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Did you not read the part where she did, where she followed the process by the book and it was approved? Or did you just have your mind made up to decide to sid

Did you not read the part where she did, where she followed the process by the book and it was approved? Or did you just have your mind made up to decide to side with Google instead?

Maxion 7y ago
I'm honestly a little surprised (and worried) about all the commenters who argue Google is in the right here.
- ixtli 7y ago
  People love to make excuses for their bosses because they believe their interests are aligned :(
  - bluntfang 7y ago
    one day they will be the boss and when they're the boss they aren't going to want their exploited employees to ruin their bottom line. Spoiler alert: they're never gonna be the boss. It's like that meme where people on the poverty line vote against their interests because one day they think they're going to be the billionaire.
    - ixtli 7y ago
      I agree. There's a scene from Futurama that is useful here :) https://i.redd.it/gy1a8j3rqhx21.jpg https://i.redd.it/gy1a8j3rqhx21.jpg Also for a less tongue-in-cheek response this is related to the notion of "false consciousness" first written about by Friedrich Engels in the 1800s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness
- scarface74 7y ago
  Of course Google is right. She happened to get two coworkers to approve what she was doing. If I got a manager who I was friends with to approve my purchase of a fully decked out $53K Mac Pro so I could finally use Slack at a decent speed when I am working from home, wouldn’t you think there was something fishy?
  - SolaceQuantum 7y ago
    I think then the responsibility is on the manager?
    - throwawaysea 7y ago
      Or maybe all of them. These are highly paid employees. They bear a personal responsibility and can’t shove all consequences onto a manager.
  - ixtli 7y ago
    Since you can’t spend 53000 dollars on a Mac laptop last I checked, yes! However the whole purpose of a managerial hierarchy is to establish a responsibility chain so at very least I would expect the manager to also get fired. Google doesn’t care about these antics. They, like all employers, don’t want their employees to have meaningful bargaining power.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      They did say Mac Pro: https://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/tech-news-fully-spec-apple-mac-pro-price-singapore https://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/tech-news-fully-spec-apple-m... Taking into account the exchange rate that works out to about 55K USD.
      - ixtli 7y ago
        Whoops you're right. I misread.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      Well, there have been plenty of stories about toxic managers in tech companies. If your manager said it was okay to hit on your coworker does that absolve your responsibility to have good judgement? And as far as having “bargaining power” they are tech workers at Google. If they have even a modicum of skills they have the ultimate power - they can walk away and get another job. Heck, I’ve worked at a bunch of no name companies over 20 years and even I can walk out of the office and have another job in two weeks and this is nowhere near the west coast.
- deegles 7y ago
  The paranoid part of me thinks it might be PR firms they’ve hired.
  - umanwizard 7y ago
    People can disagree with you in good faith without being shills. I am totally against people pushing their political messages on me while at work, and dislike working with the sort of person depicted in this article. I think they're bad for morale and a distraction from the business. You can quite easily convince yourself by reading through my comment history that I'm not part of any PR firm, just a guy who wastes too much time commenting on HN.
- FussyZeus 7y ago
  All these 10x developers terrified they'd have to make a reasonable wage like the rest of us serfs. *By the way, that's very much sarcasm since a well organized union doesn't need to cap wages at any level. It's just the argument that keeps getting put forward and I get sick of it.
- SamuelAdams 7y ago
  Why is that? You can't just get code review / deployment approval. You need to have approval that a certain feature or process is wanted / needed for the system. My guess is the sec engineer in this story did not get approval for this feature in the first place, she just went ahead and changed the code. What if this change allowed passwords to be captured in plain text? Browsing history? Surely those are fire-able offenses? So how is this situation any different?
  - danso 7y ago
