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Google Fired Me

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66 pointstossayo75 comments

This is intentionally vague to the point of being dishonest. Take this quote:

> They asked about my whereabouts that involved this co-worker, all of which happened outside the workplace. I asked why these events mattered, and they told me that an issue has been brought to their attention in such a way that is has entered the workplace, and thus is now a workplace matter.

So something happened outside of the workplace with a co-worker, they aren't saying what, and HR got involved. HR said "stay away from this person inside of work" (paraphrasing). They they tack on this:

> If this co-worker wasn’t my friend at the time and wasn’t friends with my other friends, this could have been simple to follow.

And then:

> However, one evening in late July, we found ourselves walking home at the same time. I took this as an opportunity to bring up the HR issue raised last month.

And then:

> A week later, I sent a text to this co-worker asking if the HR issue was followed up on their end.

I just stopped reading at that point. I don't know why this person posted this if they're going to try and hide the core facts. They're clearly framing this story to make Google into the bad guy (and I legitimately don't know who they "bad guy" is since we lack too much information!).

The whole tone of this article irritates me since it feels so carefully worded politi-speak and half truths.

You missed the part where he clearly explains what "the event" was:

> The event that prompted this co-worker to go to HR was because of hearsay about me regarding actions claiming I’ve done something, to which I refuted.

Edit: /s :)

"I've done something" isn't very clear

Clearly?

I think cube00 is making a joke. :)

Are you being sarcastic? There is nothing clearly explained in that quote. It is more half-truth doublespeak nonsense.

They never say what they're accused of, including that.

Agreed. His language tells a lot. From the beginning he is distancing himself from this person by saying "this coworker" and "that coworker" but then later on gives a weak implication of friendship. So what is it, friend or co-worker?

If they were actually friends outside of work situations, you would expect less distancing language to that person from the beginning. First sentence mentioning 'coworker', emphasis mine:

> The first meeting involved being asked a series of questions about me and another co-worker.

You would expect "about me and a friend who also works at google" or even "about me and a co-worker". I think "another" places greater distance between the two.

> If this co-worker wasn’t my friend at the time [...].

You would expect a less convoluted sentence, something along the lines of "If [him|her] and I weren't friends" or "If my coworker and I weren't friends".

> and wasn’t friends with my other friends, this could have been simple to follow

This sounds redundant, and kind of shows the need to convince the reader that there was a healthy social relationship prior to the HR incident.

I'm not saying the person had or has any malicious intent, but is probably — as others have commented — not aware of his own impropriety.

Disclaimer: I am not a linguist or anything, take with a grain a salt.

The whole post is filled with convoluted language and vague words like "interactions." I suppose it's possible that a co-worker who is just part of a group of drinking buddies or whatever heard some (purportedly false) story about the author one day and promptly headed over to HR. But that seems... unlikely.

Based on the photo of him draped in a rainbow colored cape at what appears to be a Pride parade, I suspect that this involves a case of a homosexual advance on a straight coworker, which, depending on the person, could make it more sensitive.

Despite huge progress in gay rights and public acceptance, not everyone is so accepting.

I'll admit that I have nothing to base this on other than pure speculation, but the lack of detail in the post makes wild speculation possible. As a manager, I once had a similar situation between two coworkers - too much alcohol at a Holiday party led to an unwanted advance that was not accepted well at all, there was almost a physical altercation. Though in this case, both parties wanted nothing more than to stay away from each other so a reassignment to a team that was based in a building across town was an "easy" solution (keeping them socially separated was self-fulfilling), though one party left the company within a year ostensibly for unrelated reasons.

The way it is written made me think that the author was deliberately avoiding (gendered) pronouns, either to be as vague as possible as to who the other person was, or to avoid the implication that homophobia played a role in this.

Regardless of the actual reason, the style just made me distrust the author to some extent - it felt deliberately vague, leading to the (possibly unfair) conclusion that certain facts/events don't fit the narrative presented.

I tend to agree. I also can't see any mention of the sex of the co-worker which I think is relevant considering events happened outside work. For example asking a co-worker out who is not interested can end badly.

