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by crusso 2014 days ago
Because this particular job does require a certain independence to do it properly

Does it also require a certain intellectual integrity to do properly?

Because claiming that you were "immediately fired" online, then later having to "clarify" that you actually submitted your resignation because some demands weren't met sounds pretty dishonest to me.

1 comments

That is not an accurate description of events.
I'm just going by the CNN article and her tweets, which include the response from some manager, Megan:

As a result, we are accepting your resignation immediately, effective today.

https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334364732480958467

Looks like Timnit Gebru made an ultimatum and offered her resignation if the terms of the ultimatum were not met. Google accepted her resignation and chose to have it effective immediately (as is often the case when you resign and a company feels like it would not be beneficial to have a longer departure period).

It's not like I'm taking only the words of others. I'm reading what Gebru herself chose to put out there.

Google let her go early claiming her actions were "inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager".

That is the language used when firing someone for their behavior.

I agree that it could be viewed as firing language, but only if we had no context.

However, we have context. We know that an ultimatum including a resignation threat was given.

Accepting that resignation and making the termination of their employment relationship immediate with some extra "Yeah, this is for the best" language doesn't mean that she was fired.

If you only want to consider the limited context of ignoring that she submitted a resignation ultimatum, aren't you just cherry picking?

No, I am not ignoring the context. If anything, phrasing Google's response as additional "Yeah, this is for the best" language while denying her terms for ending employment (when in practice it is very rare to immediately let someone go when they want to set up an exit date on their own terms) is cherry picking.
You can't choose the date of an employee's resignation.[1]

[1] https://cuiab.ca.gov/board/precedentdecisions/docs/pb39.pdf

She made an unreasonable ultimatum. They held her to it.