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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

#801
google is the new early's 2k Microsoft

what happened to Google. now they are hiring almost anyone who applies and have stricter processes and serious meetings.

that ceo is destroying Google for good. he wants to blame other people for putting money in the wrong things.

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

#803

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…

More like modern day blowhards.

Here's what modern day slavery looks like: "Harassed, insulted and raped – that is everyday for thousands of women working in tomato and strawberry fields of Spain, Italy and Morocco. The vegetables and fruits they harvest are sold in German supermarkets and all over Europe".

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

#804
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 think a small percentage of people are self-motivated, and more productively at home, but watching this all play out for the last 2 years makes me realize that an awful lot of people are going to try to get away with absolutely anything they can - including working as little as possible - when allowed to be on their own. I have had coworkers literally disappear for days at a time, miss meetings for weeks at a tim…

Oh, these people never did useful work on-site either. When staring at a screen means work maybe their bosses thought they did. Real contributors do well remote too.

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

#805
post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want to be able to quickly resolve any issues in person, not over voice call or slack.. Isn't this the main problem? I hate everyone who comes barging in and wants to "resolve issues" quickly. Not saying I love remote work, but I cannot stand working a place where people are "allowed" to disturb me. I don't even log into Slack/Teams/Skype or any of that nonsense; I don't even want to be disturbed in my virtual wo…

I get the need to have uninterrupted time, but if others are depending on you to get their job done, it's kinda dickish to complain about people being "allowed to disturb you".

When people don't havr access to you they quickly realize that never actually depended on you to get the job done.

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

#806
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.

I found that actually opposite was true in my case. Less distractions ,less interruptions and we cleared A LOT of our backlog. It turns out a lot of those "urgent taps" turned to be not so urgent, or other person being just lazy(it was faster to walk 1min than to do a 5min read on our internal docs, or just google it)

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

#807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah i joked with my team the next step will be asynchronous teams where teams could be spread over US and EU etc. I love my solo lunchbreak walk just to empty my head or just think instead of having to talk or interact with team members.

Next step? International companies have been doing this for decades. Until I retired at the end of 2017 I had worked for over twenty years in a team which had developers and domain experts in the following countries: Norway, UK, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Turkey, USA (several states), Canada, Poland.

A lot don't have closely working together ('two pizza') teams distributed across offices, nevermind timezones more than one or two out.

Occasional collaboration is different from day to day, and I'm sure that's why GP emphasised 'asynchronous' - doing it with your close colleagues requires a shift in how you work, async written communication not chats, PR review not pairing, etc.

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

#808

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. It works when the team is used to and knows how to connect with each other online and to keep those connections going through the day/week. I'm an (highly functioning) introvert and even I hate video onboarding. I've done it twice during pandemic and it sucks big time if the…

You know what, I agree. My last place of work we went remote at the start of the pandemic, but I'd already had two years of getting to know my colleagues and our relationships carried on as usual when we started remote working.

I recently switched jobs, and have been to the office once (to pick up equipment and get set up) and it's a completely different dynamic. I don't really know any of my colleagues, chatting online occasionally isn't the same as meeting in person, etc. I still game a few times a week with people from my last two jobs, but I can't see the same happening for this job.

On the whole though, I do prefer it. My work relationships are probably lacking more but my quality of life is greatly improved.

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

#809
post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the need to have uninterrupted time, but if others are depending on you to get their job done, it's kinda dickish to complain about people being "allowed to disturb you".

When people don't havr access to you they quickly realize that never actually depended on you to get the job done.

Username... Doesn't check out.

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

#810

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, 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.

Same. I can't speak for personal productivity, because I think i'm waaay less productive, but I don't like remote at all. The hard part these days is finding interesting potential employers who aren't trying to lure me in with the remote hook, because it doesn't appeal to me. I was happy with the old norm of on-site, but with the ability to WFH on one-off days if something came up, like expecting a big delivery or something. I didn't like open plan offices, but I liked being in the office.

I'm the kind of person who simply doesn't have a social life if i'm not already out in town at the end of the working day; I just can't overcome the inertia of being at home. So for me, working remotely has made me the most depressed, and physically unfit, I've ever been.

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