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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

#221

Post by scottlamb »

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 think a small percentage of people are self-motivated, and more productively at home, but watching this all play out for the last 2 years makes me realize that an awful lot of people are going to try to get away with absolutely anything they can - including working as little as possible - when allowed to be on their own. I have had coworkers literally disappear for days at a time, miss meetings for weeks at a time, constantly miss deadlines etc - and as a manager, that is very hard to manage underperformers with a remote work force.

Please also keep in mind that we didn't just shift from in-person to remote work. Among other things, many parents completely lost child care in March 2020. It was slow to return. Where I live, it wasn't until August 2021 that the public schools were back to (almost) normal from a child care perspective: students there for the full school day every day, and at-school after care programs available. Speaking from personal experience, 2020 was horrible for my productivity, and I noped out of the workforce in early 2021 and am finally looking for a job now. I don't feel it was due to the shift to remote work.

I think it's true that some people will "try to get away with absolutely everything they can", but I'm not sure about "an awful lot of people". There are other reasons that productivity and availability tanked.

edit: and let's imagine that I didn't have the finances to quit despite other demands preventing me from putting in a full workday (and me not feeling up to one anyway). I probably would have kept plugging along, sort of working, as best as I could. We could debate the morality of that, and maybe remote work makes it more possible to get away with that, but I wouldn't say remote work is the underlying reason people aren't putting in a full day's work. Maybe for many, "get away absolutely everything they can" should read "get away with absolutely everything they have to" or "do only what they can".

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

#222

Post by unethical_ban »

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.

Two years is a short sample for "all society". We've all been in emergency mode. Let's see how it shakes out for a generation.

There are pros and cons to remote work, and I wish more people were honest about the cons. I think a lot of people hand-wave it away because they like the idea of living where they want.

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

#223

Post by vitus »

Johnny555 wrote: post #59
ASinclair wrote: post #49

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.

The limit is based on what the Census bureau dictates the metropolitan statistical area to be. Certain MSAs with Google offices correspond to a special rate; otherwise it's based on the state you're in.

If you're in Sacramento, you're definitely not in the same MSA as either San Jose or SF. Pleasanton on the other hand is part of Alameda County, which is part of SF's MSA.

Meanwhile, if you opted to be in Santa Cruz, "just" 32 miles south of San Jose, you'd be SOL.

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

#224

Post by tmp_anon_22 »

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…

> I want to be able to quickly resolve any issues in person

What company did you work for in-person where any issue could be resolved quickly?

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

#225

Post by PragmaticPulp »

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…

> 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 into the office.

Same experience here.

Of course, management shares some of the blame. People will push the boundaries of remote and flex time until someone tells them they’ve gone too far. If nobody in management is doing anything about the abuse, or if someone is openly breaking the rules without any consequences, the bad behavior will only get worse.

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

#226

Post by buscoquadnary »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #207
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. Some people love the lack of commute and less semi-forced hanging out, some people hate onboarding on a new company as a remote person and so on and so on. Well said. At these point, anyone who suggests one is superior to the other without discussing the pros and cons of each is probably too biased to ha…

I know from my perspective preferring all remote all the time, I often feel like I have to advocate and sell remote work at every opportunity, not because I feel that it is best for everyone but because I feel it is not the default, and that the group that is more in favor of it is the executive and management cast which have more influence over these decisions. So I oversell remote work sometimes because I feel that it is constantly at risk of being taken away from me if I don't advocate for it to the best of my ability. In contrast those that want back in office seem like the deck is stacked in their favor.

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

#227

Post by randomsearch »

icedistilled wrote: post #206
kbos87 wrote: post #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 pers…

>Mandated return to work date 3 days/week minimum unless you’ve transitioned to remote This is what bugs me about the hybrid set up. If the company onboarded a lot of permanent remotes and also doesn't have people sync up the in office days, then there is no point of going into the office. It's the worst of both worlds.

Which is why hybrid doesn’t work, and back to the office will win for most companies.

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

#228

Post by jeffchien »

infamouscow wrote: post #4

After two years of not being in the office, I don't see how anyone can justify going into the office without putting themselves into a quagmire of hypocrisy and contradiction.

I don't see why opinions have to be extreme and any mixed or nuanced takes have to be labeled as contradictory. It's possible to like aspects about WFH/remote work, and like aspects about on-site work (at least from before the pandemic). For example, I like not having to commute, but I miss being able to ask questions face-to-face.

I hope everyone gets to choose their option, but I find it really tiring to be told by either side that I *WILL* be more productive or be happier one way or another. I'm perfectly capable of figuring out that myself.

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

#229

Post by tick_tock_tick »

adenozine wrote: post #197
munificent wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 es…

Luckily, there will be plenty of remote firms to scoop up all the engineers Google is about to hemorrhage. What a miserable work culture it must be for them to even have the nerve to declare this. Downvote away, I’ll be hiring some of them! ;-)

Of course they'll lose some people but an office is enough of a competitive advantage to justify it.

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

#230

Post by ryanSrich »

sumedh wrote: post #200
ryanSrich wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may be some highly specific scheme that could make hybrid work, but in every situation where I've encountered hybrid it's been riddled with problems: - Decisions made in the office, remote employees input ignored - Manager sees others in the office, remote employees ignored for promotions - Remote employees given the green light to work remote, others who don't work remote resent the remote employee for having…

> remote person has to work a set schedule based on arbitrary availability of in person workers Not sure which schedule you are talking about you shouldn't all the employees be generally available between 9 am to 5 pm?

> shouldn't all the employees be generally available between 9 am to 5 pm?

For me that's a resounding "fuck no". For what purpose? If you're a software engineer why would you have to be working when someone else is? Collaboration can and should happen async.

Unless you're working on some highly life-critical real-time piece of software that's invariably complex, I see no reason why software engineers need to be on the same schedules.

In fact, much of why remote and even in-person work is a vast hellscape is because of these old traditions that we think we have to continue living by. The 40 hour work week, full-time all the time, real-time collaboration, set schedules, etc. It's all bullshit. You can build a highly scalable and successful business without following any of these "rules".

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