I think you would have been justified saying "This requirement is ethically suspect, I will not be a party to it, and if the business requires otherwise then our time together is at an end.", even if semi-coercively browsing folks' Facebooks was demonstrably a wonderful idea for the business. That said, bully for you, and if it takes more than thirty seconds to line up a new position in this market I'm sure many of us would be willing to assist.
I am not now, nor will I ever be, an employee of a company that compels a Director of Development to follow HR edicts about hiring practices without mutually respectful consultation.
Oh, this is where the on-topic discussion is. I had to wade through a pretty meaty Google flamewar to get here...
I have a question about this Facebook fiasco: what exactly does HR hope to discover and how would they plan to use such intelligence?
The reason I ask is that here in South Africa, when applying to a position (from my experience as a business intelligence consultant) I must release HR to check both my credit history as well as submit to having my fingerprints taken by an electronic device which connects to a governmental database and checks my criminal record for any misconduct.
Are these checks common place in your part of the world?
Can you see anything that HR in South Africa might gain by snooping through Facebook that wouldn't be outweighed by the information already available to them?
Wow, I've never heard of anyone in South Africa with a non-government job being asked to have their fingerprints taken. Admittedly, my background is mostly tech startups, but even friends who worked at big-ish companies (Didata, CS Holdings, &c.) have never mentioned it.
Credit history is a mostly used as a poor indication that you won't be tempted to sell company or user private information. It might also be an indicator of poor judgement or other bad traits, I guess. I think only one company ever asked this of me, and they were certainly the most backward of those I interviewed at.
Basically, companies are trying to avoid hiring bad people. Whether it's because they've bought into the "it is impossible to fire anyone" story or not, it is costly in terms of time and wasted effort and disruption. And, generalising from an admittedly small sample size, I'd say they're not as good or as introspective about how they hire as the few (admittedly really good) US companies I'm familiar with.
I'm based in SA too. I looked for and found a job recently, as a web developer, and had to consent to a credit check, fingerprints and criminal record check at the employment agency. I declined the criminal record check (whether they listened or not is another story). Many of the positions had employers asking for those things. Very odd. I don't know when this started since the last time I went looking for work before this was about 2003.
My assumption has been that they'd attempt to infer by marrying the two pieces of info whether it bit you'd pose a risk. So say you have a fraud charge laid against you some years back and you're currently in heaps of bad debt... It might be a bad idea to let you at my financials database, for instance.
I do think though that some of the more stringent assessment procedures also serve a secondary purpose when it comes to offer time. If you've run the gauntlet to get this offer the person offering you the position has considerable leverage in terms of negotiating a remuneration package. May it's not the main reason they do that stuff but it is a side effect of it.
I, like anyone else wanting a work visa at the time, had to provide a clear HIV certificate to South African immigration.
Once I had the permit I spent 10 months in KwaZulu-Natal - an area with 40% HIV incidence, and at an employer with (anonymously tested) 20-25% incidence.
As another South African, I've actually heard of cases where people have taken companies to task for being passed over based on certain characteristics (like sexual orientation etc.)
The acronym CCMA is thrown around a lot depending on whose conversations you listen to.
I wish he had made this more clear in the actual original post. Unless I'm missing something, there was no indication of this being a parable.
As it stands, I had already scanned his resume to mentally blacklist his most recent employer.
The massive google flamewar that occupies the top 1/3rd of this page notwithstanding, burying the true nature the article deep in the HN comments isn't really the best practice.
I had figured out about half way through that the story was fictional. It wasn't explicit, but it was subtle. Who's going to write a resignation letter like that? No one.
Mad respect for you, sir. I really feel like you did the right thing, and I hope the HR people there (and in the rest of our industry) get straightened out quick.
P.S. I would have done the exact same thing as the two hires. I probably would have recorded it on video and remained silent until you were done.
EDIT: boo for not disclosing clearly, in bold, at the top of your article that this is a fictional piece. Orig. comment left intact above.
The #1 job of HR is to make sure they don't get their asses sued or fined for violating hiring and employment law. The #2 job is to help hire and retain good people. What raganwald's fictional letter shows is that inspecting private Facebook posts means that both job functions are compromised far more than helped. It's the kind of argument that gets the attention of people who may not be moved by ethical arguments.
If they focused on #2, #1 wouldn't be so much of an issue. Instead they hire on meaningless metrics and utter BS like what you have on your Facebook profile instead of your ability to do the job.
One of my friends who is an awesome salesman and was recommended by the person hiring for the job was not hired for the position by HR because he doesn't have his GED. The guy is super smart and doesn't have his GED because of some unfortunate circumstances regarding his classes being on the 2nd floor of the school and having broken both legs.
Now he's going and finishing up his GED in a couple weeks and will continue the search.
> doesn't have his GED because of some unfortunate circumstances regarding his classes being on the 2nd floor of the school and having broken both legs.
His school is exempt from the Americans with Disabilities Act?
"If they focused on #2, #1 wouldn't be so much of an issue."
You do not really believe this do you?
I am very sorry for your friend. Rigid interpretation of the rules can lead to some terrible decisions. However I do not think that requiring a GED increases the likelihood that the employee is going to be the cause of a lawsuit. Humans nature is an odd beast and the list of lawsuit inducing character flaws goes on for miles. If people were able to easily screen for these character flaws during the recruiting process elections would be so much easier...
I do agree with you that it's an over simplification, there is certainly a balance to be struck but I don't think the one that's currently struck is the best one.
I definitely think that there is significant room for improvement when it comes to hiring. However I think that significant progress towards #1 through preventative screening is next to impossible.
If they focused first on #2 - finding the right people for the job - where "right" meant the proper skill set for the job, that would go a long way to solving #1 - following the law on hiring practices. For if they are truly hiring on skill alone then they have already passed the biggest hurdle HR has in #1 - discriminatory hiring practices - because skill set does not look at sex or gender or race or age or any of that.
Like a guy giving career advice for engineers in Germany always says (I'm citing indirectly here, so there maybe is a certain spin to it): Nobody is blamed for following the "rules",so if HR doesn't get good people or any people at all they won't be blamed as long as they followed the rules. On the other they WILL get blamed if they hire the wrong or too troublesome people.
Maybe they think stalking prospective employees via facebook helps them somehow there...
I read the ethical objection as a pretty clear subtext. There’s a powerfully condescending tone here – “Since you clearly can’t make the right choice out of basic decency, let me put this in words you might understand”.
Which is absolutely correct for someone who makes as insanely stupid business decisions as this COO. Was recently at a company where the same thing happened and everyone hated it. You'd think some blame would fall on the COO for not understanding how a business operates, but instead, people who criticized his stupid work were lectured. Real surprisingly, they quickly started leaving in droves.
Its as simple as "There are certain questions you can't ask during job interviews". Its been illegal to ask these questions for 20 years, and nearly no one disputes this. A peak at the prospect's Facebook page answers all of them. This should be the biggest no-brainer in HR history.
NOTE: I don't think employers should be allowed to ask for special access to a candidate's Facebook page. I'm not arguing for Facebook access below, but rather I'm arguing that I don't necessary think current law can be construed to prevent it.
I'm not convinced that theory is correct. There's a difference between asking a prohibited question, and acquiring the answer to a prohibited question incidental to something else.
To give an obvious example, you can't ask about race and sex, but the employer is going to find out that information at the face to face interviewer by simply observing the candidate.
Or consider criminal background checks, which are allowed in some states. A criminal background check might turn up information that makes a candidate's sexual orientation, national origin, or religion apparent.
I don't think that an employer would find themselves in legal trouble for doing a criminal background check that turned up that information, because they weren't doing the background check to acquire the prohibited information.
As a practical matter, though, even if it is legal to look at Facebook, it is a bad idea. Suppose you do not hire a candidate, and the candidate sues claiming that you didn't hire them because of their marital status. During discover, the plaintiff finds some emails between employees containing disparaging remarks about people of his status.
If you have not looked at Facebook or otherwise snooped into their private life, you will offer as part of your defense that you did not know their marital status, and so could not possibly have discriminated on that basis. Even if you do have some managers who dislike people of the plaintiff's status, they could not have acted on that dislike in this case.
If you have snooped, then you no longer have that defense. You are in the much less desirable position of having to argue that your people (who have been caught disparaging people of plaintiff's status) did not use that information, even though they did have access to it.
I can easily see this being the difference between a plaintiff win and a defendant win.
What's illegal is discriminating against a candidate based on protected information. Knowing that information isn't illegal, but it opens you up to a discrimination lawsuit, because it's very difficult to prove that your decision wasn't motivated by that information.
This is why background checks are usually done by third parties. A background check will inevitably find out information that you're not supposed to discriminate upon - having it done by a third party means that the people actually making the decision don't know that information. (And more important, you can prove that they didn't know it)
> To give an obvious example, you can't ask about race and sex, but the employer is going to find out that information at the face to face interviewer by simply observing the candidate.
Even on those cases, it is not obvious. A person that looks like a man might consider himself a woman, for example. I'm currently working on the Chilean Census, and, even though we are supposed to ask for the person's sex, we can't make any judgment about it. If we enquire further than what the person says, we are in for a lot of trouble.
That's incorrect. Race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, familial status, disability, veteran status, and genetic information are all considered protected classes. In some states sexual orientation is also protected, but unfortunately it is not at a federal level at this time.
The current law can't prevent it, but in a civil case, I'd hate to try to prove that I didn't discriminate based on information on a Facebook page.
You are not innocent until proven guilty, it's "balance of probability". And given that the focus of Facebook is person information, it's hard to argue that you weren't interested in it.
You don't just have the information, you have shown that it's the kind of information you are interested in. Unless you are looking for very specific things (in which case, why didn't you hand it off to a third party?), their lawyer will say you were interested in the general "look and feel" of the candidate. Stuff like age, marital status, religion, what their friends and family are like. All the stuff you shouldn't ask.
Precisely. I hope that there are some hungry lawyers out there smelling blood in the water 'cause this is easy stuff.
In an interview you can't ask how old someone is, where they were born, what religion they are, and a zillion other things, all of which are blatantly plastered all over the average person's facebook profile.
Well, I don't think that point alone is all that compelling. People put all sorts of "off-limit question" info on their personal blogs too. Does that mean it would somehow be unethical or illegal to look at a prospective candidate's personal blog that turned up in a web search?
While I would certainly not put up with a company asking for access to my private online content, it's not clear that it's illegal for them to do so just because it may contain information that can't legally be used to make a hiring decision.
Blogs are published, and meant to be read by people. "Off limit" questions answered in a blog would be comparable to determing an applicant's race and gender in a face to face interview, unless I'm mistaken.
Facebook, as seen from a logged in user's POV, is meant to be private. I think there is definitely a line being crossed when asking to snoop through their private lives.
The difference is that in this case the candidate knows you looked, and can testify under oath that you looked. To a court of law, that makes all the difference. You had the means and the opportunity, all that remains for the candidate to prove is motive.
> Its as simple as "There are certain questions you can't ask during job interviews". Its been illegal to ask these questions for 20 years, and nearly no one disputes this.
It's not that simple. Facebook is not the only way a prospective employer could find out those details. For example, some jobs do thorough background checks (imagine, for a security position) that no one doubts the legality of, and you could answer many of those same questions that way too. If the prospective employer learns that info, they're simply expected to disregard it while making their hiring decision, the same as they'd be expected to if they learned that info from your PUBLIC facebook page (which again no one can doubt is legal to check).
Stealing facebook login details does expose the company to greater liability claims in this regard, but merely uncovering those protected questions is not illegal.
Instead I suggest approaching Facebook login theft as a case of tortious interference, and an invasion of privacy both for the stolen account owner and anyone on their friends list. Employment discrimination will both be hard to prove, and should be settled on a case by case basis rather than legislated out of existence.
All questions are legal to ask. What's illegal is discriminating on the basis of certain answers. The reason not to ask is to avoid being the target of a witch hunt.
