[crusso]

As someone who just learned about this kerfuffle a few minutes ago, that doesn't make sense to claim that she was fired.

If you offer to resign if new conditions of employment aren't met and the company accepts your resignation without honoring your exact terms of schedule, it sounds like you largely were responsible for terminating your own employment. Claiming that you were "immediately fired" as she tweeted just sounds dishonest to me.

[GVIrish]

If someone states I will do X if you don't do Y, it still comes down to the person choosing to take some action X. If you don't take action Y, it is still on the first person to choose to take action X. She may have intended to hand in her resignation, but she did not get the chance.

She said if these conditions are not met, I will work with you on an end date. That's not what happened, she was terminated immediately with the rationalization being that they didn't like the tone of the email she sent to the Google Brain Women and Allies listserv. That alone points to it being a termination.

Is she largely responsible for her employment ending at Google. You could say yes, but fact is that Google is the one who cut things off.

[ergocoder]

Once both parties decide to part way, I don't think it's reasonable to think that you will get to choose the exit date at your own liking.

Either party can choose an earlier date, but not a later date.

I don't really care if she left or Google fired her. But framing it as Google is evil for firing her seems dishonest when she was the one who gave the ultimatum.

Google is evil, but not for this activity.

[andrewprock]

The GP illustration of jumping it being pushed is quite apt. Your comment suggests that if someone threatened to jump under certain circumstances but was instead pushed you would be ok with that.

This isn't just a framing. She was fired. Now you may say "she was asking for it" but that doesn't change the fact that she was fired.

[crusso]

No, the jump/push analogy is too contorted to be meaningful. Employers and employees have a relationship that has processes that have common meanings and names like "resigned" or "fired".

There's no accepted relationship if you push someone threatening to jump. You're just an a-hole committing assault and possibly murder.

Is there a link to the letter that she sent? That could help to clarify.

[ergocoder]

There is. You probably can Google for it.

The demand is something around exposing the identities of the peers who reviewed and rejected her paper. If Google doesn't give her the identities of those peers, she say she will leave the company.

Comparing to suicide is a bit much though. When considering death, everything else becomes secondary, so we can't use that analogy for comparison.

[andrewprock]

The push/jump illustration holds just as well if you are at the edge of a pool. You don't need death on the line to understand the difference between who is making the decision.

[ergocoder]

"If you eat dinner today, I'll commit suicide." - I'll probably skip dinner to save life.

"If you eat dinner today, I'll quit my job" - then, I'll probably tell person that they can quit their job. I'm not gonna skip my dinner for that.

I hope this illustrates that, when death is involved, everything else becomes secondary, and we prioritize not death over everything.

So, it's a bad analogy to use in Timnit's situation where she will quit if she doesn't get to see the identities of peer reviewers. This situation is not life and death.

[andrewprock]

Sure, but you left out the actual situation:

"If you eat dinner today, I'll quit my job" - then, you fire them and get on with dinner.

[crusso]

I actually spent a bit of time searching for a letter she sent with an ultimatum to her management. I've seen this referenced multiple places as "the email that got a Google researcher fired": https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a...

But that doesn't seem right. That looks more like a different type of letter, sent to a wider audience than just Timnit to her manager(s).

I've seen referenced that there was a timeframe for when she was going to quit that she mentioned. I see no such reference in that letter.

Maybe there's a real copy of the letter floating around. My guess is that people pretend that they've seen "the letter" but only read this other one I referenced above.

I'm happy to be proved wrong, though. I have no dog in this fight except to understand the truth of the situation. If you've seen a different letter than shows her ultimatum and time frame, please share.

[whoooooo123]

I've been following this story quite closely and afaik I know the email Gebru sent that included her 'do this or I quit' ultimatum hasn't beenade public. The email you link to is an an earlier email that, like you say, was sent to a wide group of people within the company