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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

#611

Post by spike021 »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #498
spike021 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, one thing with those in person interactions is you have no artifact of the interaction. Slack or tickets are great for documenting how decisions are made. Not exactly. Some organizations have limits to how long historical chats are stored.

True, but still it seems like some records are preferable to no records?

Yep, that's fair. However at that point I'd say anything of note like that should really be recorded somewhere with a more long-term/permanent record, like in a wiki or similar, rather than ephemerally.

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

#612

Post by nostrademons »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #302
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

> it get's very difficult to manage a large company without at least some sort of consistent policy. Why would that be true? Trust your staff to behave like adults, and trust your team leadership. This feels like a cop out from leaders who don't understand how to manage uncertainty, as opposed to an actual requirement.

It's a fairness thing at scale. In a small org, when you trust people to behave as adults they will generally fall within some band of normal that everyone sees as "reasonable". In a large org, you get outliers that do things someone else would consider unacceptable, and then they set the tone for the organization ("if they can do it, why can't I?"), and soon it's a race to the bottom in behavior.

The "cities" metaphor is actually pretty apt. In small towns everybody polices each other, and you don't behave badly because your life will become pretty difficult if you do. In a big city, you either have lots of rules in the form of municipal codes, or people start behaving badly along some dimension, eg. crime in SF or zoning in Houston.

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

#613

Post by Salgat »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #443
ignu wrote: post #432

I'd prefer to work an environment where I can't get interrupted synchronously by someone wanting their problem resolved that moment. Also, one thing with those in person interactions is you have no artifact of the interaction. Slack or tickets are great for documenting how decisions are made. But ultimately, I have no desire to waste an extra 5 to 10 hours of my life just driving back and forth to sit at a different…

> I'd prefer to work an environment where I can't get interrupted synchronously by someone wanting their problem resolved that moment. FWIW, I found synchronous interruptions to be more of a problem when remote. Too many people used Slack messages or video calls for everything because it was only a click away, as opposed to having to get up and walk over to someone’s desk > Also, one thing with those in person intera…

Treat your slack messages as a queue, something asynchronous you respond to when you are free. If management forces you to immediately respond to every slack message, then you have a dysfunctional culture that will of course clash with WFH. They should be using something like pagerduty if it's urgent.

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

#614

Post by quickthrower2 »

chaps wrote: post #573
idontwantthis wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why people get so upset about slack messages. Do you get berated by your boss if you don't reply immediately? At my company, we send messages when we need help, but the expectation is that the reply comes at the convenience of the person being asked.

Yes. When the pandemic started this, a boss berated someone in the main channel for not responding within 5 minutes. Incidentally he accidentally posted porn in the slack.. and never made a deal out of it from then on.

Sounds like a 2022 version of The Office (UK)

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

#615

Post by dionian »

quest88 wrote: post #104
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!!

Haha, or video calling from the same building but between floors because rooms are not big enough!

my favorite excuse to stay at my desk and work

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

#616

Post by Salgat »

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…

The typical tenure for many developers is 2-3 years. 2 years is a long time for a software company.

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

#617

Post by anaganisk »

pembrook wrote: post #389

Google is a giant legacy company that has been around for decades now. All its executives have set their lives up around the idea of commanding a fiefdom of underlings, in person, in the Bay Area. Google execs have the ability to totally ignore the rational pull of a much cheaper distributed talent market, because Google is a Monopoly minting Monopoly-level profits. "Monopoly does what it wants" is not interesting, n…

Duh, they’re definitely working so hard to show me more “suggestions” for the best toilet seat after I already bought one.

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

#618

Post by freeflight »

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.

Google's stock looks the exact opposite of crash and burn, it doubled during these last 2 years of pandemic and remote work.

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

#619

Post by exodust »

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 think that an environment where someone can tap me on the shoulder when they need help leads to overall higher productivity"

First of all, not everyone is in same building or on same floor, or in same country of a large organization. Google account managers, for example, don't tap tech support people on the shoulder.

Secondly, a related anecdote: An overly friendly project manager in a previous job used to physically tap/slap me on shoulder on a regular basis. I politely asked him to stop doing it. He kept doing it, and my polite request became an awkwardly agitated request in front of colleagues. I am male, and his unwanted physical contact had nothing to do with harassment or intent to irritate me. He was "just that kinda guy". I want to be tolerant of people's different ways as much as anyone, but please keep your hands to yourself.

I am happier and more productive working from home, away from the awkward grey areas of personal interactions and distractions at work.

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