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

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#581

Post by vel0city » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC

bovine3dom wrote: post #572

vel0city wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> about 75,000 sqft eyeballing it on Google Earth, apparently only a bit smaller than the average Walmart The average Walmart is twice that size at ~180,000sqft.

The number I saw was 100,000 sqft - it seems like it depends on whether you exclude the smallest Walmarts : )

They have over 3,400 stores at ~180,000sqft. There are three within a short drive from my home. They have ~190 around 40,000sqft. The ~800 mid-sized "discount" stores are mostly closing and don't have groceries, they're ~100,000sqft.

Big American stores are absolutely massive, and they're all over the place.

https://247wallst.com/retail/2014/03/22/walmart-now-has-six-...

You mentioned you had like one of these massive stores at the edge of your town, and it was still only half as big. I've got several of these monsters within 8mi of my home.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#582

Post by RestlessMind » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 6:14 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #79

jensensbutton wrote: post #43

Companies were never paying based on value provided. They pay market rate which, until recently, was artificially limited to a few expensive markets. With remote, these companies are now able to do what every other large labor driven industry has done and lower their costs by finding labor in cheaper markets.

This is a good thing, it's not healthy to have all your wealth in one small region of a country.

If you come up with a way to spread that wealth in the different regions of a country, shareholders and execs will leverage that to get work done from even cheaper countries. A worker in Colombia or Mexico is much cheaper than someone in Kansas or Maryland. Btw, I am seeing this happening at my current workplace where a majority of the new headcount is for non-US countries. So be careful what you wish for.

We have seen this movie before with manufacturing. The winners of this move will be the shareholders / execs and the middle class in cheap countries. The losers will be the American middle class.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#583

Post by drdeadringer » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

mumblemumble wrote: post #156

> 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…

> despite the two-hour commute

I've lived/worked in the Seattle area.

I've also, in a different location, had a similarly long commute.

In either case, I would have gladly taken a 10% hit to save all that time, stress, and car wear against myself.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#584

Post by alex504 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

deanclatworthy wrote: post #560

alex504 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes there are tons of companies working at scale with "cheaper" engineers, in fact the vast majority of companies in my experience are doing this. But the types of companies in these specific markets where salaries are crazy need or think they need the absolute best to compete. They really don't care very much about the cost relative to other types of businesses.

For most of these companies engineering output is their entire product and they are sitting on mountains of money. A few good engineers can make a massive difference to their products and success while a few bad ones can sink the entire business.

FWIW FAANG aren't the only companies paying ridiculous salaries, they are a small subset of the SV / Seattle markets. I work for a company that pays salaries similar to FAANG. We don't interview like they do and if we did we would have a harder time hiring good people.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#585

Post by Rebelgecko » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 6:16 PM UTC

agloeregrets wrote: post #441

mumblemumble wrote: post #156

> 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…

Here is the thing: All of this money as a whole amount makes the choice seem silly. What happens when you factor in cost of living is that the 10% starts growing incredibly fast. If their current spend is 80% of their salary, then the 10% is actually a 50% post-expense difference. Suddenly that drive makes sense.

On the other hand, if your marginal tax rate is 38%, a 10% pay cut will only cut your take home pay by around 4%.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#586

Post by greedo » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

_fat_santa wrote: post #405

Frost1x wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

For me it was principle more than anything. As a programmer I know I can do my job anywhere, and I know my team can do their jobs anywhere. So coming into the office always sucked because you knew this work could just as easily be done at home without having to waste all morning getting ready and commuting.

I think for a lot of workers being coerced/forced back to the office, there will be a lot of resentment. In my company, only part of the IT staff will be in the office, the majority look to be fully remote. That will breed so much conflict/antagonism/resentment that management seems oblivious to.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#587

Post by alex504 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 6:17 PM UTC

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #552

alex504 wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Are these engineers working at the same company?

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#588

Post by morpheos137 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 6:28 PM UTC

scollet wrote: post #69

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #56

> One Google employee ..would likely see their pay cut by about 10% by working from home full-time > The employee was considering remote work but decided to keep going to the office - despite the two-hour commute. 10% paycut in place of 10 hours of commute seems a good deal to me.

It's not a trade. The worker just loses.

the worker can always quit and work elsewhere if he can find a better deal. the attitude of entitlement among many bay area tech workers is astounding. At the end of the day your labor is worth the supply vs. demand market equilibrium. It should be obvious to intelligent people like tech workers that the ability to remote work expands the labor supply dropping wages. You can't expect to have your cake and eat it too.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#589

Post by ed_balls » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

mumblemumble wrote: post #182

Raphael_Amiard wrote: post #140

Earlier 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…

In the case of the USA, people staying home to work might have a positive impact on social interaction in the long run. I'm pretty sure a large part of the reason why Americans are so lonely compared to the rest of the world is that the suburban bedroom community model physically divides us and makes it much more difficult to get to know one's neighbors. By the time you get home from work at 6:30 in the evening, it's…

I only know my neighbours, because of a dog.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#590

Post by bosie » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 6:33 PM UTC

maweki wrote: post #237

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people in Europe also take the car to work. At my work I would say definitely more than 50%.

As other people pointed out: this varies wildly by city or region. In urban areas cars are really not incredibly common. In Berlin you'll find that only 1/3 of people even own a car. Of course, even fewer go to work by car. In Munich, you'll find 1/2 of people owning a car.

given that munich isn't a small city either, what's the reason for more people owning a car?