Okay, yes, unrequited love hurts. A lot. But still... you acted stupidly.

You were told that you weren't supposed to contact her.

Doesn't matter if that's fair or legal or whatever. It's simply a bad idea to "bring up the HR issue" when walking home alone. And your conversation was probably very short mostly because it was extremely uncomfortable for her.

Shortly after that you're wondering what's happening now. Instead of asking HR, you're texting your co-worker again!

Then there's lots and lots of petty squabbling about semantics and exact meanings of terms in your "restrictions" (where you actually do have a point or two – but it simply doesn't matter. You're not supposed to talk to her!).

Yes, you totally contacted her again and again, but "it was a groupchat!". That's totally different. Not.

If you ever get into such a situation again: take HR's warnings seriously. The second after you stepped out of the first meeting was the second you should have realized "I'm in big trouble, deservedly or not, I need professional help."

Maybe a lawyer, maybe a friend, maybe even a therapist. What do I know? But you definitely did not need those knee-jerk reactions. "Hey, let's find a loophole where I can convince myself it's okay to contact her".

Yeah, this post reminded me of the semi-regular /r/legaladvice posts along the lines of "my ex-GF got a restraining order against me so I drove to her house to ask her why and then the police arrested me" where the poster just can't seem to grasp that they violated the restraining order. Even his own description of the events have him clearly violating his agreement with HR several times and possibly violating it many more, so of course he's going to end up getting fired.

And they thought it was a good idea to go to the holiday party after being fired and escorted out...

That was probably the most mind-boggling thing in the entire post. How could they possibly imagine that was an appropriate thing to do? (And, for that matter, how could someone else at Google think it was appropriate to offer a ticket under the circumstances?)

I don't know how you pull unrequited love out of such a vauge post. If we are to make that leap of assumption, it's a tiny additional inference to say the root cause was at least one of them was unable to mange the interaction line an adult (pursuer wouldn't take no for an answer and/or perused didn't bother to shut it down properly).

HR conversations basically take the American inability to be direct and multiply it by 100. Are we going to assume that HR of such a large company gave him the 30 seconds of real talk he needed to hear and possibly fix the situation, or run-arounds that assume their inability to communicate can be fixed by using their position of power to wield parent-knows-best control over the people? A state of affairs that feels insulting to people who know they need parental guidance, let alone adults. No wonder it ended like this.

HR's mind was made up in July. They should have fired him in July.

There was probably not enough ammunition (i.e. documentation) to avoid a wrongful termination issue, or Google gave the person the benefit of the doubt and and issued a warning as a documentation point.

In any case the person in question should have started looking for a new job at that point as the relationship is damaged, or resigned if they had the financial resources to do so.

15 years ago, freshly employed, less than 25 years old, introverted and socially awkward, I had a work colleague as well to which I wrote a romantic poem (for her, more or less out of the blue). It wasn't received well. Not well at all. I had trouble understanding her dismissal and insisted on that she gave me signs of affection. HR was involved briefly, my story sounded so similar to what OP writes. But in my case, she quit the job. Years later, I realised my self-delusion.

Brave of you to share that experience. Thank you

This is why you should party or at least socialize widely in college. To get all that weird socially awkward shit over with before you're in the workplace and it impacts yours or another's career.

:-) I agree 100%. I missed that chance by isolating myself and spending every free minute in front of the computer.

Well, many people did.

The older we get, the harder it becomes to realize when you're wrong. Life isn't about always being right, it is about learning what is right. Met people of 23 who got it, met people of 37 who don't.

The socialization skills I learned in college didn't really help me at my first corporate job where the rules are completely different.

You mean tea-bagging your passed out co-worker at the Christmas party is not appropriate?

Maybe I'm too cynical, but I kinda read that as "sexual harassment in college doesn't count".

I assumed that 'within the boundaries of acceptable human behavior' was an implicit assumption, but I've actually heard an uncomfortably large amount of people defend unacceptable behavior as 'college acceptable'. So perhaps you're not too cynical. I've been described more than once as too naïve :).

