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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

#261

Post by berg117 »

munificent wrote: post #174
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 es…

There's a 95% chance that this is a disguised RIF.

People they want to keep will be able to continue WFH if they want. People who are on the margins or destined for the Performance Improvement Camps will have to come in and warm seats if they want to eke out a year or two more of existence.

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

#262

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

skybrian wrote: post #201

I've worked at a startup where everyone being there was essential in how we worked. (We were all pair programming.) It was great. It beats code reviews any day. I learned a lot. But when I was at Google, we would schedule VC meetings with people in a different part of campus just to avoid the walk. Also, I worked on teams that had people worked out in many offices, mostly not Mountain View. I was surrounded by Google…

> I think Google having a company-wide policy on this is nuts. Teams vary a lot. They should probably be left to make their own decisions.

This seems rational until you are actually responsible for managing a large organization.

First off, the article itself states that Google is giving a lot of flexibility ("Employees not prepared to return April 4 also can seek a remote-work extension, Google said. Since last June, Google has approved nearly 14,000 employees globally to transfer to a new location or go fully remote, Casey said. About 15% of applications have been denied, he added.") But it get's very difficult to manage a large company without at least some sort of consistent policy.

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

#263

Post by eikenberry »

dekhn wrote: post #205
adenozine wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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! ;-)

There is already a huge google engineer hemorrhage. A number of principal engineers and other folks I thought would be google lifers moved to snowflake. I don't expect this to affect Google's ability to continue to grow at 15-20%, though. There will be armies of younger people who still want to jumpstart their career there.

Replacing senior engineers with juniors isn't sustainable though and their software quality is going to get a lot worse. Probably sooner than they think.

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

#264

Post by EMM_386 »

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 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.

Same, I've been remote for 10 years with another decade+ on-site prior to that as a SE.

I have no issues with remote work. When I need people I can easily schedule calls, send them an instant message, email them, etc.

Every single thing I do is timestamped and logged in a database somewhere at some point. If anyone wants to know what I was working on at 2:13 in the afternoon they can query for it. Reports can be run on what issues I've resolved, what code I've checked in against them, who I was on a meeting with, when I connected to remote machines, what time I started/ended at, etc. at any given time.

I have not noticed any productivity declines, but have noticed huge QoL improvements.

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

#265

Post by danans »

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.

Why does anyone have to justify going in to the office, and to whom do they need to justify that?

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

#266

Post by mumblemumble »

Hot take: this is kind of non-news.

I had a thrilling but ultimately abortive courtship with Google last fall, and at the time, the messaging on this subject was remarkably consistent: the plan was to go to a part-time model where people would go into the office 3 days a week, and they were hoping to be executing on that plan by the 2nd quarter of 2022.

So to see now that they are going to having people in the office 3 days a week in the 2nd quarter of 2022 is certainly no surprise to me. I would guess that that also means it's no surprise to any current Googlers who've been paying attention? And also that this says nothing about Google's own level of success with fully remote work, because, at least as far as I'm aware, leadership never seriously considered it as anything other than a temporary business continuity measure in order to get through the pandemic, anyway.

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

#267

Post by tick_tock_tick »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #196
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…

The thing that I find bothersome is wanting to force others to comply with our individual preferences. And it's all sides of everything these days.

That "individual preference" has a massive effect on the team just one remote person is a massive drain on efficiency. You can't frame it as "individual" when work is an inherently collaborative process.

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

#268

Post by willcipriano »

ejb999 wrote: post #148
sixstringtheory wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> disappear for days at a time, miss meetings for weeks at a time How is this not an immediately fireable offense? At least at the point of reestablishing contact where a doctor’s note or equivalent excuse can’t be furnished…

I absolutely agree - and if it was upto me, they would be gone already - but when the manager is also one of those 'do as little as I can' types of people, they don't really want to open that particular can of worms.

> the manager is also one of those 'do as little as I can' types of people

Doesn't sound like the kind of person you should put all that much effort in for.

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

#269

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

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.

I’m always amazed at how quickly we jump to judgement (and finding wanting).

I was a very good manager for 25 years.

I guess maybe I ended up doing OK. Read the testimonials on my LikedIn.

I’m pretty aware that CIs are simply one single data point.

Some of the days with the fewest commits, are the ones I did the most work.

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

#270

Post by sorry_outta_gas »

colordrops wrote: post #83
floren wrote: 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…

If you're a consultant that makes sense, for comapnies it's just what you need to pay to fill cost of living is one of the main factors in that need
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