Hacker News Reader

Comment by georgieporgie | Hacker News Reader

Sure, go ahead and screw the employees while the economy is bad. They'll stay on and grumble about it, because they can't go anywhere.

People got laid off and were unable to find work, possibly ending their careers, and you're complaining about bagels being cut? Seriously?

View on HN

I've worked at Google for almost four years and found this hilarious. "The Friday morning bagel or donut supplies also were curtailed. Sure, they still existed, but you now had to go hunt for them. They were no longer set up in a microkitchen near your office. They would now appear only in certain cafes." – The same donuts and bagels are still at Google. You have to walk an extra 30 feet to the cafe to get them. Oh, and I'd take the 10% raise – which was more like a 15-20% raise after all was said and done, based on total compensation + bonus factored in – over 30 feet of additional bagel proximity any day.

Sometimes I feel like the vast majority of annoyances I face at work should have a #firstworldproblems hashtag on them.

I remember, I joined in Jan 2009 at the bottom of the recession, which was basically around the same time that all these perks were being cut. And people at work would gripe all about how the microkitchens weren't as good and they discontinued tea time and the cafes were closed on weekends. And then I'd go home to my two roommates, one of whom worked at EMC, and she would be like "We laid off 15% of the company today. I still have a job. I have to do the work of two additional people, but I still have a job."

I absolutely despise this kind of thinking. The whole "firstworldproblems" meme pisses me off. You can extend this to anything. "People in Country X are starving so it's lame of me to complain about my 2-hour commute." "Children are being beaten in Country Y so I feel bad complaining about working on the weekend once a month." Ok, I'll even pull away from the hyperbole: "my friend Bob got laid off, so I shouldn't complain about working 14-hour days because at least I have a job".

Yes, you absolutely should complain.

I just don't buy any of this. If I'm unhappy about something, then I'm unhappy about something. The tsunami that destroyed the lives of thousands of people in Country Z, while tragic, doesn't make my grievances any less valid.

It's like a new form of Godwin's Law. Any complaint can be dismissed as trivial by claiming it's a "first world problem".

If you want to feel institutional guilt because many people in the world have it worse than you, fine. I'm not going to play that game.

(General "you", here. Nostrademons, I'm not pointing specifically at you, just at the general pain this sort of thinking gives me.)

I never viewed as trying to silence people's complaints, but more as a stark way to introduce perspective - that many complaints in the first world really aren't so bad.

Things can always get worse, but only a fool would let them go without a fight.

Especially delicious bagels.

I agree with you, somewhat (you seem to be extrapolating out the concept into a ludicrous example). However, we're talking about a recession. National, then global. Google apparently has to start cutting corners somewhere. To whine about having to walk thirty feet to some bagels, while people around you are losing their livelihood is, at best, distasteful.

There's a huge difference between being obsequious to an evil corporate master versus simply sucking it up in recognition of tighter times.

"you're lucky you even have a job!"

No. Not seriously. You missed the point of her article. The point is she got screwed over by Google. What she was promised she didn't receive.

The point of her article was, as near as I can tell, that she mistakenly factored free food into her compensation.

My complaint is with her outlandish rhetoric around Google cutting back on some extravagances during a global recession.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com