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Comment by bostonpete | Hacker News Reader

In the reddit comment thread for this u/dickbutt_md had a lengthy comment that seemed to call into question some of the details of this story. His facts weren't first hand, but then again, sometimes a little distance can help with objectivity. In any event, I tend to take comments from possibly-disgruntled former employees with a pinch of salt.

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Link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/3e05wg/what_hap...

Another factor to consider is that, at huge companies, not all management has a unified vision. It is entirely likely that the article source's manager and the next manager above him/her disliked the spreadsheet while the "official HR position" on the matter was given at some kind of large meeting.

I work at an enterprise with ~5,000 employees, and attitudes toward topics like transparency vary wildly, even in cases where there is an official company stance. This is because it is common to give managers a lot of freedom to manage their departments without interference. So, for example, our company has a pretty good work-from-home policy, but your manager is completely allowed to ban it in your department if he or she feels like it.

Basically, it is possible that both sources are mostly accurate, and they represent the perspectives from different parts/levels of the company at Google.

first hand account from even a disgruntled employee or some maybe true maybe false 2nd hand account from reddit rando? one doesn't hardly even seem like it's worth a mention unless it helps confirm your preconceived bias.

On one hand, we have a primary source putting her name on the line, publicly, with a story about her personal experiences. On the other, you have "dickbutt_md" talking about his-friend-at-Google/his-uncle-at-Nintendo and how the primary source that the secondary source doesn't know personally is "a passive aggressive rabble rouser."

And we have HN posters reposting it like it means something.

I think we just hit the peak of this "do anything to discredit a woman who has a beef with a tech company" thing.

Is this one of those "high information", intelligent comments? Seems like it amounts to little more than gossip. I'm also wondering if you could point me to what you think your best comment is? Thanks.

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