[overgard]

I find myself in a weird situation, in that I find this writer's writing intriguing exactly because of how much I vehemently disagree with almost all of it. It's like somehow it manages to push all the wrong buttons, in a very precise way. Usually when I read things that I disagree with it doesn't really prod at me, but for some reason almost this entire blog does. The controversy this blog always digs up on really minor topics makes me think I'm not the only one.

I think what always strikes me in her writing is the lack of any empathy in any of the rants/complaints. When I read credible arguments, I always feel like there's a bit of understanding involved, as in "these people think this, for certain reasons we've actually bothered to explore and will treat fairly, but it turns out this other thing is the case because.."

The problem is, if you don't bother to look into the other side of things, you can't have real understanding. I saw nothing in that article as to /why/ google might have done what they did, only some really petulant complaints and vague innuendo about "rogue contractors". I got the same impression from other posts, like where she accused ruby programmers of being "hipsters", because, you know, obviously you can just do everything in C++ so why bother to learn something new?

[wisty]

Everyone knows Google cut perks to save money. If they'd told people to accept a lower salary, on the basis of the perks being worth 20k, that employee is bound to be pissed when they were taken away. They were part of the salary negotiation - to the author, that's like cutting her wage because the stock numbers were down.

[rdtsc]

> Usually when I read things that I disagree with it doesn't really prod at me ... I saw nothing in that article as to /why/ google might have done what they did

And then from the article:

""" but enough people finally cornered them and got them to admit it was about the cost. """

From what I see, you really didn't read the article.

[StavrosK]

Of course it was about the cost. The article doesn't mention any reasons why they would have to cut costs, though.

[zeroboy]

No, it's not "of course it's because of the cost" because it could have been for another reason, and (thank God) the article wasn't about why Google would cut back on a perk. If it was, I wouldn't have read it.

[lusr]

I too find the writing style very distracting, but I can't quite place my finger on what it is exactly. It's very strange, though. That being said, I think the post makes a valuable point that anybody can learn about negotiating: what are they really giving you, did you expect to get that anyway (i.e. is it material to negotiations), can you reasonably claim it's not material even if it IS something special they're offering (I have allergies to about 25% of common foods, so I prepare my own food), can they take it away later, etc.

[zeroboy]

Interesting how that is. I thought the writing was particularly good, and I make my living writing for the web.

[zeroboy]

The article isn't about why Google cut costs like free cafeteria food. It's about an employee agreeing to work somewhere that is reputed to be "world class" because they were promised a benefit and then that benefit was taken away.