The reality, which took us too long to grasp: Sheryl Sandberg ran Google's customer service operation, the grunts who reviewed the text of AdWords ads for policy violations and fielded angry calls from Google advertisers with big enough budgets to be granted telephone support. Apocryphally, her boss at Google, Shona Brown, is said to have referred to Sandberg's operation as "a toilet." Sales reported elsewhere, as did the engineers who wrote the code for Google's money-minting ad machine. Hers was a thankless job, for sure, and one that needed doing; Brown's comment may have been unfair. But it was not an experience that qualified Sandberg to run much more than customer support — okay, perhaps HR, too — at Facebook.

We're also hearing that Facebook's board, charmed by Sandberg's polished demeanor and wowed by her Valley connections, didn't do enough reference-checking at Google. If they had done a proper job, we're told, they would have turned up stories of Sandberg's mismanagement and deceptions — stories that would ring very true with Facebookers' experiences.

So, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Sandberg took us in, too. But only a foolish consistency would have us still singing her praises. We've already gotten hints that Sandberg's work at Google was overrated, but our sense is there's much, much more out there. The tips line is open.

1. Interviews: First, candidates are scored on technical ability AND cultural fit. Second, interviews are done by a wide range of people who have little-to-no incentive to hire a person just because they can do the job. That is, there is very little downside for the interviewer to low-score a candidate for either inadequate technical ability or poor "cultural fit", since the interviewer is rarely interviewing someone to fill a position on his/her own team.
2. Reviews: Your performance review includes visible feedback and may include invisible feedback from your peers. So, if the people you work with don't like working with you, you could find it difficult to get a good review and/or be promoted.