A tale of working at Google
Elilla tells the tale of working at Google ca 2007-2008. Deep in Mordor where the shadows lie: Dystopian tales of that time when I sold out to Google:
let’s talk about capitalism and anarchism, about the precariat and surveillance, plush dolls and churrascarias and gay argots; let us go back in time and space, and journey to tropical Brazil in the distant time of 2007…
Reading the whole piece it comes to a few observations:
- Google has different levels of servitude. If you are not full-time employee, then you are in a different level than the full-timers.
- The story is told from the PoV of someone in Brazil. This really look like Google treat workers in this country differently than say in North America.
- The manager was somewhere in Arizona. That a long commute from Brazil. I wonder how they did foster collaboration not being in the same office, given Google current stance against remote work it feels like the hyprocrisy has been for a long time. But is also sounds like they don’t trust people in Brazil to manage.
- It was already all smoke and mirrors. This was when both Chrome and Android were being worked on for first releases. Recruiters promised a lot and undelivered it all. Strangely Google had lower payscales than others. And their 20% promise was just a bait.
In short Google was already evil driven by capitalism.
Post Scriptum: I love the reference to Paranoia the RPG. Quite apropriate comparing Google to the Alpha Complex. And this games was written in the early 80s.