This is why competent background checks are conducted by a security officer who produces nothing but a list of disqualifications along with the factual evidence to back them up. ("The candidate appears to engage in the unlawful use of mind altering drugs. [Facebook photo of bong use attached.]")
raganwald did specifically mention Ontario, where even asking the question is illegal. It's against the Ontario Human Rights code to ask any question on a written or oral application that classifies someone on a discriminatory ground.
You'd have to be a really shitty security officer to leap from bong to illegal drug use. There's a reason it's legal to sell bongs, because they have lots of other uses than illegal drugs. Also, many of the drugs used in bongs are legal to use in many different circumstances.
The laws in Ontario are written this way to prevent exactly this sort of idiocy. That's why you don't even ask these things because it's irrelevant to the job.
If illegal drug use doesn't disqualify the President of the United States from his job why should it exclude anyone else?
Setting aside tobacco ('cos, let's be honest, no-one smokes tobacco with a bong, regardless of what head-shops say), there's also "legal highs" - synthetic cannabis analogues (K2/Spice/etc) and Salvia, for instance.
A lot of bongs are re-purposed chemistry apparatus, too. Not that having chemistry apparatus in your student flat is gonna look much better to a prospective employer than a bong. :P
A quick google search will tell you that's flat out wrong - there are interview questions that are illegal to ask in pretty much the entire first world, pretty much anything directly pertaining to legally protected statuses/classes.
Even though the content of the letter wasn't anything new (the same thing we've been reading about frequently on HN and other tech sites in the last couple of weeks) I found that it was well written (and chilling!) to the point where if I needed to explain to someone why it is so bad for employers to request Facebook access, this is the page I would send them to.
Great read, thanks for taking the time to write it :)
As the first person to upvote, I started writing this comment, then realized I had nothing to say beyond "The best post I've read on the subject. That it's a letter of resignation is a bonus.". You sir get a hat tip from me for writing the comment I wanted to write but couldn't articulate.
Eh, you might want to clarify that somewhere... I thought it was real, and my reaction was "Wow this guy's kind of a dick, I wouldn't even have the balls to ask someone to open their facebook account in the first place".
I think the lack of clarity is actually kind of refreshing for the web. You get that with literary magazines sometimes, where it's not apparent if something is fiction or memoir. But it's odd arriving there from HN.
I found the Nixon letter somehow ironic, actually--ragenwald's character was resigning out of ethical conviction, whereas Nixon resigned as a consequence of his own unethical behavior.
I don't agree that he was but I think Nixon honestly believed he was behaving ethically.
Both involved intrusions into people's personal lives by an employer. In Raganwald's case, digging through someone's Facebook files. In Nixon's case, breaking in to steal Ellsberg's psychiatrist file.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg#Fielding_break...
"But today something went seriously wrong. I have been interviewing senior hires for the crucial tech lead position on the Fizz Buzz team, and while several walked out in a huff when I asked them to let me look at their Facebook, one young lady smiled and said I could help myself."
I have been reading about this and it not only seems like an absurd invasion of privacy, but in violation of several federal employment laws. Being somewhat familiar with employment law, I would be nervous to ask a prospective employee ANYTHING that was not directly related to past work or the position in question. Employment law is one of the most murky and sensitive areas of the law, and I'm convinced that the only reason there aren't more lawsuits is that most people simply don't know their rights.
Let me cite a specific example. I once sat in on a lecture by a former attorney-turned successful media entrepreneur who owned a fairly successful magazine. During a routine interview for an art director position, one of her staff members who was conducting the interview noticed that the candidate was wearing a Yarmulke. She said something to the effect of "During certain seasonal spikes, we have a huge increase in workload that can extend into the weekends. I see that you're Jewish, and I am too. Do you think working on weekends is something you can do?"
The interview concluded, and they exchanged goodbyes. The interviewer expressed interest but asked the candidate to send over some work samples, but the samples never came. Instead, after a few weeks a letter arrived from the candidate's attorney informing the magazine that they were being sued. They settled out of court for nearly $50,000.
That seems pretty egregious and the woman was pretty naive to bring up such a sensitive matter in an interview, but I don't see how it's any worse than demanding to see somebody's protected Facebook account.
This whole demanding to see somebody's facebook account thing - do they want to read my old love letters too? The last letter from my dearly departed Father? My online dating profile? What about my now unused university email account?
I have a stupid question. Has anyone ever been asked this in an interview? Or knows anyone that has been asked/asked this question? I've been reading a lot about this situation over the last month, but have never heard anyone say it happened to them or someone they know. Just stories that seem like rumors/gossip.
I do not know many people who are right out of college and interviewing (and that's who I assume would be asked this sort of question), so maybe my network is too small to have heard of it happening.
Also, I realize many people will sign NDAs about the interview process, I am not looking for juicy details of when/where/how it happened. I'd just love to know if people actually had this happen at one point in the last few years.
I interviewed for a medical device company a few years back, I signed an NDA for it, they showed me some cool technology they were working on, I got to take a tour around the place, and actually see what was being developed, how their processes work, and how far along they are on certain things. How they design, and fab up their products. Companies that make you sign NDA's are really just protecting their back. How do they know I wasn't actually working for some rival company, and just got their interview to see what was going on. If that was the case, an NDA gives them a bit more leverage in court. If it was just some random joe like myself, no big deal. Corporate espionage probably does happen. (I say probably, as I can't say i've ever witnessed it though.)
Depends on the NDA I'm sure. Would many people really object to "I won't disclose the questions you ask me, or the written test you'll give me, or anything proprietary I might overhear while I'm there"?
Sometimes the company has a good reason for wanting an NDA. In that case, it doesn't indicate a company you wouldn't want to work for.
Google has NDAs on interviews mainly because we want the questions to be surprises. Coming up with good questions is hard, and we don't have a enormous pool of them. If every interviewee went home and blogged them, soon anyone who wanted to ace a Google interview would just need to read a bunch of relevant blogs.
I wasn't aware Google had such asinine interview policies. Assuming the questions reflected things people needed to know for the job, having them publicly available would surely only increase the caliber of applicants and make it easier to weed out unprepared candidates.
Being consciously protective of interview questions in order to stuff people into a one-size-fits-all interview process? No wonder search quality is degrading.
We want people to know all computer science (etc.) topics, not the exact four-hours-worth we happen to ask in an arbitrary interview. The idea is to randomly sample your knowledge, not to have you study and recite the answers to a few questions.
It's an imperfect process, yes, but I'm not sure how this is one-size-fits-all. Giving you the questions beforehand would be a one-size-fits-all interview; we would see how well you study for tests. By asking practical questions that apply your knowledge of programming, we can see how you'll actually do your work. And, interviewers are not robots; if it's clear you don't know something about obscure category X, we'll move the discussion in the direction of something that you know about. I know nothing about document classification, but I know a lot about "code health". So my interviewers asked refactoring questions instead of document classification questions.
It's a pretty flexible process, and most of the people I've talked to about it seem to like it. It seems scary at first because you don't do many graph traversals in your day-to-day work. But once you get up to the whiteboard and start thinking, you realize, "wait, I do know this stuff". And that's what the interviews are designed to do: skip the easy stuff that we know you know and see how you answer questions that are just out of reach.
(I learned a lot from my Google interviews, and was actually slightly surprised that I had been hired. At the interview, I had a lot of new questions to think about, and I learned a lot in the form of hints from the interviewers. All in all, a great experience. Better once I knew I'd been hired, though :)
It could be that either an interview is considered privalleged - and so any information you are told (and anything you tell the recruiter) is considered confidential anyway. In the same way that an employee doesn't need an NDA
Of course the sensible thing is not to tell you anythign secret!
This exact same process is what kept me from applying to ycombinator this year. Asking for my Facebook url is the same considering everyone at ycombinator has whatever access they need.
Raised $20k in two weeks on my own instead, for a much less percentage than ycombinator would have.
Some VCs sound pretty radical, but I don't think you'll find too many who will make a startup-sized investment without actually insisting on your real life name. :-)
Right, and suppose like me, you don't actually have a facebook page. I have a pretty common name. There's at least 25 people with my same name living in the same city as me. Are they going to believe me when I say I don't have a facebook account?
Actually, I wonder if anyone has thought of the options of setting up "clean as a whistle" profiles to then sell to folks who need a presentable site. Tell the new boss that you usually go by an online non de plume, or use your middle name rather than your first name. Of course said service would be "For Entertainment Purposes Only"...
Kinda worried that you run your own business and dont understand the difference between a link to your public fb profile and the login information to your fb profile. I guess it can be explained by the fact that you came here to diss YC, why do it in any sort of logical manner when you can say something moronic instead?
No, what worries me is that ycombinator is very tight with Facebook, and that they may access non-public information. Facebook logs a whole lot more info than most people know. Not trying to diss ycombinator at all, just stating how I felt, I apologize.
Asking for a URL is nothing like demanding access to the account. Anything available to the public under your profile could be found with a name search, providing it just simplifies the process.
Kind of like HN software is "lazy" to turn links (http://www.google.com) clickable -- there's no need for that as you can always copy&paste the address?
You don't even have to go to that extent. For the longest time my Klout profile claimed I was a 45 year old woman who lived in California because it misread a couple of my initial Facebook and Twitter posts. For the record I'm a male who currently resides in Texas...
Are you insinuatIng that only black people can suffer from beat cancer?
As a white boy who has the funk, I take exception to that as I have lost a friend to beat cancer and let me tell you: it ain't no joke.
Watching your homie lose his beat step by step is a terrible thing and it leaves you with the worst feeling that maybe... just maybe, the rhythm really is going to get you.
I find it infuriating that his argument against facebook spying isn't "this is wrong", but "we will have to hire dead weight, and could be exposed to legal liability." I of course don't mean to criticize the author personally; it's just sad how far culture has slid that this is the go-to argument.
Speaking as the author, this is not my go-to argument, nor do I suggest it be anyone’s go-to argument. I assure you that in “real life,” I would never agree to such an edict.
But it’s like this: I felt that this particular argument hasn’t received much notice, and I thought people would find it interesting to think about.
Well, at least I'm not the only one who took your post literally.
The argument is interesting. I feel like the reason it's overlooked might be a realization that once you have to make such an argument, all is lost, evil has won, everything decent will come to an end, &c.
If you're going to interview & hire people in Canada understanding human rights law is mandatory. And it doesn't require you to hire dead weight; it's to stop people from saying that being black, or gay, or a woman is a valid reason to not hire someone.
It actually puts a legal requirement to do the opposite - to hire the best candidate regardless of their race, national origin or their interest in yiffing at FurrCon.
That's the theory. Enforcement makes things harder.
At least in the US, (and I strongly suspect in Canada as well) it's up to a jury to decide if the given rationale is genuine or an excuse to cover bigotry. Anyone who knows anything about how to do the job is likely to get blocked at jury-selection. Imagine explaining to 12 literature majors why cubic-time lookup is bad, while opposing council wants to know how often you use key-value stores in your day-to-day work.
It actually puts a legal requirement to do the opposite - to hire the best candidate regardless of their race, national origin or their interest in yiffing at FurrCon.
Not always. For example if you somehow learn that a candidate plans to take several months parental leave in the near future, they can't possibly be the best candidate, but you're forbidden from taking that into account.
Why can't someone taking parental leave be the best candidate? THis statement doesn't seem to be true at all and seems like somewhat good proof that we need such laws.
The one taking parental leave could be more skilled and qualified, yet be worse for the company.
If you believe for instance that
1) it takes 3 months of ramp-up time to do an effective job
2) after 3 months off the job, you need to ramp up again
3) the employee will leave in two months
4) the employee will be gone for twelve months
You could conclude that the next 17 months of this employee's tenure at the company will be ineffective.
You could contrast this with an employee that works straight through and will give you 14 effective months.
You might get an exceptional candidate taking the leave, but they have to make a huge impact in a short time to be better for the company on balance than an extra year of labor from a roughly equivalent candidate.
Well, to be fair, I think the author is trying to provide newer arguments, as the "this is stupid, a huge invasion of privacy, and against Facebook's TOS" cases have already been made pretty heavily on the front page of Hacker News.
