Google employees who work from home could lose money • Hacker News Board

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#551

Post by nullc » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

igetspam wrote: post #355

washadjeffmad wrote: post #274

Earlier 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…

> before they were the high paying behemoth they are now, there were regular complaints about compensation.

You mean back when they were illegally colluding with Apple and other technology companies to suppress wages.

> The next response came much later and it was a broad leveling of pay.

I got a 20% pay bump after the wage fixing scheme collapsed and those pay resets happened, and my employer was in no way involved in it-- Apple and Google's conspiracy just suppressed wages far beyond the active participants.

It's not about tone-deafness it's about maximizing profit. Parties that will willfully and knowingly break the law to conspire to fix wages aren't going to be bothered by moves which seem a little cruel or illogical.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#552

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

alex504 wrote: post #525

deanclatworthy wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I’ve been saying it all along. This is what is going to happen to all the SV bros on their 6 figure salaries. You’re no better than someone on the other side of the globe who will have lower living expenses. If your employer doesn’t see value in having you on site, location is meaningless. If I were Google I’d start looking aggressively into labour markets that are cheaper but with good education. Poland, Phill…

Engineers in the US are much more expensive but they have experience working in high scale environments that isn't widely available in the markets you are talking about. FAANG companies and well-funded startups aren't going to substitute someone else even if they can theoretically pay 5x less for someone 90% as good. All these companies care about is being as competitive as possible. They have a pretty much unlimited…

> Engineers in the US are much more expensive but they have experience working in high scale environments that isn't widely available in the markets you are talking about

Then why do the same engineers (pre and post-transfer) get paid such ridiculously different salaries between London and the valley?

Do you get special scaling powers when they stamp your visa at SF?

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#553

Post by nullc » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

boplicity wrote: post #99

The 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.

Google claims to be carbon neutral.

This claim is false when they are forcing employees to commute and not offsetting the emissions from this required activity.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#554

Post by darkwizard42 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

lmilcin wrote: post #421

Does that mean if I work from home and move to more costly location I get automatic increase? Does this policy account for the fact people working remotely no longer use up office resources? No, I didn't think so... so predictable. These things only ever work one way. Corporations thrive on being able to outsource large part of their work to cheaper locations. Now they are terrified remote work is eroding that abilit…

To your first question. Yes, if you move to a more expensive location based on the bands Google provides, you will automatically see an increase in compensation.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#555

Post by 52-6F-62 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #538

52-6F-62 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey hey—I didn't say one way or the other whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. But I've been in and out of Google (Waterloo). They were there long, long hours often. Just the same, people seemed happy and fulfilled. I don't think I would be—I covet my time. But I recognize that it wasn't designed around me, so whatever. It's a fact of the process though: Google wanted people in the office longer, so they insta…

> Hey hey—I didn't say one way or the other whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. But I've been in and out of Google (Waterloo). They were there long, long hours often. Just the same, people seemed happy and fulfilled. "Imposing" in your original comment is doing a lot of work here. Creating an environment that benefits your employees and allows them to be happier, more fulfilled, _and_ more productive doesn't…

But they do impose it. The 40-hour workweek was a hard fought-for standard. I would call anything above that standard as imposing. It's not a rare concept. It's why billing for overtime at an increased rate is common practice—because the extra time spent is an imposition.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#556

Post by novok » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

Necromant2005 wrote: post #181

dsr_ wrote: post #44

Class A office space in Manhattan is about $70/sqft, and the average office employee gets 150 sqft allocated (desk, hallway, conference room, supply closets...) Google is probably 170. That's $11900 annually that they save by not having an employee take up office space. No, it's not fungible on a small scale, but it's certainly fungible on a large scale: reduce your office needs by 100 people and you can rearrange de…

Sounds funny. The real reason for google office is unlimited work, you have food, relax aka dance/yoga classes on site. It’s not necessary to have a home. Home is a rudimentary stuff for google workers. The whole your life is your work. It’s great for a company. But keep8ng employees on long distance force people to look around: on a local restoran, outside activities, local community. And in one moment person who wa…

In practice the only 'extra work time' created benefit is food, and that mostly started because the google campus was in a suburban restaurant desert on the other side of a highway, the minimum time it took to get to downtown mountain view was 20 minutes, and that is very time consuming, along with all the traffic that it would generate and so on.

If you knew how little many google workers work, you wouldn't say this lol. Barely anyone is doing all the extras. Google shuttle and google food is the most of it. Some might gym too.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#557

Post by bovine3dom » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #517

bovine3dom wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds great, why aren't there more places like that in the US or why don't I hear about them? Do you find you have to use your car often? (Although living 2km away from a supermarket is an alien concept to me. I have three within a hundred metres.)

You might not hear about it as much because sadly the mass transit is underutilized by a lot of my neighbors. Also, people usually really prefer the freedom of having private transportation. Like, just riding a bicycle so max of ~5mi or so, I have maybe an option of three different supermarkets (six if you include pharmacies, which usually do stock some groceries). If you add a simple bus route, that adds maybe anoth…

Thanks for replying, it's really fascinating.

I think part of the difference is density - my city is only about 3km x 3km. If I cycled 5 miles I'd end up in the next town along. I just looked on TripAdvisor to see how many restaurants were within that range but it maxxed out at 1,000+.

We do have big supermarkets too, at the edge of the city - about 75,000 sqft eyeballing it on Google Earth, apparently only a bit smaller than the average Walmart. I've never really seen why I would go there, except perhaps for ease of parking if I was going to buy a huge amount of food with a car. And this is France so even the tiny supermarkets make room for a bakery : )

So the maths here is mostly that cars are just negative. I'm very optimistic that electric bikes will begin to dominate transport in European cities - we just need to build the infrastructure to make sure that they're safe to ride.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#558

Post by bennyp101 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #334

bennyp101 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but anecdotally my electricity and gas bills have been much higher since I've been working at home - YMMV of course

The question is the relative amount of electrify and gas used at home vs the office plus commute. Running the same computer at home or the office clearly is irrelevant for the environment.

Is it though? Maybe my office uses an electricity supplier who charges a bit more, but uses as much renewable as possible, but at home my supplier doesn’t use any renewable, but is cheaper

There are just too many factors involved to make a fair comparison - especially across countries

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#559

Post by darkwizard42 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

One thing that was included here is that Google is now also reducing your equity compensation as a part of relocation. Changing the salary I understand and there are a lot of valid points and counterpoints on why it should or should not change based on your cost of living in the city/supply vs.demand in the city for the job.

I really dislike equity compensation being reduced because equity is supposed to be a direct reward for the value you generate for the company. Why does someone who lives in Zurich/SFO/NYC have any more impact vs. someone who lives in Kansas. Both are contributing the same and their equity should reflect that...

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#560

Post by deanclatworthy » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

alex504 wrote: post #525

deanclatworthy wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I’ve been saying it all along. This is what is going to happen to all the SV bros on their 6 figure salaries. You’re no better than someone on the other side of the globe who will have lower living expenses. If your employer doesn’t see value in having you on site, location is meaningless. If I were Google I’d start looking aggressively into labour markets that are cheaper but with good education. Poland, Phill…

Engineers in the US are much more expensive but they have experience working in high scale environments that isn't widely available in the markets you are talking about. FAANG companies and well-funded startups aren't going to substitute someone else even if they can theoretically pay 5x less for someone 90% as good. All these companies care about is being as competitive as possible. They have a pretty much unlimited…

There are plenty of big companies operating at scale in those markets. You just haven't heard of them. From everything I've heard about FAANG interviews, it's more of an exercise in theory rather than hands-on experience anyway.