with The Daily Caller.
“She developed the educational scenarios we shared in past issues, and set up an Editorial Board of various functions including HRBPs, Equity Diversity, Inclusion and Integrity (EDII), Benefits, REWS, Communications etc. to help drive fixes based on submissions. She helped the YAG editors by providing a sounding board, followed up on serious issues that required deanonymization (a requirement of workplace monitoring policy), and chased down follow-ups. She did all this in addition to her actual job.”
In other words, the “Yes, At Google” program has gone from being a bottom-up initiative to one with significant backing from company management.
So what does it look like? The three newsletters shared with the Daily Caller cover the summer of 2018. Each of them has a theme. The theme of the June and August newsletters is ‘workplace environment,’ and the theme of the July newsletter is ‘thoughtful discourse.’
The newsletters provide insight into both genuinely troubling human resources issues and the prevalence of left-wing discourse within the company. Most items are submitted by Googlers, except where otherwise noted.
In particular, there are three instances at the New York office that seem to indicate a pro-PRC bias on the part of certain employees there. A Taiwanese flag was vandalized and criticism of the company’s cooperation with the Chinese government was tarred as racist. Selections from the three newsletters are provided below.
June 11, 2018
NEW YORK, NY – JUNE 3: The Google logo adorns the outside of their NYC office Google Building 8510 at 85 10th Ave on June 3, 2019 in New York City. Shares of Google parent company Alphabet were down over six percent on Monday, following news reports that the U.S. Department of Justice is preparing to launch an anti-trust investigation aimed at Google. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
A deaf person told to watch her “tone”
“Reminded today by my manager that I need to be more aware of my tone when interacting with others as sometimes it’s often not appropriate given the situation. Fact: I am deaf and rely on Cochlear implants to ‘hear.’ I cannot differentiate tones.” (RELATED: Google Fires Republican Engineer Who Spoke Out Against ‘Outrage Mobs’)
Biased against Cardi B?
“A leadership-level manager asked that product screenshots not include images of the rapper Cardi B, because she used to be a stripper. Since we regularly feature artists with dubious and illegal past careers and arrest records it felt like Cardi B was singled out because she is a woman (who used to work in a profession that is 100% legal and who has never been arrested). This felt uncomfortably like sexism and classism baked into our product.”
Are parents part of Google’s workplace diversity?
“At a monthly team meeting with our VP, we were asked to share our thoughts about diversity. I mentioned that part-time, especially for working parents, could be a good option and that the options for it were not yet widely understood. For example, there is a lot of confusion in the general Tech organization about how part-time factors into calibration, promotion, etc. I was shocked that my director and a few L7s in the org seemed to take this very personally and lectured me about about the difficulty of part-time and how it doesn’t apply to everyone.”
“A couple folks approached me after the session and said they felt sorry for me because of the way everyone in the meeting had ‘attacked’ me. My VP just stepped back and did not say anything. While I personally felt OK, I feel this is just indicative of how sensitive Google is about certain topics. Also, even when we ask for opinions, we aren’t willing to accept criticism. Personally, I feel that part-time is about as non-sensitive a topic as it’s possible to have, in the area of diversity.”
Veterans at Google feel besieged
“The recent backlash at Google against have contracts with the DoD is having very negative effects on the Veterans’ community. Fellow Googlers are posting memes and comments about how the DoD is evil and immoral. While holding healthy political discussions at Google is an awesome part about working here, it can go too far. It is not reasonable for those who claim the military is evil to not understand that those connotations apply to those who have served as well.”
“This applies to not just US military, but all those who have served their own countries. I really can’t think of another group that has been treated this way without management saying something in defense. Google prides itself on being an inclusive community, but to many vets it seems that we are an excluded group.”
Feeling anxious or experiencing financial difficulties? You might be a workplace shooter
“Understandably, everyone wants to feel more safe at Google after the terrible event at the San Bruno YouTube office. I’m glad that GSRS is working to increase our actual safety. Unfortunately, the portion of their “go/BeSafe” site focused on active shooter situations goes horribly, horribly wrong.”
“Their list of ‘potentially violent behaviors by an employee’ basically suggests that Googlers should be afraid of coworkers who experience ANY of the following: financial difficulties, relationship struggles, anxiety, depression, insomnia, chronic health issues, autism, or virtually any mental health issue. Encouraging Googlers to fear and distrust each other is not going to reduce workplace violence.”
A note appended to this complaint states that the list of ‘potentially violent behaviors’ was removed.
Racism and misogyny at Google
“I am active sometimes in diversity groups. I am SO scared of doxxing that when I had to go on call I made sure I got a corp number just so I didn’t have to list any personal numbers publicly at Google. Because of this only my manager has a number that people can consistently reach, and other teammates only have my number that I carry exclusively when I am on call.”
“There has been a steady stream of people who are like me (aka. in the same minority groups as me and/or with similar values to me) leaving the company, and that is hitting me hard. It’s very hard to feel like you belong when everyone like you is disappearing.”
