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Comment by tinbad | Hacker News Reader

This story doesn't surprise me at all. My 7 month pregnant wife is currently going through the exact same experience at Google. As soon as she notified her manager of her pregnancy, a week later they are trying to get rid of her. Made her pick between PIP or 2 months severance. Before she could make her decision, luckily, her doctor put her on leave because of a higher risk pregnancy (twins), she was entitled to short term disability but the company that handles Googles disability is a complete mess to deal with. It seems like make it super difficult to make use of these 'perks' so you just give up and don't bother. Anyway, long story short its the same everywhere. Im sure Larry and Jeff had good intentions when they started their companies but now that it's in the hands of middle management it's no different than any other big corp.

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"I'm sure Larry and Jeff had good intentions when they started their companies but now that it's in the hands of middle management it's no different than any other big corp."

One of the weird things is 'success metrics telephone tag.' Basically it works like this; Boss creates a function and defines what it means to be successful. Hires a group to do that function. The group grows and its bifurcated into sub-groups which each have a part of the problem, and each has their own "success metric" which should, in theory, contribute up to the top level metric. However, there are no 'peer ranking' of the metrics, so if you have one group that is keeping your HR costs under control (success metric is 'cost per employee') and you have another group with is keeping your employee's happy (success metric is 'employee retention') and a third group which is keeping employees productive (success metric 'revenue per employee'), they all sum up, in theory to success metric 'keeping people happy and productive at the lowest possible cost'.

Now you find an employee who discloses a condition which will both cost the company money (benefit payout), and reduce productivity (external issues, loss of focus at work) and suddenly two parts of the HR group are having their success metric impacted by this event. You can reduce that to only one group making the person quit. So from the top level "we're hitting two of our three metrics" is a better report to send up then "we're hitting one of our three metrics".

A fix for this is an suitably enlightened senior manager providing scale options, so "retain good employee" gets a weight of '6' and 'save money' 2, and 'productivity' 3. Now when you score it retaining them gets you 6/11 but getting them to quit only gets you 5/11. Retaining your best employees becomes the managed-to goal.

Understanding how a company approaches those problems will say a lot about the quality of its management and the maturity of its processes.

"I'm sure Larry and Jeff had good intentions when they started their companies but now that it's in the hands of middle management it's no different than any other big corp."

In russian, we have a common saying "царь-батюшка хороший - это бояре у него плохие". Loosely translated in english as "The King is kind, it's his the nobles that are bad." It is meant to be used as sarcasm.

Perhaps it is obvious, but in case it isn't: the meaning is that the person in charge of things is ultimately responsible and sets the tone for the rest of the organization, either by action or inaction.

I completely agree, there is a similar saying which says something like "A vain king is a deaf king." Which observes that people who look only for good news or flattery will not hear bad news or problems.

That is why these sorts of things are a good test of management maturity. If problems like this get reflected up to the person in charge (and ultimately responsible), and nothing happens, then it is on them. If they go up and the metrics change so they can't happen in the future, then its a company learning from its mistakes. If you witness the full cycle (a problem emerges, the folks who are responsible are notified, they take some action, the problem persists, and there is no new update) then you can confidently choose to leave knowing that the people at the top want it to be that way, if on the other hand you see problems get fixed as they arise, then you can confidently choose to stay, knowing that bad situations are not intentional and will be fixed.

Wow! In Kannada, a South Indian language, we have the saying, "devaru vara kotru poojari vara kodlilla." Translation: "even though the god granted your wishes, the priest didn't pass it on." It alludes to the stereotypical 'middle-manager' incompetence/imperfections of the priest. Always interesting to find universal themes in geographically disparate cultures!

That's all well and good, but I'm sure many of these "decisions" are of dubious legality and really morally reprehensible. When hearing that an employee has a pregnancy, an expectant child, or an illness, the answer should never be to consider termination...

    The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) forbids discrimination based on pregnancy 
    when it comes to any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, 
    job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, fringe benefits, 
    such as leave and health insurance, 
    and any other term or condition of employment.

Completely illegal.

And, sadly, completely irrelevant. Any organization as large as Google can, and does, construct nearly litigation proof ways to eliminate folks they don't want working for them. They are particularly careful around people who might fall under a protected group, but if you read the original comment it was "PIP or quit". PIP, short of Performance Improvement Plan, is a document between you manager and you which describes what you must do to maintain your job. It can be simple (like come to work reliably every work day for 180 days) it can be complex (enable the delivery of complex project X through co-ordination with people involved in the project), and if you are on your way out, it is unlikely you will satisfactorily meet the required remediation.

