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Google engineer who criticized company in viral comics on why he finally quit:
Former Google engineer Manu Cornet describes his time at Google in two phases. First, there were "glitches in wonderland." Then, there was "disillusionment."
Those two descriptions are actually the sub-headings for Cornet's two volumes of comics he has published about his former employer, which he called Goomics. Though Cornet was an engineer, he also spent 11 of his 14 years at Google drawing comics about employees, quirks, culture, and, eventually, larger societal and ethical issues facing the company and its workers. Some of those topics included Google contracts with government agencies like ICE, making a search engine for China's government that complies with censorship laws, and more.
Chronicling those issues allowed Cornet to reflect on his place at Google, and prompted him to make a change. Cornet recently quit, and has taken a new job (at Twitter, a company with whom he says he has fewer ethical qualms). He is now the latest big tech employee — including employees at Facebook and Amazon — to publicly resign from their positions in protest of the company's overall behavior.
"As the years passed by there were more and more things to have ethical qualms about that the company was doing at a higher level," Cornet said. "I had to look at the bigger picture and think that maybe I would be better elsewhere."
[...] Unfortunately, Cornet found plenty of fodder for less-buoying Goomics. What infuriates him most — and provides frequent inspiration for his comics — is what he views as hypocrisy at the company.
"The mismatch between what they say and what they really do is growing," Cornet said. "The thicker the gap is, the easier it is to point out that hypocrisy."
That extended to both major news items at the executive level, and changes within the company that affected employees. Google made headlines in 2019 for banning political discussion on employee message boards. But Cornet described one of their internal mottos as "bring your whole self to work." He sees a gap between messaging the company uses to attract employees, and the needs of shareholders.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Marand on Sunday July 18 2021, @02:45AM (1 child)
There's a term for it: projection [wikipedia.org]. People tend to assume everyone thinks like them, so the shitty things they do, did, or would do are obviously the shitty things everyone else thinks is acceptable. Some people feel guilty about those thoughts and go to extreme lengths to convince everyone it's other people not them, while others feel no such thing but assume everyone else is the same way and thus need to defend against it.
You see it a lot with people in certain types of work that tend to self-select for certain unfavourable behaviours. For example, people that are successful in sales and business tend to be slimy motherfuckers that would backstab a family member for a profit, assume everyone else is the same way, and conduct business accordingly while desperately attempting to paint themselves as different. They'll use any excuse to not pay someone what's owed, so they assume everyone else will do the same and it turns into a twisted game of trying to fuck over the other person, all while pretending they're the upstanding good guy being wronged.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday July 18 2021, @07:30PM
That's what the P in GOP stands for and has done since, oh, probably Reagan if not Nixon.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...