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Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

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Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#101
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mandate which allows temporary exceptions is still a mandate.

If you apply to go fully remote, that's not temporary.

Only 20% of Google staff even has that option, and not all of them get approved. The vast majority will not be able to work remotely.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#102
post #30

I see two reasons to go back to the office: 1. You need a physical space to work from. 2. Your entire team is at the office as well and you can collaborate with them face to face. I imagine 1 is not a concern for most people who have adapted to the situation over the last two years. And 2 requires that most of your team is local and agrees to come in as well, which I can't see being too likely. For me personally goin…

For me personally going back to the office and still sitting in video calls all day with a geographically distributed team makes zero sense. It is a lot more comfortable to do it from home. It's worse since we have an open office, so to do a video call you need to book one of the conference rooms that are in high demand, even the smallest rooms were perpetually booked even prior to the pandemic. At least when working…

If anyone books a 5pm meeting with me, home or not, it's getting declined.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#103

A gift to Meta recruiters, brought to you by Sundar.

>A gift to Meta recruiters, brought to you by Sundar. I considered interviewing for Meta recently. Then I realized that these are the people who have access to my conversations with my girlfriend when I was 15 years old, and a complete chronological geotagged history of my exact whereabouts for the last 10 years. No thanks.

Is it better to work at Google that has all your emails and search history?

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#104
post #89
post #84

I think anyone who's claiming that remote work has been "proven" to be better or worse is wrong. There are some studies but they use estimations and proxies, carrying the same flaws as doing performance reviews based on lines of code. We've proven that the big tech companies can go fully remote and not completely crash and burn, that's about it. Some people love the lack of commute and less semi-forced hanging out, s…

Have you ever walked between buildings to catch a meeting? I remember this from my Google days and I hated it. Ironically at some point they were cool with video calling in from another building!!

Haha, or video calling from the same building but between floors because rooms are not big enough!

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#105
post #71

A few months back I was talking to a manager at [huge established software company]. He was making the case that obviously anyone who has moved away from the Bay Area should have their pay cut. He personally has not been in the office for a single day since spring 2020, but since he telecommutes from Berkeley rather than Omaha, he sees no reason to cut his own pay. Later that same day I spoke to someone who's managin…

Despite not making any sense, cost of living adjustments based on your location seem to be the trend that we are heading toward. If you contribute the same work, it seems that it shouldn't matter where you are located, but companies are sociopathic by nature and will reduce costs anywhere they can get away with it. This opens the door to the next step of having salaries match the lowest common denominator - if you ca…

> Despite not making any sense, cost of living adjustments based on your location seem to be the trend that we are heading toward

It's not a trend we're heading toward, but it's well established practice in the economy. People working in Asia or Eastern Europe, for USA companies, make less, and they do the same job.

Fact that it's going to be applied to people working remotely, not at the office, is just an implementation detail.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#106
post #71

A few months back I was talking to a manager at [huge established software company]. He was making the case that obviously anyone who has moved away from the Bay Area should have their pay cut. He personally has not been in the office for a single day since spring 2020, but since he telecommutes from Berkeley rather than Omaha, he sees no reason to cut his own pay. Later that same day I spoke to someone who's managin…

Despite not making any sense, cost of living adjustments based on your location seem to be the trend that we are heading toward. If you contribute the same work, it seems that it shouldn't matter where you are located, but companies are sociopathic by nature and will reduce costs anywhere they can get away with it. This opens the door to the next step of having salaries match the lowest common denominator - if you ca…

In my experience, it's very easy to see how a software engineer works.

Just look at the commit logs.

Sheesh. I managed an SWE group for years. It was easy-peasy to unobtrusively keep an eye on things.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#107
post #71

A few months back I was talking to a manager at [huge established software company]. He was making the case that obviously anyone who has moved away from the Bay Area should have their pay cut. He personally has not been in the office for a single day since spring 2020, but since he telecommutes from Berkeley rather than Omaha, he sees no reason to cut his own pay. Later that same day I spoke to someone who's managin…

Both engineers and managers at big tech companies can get by working 2 hours a day. And remote vs on-site doesn't affect that. This has been true since well before WFH.

As for the location-based pay part, I bet none of the people who were furious about getting "adjusted" after moving out of the Bay Area ever complained about their colleagues in Bangalore working the same amount as them and making 1/5 as much.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#108

That's good to be back in the office. For me it's only a week to start feeling bad. Loneliness, the same walls I live with family, no colleagues around to talk to. That's not for me. Sometimes I prefer to work from home, because I need to run some errands, from home I have better control. Everybody should have an option, or possibility to work from home some days in a week. But nothing replace morning coffee in the k…

> Everybody should have an option

This is actually a major red flag if I'm an employee. There's no half way with remote work. Either everyone, including execs, works remote, or no one does. I've been in hybrid situations and it's complete hell. My suggestion is pick what works best for you, and then find a company that's committed all the way to either one.

For me, there's no amount of money that doesn't start with billion that could convince me to work in an office. I understand some other people are different, and they should find companies that support forced-commute co-located working.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's based on where you work. Though you can work remote from the same city as your current office and have no pay difference.

Can you go remote within commute distance of the office and keep your salary? What's the limit? Living in Pleasanton is cheaper than living in Mountain View, but still commutable. Living in Tracy is cheaper still and people still commute to the Bay Area from there. Living in Fresno or Sacramento is even cheaper and farther but still some people will do that commute daily.

[deleted]

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#110
I work for a large tech company based on the east coast. My partner works for another large tech company. We are both mid-level managers at companies that seem to be taking a pretty dramatically different approach.

My company: - Started with a strong in-office culture - Communicated to managers that all employees now have a choice between being fully remote, hybrid, or in-office; there’s never a mandate to be in person - All new roles can be based anywhere in the country of the roles’ origin - All salaries are being standardized to one city per country (NYC for the US.)

By contrast, my partner’s company: - Mandated return to work date 3 days/week minimum unless you’ve transitioned to remote (and they don’t seem to be making that easy for existing employees) - Significant, growing attrition problem causing serious concern among leadership - Growing pushback from employees asking great questions… for example, why they should be required to sit on zoom at an office, conferencing with their remote colleagues

If I had to put money on which company will thrive and which one will seriously regret it’s decision a year from now… the answer seems very clear.

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