Further, if it's not plainly obvious that the practice is wrong to someone, it seems like stating the fact probably won't do much to convince them, so maybe alternative arguments might be more productive.
Corporations demand all employees abandon their morals and focus on maximizing profit. The easiest way to convince them not to do something blatantly and devastatingly immoral is to point out how it costs them money.
Or to take the approach advocated by Milton Friedman and pass a law to constrain their behavior. The infinite loop is introduced when corporations can influence which laws are passed...
"This is wrong" is completely valid and reasoned. Unfortunately "puts the business at risk, so much so I cannot hire in good faith and must resign" is FAR better understood by businesses - especially businesses do stuff that is wrong ALL the time.
It's the same reason why we have to codify "thou shalt not murder" into our laws - because some people are selfish, greedy, opportunistic assholes, and you have to twist their arms to get them to behave like civilized human beings.
In an industry (and this includes ours too, techies, don't be deluded into thinking otherwise) that's driven by the bottom line, practically without morality, perhaps the best argument you can make is something like this.
What you describe is politics in a capitalist society. An argument can't be won on morality alone anymore - there must be strong financial incentive at play. Personally, I am at least glad that there is an "out" of this mess, however low the argument is.
"this is wrong" is a personal opinion.
He might also think the company's logo is silly or it's sponsorship of a golf tournament is immoral.
The point he makes is - "this policy stops us writing quality software ".
Now assuming writing quality software is a benefit to the company and it's shareholders this point has a lot more weight than his persona moral scruples.
Which is an issue that you should have with society in general, and not the author for such reasons. He at least tried to present his reasons from a objective standpoint for the company to actually be interested in doing something.
Can someone explain in reasonable terms, why an HR manager would would choose to enact a policy that requires perspective employees to surrender their Facebook activity as a condition of employment?
I am really trying to understand what logical motivation is directing this latest craze. Was it a recent HR conference session that sold HR managers on the idea? An article written in an HR trade journal that cited definitive stats that sealed the argument?
The published examples that I have seen were teachers and prison guards. Employers of these folks want evidence of fraternization with students and inmate families, respectively.
Asking at an interview is crazy - all it does is open you upto lawsuits.
I have worked at places that do Google tracking of your name/company email/company name.
I only discovered this when I posted on a tech support forum for a product we use, using my company email. Then got dragged before HR because "any corporate publication", including apparently my support request needs to be approved by legal!
I can see a short step to tracking FB/blog/twitter of employees to check they aren't saying anything about the company.
I don't have a facebook account. I used to, but stopped using it about 4 years ago. I am looking forward to the day someone asks me that question. I wonder what their reaction is going to be. Possible scenarios:
- They will believe me, drop the subject.
- They will ask to see my twitter/linkedin/etc. account instead.
- They will think that I am lying and stop the interview process, which is the most dangerous one.
100% it'll be the later...it's expected that you have a facebook account..if you don't they'll just think you are lying...and it must be REALLY bad for you to lie about it...you are probably a drug user, or worse
Then that's a sign that the company doesn't understand the kind of anti-Facebook backlash that's come up in recent years. What else about the realities of today's world might they not grasp?
Every job interview is just as much an opportunity for you to get to know a prospective employer as vice versa.
Do you know why small startups/companies don't have an HR person right off the bat? It is because the damn concept is demeaning at the very least.
Who wants to be thought of as a "resource"? Above all else I feel like culture fit is the #1 priority in hiring someone. And if a company's culture encourages peeking into peoples' private lives that is disgraceful.
The modern corporation is a vestige of the 1900s where factory workers all had to show up to a central location and toil for hours on end.
Is it possible to create a future where a "company" has thousands of employees but still retain all the benefits of a small group? Already we see it happening. Perhaps the 21st century will bring about this dynamic shift.
The reason you'd want an HR person would be to keep the company from accidentally doing illegal stuff like what happens in this story. Startups can get away with it because they're small with few assets and their legal risks around hiring are smallish compared to their many other risks. As companies get larger, statistically rare events become more likely and at the same time they have more to lose.
So I'd say no, it's not possible in a large company to get by without HR, but there's still a lot of ways to improve the process.
I don't expect to ever be rid of HR, but can we as an industry at least collectively stop pretending that HR is on the side of the employees? This is a pervasive, explicit lie that's told by HR departments everywhere.
Sometimes I wonder how HR personnel sleep at night.
Oh, they sleep quite well: it's nice work, if you can get it.
The workload is incredibly low, and the hardest task is to find something new to do this year at the Christmas party. Because of huge legal responsibilities nobody will actually pay attention to, the salary is fairly good as well. Since the policies you enact are all drawn in accordance with (and full knowledge by) upper management, you can't be held personally accountable of anything anyway, so when/if shit hits the fan, the company will cover you with all the power of their legal team.
The rest is all corporate doublespeak, not unlike what you'll experience in any other managerial job. I bet you met at least one direct superior, in your life, who told you he was on your side vs the company/upper management; chances are that he was being as honest as any HR personnel will ever be.
I am not planning on being interviewed for a new job any time soon. Despite that, when the whole "Facebook disclosure during interview/hire" topic broke, I began preparing my short list of ways to act indignant/offended or to lay on some thick sarcasm that gets across just how horrible they should feel for even suggesting something of the sort.
This blows everything I had out of the water. Props for the creativity and execution.
As someone about to graduate college and interviewing at a number of firms I'm sort of hoping one of them asks for my Facebook password so I can laugh in their face while I accept one of the other several offers I've received.
Now of course, you would never refuse to hire someone because they plan to exercise their legal right to parental leave, would you?
I'm sympathetic to the principal message of this post, but regarding the bit about parental leave: Has it really come to this? If someone takes a job intending to "exercise their legal right to parental leave" shortly after joining, it's the company that's the bad guy for wanting to stop it? To my eye, such behavior identifies the employee a special interest parasite, feeding at the public trough with a smug sense of entitlement.
It's effectively illegal to ask a job applicant, "Are you intending to take an extended paid vacation shortly after starting?" That's not progress—it's madness.
... unless, of course, you happen to be in that narrow window in life where it is optimal for you or your partner to have children. A woman's biological clock waits for no job.
Here in Canada, parental leave is self-paid through Employment Insurance at a rate that is proportional to our income in the previous year. The employer does not pay directly---they do, however, need enough flexibility in staffing to accommodate new parents.
Speaking from a management point of view, it's not about the financial cost. It's the fact that the company needs to get your job done still. Do you hire someone else? If you do, you need to deal with issues such as headcount, budget, what to do with them when you return.
Look at it from another perspective. If given the choice between 2 equal candidates and you choose the one that's not about to take "leave". It's not discrimination, it's purely you making the best choice for getting the job done. One person is going to start the job right away, one is basically say "hang on, I'll start that in x months".
I've thought about this a lot and I can't really come to any alternative solutions.
Three months ago you found out you're pregnant. Finally! you'd been trying for almost a year! Today you walk into work and find out the company is bankrupt, clean out your desk.
What are you supposed to to? Not look for a job for 6-7 months? Tell every prospective employer you're happy to start now, but in a few weeks you'll be out on prolonged leave?
The only possible thing that they can do with that information is discriminate.
I suggest avoiding the word "discriminate"—its emotional overtones are too strong. Here we're merely differentiating between multiple candidates, and doing our best to be fair. Enshrined in law is the notion that it's unfair not to hire someone merely because she's planning to take maternity leave shortly after starting. I admit that calling this "unfair" confounds my intuition—forcing a company to subsidize a new mother strikes me as unfair, and neglecting to disclose a pregnancy borders on fraud—but perhaps I can trigger a sense of unfairness even without reference to the company's well-being.
Suppose Alice and Barbara both apply for a job for which they are equally qualified. Alice is newly pregnant, but (per the law) the prospective employer isn't allowed to inquire about this. If the company hires Alice, the company suffers—and so does Barbara. It's impossible to afford pregnant women special treatment without harming women who aren't (and perhaps don't plan to become) pregnant.
Life is full of choice and chance. When trying to legislate away the consequences, expect bad side-effects.
What if Alice didn't know she was pregnant -- or wasn't even pregnant -- at the time of the interview? The process of hiring can drag on for weeks and months for many industries and companies.
The employer made what you've described as a coin flip choice and have to stand by that decision. Life is never "fair" in the way you're defining fairness in this case.
It's the same basic situation, just not as severe. Alice undoubtedly has some inkling that she may become pregnant, even if she thinks it unlikely. If Barbara isn't pregnant or planning to become pregnant, and has taken steps to prevent pregnancy, she is still a better hire than Alice, all things being equal. In a competitive market for labor under complete freedom of contract, a company could ask both Alice and Barbara about their plans to become a mother. The employment contract could also include clauses contingent on pregnancy, such as indemnifying the company against the lost productivity caused by unexpected maternity leave. The details would be determined by the relative bargaining power of the company and prospective employee. Those offended by such practices could simply decline to apply to such companies.
In short, under freedom of contract, company policies with respect to pregnancy would depend on free negotiations between buyers (employers) and sellers (applicants). The solutions would likely vary widely, each tailored to the needs of its particular industry. In effect, the status quo consists of a mandatory one-size-fits-all (or perhaps one-size-fits-none) solution that has many more negative side-effects that its proponents are prepared to admit. (Exercise: Show that compulsory compensation for maternity leave necessarily increases unemployment and lowers wages.) The idea that current policies necessarily benefit women is naïve at best, evil at worst.
Incidentally, there's nothing necessarily wrong with governments subsidizing procreation. But deciding whether and how to do so requires judgment and wisdom—qualities not particularly evident in those currently in charge.
As someone who became mother due to the lack of active prevention of pregnancy (call it a pleasant surprise), I am of course of a different opinion than yours.
There is nothing stopping either Alice or Barbara from lying about their procreation plans. Outside of abstinence, which cannot be proved or disproved by anyone other than the female in question (and it is not even something she has 100% control on -- unwanted sex do happen in this world), there is no foolproof birth control method. As such, and without trampling on employees' privacy, there's no point for an employer to inquiring about procreation plan.
I don't believe the clauses contingent on pregnancy is appropriate on employment contracts neither. If maternity leave is such a big loss on productivity that a company needs compensation for, one can argue either the market should already have a product for it (e.g. some form of "maternity insurance" provided to employers), or the government should subsidize the employer.
In Canada, where @raganwald and I currently reside, employers are not legally required to provide compensation for persons on maternity or parental leave. (Maternity leave is for mothers giving birth only; parental leave can be split between parents of either birth or adoption.) Instead, the government provides partial compensation. It's up to the employer to decide whether to provide additional compensation on top of government benefits. I don't know where you are located nor your local laws regarding maternity leave. In your opinion, would a policy similar to Canada's be suffice, or do you still want more protection for the employers?
I suppose you are opposed to Arizona's new birth control pill bill HB2625 then? [tongue in cheek]
Happened (happening) to me -- I'm 7 months pregnant, out of work for months.
I haven't looked for new employment because it didn't feel "right" to apply to a new job knowing I'll be on maternity leave for a full year.
Legally I know I'm protected -- if any employer refuses to hire me, I have certain grounds to sue for discrimination. But it doesn't stop making me feeling like an a$$hole if I do so.
I actually think this is a great point. As much as I completely agree with the letter, the idea that the first thing job applicants do is threaten me with legal action for something they presume I will do doesn't really inspire much confidence in me that they are good people or that they will contribute much to the organization.
I agree with you in principlr, but let's not over-think a fictional situation where a job applicant threatens a company that makes sharing FB information a condition of employment.
It's all made up and the points don't matter, but from where I sit, once a company behaves like this, you have to either walk away or play hardball. They might actually respect your cojones if you cut it rough, you're speaking their language.
Ah, if thats the case than I 100% agree with you. Initially the interactions seem like hyperbole that was probably made up, but yeah, if they're made up, I know what you mean. As I said in a different post above, I recently left a company where they had asked all of us to sign new employment contracts. I most certainly was not the only one.