“As an ABP (female, latinx) I get tasks like ‘please send flowers to _____.’ or ‘It’s ____’s birthday can you get/do XYZ…’ I have day to day tasks I need to get done and feel like there’s little room to say when these requests come my way.”
“I was in town visiting my team in SVL and working in the shared work space just across from a group of our TLs. They gossiped extensively about the ICs in my office, and whether the ICs were dating or otherwise involved with one another. They speculated about the social relationships of ICs in our office.”
“When one manager asked on a mailing list how to deal with male employees over-explaining things to a female report, another manager blamed the over-explaining on diversity training, claiming that male engineers on his team never treated women condescendingly before diversity training made them think that Google was hiring less qualified women and minorities to achieve diversity goals.”
“I am a female manager based offshore. In my team, I am often told I have to be very careful with my questions as it may be misconstrued as being ‘too strong.’ However, we have a male manager who makes comments about one team being ‘useless’ and I am told to accept who he is because he used to be a lawyer and because ‘that’s just how he is.'”
“This same manager also generalizes and makes judgments about people who are not native speakers, and again I am often told that he is ‘just like that’ and that he is one of the favorites of senior management. I have asked valid questions and I was told to shut up, he made judgments and people celebrated his leadership. I was so positive when I joined Google but now I dread every day and I just feel so powerless and unprotected.”
“A European colleague at lunch was telling a story; he was once visiting the US ended up in an area that looked really dodgy. One of the criteria he used to describe the situation, was that there were black people standing in front of parked cars playing music. This was in an EMEA office. Thankfully nobody on the lunch table was black, but I still felt hurt hearing this.”
“Several trainings at Google say we should be calling these instances out, but honestly you just feel so shocked and tongue-tied when you hear that, you don’t know what to say or how to react.”
...
June 25, 2019
Google’s anonymous bias reporting newsletter, “Yes, At Google,” has been known about for some time, but details have been few and far between. For the first time, The Daily Caller can reveal what gets talked about on the monthly microaggressions report.
Googlers who choose to do so may receive the “Yes, At Google” newsletter. The listserv’s description says it is a “curated monthly newsletter of anonymized incidents of micro-aggressions & micro-corrections, collected from the anonymous form at go/yes-at-google. Anyone can join, but membership is required to view posts (see go/yag-faq). Contact fos-diversity-council@ with feedback or to get involved.”
The newsletter began in 2016 as the private initiative of one Googler. It grew over time and its existence was first reported by Bloomberg in May 2017. At that time, about 20% of the company’s workforce was on it and it went out weekly. Today it is a monthly newsletter with an editorial board.
The editor of the newsletter is Heather Cain, the leader of Google’s Respect@ program. Respect@ is a human resources initiative begun in 2015 which, according to the New York Times “includes a way for employees to anonymously report complaints of inappropriate behavior by co-workers.”
“In ~August 2017, Heather Cain who co-leads the Respect@ and go/respectadvisors initiatives, came on board to program manage the effort,” reads a document shared with The Daily Caller.
“She developed the educational scenarios we shared in past issues, and set up an Editorial Board of various functions including HRBPs, Equity Diversity, Inclusion and Integrity (EDII), Benefits, REWS, Communications etc. to help drive fixes based on submissions. She helped the YAG editors by providing a sounding board, followed up on serious issues that required deanonymization (a requirement of workplace monitoring policy), and chased down follow-ups. She did all this in addition to her actual job.”
In other words, the “Yes, At Google” program has gone from being a bottom-up initiative to one with significant backing from company management.
So what does it look like? The three newsletters shared with the Daily Caller cover the summer of 2018. Each of them has a theme. The theme of the June and August newsletters is ‘workplace environment,’ and the theme of the July newsletter is ‘thoughtful discourse.’
The newsletters provide insight into both genuinely troubling human resources issues and the prevalence of left-wing discourse within the company. Most items are submitted by Googlers, except where otherwise noted.
In particular, there are three instances at the New York office that seem to indicate a pro-PRC bias on the part of certain employees there. A Taiwanese flag was vandalized and criticism of the company’s cooperation with the Chinese government was tarred as racist. Selections from the three newsletters are provided below.
June 11, 2018
NEW YORK, NY – JUNE 3: The Google logo adorns the outside of their NYC office Google Building 8510 at 85 10th Ave on June 3, 2019 in New York City. Shares of Google parent company Alphabet were down over six percent on Monday, following news reports that the U.S. Department of Justice is preparing to launch an anti-trust investigation aimed at Google. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
A deaf person told to watch her “tone”
“Reminded today by my manager that I need to be more aware of my tone when interacting with others as sometimes it’s often not appropriate given the situation. Fact: I am deaf and rely on Cochlear implants to ‘hear.’ I cannot differentiate tones.” (RELATED: Google Fires Republican Engineer Who Spoke Out Against ‘Outrage Mobs’)
Biased against Cardi B?
