Google: WFH Engineers with Zero Hands On Real World Knowledge Are an Amusing Group
September 17, 2020
The Google thing is a meh to me. The dumpster fires at YouTube are a source of amazement. Odd ball behaviors in Gmail allow email to appear and disappear with merrie abandon. So be it. We noted “Google, Nobody Asked for a New Blogger Interface”, an interesting essay which tackles a facet of Google we have not paid attention to for years — Blogger.
The write up explains interface changes and behaviors of the editor. Most Blogger users may not care. The author of the TenFourFox Development essay does. As a result, there is a believability and emotion in the write up. Here’s an example:
By switching into HTML view, you lose ($#@%!, stop indenting that line when I type emphasis tags!) the ability to insert hyperlinks, images or other media by any other means other than manually typing them out. You can’t even upload an image, let alone automatically insert the HTML boilerplate and edit it. So switch into Compose view to actually do any of those things, and what happens? Like before, Blogger rewrites your document, but now this happens all the time because of what you can’t do in HTML view. Certain arbitrarily-determined naughtytags(tm) like <em> become <i> (my screen-reader friends will be disappointed).
There’s more, including the clunky workaround the TenFourFox Development author has figured out.
Welcome to the new and improved Google?
Several observations:
- Changes at Google often emerge before someone with actual hands on experience is aware of the changes. Don’t you love those rippling changes across time zones from Google search professionals? Same deal. Make a change. Go forth. Catch up later? Maybe. Maybe not.
- With less human-to-human Foosball interaction, advice is not shared casually. Consequently young entitled wizards do things and without rules or effective management, stuff happens. Case in point: The introduction of changes without considering 360 degree impacts. What 21 year old thinks beyond a single point of focus: Hey, this works. Not many.
- When managers are involved, those individuals often have their sights set on the next big thing; that is, a lateral arabesque to a task that will deliver fame, glory, and a bonus or a promotion. The utility of a change from a user’s perspective is not part of the job description.
For that reason, YouTube throttling, ad injection, and irrelevant search results seem to be the new normal. Don’t you love entering a query with a phrase in quotes. Google happily displays results with a required word excluded from the results list. Hey, those are really unhelpful fixes in my opinion. The policies burn through the ad inventory and annoy “customers”, don’t they? No. I think I understand.
Net net: DarkCyber has concluded that work from home engineers with zero hands on, real world knowledge are an amusing group. Just another task for the affable Google senior management to tackle. Unfortunately disconnects in Blogger are examples of an interior deterioration of bits and basics. That’s not amusing.
Stephen E Arnold, September 17, 2020
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
