The case being made in this thread is that that was how they got her, not why they fired her. I know none of the facts and am perfectly ignorant about this situation, but I have seen people get kicked out for semi-justifiable surface reasons that were totally unrelated to why their superiors didn't like them. So a-priori, the theory that the difference between someone's not-so-significant faults being tolerated or not being tolerated, is their willingness to comply with the goals that for whatever reason the leadership doesn't feel they can make explicit, is a reasonable suggestion.

> The case being made in this thread is that that was how they got her, not why they fired her

Conjecturing what could be the real reason, person A conjecturing why a person B does what he does (hates our freedom, for example) and why one should not take B's own explanation of his own actions -- these to me are an avoidable form of discourse. Nothing good comes of it other than an obligate outrage.

Well, refusing to consider the idea that someone might do something with more than zero layers of subtlety... would lead to falling for every trick anybody ever tries to play. ;) A more appropriate response would be to admit that it's not easy to tell the difference, and maybe, if the interlocutor cares enough, to do some research to determine whether or not it's still suspicious once the facts are known. One example of some facts that could resolve or strengthen the suspicion would be: How many other emails of equal or greater verbal strength were sent at Google, but then not followed up by dismissal?

> would lead to falling for every trick anybody ever tries to play

Welcome to engineers playing organizational politics.

I've seen way worse emails. Doesn't seem like a fireable offense to me. At least I've seen people not fired for worse and never seen anyone fired for something similar (or less).

As someone I saw post on Twitter relate to this... the best way to discriminate is to have rules, but apply them discriminately. So you can always point to the rule, but it really only applies to certain people.

> he best way to discriminate is to have rules, but apply them discriminately. So you can always point to the rule, but it really only applies to certain people.

And HN falls for it every single time.

Oh yeah, we totally didn't fire this Googler for the unionization push, it was because he looked at one of his bosses' publicly available calendar.

Ah yes, Google, where behavior befitting a manager such as sexual harassment (which is found to be credible by internal investigation) gets you $90 Million exit packages (Andy Rubin), or silence (Amit Singhal).