So Google is okay paying landlords for the offices but won't pay workers for use of home as office? Okay.
Sounds like the landlord deals could have something to do with tax avoidance?
Google employees who work from home could lose money
361–370 of 699 posts
Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you sure it's that simple? Google was previously known in the wider world for imposing longer than average work days under the guise of "you love it here at the office we have pingpong and rock climbing". It wasn't about extracting productivity, it was about imposing culture.
Imposing culture and keeping people around at all hours was in the service of company productivity. At least that is their philosophy. It really is that simple.
I can confirm that we happily worked nitty days for a very long time and the perks helped keep us happy and sane. After some number of years though, your personal well of energy starts to dry up and no amount of weird crap in a fridge is going to solve it. We were very productive until that point though.
Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm used to the conversation in here being extremely US-centric, but realize that this is much less true for European cities with good public transportation. I haven't ever used a car to go to work in my life. I'm also very concerned about this better world where people stay home to save the planet. The common level of social interactions in the modern world is already low enough in my opinion. EDIT: It rarely happen…
I'm a big fan of mass transit. I live in the US, but traveled regularly to Tokyo for over 20 years. Their mass transit system is awesome . The social interaction thing is a big deal, but I don't think remote work will be the coffin nail, there. In fact, it could improve social interactions between neighbors. There's a school of thought, that the air conditioner has been the true bane of social interaction, as everyon…
Interesting hypothesis about airconditioning being the reason for staying indoors. I always assumed TV was the main cause.
Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money
#364> One Google employee, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, typically commutes to the Seattle office from a nearby county and would likely see their pay cut by about 10% by working from home full-time, according estimates by the company's Work Location Tool launched in June. > The employee was considering remote work but decided to keep going to the office - despite the two-hour commute. This seems…
I mean, if they were paying him 10% more based on home location and commuting then there is a somewhat reasonable argument to be made. But of course, almost none of these companies are actually paying the people who live further away more, it's just management trying to enforce their will over the "peons". Our company is trying to force everyone back into the office 5 days a week. Their arguments for doing so were "p…
> My working theory is that the upper management's jobs are more boring, and harder to coast on, when they can't "count heads" and have the illusion of progress. It's really exposed good and bad managers this past 1.5 years.
A lot of upper management jobs consist solely of attending meetings for projects they are only vaguely aware of so that they can ask questions about irrelevant things, interrupting people who are trying to get work done to ask them how long the work they were doing before being interrupted will take to do (more time now that I've been interrupted again, thanks) and other needless tasks.
Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
2-hour commute? I'll take the pay cut anytime, like is too short... (and maybe start looking for another job, easier to do with all that "extra" time)
Some individuals have routines built into the commute that aren’t necessarily swapped when working from home. I read my email/catch-up on slack/read the newspaper during my 45 minute commute in the morning. While wfh I spend the time doing something pretty similar.
Commutes wouldn't bother me if I could consider them work time and get paid for them. Instead, they're uncovered overhead costs of work I have to pay daily because I'm driving. That's why the more WFH I get, the less lost time I have driving, fuel/car maintenance/value depreciation costs, less time preparing (I just do hygiene at home, no dressing up to present myself because pajamas are great). The savings have been adding up in both time and money.
Even if there was a great public transit option for my commute, I'd have to focus on aspects of work I could do because I get motion sickness pretty easily. Reading a laptop on a moving bus, train, or whatever is going to have me dizzy with a massive headache, then a lost hour recovering when I actually arrive. I do envy those who have the opportunity and capability to do this though.
Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money
#366The cost of commuting on the environment is extremely high. We should be offering incentives to companies to switch to remote work. If 20% of jobs permanently switched to remote, the impact on carbon emissions would be immediate, and extremely positive.
This. I've been saying for a decade that if the city of Austin was really serious about doing something about its traffic problem and reducing CO2 emissions, they should incentivize local businesses via tax deductions and/or credits to promote remote work for those who can do it. It'd do a helluva lot more than building new roads and light-rail lines combined.
Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some companies don’t want attrition, particularly considering that there is a “shortage of qualified engineers” which is a political way of saying the software industry is underpaid already.
> there is a "shortage of qualified engineers" Do we still believe this is true? I mean, if that were true, then why Google (probably the IT company in need of the most talented engineers out there) is thinking about applying a measure that will scare away their most talented engineers? It doesn't hold. If there were a "shortage of qualified engineers", Google would have already said "all of our engineers can work fr…
Because whoever is imposing the salary reduction is not the person who will suffer the consequences of the company not having good engineers. They're likely high fiving due to meeting their KPI.
Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
2-hour commute? I'll take the pay cut anytime, like is too short... (and maybe start looking for another job, easier to do with all that "extra" time)
Some individuals have routines built into the commute that aren’t necessarily swapped when working from home. I read my email/catch-up on slack/read the newspaper during my 45 minute commute in the morning. While wfh I spend the time doing something pretty similar.
That sounds like the commute is really mostly work time then, right? Do you get to clock in/out 45 minutes late/early?
Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
People collectively don't seem to know how to value their labor. If anything, they should argue for a pay increase to offset the costs Google is externalizing in utilities, on-site benefits, need for security, food, space, etc. If Google is progressive, they should buck the trend and do something like build sound-proof office-apartments that employees can hotel in for a few days at a time, and allow children. That wo…
Came here looking for this. Back in my G days, before they were the high paying behemoth they are now, there were regular complaints about compensation. The first corporate response was absolutely tone-deaf. They created a tool for you to see your total compensation that included all-in values like on-site amenities. The natural response was one of unhappiness and people requesting to opt out of eating at work and pr…
> they poop less
I worked at Google for about 10 years. Never having to hunt for an open bathroom stall while under a certain degree of physiological distress has perhaps been the greatest benefit to WFH for me.
Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
People collectively don't seem to know how to value their labor. If anything, they should argue for a pay increase to offset the costs Google is externalizing in utilities, on-site benefits, need for security, food, space, etc. If Google is progressive, they should buck the trend and do something like build sound-proof office-apartments that employees can hotel in for a few days at a time, and allow children. That wo…
Came here looking for this. Back in my G days, before they were the high paying behemoth they are now, there were regular complaints about compensation. The first corporate response was absolutely tone-deaf. They created a tool for you to see your total compensation that included all-in values like on-site amenities. The natural response was one of unhappiness and people requesting to opt out of eating at work and pr…
Alphabet made the calculation a long time ago that paying for you to poop in the building is a rounding error compared to the extra productivity doing so allows them to squeeze out of you. That hasn't changed and it's unclear to me why the pandemic would change it.