A Walkout Against Tech Discrimination

It never rains, but pours.

And for Google, it's been a veritable monsoon. From the Damore debacle to getting successfully sued by Oracle, Google has been facing an increasing avalanche of problems. The Silicon Valley giant found itself the subject of a massive walkout staged by its own employees all over the world last week, in response to revelations of sexual misconduct from male staff and how Google handled (or mishandled, depending on who you ask) these cases.

One particular case stands out. Andy Rubin, known as "Father of Android", was asked to leave a few years ago when the company discovered that he had sexually assaulted a colleague. The severance package was 90 million.

Now, if Google had been under legal obligation to pay that amount, this wouldn't have been an issue. But then-CEO Larry Page appeared to have covered up the entire incident for fear of negative press, and paid Rubin to keep him quiet. And in these times, the SJW culture in Google, fostered quite handily by current CEO Sundar Pichai, simply wouldn't stand for it.

Thus, the walkout.

It started in Google's offices in Asia, such as Singapore. And then those in the US and Canada joined in. Several more countries are on the list, but hell if I'm going to name them all. Employees left their desks in droves at 11 AM, gathering outside or in lobbies to protest against the actions taken to protect these sexual predators, with a specific list of demands.

Cute flyer, eh?

The Demands

An end to forced arbitration in cases of harassment and discrimination. Sure, I can get behind that. Harassment and discrimination (especially the former) is too big to be buried. Deal with it openly and fairly. Involve the law, if need be.

A commitment to end pay and opportunity inequity, for example making sure there are women of color at all levels of the organization, and accountability for not meeting this commitment. Oh, really? That kind of bullshit is ruinous. Ending pay and opportunity inequity is a fine and noble goal; artificially putting people in place based on gender and race is discriminatory... and an insult to women of color who actually earned their spot.

A publicly disclosed sexual harassment transparency report. Well and good. Easy to do, I'd imagine. Provided nobody tries to, ahem, hush things up.

A clear, uniform, globally inclusive process for reporting sexual misconduct safely and anonymously. HR would have to seriously pull its socks up, and be afforded more autonomy overall. Not easy by any means, but doable.

Elevate the Chief Diversity Officer to answer directly to the CEO and make recommendations directly to the board of directors. In addition, appoint an employee representative to the board. Oh, fuck off. A "Chief Diversity Officer" sounds like a stupid idea in the first place. Why the obsession over diversity? Google does not need less men or more women; they need more employees who don't disrespect their colleagues, period. And they need management who will enforce the rules effectively with neither fear nor favor.

How did it get to this?

First off, let me just say that the prevalence of males over females in the tech scene is more a Silicon Valley problem rather than a specifically Google one. But hey, we all gotta start somewhere.

Next, a company of Google's size notoriously difficult to police, and it ought to be. Sure, they can have policies in place. Fat lot of good it did with Uber, if you recall. As long as higher management disregards these rules at any point in time for whatever justification, it's all moot. Larry Page' actions have come back to bite Google in the ass, and I can't say I'm sorry about that. Sure, my disdain for the SJW culture in Google is well-documented, but my antipathy towards those who abuse their authority to coerce colleagues into sexual favors is far greater.

Google did not get themselves into this position overnight. It was built up over generations of hiring the wrong kind of people, and lax enforcement of mutual respect in the workplace. No amount of hysterical SJWs clamoring for justice is going to change that unless higher management changes their approach, prioritizing employees over the company's pristine (well, now not so pristine) image and PR. I've said it before - Google is a profit-driven corporation trying desperately to appear socially conscientious while struggling with issues such as alleged pay disparity between males and females, gender discrimination and now sexual misbehavior. My opinion is that they tried too damn hard to maintain that image, even at the cost of their ethics, and it backfired. Spectacularly.

What now?

Sundar Pichai is coming off as placatory in his statements, and it's hard not to feel a little sorry for the guy. Sure, he didn't make things better, but let's be fair - he inherited the situation in 2015. He didn't ask for any of this, and whatever changes he might have wanted to make would have to pass the Board of Directors, whose main concerns are profits and the aforementioned PR. That SJW culture he seems to have tacitly encouraged during his tenure is now rising up to put an end to the charade.

This is just coming from some nobody software dev from the tiny island of Singapore, but I say - practice what your motto preaches. Do The Right Thing - over and over - and the rest will slowly but surely follow. For now, of course, ol' Sundar can only hope to survive the fallout from this. There are no quick fixes.

That's all from me. Over and (walk)out!
T___T