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

reuters.com

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

#171

Post by sumedh »

ejb999 wrote: post #111

I have been fully remote my entire career (several decades), in fact in 30+ years have never been on site anywhere for more than 2 weeks total. Wouldn't have it any other way. But as a counter-point, seeing a whole bunch of people who were never remote before, how little work they are actually doing, it is no surprise to me that a lot of employers are going to start forcing - to the extent possible - employees back i…

> I have had coworkers literally disappear for days at a time, miss meetings for weeks at a time, constantly miss deadlines etc

As a manager why cant you call out this behaviour when you see people slacking off?

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

#172

Post by Arcuru »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #106
colordrops wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is an extremely poor way to view the work output of a SWE. I sincerely hope that is not how you actually determined productivity for your team.

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

#173

Post by RC_ITR »

ryanSrich wrote: post #108
gitowiec wrote: post #74

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 b…

> There's no half way with remote work.

I’m sorry you’ve only been in toxic environments, but you really think “we are in office t-th” is impossible?

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

#174

Post by munificent »

librish wrote: 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…

> We've proven that the big tech companies can go fully remote and not completely crash and burn, that's about it.

Agreed. We've proven that big tech companies can continue to be productive for up to two years going remote.

I suspect that that doesn't generalize very well to being completely remote over the long term. It works well when you already have a bunch of personal relationships between teammates that were established while the company was in-person. And it works well for experienced people that have ramped up. But I think it's probably quite a bit harder for people to be productive when they are new to the company, less experienced, and don't have that existing foundation to build on.

I think it's a solvable problem for companies that want to prioritize remote work, but I definitely don't think "managed to get through the past two years" means "it's a piece of cake".

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

#175

Post by tellitnow »

c7DJTLrn wrote: post #3

Do Googlers mind working in the office much? They get plenty of free meals/snacks/beverages, great equipment, and great salary allowing them to live close to the office and pay for childcare if needed. I can't see the rest of the industry moving in the direction of returning to the office, because they don't have these things.

last google office I visited around 2017 sucked ass. Food was no longer cafeteria style. It was a salad cart and a window where you could order a sandwich. Desks were five feet wide ikea type desks that were crammed in to a large open space with no partitions.

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

#176

Post by alecbz »

kcb wrote: post #151
librish wrote: 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…

> We've proven that the big tech companies can go fully remote and not completely crash and burn, that's about it. Most big tech companies are public. Record earnings and stock prices throughout the pandemic prove more than just not crashing and burning.

A) I think there's a lot of confounders here (like the global pandemic and such) that make it to difficult to infer anything from correlations

B) Engineering work is pretty inherently long-term in its impact I think, especially at big public companies. Most such companies I think have "revenue engines" that'll continue to operate on their for a bit even without much engineering input

C) I suspect the negative aspects to remote, if they exist (I think they do, but :shrug:) are also going to be most visible in the long-run. Relationships between people and teams start to deteriorate, new hires don't feel as integrated, etc. I think these kinds of things take a while to slowly build up in an org before they start to have significant effects

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

#177

Post by hungryforcodes »

ryanSrich wrote: post #118
whiplash451 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh. It is unclear to me that so many people will want to work fully remote when their company offers a (real) office to work in 3 days a week. The mental benefits of in-person working can be significant.

> The mental benefits of in-person working can be significant Just remember there are just as many, if not more, mental detriments to working in-person.

Only for people that dislike it.

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

#178

Post by 2spicy4me »

ejb999 wrote: post #111

I have been fully remote my entire career (several decades), in fact in 30+ years have never been on site anywhere for more than 2 weeks total. Wouldn't have it any other way. But as a counter-point, seeing a whole bunch of people who were never remote before, how little work they are actually doing, it is no surprise to me that a lot of employers are going to start forcing - to the extent possible - employees back i…

Speaking for myself, I need the structure and am currently getting very little done. A lot of us aren’t trying to scam the remote work system, we’re just hanging on by our fingernails until the office opens back up.

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

#179

Post by prepend »

thebean11 wrote: post #162
msoad wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!!

Why did you hate it? An excuse to take a walk in Bay Area weather in the middle of the day doesn't seem that bad to me.

I hated it because it took 5-10 minutes. I’d rather use that time working, or meditating, or doing anything else of my choice than having to walk. It’s also pretty messed up when it rains, or is cold, or I have a disability or a foot in a cast. Etc etc.

Having to do things not essential to a purpose is better to make them optional.

If I like working, I can walk around while on the remote meeting

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

#180

Post by stjohnswarts »

librish wrote: 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…

Last I checked just about every major tech company has been doing just fine this past year. A lot of us won't be returning if required.
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