>A lot of it is essentially dance and performance.
While it may look like a dance when a single practitioner is doing a kata or “form”, it’s anything but a performance or a dance. There’s full contact, pit, octagon, Bellator, K1, and various other avenues to “practice” your martial art on someone’s face.
But shows you just how easily they do break. However because we think “board” we assume it’s cut grain wise like a normal person. They aren’t and are about as strong as a chopstick.
You don’t find it concerning and possibly suspicious that both whistleblowers have died? The first one said “if anything happens to me, it’s not suicide”. Now this…
> The first one said “if anything happens to me, it’s not suicide”.
That's what one of his female friends claimed he said. You don't think it's more likely that a grown man of the boomer generation might not be up-front about his mental health to his female friends?
Meanwhile, others who were closer to him said he was having a tough time. And he was found in his own truck, shot with his own gun, with his hand on the trigger, and a note, across state lines from where he lived. And the responding investigators didn't report any signs of foul play.
It's certainly a possibly, but the evidence just doesn't add up that way. As humans, our brains are wired to fall for the narrative fallacy, even when it isn't a good explanation.
Rule number one of being a rebel. Don’t do it at work. Protest all you want in the public streets where you have freedom of assembly. You do NOT have that freedom within a corporate office building. Regardless of employer. A few firings and maybe they’ll get the message to take it outside.
I empathize with people wanting to speak out over something they are passionate about. I do this often. Just know your venue and know your audience. Bridges take a while to build…
At almost every company I've worked over the years, I had to go through countless mandatory annual trainings that effectively says expressing opinions on non work related subjective political topics with coworkers/employer is not advisable, risky and can be grounds for termination in extreme cases.
Either these people genuinely believed there was scope for discussion, or believed their opinion/choice of topic is a PR minefield that their employer wouldn't dare take action or they really wanted to get fired.
I'm not from the US. So, unless I'm missing some cultural context, their actions like political activism at work (unless related to labor issues and laws) are unthinkable atleast in my country.
But a company isn’t a democracy. They don’t have a right to protest it.
If they as employees refuse to work (what they’re paid to do), then the employer has every right to fire them. They aren’t forming a union or something.
You’re saying that there are countries where there could be an employee that does all this stuff (refusing to din their day to day job) and potentially politicizes the public image of the company and the company couldn’t fire them?
Not talking about fairness or morality. Just legality.
It's a stretch to call it work related for the person protesting. If it were, the simple act of not working would be sufficient protest against the opposed work.
Those trainings are mandatory but usually done via an edutech platform that is basically just a QuickTime movie. Ethics, compliance, corporate policy, it’s just a 30 minute video you play while you do something else and then click the obvious multiple choice answers for 100%. Then forget everything in a week.
Lately it’s been those 2D animations using canned software and AI voice over because that’s cheaper than actually giving a damn. Animaker I believe.
United States. Every 6 months, mandatory courses exactly as GP described. If you refuse, you don't have a job. This is so absolutely normal for most tech and finance companies, and has been for years, that I'm utterly astonished that you believe the GP is making it up. Hell, even my fast food working niece has to do these courses!
Extremely common in corporate America. I had to click through more of them than I can count, luckily the service my employer did it through would let you skip to the end of the videos and blow through it faster. I don't understand why routine CYA being done is so hard to believe.
Well, if you aren't keen on doxxing yourself you shouldn't use arguments that require the reader to trust you. Internet is full of liars who claim to be everything from astronauts, to law professors, to IT employees who have gone through "countless mandatory annual trainings that effectively says expressing opinions on non work related subjective political topics with coworkers/employer is not advisable". I have not gone through "those annoying trainings" and since you can't offer a single shred of evidence for their existence...
I work for the US government. The trainings are real. I don’t remember this exact verbiage but similar for sure. The grounds of harassment basically constitute whatever the claimed victim feels to be so. For example, (and this is from training), saying goodmorning, commenting on hair, not saying good morning or not repeating back, and more. I just skip through but it’s an in depth asynchronous training supplemented by multiple live events.
Edit: and lest I be accused of harassment, good morning or -silence- to everyone according to your preference!
Ps Also our calendars are provided by the equal employment opportunity office and have helpful quotes each month on what is harassment and what is going to happen to you if you do it!
PPS in addition to multiple asynchronous trainings and live events and calendars it’s also plastered all over the buildings, bathrooms, and break rooms.
