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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

#411

Post by cebert »

School-Cotton wrote: post #52
jdlyga wrote: post #22

I work for a large company, and my team has changed so much since before covid. Before Covid: 5 people in the same New York office, 1 remote in Europe Today: 2 in New York, 2 in California, 1 in Ohio, 1 in Europe There is no single office to return to. Though we could meet up with other coworkers on different teams and projects. But in essence we've become a remote team. Has anyone else's teams become geographically…

Yes, similar situation at the startup I work for (which has also more than doubled in headcount since Covid started). The distributedness genie can’t be put back in the bottle now, which has significant pros and cons. It does make a lot of things less efficient, but on the other hand, it also lets us hire good people who don’t necessarily want to relocate to NYC.

> It does make a lot of things less efficient

Do you believe remote work is less efficient because your organization hasn’t adapted to remote work, or do you believe something about remote work somehow makes it inherently less efficient?

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

#412

Post by icelancer »

bastardoperator wrote: post #408
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. Looking at record high stock prices, I think we've proved that offices are completely unnecessary. What you're describing sounds like a low performance interrupt driven nightmare.

>> Looking at record high stock prices, I think we've proved that offices are completely unnecessary.

There's probably more than one variable that went into that phenomenon...

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

#413

Post by shagie »

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…

You remember complaints about the busses in San Francisco?

There are lots of areas that are having difficulty with gentrification and the associated difficulty of actually being able to hire people to work the service jobs in those areas.

A company that is paying significantly more than exacerbates the inequities in those areas. A big tech company having remote workers living like royalty in places as the cost of housing there goes beyond what the regular person who lives there makes can become a PR nightmare.

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

#414

Post by DataJunkie »

jonathankoren wrote: post #275

I don’t think any of this has to due with productivity, collaboration, or whatever corporate says. Google (and Apple, and Facebook, and no doubt many others) have spent literally billions of dollars on real estate right before the pandemic. If people don’t fill those buildings, they’re going to look foolish. That’s it. It reminds me of when corporate says they need special employee shuttles instead of lowering costs…

Bingo.

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

#416

Post by shannongreen »

runako wrote: post #288
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 read these and wonder what folks think about all the distributed teams in companies. Is the view that they are just generally less effective? > I want to be able to quickly resolve any issues in person I think this was more true for me when I was earlier in my career and remote tech really sucked. But now I see it as generally negative to have to sync with someone else to resolve an issue they (or I) am working on.…

It really depends how you measure productivity. Does it make the team close their JIRA tickets faster and pump out more lines of code? Probably. But I wouldn't be surprised if it also resulted in more defects, worse designs, more tech debt, and more failed projects.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop someone from writing code.

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

#417

Post by ribosometronome »

redisman wrote: post #394
cebert wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does going back to the office help with that?

You can’t smoke weed and play video games all day at the office. Not that I did that.

If you're the type of person to smoke weed all day, I'm not sure that being at work would stop it. It's simple enough to sneak an edible or hit a vape somewhere outdoors and private. Who is to say it's not an ecig, especially if you're not doing it in anyone's face?

I think peer pressure, visibility, and lack of non-work distractions are probably the bigger thing, though. Not just in terms of playing video games instead of working but you don't have the option to get up and do the dishes, or take breaks as frequently to read, or any number of other things that are less "slacker" and more "ADD brain".

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

#418

Post by DannyBee »

Xcelerate wrote: post #347
skybrian wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there is a great deal of flexibility and patience. I worked from home a couple days a week. In the old days, they drew the line at going full-remote. When the Atlanta office closed, everyone there had to either move somewhere else or, eventually, leave. I guess that's changed.

Why did that office originally close? And haven’t they opened a new, larger one since then?

2010. Google was very different then, and was honestly somewhat immature about location strategy. It is no longer like that, in large part as a response to Atlanta back then.

We are opening a new larger space (in the next few months), and have over a thousand people here now.

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

#419

Post by cebert »

redisman wrote: post #394
cebert wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does going back to the office help with that?

You can’t smoke weed and play video games all day at the office. Not that I did that.

You think if folks did that on a regular basis, there would have been a noticeable contribution reduction. At that point, it becomes a person management issue and either the situation should be corrected or the person be let go.

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

#420

Post by paulcole »

tester756 wrote: post #183
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 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, and I think that an environment where someone can tap me on the shoulder when they need help leads to overall higher productivity, even if individual productivity suffers temporarily. wut? 2 years on remote and in majority of the cases I've been able to talk to somebody wit…

The comment you’re replying to has nothing to do with response time. They’re specifying their preference for in-person communication even though it may affect individual productivity.

I 100% agree with them.

I’m more productive as a remote employee, my coworkers seem to greatly prefer remote work, and there is a 0% chance the next job I pursue will be at a remote company.

It’s just not my preference.

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