Yes, it is the company's fault. The law regarding parental/maternity leave varies by jurisdiction, but raganwald is in Canada, and parental leave, complete with job protection, is a legal right. It's not madness nor parasitic -- it just shows your moral compass is not entirely compatible with employment laws in Canada. ;)
Extended paid vacation is a different story -- employers are not obligated to approve your vacation request. Also, many companies have policies on how (paid) vacation days are incurred, especially during the first year. Having said that, most people I know would disclose any previously planned extended travel plans with the potential employer, both out of courtesy to the employer and as a condition of accepting the job.
The Nixon resignation letter was a nice touch. Perhaps the most interesting of times arises when firmly entrenched control structures are threatened. The Facebook login fiasco, and it is a fiasco, is one such example.
This post points more to the absurdly litigious nature of hiring/firing. It's an interesting exploration of the matter. Approaching the problem of employee privacy at an oblique angle. It won't scare any HR departments though. Most have systems in place to create reasons for not hiring or firing. All that you've guaranteed is that the HR person will be making all hiring decisions.
Fundamentally your best defense against discrimination is being too good to ignore.
That may be the best defense against discrimination, but many people are discriminated against who simply aren't that good, yet are still good enough to deserve to make some kind of living at some kind of job.
Is this a common thing in US? I can't think of any good reason for an employer to get access to a prospective employees account. Sounds like the equivalent of asking to access a person's home to make sure it is well kept and that they have good taste.
What is infuriating is that there is no political will to put a legal stop to this practice. I suspect that this means that as businesses learn how to alleviate the OP's concerns that they will do it more and more as time goes on, until it becomes the new normal.
Libertarianism being the dominant political philosophy of the moment such encroachments seem inevitable.
Libertarianism being the dominant political philosophy of the moment
I fail to understand how one could look at the events of the last decade and determine that the major problems are that people have too much freedom and government has too little power.
When unemployment skyrockets and employers may begin colluding to wield all the indirect coercion they like, because threatening homelessness and possibly starvation is somehow more ethical than threatening violence, that's a libertarian policy towards non-state power.
I would never coerce anyone to look through their Facebook account (or email, or personal photo album, or their journal, etc) under any circumstance, especially a job interview where the candidate feels pressured to be obliging. What a shameful act!
This is great as a work of fiction that vividly gets across the issues. In practice, I would expect companies that are legally on the ball to work around it somehow. I'm not a lawyer or an HR person, but the obvious answer is to outsource background checks to an outside firm that only includes legally permissible information in a written report to the hiring committee. (Don't they do that already for background checks?)
yes if you "need" to vet people there are procedures (and quite expensive ones) to do that. However 99% of companies don't "need" to vet any employees.
Interesting that people are so up in arms about having prospective employers browse their facebook, but have no problem when asked if their employers can peruse their blood, hair, or urine under the guise of a drug test. Private, recreational drug use seems just as much nobody's business as private recreational drinking or sexual promiscuity that could be uncovered by facebook investigations...
I wonder what the employer's response would be to "I don't have a Facebook page?" Would I be required to get one in order to give them the password?
Also, it seems they would be selecting for people who were willing to trade passwords for money in the interview. The decision to trade sensitive data has already been made, it's now just a matter of negotiating price.
They're response would probably depend on whether they already know you have a Facebook account. But assuming you got away with it - if it's the type of company that is asking for Facebook passwords, then it's type the company that's likely to fire you later when they find out that you lied during the interview.
I haven't had to experience this yet, but I would like to think I'd just decline and say they are free to look at whatever public information is available on my Facebook page.
I wouldn't lie about it, in fact I can't see ever consenting to such a thing (giving out a password to any service to someone it doesn't belong to). But there are actually people out there that don't have a FB account. I was wondering how an employer would deal with that. Other people would probably ghost their FB, give up the password or friend an overseer, but never use the account again.
If you don't use FB then I suppose the company would be satisfied since they don't need to worry about what you post.
The whole thing is ridiculous. If they wanted to get dirt on most of us they'd probably find more here in our hackernews accounts. If they're going to do that we might as well give them our email password too so they can read all of our private correspondences.
I could barely believe it when I read that this was happening and people were putting up with it. I can't wait for some large company to get sued and shamed over this.
I know I'll probably get down-voted but.. isn't it unfair to take a new job and get away for 6 months for parenting purpose? And what about being lesbian.. why would a company not hire a women because of that?
I don't know, I somewhat believe that once you put something on the web, be it facebook or not, it's now public. Yeah, on my facebook I have pictures that I'd rather not show to any employers but if they choose not to hire me for that, I'd rather not work at a place like this.
But, while writing this, I kind of realised that not everyone is in my position.. and not everyone is as open minded to accept homosexuals.. so I guess I understand what it's unethical.
> isn't it unfair to take a new job and get away for 6 months for parenting purpose?
There's a number of answers to that:
1) Biology is unfair. Birthing a child obviously takes much more effort and time from the mother than the father. We have societally chosen to make up for that a little bit by giving the mother a legally protected break from job demands.
2) It should come out in the wash on the back end. When it's time for reviews and raises, the new mother has three or six months less of productivity and accomplishments, so it's natural and not discriminatory for her to receive less reward here.
3) Maybe it IS unfair and that's why companies would seek to avoid hiring likely-to-become-pregnant women if they were not legally barred from doing so.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle of all these, in different situations. Some women can bear a child and not miss a beat in productivity at a job. Some perhaps do use maternity leave as an excuse for a vacation.
We have societally chosen to make up for that a little bit by giving the mother a legally protected break from job demands.
In which case we should collectively pay for it rather than dumping the burden on her employer, especially since as you note that creates a disincentive to hire any woman of childbearing age.
When it's time for reviews and raises, the new mother has three or six months less of productivity and accomplishments, so it's natural and not discriminatory for her to receive less reward here.
> In which case we should collectively pay for it rather than dumping the burden on her employer,
And that's how it is in most of Europe, for example. But companies are still known to try to avoid it because of the hassle of getting a replacement for the duration of maternity leave.
Yes it is unfair.
And there are exceptions to discrimination laws for certain cases eg. for small companies, or time critical operations - similarly to exemptions for jury service.
If you make it clear in the interview that there is a deadline - we are working to a product launch in 6months and we need you to start immediately, and you took the job without telling them that you were immediately planning to take 6months off then the employer would have a pretty good case in most jurisdictions.
Thanks, this was one of the ideas I was trying to get across, that by shrugging and going along with stuff like this, we're condoning and supporting it.
What is your interpretation of why this protagonist allowed unethical activity to continue for so long? Just to keep his job? Or is there something more to it?
I think people have accepted a certain fatalism about corporate scumbaggery: corporate entities are complex and bound to have some unethical people within them, so why fight it? Sure; it's true that unethical people will exist in any sufficiently large set. I wouldn't quit a job at a 10,000-person company because I found out that one employee was unethical. Let's fire him and get on with our lives. But when scumbags are getting promoted in spite of, or even because of, their ethical depravity, it's a really bad thing.
I think most Americans believe that "work" and "life" are separate and that it's perfectly acceptable to be a scumbag at work because "everyone is like that". People who wouldn't even think of shoplifting have no problem damaging careers, teams, and entire companies for ridiculously short-sighted reasons.
I'd like to open a Work Court in which people can "sue" employers over the low- and mid-grade scumbaggery of the sort that isn't worth a real lawsuit. Instead of a suit taking years and burning up half the award in legal fees, it can be settled in an afternoon. This Court has no authority to collect judgments (if there are awards, they come from ad revenue) but it can censure, and the effect of the censure is to bring public exposure to unethical activity.
Last year we were looking for a new office manager. One girl applies & we found some public pictures she had posted on Facebook. One of them she was kissing the ass of a statue of a clown. We hired her immediately.
Not only does this give companies a glimpse on how invasion of privacy is potentially bad for both parties, it also arms potential employees with a way to fight against policies that invade your privacy. Well done.
Hang on a second, what if the interviewee doesn't have a Facebook account? Or just lies and says they don't have one? Would the next question be "why not" or "show us your email in-box"?
Don't tell me that not having a Facebook account now weighs against your eligibility in an interview? That would be sad. What next? Everyone must have a FB account by law?
And why didn't Braithwaite just not ask the candidates the FB question?
"Fired for refusing to invade interviewee privacy"
is better than
"resigns after invading interviewee privacy".
Edit... so apparently it's all fiction. Time wasted.
The whole trend of bending the rules and pushing what's acceptable is rather frightening. Living in Ontario, Canada, I haven't heard of instances where any friends of mine were compelled to open up their Facebook profile. Could it be that it's just a matter of time ? It used to be that we worried about getting three good job references and not having a clean social network slate. Not having a FB account is looking pretty good to me, not that it didn't before.
do they expect access to your email account? no...because that'd be invasion of privacy...so why is facebook different?
you are free to snoop on the public facebook page(even though thats not 100% ethical either, since you should be judging people for the way they perform at work)...but in no way should you even think of asking about getting access to private information
There are many employers who feel that they're entitled to your salary history. Some see this as a sensible request, but it always struck me as a spectacular invasion of privacy.
They feel they're entitled to ask for your salary history, which is a subtle, bur very real, distinction. (Much like some employers feel they're entitled to rummage through your Facebook account, apparently.)
By the same token, you should feel entitled to tell them your prior salary data is a personal matter, if you're uncomfortable sharing it during salary negotiations.
There are many employers who feel that they're entitled to your salary history.
Ooh, lesson time! First, never give in on this one, unless compensation is relevant to your story (it's why you're leaving). It's best to say, "I believe that I was fairly compensated for the work I was doing, and I also believe I'm capable of doing more." It's a non-answer. You want to bring the discussion back to what you can do, not what you cost. Let them figure that out and give the first number. Leave the "salary" field on a job application blank. If they like you, they're not going to care.
Why do companies ask for this information? It doesn't have much of an influence on what they'll pay you. It might swing their number by 10 or 15 percent at most. Mainly, they want you to scout against the competition for them. The information you are volunteering has nothing to do with you but it's extremely valuable for their HR departments.
Moreover, that practice has to do with executives and the way they're compensated. Executives usually get severance packages baked in to the employment contract, but when companies fire people, they want to see if there's a way to get rid of them without paying these packages. Usually, any falsification in the job application process is cause to strike a package. So before a company is going to write a 3-year severance check, they want to do their research and see if they have leverage to negotiate it down or away.
You know those stories that you hear about where an executive is fired for falsifying a college degree, even if it was on some technicality like a $35 library fine that blocked his graduation (and that he had completely forgot about, 20 years later)? Those are cases where the company had already decided to fire him, and started to scout around to see if it could do so more cheaply. Depending on the structure of the arrangement, they either (a) struck the severance on account of what they found, or (b) threatened to disclose it if the employee didn't take a reduced package. The latter of these is illegal (extortion) but it happens all the time in severance negotiations with scummy companies.
Moreover, executive pay is complicated. Does one count stock options at the price then, or at the price now? How are projected bonuses, in a job the person hasn't yet left, handled? It is legit to change $100k base and $30k performance bonus to $80k and $50k? Representing salary as too high is construed as "misrepresentation", but salaries that are too low (trend improvement) can be taken the same way. It's like the fast-lane paradox: if you follow the law to the letter, you can't legally drive in the left-hand lane in most states, because it's illegal to drive below the speed limit and (of course) it's illegal to drive above it. So this is a very murky area.
Why do companies ask for salary information on non-executive employees as well? Because people will give it up. It's that simple. It costs nothing to ask, and people will usually volunteer the information.
I generally don't offer those numbers. If I do, I give the total package (counting equity at valuation) for the last job and omit the rest of the numbers, and I never put it in writing. (My salary history has always been good and with upward trend, so it's not exactly a problem, but I don't like giving it out.) What I made in 2006 is not relevant to anything.
Oh, and if a company ever asks for a W-2 form as a condition of employment, to verify salary or bonus, run like the fucking wind. You don't want to work with people like that. Trust me.