So good in theory, not really useful in practice. Sometimes a useful tool for enhancing your severance package. And you have to think about fighting to stay employed at a company that is kicking you to the curb because you're pregnant. What else might they do? It does push people closer to unionizing though, and that is becoming a bigger threat for tech companies than it was due to shennanigans like this.

That sort of assignment still falls under the broad umbrella of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (job assignments and other conditions of employment). As others have said, no one sane person wants to jump into a legal fight, but that does not mean that any sort of treatment like this is not expressly illegal.

An organization as large as Google... can violate as many laws as they wish to. That does not mean that they should not suffer gravely for it.

Congrats on your twins!

I work for Google, and when my wife had twins last October, my team was extremely supportive when I took six weeks of paternity leave - they even threw me a little party and chipped in for an Amazon gift card for diapers etc. It was an entirely positive experience. A female coworker had a baby a week earlier and she was out from mid-September to early February. And she and I both applied for promotion that September, with the full support of our manager and her manager. I've since seen friends at Google have kids and take leave with absolutely no issues.

It's awful that your wife had this experience - she should escalate it to her boss's boss. I don't think it's standard for Google.

As another Googler, agreed, that experience is not standard at all. A large number of my coworkers have children, are having children, etc all who are fully supported by the team and the org.

Nothing is perfect for sure, but the full intent of the entire org is to support googlers 2.0. There are of course naughty parts and peopleops exists to help with that.

Agreed. Fellow Googler here, please escalate this.

Wouldn't there be a pretty direct correlation between an attempted punishment and the pregnancy announcement? Like if there were no previous problems, isn't this pretty clear discrimination?

This is why the PIP exists - it's "documentation" and "proof" the the employee is an underperformer. PIPs provide legal cover for firings that would otherwise not pass cursory examination.

[edit] The PIP may have started out as a good faith effort to improve underperformers, but at this point I see them used more frequently as political and legal tools than honest attempts at "salvaging" poor employees.

That's exactly what the pip has turned into, it's justification and legal air cover for a decision you've already made.

Totally, but couldn't you point back to telling your boss that you're pregnant and be like "I literally told you a few weeks ago that I'm pregnant and now you're putting me on a PIP, this is not a coincidence"

Yeah, they're not going to have a leg to stand on if this ever made it to a lawsuit - a PIP on someone after they announced their pregnancy is pretty lulzy.

But it's an intimidation tactic like any other - your options here are either leave quietly (like the author of the original post), or be fired unceremoniously as a documented poor-performer and have that hanging over your career, and maybe sue the company for wrongful termination.

99% of the time, even when the situation is patently unfair and insanely unjust, people will choose Option A.

Even if you choose Option B and sue the employer, Amazon has a warchest the size of the moon and lawyers on staff best measured in boatloads - so more likely than not you'd be forced to settle for a modest sum and still have the firing on record, and no admission of fault on Amazon's part.

>>or be fired unceremoniously as a documented poor-performer and have that hanging over your career

How would something like a PIP affect one's career? Companies don't share that information, or they expose themselves to serious litigation risk. That's why most places have a policy to only verify an ex-employee's dates of employment and job title if someone calls to ask.

Consider this, though, Amazon has a large need to fill vacancies and the media (even in Seattle) is happy to run stories about worker mistreatment.

I never worry about pointing out the evils of Amazon (despite them making me sign a contract meant to intimidate me into shutting up) because I know if they take me to court I'll have the opportunity to have my say publicly. And that's the last thing they want.

At Amazon, if you get your PIP and you refuse to sign it, I think they will fire you, and then you will be offered a check in order to sign an agreement not to sue them.

So, if you get the PIP it may be more profitable to just refuse to sign it and start looking for another job (with a bigger severance) than waste a couple months at Amazon while looking for another job.

BTW- the reason I got my PIP was that I had a job at AWS and an offer in hand and went to try and transfer.

valid points but to be fair this thread is referring to google not amazon.

Yes, but starting the PIP after there is a documented pregnancy announcement to management isn't going to shield them from liability I suspect.

My first lawyer taught me a very valuable lesson: the important question isn't whether you'll win the suit eventually, it's whether you can afford to go the distance. Doing the PIP after doesn't increase the distance as much as doing it before, but it definitely makes it harder to sue than if they just fired you the day after a positive performance review.

Is it fantasy that the payday would be significant enough that a decent lawyer would take the case on commission? Seems to me that a lawyer who had the resources to go the distance could totally make this an easy and profitable win for a client who's getting on with her life in the meantime.

Amazon's lawyers are probably expensive right? They also have to risk setting precedents and future cases not being so easily intimidated. Seems like they would have a lot to lose letting this go to court, even if they intend to drag it out.