Many high achievers grow up in a bubble through high school and many not understand if their behavior comes off as extremely creepy until they interact more widely and get negative reactions. I'm saying maybe it's better to learn how to socialize in a place that doesn't have extreme financial repercussions.

Sounds like that scene from God Bless America. If you haven't seen the HR scene it's probably very similar to what many people have experienced. I learned long ago that workplace friendships, and colleagues, are to be treated as absolutely professional. End of story. Too much on the line and too many quick to judge, be offended, etc.

I can't help but look at it from the other person's perspective.

They went to HR and were clearly upset/disturbed. HR then told this guy clearly to avoid contact at work. The guy then ignores this order and confronts the person.

I can only imagine the confronted person would say anything to avoid this author. Basically the author approached them (when told not to) and said "Hey, I am gunna get fired cus of you!". Who wouldn't just say whatever to get out of the conversation?

I can't imagine why they thought this would good to publish. Despite it being vague I can only fill in details with unfavorable assumptions.

  Who wouldn't just say whatever to get out of the conversation?

This.

I had the exact same thought upon first read.

So this guy does something that makes his co-worker so uncomfortable that they go to HR and ask them to tell him to stay away. He then finds the person walking home and confronts them about the complaint. A week later he texts them asking them to retract the complaint. And after that he continues trying to change things so he can talk to the accuser about the issue.

It is clear as day that the accuser doesn't want to talk with him and in every situation where it came up the accuser has politely tried to get out of it. This guy just wouldn't give up and had more than enough chances to just walk away.

He has deluded himself into thinking he was in the right.

You were probably already "gone" once HR contacted you in June. HR's job is to protect the company, at no point were they concerned with improving your work relationship with the other employee. However, they were concerned with making sure you couldn't sue Google for wrongful termination. They gave you 6 months notice, followed up with you a few times, tied up any lose ends and then let you go.

While I do think you were already gone, it sounds like you handled things horribly during this 6 month period. You should have cut off all contact with the other person and started job hunting.

Without knowing the details:

Confronting the person (after HR said not to!) was a terrible decision, and probably made the person extremely uncomfortable. Then following up with that person to contact HR sounds like straight harassment. I get that the author may have had honest intentions, but the party that initiated the complaint clearly was uncomfortable with contact. It sucks and it's awkward, but at that point you need to leave it.

> Confronting the person (after HR said not to!) was a terrible decision, and probably made the person extremely uncomfortable.

And to expand on that: It probably made the person extremely uncomfortable, even if the said person told you that it didn't. During your interaction with them, their priority may have been (and probably was) to end the interaction ASAP without escalation or conflict.

Title should be "I harassed a coworker and Google fired me for it".

It's hard to form an opinion without knowing what is "this thing" the author has done, unless I missed the part where he describes it. If he acknowledged to a colleague of having killed someone, the context is pretty different from a minor violation of an internal policy.

From some of my experiences with corporate HR departments, it can be impossible to tell exactly what happened even when you are the one who is supposed to be in the wrong.

This is another reminder that Human Resources is there to protect your company from you, not protect you from your company.

>This is another reminder that Human Resources is there to protect your company from you, not protect you from your company.

This. Unions might be helpful here depending on how they work in your country, but this story is so vague that I got the feeling that HR actually did their part. Sure sucks to loose your job, but if you are given restraints and disregard them, well what do you expect to happen?

Yes. The clue is in the title of the department: "human resources". As an employee, you are just a resource to be managed for the good of the company, just like capital, equipment etc. It can be easy to overlook that as most large companies crank out corporate propaganda about the team/family, mission, building your career etc. All those messages are designed to minimize the corporate cost of managing the human resources by engendering compliant behaviour.

Correction: it's a thing that she thought he had done based on hearsay from other coworkers, but which he hadn't actually done. Could have been "Hey, so-and-so told me you have a great rack when we were both wasted at the bar", used as a flirty opening by a coworker, but one which backfired spectacularly.