Anyone who actually does is this just scum. I want to invoke the obvious references but in order to avoid Godwin's Law, I will simply say being the one to actual "screen" the person's Facebook account is ... well I can't really come up with an accurate description without invoking the Law, just please infer for yourself. It violates just norms that it seems we should all have about decency. It's one thing to search for a prospective hire's social networking pages and if they have anything public, yes you use that against them to your heart's content. But to actively invade their privacy like this is just disgusting. Why not just ask for the cell phones and wallets so you can rifle through them, make sure you read every text message. It's extremely disgusting. It just crosses every line imaginable; I don't hyperbole is really possible for this sort practice.
This has been rubbing me the wrong way for the past day.
It appears to state a false set of premises - that minorities have the bulletproof ability to threaten employers with being sued for discrimination unless they are hired, regardless of qualification. The focus on this ridiculous premise for rhetorical effect obscures the real danger of such requirements - that non-visible minority status leads to vulnerability to being discriminated against.
People in minorities are disempowered and denied equal consideration, not demanding special rights to be hired even if unqualified. It's frankly insulting to have an argument has been used completely seriously to argue against the existence of anti-discrimination laws by Republicans and Libertarians instead used for the purposes of satire.
"I was willing to go along with things and see how they panned out." - so much for the sincerity of your supposed indignation. at the end, all that drove you out is the fear of exposure of your own ass due to anti-discrimination laws. and even now, after leaving, you do not have the nerve to directly express any kind of stand regarding the invasion of privacy your COO requested you do. from your ambivalent "style" it is just as easily possible to conclude that you are "speaking out" against anti-discrimination laws. but, in the end, you are saying absolutely nothing. pathetic.
I wholeheartedly agree with your point and you make it very well, but I'm afraid your preaching to the choir. I don't think anyone that finds this article (either through hn or otherwise) disagrees with the fact that the practice of scanning (potential) employees' personal facebook accounts is wrong and that nothing good could come of it. How do we reach the people that do think it's a good idea?
If you have to resign in order to have this HR policy changed the company you were working for was not worth working for anyway. I don't think it is right to work for companies that disrespect their employees on such a fundamental level. You did the right thing in resigning.
I am also somewhat surprised that you complied with the policy. Why would you comply when you knew it was wrong?
Bone-headed HR move, particularly in light of the prevailing laws but quite apart from them, too. It's invasive and uncomfortable, and probably not a place I'd feel welcome as an employee.
What it mostly reinforces to me, however, is just how terribly ignorant and wishful laws like that are. If I build a business and bottom out my bank account, kill myself with 100-hour weeks, and build my very life around making the company work, you better believe I have the right to know if the person I'm hiring plans to take off for 6 months right after being hired. And you better believe that weighs against them in the hiring process. I didn't set up the business as a facet of family planning services: I want to hire someone who's willing to work hard to build my business in exchange for pay. If a person knows they're going to take 6 months off immediately, then it's not time to apply for a job, because you're not going to be working; apply for something when you're ready to actually do it.
It continually amazes me how government largesse and layers of indirection break people's natural intuitions and allow them to condone forcing a third party to pay for their own life choices, in a vain attempt to mitigate the unfortunate trade-offs that accompany our constrained mortal existence.
Transparency is not a bad thing. There are people out there who want a solid job that pays well and fulfills their ambition while making good money; and there are employers willing to offer those things in exchange for solid performance, a reasonable salary, and reliability. Get out of our way with this red tape garbage and let us find each other and do great things.
Downvoting was expected, as my post runs counter to the prevailing view on social services and opposition to capitalism "red in tooth and claw," but some commentary on why would be appreciated.
My original post was relevant and not too inflammatory, I don't think. If you disagree with the substance of what I said, state your case instead of (or at least in addition to) downvoting.
A reaction of moral indignation without discussion on a logical basis is at the heart of virtually everything wrong in modern US society. Break that, at least here.
Ethics aside, an employer asking for login access to your Facebook profile is a violation of Facebook's TOS.
That being said, I don't care how difficult the job market is--if a potential employer demonstrates that they have no regard for your personal privacy during the interview process, you should thank them for their time, smile and never look back.
This is all incredibly ridiculous. How such a practice would become company policy is beyond me. Facebook has said they'd terminate a company's facebook page if it was found to be doing this. An interesting question though, would they fire an employee for not friending or liking the company page?.. Just ridiculous
Did you really resign as Director of Software Development over this issue? Or, is that just you being a creative essayist? aside: when bloggers arrived, it seems essayists became extinct.
One thing is certain ... i now see at least one use for an iPad.
Also, apparently i made an error in judgement on removing the fact that i've been programming for 45+ years ... more if you let me count overtime. FWIW, i'm still learning to program ... it's nice to glean from your article that i might be better off to simply sue every prospect who fails to give me an interview. unfortunately, i, up to seconds ago, assumed that i could file a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights commission ... but as of a minute ago at http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/issues/age, i learned:
"On June 30, 2008, the role of the Ontario Human Rights Commission changed. The Commission will no longer accept complaints of discrimination."
The same page in the link above does tell me that i'm protected from age discrimination. Hmmmm. Perhaps i could complain to Bashir al-Assad? Hmmmm, again, i just noticed there's an Ass in al-Assad.
In November 2009, i began working for a company where i had four managers ... but then let's not talk about "corporate transition" ... i'm tempted to name that company here but then this comment could be in the internet-verse for decades to centuries baring some galactic or man made calamity destroying planet earth.
I probably should not mention my April 28th birthday because Jay Leno and the late Saddam Hussein share my birth date ... imagine some HR Letterman fan seeing my name coming up with Leno's in a Google-ish search!
Dear Reginald ... if you really did resign your position over such a machiavellian HR policy, then you've dewservedly earned my utmost respect.
I had to double-check it wasn't an April Fools' joke. And then I realized it was for real, that this is a software company we're talking company, presumably employing "educated" and "smart" people.
"Background checks", "Facebook stalking" etc etc, this is as close to living in a totalitarian and dystopian world as we can get.
Firstly, hats off to raganwald for another thought-provoking piece.
Whether or not the hypothetical interviewees in his letter could push the legal claims they threatened, companies may very well shy away from this violation of privacy simply to avoid the risk that they could be held liable later.
Who the hell actually is this guy? Google search results for his name appear to be useless, misleading and contradictory because they're currently ruined by the firehose of bloggernaut bullshit.
If someone viewed my Facebook profile, based on my lack of usage they could only come to the conclusion I am a person with few friends and no interests.
Seems like a silly way to learn more about people.
amazing. as a manager and someone who spends his time trying to make sure my actions and policies dont constrain our best people, this rings so true. Thank you for your thoughts on this issue and I wholly agree with you that these sorts of invasive practices will ultimately kill innovation and any real identity in a workplace.
I would think twice about hiring someone that makes their resignation letter public like this. That being said, kudos for taking a stand (albeit only AFTER invading peoples privacy by reading their facebook).
My guess is that you decided you wanted to leave when the COO forced you to do this, but rather than quit then and there, you decided to teach her a lesson as a parting gift... am I wrong? :)
This exact same process is what kept me from applying to ycombinator this year. Asking for my Facebook url is the same considering everyone at ycombinator has whatever access they need.
Raised $20k in two weeks on my own instead, for a much less percentage than ycombinator would have http://www.cloudromance.com
I was expecting to see far more feedback from incredulous Americans in "at-will" states undergoing employment culture shock. It's nice to see that the Canadian point of view translates so well.
I'd expect that employees working in "at-will" states would be less likely to take a stand against their employers, even if the law were in their favour.
That's probably true in general, although if you don't get hired due to discrimination and then sue, usually you avoid the conflict by asking for a cash settlement instead of a job.
Very interesting! Thank you for a good point of view on this social media topic. And as far as I know, even Y Combinator want's to check out your facebook profile when you apply, right?
Holy shit. Except for a few details, I could have written that.
I recently had a job I was "promoted" into a pseudo-managerial role and immediately asked to disparage people I actually really liked, in order to put a "unified front" about our history and our people before new management. Told it would be "insubordination" not to sign this "official version of events", even though it was full of factual inaccuracies. I was shocked and disgusted. (The company's engineers are great; this is a managerial ethics problem.) Resigned on the spot. No two weeks' notice, just walked the fuck out.
Half my friends think I'm a hero for not selling my soul. Half think I'm an idiot for firing myself to avoid harming others who were in someone's crosshairs already. I don't think I'm either. Hero and idiot both imply a choice. I had none. I am not going to do the wrong thing. Ever. Not for more equity in a company whose executives are okay with this kind of shit, not to keep a job. Just not fucking happening.
That's a really strong statement. If you stood up and did the right thing, that's awesome. But if your opinion on every situation 'ever' is that you're not going to do the wrong thing, step back and ask whether things are so simple.
I'm not saying moral absolutes don't exist, but striving toward 'the right thing' is seldom so clear. For instance, you quit on the spot. What about the wonderful engineers who now have to pick up the slack? I'm not saying you made the wrong choice, but there are consequences to be weighed in every situation. If your method of decision-making rests on the idea that you don't have a choice, I think you're limiting yourself.
And finally - I thought a lot about writing this, because I generally hate comments about commenting - you responded to a really interesting post regarding privacy and hiring in an era of easily accessible sensitive personal information to point out how ethical you are - in your words 'not going to do the wrong thing. Ever.' It's not immediately clear why this applies to raganwald's post, except that both involve company bureaucracy and a protagonist resigning.
I won't go as far as to pretend to know what the parent means, but I'm quite sure he didn't mean to say he will know what's Wrong every single time, but that he just can't willfully commit himself to doing something that goes wildly against his morality.
Way to hog attention with your drama away from the topic at hand about the legal liability of employers invading privacy via Facebook. The OP wasn't a generic "some companies suck" rant, it was a parable about a specific problem.
I ask you then, who are we if we don't have our experiences? What defines you as a person? Let the man speak. It might show that there are more cases to this dilemma than just one lonely person who experiences this.
It's fairly typical that the entire top half of this comments section is about michaelochurch and his honesty (which I'm not especially interested in) on a Hacker News item about a specific ethics debate regarding Facebook and hiring (that I'm especially interested in). This is the second day in a row that michaelochurch has specifically centered a popular item's discussion on him in a completely irrelevant manner:
He knew, writing it, that people would call him out on the relevance of the comment so he threw in that little flourish at the end of the comment to establish some kind of a weak link between the content of the submission and his comment. None of the same wording here, just a completely irrelevant comment that's not even loosely related to the submission.
Just look how far you have to scroll in this comments section to get to the discussion about the SUBMISSION ITSELF. Seriously. In all seriousness, I have no idea who michaelochurch is, nor do I really care about his escapades against Google or his honesty or quality as a person. I just want to read discussion about the topic at hand on Hacker News.
There is an easy answer to such (real or perceived) attention-whoring: folding. I should be able to collapse the entire thread related to michaelochurch, and quickly move on.
Web boards: reinventing Usenet every 3 years since 1996.
Due to this comment, I have implemented the comment-folding feature as a Firefox+GreaseMonkey script (which also seems to work in Google Chrome as a Chrome Extension for me).
One comment: the triangle gets a bit confused with the upvote/downvote buttons. Maybe it'd be clearer if it was something like [-] / [+]... it would also enlarge the clickable area a bit, probably.
Not a bad idea. I found the Unicode glyphs for "Squared Plus" and "Squared Minus" and used them instead. They needed to be scaled up a bit but after that it was fine.
I've taken to downvoting such comments. Not because I disagree with them or think they are wrong, but simply because they are offtopic and taking the place of a better ontopic comment. We really need an 'offtopic' flagging mechanism.
1) I'd argue that downvoting is an appropriate course of action for this. As I understand it, the purpose of downvoting is to discourage the type of comment or submission being downvoted.
2) A little Javascriptiness to collapse trees of comments would do wonders to make it ignorable, too.
Indeed.
Not only when the higher-ups ask you to pull unethical stuff, even when your close friends do.
Last week a close friend of mine who is out of a job right now, told me he was interviewing at a consulting firm and they had given him an Architectural Case study.
