Emi Nietfeld has taken to the New York Times op-ed page to document how things fell apart for them while working for the Monster of Mountain View. What they thought was a paradise turned out to be anything but after they became the victim of harassment from their technical lead.
As soon as my complaint with H.R. was filed, Google went from being a great workplace to being any other company: It would protect itself first.
I’d structured my life around my job — exactly what they wanted me to do — but that only made the fallout worse when I learned that the workplace that I cherished considered me just an employee, one of many and disposable.
The process stretched out for nearly three months. In the meantime I had to have one-on-one meetings with my harasser and sit next to him. Every time I asked for an update on the timeline and expressed my discomfort at having to continue to work in proximity to my harasser, the investigators said that I could seek counseling, work from home or go on leave. I later learned that Google had similar responses to other employees who reported racism or sexism.
Emi eventually left Google and is now writing a book about their experiences there.