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I can't make any general statements about what happens to everyone, but in this particular case, I can't complain at all about HR's handling.

That's kind of the exception that proves the rule, you think?

That is, your outlining of the situation gives a strong suggestion that this sort of thing is common and unless the contractor has pull (say, a relative that works at Google), they can't do anything.

I've always thought the phrase "the exception that proves the rule" is nonsense, btw. There's no such "proof."

The phrase is misunderstood. Historically "Proof" is contextually meaning the nature of the test, not passing it. "failed the test"-proof has been "disproved" by this exception, which shows a belief does not generally apply. I'm not explaining this very well but a Google search will throw up better explanations.

Some how it's morphed to colloquially mean "yes, that one exception aside, I'm right and you're wrong" as if the negative somehow reinforces the positive..

The phrase "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" helps understand this. The pudding may prove to be bad or good. Find which proof by eating it.

jerf's explanation makes sense. The negative certainly does not reinforce the positive.

Yes. They said it better. It certainly doesn't reinforce the positive, yet people seem to insist on using it as if it does. "Well, yes, that penny did land on it's edge but the exception proves the rule it had to be either heads or tails" type statements abound. No.. the exception proved pennies have three states not two: your argument is busted.

Exception proves the rule comes from Roman law: if there is a sign saying you can’t park here on Saturdays, it means that you can park here on any other day.

I was taught it comes from logic, and argumentation: the act of stating an exception proves a rule as stated (a rule is a claim to an axiom) is wrong. So it's in logic and philosophy, not Roman law.

If you’re reading a guide book and it specifically says: “Use spell X to ability kill this boss” the implication is you can’t instantly kill other bosses by using ability X.

Logically the statement says nothing beyond what it says, but implicitly by providing the exception you’re stating that the general rule is different.

It’s a perfectly rational linguistic argument, though often misused outside of that context.

It is an old phrase. In this case, "proves" means something more like "tests". In modern terms, I'd say it's something like, "You don't really know you have a rule until someone has tested it by claiming an exception." e.g., setting a child's bedtime to 9pm will pose no challenge if they voluntarily go to bed at 8:30, it isn't until the exception comes along that you know whether or not you really have a rule.

I think the phrase 'proofing yeast' in bread making has the same connotations - you're testing that the yeast is still alive.

Off-topic here, but since I'm often making pizza dough:

I always wondered about that word. If you want to test yeast, you just put it in some sugar water & see if it foams.

But then, I guess you can't do that if it's mixed with flour & other stuff?

I think the intent behind the modern usage of "the exception that proves the rule" is that:

a) the rule is a heuristic, not a hard-and-fast rule, and

b) the notability of exceptions suggests that the heuristic is pretty good.

In other words, if the exception is, in fact, exceptional, it reinforces that the heuristic is reasonably valid for non-exceptional cases.

In this case, the fact that it took the intervention of the family-friend-who-works-at-Google-HQ to resolve a pay dispute is an exceptional circumstance, and reinforces that for most people, because presumably most people don't have a family friend who works at Google HQ, there is no recourse to pay disputes.

Hence, the exception—by being exceptional—proves the heuristic rule that most employees of these contractor corps have little power to negotiate for their rights.

Another commonly misused phrase is "begging the question" which you have done here. It means "assuming that which you need to prove."

You have no proof that it was exceptional. All you have is one case. You have no idea what other people in pay disputes end up doing.

This kind of pedantry about which words people use to make an argument is literally garbage.

To continue the spirit of the many nested comments now going back and forth:

Metaphorically.

I think you mean figuratively garbage. Words can only be literally garbage if they're printed on a page which is then disposed of.

I mean, while we're being pedantic we may as well get it right.

The question people are asking is "How would your relative have gotten paid if you hadn't worked at Google"?

People are allowed to use a phrase for its literal meaning instead of the traditional idiomatic meaning.

"beg the question" does not have a literal meaning. It makes no sense unless you're so used to hearing it used that way.

"beg" often means "beg for". "This situation begs for the question:" is a completely reasonable way to start a sentence.