He called me up and explained the problem statement - having worked together he knew that it was complex system with multiple scalability & performance traps- and that I had spent a long time building exactly such systems. He nicely asked me to design a pseudo system for him....
I had to refuse as it was clearly an interview question he was meant to work on alone (the wording implied this).
Felt bad as I know he really wanted the job...and it is going to put a big strain on our friendship.
I am still wondering if throwing him a few pointers might have been the better move...
I am still wondering if throwing him a few pointers might have been the better move...
I will agree up front that if the wording explicitly said it was a solo deal, then at minimum you made a safe choice/morally defensible choice, and you can at sleep well at night.
But I think you should have been allowed to give him pointers. And by "allowed" I mean to say that the general standards and expectations of our society should be that people's capabilities include their ability to locate, comprehend and apply new information. An important sub-case of "locate" should (and in practice often does) include maintaining a social graph of people with varied skill sets, and from whom you can get initial pointers in the right direction.
As of late people are more accepting of the general premise of "find and use new information" as a skill unto itself, especially with regards to the internet. Much of you find via Google is written by a human, but when you describe where you got initial direction from, and replace "Google" with "a friend", suddenly it's a different package entirely.
My suspicion is that it is because it does not conform to the "school exam" model that is ingrained into us all. What we are capable of is too often reduced to what we have memorized at any particular moment, and that can be a little misguided.
I obviously don't have full understanding of the prompt your friend was given, nor do I discount the utility of having a huge mental repository of information in many spheres of life (e.g. time sensitive or emergency scenarios). I just think that the "only what you know this very second" examination model is often extended in situations where it isn't a good measure of or doesn't reflect the actual circumstances you can expect to face.
I agree. If I were faced with a high-profile architecture problem of my own at work I'd definitely solicit opinions from my friends before making my formal proposal.
That said I'd probably put together a rough sketch of my own design and then send it to my friends for a sanity check rather than asking them to build it for me from scratch.
When trying to point out the inappropriateness of a touchy situation to someone, I try to lighten the mood with a joke. If you can target the joke to engage their "but that's ridiculous!" response, it will help them to realize that's how their question made you feel.
Something like "I tell you what, I'll give you half the answer to that question if you give me half of your salary after you get hired...". Of course, its entirely possible for someone to take that the wrong way, and just assume you are being a jerk.
I don't know you or your friend, but business dealings with friends often end poorly, even with small transactions like the one you've described here. More importantly, good friends _generally_ will avoid putting you on the spot like that, though I can understand if he's been out of work for a while.
To be honest...I think this is one of the douchiest things you did. This is a friend trying to survive in this awful economy who asks for your help just to land the job and you couldnt help him? After that...he/whe was on their own. I hope this person never speaks to you again.
I'm confident I would have helped out my friend. If he can't hack it once he gets the job, nothing I can do to help. I'll help anyone get a job (in an indirect way such as this) and what they do there is up to them.
First off, I commend you for sticking to your ethical principles. I know a lot of people in your situation who would have folded and done what the company asked them to do.
I'm curious, how will you present this situation to prospective employers in the future? Will you mention that you left because you refused to do something unethical or will you skirt the subject? I'm trying to think what the best course of action would be.
Be honest about it is my advice. If the person does not want to hire you because you are not willing to compromise your personal integrity you will probably not want to work there anyway.
Hooray. Seriously. Your situation was not just a moral trap but a legal one. It wouldn't surprise me if the whole exercise was an attempt to make you "dirty" for some future use.
a thousand years of Western Civilization thinks you're a hero. "Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor". I would have told them that you're out on that one.
It's called moral courage because it requires hard decisions and sacrifice, and leaves you open to suffer barbs from fools who seek to make themselves look and feel better.
It's not called "moral no-shit-sherlock-easy-choice." It's called moral courage because of people like you.
(full disclosure: I don't know the grandparent poster, I don't know his situation. But I do know how bad you can be made to look when making the right choice, usually by callow jackanapes.)
Heh. You don't know the grandparent poster, but I'm the callow jacknape. He's slagging off everyone in the world, I'm only pointing out that it might not be the world that's the problem. And he's the upvoted one, on this thread at least.
What's moral courage again? It's saying what's unpopular, because it's right. And it's right to note that the holier-than-thou who seek to lecture the world on all their sins (real and imagined) are generally self-important jackasses rather than people to be respected, let alone imitated.
In August, I suggested that the only way we'd see lasting success/popularity for G+ was to build a really great game brand, and that we couldn't do this if we were publishing a mix of (a) Zynga games and (b) decent but not brand-defining games like Angry Birds (non-defining because it was already popular by then). I got a few people together and we came up with a plan for saving the Games brand by courting indie developers. A plan that would have worked, and that likely would have made G+ into something. I had massive support (including about 2/3 of the G+ Games team, because who wants to support Farmville instead of doing something cool?) among the engineers and a lot of people said they'd contribute on a 20% basis (even though 20%T was clearly dying).
This drew a lot of attention to me. Positive attention from everyone who cared about games or the actual success of G+. Negative attention from the higher-ups because they were afraid of another RNCH.
Googlers don't talk about it for fear of losing their jobs, but the engineers hate the Real Names policy. It's probably 80 to 90 percent opposition. Here was another mini-RN (even titled "Real Games") that I inadvertently started in my first 3 months by pointing out that the direction we were taking with games was going to set a historical record for missed opportunities. A weird and harrowing experience. I really did not anticipate that positing a good idea and getting a lot of popular support would lead to adversity. I underestimated the degree (and I still do) to which people would entrench themselves with bad ideas.
I still stand by the fact that I was completely and utterly right. The only way I can see a general-purpose social network beating Facebook is by having great games, and by having a very high average quality (a "we won't waste your time" ideology). This requires being extremely editorial about what you accept. This is hard for Google because it made its name by being non-editorial, which is admirable and stately for web search but inappropriate for games, especially because those shitty Zynga games were (in 2011) the #1 cited cause of social network fatigue.
I didn't get fired, because I don't think Google knows how to fire people. (If it did, there'd be boxes at the desks of most of their executives.) I left in good standing when I realized that (a) I had years of C++ legacy maintenance ahead of me, because that's what most of the work at Google is, and (b) it would take several years before I'd actually be able to really contribute. Not being able to save the Games product was pretty discouraging.
This is what people keep talking about here on HN with regard to me and Google. That, and the fact that I got mixed up with one of the most ineffective means of communication (an internal mailing list that rhymes with henge-risk) I've ever encountered.
You know, I don't have a horse in this race, but the sentiments you express in this comment would definitely make me think twice about hiring you if your resume ever crossed my desk.
Sometimes businesses, large or small, make questionable or even outright stupid decisions. But past a certain point it's time to bury the "I told you so"s and work to get something done. If what's being done is illegal or unethical, then that's one thing, but you're talking about setting a strategy for a game site. People get their say, and things go up the chain of command until it reaches the person whose job it is to make the decision. Then they make the decision, and everybody moves on and does the best job they can at trying to make the business successful based on the decision that was made.
When something's been shipped and/or new information is available, there may come another time when that decision is revisited or further strategic direction is necessary. At that point, making a case for a different direction is, once again, entirely appropriate. Until then, people who are on the team should be working to accomplish the team's goals, even if you fear they might be wrong.
If you disagree strongly enough with a decision, it may be appropriate to say to your management, "I'm sorry, but I can't agree with you on your strategic direction for the product" and either ask to be reassigned to something else or seek employment elsewhere. That's perfectly reasonable, and a professional way to handle a disagreement.
But if I read your post correctly, you were inciting open insurrection on a team after key decisions had been made. That's categorically inappropriate. Even if everything you said makes you look like Nostradamus in retrospect, that still makes you a bad team player.
Having people who can work as a team to accomplish a common goal is at least as important as having the right goal. There are many, many stories of teams who built the wrong thing, then adapted accordingly to produce something better. I can think of virtually no stories where a product succeeded despite a divided team that could not work toward a common goal.
I actually faded pretty quickly on the Games issue because, you're right, it was a bad decision but this wasn't an ethics problem. Once it was clear that it wasn't going to go the right way, I stopped trying to change it.
Thanks for that. I always enjoy hearing about what goes on inside bigger tech companies, given that I've never worked at anything other than small startups.
I must ask: You're a motivated and (probably) skilled developer. Why keep working at big bureaucratic businesses? It sounds really frustrating, and there's never been an easier time to set out on your own.
Btw, the high-quality games strategy would have been interesting. I think it's impossible to say that any particular strategy will allow Google to beat Facebook. But I do agree that would have been much more interesting than what they're doing now. Better to attack a niche and grow from there than to go for everyone and remain stagnant. My G+ network is a ghost town, and has been since about a week after they opened it up. What's weird about it is that Google doesn't seem to be doing anything to change that. From my limited perspective, they only seem to care about achieving feature parity with FB.
I really believed that Google culture was still alive, and not just a bunch of marketing drivel.
By the way, most startups aren't much better. The best startups are great, but there's a major survivorship bias in what we think of as "startup culture". The ones that implement shitty MBA culture don't get off the ground because people leave.
I think it's impossible to say that any particular strategy will allow Google to beat Facebook.
Sure, and "beat Facebook" was bad word choice on my part. I don't think "beating" Facebook would even be desirable. Right now, though, G+ would do well to have 1% the relevance of Facebook in the social space.
People have short memories. In mid-2011, a lot of people hated Facebook. That was a selling point of G+: we're like Facebook, but we're not Facebook. Ok, cool. Except... no one uses it yet, and there's a major critical-mass effect to social networking sites. Also, in mid-2012, I think the hatred for Facebook (a consequence of those shitty Zynga games, which Facebook has seriously curtailed) has waned and people like it again. As I said, short memories. Google+ was perfectly timed to take advantage of Facebook fatigue by providing something more... qualitative is, I guess, the word... but they blew it.
My thought on games was that getting a few very high quality games would give people an incentive to use G+ even if they were the first ones on it. We wouldn't make money on the games, but that would get people into and comfortable with the system and give G+, at the least, a fighting chance.
Instead, they put huge amounts of money and gambled internal engineer morale for... a "Me, too" product that will probably be shuttered in 5 years.
Totally untrue. I have almost 10K users who have circled me, and my G+ network is very active. The quality of engagement I get at G+ is leagues higher than Facebook. A lot of the people I interact with on G+ are engineers, programmers, artists, designers, scientists, and other "knowledge workers", whereas while I've tried to grow out my Facebook network, it appears to be mentally challenged. Hey, a lot of users I know on G+ have deleted their Facebook accounts and aren't coming back.
Now, that's a personal data point, and by no means a scientific poll. But it's clear to me that Google+ is very much here to stay. Even if you only look at the design and UI side of it, G+ is considerably more advanced than Facebook. You can see the influence of Edward Tufte on the Google+ DNA.
I think he meant to say "no nonprogrammers use it". Of course that isn't entirely true either, but the point is that it was able to get mass adoption among people in tech but (according to my understanding) not for people at large.
Also, design/UI isn't really all that different than Facebook, especially after the changes made by Facebook after Google+'s release.
Edit: Google+'s real advantages right now are that 1) it is not Facebook (so if Facebook's perception worsens a lot, people have a choice and Google+ growth could increase a lot), 2) you automatically become a member if you have a Google account and content is present in various Google properties (including message notifications) 3) hangouts, and 4) many of the people you wish weren't your Facebook friends aren't on Google+ yet (although this would likely change if Google+ became popular)
The fact that Google+ can strongly appeal to a particular niche is a good sign. I don't know of any massively-viral social applications with staying power that didn't begin in a similar fashion.
That said, I don't think programmers are a particularly great niche for eventual viral growth. We're sort of the default niche for every new product in the valley. Whether we can sustain a product until it becomes mainstream is a complete toss-up. It happened with Twitter, but even then, the main catalysts were celebrities like Ashton Kutcher creating profiles.