> Amazon's lawyers are probably expensive right? They also have to risk setting precedents and future cases not being so easily intimidated. Seems like they would have a lot to lose letting this go to court, even if they intend to drag it out.

But that's the thing: they don't need to let it go to court, they just have to drag out the pre-trial proceedings for a few years until you've either moved on with your life or forgotten enough of the details. Most cases settle out of court, but before that happens there is due process that a good HR defense attorney can absolutely stretch out for years.

As far as their lawyers, it costs a big company like Amazon very little, since the lawyers are likely on salary. They would probably hire an outside attorney to represent them in person at a trial, but since the vast majority (>95%) of cases settle before they make it that far, their internal HR lawyers would probably handle most of the grunt work of filing paperwork until someone actually needs to show up at the court house.

Also it's probably not as much money as you think; unless it can be proven that the company's actions were malicious and intentional against a protected class, you probably won't see much more than 6 months salary. The problem is in gathering the evidence to prove this and keeping track of it over the course of a few years.

So it is a fantasy then I guess... Seems like there might be an opportunity for a large firm to handle the other side of it in a similar manner by using efficiencies of scale. Becoming the defacto law firm for these cases and managing a large volume for a smaller margin.

But then I guess it's just more lawyers keeping other lawyers employed.

That's pretty much how it works today; though there's not one single massive law firm because employment laws vary by state and city. But lawyers do specialize in this type of case at the city/state level, and it wouldn't surprise me if there is a "standard settlement" scale that says what % of annual salary the employer is willing to pay to make the case go away (I know this exists for auto insurance cases because I used to have a client who was a stereotypical ambulance chaser).

But generally you're right -- when you sue someone, only the lawyers win. At a minimum, a cursory background check would turn up the lawsuit and potentially damage your chances at getting another job. It's the same as with whistleblower cases: you have to ask yourself if the injustice you're trying to correct is so big that it's worth potentially destroying your career (whistleblower laws promise huge rewards for exposing behavior but they can be very difficult to collect on and generally make you unhireable).

That said, if a specific company (like Amazon/Google are rumored to do) routinely does things like this, they could face a class action suit. Class action suits are a company's worst nightmare because they are run by the lawyers -- who have every incentive to be as public as possible about the proceedings. Dragging a company's name though the mud in the media is a good way to get them to settle on your terms, and the former employees aren't at the forefront of the case so there's little downside to it. It actually wouldn't surprise me if we see a class action suit come out of this; this kind of treatment is common enough in the tech industry and there's a lot of money on the table if a law firm can put together a case. But again, in a class action suit the lawyers keep most of the money, so ultimately they're the biggest winners.

Yeah. It increases the cost to sue but I suspect pregnancy -> PIP -> cancer -> terminated insurance -> effective demotion on return should be winnable in a perfect world. They just know no one is going to fight it and they can make it expensive enough its not worth it.

True, I wonder how many other women at Google have had this happen to them-- pregnant then suddenly PIP.

If there's a pattern there, then a clear discrimination case could still be made, I think.

Can someone please define "PIP"? I honestly have no idea what it means.

Performance improvement plan. It's the first step in letting an employee know - supposedly - that their performance is lacking and needs to be improved else they be terminated. But as mentioned, PIPs can be misused for other means.

It's not the first step to letting an employee know there performance is at risk. Or it isn't supposed to be.

Thanks!

Judging by these 6+ years old comments [1], PIP was a path to getting fired for a while.

---

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=473232

My partner was discriminated against in a similar way. An employment lawyer told her several things:

(1) it's difficult to prove, and often juries really want bright line discrimination (eg an email saying fire that bitch for getting pregnant); a pattern of discrimination without a smoking gun is a harder sell to a jury

(2) be ready to never work in that industry again, and maybe to never work again

(3) do you really want this to be what you do with the next 2-3 years of your life

She declined to pursue it. Or as the saying goes, "in its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread." One law for the rich, another for the rest of us.

You'd need to prove it though. The official position of Google is probably "it is a performance / restructuring thing and pregnancy is purely accidental coincidence". (Wink-wink). Of course the winks only happen in person they are not written down.

So now someone who has a baby on the way has to pay for a lawyer and fight an uphill and expensive case.

Also, suing your previous employer ends your career. Prospective employers will see you as a troublemaker and no one will hire you after that, even in a different field.

I don't think this is the case at all. In 17 years, I have never seen the company let it get to trial.

Most recent example is Ellen Pao -> CEO Reddit.

