Those balloon walls seems the worst possible solution. Noisy, obnoxious, slow, fragile and doesn't create any sound privacy from whatever you will be talking about.
Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
21–30 of 189 posts
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#22What the hell?!
Give. Developers. Offices. With. Doors.
It's conceptually simple, and will probably cost less than this novelty shit in the long run.
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#23> when the company asked a diverse group of consultants — including sociologists who study “Generation Z” and how junior high students socialize and learn — to imagine what future workers would want. Danger Will Robinson Danger! Why would anyone try and make decisions based on the preference of jr. High students. Making decisions based on youth in the most unstable period of their life when they are incredibly hormon…
I agree. I think as a society, we need to stop fetishizing youth. Not contempt - but tone it down a bit. Kids today have wanton access to internet and technology but aren't any smarter or better at making decisions. One might make an argument that they may be worse. Certainly more prone to group think than generations previous which is good and terrible at the same time.
> Kids today have wanton access to internet and technology but aren't any smarter or better at making decisions.
Citation needed, I guess? Teen pregnancies are way down, for example.
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#24As a Googler, I'm pretty disappointed with this plan and I think many colleagues are as well. The office that's being pitched right now has no resemblance whatsoever to the one we left. I just don't see why someone would go through 1+hr commute just to social distance/wear masks, use balloon walls and hotdesk. By now, many of us have gotten a good setup at home and are pretty productive. Even the hybrid model isn't i…
> By now, many of us have gotten a good setup at home and are pretty productive.
It might be okay for people who've been at Google for a while, but it's really not a very good experience for a Noogler.
Google's infrastructure, while amazing, is also one-of-a-kind, which means that you need a lot of internal resources to get up to speed on things, which would go much faster from a face to face interaction. It's nightmare dealing with all this when the only folk with the required know how are some rather unfriendly folk in MTV (who I find are always rather disinterested with us plebs in "shit-hole" India).
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#25What's unclear from that article is what timeframes are being discussed here. It's one thing is they're talking about all these changes through, say, the end of the year. It's something else if it's a long-term new normal which would presumably make working at Google much less attractive than in the past.
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#26If the shuttle buses are to be suspended, but they still expect people to come to work, it is a recipe for disaster. When I still worked there, about 60% of my co-workers took the shuttle from San Francisco. About 90% of those who did, did not own a car. Telling them they have to come to the office or quit is equivalent to firing them. I doubt anybody is going to buy a car AND sit an hour in traffic in the morning an…
Of course, the vast majority of employees in the tech sector manage to get by without shuttle buses, free cafeterias, etc.
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#27As a Googler, I'm pretty disappointed with this plan and I think many colleagues are as well. The office that's being pitched right now has no resemblance whatsoever to the one we left. I just don't see why someone would go through 1+hr commute just to social distance/wear masks, use balloon walls and hotdesk. By now, many of us have gotten a good setup at home and are pretty productive. Even the hybrid model isn't i…
> By now, many of us have gotten a good setup at home and are pretty productive. It might be okay for people who've been at Google for a while, but it's really not a very good experience for a Noogler. Google's infrastructure, while amazing, is also one-of-a-kind, which means that you need a lot of internal resources to get up to speed on things, which would go much faster from a face to face interaction. It's nightm…
Fair enough, I can see why it would be beneficial for a noogler, but everyone struggles initially, no matter how much face to face interaction you have. It took me 6+ months before I felt comfortable enough with the internal tools and I'm still learning lots of new things today, despite being 6+ years at the company.
The other thing is, even if we went to the office, we won't necessarily be able to have the same face-to-face experience until the mask and social distancing mandates are done with imo.
I also felt people disinterested on collaborations, everyone has their own goals, I wouldn't attribute it to your country per say.
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#28Am I the only one that doesn't really want to live in any version of the future as imagined by Google?
One wonders about the higher level cognitive abilities of someone dedicating much of their waking, productive hours to the service of making the staff and contractors of a giant ad surveillance company more comfortable and efficient.
It seems so insanely thoughtless to me.
Like, is that really the world you want? Gmail surveillance already took over everyone's email, same for maps and apps and YouTube. Anyone with a clue is trying to roll this worldwide trend backward, not make the Google advertising machine more efficient and effective at ingesting every single last molecule your private data and personal activities.
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> By now, many of us have gotten a good setup at home and are pretty productive. It might be okay for people who've been at Google for a while, but it's really not a very good experience for a Noogler. Google's infrastructure, while amazing, is also one-of-a-kind, which means that you need a lot of internal resources to get up to speed on things, which would go much faster from a face to face interaction. It's nightm…
Fair enough, I can see why it would be beneficial for a noogler, but everyone struggles initially, no matter how much face to face interaction you have. It took me 6+ months before I felt comfortable enough with the internal tools and I'm still learning lots of new things today, despite being 6+ years at the company. The other thing is, even if we went to the office, we won't necessarily be able to have the same face…
I think every company struggles with collaboration in general. People have their "day jobs" so asking them to do something they don't really get "credit" for can be tough.
It's easier in-person because you're harder to ignore than an email is. But it can be hard to get support especially from other groups.
Re: Over the next year or so, Google will try out new office designs
#30> when the company asked a diverse group of consultants — including sociologists who study “Generation Z” and how junior high students socialize and learn — to imagine what future workers would want. Danger Will Robinson Danger! Why would anyone try and make decisions based on the preference of jr. High students. Making decisions based on youth in the most unstable period of their life when they are incredibly hormon…
It's not that they only consulted them, it's that they included them. That seems entirely reasonable - these people are going to be entering the workforce. Google wants to be attractive to them, or at the very least prevent being actively unattractive. Additionally, gen Z is growing up with technology in a way that surpasses even millennials. They may have deep expectations about how technology should work in ways th…
Sure, but the grandparent alludes to the fact that what they think of as great now can easily change by the time they enter the workforce - and, given that we're talking about engineering jobs that usually require a degree, it will take some time.
Additionally, these people don't have much work experience. A lot of ideas - such as open offices, work from home or skipping documentation - feel fine until you've worked with them and found their drawbacks. It might work for some, but it does not for a lot of others.