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Google won't be mandating a strict return-to-office plan

entrepreneur.com

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Re: Google won't be mandating a strict return-to-office plan

#81

Post by ryandrake »

honkycat wrote: post #73

RTO is going to be brutal for us in 3rd tier cities like PDX The tech scene here SUCKS, but I much prefer the lifestyle to a large city ( plus, I can buy a house here. ) Not sure what will happen if the days of remote work ends. How will I get a gig? There was a time in the mid 2010s were they were obsessed with "servant leaders" and "leading from the front"... those days are long-fucking-gone. Guarantee the executiv…

> Guarantee the executive class will not be forced into office.

Absolutely, they will find some kind of excuse to justify their jet-setting around and spending time in their various homes across the world, while insisting that the worker bees cannot possibly do their work outside of an office.

Re: Google won't be mandating a strict return-to-office plan

#82

Post by glzone1 »

scarface_74 wrote: post #72
sitkack wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well. Being tied to any one cloud is not a great position to be in. Not patronizing.

You’re always locked in to your infrastructure. The entire idea of “cloud agnosticism” is BS. I’ve seen companies take over a year and thousands of man hours to move from VMs on premise to a cloud platform. Cloud agnosticism is hardly ever a business differentiator

It's also not an advantage, I've seen endless complexity in abstractions on abstraction, fragility and giving up really nice cloud features for this.

It'd take years to migrate STILL even with all that effort. And they can't ship features they are so busy worrying about AWS going away.

Re: Google won't be mandating a strict return-to-office plan

#83

Post by DebtDeflation »

angmarsbane wrote: post #67
xyst wrote: post #12

They say this now. But in 12 months (or the next layoff period), they will move from hybrid to full RTO. Still a shitty move to mandate RTO. Most people (IT folks) have spoke with do this routine: 0) daily routine to prepare for day 1) 1 hr commute to shitty office 2) login to computer, do calls with cross regional (and international) teams over Zoom/Teams/Webex or whatever conferencing system 3) teleconferencing wit…

RTO for sales folks doesn't make sense to me either. Typically you want your sales folks on the road not in your office. I think sales is a good candidate for fully remote.

You 100% want your sales folks at customers not in your office.

Most roles can be hybrid/remote. Regardless of Tech, Finance, Marketing, whatever, if the job involves sitting in front of a computer or being on the phone all day it's a good candidate. If you were doing the job remotely from March 2020 through the end of 2021 and being effective, it's a good candidate.

Re: Google won't be mandating a strict return-to-office plan

#84

Post by phito »

time0ut wrote: post #59
ENGNR wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same! Tech job, my co-founder and I are only a 5 minute drive or bike ride from the office. It’s nice to get dressed and have that separation from home. I feel like the commute is what people are actually feeling the worst, because it’s unpaid time that they just straight up lose. Being close to the office resolves it for us.

I don't have the discipline to stop working when I work from home. Being able to go into the office every day is a nice perk for me to help structure my day. If it was a longer drive, I'd probably feel differently.

Wait you need discipline to... stop working?!

Re: Google won't be mandating a strict return-to-office plan

#85

Post by ghaff »

xyst wrote: post #12

They say this now. But in 12 months (or the next layoff period), they will move from hybrid to full RTO. Still a shitty move to mandate RTO. Most people (IT folks) have spoke with do this routine: 0) daily routine to prepare for day 1) 1 hr commute to shitty office 2) login to computer, do calls with cross regional (and international) teams over Zoom/Teams/Webex or whatever conferencing system 3) teleconferencing wit…

Inside sales maybe. But sales reps who physically meet with customers spend very little time in company offices in general.