    So if she escalated her privileges and bypassed the approval process, yes, of course that should merit severe punishment. But that's not what happened, according to Spiers. Giving her the benefit of the doubt for the sake of argument, you'd agree there's a huge difference between adding malicious phishing code to a company tool, versus displaying a text notification that doesn't fit the tool's original intent? The text in question read, “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.”, which is arguably different than the usual privacy/security warnings that the tool was intended for. But is it a fireable offense, versus an offense that warrants reprimand? To put it another way, I think very few people would be bothered by Spiers being fired if the text notification she added were "Heil Hitler!". But that kind of content is fireable for a number of reasons. Whereas Spiers note about union rights, while inappropriate for the given plugin, is not patently against Google policy, and (again, assuming it's just a text notification) did not endanger the company. If an employee tries to set fire to company equipment, they should be fired. If they draw a swastika on a bathroom stall, they should be fired. If they post up a pro-labor pamphlet in a bathroom stall, where it's against company policy to post any materials (regardless of content), should they be fired or reprimanded?
- mywittyname 7y ago
  This isn't a cut-and-dry issue. The internal tool was purportedly used to alert about privacy and security issues on external websites. But the message sent to users was not privacy or security related.
- workthrowaway 7y ago
  > I'm honestly a little surprised (and worried) about all the commenters who argue Google is in the right here. i, honestly, want to know why you think otherwise. what she did is wrong. but assuming she didn't know and that's what the "by the book" process at Google truly is... that's even more concerning
scarface74 7y ago
From the article, it doesn’t appear to be the case. She said she was allowed to inject JS code as a “digital extension” to putting a poster up.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
kop316 7y ago
This was the process: "the standard approval process, which requires two co-workers to greenlight changes" In my company, I could put in travel orders to let me go to and from Hawaii on the company dime, have a vacation, and have my supervisor approve (which is following the standard process), but doing that should get me in a lot of trouble and/or fired.
- FussyZeus 7y ago
  Because adding harmless code and stealing plane tickets, hotel fare, and maybe a rental car are the same thing. How do you think old-school labor organizing went down? Do you think the bosses stood there smiling as employees handed out flyers at lunch? Google shouldn't have a say in how employees unionize. They have every reason, literally EVERY SINGLE REASON to sabotage it at every stage to make it as ineffective as possible.
  - omegabravo 7y ago
    They are merely pointing out that despite the action following one standard procedure, it is still possible to be against the rules.
    - FussyZeus 7y ago
      And a fox has every reason to make a "rule" that dogs can't go in the henhouse. That's why we don't let foxes guard henhouses.
- danso 7y ago
  Sorry, but could you clarify what you would be fired for in your hypothetical situation? Presumably, it's not automatically against company policy to expense a trip to Hawaii.
  - kop316 7y ago
    I was implying I took the trip to vacation, not to do work. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
PunchTornado 7y ago
Even if she followed the rules that doesn't mean she should be absolved of guilt. You can follow the rules and submit a PR, have 2 code reviews and plenty of tests, if you brake production then you can still be fired for incompentency. The fact that 2 reviewers approved her change doesn't mean that she has the right to send notifications like this through a browser extension.
some346 7y ago
Do you only know copy and paste the same comment?
tjansen 7y ago
If it was a code review, it would judge code quality and similar things. Not whether that change is in Google's interest. I guess if she was a product owner and added this feature, she would have been fired as well, despite following the process. She just acted against the company's interest.
kache_ 7y ago
In this case, the people who approved it should be fired as co-conspirators. The sanctity of the software that runs on employee's hardware should never be violated.
freyr 7y ago
They got a code review. That doesn't mean the message they inserted was approved, it just means they got two engineers to sign off on the code. Obviously, inserting pro-unionization messaging into a security tool isn't "by the book", or we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Did you not read the part where she did, where she followed the process by the book and it was approved? Or did you just have your mind made up to decide to side with Google instead?