He says he didn't do it -- whatever it is. Who knows?

You keep saying "she". Where are you getting "she" from?

HR told you not to talk to this person and you did, repeatedly.

I hope you find the help you need, please use the services offered to you as a benefit of being a former Google employee.

Corporate HR is an interesting profession ... you should never trust them. If you're talking to an HR professional, it's for the company's protection (not yours).

In any case, I think the writer made a huge mistake posting this publicly - writing can definitely be therapeutic but that doesn't mean you need to publish it. In any case, it's going to make getting past the next HR team (getting hired) much harder.

The intentionally vague way of writing makes me feel uncomfortable and trustless. Yeah, it's OK to not disclose any details but if you're writing about the problem and post it in Hacker News, you want empathy and comprehension about your situation. The way you write, intentionally hiding the details - that can be really important! - makes this a bit awkward and a bit suspicious, imho.

I've had to take action on behalf of an organization when a complaint was made about a volunteer bothering others.

While I felt I had a pretty good understanding of the events after talking with both parties, and even though the situation seemed to be a large misunderstanding (missed signals), I was compelled to take action and remove the volunteer without warning in order to maintain a safe environment for everyone.

The person with the complaint needs to see and trust that it is a safe place and that action is taken. If trust erodes in the organization, you'll end up losing a lot more than just the person you let go.

If HR tells you "if XYZ happens, you're fired" it's time to look for a new job.

Yes. "Performance Improvement Plans" are also the kiss of death. When it looks like you're about to be placed under one, fairly or not, you should attempt to find other employment ASAP.

"Performance" can be seen as your ability to play ball with bullshit things and people at work. Outdated inefficient systems you're expected to use instead of building something new, for example. So you apply some resistance, apply initiative, and get smacked down for your efforts.

Or when you're supposed to work with someone who is an expert at sticky note presentations or motivational bullshit-speak, but literally nothing else. So you distance yourself from them and they complain to your boss that you're not keeping them in loop. Now your "communication skills" takes a hit.

If you never get in trouble at work, be worried. You might just be a boring sod who does what you're told, never takes risks and could easily be replaced. But then again, just do what you feel is right. In my case, I didn't want to die from boredom, so stirring the pot (as respectfully as possible) was required.

Why do you want to stay if this signals stuff you don't like?

Same reason you sometimes want to stay in a relationship but at the same time get the hell away. There are good and not so good things about any job/relationship.

> "Performance" can be seen as your ability to play ball with bullshit things and people at work.

Bingo. At my last job, my boss placed me on a PIP largely as retaliation against me over office politics.

I started looking for a new job that day, and I accepted the first offer I took just to get out of there before they could fire me.

Or as soon as you are asked to sign a PIP the relationship has soured and you should be looking for a new job, or if you have FU money, resign.

Or as Homer says "Just go in and do a really half assed job". You're already on PIP, you could likely do 0 work for the duration of the PIP while you look for other jobs and switch.

The problem with that is that it leaves a record of the bad performance which can be accessed through the HR back channel. Better to quit while you are ahead.

I think if you're already on PIP you'd have this problem anyway.

You can, and of course, should, refuse to sign any document detailing additional job requirements. If you are presented with a PIP you should fold the paper, put it in your pocket, and inform the other party that said paper will be used in legal action should it become necessary, and that you will not accept any changes or additional requirements to the job function that are not mutually agreed upon, that you will not be threatened into signing any document that states otherwise. Then you should ask if there's anything to talk about. If the manager then proceeds to go to HR, they will be very nervous about taking action against you, as you've shown that you may resort to legal action against the company, and the manager has just given you a piece of documentation that generally hasn't been reviewed by HR/legal beforehand.

The thing is, a court could easily find such a document constitutes coercion, or if poorly worded ("you will no longer have access to ...", or, God help an employer who does this, "your pay/pension/hours/... will be reduced by xxx" for instance) can be constituted as breach of contract, an attempt to force someone to quit (or worse: an attempt to force you to do something unrelated to your work), or ...

