>good luck if your HR department defends the company and not you

What do you mean "if"? That is what HR is for, defending the company. They do not exist for your benefit.

It is very much in the companies best interest to stop that kind of thing. If you go to them and they don't deal with the situation, they open themselves up to massive liability.

People forget that an employee is also a member of the company. What if the accuser is in management? Who is HR supposed to defend? By choosing to defend discrimination over the route that might actually resolve the situation, HR can end up causing more problems for the company in the end.

the sadder part, I have seen minority managers pick on other minorities and make comments that would never fly if from a non-minority. as one friend told me, who is going to believe him, let alone care.

This shouldn't be about winning some battle. It's not illegal to be an asshole - I can walk into your workplace and say "sunir's spouse is a complete idiot and shouldn't be allowed to reproduce." Likely though, I wouldn't be working there much longer. Simply put the guy is toxic and it makes me sick that it was swept under the rug. It further confuses that this happened at Google as I'd never imagined their culture tolerating a toxic work environment. Even worse if it was swept under the rug because she was a black woman.

Actually, it is illegal to create a hostile work environment under the California labor law (and many other US states and developed countries). Race and gender are protected statuses.

Companies are expected to have anti-harassment or anti-discrimination policies.

References:

http://www.toplawfirm.com/HostileWorkEnvironment.html

http://www.harriskaufman.com/Articles/Harassment-Advice-What...

There are people out there who aren't necessarily toxic in general, but can say toxic things from time to time. And to be honest, if you got rid of everyone who had asshole lapses, you would be left with only the most socially capable (and not necessarily the best asocial engineering talent). Other than that, I'm not sure what the solution should be.

Why do people expect Google to have a good culture? I really don't get it.

* Huge company

* Misanthropic "products"

* Based in a notoriously capitalist country

Sure that must be a great place to work.

If you're going to disqualify every company that is "based in a notoriously capitalistic country", then your bias against capitalism is so strong that it's over-riding your ability to judge a workplace on its merits.

For that matter, if you're that strongly against capitalism, doesn't the idea of a corporation itself offend you? It's not just the country it's based in.

It was just one of three points. How about:

* Small company

* Vegetable farming

* Based in notoriously capitalist country

I can see working there.

> strongly against capitalism

Actually I am rather embracing capitalism, which is weird, because one must be an idiot to not have very very very strong feelings against the meat grinder. To you US guys this may sound off, but the somewhat educated human being does not think capitalism entails freedom. In fact it is common knowledge that it causes general loss of humanity, democracy and quality of both life and dreams.

So consider this a "for the record": Of course capitalism is a big no-no (well duh). But if your living in a capitalist country anyways, you might consider avoiding big companies because they tend to make use of all the benefits capitalism entails them to.

> For that matter, if you're that strongly against capitalism, doesn't the idea of a corporation itself offend you? It's not just the country it's based in.

It might make sense looking up "capitalism". A corporation in itself is not really related to capitalism. Instead, its system of profit-by-property (the capital) instead of profit-by-labor is usually pinned as the core concept.

There are ranges of capitalism and democratic socialism. It's not black and white.