Compare that to Pinterest, which strongly appeals to women of all ages and locations. Or to early Facebook, which targeted college students. These groups are almost defined by their social behavior and their "mainstream-ness". College students get older, leave college, and become hair stylists/grocery baggers/whatever kids are going to school for these days, where they make even more social connections.
So I'm curious how G+ can exploit the particular niche(s) they've had success with. I doubt they'll be able to do it well by simply parroting Facebook's features.
Google+ adoption among my social circles (makers, programmers, burners, hippies, ravers, kinksters) is around 50-75% of Facebook adoption. It's more than enough that if G+ added a few critical features I'd jump ship.
If G+ had Events, I would stop posting events to FB, as would a large number of my friends. This would rapidly cause our remaining friends to join G+ in order to see/RSVP our events.
If G+ had Groups, I could migrate my FB groups over, and this would also lead to a rapid spike in new users.
Google already has Calendar and Groups, so we are just waiting for integration at this point.
"No one uses it yet" I meant to apply to the time (spring and summer) when these discussions were occurring. It's not accurate to say that "no one" uses G+ now.
I think the hatred for Facebook [...] has waned and people like it again.
I think that there are a couple important reasons for this. Google+, a big alternative to Facebook, wasn't a viable option for most people, so they recognized the comfort of Facebook's features. Also, Facebook implemented a bunch of new features that made Facebook more lively (friend lists, timeline, ticker, etc.).
Google had a great opportunity, but they really missed out. Games could have been a great factor in getting more users, but I think that the fundamental issue lies with the actual sharing and interaction mechanisms! Not being able to write on someone's profile was a huge mistake for familiarizing Facebook users with the site, and getting new users. The circling and filtering behaviors still haven't changed. Pinterest came along and did sharing the right way: users posting categories of posts that other people can choose to voluntarily follow. Google+ isn't useful to me because the signal/noise ratio is through the roof because of this fundamental flaw. And there is still no way to exclude individuals from seeing a post.
In many ways, Pinterest is wiping the floor with Google+... an actual content-sharing network, with a well-designed intuitive sharing mechanism. An actual companion to Facebook rather than competitor. Making people choose between the two (Google+/Facebook) was far too large of a challenge.
If you ever decide to put together a social network dedicated to games by gamers (or people who want to play them), please let me know. I have a half dozen half-developed HTML5 games because I can't figure out how I would make enough money to pay the hosting bills. Would love to team up with someone who can build a platform that I could put these on.
I could do these as Flash of course (did do so with one game a couple years ago), but I can't say I'm interested in putting in library after library of ads and optimizing Actionscript to support a shrinking audience.
Amusingly enough, while they do have a small list of HTML5 games, there is nothing in their documentation that talks about how to get one to them. The single reference is to using an iFrame to put their API onto your game that is hosted at another URL.
I am hopeful they, or Mochi, or someone like them will come along and provide a true HTML5 solution like the Flash folks already have. But I suspect we are getting rather off-topic here :-)
Maybe not exactly what you meant, but Raptr employs video game players (including a few pro/ex-pro players), and is a social network for video game players.
You seem blind to the popularity of Zynga and other makers of 'shitty' games. Steam has plenty of what you would call real games. G+ is wise to court the popular games first.
Xbox and Playstation have the same kind of games, and Call of Duty is of course on both. Consumers have expectations of what a social game is. Why not offer them the choice of social network to play them on?
Not only ironic, but Orin Kerr has argued (http://www.c-span.org/Events/Washington-Journal-for-Monday-A...) that in the case of police departments using this practice (they appear to be big users of the practice) it might actually be barred by the 4th Amendment.
And private employers might or might not be violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act as far as civil damages.
I left Google voluntarily but, since you asked, I did blow the whistle on unethical management practices, and I was chagrined when absolutely nothing changed. That wasn't why I left. I left because I wanted to do functional programming and that wasn't going to happen where I was. I don't mind using C++ but I'd rather it not be my full-time job.
For my part, I don't like the creeping laxity of ethics that I've seen in technology startups (including Google) for the past few years. I really think that some of the slimiest actors are coming into our industry because they think engineers are easier to take advantage of (since we just want to code and a lot of us put our heads in the sand about office nastiness).
I'm glad that programmer salaries are finally starting to converge to what we're worth, but a lot of the worst elements are coming into VC-istan because of the money that's in it.
Have you ever worked in the finance industry? Those guys will kill their own family if it will get them a $5K raise.
I worked in the california mortgage industry before going to college. These guys would convince families living paycheck to paycheck to buy/refinance REALLY expensive homes. If they were on a 30 year fixed, we get them on an option-arm. If they are on an option-arm, we get them on a 30-year fixed.
This is all typical finance stuff. But here comes the kicker--they would actually outright LIE about interest rates and had a few shady notaries to back them. They would say you have a 1% interest rate (for 30 years) when it was really a 5 year option-arm and screw people. The worst part is, CA has some sort of law that protects mortgage lenders from unhappy customers after 5 years time (exactly when the 1% interest rate would fly to the market rate). Needless to say, several people left the company when we found out. Some folks reported them to the BBB--I don't know what happened to those scumbags though. I really hope people like that stay out of science.
> I don't know what happened to those scumbags though.
Unlike the S&L crisis, exactly none of them got indicted and all of them got bailed out, except Bernie Madoff whose schemes were totally orthogonal to the financial crisis.
Not that your point of people taking an "at all costs" approach to career advancement is missed, but I'm not sure about your analogy re: the finance industry. He's an engineer, not someone trying to close deals on mortgages or equity loans, none of that is his domain.
I work in finance software (specifically regulatory compliance) and it's arguably one of the most supportive and communicative industries to be on the engineering side of.
Until you start having to deal with compliance regulations, then it becomes a chore.
I was in a group doing arbitrage. I can't say anything first-hand about mortgages.
Real-estate people (not including architects) are scummy. All of them. It's the filthiest business around. Real-estate finance people are bound to be scummy. I agree.
I wasn't saying, "There are no slimeballs in finance". I just think that, from a boots on the ground perspective, there isn't much difference between Wall Street and the hottest startups of VC-istan.
Ah, you left before it became apparent that Google is a company going into decline. Personally, I stopped even considering working there when I heard about Search-Plus-Your-World, and when I saw a Google+ video advertisement, I knew the company had ceased to be anything of intellectual interest. It had a good run, though.
You know, I sit around here and occasionally run into classic Michael Church writing, which I feel like I dig pretty well. But the clearly provable missteps into blatant lies, such as this failed startup comment, just need to stop. Your honesty and your truth, Michael, are more important than your thoughts. Please stick with that.
I downvoted most of the top comments on this subthread. This has nothing to do with the topic of this article or this discussion, nor is this even relevant to most people here. Please hash out your pissing contest / interpersonal grudges elsewhere.
When I left, an excellent programmer and a personal friend of mine had to crack his 401(k) because the company didn't have the money to cover what taxes he owed on the small amount it had paid him in 2010.
Perhaps it's still on life support and E is still funding H's lifestyle, but I'll stand by "failed for nontechnical reasons".
I can't believe that HN is blatantly calling you liar. I can't believe you're calmly responding to it.
Guys, whether or not someone might or might not be lying about their own personal life is strictly their business, and not yours -- and certainly not a public matter!
Nobody is calling him a liar, they are just pointing out that his story may not be as factual as he portrays it to be. If he's choosing to air his dirty laundry in public, it's expected that people are going to comment on it. Those without inside information may not know what is true and what is not true. Those with inside information may feel that it's inappropriate to disclose the exact details which may discredit the argument. This makes the process very difficult. There's really no way anyone can say "everything michaelochurch says is wrong".
Those without inside information may not know what is true and what is not true.
Then email him.
There's really no way anyone can say "everything michaelochurch says is wrong".
It's incredibly creepy that HN is fact-checking a personal anecdote about a nameless company; an anecdote which he clearly wanted to share with us in order to simply chill with us and be happy with us. He wasn't even hurting anyone or saying anything about anyone. You all chose to dig for no reason at all.
Let me put it another way. His original story did not whistleblow anything. It was just a story without a particular purpose. It doesn't matter why he wrote it, nor does it matter whether it was true. He wrote it in order to feel happy. HN went out of its way to check whether it could ruin that happiness, for no reason whatsoever.
The same people come out of the woodwork anytime michaelochurch says anything about Google, and sometimes even when he doesn't say anything about Google. It is getting a little tiresome.
As someone with no stake in either condemning or defending Google, I'll just say that while I admire Google as a company, and have many friends who work there, this kind of reflexive attacking of anyone who criticizes Google's internal heirarchy, or thinks some of its decisions were wrong etc, and constant defense and glorification of everything it does, is grating. And people talk about Apple fanboys.
It doesn't matter if everything m_o_c says is exactly true or not. It doesn't matter if what went down when he was at Google is entirely his fault. Just give it a rest already.
His stories are just so far removed from reality we can't help it. It's like a programming language debate where someone says "Perl has no OO" and complaining that "Perl programmers come out of the woodwork to correct me every time I say that." Well yeah. It's the Internet. That's what we do.
More seriously, this affects my ability to hire people I want to work with. When I have to start by explaining away random falsehoods about Google, that wastes time I could have spent talking about projects or programming or something. You only get one first impression. It's better if the first impression is reality instead of a contrived fantasy world.
Also, I take exception with the statement that I'm "coming out of the woodwork" to post. I am in the top 10 highest reputation users here. I'm already out of the woodwork :)
I suspect what really affects your ability to hire people you want to work with is your posts on HN and what they convey about you (vs michealochurch's posts and what they convey about him).
Right now (and please take this as constructive feed back, because that is the intention) in your posts here you come across as someone who has totally drunk the Google koolaid and can see no wrong in anything Google does, and attacks anyone who says anything negative about Google or any of its products, with a special grudge against michaelochurch.[1]
I am not sure that helps you hire the right kind of people. But hey, you know better.
[1] please note: I am not saying you are a fanatic. just saying you come across as someone who sees Google as some kind of Immaculate Workplace, that can never do wrong. Just feedback. I could be totally wrong.
Noted. It is hard to dislike Google when you previously worked for Bank of America. Like I imply in another comment, one's previous experiences can easily taint one's future experiences.
Even with a little bias, I I really think I get it mostly right. Here's another perspective:
Steve writes: ``One day I started getting jealous of this digital piano that people were playing every day. So I sent a nice email to someone in facilities asking if there was any chance we might be able to get a guitar. She said it sounded like a good idea and she promised to look into it.
A month went by, and I started to get a little sad, because I thought they were just not interested. But I sent her a little email and asked if there was any update. Just hoping, you know, against hope.
She told me: "Oh yeah, I'm sorry -- I forgot to tell you. We talked it over with the directors, and we all decided the best thing to do was to build a music studio."
So now we have Soundgarden over in Building A. It has two rooms: one with soundproofing and two electric guitars and a bass and a keyboard and a drum set and a jam hub and amps and all kinds of other crap that I can't identify except to say that it's really popular. The other room has a ukulele and some sort of musical drum and a jazz guitar and some other classical instruments.''
My experience is the same. Any opportunity that Google has to spend a lot of money on me, they take. And yup, that makes me pretty darn happy, especially coming from Bank of America!
Steve Yegge says Google is a cool place to work. Peter Norvig thinks it is a great place to work. m_o_c thinks differently. All good.
If Yegge starts stalking m_o_c on HN that gives a different impression to neutral onlookers, even when the underlying facts haven't changed. That was my only point.
And yes, as someone who has worked at "Bank of America" type companies, I get exactly what you are trying to say. Good for you.
If Yegge starts stalking m_o_c on HN that gives a different impression to neutral onlookers. That was my only point.
His post is the top-rated comment on the top-rated article. Yes, I read HN and reply to comments frequently. While we await some form of therapy for this obvious mental defect, we will just have to accept the more-than-occasional comment from me :)
But to be fair, I didn't go out of my way to look for michaelochurch, and, in fact, I was just defending someone else who was being blasted for being critical of Michael. If Google was brought up and nobody corrected Michael, I wasn't going to. Like you say, it's been covered again and again and it is probably not worth rehashing. Oh well.