Or to go with synonyms. Solicits the question. Entreats the question. These are the literal meanings of the words, and they work fine.

First off, I was just framing the parent’s post in the modern usage of “exception that proves the rule” and not making any claims myself, so perhaps reconsider who’s making unfounded assumptions here.

> You have no idea what other people in pay disputes end up doing.

But also this is a super weak argument. I don’t have “no idea”—I have an educated guess that most people don’t have family friends who work at Google. Most people don’t have the resources to sue an employer over a few hours of unpaid labor. Wage theft is one of the most extensive unprosecuted crimes, that’s been studied and shown many times.

Are you suggesting that one should assume that most low-level employees in pay disputes get happy outcomes? That seems…naive.

That’s a great explanation.

And the "proof" used is an archaic term that means "test". The same word occurs in discussing alcohol strength ("100 proof") and in "proof standard" (the standard[1] that you use to compare against).

The German cognate would be "prüfen", the Swedish probably "pröva".

So, the exception tests the rule.

[1] And the standard is, of course, a reference exemplar of some sort.

Yeah, or for example in Dutch 'scheikundeproef' or 'natuurkundeproef' which we did at high school: a test involving the laws of chemistry or physics respectively.

It's so misused most of the time. The clearest, correct example of it I've seen is a sign that says "No Parking from 10PM to 5AM". This is an exception to the otherwise unstated rule that parking is allowed during all other times, therefore proving it exists.

I disagree with most of the commenters that want to apply the phrase to heuristic claims.

This is currently the only reply that's downvoted below zero, but this is also the only reply that matches the definition of the phrase as I understood it.

The word "prove" used to also encompass the meaning of "challenge" or "put to the test".

It still retains that archaic meaning in the phrase you mentioned and terms like "proving grounds".

Edit:

And like so many other proverbs like "A few bad apples", "Blood is thicker than water", "Carpe diem", "The exception proves the rule" means exactly the opposite of what most people think it does.

Also "proof reading" and "100 proof whisky".

And proofing dough.

In the case of “blood is thicker than water,” unfortunately, the more historically common understanding is also its most common understanding today, and has been for so many centuries that we dont actually know if it originated with its original meaning or it’s inverse.

I’m bringing this up because, for many years, I was one of the folk who spread the idea that it actually was supposed to mean “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” But there’s no strong historical basis for this, lovely as the idea may be.

—

As for the “bad apple” one, I didn’t realize that it was commonly misunderstood. I always felt like someone mentioning that someone was “a bad apple” was an almost violent accusation: the person needed to be extricated from the group, less the group become infected by their corruption. I am now trying to think back to times when I’ve heard this one used and wondering if I misunderstood the intent.

> The word "prove" used to also encompass the meaning of "challenge" or "put to the test".

Yes but "There is little evidence of the phrase being used in this second way.", citations located at wikipedia.

So I think it makes more sense to go with the interpretation of "if someone lists an exception, then that's proof of a more general rule that it's an exception from". But with that use, something specifically has to be an exception. Anyone applying "exception proves the rule" to an anecdote is using it wrong.

Agreed. It is infuriating because it is internally inconsistent on its face. The way logic works, an exception disproves the rule. Surprise, surprise.

No. It is a legal principle. If there is a sign stating: "Parking prohibited 03am - 07am" then that implies that parking is allowed outside that window of time.

The exception that proves the rule is from a legal argument by Cicero.

It means that if someone bothers to write an exception in a law, say e.g. "but in case window is broken by stone smaller than 1 cm in diameter, then it's the owner of the window that should pay reparations", then in the general case it's likely the thrower of the stone that pays, otherwise there would have been no point in adding so specific an exception.

This is the correct answer. "Exception proves the rule" = a documented exception is an evidence that a general rule exists.

When you see text "kids under age of 3 years don't have to pay", you can conclude that older people are supposed to pay.

