Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately pretty common.
Any insight into why? I didn't know about this. (Haven't changed my desk ever while working somewhere)
It is due to Brownian motion.
An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google
111–120 of 280 posts
Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately pretty common.
Any insight into why? I didn't know about this. (Haven't changed my desk ever while working somewhere)
I've moved desks 6 times (between 2 buildings and 5 floors) in under 3 years. I guess when a company is growing rapidly, you've got to shuffle people around.
Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google
#113It's been great fun to follow bradfitz's career. I first learned of him from a post on Slashdot about a cool remote controlled door hack in a college dorm. His roommate posted and basically said, "this guy is brilliant, it's just the tip of the iceberg - he posts what he's working on at bradfitz.com, check it out." This was in...1998? 1999? Seeing him start to post a daily journal, get frustrated, then write LiveJour…
Ha, I forgot about that door opener! I found the page: https://bradfitz.com/misc/projects/remotedoor/
That looks like the Mercer dorm at the University of Washington!
Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google
#114Good luck to Brad. It sounds like the last twelve years of his life were pure Google, it's a big change. > I don't want to get stuck in a comfortable rut. (And Google certainly is comfortable, except for open floor plans.) It's oddly comforting that even programmers of Brad's caliber are forced to cope with open offices. When can this fad end.
> When can this fad end It's not a fad, businesses aren't doing this just because it's trendy and cool and they think people will like it, they're doing it because it saves them a fortune and they care more about their bottom line than their employees well being.
It saves a fortune, but the companies are spending a fortune on their employees' salary and benefits too
I think we're talking the difference between $300/month on open desk space vs $1000/month on an office. It's a lot of money and it adds up, but these people are costing the company a total of $10k-$40k a month
My theory is that open space is extremely helpful to certain types of people, and those traits coincidentally overlap with the people calling the shots at a lot of companies. Sociable upper managerial-types probably value being able to collaborate more easily in open space more than being able to concentrate in private offices.
Plus it's harder to get away with blatantly goofing off if anyone can look over and see your screen at any time, but I dunno how big a deal that is when people are setting their own hours and picking the projects they're working on. At least in my case, I don't give a crap if my teammates have Facebook and Netflix onscreen at all times so long as they're getting their jobs done
Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google
#115It's been great fun to follow bradfitz's career. I first learned of him from a post on Slashdot about a cool remote controlled door hack in a college dorm. His roommate posted and basically said, "this guy is brilliant, it's just the tip of the iceberg - he posts what he's working on at bradfitz.com, check it out." This was in...1998? 1999? Seeing him start to post a daily journal, get frustrated, then write LiveJour…
Ha, I forgot about that door opener! I found the page: https://bradfitz.com/misc/projects/remotedoor/
How did you deal with people criticizing your masking tape construction? This has been a bane for me since I can remember.
I love prototyping but hate the instant terrible feedback. People often look at the construction instead of the results and/or can't/won't imagine it a first step or how awesome a final product it can turn into.
Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google
#116Question for Brad (if you have time): other than Go, what Google projects that became open source deserve honorable mention?
Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google
#117To me, the most surprising thing about this post was a) his low number of managers, and b) his low number of desk changes. In under half that time at another, comparable tech company I hit well over half his number of desk changes.
Have I misunderstood what a desk is? 25 desk changes in 10 years is low? Moving desk at least twice a year is low? Where do you work so I never try to apply?
I've had 9 in 4.5 years. 3 were from me choosing to switch teams. All others were moves within 500ft to adjust for growing teams.
Why do you think it's a big deal to switch desks every 6 months or so? My company does the move for me, so all I have to do is put my few things in a box and label it (and my computer stuff). Takes 30 minutes tops.
Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's true; some of those folks just left the software industry, though, I think, or are at or approaching retirement age. Tangentially, it's still interesting -- and faintly depressing -- to me how much I think LiveJournal got right about social media that its bigger successors, well, don't, specifically related to privacy. LJ users had comparatively immense control over who could read and reply to posts. This isn'…
> This isn't to say that Twitter and Facebook don't get a lot of things right, too, in terms of ease of posting, lack of friction, and (for both better and worse) monetization, but I wish "granularity of acces control" had been a lesson we'd carried forward. Facebook had incredible granularity with regard to who could view one's posts — then they nerfed it by letting the people who are on your "lists" view who else i…
I was never an enthusiastic Facebook user and didn't really get into lists there, so I'd forgotten about that feature. But it does seem Facebook's philosophy has moved ever closer to "just post and let The Algorithm™ figure out who to show it to."
Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When can this fad end It's not a fad, businesses aren't doing this just because it's trendy and cool and they think people will like it, they're doing it because it saves them a fortune and they care more about their bottom line than their employees well being.
It saves a fortune, but the companies are spending a fortune on their employees' salary and benefits too I think we're talking the difference between $300/month on open desk space vs $1000/month on an office. It's a lot of money and it adds up, but these people are costing the company a total of $10k-$40k a month My theory is that open space is extremely helpful to certain types of people, and those traits coincident…
Salary and benefits come out of a different bucket than office equipment and installations.
Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google
#120To Brad: What is your plan with regard to perkeep? My understanding is that it is your 20% project, and seems like you are one of the main force keeping it alive. Just asking since I have multiple servers running it right now, and will need to migrate if it is going to be abandoned.
See: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/perkeep/Kqvh2dJVmoo/9N4YXAuX... I no longer pay Mathieu to work on it full time, and my time is tempered by 2.5 and 0.5 year old kids. I still use it, but don't have time to add to it much. Others work on it a bit. Mathieu and I did work on https://github.com/perkeep/gphotos-cdp just recently, to fix the Google Photos importer. So it's still moving a bit. Others still work on it t…
> I'll pick up my involvement again as kids get a bit older.
I thought this would be true for me, but it turned out the other way. The chores of toddler care are slowly replaced as the kids become more verbal. Playing a game or having a conversation with my kids now is enormously pleasurable—to the point where I’ve become acutely aware of the time trade off of other projects.