为谷歌工作就能拿高薪？“影子员工”的心酸你不懂

凯文·基普罗斯基有一个十分光鲜的头衔，“探险助理”，还有一份有趣的工作——向年轻学生们演示谷歌的虚拟现实设备。他去学校时，会穿一件印有卡通鲸鱼和谷歌标志的灰色T恤衫。但有时公司的声誉会让事情变得尴尬。有一次，一位老师质问基普罗斯基：“‘你走进来展示设备的时候有什么感觉？要知道，你比我们所有人挣的都多。’”他回忆起那位老师这样问他。

“我不得不告诉她，”他说，“‘我一年只赚4万美元。’”他还透露了另一个细节：基普罗斯基实际上并不是正牌的谷歌员工。

他曾经在Vaco Nashville LLC工作，这是谷歌使用的几家人才服务公司和承包公司之一。去年10月，基普罗斯基辞职，发了一封言辞激烈的内部邮件，批评谷歌两级员工之间的不平等。虽然谷歌使用合同工的做法在过去一年里受到了更多关注，但该公司仍然在继续这类行为，把合同工“排除在能够影响我们生活的对话之外”，基普罗斯基写道。他的电子邮件在谷歌内部流传甚广，而这家公司现在陷入了内部混乱，原因是劳工问题以及广大员工群体对公司发展方向有多大发言权的问题。

谷歌员工中超过一半是临时工、供应商或合同工，他们被统称为TVC。这些影子员工无法享受谷歌许多美名远扬的福利和津贴，正是这些福利津贴提升了这家互联网巨头作为全球最佳工作场所之一的美誉。去年，一群TVC要求得到更好的福利，9月，匹兹堡担任数据分析师的TVC投票支持成立工会，这在科技行业十分罕见。

基普罗斯基的辞职凸显了许多TVC面临的困境：他们在工作中需要代表谷歌，但他们实际上并没有为这家公司工作。

2018年年初，基普罗斯基以谷歌TVC的身份加入了公司的一个团队，工作任务是将谷歌的业务拓展到学校。他最初对这份工作的期待很快就破灭了。他的部门人员流动率很高，工作时间也很不灵活。他的责任增加了，报酬却没有增加。他说：“我升职了四次，工资和福利却几乎没有提高。”

他觉得自己在其他方面也受到了限制。谷歌使用大量的内部文档进行项目规划、存储信息。今年夏天，该公司以安全考虑为由，切断了TVC对这些文件的访问权限。谷歌还不允许合同工参加公司内部的很多线上社交群组。基普罗斯基说，工作人员称之为“TVC封锁”，来得毫无征兆。这得到了谷歌及其承包公司多名员工的证实。

谷歌的一位发言人说，这些决定是采用标准客户数据安全措施的一部分，临时工已经收到了通知，而且他们仍然可以使用开展工作所需的工具。她补充说，TVC的晋升政策与正式员工不同。

谷歌有成千上万的TVC是幕后白领，例如产品营销或审查YouTube视频。不过，基普罗斯基的工作——在学校里推广谷歌服务——需要在外界代表公司。

也有其他一些TVC从事这样的工作，尽管他们不由谷歌直接发工资，却需要尴尬地在公众面前代表谷歌形象。在一些办公区，合同工会带着谷歌的求职者去参加面试，或是带着新员工逛园区，一边走一边回答他们闲聊中提出的问题。应聘者经常会问：“你最喜欢的谷歌员工福利是什么？”一名做过这种引领工作的人说。然后这位领路人必须解释：他实际上不是谷歌人。

合同工真实的就业状况十分隐蔽，有时近乎荒谬。另一位来自承包公司的TVC表示，他曾经为谷歌项目工作，去年他被派往纽约的一所学校，向学生推销谷歌的工作工具G Suite。这位合同工主持了一个名为“与谷歌人共进午餐”的座谈会，讨论如何在这家搜索巨头找到一份工作。

基普罗斯基说，他在谷歌的经理们经常暗示，应该掩盖自己并非为谷歌工作的事实。完成了推广虚拟现实的工作后，基普罗斯基开始在大学推广G Suite。当他的一位TVC同事询问管理层，合同工是否应该明确他们的雇佣状况时，得到了不一样的答案。“诚实为上策”是谷歌和Vaco的官方口径。“但他们还会说，”基普罗斯基无意中听到了他们的对话，“‘不过你为什么要告诉他们这些？’”

