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Comment by Copenjin | Hacker News Reader

I wonder why these privileged people (I don't have her huge salary, I don't live in the us or work for a FAANG) keeps forgetting that after all they are just _employees_.

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That's one of the worse takes possible about this situation.

Her role is specifically created to hold her employer to account when they are using bad practices. Her opposition to particular policies enacted in the company is literally part of her job description.

I understand what you are saying, but I doubt they hired her to be some kind of controller with unlimited enforcing power (as she says: "I understand that the only things that mean anything at Google are levels").

Only highlighting issues without power to enforce anything is not enough to have any tangible results? That's for sure.

But she was not the CEO.

This is a very dangerous stance to take. You are advocating for a purely authoritarian mode of management, applied universally without concern for context.

Not saying that it's desirable or that's not horrible, but isn't that the default mode? Or at least that's the world I've lived in, if you are an employee, in the end your opinions don't actually count, you are just a cog. Your position in the hierarchy is what matter.

And that's why at some point you need labor unions (not saying high paid tech workers needs them) and at some other point you start considering stop being an employee.

Resigning to that power relation is defeatism, and unhelpful for the maintenance of labor rights.

I think the fact that she had a huge salary is why she feels comfortable doing this. The average person needs their job to pay the bills so they don't want to rock the boat. She's already set for life so she doesn't care who she offends because getting fired is not a big deal for her.

Set for life? How much do you think a staff scientist is paid?

My guess is that she made a base of around $450K and probably equal that in options and bonuses.

And let's not forget that in most(all?) of the other 1st world countries you are lucky if you make one tenth of that base salary. It's easy to forget. Very easy.

Future employment opportunities still exist for her. That is another reason an employee may opt in to present an alternative reality online upon events like “leaving” or “getting fired” as people externally usually don’t have time or the access to verify either side’s story. There will be another equal caliber company where she can continue to do her work. Almost everyone who left Google in such public fashion in recent history have landed similar jobs elsewhere.

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