"Bring your whole selves to the office" can work pretty darn well (at least from the C-suite PoV) when the company is a (relative) plucky little startup, and you're trying to get the drones to work 80+ hour weeks for crap pay.
But when you're a corporate behemoth, with a "keep turning crank to keep making $billions" business model...then not so much.
The “bring your whole/authentic self to work” is a terrible thing to tell people. Precisely because companies have cultural values they are giving you at the same time. They are literally telling you who you should be at work and then telling you to be your “authentic self” out of the other side of their mouth. Those of us who are older know what they mean. We know they don’t want us to actually be ourselves. But I think younger folks actually believe this and I feel like they are basically being setup to get fired this way.
There is no conflict, if your complete authentic self is a manifestation of the corporate values -- the Word Made Flesh, Google incarnate. You are Google in the boardroom and Google in the bedroom. Ungoogly thoughts are unrepresentable within your mind.
Well to be fair I imagine your workplace isn't also wading into a contentious geopolitical conflict with billions of dollars. I don't think I would ever protest in the manner described at my job but I would probably quit over it. If you want your employees to stay out of politics then you should probably lead by example.
As an outside observer, I just hear a lot of hyperbolic reasoning like:
"Tech workers are demanding that they have right to know how their labour is going to be used. With little clarity about the project, they fear the technology might be used for harm."
Is there actual specifics about Project Nimbus that "are helping it commit atrocities in Palestine", or is it just that Google is selling general cloud computing to Israel as a customer?
Not just to "Israel" as a customer -- but at least part of the project has been earmarked to the IDF specifically (per documents obtained in a recent Time magazine investigation).
That's a huge distinction, especially given what we now know about Project Lavender. And in itself is ample grounds to not to meekly ask, but to demand from Google that it provide clarification as whether the tools or services it is providing will be used in such projects, and if doing so is in accord with its own stated policies.
A question to which it thus far seems hellbent on not providing anything resembling a straight answer to.
But afaik Lavender is an Israeli internal tool, not Google developed. I'm not arguing for Google or Israel here, just that people passionate about this aren't straightforward either.
Do you have any proof this is running on infrastructure and support of Google?
I have to say I would be extremely surprised if Israel hosts intelligence data on GCP. Extremely surprised to a level I'd suspect high negligence on their part.
"High negligence" seems to has characterized the IDF response to the situation in Gaza at nearly every turn since Oct 7th.
The point the protesters are making is not that there is hard proof in hand about any specific projects at this point - but that there is ample ground, their view, to demand positive clarification from these companies that these tools aren't being used to cause harm in the occupied territories.
Given the magnitude of the crimes we are seeing on the ground, after all. And that thousands upon thousands of lives -- of persons who are unambiguously noncombatants -- have already been extinguished on far lower standards of proof. In the most gruesome circumstances imaginable.
I used to have a co worker who always wanted to discuss his conspiracy theories at work. From "the moon landing didn't happen", "vaccination causes autism" to the "earth is flat" it just wouldn't end.
It was exhausting because I just wanted to show up and do my work and stay professional. I didn't even judge him for having those opinions. For all I cared he could do what he likes in private but it was infuriating that he did not realize that he was actively bothering by wanting to discuss controversial opinions at the workplace. I also remembered this guy as not really a very interested or efficient worker. He came to work to talk basically.
Years later, the guy now has 1K+ linked in connections, every bs certification imaginable and calls himself an "AI and futurism consultant". He may have learned that if he just talked about some other bs than before, he could make a lot of money.
