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Google Cancels Weekly All-Hands Meetings Amid Growing Workplace Tensions 57

Posted by BeauHD from the workplace-tensions dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Google is getting rid of one of its best-known workplace features: TGIF, its weekly all-hands meeting. The company confirmed to CNBC that it will instead hold monthly all-hands meetings that will be focused on business and strategy while holding separate town halls for "workplace issues." An email announcing the change was previously reported by The Verge.

Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin started TGIFs in 1999 as a forum where employees could regularly express concerns and discuss topics open and freely with management. At that time, the company was small enough to fit in a meeting room, but the all-hands continued to grow as the employee base grew -- until recently, that is. Page and Brin stopped attending regularly in 2019. A company spokesperson said that the meetings had recently become a bi-weekly instead of weekly occurrence. The new model comes as the company cracks down on the open work culture that's long been part of its identity of holding free discussion. Employees have increasingly voiced their concerns about everything from the handling of sexual harassment to government hires and contracts. In recent months, employees have leaked meeting notes to the media, which have shown growing tension between executives and workers. "In other places -- like TGIF -- our scale is challenging us to evolve," Pichai said in a memo to employees this week. "TGIF has traditionally provided a place to come together, share progress, and ask questions, but it's not working in its current form."

"We're unfortunately seeing a coordinated effort to share our conversations outside of the company after every TGIF," the note reportedly states. "I know this is new information to many of you, and it has affected our ability to use TGIF as a forum for candid conversations on important topics."
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Google Cancels Weekly All-Hands Meetings Amid Growing Workplace Tensions More

Google Cancels Weekly All-Hands Meetings Amid Growing Workplace Tensions

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  • Won't be missed... (Score:3)

    by bobthesungeek76036 ( 2697689 ) on Friday November 15, 2019 @06:58PM (#59418600)
    The only thing more usless that a "all hands meeting" is "personal performance reviews"...

    • The only purpose of an all-hands meeting is for co-workers to either be bluntly informed of their project's sudden demise, or to pity the poor suckers who just got the bad news about their own. What a complete gutting of morale.

    • What are you talking about? Personal performance reviews are a great barometer for how little management knows about your job roles, or about anything really. Since it's all complete horse shit anyways whoever brings the bigger cart of manure wins. Just stay calm and bullshit and no harm will come to you.

      If they try to get on your case, just reframe it in terms of the consequences of some process or policy that they put in place. The do-nothing-know-nothing middle management that conducts these kinds of

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by winse ( 39597 )

      I would disagree. There is some usefulness to management as a boost to employee morale if done correctly to celebrate legitimate wins. It seems like the older I get though the less cool-aid I'm willing to swallow. Judging by your username and the decline of solaris you're probably pretty old too...so I can understand why you would be so down on them.

  • Play Crybaby Games Win Crybaby Prizes (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jarwulf ( 530523 ) on Friday November 15, 2019 @07:00PM (#59418606)
    You mean being as leftwing and 'progressive' as possible never satisfies anybody and just makes things worse and just empowers the crybullies and makes them even more obnoxious than ever? To the point that the leftists who started it end up getting eaten by the leftists they created? Whoda thunk it?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 )
      You're right, it never stops. Here's an account I found a while back of a man who had a well paid job in what might be described as the social justice industry. He wasn't just part of the mob, he was a mob leader. [quillette.com] It's a fascinating account. Absolutely read the whole article, but here's a smattering of his own words:

      In my previous life, I was a self-righteous social justice crusader. I would use my mid-sized Twitter and Facebook platforms to signal my wokeness on topics such as LGBT rights, rape cultur

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You can see why Google doesn't want any part of this. Who wants to constantly be walking on eggshells, knowing that you're being policed by the modern-day equivalent of Stasi informants? Who would be able to collaborate with these people as coworkers?

        No, you've got it all wrong.

        The truth is, Google management doesn't want to be asked any legitimate questions about inconvenient facts.

        --- Why did you fire Andy Rubin for serious misconduct, but you still paid him 90 Million dollars?

        --- Why are you helping the communist dictatorship government of China suppress free speech?

        .....and many more.

        • Those are not hard questions.

          Why did you fire Andy Rubin for serious misconduct, but you still paid him 90 Million dollars?

          Because they didn't fire him for serious misconduct, at least not officially, even if that's why he was really let go. They just fired him (they may not have even used that language, but they sacked him) in which case he was entitled to his compensation package that he'd negotiated with Google. Did he do what he was accused of? Hell if I know, but I do know that if they fired him for that reason he would have sued them and turned it all into a really ugly court battle and who kn

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Cylix ( 55374 )

            Google already shits on free speech and routinely censors.

