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

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

#702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I _personally_ believe distributed teams are less effective. As for your other point, that research is similar to the research on working from home. It measures a controlled thing, but certainly nothing I would use to extrapolate that software engineering teams work less efficiently when people can interrupt each other with questions easily. If you have any studies that you think are good feel free to link them,…

Curious what makes you think distributed teams are less effective? I've personally been much more effective with my output working remotely than I ever was with the noise and distractions of the office. I've seen excellent productivity from my colleagues as well in remote settings, too. It's unfortunate that companies and individuals, like yourself, can't respect the fact that others _are_ more effective remote and w…

The only thing I said was that I preferred to work remote. I want to work at a company where self selects into being on site.

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

#703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should have an option to go fully remote, not be forced to do X number of days because reasons. This is the problem that remote work solves. It gives you some sense of autonomy so that you don't feel like a completely subservient slave. Also you said objectively it has not been proven but your subjective opinion is that it's better to be in office. What I will counter is that remote is almost certainly better…

Comparing highly paid office work with slavery is incredibly insulting.

Slavery is a strong word but in reality this is what we office workers are, modern day slaves and that’s how I understood it, as an analogy. They pay us for our work&time and they “own” us for these 40-50hrs/week. Remote working is not the silver bullet and for sure it’s not suitable for all, but for some of us it’s a life changing opportunity. Remote working opened a new door and gave us new possibilities, allowing us a little bit more freedom on many aspects of our jobs, thus making the whole thing more tolerable. After all that’s the expected flow of our modern lives for most of us: study, work, die.

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

#704
One of the benefits of remote engineering teams, is that there's wag more pressure on their "hygene" practices like a well structured backlog and good documentation. As someone with a fully remote career, it always shocks me how onsite teams tend to let this stuff lapse in favor of implicit brainshare.

I wonder, then, if the last two years will improve these kinds of project practices in onsite teams. Or maybe "hope" is a better word.

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

#705
post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single thread I see on this has this exact same comment. It's like a bot wrote it. Is it that hard to imagine that an onboarding experience remotely can actually be done well, or that you could actually make friends with people existing solely on zoom? I think people are making that assumption, just because it feels right or maybe because their own org is just throwing juniors by the wayside and hoping covid wi…

Is it that hard to imagine that an onboarding experience remotely can actually be done well, or that you could actually make friends with people existing solely on zoom? We don't need to imagine it. Those of us who lead teams have tried, and we know it's harder to onboard people, and to socialize as a company, when you're working remotely. I think the advantages of remote working greatly outweigh the disadvantages, a…

> I think the advantages of remote working greatly outweigh the disadvantages, and I will continue to work remotely if I can, but there's no need to pretend everything is better. It obviously isn't.

I think it's worth separating the two parties in this (the employer and employee). IMO too many comments focus just on the employee view and then wonder why the employer behaves differently.

Most employees seem to love it, although some certainly don't (I fit in the second category) - but most seem to find it preferable.

However my experience leading a remote team is that IMO it is worse for our particular company from a corporate perspective. On-boarding and knowledge sharing is worse, relationships degrade and it's hard to distinguish someone who is just struggling/slow and needs help with absenteeism.

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

#707
post #446

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…

Every single thread I see on this has this exact same comment. It's like a bot wrote it. Is it that hard to imagine that an onboarding experience remotely can actually be done well, or that you could actually make friends with people existing solely on zoom? I think people are making that assumption, just because it feels right or maybe because their own org is just throwing juniors by the wayside and hoping covid wi…

[deleted]

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

#708
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…

Your last paragraph sounds a lot like "any problem I may have now or in the future by definition is always more important than whatever the other person is doing at that particular point in time." That may be unintentional, so it's just an observation.

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

#709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing highly paid office work with slavery is incredibly insulting.

Slavery is a strong word but in reality this is what we office workers are, modern day slaves and that’s how I understood it, as an analogy. They pay us for our work&time and they “own” us for these 40-50hrs/week. Remote working is not the silver bullet and for sure it’s not suitable for all, but for some of us it’s a life changing opportunity. Remote working opened a new door and gave us new possibilities, allowing…

Slavery is perhaps not the right word, but prisoner could be. That’s why they are called “golden” handcuffs. Very few people escape this prison, but it is indeed possible and doesn’t require going out into the woods and becoming a hermit.

To continue the analogy, isn’t the jailer/warden also a prisoner? He too is stuck in the prison, perhaps for different reasons but stuck nonetheless.

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

#710
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…

> 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. My team has been able to hire people from all across the country, gaining access to talent that we normally would not have been able to reach. Because my entire company has gone fully remote, if someone on the team has to take a trip overseas, they can choose to…

Agreed. I don’t if it’s for everyone, but i love it. No commute, healthier food, access to a bed for a quick nap, and a nice office. 10/10 would do again.
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