The analogy for Google situation would be if hypothetically someone found an internal e-mail written by the boss of Google HR department saying "contractors who have relatives in Google, or who have published their story on Hacker News front page, need to be fully paid for their work". Then we could conclude that other contractors typically don't get fully paid, even if there is nothing in the e-mail saying that.

The "rule" is the null hypothesis. The exception is a result about three standard deviations from the null hypothesis. Finding such an exception result means you can not reject the null hypothesis.

The argument is that not being able to reject the null hypothesis means that the null hypothesis is correct. This is an invalid argument. We're sorry but we can not accept your submission at this time.

I can summarize OPs post even more succinctly: Nepotism in google only way to get paid.

  These outside companies had minimal oversight from Google, by design.

Could this be so that the google corporate toadies could bid out the lowest possible price, yet remain isolated from the predictably unethical, shoddy, or even illegal practices of the cut-throat priced contracting companies?

It just seems strange that you’re lauding google HR, when your description suggests google was complicit, if not directly responsible, for the whole setup.

For a large company it often makes little sense to directly hire temp employees and/or vet contractors.

The fact that a cottage industry of less than law abiding contracting agencies provide services to Google is more an issue of CA's employee protection laws than Google's responsibility.

Consider the current/default rate of wage theft via salary employees not paid for overtime despite being eligible; it's rampant in the SE industry because it's logistically easier to pay someone 10% more than to keep track of occasional overtime.

Therefore whenever a large company contracts something out to a smaller company, you should immediate expect more shady practices. My point is that Google's only role in this case is making something unknown... known - plenty of small shops unrelated to FAANGs break the same rules.

The mechanism of distancing yourself from crime is explained here:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9fB4gvoooNYa4t56S/power-buys...

For contractors to avoid classification as employees you need to be pretty hands off - the more you tell them how to do their jobs the more likely they are to be classified as employees if such a question arises. I don’t think immediately assuming bad faith is fair here (or there or anywhere really).

I used to do this kind of work and found that the worst thing about it was actually having too much time. After a while I had read and understood all of the documentation and had a complete mental model, so tasks would take half the time. However, if I got through tasks too fast I'd just be paid the same and bring down the average time for everyone else. So I had this mind numbing stop-start process that felt so pointless.

Sorry, I’m not following. Which company did the HR rep belong to? Which company did the ”corporate toadies” belong to? Perhaps I’m just confused how you were able to have such a direct influence on the internal goings on of a supposedly independent company.

The story does not make sense to me either. Google’s HR should surely know better than to get involved in a labor issue at company they contracted with and claiming are not google employees.

> Google’s HR should surely know better than to get involved in a labor issue at company they contracted with and claiming are not google employees.

... as if it's better if they aren't involved? We are commenting on a story about that... seems like if they knew better, they would actually get involved to makes sure that this don't get out. The bare minimum is to pay the ones that complains, that way you at least minimize the risk of this getting out.

HR is always involved with external contractors.

The way contracting usually work is that the contractor must submit timesheets daily or weekly to a supervisor at the parent company. The supervisor must approve the timesheet. The contractor will be paid the hours in the timesheet.

The story is a classic example where the manager (google employees) refused to acknowledge the hours for no valid reasons, preventing contractors from being paid.

Gotta escalate to HR to get paid and fill formal complaints against the bad manager.

That would be about compensation for the contracted firm itself though, which would make sense. I may have misunderstood the story as Google HR getting involved because the contracted firm did not pay an employee of the contracted firm.

The employer pays the contracting firm based on the timesheet, then the contracting firm pays the employee based on the timesheet/pay they were forwarded.

When there's a problem with the employee not being paid, the root cause often goes back to the employer blocking the pay in the first place.

No, not what happened. The contracting firm was officially "arms' length" from Google and no Google employees even knew my cousin's name.

However, it turns out that "arms' length" doesn't mean the contractor can get away with absolutely anything.

I can only comment in the general case, I don't know your personal situation obviously.

Contractors cannot be at arms length. There has to be an arrangement with the employer (Google here) and the contracting firms to pay. That means there has to be a timesheet for each employee. Could be filled by either party.

