Re:James Damore and three others end Google suit
by zozbot234 on Saturday May 09, 2020 @12:21PM
(#23126026)
They expressly asked him to share his opinion about an extremely divisive, almost third-rail topic. You're just saying that his statement ended up being divisive as well, but that's tautological. It's simply not possible to be "politically neutral" about such a topic and say anything worthwhile.
Re:James Damore and three others end Google suit
by wpietri on Saturday May 09, 2020 @01:19PM
(#23126533)
Could you please point me to your source for the exact wording of their request?
Re:James Damore and three others end Google suit
by piflon on Saturday May 09, 2020 @12:21PM
(#23126025)
He was clueless, insofar as he made the mistake of trusting a giant corporation to be a good steward of a political space.
Re:James Damore and three others end Google suit
by wpietri on Saturday May 09, 2020 @01:16PM
(#23126506)
It wasn't a political space. It was a corporate space that Damore used for an explicitly political end.
Re:James Damore and three others end Google suit
by kortilla on Saturday May 09, 2020 @08:19PM
(#23129312)
It was a political space. The topic was literally about gender hiring policies.
Re:James Damore and three others end Google suit
by wpietri on Sunday May 10, 2020 @01:18AM
(#23130484)
To the extent that every space is political, sure. But it's not like Google had declared themselves steward of a space devoted to political discussions. They're a business. Employees at work should keep in mind they're at work.
I'm not coloring his response when I call it a divisive political opinion piece. It's explicitly framed as "the politics of the majority of people at Google is a big problem". And whether or not their initial request technically was broad enough to include his response isn't the issue.
Either Damore was reasonably smart, and he knew that this would at best be enormously divisive. Or maybe he was just incredibly clueless. (Personally I think it was the former.) When bosses (or anybody) ask for something, technically complying with the literal meaning of their words is not enough. One has to consider goals and context, and respond accordingly.