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Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

businessinsider.com

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Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#281

Post by nunez »

ghaff wrote: post #217
nunez wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not strange if you've worked there; they absolutely love centralizing people at their hubs and were _never_ WFH/remote friendly

I know someone fairly well known in Web circles who got hired by Google. They were remote but there was clearly not a meeting of the minds. They apparently heard maybe move to SF someday but could stay remote as long as they wanted to. And Google apparently heard remote for (only) the immediate future. At some point I gather it became a matter of "This actually isn't optional" and they ended up leaving.

This doesn’t surprise me. They got bait and switched by their recruiter like I did. I learned later on that recruiters (mostly contracted out) are heavily incentivized to get as many people hired as possible, so them saying things that bend the truth makes sense

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#282

Post by tsejerome97 »

jeffbee wrote: post #117
CarelessExpert wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Productivity” is not something a person can measure themselves. And management can ? Please, tell me how. Give me metrics and methods for measurement that can effectively capture productivity. What's the KPI for "strong corporate culture" or "innovation"? Because if we can't rely on individual experiences, then clearly the only other option is systemic measurements, so please, tell me how!

Well, if I was going to pick one organization in my experience that I think is best able to judge developer productivity it would be google. They have a team of organizational analysts who study it and have developed a pretty sophisticated model. Interestingly, in past research they found that remote work is the top predictor of developer productivity.

any source tho?

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#283

Post by aljg »

adkadskhj wrote: post #125
elite_hackers3 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then you’d have to work for Facebook… cringe

We're talking about Google employees here. Squint your eyes and they look like the same company.

Let me know when google undermines American democracy, enables a genocide in Myanmar, or casually starts kicking human rights activists off its products.

Or by “squint” do you mean “close?”

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#284

Post by demarq »

ryandrake wrote: post #252
sam0x17 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know how to leverage your experience you can literally walk in as the CTO of most small startups if you are an ex-googler and don't act like a drone.

As someone who has worked at multiple FAANG companies, I think that is a total exaggeration. What on earth does being Engineer #56112 at Google have to do with someone's ability to be a CTO? We’re talking entirely different skill sets. What does "don't act like a drone" mean? Show me one start-up that will simply let me "walk in as the CTO". Come on!

Have you ever tested your think?

People say I think, when they really mean I feel.

And how you feel has nothing to do with how others feel.

There are startups out there that see you and feel there will be great success in hiring you in a CTO role.

They don’t know that you feel like Engineer #56112. They just see a slice of Google that they can inject into their company.

Go test your think

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#285

Post by swiley »

sgtnoodle wrote: post #244
macksd wrote: post #59

I've always been mystified by the state of remote work at Google, because I understood that they pushed pretty hard on being in the office. And yet I've had many video conference calls with various teams at Google over the last 8 years and in every single one, most of the Googlers on the call were obviously dialing in from home. I even flew to Mountain View once for a big all-day meeting. I got there, met my coworker…

While I was there, they had a big "mobile first" push, and they were encouraging employees to try working exclusively from phones and tablets one day a week. Of course as an embedded software engineer working within their IT policies, I had my gubuntu workstation, macbook, and a gubuntu laptop, and I also had a windows laptop to pull out once a month or so when I needed to run obscure windows only tools. For a while…

That's surprising. I always thought Android was terrible for development because of a lack of dogfooding but it sounds like they actually try to use it.

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#286

Post by grphtrdr »

If I put myself in the head of an executive at a big company, I didn't get to this position to be on zoom calls.

I want to feel like the big cheese in an office with a bunch of people. I want my ass kissed in person. Work from home feels like a demotion.

It is not good for the "Corporate Culture".

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#287

Post by CydeWeys »

mLuby wrote: post #148
CydeWeys wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much everyone has experienced what WFH is like a year plus into the pandemic. Those of us who want to go back to the office have experienced WFH, and our quality of life is lower with WFH. It's no longer true that people who say they don't like WFH would change their mind if only they'd experienced it.

Nobody has been experiencing normal remote work during the pandemic. Normal remote work lets you go out and do fun stuff with friends after hours (which you have more of with no commute), spend more time with your kids (who have been at school for most of the day), or even explore other cities or countries (if you have that kind of remote arrangement). All the pandemic has shown us is basically all knowledge work can…

I'm really tired of these no true Scotsman arguments from WFH evangelists.

"Everyone would like WFH if they'd truly experienced it the 'correct' way! Anyone who says they don't like it just hasn't done it properly!"

Please just accept that not everyone is exactly like you. Plenty of people really do enjoy the in-person office environment more.

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#288

Post by detaro »

CydeWeys wrote: post #287
mLuby wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody has been experiencing normal remote work during the pandemic. Normal remote work lets you go out and do fun stuff with friends after hours (which you have more of with no commute), spend more time with your kids (who have been at school for most of the day), or even explore other cities or countries (if you have that kind of remote arrangement). All the pandemic has shown us is basically all knowledge work can…

I'm really tired of these no true Scotsman arguments from WFH evangelists. "Everyone would like WFH if they'd truly experienced it the 'correct' way! Anyone who says they don't like it just hasn't done it properly!" Please just accept that not everyone is exactly like you. Plenty of people really do enjoy the in-person office environment more.

And they are really tired by the "see, people do terribly at home, this proves it doesn't work" from the anti-WFH crowd, and being pushed out of something that works for them with such arguments. (Which is the reverse of your argument: please accept that for some people WFH works better and they really want to keep that option)

I am in the "will return to the office regularly as soon as I can" crowd, but I don't think the "no true Scotsman" is a fair accusation here. The pandemic situation is different and not a good indicator, and a good chunk of the problems people have are obviously connected to that.

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#289

Post by underseacables »

jartelt wrote: post #196
underseacables wrote: post #5

I travel a lot because I’m in sales, so I’m constantly in and out of the office. I very much want to return to the office, because for me it’s a homebase, where I can connect with my colleagues. It just hasn’t been the same and I feel that my workflow has diminished without the communal nature of the office.

And that is totally fine. You and anyone who wants to go back to the office should be absolutely allowed to do so! The issue is more with the modest number of folks who prefer to work remotely and prefer not live near a Google campus. If you are a high performer who has manager/VP level approval to stay remote, why would Google HR force you to move back to a Google office? They should just allow some folks to work fu…

This is how I feel! Some need the office, some don’t. Let them all make the decision for what works best, it will make everyone happier and hopefully additional positive benefits.

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#290

Post by capableweb »

carstenhag wrote: post #277
capableweb wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we’re making that comparison, absolutely. Both are in the ads business, but I get actual utility from one company’s products and the other company’s products make me feel worse at the end of the day. I wish I could know which company is which by your comment, but I can't, any could be in any place here.

It's pretty clear that Google is the one with useful and revolutionary products (Android, Maps, Earth, YouTube, Gmail, Google Pay) while Facebook is basically only useful for groups nowadays or for Instagram (is that really useful?) and WhatsApp (which they bought and introduced stories on. Wohoo. Innovative.)

It's not that clear for me. Out of your examples, only Gmail and Google Pay are actually created by Google (or by people working at Google at the time of creation), the rest are acquisitions.

And your use case for Facebook et al is obviously different than how many others see it. Being the first truly wordwide social network has to count for something, even though we're not sure it was a good idea in the first place. The world is big and people use/like different things, and it's all relative in the end.

Hence wfhbata's comment without any naming, can be seen from both perspectives.

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