Keep in mind that employers aren't generally all that likely to win labor cases. There's even a legal principle here, in case of doubt, the weakest party is considered in the right, which is the employee. There is no burder of proof, only "begin of proof" (you must show something that a reasonable person would interpret as indicating that what you say is true, the paper they gave you to sign would definitely be considered unassailable, even if it's easy to fake).

And there's another factor : penalties for being in the wrong as an employer are gigantic (damages for wrongful termination can be 2 years pay, with no obligation in return, in other words, payable within 14 days and you free to get another job even before that).

Penalties for being in the wrong as a worker are generally that nothing happens (you're not even fired, and you can't be fired because of the legal action. As you can imagine, the legal system reacts very, very strongly to attempts to circumvent the legal system or punish using the legal system).

Legal costs for using labor courts are generally reduced or waived entirely, and unions may provide labor lawyers as a service, for free.

Of course, IANAL, and you should get legal advice, frankly, before you're put in this situation. Almost any legal firm will give you a 30-minute or so exploratory meeting with a lawyer for free where you can ask questions.

Or just avoid XYZ.

Kind of hard to do when it's vague enough that it can be reinterpreted a thousand different ways.

Author's other article https://medium.com/@tossayo/suicidal-an-exploration-on-my-me...

33 points in 43 minutes and not on the frontpage.. would be nice to get a word from the mods why this post is taken off.

I went through over 300 of the top stories and couldn't find it. It was still in its expected position (106) in the "new" pages.

It probably wasn't mods, it doesn't take a lot of users flagging an article before it falls off the front page. It's also got a fairly high comment / point ratio, which also causes it to fall faster.

It's probably flagged by people who want to save the author from himself. Seriously, he sounds like a stalker in that post and would be well advised to take it down asap.

Users flagged it. That's nearly always the answer to this perennial question.

In fact it would be flagkilled (i.e. marked [flagged] and closed to new comments) several times over, except the software doesn't do that when the thread has many comments.

Two important lessons:

1. Coworkers are coworkers and friends are friends, and never should the twain meet.

2. HR does not exist to protect you or provide you with any services. HR exists as a policy-enforcement branch of the company. Period.

I agree with some of the the other points in this article that it's intentionally vague, and missing a lot of details. What I do notice is that HR specifically directed author to have no further contact with the other employee. The author obviously violated that both directly, and indirectly. As much as the author may feel like HR treated them unfairly, he should remember something we all tend to forget:

HR is not your friend. They are there to protect the company, not you.

This kind of post can not help for finding a new job.

My advice to fired guy, take a fucking hike and remove said walls of text.

Never talk to HR.

Remember your employment rights. Or, if you're in the US, remember you have almost no employment rights.

It would be interesting to see how this would be handled in the European Union. It's almost certain that it would have been more work for the HR department than in the US.

I work in a central European country and had a similar issue (see my comment above) where I was the culprit. HR told me they we're approached by my colleague and I should avoid her und stick to the code of conduct. I think my job was not on the line, which prevented me from the moronic defense mode that OP engaged into.

European companies have a duty of care to protect their employees from harm. This harm could be harassment or bullying from other employees. So most companies will have a policy against bullying and harassment. If someone else makes a complaint against you that complaint should be investigated; you'll be spoken to; mediation might be attempted; "guidance" will be given.

If you ignore the guidance they'll start issuing warnings. Those warnings are kept on file to help with potential employment tribunal cases.

In the UK: after two verbal warnings and one written warning you'll be fired. Or sooner, if your behavior meets the gross professional misconduct level. (You punch someone, for example.)

I don't know why this was down voted -- it's good (if impractical) advice - HR is not there to help you (the employee), HR is there to help the company avoid future lawsuits.

Talking to HR is like talking to the police - assume that nothing you say will be used to help you and that everything you say will be used against you. The difference between talking to HR and talking to the police is that you have more legal protections when talking to the police.

You can't get away with not talking to HR at all, but you can certainly be careful what you say.

Don't talk to Police:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

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