“A leadership-level manager asked that product screenshots not include images of the rapper Cardi B, because she used to be a stripper. Since we regularly feature artists with dubious and illegal past careers and arrest records it felt like Cardi B was singled out because she is a woman (who used to work in a profession that is 100% legal and who has never been arrested). This felt uncomfortably like sexism and classism baked into our product.”
Are parents part of Google’s workplace diversity?
“At a monthly team meeting with our VP, we were asked to share our thoughts about diversity. I mentioned that part-time, especially for working parents, could be a good option and that the options for it were not yet widely understood. For example, there is a lot of confusion in the general Tech organization about how part-time factors into calibration, promotion, etc. I was shocked that my director and a few L7s in the org seemed to take this very personally and lectured me about about the difficulty of part-time and how it doesn’t apply to everyone.”
“A couple folks approached me after the session and said they felt sorry for me because of the way everyone in the meeting had ‘attacked’ me. My VP just stepped back and did not say anything. While I personally felt OK, I feel this is just indicative of how sensitive Google is about certain topics. Also, even when we ask for opinions, we aren’t willing to accept criticism. Personally, I feel that part-time is about as non-sensitive a topic as it’s possible to have, in the area of diversity.”
Veterans at Google feel besieged
“The recent backlash at Google against have contracts with the DoD is having very negative effects on the Veterans’ community. Fellow Googlers are posting memes and comments about how the DoD is evil and immoral. While holding healthy political discussions at Google is an awesome part about working here, it can go too far. It is not reasonable for those who claim the military is evil to not understand that those connotations apply to those who have served as well.”
“This applies to not just US military, but all those who have served their own countries. I really can’t think of another group that has been treated this way without management saying something in defense. Google prides itself on being an inclusive community, but to many vets it seems that we are an excluded group.”
Feeling anxious or experiencing financial difficulties? You might be a workplace shooter
“Understandably, everyone wants to feel more safe at Google after the terrible event at the San Bruno YouTube office. I’m glad that GSRS is working to increase our actual safety. Unfortunately, the portion of their “go/BeSafe” site focused on active shooter situations goes horribly, horribly wrong.”
“Their list of ‘potentially violent behaviors by an employee’ basically suggests that Googlers should be afraid of coworkers who experience ANY of the following: financial difficulties, relationship struggles, anxiety, depression, insomnia, chronic health issues, autism, or virtually any mental health issue. Encouraging Googlers to fear and distrust each other is not going to reduce workplace violence.”
A note appended to this complaint states that the list of ‘potentially violent behaviors’ was removed.
Racism and misogyny at Google
“I am active sometimes in diversity groups. I am SO scared of doxxing that when I had to go on call I made sure I got a corp number just so I didn’t have to list any personal numbers publicly at Google. Because of this only my manager has a number that people can consistently reach, and other teammates only have my number that I carry exclusively when I am on call.”
“There has been a steady stream of people who are like me (aka. in the same minority groups as me and/or with similar values to me) leaving the company, and that is hitting me hard. It’s very hard to feel like you belong when everyone like you is disappearing.”
“As an ABP (female, latinx) I get tasks like ‘please send flowers to _____.’ or ‘It’s ____’s birthday can you get/do XYZ…’ I have day to day tasks I need to get done and feel like there’s little room to say when these requests come my way.”
“I was in town visiting my team in SVL and working in the shared work space just across from a group of our TLs. They gossiped extensively about the ICs in my office, and whether the ICs were dating or otherwise involved with one another. They speculated about the social relationships of ICs in our office.”
“When one manager asked on a mailing list how to deal with male employees over-explaining things to a female report, another manager blamed the over-explaining on diversity training, claiming that male engineers on his team never treated women condescendingly before diversity training made them think that Google was hiring less qualified women and minorities to achieve diversity goals.”
“I am a female manager based offshore. In my team, I am often told I have to be very careful with my questions as it may be misconstrued as being ‘too strong.’ However, we have a male manager who makes comments about one team being ‘useless’ and I am told to accept who he is because he used to be a lawyer and because ‘that’s just how he is.'”
“This same manager also generalizes and makes judgments about people who are not native speakers, and again I am often told that he is ‘just like that’ and that he is one of the favorites of senior management. I have asked valid questions and I was told to shut up, he made judgments and people celebrated his leadership. I was so positive when I joined Google but now I dread every day and I just feel so powerless and unprotected.”
“A European colleague at lunch was telling a story; he was once visiting the US ended up in an area that looked really dodgy. One of the criteria he used to describe the situation, was that there were black people standing in front of parked cars playing music. This was in an EMEA office. Thankfully nobody on the lunch table was black, but I still felt hurt hearing this.”
“Several trainings at Google say we should be calling these instances out, but honestly you just feel so shocked and tongue-tied when you hear that, you don’t know what to say or how to react.”
...