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Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

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Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#51

Post by dartos »

bartwr wrote: post #46
gspencley wrote: post #16

I personally don't care what FAANG does. They all sound like horrible companies to work for, and I don't care for the products they produce either. I was working remotely before the pandemic and will continue to work remotely in the future. It's great that we have more opportunities now than before, but they always existed. So what the "mainstream" or "big tech" world does in current year is their own business. I won…

Why do they sound horrible? This is a serious, non provocative question. :) I personally loved working for Google. Low workload, great work-life balance, amazing perks, mind blowing salary, potential to do really cool stuff that hundreds of millions will use, doing really cutting edge things that almost noone else can do, ridiculously good internal infrastructure and tooling so I can focus just on my tasks, kind and…

Many people would not like the cognitive dissonance of working for an organization that does many things they disagree with.

But from what I hear, it really depends where in google you work. I hear juniors/new grads are worked to the bone

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#52

Post by Justsignedup »

bartwr wrote: post #46
gspencley wrote: post #16

I personally don't care what FAANG does. They all sound like horrible companies to work for, and I don't care for the products they produce either. I was working remotely before the pandemic and will continue to work remotely in the future. It's great that we have more opportunities now than before, but they always existed. So what the "mainstream" or "big tech" world does in current year is their own business. I won…

Why do they sound horrible? This is a serious, non provocative question. :) I personally loved working for Google. Low workload, great work-life balance, amazing perks, mind blowing salary, potential to do really cool stuff that hundreds of millions will use, doing really cutting edge things that almost noone else can do, ridiculously good internal infrastructure and tooling so I can focus just on my tasks, kind and…

to echo your response:

I know people who worked at Amazon and hated it. And facebook and loved it. Google people did the google world tour (transfer offices every 6-9 months and live everywhere in the world). Pretty great experiences at Dropbox.

The life-changing salary is also pretty great.

I also know people who got so bored at those jobs working on the same one tiny thing all day long.

So many varied experiences. To say they all suck would be quite disingenuous.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#53

Post by sokoloff »

eddieroger wrote: post #26
neogodless wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify your premise here? When I worked in a building, I would go to meetings, and there I would see co-workers and people would talk to each other in meetings. When I work remotely, I join virtual meetings, and I see co-workers and people talk to each other. In both cases, people can use chat to say things without me seeing. If I am physically in a building, but people are not in the same room as me, they c…

They're talking about the hallway chats that happen after the meeting, when people move from the conference room back to their cubes. Gotta talk about something as you walk, and if that happens to be in the form of a misrepresentation of your work, you not only can't do anything about it, but you'll never know. In my experience, that's more a reflection on a poor org than the situation. Before the pandemic when I wan…

This, but it doesn't even have to be as nefarious as misrepresenting your work.

Someone senior who didn't quite understand some point but didn't want to ask about it in the meeting* will ask a version of it in the hallway just outside the door.

They'll appreciate and increase trust in the person who gave them the answer. There's not even anything nefarious about that; it's just normal human behavior.

* Positively: because they didn't want to derail the meeting and slow everyone down, or negatively: because they didn't want to admit to not being omniscient. Either way, it happens.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#54

Post by sime2009 »

kevinsync wrote: post #30

While working for an agency full-time (software), somebody asked me what I do. I said "My job is to make you feel good about whatever it is I may or may not be doing around this place." This is applicable to all jobs in all industries, full-time or remote -- produce, and make your employer feel good about you being there, and sometimes even that's not enough to avoid the chopping block... but you know what? That's ju…

This idea that your top priority as an employee is to make your boss feel good at all times, is a thing in the US, but it is not universal to every where in the world.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#55

Post by nsxwolf »

eropple wrote: post #27
gardenhedge wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a union and got a 1.5% raise, benefits have decreased and we're forced into hybrid working. I'm in a country where I can't just be fired without notice so that union doesnt do much for me there either. I'm just pointing out that unions don't mean you get everything you want.

> I'm in a country where I can't just be fired without notice so that union doesnt do much for me there either. In most countries, this didn't happen out of nowhere.

Point out the underperformance of unions and the response is always yeah but they got us weekends off 100 years ago. What have you done for me lately?

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#57

Post by lucideer »

I think the best way to judge this is to look at management. Are they remote or in office?

I work for a large corp who's CTO is fully remote. As an engineer, that gives me confidence, & the fact a decent % of other CxOs, VPs, &c. are too just bolsters that.

A sibling commenter - @keikobadthebad - described it well: if decision-makers are meeting all in-office folk in person, you'll be naturally excluded from the important conversations. In contrast, if decision-makers are fully remote, those important conversations are more likely to be a level playing field.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#58

Post by nerdjon »

not-chatgpt wrote: post #29

Worked at a couple FAANG companies and from what I've seen, management is absolutely right that remote work, overall, is inefficient. There was a Blind poll and I believe half the people admitted they were slacking off more frequently while remote. However, being laid off is just a completely different matter. Depending on the company, the motivation for the layoff could significantly differ. Some did it to save cost…

As someone else said, I think that poll is fundamentally flawed. People just didn't realize how much time they "wasted" being in the office.

For me:

When I was in the office I would be fairly regularly distracted by coworkers (which does have some advantages but is a loss when its every day) which causes me to loose my focus. Now I am "distracted" by my cat wanting on my lap which doesn't cause me to loose focus (if anything that keeps me in my chair for longer).

I would need a break from something and browse news and the internet A LOT in the office. I needed that mental break.

I would often try to force myself to not take a break for appearances causing the actual work output over the same period of time to go down.

I feel more comfortable in my home environment since it is decorated how I want so I am less stressed.

Finally the biggest one? I work more hours now than I did before. I am no longer commuting so I don't feel stressed if I need to finish something before going offline. Or if I am doing something that only needs half my focus I may work on it at night while doing something else (like maybe the final rounds of finishing a script that has a fair amount of downtime while it runs each time). Or if I just turn on my computer a bit earlier in the morning and do a quick something and then get back to my coffee, breakfast, whatever.

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#59

Post by darkwater »

sam0x17 wrote: post #13
ghaff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, companies don't really care that much if they lose some of "the best." A lot of "the best" are changing jobs on a fairly regular basis anyway.

> companies don't really care that much if they lose some of "the best." SWE salary numbers would suggest otherwise

Are those numbers to retain or to attract?

Re: Will workers hired as Remote all be laid off in next wave?

#60

Post by luminouslow »

eddieroger wrote: post #26
neogodless wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you clarify your premise here? When I worked in a building, I would go to meetings, and there I would see co-workers and people would talk to each other in meetings. When I work remotely, I join virtual meetings, and I see co-workers and people talk to each other. In both cases, people can use chat to say things without me seeing. If I am physically in a building, but people are not in the same room as me, they c…

They're talking about the hallway chats that happen after the meeting, when people move from the conference room back to their cubes. Gotta talk about something as you walk, and if that happens to be in the form of a misrepresentation of your work, you not only can't do anything about it, but you'll never know. In my experience, that's more a reflection on a poor org than the situation. Before the pandemic when I wan…

>not only can't do anything about it, but you'll never know.

And what would you do if you are there in person? Challenge them to a duel?

This whole scenario sounds very paranoid to me. In my experience if you treat people decently and perform OK most co-workers won't talk negatively about you behind your back. Or maybe I just never noticed... it did have 0 impact on me though if it happened.

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