In my first digs at Google I specifically avoided exposing any relationship (it was exposed by an HN commenter, to deflect). All I said was that there was mismanagement at a level approaching the criminal (which is true) and I gave a couple details (accidentally leaking calibration scores-- I thought that had been common knowledge-- and the death of 20% time).

Neither of these are confidential. How a company treats its employees is (with lots of legal precedent) covered under whistleblower protections-- not a trade secret. Therefore, the existence of any employment relationship is irrelevant.

If I leaked a product, I'd be unethical and deserve to be sued. Exposing the existence of calibration scores is fair game.

"Choke on a fucking taint, Google. Choke. On. A. Taint."

It is not okay to say that about your former employer. In any context.

If you think it is okay to say that about your former employer, there's something wrong with you. I certainly would never want to work with you.

Still, you're right in a way. Google is 55,000 people and I have no problem with 54.9+ thousand of them. In fact, that company often makes great products because, in spite of the executive malignancy, they have some top-notch engineering talent under their roof.

I shouldn't have said, "Choke on a taint, Google". I should have said, "Choke on a taint; parasitic, psychopathic, incompetent and entitled executive caste that implemented closed allocation at a once-great company, developed a mean-spirited, Kafkaesque 'calibration score' system worse than Enron's, and has destroyed billions of dollars of value."

Sorry, but the people who played a direct role in the managerial destruction (e.g. calibration scores) of Google are human garbage. They took what used to be a great company and destroyed it, and for no good reason. They deserve much more than I have thrown at them.

It's because it makes YOU look bad.

Can I ask a question? You keep complaining about closed allocation. What EXACTLY would you want them to have, instead? And I don't mean just say "open," say specifically what you mean, how you think it would work in practice. At a company with 55,000 employees.

Also, you're putting way too much emphasis on calibration scores. Companies record what managers think of their employees. How ELSE would you want a company to do it?

After Google, I worked for a company with the most unethical management I've ever encountered. True evil. (Calibration scores are just criminal stupidity; not the same class.) Also, that company is notorious in NYC for having unethical management. Furthermore, I was there for 3 months... after a 6-month period at Google. Now that is a blotch on my CV.

I'm done worrying about cosmetic shit. I already fail on that front. Too much substance, and it's too visible by now.

I also don't buy into the "never make an employer look bad". If you're there for 2+ years, then I agree and would say that the rule applies, even if you were laid off or had a crappy manager at the end, because there's nothing embarrassing about a 2-year stint. If you are at a company for less than 12 months, either you or they like horrible. Make it them by airing enough to prove them the bad guys. (Then you still look bad, but not horrible, because you show it to be their fault.)

Can I ask a question? You keep complaining about closed allocation. What EXACTLY would you want them to have, instead? And I don't mean just say "open," say specifically what you mean, how you think it would work in practice. At a company with 55,000 employees.

Actually, being large makes it much easier to afford open allocation. If you're small, you often have real technical deadlines that put the business at risk, so full-on open allocation isn't always possible.

If you're at Google's size, your moral responsibility to your engineers is open allocation, because you can afford it. It's the 20-person companies that have deadlines and clients that have good reasons not to do full open allocation.

So, that's easy, at least for the engineering organization. That's where you start, and you branch out from there as you build a knowledge base.

Companies record what managers think of their employees. How ELSE would you want a company to do it?

Well... for starters, take that garbage out of the transfer packet.

Does this seem radical? Actually, the law is on my side, here. Until about 1995, most companies didn't have performance reviews in the transfer packet. At all. Those were separate and only came out when someone actually needed to be fired. Enron changed that. It was Enron that made stylish the "innovation" of making performance reviews part of the transfer packet, and Google is carrying the torch.

A manager who interferes with internal mobility is guilty of harassment (plenty of legal precedent here) because internal mobility is considered part of a worker's job performance, and interference with job performance is...? Well, it's one of the most common subcategories of workplace harassment. Ergo, a manager who communicates anything negative about an employee (except a breach of law or professional ethics) is guilty of harassment and can be charged.

That's why the calibration scores and manager-level-only feedback are secret. It's to allow Google (or, more specifically, managers) to break the fucking law.

Yes, companies need to fire severe underperformers, unethical people, and law-breakers. That's true. Performance review for mutual benefit also has some value. Creating a system where performance reviews are part of the transfer process is, while not technically outlawed, essentially giving managers the right to break the law.

When I say that closed-allocation management in the Google/Enron-style company is often extortion, I'm not exaggerating. It's technically civil rather than criminal extortion, but now we're getting into details.

I don't believe I know anyone who would see it your way. This is like complaining about your ex-girlfriends on match.com, it's self-defeating in a way that just makes me feel bad for you that you think it will be effective and help you achieve your own goals. It won't. And I honestly think that if you found someone who it DID convince, that they're not a good person to work for, and that will become apparent in time.

Back to my question - You talk a lot for not actually answering my question:

How do you think open allocation would work in practice. Lay it out for me like I'm 5 years old. It would also be to your benefit, if you could point to companies, of roughly equal size, that do it the way you want Google to.

Everyone in a company evaluates actual worker performance. Yes, it's possible to game that system maliciously, and that would probably be harassment. But it's perfectly reasonable to communicate performance evaluations when considering any promotion, increased responsibility, or transfer to another team.