I'm not sure it's right to say they did anything here. All the article reports is that an unspecified Google VP made an offhand remark that no changes are expected to their 3-2 hybrid schedule - which used to be Amazon's schedule until Andy Jassy made an unexpected change.
How do you rationalize MSFT then?
I'm not sure what you mean. As far as I understand, Microsoft also hasn't made any recent changes to their hybrid work policy or unconditional promises regarding its longevity. (I've heard of a _conditional_ promise from an Azure exec that hybrid work will stay unless productivity requires them to get rid of it.)
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…
> shitty office I'm not sure this applies to Google. Their offices and food are pretty nice. And their gyms are top-notch. If you stick with the salad bar, I'd venture to guess the freshness and nutrition variety will be better than most IT guys can get at home. Of course, this does not mean RTO won't suck.
Tech office amenity spaces are visually impressive, but then your actual workstation is just a desk in an ocean of desks, where you have to wear noise-cancelling headphones to hear yourself think.
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 know a person who is absolutely brilliant, first class intellect. They have two remote jobs and have gotten softly reprimanded at both for essentially making other people look bad because they get so much done. As far as I see it, both companies get an a-tier person who outperforms the rest of their staff. This person gets two paychecks. Everybody wins. But in the “we own your time and soul” employee relations mode…
That's why he should have kept it a secret. Envy is a pervasive effect. Do everything possible to counteract it.
I think the worst part is 9) at night, do more work that requires focus time while no one is bothering you, since expectations got calibrated to when everyone had a private office and more control over their own time.
Yep. Many of my days are 4-6 hours of meetings in the morning, 2 more hours of paperwork/email/coordination activities, go get dinner, then work another 2-3 hours. Thank goodness I can work from home. I know in some ways that makes my flexibility more damaging to my work/life balance, but the tradeoff is worth it to me.
Yep that schedule is pretty familiar for me as well. I’m willing to do it when necessary; I feel like it’s fair given the flexibility and trust I’m given as a fully remote employee.
When I’ve worked in the office in the past, the laptop stays closed as soon as I leave work at 5. They don’t get to have it both ways.
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…
> But those were mostly sales folks. So, are there really so few biotech / hardware people here? Hard to do lab work from home.
Like you say, the set of people who'd be pushing the argument from that angle is inherently pretty small. Basically either those that don't need money from a job in the first place + those that want some extra money from a job but only when it's extremely convenient and that boundary just happens to be WFH or not. The others don't inherently care more about their employer than themselves, they care more more about th…
My labour history knowledge is pretty non-existent, but I assume past progress was often made via unions, e.g. 8-hour work day. Seems like this is a situation begging for workers (at Amazon and elsewhere) to unionise and demand the right to WFH through the power of collective bargaining. The workers that progressed labour rights in the past surely mostly needed their jobs too, so this situation doesn't seem unique at…
They don’t make labor law like they used to, unfortunately. The Supreme Court has steadily been gutting it for 40+ years now, and unionism has unfortunately been subsumed into culture war politics so that even a bare acknowledgement of the imbalances in negotiating power between management and labor is impossible without getting entangled in tribal-political ideology. Which means there’s equally no hope that Congress will reverse any of the erosion of labor rights inflicted by the courts.
I can relate. I work (or at least spend the time at the PC even if I don't) around two hours more per day from home, while the office made me quit much sooner.
I personally resorted to logging time I spend working in a spreadsheet to keep weekly hours under control. Otherwise I often spend evenings reading work-related papers then the next day I feel guilty of taking a longer lunch. No more, the spreadsheet averages it all out.
Everyone I know with a long commute can afford a shorter commute, they just trade the commute for a larger single-family dwelling.
yeah, “can afford” doesn’t mean I should, props to them
I'm mostly just observing that long commutes for techies is driven by American cultural norms. I have some sympathy for the ones with kids, zero sympathy for the rest.