另一位同属Vaco公司、在谷歌从事类似工作的合同工表示，其他方面的界限也十分模糊。Vaco合同工和谷歌的全职员工在同一栋办公大楼甚至同一层办公。这位员工说，在与公众交流时，关于如何回答有关他们就业的问题，合同工“从未得到过正式指示”。

“通常我只说我在谷歌工作。”这名合同工说，“我尽量在保证不越线的情况下保持诚实，我不会明确说我到底是否在为谷歌工作，因为我不知道他们想要我们怎么说……如果他们不想让我们告诉公众我们的存在，那说明了什么？他们也承认这看起来不太好看？”

Vaco没有回应笔者的评论请求，但该公司在官网上表示，他们的服务帮助员工在工作中找到有意义的自由。“我们帮助人们找到自由。”该声明写道，“远离没有灵魂的工作的自由……在混乱中找到清晰的自由。”

谷歌表示，他们的政策是，临时工应该在社交媒体和电子邮件签名中表明，他们为Vaco这样的承包公司工作，同时可以加上“代表谷歌”或“支持谷歌”等字样。该发言人还表示，相关政策还包括，TVC不得代表谷歌在对外演讲中发言。

对基普罗斯基来说，压垮他的最后一根稻草是谷歌职业晋升阶梯的变化。他为谷歌工作时，公司里有好几个人都告诉他，现在的岗位可能会让他有机会在这家科技巨头里得到一个固定位置。基普罗斯基希望，如果他能够成为一名全职员工，他和他的伴侣可以利用谷歌非常慷慨的福利制度进行代孕或领养。“这实际上是我待了这么久的原因之一。”他说，“我想成为谷歌的正式员工，为我建立家庭提供支持。”

然后他读了艾琳·诺顿对国会的回复。谷歌人力资源主管诺顿在今年8月写信给一群美国参议员，他们曾经要求谷歌将临时员工招至公司内部。诺顿吹嘘了谷歌最近为TVC提高工资和福利的举措，但指出，该公司需要足够的灵活性，能够在专业化不足的领域雇佣员工。她写道：“在谷歌，做临时工并不是成为公司正式员工的路径。”

基普罗斯基认为这是政策逆转的明确迹象。他说：“谷歌这么说是两边讨好，自相矛盾。”谷歌的一位发言人说，招聘政策没有改变。她还说，公司要求承包公司提供“全面医保”，但把关于基普罗斯基的问题转给了Vaco，后者没有回应。

基普罗斯基决定辞职，并准备给他的同事们发邮件——合同工和全职员工——发表他对TVC遭受不公平待遇的看法。他还向公众小小地表达了一下抗议：在离开前几周，他改了自己的电子邮件签名，不再提到谷歌，而是写上了他真正的雇主“Vaco”。“但我认为没有人留意。”他说。（财富中文网）

译者：Agatha

Kevin Kiprovski had a lofty title, “Expeditions Associate,” and a fun job — he got to demo Google virtual reality gear to young students. When visiting schools, he wore a gray t-shirt with a cartoon whale and a Google logo. But sometimes the company’s reputation made things awkward. Once, a teacher confronted Kiprovski. “‘How do you feel walking in here, showing stuff, when you know you’re making so much more than all of us?’” he recalled the teacher asking.

“I had to tell her,” he said, “‘I only make $40,000 a year.” He left out another revealing detail: Kiprovski didn't actually work for Google.

He worked for Vaco Nashville LLC, one of several staffing and contract firms Google uses. Kiprovski resigned in October and sent a blistering internal email criticizing the disparities of Google’s two-tiered workforce. While Google’s use of contract labor has received more attention in the past year, the company continued to take steps that meant contractors “are left out of conversations that affect our lives,” Kiprovski wrote. His email traveled widely within Google, which is reeling from internal turmoil over labor issues and how much say its gigantic staff should have over the company’s direction.

More than half of Google’s workers are temporary, vendor or contract staff, known as TVCs. This shadow workforce misses out on many of the famous benefits and perks that have burnished the internet giant’s reputation as one of the world’s best places to work. Last year, a group of TVCs called for better benefits and in September, TVCs working as data analysts in Pittsburgh voted to unionize, a rarity for the tech industry.

Kiprovski’s resignation highlights a predicament many TVCs face: They hold jobs that require them to act as representatives of Google, but they don’t actually work for the company.