But we're not talking about the Ellen Pao's of the world, we're talking about average workers. I've seen firsthand that some employers won't want to touch someone who sued a former employer - for any reason.

It doesn't have to make it to trial, it just has to be searchable. A civil complaint is enough.

Unless you have a recording of your manager coming out and saying, "I'm putting you on the PIP because you got pregnant," you can't do anything, because there's no proof that's why it happened.

Which is fucking bullshit, because everyone with a modicum of logical thinking could see that's exactly why it's happening. But instead of them having to prove that the PIP was justified, you get people having to prove that they're not being fucked over by a bully.

It's really not the same everywhere. I work for a big financial corp. Things aren't perfect, but we do everything in our power to support women on maternity leave, and that kind of behavior would get the manager fired.

> I work for a big financial corp. Things aren't perfect, but we do everything in our power to support women on maternity leave, and that kind of behavior would get the manager fired.

That's great to hear. But one reason bad things happen is that people, especially management, believe in their company's good intentions and policies and don't realize that the reality is much different. The only way to know is to observe what actually occurs. (Of course, I'm speaking generally; I have no idea what happens at your company or what you know.)

A similar situation occurs with health insurance. People trust their insurance and assume it works until they get sick and learn the reality of it.

I've been through this multiple times. We had one employee who has had three kids over the last five years, and each time has taken 3-6 months maternity leave. We have bent over backwards to ensure that she is not denied any opportunities and that we cover for her. She's great, and the last thing we want to do is lose her because she feels she has to make the choice between the company and her family.

what if she wasn't doing great before she went on the first maternity leave and was in fact doing poorly?

In a properly managed company, these are separate things.

But unfortunately in the court of law, I'm guessing it would be a very messy argument.

yes they are. which is the improperly managed company that dealt with them as a single thing?

And this is why people conceal health-related conditions from their employers until they are literally admitted to the hospital.

If this national elections cycle in the U.S. does not include a serious consideration of the typical interactions that people have with their health care systems, I'm moving to Mars. No spacecraft. I will be traveling there on a column of self-righteous fire, with my frustration as the propellant and my fury as the oxidizer. I will breathe a mixture of 80% pure stubbornness and 20% magical libertarian free market gas.

For a small fee, I will attach a tether to Donald Trump before I go, and release him outside of Earth's gravity well. He'll have no trouble surviving out there, being completely self-sufficient, and constantly surrounded by a thick cloud of his own hot air.

I thought the Bush-Gore election cycle was bad. It's almost like this time the two branches of the Inner Party are putting up decoy candidates in advance of the primaries, so that they can get shot down, and the real candidates can safely fly in over the flak.

As long as companies can get away with this sort of behavior without any meaningful penalty from either government, consumers, or labor unions, it will only grow worse. It seems ever more prevalent that the corporate accountants no longer tally "ethical integrity" on the correct side of the business ledgers.

The dominant issue in the campaigns right now is illegal immigration.

That's right: probably the hardest working people in the country, doing the jobs nobody else particularly wants with a smile on their face, saving money too, with research proving they have lower crime rates than citizens.

This is what the "electorate" is most focused on.

And by "electorate" you mean "primates whose brains evolved to solve survival tasks they faced on the savannah, which didn't include practicing logic or empathy."

> magical libertarian

That's a pleonasm.

>Im sure Larry and Jeff had good intentions when they started their companies but now that it's in the hands of middle management it's no different than any other big corp.

Why is it that there are some in this community that want bank CEOs jailed for what their underlings do, but give a pass to tech darlings, who have "lost control" to the MBAs as the company has grown?

Are leaders responsible for the behaviour of employees, or are they not?

I'm pretty certain that these are exactly Jeff's intentions. Jeff wants everyone to play hardball and take no prisoners, and that includes both the way that Amazon treats its business partners and the way it treats its employees. Its customers are typically a different story since they understand they can't piss off customers too badly and need to give them what they want.

I can't speak for Larry, but I worked at Amazon from 2001-2006 and everything you've read recently is consistent with the corporate culture back then, and falls directly out of guidance from Jeff. What you are reading about is the end result of Jeff executing successfully on his vision.

Escalate - I know a number of VPs within Google that absolutely won't stand for this. Be prepared to document performance - this will only work if she really is performing equally to other team members. But there are a number of executives at Google who are very committed to gender equality within Google - I'm thinking of Yonatan or Eisar here, or even Urs or Sundar - and the timing seems mighty suspicious.

Get a lawyer.

Congratulations on twins!

No, it's not the same everywhere. My coworker recently came back from five months maternity leave, and next year women at my standard big corp will receive 8. Parental leave is seen as a completely normal part of work life.

