Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4 • Hacker News Board

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

#941

Post by hardolaf » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:18 PM UTC

mwest217 wrote: post #907

com2kid wrote: post #673

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…

As a young person without children, I much prefer the office - I intentionally live close enough to the office that my commute is a 20 minute walk or a I can still work from home when I have errands to run or medical appointments, but I much prefer being in the office.

I also don't have kids and I don't necessarily prefer the office... but from over a decade now of experience working in remote and hybrid jobs, I've found that there is no substitute for shoving everyone in a room and telling them to figure out the problems with processes. Tons of things just never get resolved when working remotely because it's hard to communicate actual pain points to others because they'll only talk to you via instant messages or in brief video/voice chats. And it's hard to convey how much time people are losing to issues in projects. The issues don't pop up on a day to day basis, but they do pop up in long-tail projects and even in continuing development projects. And the worst is figuring out requirements remotely. When you're in person, you can pester people without their ability to filter you out until they get you the requirements. Remotely, well, they can simply just ignore you (and often do in my experience).

Yes, I like working remotely most of the time. But I like living close enough to the office that if needed, I can go slap someone upside the head on a whim.

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

#942

Post by ddingus » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:19 PM UTC

ihateolives wrote: post #795

teekert wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much agree and I’m looking for another job because my company is forcing me back for 3/5 days because of this. I’m not going back to that.

Onsite/online split is the worse, unless you work with just a laptop and nothing else then you'd have to have duplicate setups at work/home and at least I'm always leaving things eithere here or there and then missing them.

I love the split / flex model!

See your POV easily though.

A decade ago, maybe a bit more, I consolidated into a backpack. Laptop, often second portable display, various adapters, chargers, clipboard, writing tools, phone, earbuds (I still prefer wired, if nothing more than the crazy good mic mine have), sewing, grooming, first aid...

Seems like a lot, but it isn't, and where I go the pack goes.

I can go from cold, arrive somewhere, and be up and running in a few minutes. Have not maintained a dedicated office for years now.

I do have dedicated work places, and have a few things, cheap things, duplicated for convenience.

These days, I have a home lab, work space, well equipped. Can do most anything I need there. This was not expensive, but I did also get gear over time too. Most of it was opportunistic buys. Total deals.

At work, any gear I need I either use where it is, or it is in my workspace.

The end result is a very mobile way. I am currently out of State for a week, and am pretty much fine, minus some gear, but I am also not needing to handle the associated roles either.

For quiet, I am on cell phone, no desk phone for the last decade. Use a spare room, my car, at home space, whatever.

The big perk is being where I both want and need a very high percentage of time.

Would hate full time at office. Would have to have one to start!

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

#943

Post by hardolaf » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:21 PM UTC

itsoktocry wrote: post #883

com2kid wrote: post #673

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 QoL is insanely improved. My question is: how did people not realize this before the pandemic? The workers of Silicon Valley (and other urban centres) literally created and sustained this problem all by themselves: "You have to get to Silicon Valley!"

People noticed it, but companies also knew what defense learned: long-term planning efficiency plummets when working remotely. And that goes for whether you're just two different in-office design centers working together, or if the entire team is remote. I'm sure companies are starting to see the decrease in quality and efficiency of project planning and management starting to show now which is why they're looking to return to offices.

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

#944

Post by craigie » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:25 PM UTC

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…

>works well when you already have a bunch of personal relationships between teammates that were established while the company was in-person. And it works well for experienced people that have ramped up.

I think a key question here is how long and how often do you need to see someone to establish and maintain those relationships.

There were exporters/importers and othe long distance businesses relationships for a long time, so I don't think its every day for years.

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

#945

Post by ddingus » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:25 PM UTC

GFischer wrote: post #903

itsoktocry wrote: post #883

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My QoL is insanely improved. My question is: how did people not realize this before the pandemic? The workers of Silicon Valley (and other urban centres) literally created and sustained this problem all by themselves: "You have to get to Silicon Valley!"

People realized it. It was companies that were resisting it. I remember looking for remote work pre-pandemic and it was WAY harder, now it's more a default. I'm in Uruguay, South America, so the pandemic has been an incredible boon to me. I even got a remote team management position !

Truth!

I went mobile over a decade ago. Had some work travel to do, and it made so much sense I basically reorganized, ditched a desk phone (literally put it into a drawer, left VM announcements that I do not do VM, and have not had one since), setup a nice backpack with the goodies and never went back.

Through that time, I setup a home lab and just did more and more there, until about the only thing that matters is where stuff to work on actually is and whether I can move it.

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

#946

Post by hardolaf » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:26 PM UTC

Frost1x wrote: post #857

underdeserver wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great, but I don't want to work with you, because something you're working on or something you're responsible for is blocking me and I have no way of making progress.

Unless it's effecting your performance review or whatever, who cares, honestly? The obsession with efficiency and Taylorism is what's wrong with the current state of affairs in business. Not saying people shouldn't want to be productive just that understanding delays and simply pyschologically dealing with them would go a long way in modern culture. Not everything needs to happen 5 minutes ago, is late, or is so crit…

Many of us get profit sharing. In such environments, we should be caring about global efficiency of the labor force.

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

#947

Post by craigie » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:32 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #446

munificent wrote: post #174

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…

>that you could actually make friends with people existing solely on zoom?

I don't get this idea that you need to be friends with your colleagues. Hpw does that improve productivity?

Professional yes, friendly even sure but friends? That's for leisure time and it shouldn't matter if their your colleagues or not.

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

#948

Post by ctvo » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:34 PM UTC

There's two extremes of employee behavior I've seen, with most folks somewhere in the middle:

- My co-workers are friends. We hang out, we go out drinking after work. We do activities on the weekend together outside of work. Early stage start-ups often are like this, most of the time not by intentional design, but due to the hours and intimacy of working closely with peers.

- My co-workers are colleagues. We're professionals, but our interaction stops there. I don't particularly care to get to know my colleagues on a deeply personal level.

Your preference for working remotely seems very closely tied to which camp you more strongly identify with.

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

#949

Post by muttled » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:38 PM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #926

hbn wrote: post #896

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly like being able to roll out of bed and put on a coffee 10 minutes before starting work, but if I'm being honest with myself, the idea of receiving all my regular human interaction through a badly made Electron app from Microsoft for the rest of my life is just not a good idea in the long run. And maybe I'm just crazy but it seems like software even from the big companies has gotten worse through the pande…

>idea of receiving all my regular human interaction through a badly made Electron app from Microsoft for the rest of my life is just not a good idea in the long run. Have you considered bars?

I've personally found with all the time I'm saving commuting I'm able to spend a lot more time with my friends.

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

#950

Post by warkdarrior » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:39 PM UTC

RubyRidgeRandy wrote: post #685

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…

an interesting phrase is working as little as possible. This is an organizational issue more so than a motivation one. I work remote and am assigned all my work on a monday that is due by the end of the day friday. If I don't do it, there will be questions asked. Because of the way our company is organized, working as little as possible means working exactly as expected.

You have an interesting setup, where both tasks and time allocation are given to you ("implement X, you have 5 days"). Do you have any say in how long something is supposed to take?