I have run into other comments from Michael, and I treat them at face value:
Ultimately, I don't think I'm a crazy person. Bring up programming, we'll talk about programming. Bring up Google, we'll talk about Google :)
(Oh, and one more things: I do complain about Google on HN. I think Wallet being blocked on Verizon is dumb. I think the lack of the Android trackball is dumb. I think the whole fake-open-source process around Android is dumb. But seeing as how we live in an imperfect world, I'm willing to live with this. As time improves, things will get better.)
It is disappointing that you cannot see m_o_c's attention-seeking flamebaiting for what it is.
It's a shame you're happy to allow him to say whatever he likes about a company (and I'm not talking about Google) yet you're unhappy when people calmly correct him; even though you don't know the company, or who works there, or what the situation is, and the people correcting him do know the company, and the people working there, and what the situation is.
A huge chunk of this thread is taken up with pointless responses to m_o_c's comments. He flamebaits Google; Googlers cannot respond fully because stuff is still private; a bunch of people who don't know the truth either side pile on; useful discussion is pushed further down the page.
> If Yegge starts stalking m_o_c on HN
When m_o_c's comment is the first in thread on the first thread on HN there's no stalking needed. m_o_c is deliberately choosing to push the buttons of Googlers knowing that they'll really want to respond (and I'm grateful to them for showing some restraint).
I don't think we can blame Michael for writing comments that are upvoted to the top of the thread. I generally try to share my personal experiences as they relate to threads, and if the community as a whole finds them worth upvoting then so be it.
Perhaps you'd like a technical solution to your problem, in which case you can petition PG for a backend solution or you can whip up a quick browser extension to hide comment trees or to ignore Michael.
Steve Yegge says Google is a cool place to work. Peter Norvig thinks it is a great place to work. m_o_c thinks differently. All good.
Also, there's a "blind man and the elephant" thing going on. Google is a huge company. I'm sure Google is a great place to work-- for Peter Norvig. If you're already great, the rewards and environment are fantastic; if you're good and trying to become great, it's a bit sclerotic, because there are 10,000 other people who've been there longer than you and who also want to become great, and most of the work Google thinks it needs to have done won't help you improve or advance.
Google is not some horrible company. It's actually quite good, even if poorly managed. The quality of engineers is very high, and the perks are fantastic. It's just not the best place if you're in your mid-20s, still somewhat green, and want to become great. It takes too much time, and too much irrelevant people-pleasing work, to advance.
I suspect you would feel differently if you had an internal view of the things he said. I am, you might say, the least fanatical of all googlers, and am quite pessimistic about the company in a lot of ways. Even with that I feel a twinge of lol every time I see an m_o_c post on anything having to do with ethics, employers, and what not. What he "blew the whistle" on had nothing to do with ethical management by any sane person's definition. I am highly inclined to doubt his new foray into workplace controversy as well, considering how quickly it has followed on the heels of the last.
Personally, I'm happy to call him a liar, although I typically refrain because I can't really provide any evidence of it externally.
sure, I am not saying m_o_c is right, or ethical, or sane or anything. I don't know the man from Adam.
I am just some random hacker half the world away. All I am saying is, as an outsider who knows nothing about what is really going down, when I see a pack of people piling on to someone for saying something which seems like no big deal to me (large companies with tens of thousands of employees have a few unethical managers/political bs happening here and there duh), you give him more credibility than he might otherwise get.
It's very clear that he had a different experience working at the company that you did. Leave it at that and let it go.
The way people pile on him every time he sticks up his head does far more harm to Google than it does good.
If he's "wrong", then he's wrong. You would hope than anyone capable of working for Google would be capable of sorting through conflicting evidence on their own. Trust them and leave them to it.
M-o-C may or may not be posting stuff that people in the know can parse as a lie. But you, my friend, are saying stuff that anyone with the "scroll up" skill can see is a lie.
Saying an unnamed thing failed for the vague "non-technical reason" is enough for one person to, indeed, really, call him a liar and another person to feel strongly enough about situation to blatantly-lie-about-the-liar-calling-situation...
Yeah Wow, he must have really gotten under some group's collective skin...
"... If he's choosing to air his dirty laundry in public, it's expected that people are going to comment on it. ..."
These comments on this topic are disturbing.
Google is a public company. It's first priority is to shareholders. Google is also hierarchical despite what anyone claims. So it's more than likely that employees like @michaelochurch claim, are minced up in the bureaucracy. Start here, "Why Google Employees Quit" (2009) ~ http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/18/why-google-employees-quit/
I read your link. It just doesn't seem like the same Google that I'm working at. I guess you need to have a certain personality to work at Google; if you don't have it, it won't work for you.
There are a lot of people that I encounter who have never worked anywhere but Google. I feel sorry for them because one day some tiny thing is going to annoy them (oh noes, only two types of M&Ms in the microkitchens!), and then they'll leave. Only then will they realize how fucking miserable the rest of the world is.
Another problem is that people want to work for Google so badly that they accept crap offers, at least people writing to TechCrunch to complain, anyway.
(Also, FWIW, of all the offers I had for jobs in NYC, Google gave me the most money, not to mention benefits, bonus, and stock. And my other offer was an investment bank's on the core software architecture team.)
It just doesn't seem like the same Google that I'm working at. I guess you need to have a certain personality to work at Google; if you don't have it, it won't work for you.
As I said in another comment, I think this is a "blind man and the elephant" situation.
Your rank, age, and political success (measured in Perf) determine the type of Google you get. If you're Peter Norvig, Google is an awesome place to work. I can imagine few better jobs than Director of Research at Google.
If you're already great, Google is a fine place to work. If you're good and trying to become great, it's not. It's stifling, frustrating, and slow. At least, that's what I saw, but I was only there for 6 months and had already run afoul of multiple seriously unethical people (people who should have been fired). Google's a huge place. I far from got a sense of "the whole thing", but what I saw on the cultural front (7/20 all-hands) was certainly not encouraging.
I feel sorry for them because one day some tiny thing is going to annoy them (oh noes, only two types of M&Ms in the microkitchens!), and then they'll leave.
Yeah, see: I don't care about that stuff either way. The perks are nice, I guess, but I go to work for the work, not for the Xbox.
Google has perks down. Providing interesting work for even half the talent it takes in is an "area for development".
Another problem is that people want to work for Google so badly that they accept crap offers, at least people writing to TechCrunch to complain, anyway.
Actually, I think it goes the other way. Google pays very well, so people look at the numbers and expect more of the job than what they're actually going to get.
I'm not sure it's possible for a single company to provide advancement opportunities for most of its ambitious mid-level contributors. Mathematically speaking it makes at least as much sense to play the wider job market looking for a succession of "perfect fit" jobs for yourself every few years rather than sticking with Google and continually trying to win a shot at a series of slightly more prestigious positions.
Obviously if you were part owner of the business things would change considerably, but not everyone has the risk tolerance for that - it helps to be single with cash in the bank.
Except he wasn't lying about his own personal life, he was accused of lying about previous employers, places that employ others who may have an interest in not seeing their companies' names dragged through mud.
Called this a week and a half ago. Anyone who's LGBT (or anyone period really) knows that there are reasons to keep things on FB private from friends, family, employers selectively, etc. I had mentioned this was likely illegal for this very reason. Numerous states in the US have similar anti-discrimination laws. When I was interviewed at Microsoft they basically told me I couldn't talk about certain things and they were specifically trained to not ask questions that could reveal information that could lead to these sorts of suits.
I don't understand the downvotes? I've seen at least 4 people downvote this. Do you not believe me? And to edit for the people below, I was more or less hint-hint told that this was at least including not wanting to force someone to reveal that they were LGBT. I know that at least the group I was with, they were forbid from asking if "you have a girlfriend" and it wasn't for fear of an interviewer hitting on someone.
I was focusing more on how to deal with it in a world where employers will do this, though, and less on the "here's how to hack it". After all, for many of us both saying "no" and "hacking" the process is not necessarily a valid option. Mortgages and kids need to be figured in occasionally. (I hope I'd still have the conviction to say "no", but I understand it's a sticky situation for many)
Is not having a policy that reduces the risk of interviewers intentionally or subconsciously discriminating against someone who is LGBT exactly the type of thing you would expect from an LGBT-friendly company?
Microsoft itself is very LGBT friendly, but that doesn't mean every employee is. Because of this, HR puts policies into place to try and prevent employees from making employment decisions based on that type of criteria.
Oh I wasn't worried about them being antigay or anything at all, much more so that HR forces them to be that careful and tip-toey about HR practices during recruiting.
edit: to be clear, they were specifically about being LGBT. And I don't necessarily think that sort of PC-ness should be absolutely required, but I'm unhappy to tell you that there are still plenty of discriminatory people out there.
> Anyone who's LGBT knows that there are reasons to keep >things on FB private from friends, family, ...
See now if only people could keep it secret that they were; black, female, Jewish, etc as well there would be no problem of discrimination in the world!
I know that you're not serious, but I just feel the need to reinforce that having to hide a portion of your identity does not in fact shield you from discrimination. The simple fact that you have to do so is discrimination itself.
Of course the idea is to eliminate a subset of discrimination, which arguably it does well, but to do so it introduces another sort.
I think the point was rather that there should be no need to hide details of your sexuality from your friends in case your employer forces you to reveal it.
Personally I hate stereotyping - and stupid Americans
> If you are surfing my Facebook, you could reasonably be expected to discover that I am a Lesbian.
Obviously correct. However, they could also discover so much more about her that doesn't relate to any civil rights legislation, such as that she drinks jaegerbombs or uses the wrong kind of power saw. Now, those would be terrible reasons to not hire someone, but they're legal reasons, and can be brought up in court to dispute the claims they didn't hire her because of sexual orientation.
So, my point is, that's another reason the "Give us your Facebook password" is bad: It could easily undermine important civil rights legislation.
While I have complete respect for @raganwald, I find it somewhat disturbing that he would even begin to implement or go along with this policy. I can't imagine asking an interviewee to login to their private facebook account, any more than their private email or dating website.
The answer should have been no at the first suggestion and I hope he amends his blog to indicate that even the few times he did this was completely wrong, in addition to placing the company in a tenuous legal situation. As an interviewee, I would be outraged and walk out.
So, is the resignation due to fear of litigation or because of the moral quandary ? Clearly, the author was okay with looking at the FB profiles of the candidates and would have probably continued to do so, had he not been threatened twice on the same day. I wonder why he could not refuse to indulge the HR, especially since he held a pretty important position in the company.
To me, the resignation was linked to thinking of the consequences. At first the (fictional) manager just did what he was told, then quickly thought of it, and instead of fighting it, put a stop on it. Moral grounds, economic grounds (the fear of discrimination lawsuit is economic), etc.
This is all fiction, but while I always thought snooping on a (potential) employee via any way (including FB) was morally wrong, this fictional story just opened the eye wider why it is wrong.
The proper behavior is to refuse to perform an immoral or illegal act and to decline to follow an immoral or illegal direction.
That leaves your superiors with choices of their own: change their behavior, ignore you, or fire you.
If they change their behavior, great; the company is better for your convictions.
If they ignore you (denial) and continue bad actions, you can always look for another job and/or continue to advocate change from within. You are not participating in the bad behavior and have performed your duty to communicate the problem.
If they fire you, you may have wrongful termination recourse that you definitely won't have if you resign.
The cold walkout, on the other hand, only affects management teams capable of shame (unlikely if the leadership has corrupted values) or susceptible to public pressure.
Your specific challenge is incompetence, not morality. You will always be surrounded by incompetence, if not occasionally sharing your own. While incompetence may be a moral failing, people with good intentions can improve things if sufficiently motivated. Your leaving is unlikely to do that.
Instead of having a knock down, drag out, face-to-face, serious reality-check conversation, risking strong and unpleasant emotions en route to a new consensus, you ran away.
You bailed when the company obviously needs someone of your experience, skill, insight and expressiveness.
You may have other reasons to quit, but the one you gave showed cowardice in the face of a leadership challenge.