            Try to find the identity of the 'whistleblower' via google search without entering the name. They have completely censored articles which mention the name. After quite a few searches I was surprised on how quickly I could find the information on alternate search engines.

            Google has a system in place to hide information they deem negative and they already use it. What is the difference of the terms they use in the united states versus the terms they us

      • Also... Author is making that shit up.
        But more on that later.

        You are quoting a far-right rag which is SO far right up it's own ass that it will push an agenda that "Twitter Treats Conservatives More Harshly Than Liberals". [quillette.com]
        Because Twitter banned... wait for it...

        ACTUAL NAZIS!

        Yup. Actual, honest to god Nazis.
        In the "Twitter censorship database." [richardhanania.com] that their "researcher" gathered, to prove that Twitter hates "conservatives".
        Right besides (no pun intended) such luminaries of "free thought" like Richard Spencer,

        • When you're against the far left, you're in a group that includes Nazis. So naturally the far left is going to accuse you of being a Nazi. Statistically you're not one, but since they've got no arguments that make sense, accusations of Nazism are all we're going to get. Quillette isn't far right, it's Intellectual Dark Web. A place for open discussion of questions deemed off limits by the far left. No wonder you hate them.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Cylix ( 55374 )

          You lost me at twitter...

          The far left mag of the new ages with voices louder then their stature.

          'Twitter is not real life.'

          I forget who said that, but it is absolutely true. The pendulum returns.

    • An alternative explanation is that Google promised it's workers that they would be helping make the world a better place and now workers are becoming disillusioned because Google has become just like any other business: no ethics or morals guiding it, only money.

      It's not always about left or right, sometimes it's just right and wrong.

      • Re:Play Crybaby Games Win Crybaby Prizes (Score:4, Insightful)

        by malkavian ( 9512 ) on Friday November 15, 2019 @08:58PM (#59418894)

        The hard hitting engineers are making the world a better place. Most of them aren't ethically opposed to the contracts that Google would like to broker. You can enter almost any arena and make ethical choices about how to operate in it at any given moment. Hell, you can even influence a system from the inside.

        It is of course a possibility, but I suspect it's more that the vocal minority are starting to hijack the meetings and derail them to the irritation of the larger majority.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jwymanm ( 627857 )
      Remove this person's account now! Let's find out where they work and make sure they lose their job also for good measure. How dare you make me feel intimidated.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Kohath ( 38547 )

      Religious extremism is always thus.

  • Start firing people (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Friday November 15, 2019 @07:05PM (#59418616)
    They just need to fire the assholes. No matter how productive they are, assholes disrupt any organization they're in. If somebody is being disruptive in a way that doesn't help the company, fire them. That's what I do.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by geek ( 5680 )

      They just need to fire the assholes. No matter how productive they are, assholes disrupt any organization they're in. If somebody is being disruptive in a way that doesn't help the company, fire them. That's what I do.

      They wont fire the founders, CEO and board of directors as well as the vast majority of middle management. The lunatics are running the asylum, literally.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The weird thing is that these lunatic asylums are also the most valuable companies in the world. Google, Apple, Microsoft, all "woke" and full of SJWs... Even Nike and Gillette are raking in the cash after trolling the customers with Cultural Marxism in their ads.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by winse ( 39597 )

      That's very close to the sentiment that I had when I first read this, but you would end up with the same problem governments get when they kill dissidents ... there is a chilling effect for the rest of the populace the story can turn against you real fast. The way I see it, you should assign anyone who complains to form an official policy for the company in resolution of their own complaint, and then let them present it for debate in an appropriate forum ... who knows one of them might actually have a dece

    • Productivity is usually inversely correlated to crybabyness. So they should just fire the biggest loudmouths, nothing of value will be lost. Then on twitter youd have a bunch of blue hairs who can't do shit claiming to be ex Google 'engineers' and posting tech bro hate tweets all day. See: useless barnacle Jessica Price.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      You can't fire people who form an overwhelming majority of your organisation. Your organisation would collapse.

      This is the horror of the left wing informant culture. It makes everyone who isn't sent to gulags the agent of the system. Because if you're found not informing on people who are guilty of wrong thoughts when you're supposed to, you're just as guilty as those you should have informed on. And to the gulag you go.

      Which rapidly turns everyone into an agent of the system. You get the system where you'l

    • From the summary it doesn't seem to be about assholes exactly. If the point of these meetings is candid discussion of the direction of the company, and the minutes are being regularly leaked, then these meetings cannot function as intended. Candid discussions are private by nature. Under those circumstances, all that these meetings could result in is negative publicity for the company.

