[jm4]

That's a complaint from someone who doesn't understand the function of HR. HR isn't there to protect the employee. They are there to protect the company while giving the impression they are there for the employees. Sometimes that means they protect both at the same time. It always means they operate in the company's interests, sometimes to the detriment of an employee or employees.

A lot of what I hear about google sounds like what you get when you let the inmates run the asylum. For example, allowing political discussions on company forums or letting employees get the impression they have some social responsibility or a responsibility to take a position is just a recipe for disaster. What you end up with is conflict and immaturity in the workplace because politics and career have combined to become part of their identity. That's toxic in the type of organization that has historically been disconnected from politics and social causes. It's no surprise this kind of stuff is going on and people are chalking it up to retaliation for this, that or the other thing. In normal companies, people get moved around, demoted or ignored all the time and they don't always blame it on retaliation for political beliefs or for reporting abuse. They blame it on some asshole manager or decide the company isn't for them and they move on. Sounds like google needs a higher degree of professionalism.

[reccanti]

> In normal companies, people get moved around, demoted or ignored all the time and they don’t always blame it on retaliation for political beliefs or for reporting abuse. They blame it on some asshole manager or decide the company isn’t for them and move on.

Even if what you’re describing is normal corporate behavior, it’s still not great. Maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to accept the idea of “asshole managers” or toxic corporate cultures, and we should be reporting on this sort of thing more? As a single individual, it’s difficult to change a culture that spans across different companies, and sometimes you’ll need to pick your battles, but I don’t think we should tear down people who are trying to change the status quo for the better. Google employees are in a good position to do this too, since their protests will draw more attention than from someone in a small, unknown company and can shed a light on these practices in other places as well.

[i_am_nomad]

I believe the OP means that the people who are demoted/reassigned blame it on “asshole managers,” not that the managers are in fact asshole. The reality is, in any organization, you’ll have people who are incompetent, and people who are simply unwilling to do their jobs.

[kryogen1c]

Having served in the military, this rings extremely true to me. Most individual traits are eliminated with hair cut and uniform requirements, but anything left is seized upon with extra vigor.

This is demonstrated aptly against women. Men blame both failure and success of women on their gender. And the reality? Do women hide in their separated berthings and screen calls for each other? You bet. Do women get promoted because theyre more flirtatious and more easy to get along with? Duh. People that bitch about the above like to focus on those 6 problem women and forget theres 50 men you can barely count on to piss on a fire. Side story: I knew a salty submarine (100% male until ~5 years ago in US) male master chief that summed women in the navy perfectly: women are people; some good, some bad, some in the middle, and if you treat them like sailors, they act like sailors.

Point is, non-professional discussion rarely belong in the workplace. Letting those go basically guarantees conflict.

[Angostura]

> HR isn't there to protect the employee. They are there to protect the company while giving the impression they are there for the employees.

An overly broad generalisation. In situations where there's a direct conflict between the needs of the company and the employee - yes, absolutely. But those are relatively rare, in my experience,