Kiprovski began as a Google TVC in early 2018, working on a team that expanded Google’s reach into schools. His early hopes for the job soon slipped away. Turnover in his division was high and the schedules were inflexible. His responsibilities grew, but his compensation didn’t. “I got promoted four times with barely any increase in pay or benefits or anything,” he said.

He felt handicapped in other ways. Google uses scores of internal documents to plan projects and store information. This summer, the company cut TVC access to these documents, citing security concerns. Google also blocked contractors from many online social groups within the company. The “TVC Lockdown,” as staff named it, came without warning, Kirpovski said. Multiple employees at Google and its contracting firms confirmed these events.

A Google spokeswoman said these decisions were part of standard customer data-security measures and that temporary staff were notified of the change and still have access to the tools needed to perform their work. She added that TVCs are under a different policy for promotions than direct staff.

Thousands of TVCs work at Google in white-collar jobs behind the scenes -- marketing products or screening YouTube videos, for example. Kiprovski, though, had a job -- pitching Google services inside schools -- that required representing the company to the outside world.

Other TVCs also have jobs that require they toe an awkward line of being the public face of Google while not being on Google’s direct payroll. At some company offices, contractors escort Google job candidates and new hires around campus, taking them to interviews and answering small-talk questions during walks. The job candidates would often ask, “What are your favorite perks of being a Googler?” said one person who had the escort job. The tour guide would then have to explain: he wasn’t actually a Googler.

The hidden nature of contractors’ real employment status sometimes approached absurd levels. Another TVC, who has worked on Google projects for a contract firm, described being assigned to go on a school visit in New York last year to pitch Google’s workforce tools, G Suite, to students. The contractor hosted a panel called “Lunch with a Googler” that addressed how to get a job at the search giant.

Kiprovski said his managers at Google often hinted that he should obfuscate the fact that he didn’t work for Google. After the virtual-reality job, Kiprovski moved to promoting G Suite at universities. When one of his fellow TVCs asked management if the contractors should identify their employment status, there was a mixed response. “Honesty is the best policy” was the official line from Google and Vaco. “But they would add,” said Kiprovski, who overheard the exchange, “‘Why do you have to tell them anyway?’”

Another former Vaco-employed Google contractor with a similar role said the lines could be blurred in other ways. Vaco contractors worked in the same office and even on the same floor as full-time Googlers. When interacting with the public, the contractors were “never given a formal directive” about how to answer questions about their employment, the worker said.

“Usually I just say I work at Google,” the contractor said. “I try to be as honest as I can without potentially crossing the line of actually saying I do or do not work for Google because I don’t know which one they want us to do … If they don’t want us to tell people, what does that say about the fact that we exist? Are they acknowledging it kind of looks bad?”

Vaco didn’t respond to a request for comment, but the company says on its website that its service helps workers find meaningful liberty in their work. “We help people find freedom,” it says. “Freedom from a soulless job … Freedom to find clarity in chaos.”

Google said its policy is that temporary staff should say on social media and in email signatures that they work for a contract firm such as Vaco and can add “on behalf of Google” or “supporting Google.” The policy also says that TVCs should not speak on behalf of Google at external speaking engagements, the spokeswoman said.

For Kiprovski, the final straw was a change he saw in Google’s career ladder. While he worked at Google’s offices, several people at the company told him his role could lead to a permanent position at the technology giant. Kiprovski hoped that if he became a full-time employee, he and his partner could use Google’s generous coverage for surrogacy or adoption. “That’s actually one of the reasons I stayed so long,” he said. “I wanted to get a job at Google to help have a family.”

Then he read Eileen Naughton’s response to Congress. Naughton, Google’s human resources chief, wrote in August to a group of U.S. Senators who had asked Google to bring its temporary workers in-house. Naughton touted Google’s recent move to improve wages and benefits for TVCs, but noted the company needed flexibility to hire staff for areas where it lacked specialization. “Being a temporary worker is not intended to be a path to employment at Google,” she wrote.

Kiprovski read that a sure sign of a policy reversal. “Google is talking out of two sides of its mouth on this,” he said. A Google spokeswoman said that the hiring policies have not changed. She added that the company requires contracting firms to provide “comprehensive healthcare,” but directed the question about Kiprovski to Vaco, which did not respond.

Kiprovski decided to resign and prepared to email coworkers — contract and full time — to share his thoughts about unfair treatment of TVCs. He also made a small protest to the public: A few weeks before he left, he changed his email signature to no longer mention Google and instead to say “Vaco,” his real employer. “But I don’t think anyone read it,” he said.