      Now, you might make the point that people who publish the minutes of confidential meetings are assholes. That's fair. But
  • Back in 1994 I worked in a tiny start up. One all hands meetings every week, Monday Morning 8 AM. And that was the only meeting for the entire week. All further interactions were one on one, if necessary grab the post proc guy and the model guy and trash it out with the mesh guy. No formal meeting, agenda or anything.

    Just shout, "Jon! I need an interface to get the root window pointer from event manager", Jon shouts back, "in ten minutes". "Greg! sweep along a vector is not working anymore". "Harsha was m

  • It works really well for humans in general to simply bury unwanted emotion and let rumors soar, so I'm sure it will all go well for Google!

  • Employees are very entitled and the company has a history of catering to them. The current state of things in Google reminds me of how the homeless problem is being managed in San Francisco and Seattle. --Former Google Employee that didn't like the Koolaid

    • Employees are very entitled and the company has a history of catering to them. The current state of things in Google reminds me of how the homeless problem is being managed in San Francisco and Seattle.

      Are you saying that giving too much freedom is a great idea -- until it isn't?
      Until somebody actually tries to use it to their own benefit?

  • The moment senior management tries to run away from the very problems they themselves created and ignored -- intentionally or otherwise -- is the moment the company starts dying. The garden will not weed itself.

    • The moment senior management tries to run away from the very problems they themselves created and ignored -- intentionally or otherwise -- is the moment the company starts dying. The garden will not weed itself.

      Sounds like a good time to sell.

    • Google as a cool place to work has been a slippery slope for a decade at least. It's amazing how long they've managed to hold on to the cool hipster vibe, while growing into one of the biggest multinational behemoths.

      Now, the only cool thing left at Google is the money. So, for those who care to get fucked in the ass for about $1000 a day, 250 days a year, it's your place. Then again, I hear there are other professions which would give you the same money, but without the TPS reports.

  • This make sense. In my experience, the "open forum" meeting style starts to break down beyond about 10 people. Any more than that, you need an agenda and a structure or very little productive will get done.

    This isn't a case of managers or executives being entitled idiots. The meetings probably stopped being useful a long time ago, given Google's size.

    • I'll admit that I've had certain moments of delight in my career when, at an all hands meeting, I've asked an unexpected question. In several cases, they were questions about matters I'd not been officially informed about but deduced from personal knowledge, matters that had been shushed up without my awareness. The results were awkward. and cost me political capital I'd not realized I was spending. On the other hand, it showed me that it was time to leave that company.

      These meetings a re a good chance to a

    • In my experience, any action or decision which has the end result of decreasing the number of meetings an organization holds is a big positive.

  • Next week on 'inside google' we delve into the logic behind choice of colour of bathroom tissue to set us up for a broader arc of bathroom-related coverage.

  • Second, Keep the Peons in the Dark
    Third, Profit!

  • is challenging us to evolve

    See? An ordinary human would've said: "is forcing us to change" or "making", maybe.

    But if you're paid millions of dollars, you don't admit being forced...

    Right up there along with "leveraging" and "synergies"...

  • The Left eats itself (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Saturday November 16, 2019 @12:06AM (#59419206) Journal

    The Left eats itself ... it's various factions are incompatible.

    Like you're supposed to be loosy goosy about sex, man, and dump those hidebound inhibitions ... er, until somebody complains. Then magically you should have been all puritan. Well, not Puritan, because nobody should have a religion in the workplace, unless it's an exotic one ... because we must welcome all from faraway lands, since they are cheaper to employ .. except that unions don't exactly like that ...

    • Why should they all think alike?

    • This is the nature of conservative vs. progressive. Conservatism resists change, and thus knows exactly what it wants: the same thing. Or, sometimes: things as they were before. Progressivism wants change, but exactly what form that change should take is not predetermined. Thus, progressive people argue.

      Left vs. right is similar to progressive vs. conservative in this regard.

  • Q&A at a company meeting with the owners of Google. What a living hell this must have been.

    Sit there for an hour, then "Any questions?" and dozens of hands go up, each one wanting to ask a "thoughtful" question in hopes of getting some facetime with the big boss maybe I will get a promotion as I am better known to him.

    Endless hands, like a nightmare of cavity searches.

    Fml this crap is rampant.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      This is easily prevented via segregation of promotional tracks from top company leadership. Something done as a matter of course in essentially every single multinational in existence, because it's not just these kinds of events where company workers get to run into top management. Suddenly when the only possible impact that this top manager can have on your career is you getting fired for bothering him when you really shouldn't have, people figure that keeping their head down is a better option.

      And then on

    • endless hands, like a nightmare of cavity searches

      I don't think I follow this analogy, but you must have some interesting dreams...

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