Re: Google won't be mandating a strict return-to-office plan

#86

Post by ryandrake »

glzone1 wrote: post #77
fhdsgbbcaA wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define “fraud”? If you get your work done in two hours and can’t progress until a teammate does their end, is it better or worse if you are scrolling HN in an office or at home? I run my own company, I do not give a single fuck how, where, or when people get their job done. I only care they deliver. Likewise, people who need to be watched over are not the employees I want in the first place. I’m not running a daycare…

A lot of business don't want to bother performance managing that closely. Plenty just worked off of trust. * You hire someone, and then figure out someone else is doing the work (usually because they are making stupid mistakes, and the person you hired can't be that dumb) * Your staff work odd hours that make coordinating hard (side gigs / hussle's etc). * I think the rumored record of multiple full time jobs someone…

> * I think the rumored record of multiple full time jobs someone was working was 5+.

> * We interviewed someone who was upfront they would be working for us while working for her full time day job remotely.

I'm not sure how this is justified as a problem.

CEO of multiple companies: A-OK

SVP serving on multiple companies' boards of directors: A-OK

Salaried office worker working for multiple companies remotely: Fraud

Hourly worker working three jobs to make ends meet: A-OK

Re: Google won't be mandating a strict return-to-office plan

#87

Post by stego-tech »

Spooky23 wrote: post #50
stego-tech wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, my experience says you’re right, but the red hot labor summer combined with Dell and Amazon _and_ Apple workers vocally opposing such mandates and leaving outright give me hope that maybe, _maybe_ leadership will accept this is a losing battle and embrace the new norms. Barring that, the younger working demographics have made it abundantly clear there’s a zero tolerance for the traditional corporate bullshit.…

Tech organizations are all overstaffed from the pandemic. Engineering is usually boom/bust. Likely outcome is recession and purge. The plucky gen alphas will be in the cube farm to pay they rent.

It depends on your perspective and context. I refuse to subscribe to the defeatist attitudes of "this is how it has been and therefore always shall be" that's in your post, because otherwise what's the point of participating at all if change is impossible?

The engineering boom-bust cycle is a recent phenomenon (past fifty years) relatively speaking, and it doesn't mean it's a permanent fixture of civilization unless we choose to accept it as such. I reject permanence and advocate change, and so should you.

Besides, "Gen Alpha" won't be in cube farms even with a RTO, because Glorious Leaders (TM) in tech threw out cubicles, personal identity, and privacy in favor of hotel seating and clean desk policies. A return to cubicles would be a marked improvement over the present status quo, if we could just figure out the right marketing buzzwords to trick the C-Suite into believing it's the Next Big Thing (TM).

Re: Google won't be mandating a strict return-to-office plan

#88

Post by yieldcrv »

grayfaced wrote: post #78
yieldcrv wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re literally doing the work. They’re not accused of placing backdoors, they’re not accused of anything aside from the US government running an antiquated sanctions regime, and just doing the work. The US government isnt charging companies with OFAC violations, so there is no reason to care. North Koreans learned how to be a fake Staff Software Engineer and do non-fake things for real RSUs. Companies shouldnt bur…

That sounds akin to saying a security breach doesn't matter until there are consequences. Not many companies would be comfortable being in the position that they have not verified the identities of employees who have access to payment processing data.

They did verify the identity to the standard required. The employee lied.

Although analogies compare dissimilar things with a common attribute, your analogy relies on saying all employees are security breaches. These are employees competent to work in medium sized all the way to big tech companies as software engineers.

Re: Google won't be mandating a strict return-to-office plan

#89

Post by teractiveodular »

skybrian wrote: post #56
xyst wrote: post #12

They say this now. But in 12 months (or the next layoff period), they will move from hybrid to full RTO. Still a shitty move to mandate RTO. Most people (IT folks) have spoke with do this routine: 0) daily routine to prepare for day 1) 1 hr commute to shitty office 2) login to computer, do calls with cross regional (and international) teams over Zoom/Teams/Webex or whatever conferencing system 3) teleconferencing wit…

Google had flex time for all the time I worked there, for a dozen years, well before the pandemic. I don't see any particular reason it wouldn't work for them now?

Google has always had the flexible working hours and didn't mind the occasional "plumber coming today" day, but before COVID it was very allergic to permanent WFH arrangements.
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