PPPS we also get emails regularly from top level secretaries and directors and I think there may be dedicated months as well to increase awareness.
Final: I sound bitter here but I agree harassment is bad but the level of psychological programming makes my stomach turn. Anyways yes it’s real.
Even if what you claim is correct (which I doubt and you aren't going to offer any evidence), it is irrelevant since you are working in the US and they are not. Moreover, their claim was about "expressing opinions on non work related subjective political topics" while yours is about what constitutes harassment. And this is perhaps what they experienced too. They are told that when someone says "hi" they should reply with "hi", but on the Internet this is blown way out of proportions to be about how every job they ever been at tried to stifle political speech.
Because I'm very used to well poisoners and their lies. As in this case, the liars can't offer any corroborating evidence and implicitly demands that you should disprove their lies. Which of course is impossible. Eventually, the lies become so entrenched because they aren't questioned that people like you become shocked when others disbelieve them.
Their actions achieved nothing of consequence. I don't see how that makes them "heroes", even from the point of view of someone that supports their views.
Sadly for them, I don't know any of their names, couldn't care who they are, and their protest will vanish from the news cycle in a few hours ... forever.
I suspect this is the same for everyone, even those who may be discussing Google's response.
So they may have wanted a "me me me" response, or they may have legitimately wanted to raise awareness, but it's a pretty large fail for a now strongly narrowed career path.
there's also the fact that google will just keep being used by nearly everyone. at the same time, for the now fired employees, having "was a google employee" in their resumes will help them land a new job
I think it really depends on the company. There are a lot of companies out there with a wide range of values. Some might even consider this a quality that they want in a candidate (it will certainly eliminate them from consideration for some companies though).
I doubt the majority of companies will consider it desirable even if they happen to be in political agreement with you --- because people's beliefs change over time.
That’s true! Some might even be more inclined to hire you based on your stance on the matter and that you protested. Good point. Just saying it’s not the best light to show why you were let go. I stick to the canned “We were over-resourced and so there were layoffs” is an easy blanket statement.
They accomplished me never responding to Google recruiter emails and informing others in my network to avoid Google where they can be fired for happening upon a protest at work.
I feel "Virtue signalling" isn't really fair when they have so much skin in the game here. That's evidence of sincerity rather than disingenuousness, agree or disagree with them.
Unless the definition of virtue signalling is so expansive as to be meaningless, where every act of protest which is not anonymous is virtue signalling.
The consequence of their actions is that they receive high social status from people with similar politics and Google makes zero changes to their contracts with Israel. And that was obviously going to be the result of these actions.
If you want to attribute their actions to a genuine desire to help the Palestinians, that is fine.
Then they shouldn't be suing imo. Suing implies they think they shouldn't have been fired, which means their risk was not intentional. So they're not heroes.
There's no philosophical dilemma here. Each participant in the conflict is using the tools at their disposal to get what they want.
The protestors want change from the company. So they protest. The company wants to shut them up. So they fire everyone.
The protestors still want change, now plus compensation. So they sue. Not suing makes no sense, as it concedes defeat and gets them no closer to their goals.
That's purely based on personal opinion though. I'm sure you could find people with the opposite opinion, that in a just world they would be able to go to work and do their job without having political debates forced on them.
Or alternately, one could easily say that in a just world a person would leave their when they disagree with the company rather than making a spectacle out of it.
You can find people who disagree with me about allowing mixed race couples, but it isn't meaningful to say that it's "purely based on personal opinion". You might as well also comment on how I used air to breath while writing it.
No one was stopped from going to work. There were no "political debates" going on, much less "forced" on people.
I swear you guys are just making stuff up to get mad at. I feel like there are real problems you could be worried about, like the people in Rafah. Instead I see a lot of chuffing about a gathering of noisy people. Whatever makes you feel good about your time on earth, I guess.
I had seen reports that there were people disrupting others trying to work in the office. I also expect that those protesting weren't talking about the weather, they would have been raising the issues they are there to protest.
Call it what you want I guess, but that is IMO stopping work and engaging in political debate.
I'm not sure why you reach for a straw man argument about air or mixed race couples, neither of those are relevant here at all and just make your argument weaker.
Edit: also to be clear, I'm not sure who the "you guys" you're referring to are and I'd rather not be lumped in with some larger group for my opinion on one specific situation. I'm also not looking to be angry about anything and am in no way angry about this. I can have opinions without it throwing my mood out of whack.
