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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

#241

Post by khazhoux »

sumedh wrote: post #171
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?

I don't know about disappearing for days and weeks, but as a manager I can say that in practice, performance problems are often subtle and hard to detect.

I don't subscribe to the idea that you have to be at your desk to get work done, and I do my own best work usually hiding away somewhere quiet. However, with the middle- to low-performers, I admit it's disquieting to suspect that some people are working only an hour a day, but I have no way to confirm.

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

#243

Post by dsl »

thebean11 wrote: post #170
dsl wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I personally prefer a company where everyone's on site. I want to be able to quickly resolve any issues in person, not over voice call or slack That works for companies with less than 100 engineers. Everyone seems to have forgotten the good ol days where you had in person meetings and had to dial in half the team from Europe or include Fred who is working from home.

It doesn't matter how many engineers there are as long as the teams are colocated. Yes you will need to have zoom meetings with other teams but interaction within the team can be almost fully in person.

Sure, as long as $impossible is true, it works well. You can have a front end Javascript team all stuck in Portland, but that falls apart for any advanced skill set. Try convincing the worlds 20 leading experts in X to live in one city.

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

#244

Post by bluefirebrand »

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

My suspicion is those people probably don't do anything while at the office either but they are good at making themselves very visible and appearing to be productive when in an office situation.

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

#246

Post by opportune »

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 completely agree with you. Unfortunately I’ve seen a decent amount of adverse selection in the people I work with who’ve chosen to try to go fully remote (more in the try to hide from work than the people who would be just as/more successful being remote).

I have feeling that in 5 years companies will mostly revert back to only hiring new employees on site but grandfather in previously remote employees who have proven to be able to handle it. In 10 years, it will be almost entirely back to how it was before the pandemic. Not saying this to be a contrarian, and I think there will always be a place for fully remote teams/companies or exceptions in large companies (just as there was in the before times). But it’s really hard to see someone be unproductive or not work much and not attribute that to them being remote - and being remote will be even more likely to be blamed when a large portion of employees aren’t remote already.

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

#247

Post by listenallyall »

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…

These two companies sound the same... Your company allows remote, hybrid or fulltime in-office. Partner's company allows hybrid (3 days minimum), fulltime (people going above the minimum) or "transitioned to remote".

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

#248

Post by bendbro »

I must be about the only person who is more productive remote. I suspect people who perform well in office are not doing work that requires deep concentration for long periods of time- programmers or otherwise.

What I like about remote work:

1. No commute (4 hours a week saved!)

2. No idle chatter.

3. No shoulder tap interruptions.

4. Lunch, dinner, and snacks at fingertips

5. Midday exercise.

6. Flexible hours.

7. Better coffee.

I want to work, not warm a seat or flirt with my workwife

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

#249

Post by jakeinspace »

prepend wrote: post #179
thebean11 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Fair enough with wanting to work rather than walk, but feeling aggrieved at not being able to meditate due to having to walk seems like such an odd problem to me. I can't imagine being able to get more out of meditating at work (even in a quiet dark area) than in getting some exercise and enjoying the breeze. Nothing against meditating, but it can't beat exercise as a break from sitting/standing at a desk for hours on end.

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

#250

Post by drivebycomment »

ramesh31 wrote: post #85
dmitrygr wrote: post #55

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.

This is a weird logic. They have that data regardless of whether you work at Meta or not. If you are worried about that data, working for Meta would give a better chance (however small it is) to either influence the direction of the company, or see how bad internal controls on the user data is and act on it sooner than not working for Meta. You are not better off by simply not working for Meta.
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