Google and Avoiding the Next Chaos Monkeys
October 8, 2020
Is Google nervous about what employees and contractors may say or do. “Google Contractors Allege Company Prevents Them from Whisleblowing, Writing Silicon Valley Novels” asserts:
Google contract employees are alleging the company’s confidentiality agreements prevent them from a range of legal rights from whistleblowing to telling their parents how much they make, according to a recent court filing. A California appeals court recently discussed a lawsuit accusing Alphabet’s Google and one of its staffing firms, Adecco, of violating a number of California labor laws, including free speech, by requiring workers to sign extensive confidentiality agreements.
The write up runs down a number of examples of Google taking steps to batten down its information hatches.
In the new distributed Silicon Valley, control and management of staff and part timers is difficult. For an outfit built on high school science club management methods, the job is probably Herculean or bigger. The fix? Impose tighter controls on all but the top tier of Google professionals. The company’s elite may recognize that the jazzy days of 2003 and 2004 are long gone, but there are artifacts littering the information superhighway.
These include dalliances in the legal department, an alleged suicide attempt by a marketing professional despondent after being discarded by a top Googler, and the unfortunate death from a controlled substance inflicted on Googler’s family.
Is the fix an improvement in the management methods? Maybe not. Imposing rules on those outside of the elite may be an easier, more logical path. By the way, how much did the Googler working on mobile phones get when he lost his “essential” label?
Enforcing a caste system appears to be an obvious solution to one skilled in the arts of the high school science club management methods.
Stephen E Arnold, October 8, 2020
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