Most articles circulating widely have included quotes from Google that the protesters that have been fired were physically disrupting those at work. I didn't expect that to be a contentious reference without a source, but sure here's one - https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/google-fires-more-worke...
To be clear, I'm well aware those are quotes from Google's PR department. I'm not taking them as true and was primarily building off other comments here. I think I covered that well by making sure I including "if true ..." caveats, not sure what else you'd want from me here other than to agree with you.
"We continued our investigation into the physical disruption inside our buildings on April 16, looking at additional details provided by coworkers who were physically disrupted,"
So that is what Google, one party to the conflict, claims. Not something independent sources have verified. I'm pretty sure the protestors deny that anyone was "physically disrupted". Edit: You have updated your comments. My point is that it is unfair to default to believing Google and disbelieving the protestors.
The only update I made above was an explicit "Edit:" note a couple comments up, but that was before you commented here. I haven't changed any context or points I raised, in case that was a concern.
And again to be clear, I'm intentionally not trusting only Google and I called that out when I included a source (as requested). I don't think I've been misleading or unfair here, I'm not quite sure what you're taking issue with at this point.
> I swear you guys are just making stuff up to get mad at. I feel like there are real problems you could be worried about, like the people in Rafah. Instead I see a lot of chuffing about a gathering of noisy people. Whatever makes you feel good about your time on earth, I guess.
This is a bit revealing. If you can't see anything but "us vs them" that's fine, but many people are a lot more objective and less trival than that. And that's why we'll win.
(Kidding about the last part. That's tribal lunacy.)
> Risking something for a protest is the whole point.
I can think of a number of protests that didn’t involve risking one’s career, livelihood, or life - that were pretty successful outside the workplace. Inside the workplace, it’s not a public venue and you don’t have the right to occupy offices and sit ins and disrupt work while expecting the company to pay you for that time.
Get realistic. They aren’t heroes. They are trespassers. Disruptive ex-employees that cost the company money. Now if they did this right outside Google offices on the streets, that’s a different story all together. That’s a public place. However, many states have at-will employment so if the company feels you no longer represent their interests, you’re done. Bye. Doesn’t matter the cause.
Sure, agree, but what about the employee in the article who wondered onto the 10th floor to check out the protest. That person wasn't actively protesting. And that person gets fired. That's not right.
Guilty by association. Again, at-will employment means they can justify it however they want to and it’s totally legal. Unless the individual is part of a union…
Agreed. I learned this with Black Sails (first few episodes were huh?) and it evolved into something awesome. The Americans as well. I think that’s usually the case with shows that are trying something new and haven’t quite got the formula down. First season of Star Trek was a freak show of theater that somehow, worked. Thrived. And blossomed. Let’s just pray Bob Igor doesn’t get his hands on the franchise.
I now follow this advice with all shows. I’ll give it a full season to see if they develop something I’m interested in following.
Black Sails in particular evolved with the writers' historical knowledge of real pirates as they moved from made up nonsense they read to actual research.
This theory of multiple points supports the big ring and other structures outside the “this shouldn’t exist” bubble. The bubble is the Big Bang + rate of expansion. It was thought that there was nothing outside of the farthest point… but there is!
Yes. The tell is when the req has been open for a few weeks yet no one has been interviewed in person (or video) yet. The manager will claim they have, but have they really?
This is why folks in their 40s+ end up still listening to the same stuff. lol. The article was right about that.
Acts like Greta Fleet help bridge those gaps between old school sounds and new music. Electronica has never been easier to get into as well and there’s a nostalgia for those old school synthwave vibes.
Like all things, there’s an ebb and flow to music and musical taste over time. You’ll find as you understand music more, you’ll be listening to classical on a Thursday morning just as much as you’ll listen to pop, rock, or jazz.
By the time you reach 60, your musical tastes should be broad enough to appreciate all music, hopefully. Obviously some will reach that point faster than others. Musicians tend to be the fastest since they are students of music.
I still have a rock playlist I created in my late 20s on Spotify that I listen to this day. Mostly started as a digital version of my in-car CD collection.
While it may look like a dance when a single practitioner is doing a kata or “form”, it’s anything but a performance or a dance. There’s full contact, pit, octagon, Bellator, K1, and various other avenues to “practice” your martial art on someone’s face.