Maxion 7y ago

I'm honestly a little surprised (and worried) about all the commenters who argue Google is in the right here.

ixtli 7y ago
People love to make excuses for their bosses because they believe their interests are aligned :(
- bluntfang 7y ago
  one day they will be the boss and when they're the boss they aren't going to want their exploited employees to ruin their bottom line. Spoiler alert: they're never gonna be the boss. It's like that meme where people on the poverty line vote against their interests because one day they think they're going to be the billionaire.
  - ixtli 7y ago
    I agree. There's a scene from Futurama that is useful here :) https://i.redd.it/gy1a8j3rqhx21.jpg https://i.redd.it/gy1a8j3rqhx21.jpg Also for a less tongue-in-cheek response this is related to the notion of "false consciousness" first written about by Friedrich Engels in the 1800s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness
scarface74 7y ago
Of course Google is right. She happened to get two coworkers to approve what she was doing. If I got a manager who I was friends with to approve my purchase of a fully decked out $53K Mac Pro so I could finally use Slack at a decent speed when I am working from home, wouldn’t you think there was something fishy?
- SolaceQuantum 7y ago
  I think then the responsibility is on the manager?
  - throwawaysea 7y ago
    Or maybe all of them. These are highly paid employees. They bear a personal responsibility and can’t shove all consequences onto a manager.
- ixtli 7y ago
  Since you can’t spend 53000 dollars on a Mac laptop last I checked, yes! However the whole purpose of a managerial hierarchy is to establish a responsibility chain so at very least I would expect the manager to also get fired. Google doesn’t care about these antics. They, like all employers, don’t want their employees to have meaningful bargaining power.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    They did say Mac Pro: https://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/tech-news-fully-spec-apple-mac-pro-price-singapore https://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/tech-news-fully-spec-apple-m... Taking into account the exchange rate that works out to about 55K USD.
    - ixtli 7y ago
      Whoops you're right. I misread.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Well, there have been plenty of stories about toxic managers in tech companies. If your manager said it was okay to hit on your coworker does that absolve your responsibility to have good judgement? And as far as having “bargaining power” they are tech workers at Google. If they have even a modicum of skills they have the ultimate power - they can walk away and get another job. Heck, I’ve worked at a bunch of no name companies over 20 years and even I can walk out of the office and have another job in two weeks and this is nowhere near the west coast.
deegles 7y ago
The paranoid part of me thinks it might be PR firms they’ve hired.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  People can disagree with you in good faith without being shills. I am totally against people pushing their political messages on me while at work, and dislike working with the sort of person depicted in this article. I think they're bad for morale and a distraction from the business. You can quite easily convince yourself by reading through my comment history that I'm not part of any PR firm, just a guy who wastes too much time commenting on HN.
FussyZeus 7y ago
All these 10x developers terrified they'd have to make a reasonable wage like the rest of us serfs. *By the way, that's very much sarcasm since a well organized union doesn't need to cap wages at any level. It's just the argument that keeps getting put forward and I get sick of it.
SamuelAdams 7y ago
Why is that? You can't just get code review / deployment approval. You need to have approval that a certain feature or process is wanted / needed for the system. My guess is the sec engineer in this story did not get approval for this feature in the first place, she just went ahead and changed the code. What if this change allowed passwords to be captured in plain text? Browsing history? Surely those are fire-able offenses? So how is this situation any different?
- danso 7y ago
  So if she escalated her privileges and bypassed the approval process, yes, of course that should merit severe punishment. But that's not what happened, according to Spiers. Giving her the benefit of the doubt for the sake of argument, you'd agree there's a huge difference between adding malicious phishing code to a company tool, versus displaying a text notification that doesn't fit the tool's original intent? The text in question read, “Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities.”, which is arguably different than the usual privacy/security warnings that the tool was intended for. But is it a fireable offense, versus an offense that warrants reprimand? To put it another way, I think very few people would be bothered by Spiers being fired if the text notification she added were "Heil Hitler!". But that kind of content is fireable for a number of reasons. Whereas Spiers note about union rights, while inappropriate for the given plugin, is not patently against Google policy, and (again, assuming it's just a text notification) did not endanger the company. If an employee tries to set fire to company equipment, they should be fired. If they draw a swastika on a bathroom stall, they should be fired. If they post up a pro-labor pamphlet in a bathroom stall, where it's against company policy to post any materials (regardless of content), should they be fired or reprimanded?
mywittyname 7y ago
This isn't a cut-and-dry issue. The internal tool was purportedly used to alert about privacy and security issues on external websites. But the message sent to users was not privacy or security related.
workthrowaway 7y ago
> I'm honestly a little surprised (and worried) about all the commenters who argue Google is in the right here. i, honestly, want to know why you think otherwise. what she did is wrong. but assuming she didn't know and that's what the "by the book" process at Google truly is... that's even more concerning

scarface74 7y ago

From the article, it doesn’t appear to be the case. She said she was allowed to inject JS code as a “digital extension” to putting a poster up.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

kop316 7y ago

This was the process: "the standard approval process, which requires two co-workers to greenlight changes" In my company, I could put in travel orders to let me go to and from Hawaii on the company dime, have a vacation, and have my supervisor approve (which is following the standard process), but doing that should get me in a lot of trouble and/or fired.

FussyZeus 7y ago
Because adding harmless code and stealing plane tickets, hotel fare, and maybe a rental car are the same thing. How do you think old-school labor organizing went down? Do you think the bosses stood there smiling as employees handed out flyers at lunch? Google shouldn't have a say in how employees unionize. They have every reason, literally EVERY SINGLE REASON to sabotage it at every stage to make it as ineffective as possible.
- omegabravo 7y ago
  They are merely pointing out that despite the action following one standard procedure, it is still possible to be against the rules.
  - FussyZeus 7y ago
    And a fox has every reason to make a "rule" that dogs can't go in the henhouse. That's why we don't let foxes guard henhouses.
danso 7y ago
Sorry, but could you clarify what you would be fired for in your hypothetical situation? Presumably, it's not automatically against company policy to expense a trip to Hawaii.
- kop316 7y ago
  I was implying I took the trip to vacation, not to do work. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

PunchTornado 7y ago

Even if she followed the rules that doesn't mean she should be absolved of guilt. You can follow the rules and submit a PR, have 2 code reviews and plenty of tests, if you brake production then you can still be fired for incompentency. The fact that 2 reviewers approved her change doesn't mean that she has the right to send notifications like this through a browser extension.

some346 7y ago

Do you only know copy and paste the same comment?

tjansen 7y ago

If it was a code review, it would judge code quality and similar things. Not whether that change is in Google's interest. I guess if she was a product owner and added this feature, she would have been fired as well, despite following the process. She just acted against the company's interest.

kache_ 7y ago

In this case, the people who approved it should be fired as co-conspirators. The sanctity of the software that runs on employee's hardware should never be violated.

freyr 7y ago

They got a code review. That doesn't mean the message they inserted was approved, it just means they got two engineers to sign off on the code. Obviously, inserting pro-unionization messaging into a security tool isn't "by the book", or we wouldn't be having this discussion.