The Google Arcology?, Just one step further up the Shadowrun timeline. Options

[chinagreenelvis]

http://gawker.com/5690618/google-is-assembling-a-city

[Karoline]

"I for one welcome our new corporate overlords"

I do love the opening line of the article.

"The Google elite may be cosseted at work, but employees have to endure the real world upon returning home each night."
Because I just know that regular employees are virtually devastated when they have to leave work and go back to that 'real world' place.

[Teryn180]

I'm somehow unsurprised that Google is the one doing this. Though it's worth noting that Microsoft does have it's own fairly huge campus in Redmond, though I'm not sure if that includes housing.

[TeslaNick]

I thought, for a second, you were talking about this

[Karoline]

I thought, for a second, you were talking about this

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
That is all.

[Semerkhet]

The last paragraph of the linked article:

Between the construction at Ames and hagfish-like assimilation of Mountain View, Google is steadily assembling its own little city, And why not? When free gourmet food and massages failed to keep employees from defecting to hotter startups like Twitter and, especially, Facebook, the company tried offering workers free servants and multi-million dollar retention bonuses. Those are nice cushions against the travails of the real world — the bother of bank balances and annoyance of mingling with mouth-breathing non Googlers — but there's nothing like blocking out reality and living out one's days completely encapsulated inside the bubble, assuming it will never end.

Quick "gedankenversuch." How do we square this paragraph with the long-running corporate dystopia theme in Shadowrun. It's a staple of Shadowrun that corporations are trying hard to woo valuable employees away from their rivals. The response to this situation in the real world is that one of the most powerful corporations on Earth is pampering their employees to a ludicrous degree. Not exactly the gray-washed world of dystopic wage-slavery we see in Shadowrun.

To answer my own question:
In SR labor unions seem to have been defeated completely. Also, extraterritoriality means that employees of AA's and AAA's are actual citizens of a sovereign corporate state. Add in restrictive employment contracts (no longer moderated by national governments or labor unions) and it is a lot harder for an employee to actually jump ship to another corporation. If employees can't change employers, what incentive does the corporation have to pamper the employees like Google is?

[Karoline]

If employees can't change employers, what incentive does the corporation have to pamper the employees like Google is?

Because shadowrunners exist, and if Google pampers its employees enough, then other employees will hire runners to get them out of Microsoft and into Google (or whatever).

Also, since we aren't to that point yet, Google could simply be trying to lure as many people to them while luring is still easy and while employees can still leave easily.

Also, if you are going to be virtually signing your life away to a company by working for them, do you sign up for the company that pampers its employees, or one that doesn't?

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Also, if you are going to be virtually signing your life away to a company by working for them, do you sign up for the company that pampers its employees, or one that doesn't?

*cough* Aztechnology *cough*

[Semerkhet]

Because shadowrunners exist, and if Google pampers its employees enough, then other employees will hire runners to get them out of Microsoft and into Google (or whatever).

In a controlled environment like an arcology (or similar self-contained corporate community) I would think it would be difficult for the employees themselves to initiate the extraction. First off there is the funding issue. How many employees have the cash to pay to extract themselves? Some, I guess. Also, many corporate employees are paid in corp scrip; not something most shadowrunners want to deal with as a form of payment. Then the employee in question has to bypass normal corporate communication channels to secretly find another employer that it willing to hire them and negotiate a contract. If successful, the employee is then in the odd position of being valuable enough for the new employer to overlook the employee's self-evident capacity for disloyalty and yet not so valuable that the new employer is willing to pay for the extraction themselves.

I can certainly see that Corporation A, which grants lavish benefits, will have have an advantage over Corporation B, which doesn't, when it comes to convincing employees of Corporation B to agree to a voluntary extraction.

Also, if a person has basically spent their whole life in a given corporate culture it would be hard for them to know that life could be any different anyplace else. In the real world there are pretty stark differences in workplace culture between different nations. I can only imagine that tendency multiplied in the closed, controlled corporate environments of SR.

[Ascalaphus]

I don't really see how pampering your employees has to confilict with dystopia. The Japanacorps promise lifelong care for their employees; I'd say they're possessive of their employees. It isn't strictly a bottom-line thing; they really don't like it when other corporations sniff around their employees.

This pampering of your own only makes the gap between haves (wageslaves) and have-nots wider. Enclaves and arcologies really turn them into separate worlds.

[etherial]

I can certainly see that Corporation A, which grants lavish benefits, will have have an advantage over Corporation B, which doesn't, when it comes to convincing employees of Corporation B to agree to a voluntary extraction.

The way I figure it, all voluntary extractions are initiated by the extractee. Either they already want to uproot their life and steal their employer's secrets or no amount of convincing will change their mind.

[Teryon]

Plus there's also this to consider: the whole connotation of 'wageslave' is something formed in part by people outside the system(shadowrunners, gangers, down and outs, and the rich of various kinds). TECHNICALLY these people are rather well off; decent places to live, job security, a happy little home, all those middle-class dream items.

From a runner's perspective, however, they might as well be controlled drones. Very little goes on in their lives that isnt monitored, restricted, controlled and channeled in the way that most benefits the particular megacorp they work for. Yeah, their lives are pretty comfy, but at what cost?

Of course there's ALSO the rumors of experimentation on employees, deadly rites, magical accidents, live testing of new cyber\bioware on unsuspecting wageslaves, on and on and on. All urban legend, bad PR or nasty notes spread by the disenfranchised. And if you hear about a corp doing something wrong on the feeds(which really only means they got caught), then its either 'Well, Im glad at work here at X Corp!' or 'I cant believe it! Well, they'll get whats coming to them and all will be well.'

Never underestimate the ability for people to turn a blind eye when they're coddled well enough.