Wow - honestly surprised by this as I am a Google employee and so is my wife. Last year before she went on maternity leave she was placed on a pip as well and remained on a PIP status until two weeks she returned from ML, 5 months later. A PIP is intimidating, yes, but they are structured to identify where you need immediate improvement. I know she didn't feel any pressure to leave or animosity towards her and granted her case is totally different, the working culture here has a big emphasis on retaining as many Google employees as possible and helping them grow, whether that's through uplifting or criticism. My suggestion would be to escalate it. I know personally that that type of behavior or even intentions are rare and extremely frowned upon. Our benefits teams did a great job making sure she was set up for maternity leave and even personally delivered our baby bonus to us while still at the hospital. (which isn't typical, I had some issues with her identity being stolen) Hell, one of our company motos is simply "Don't be evil".

P.S after my wife's PIP, it was determined that her skills could be be utilized on a different team, so she was given an opportunity that she continues to excel in today. Cheers!

Do you think she would have been let go if the opportunity wasn't found in the other team?

PIPs are pretty widely recognized as "this is your advance notice that you will be laid off." Almost sounds like the writing was on the wall but she got lucky with an internal move.

Sorry for your wife bad experiences. Who are "they" trying to get rid of her? Did she escalate?

I'm low-mid level Eng working for Google for a lot of years, your story is quite surprise to me.

I had a new born a couple of months ago. Every time I want x weeks leave, I simply spend 1 - 2 minutes filling a form online and will receive a call shortly to confirm the leave. Then all set.

During 1:1s, my manager always asks me to inform him in any case I have to work after hours. I really appreciate his consideration on my life. (Of course, each manager could be different).

Her direct manager and the one above him, as well as HR, unsurprisingly, aren't taking her side or being supportive. Of course, as soon as she mentioned to HR that she believed that her pregnancy had something to do with the sudden need for performance improvement, they gave a scripted BS answer that they would never terminate based on pregnancy. They also, at no point, gave her a chance to provide input. Simply one day, her manager and his boss just sat down with her and gave her a 'choice'.

She's in a group that's supposedly not doing very well in Google so this could be why. Still, she's a talented and very well educated individual (she was literally loved in all her previous jobs, even in the jobs she didn't like).

The poor Google experience may be exceptional, but we have 2 friends who recently joined Google and have a really bad time.

Not the same everywhere, or wasn't. At least two women arrived at Qualcomm QCT about 10 years ago, from outside the US, so very likely on H1-B, then within months announced they were pregnant, and Qualcomm took good care of them. Fellow Americans thought it looked conspicuous in timing, though Qualcomm still took care of them. And it seemed to hurt nothing to do so. [edit: typo]

Isn't maternity leave covered by FMLA ? Does PIP circumspect FMLA requirements ?

Birth and Bonding [0]

Prohibited Acts / Mistreatment / Retaliation [1]

0. http://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/fmla-faqs.htm#7

1. http://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/fmla-faqs.htm#19

Best of luck proving retaliation.

what does PIP stand for?

PIP stands for "Performance Improvement Plan". I don't have experience with one, but from what I've read, it sounds like management-speak for "We're going to find a reason to fire you". Michael O. Church has an interesting perspective [0]:

""" Most people think of “performance improvement” as something well-intended, because they take performance to mean “how good I am at my job”....

However, that’s not what “performance” means in the context of a employment contract. When a contract exists, non-performance is falling short of an agreed-upon provision of the contract. It doesn’t mean that the contract was fulfilled but in a mediocre way. It means that the contract was breached. """

0: https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/24/never-sign-a...

To dissent with the others, I suggest that it stands for "pretext instead-of payment" rather than "performance improvement plan".

If you are ever given a PIP, polish up your resume and look for a new job, immediately. Your company is trying to fire you without giving you either the grounds to sue them or compensatory payment. You will also need to record and regularly back up all interactions with your superiors until you leave. There is no meaningful way to recover from a PIP without a judge or union rep on your side. Your career with that company is over.

Performance Improvement Plan - it's when you get "evaluated" for "underperforming" but is really just often used as a first step to getting rid of someone.

ie creating a paper trail of documentation of underperformance to prove that you weren't discriminated against

Performance Improvement Plan. In other words, it provides legal protection when they fire you.

Performance Improvement Plan

performance improvement plan

"Anyway, long story short its the same everywhere. "

So shouldn't we be yelling even louder? That seems to make it even more unacceptable.

"Im sure Larry and Jeff had good intentions when they started their companies but now that it's in the hands of middle management it's no different than any other big corp."

I'm not so sure, especially about Jeff Bezos.

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