You said your cousin wasn't paid because somebody (implying from Google Search) said she took too long and refused to pay her. To me that sounds like a normal story where Google had to approve the hours/pay and they didn't. The excuse from Google employees that they are detached is fishy at best, they wouldn't be able to prevent payment if they were.

> "Google’s HR should surely know better than to get involved "

.. and yet, it happened. I was there. Maybe you should look up "slave labor and clothing factories" or "janitorial service companies."

A modern company that contracts with another company to do something for them does not get to completely wash its hands of their practices. Up to a point, they do, but when the contractor egregiously violates the law, then they usually get involved anyway. Judges and juries and regulatory officials and employees take a very dim view of illegal conduct by your contractors. It reflects badly on you.

In this case, I don't know what happened afterwards, but I would guess that Google amended its contracts with those companies to better regulate cases like this. Just a guess.

Maybe they even intervened without mentioning my cousin's name -- maybe they just said "hey, in general, you can't violate labor laws, and you definitely can't refuse to pay people for being too slow!"

>A modern company that contracts with another company to do something for them does not get to completely wash its hands of their practices

They do if they want to maintain their position that the employees of the contracting firm are not their own employees.

If an employee is not getting paid by an employer, that is between the employee, the employer, and the state department of labor.

Slave labor and clothing factories are not relevant in this case as those operate in other countries where the government's labor laws and enforcement are much less effective than the US.

Janitorial service companies is what I am referring to. If my company hires a janitorial service company for $x to perform janitorial tasks, then the janitors are clearly not my company's employees. But if my company now starts getting involved in compensation disputes between the janitorial service company and its janitor employees, now my company is risking wading into a dispute in which it has no need to and risks raising questions about whose employees the janitors really are.

Perhaps what you said really did happen, but I cannot find the motivation for people in Google's HR department to do so, especially if it was in a state like California with a pretty decent labor department that would undoubtedly support workers who did not get paid for time worked.

> If an employee is not getting paid by an employer, that is between the employee, the employer, and the state department of labor.

In NL you can forget about that. It use to be that you could stick some "fictional" company between you and your employees and get out of jail free for everything, including salaries. Jobs 1-4 hours per week made it extra unlikely for any employee to run the extra mile after they were left without a name, address or phone number after about 3 months. Taking the bankrupt company to court was expensive and unlikely to work. People don't take a 2 hour job unless they need the money.

Now the obligation to pay salaries applies all the way up the food chain.

I find it a little strange that this anecdote that paints google in a good light is the most upvoted comment in this story, instead of the comment that highlights the fact that there are emails showing that google knew for certain that this was happening and decided against fixing it to "not increase costs" - knowingly stealing that money from employees.

I've worked for one of those companies and I don't understand this. It was about paying them for just a test problem? During an interview presumably? And you got involved with them through HR even given how completely separate they are?

On the actual jobs you get so many timed tasks that a single one wouldn't even stand out, really.

> "During an interview presumably"

No. They had an entrance exam, and my cousin had passed it and signed on.

But it was a single task they took too long on?

Was it Leapforce or Lionbridge? I used to do search rating for both of those.

1. So Google a was evil even before 2010? How strange.

2. Aren't Contractor like these fairly normal in Silicon Valley. Apple are the same as well. Even worst most contractor were told there is a chance of working inside Apple if your job was good enough.

3. Very rare HR does the right thing.

It's worth noting that their search and other services rely on something similar:

https://arstechnica.com/features/2017/04/the-secret-lives-of...

Probably HR did the math how to protect the company. A legal case is bad for reputation and might inspire others. Paying quietly is cheap.

There is no maths to do. The company has to pay for hours worked.

in CA if subcontractor or supplier don't get paid, even if there is an intermediate contractor layer[s], they still can put a lien on the property. I think it make sense to have a similar system for subcontractor employees to be able to go after the company which their labor was ultimately consumed by thus piercing the liability defense-in-depth layers made up of subcontractor company[ies] . That would make companies like Google to really care what kind of subcontractor they use similarly to how one takes great care choosing contractor for their property.