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Google asks some employees to share desks amid office downsizing

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Re: Google asks some employees to share desks amid office downsizing

#111

Post by WWLink »

brailsafe wrote: post #81
pram wrote: post #35

Remember how all those Gen X movies depicted cubicles as the embodiment of the soul crushing rat race. If only we still had it that good!

Damn idk which I'd rather have. Some cube farms are next-level depressing. When I was younger, I think part of what made the prospect of moving out of my hometown more compelling was the fact that a giant mega-insurance company ended up being the main endpoint for CS grads. I got to visit once and it was _not_ pretty. Tightly enclosed cubes with tall aging white walls, one source of sunlight if that. They must of rea…

Open or not, the important factor is how much free space you have around you. I claim that a crowded cubicle setup will be worse than a spacious open office. Granted, SPACIOUS open offices are really rare - the largest motivator is to crowd as many people in as possible. You know what the icing on the cake is? Open office workspaces are almost always crowded into a building that was made for cubicles or a warehouse or whatever. There's never enough parking, never enough toilets. The asshole business owners always play the "well, we're a growing company so you'll have to live with this for now" card.

When the company I work for was new, we had big desks in a huge office space, so we were spread out. It was awesome! Like you easily had 8ft of desk to yourself and a cabinet and lots of space to breathe.

Re: Google asks some employees to share desks amid office downsizing

#112

Post by outworlder »

shmatt wrote: post #51
Insanity wrote: post #31

It seems like each day there's an article lately about reasons _not_ to work at Google. Sad to see how they went from an enviable place to work to a place to avoid these past years. (Although internally, things might be better than it looks from the outside of course)

I'd work from a toilet stall for a Google L6 comp band I doubt any Googlers actually care about this stuff

> I'd work from a toilet stall for a Google L6 comp band

For maybe a quarter, until your brain adapts. Once you have your needs met, there's diminishing returns. You can still be miserable while getting a fat check.

Re: Google asks some employees to share desks amid office downsizing

#113

Post by cyberlurker »

VikingCoder wrote: post #72
posharma wrote: post #41

Internally Google might be just fine, but optics are equally important in this industry. Before Sundar took over Google never went through bad PR. It's just an observation, not a dig at Google's affairs.

Google never went through bad PR before Sundar? Sunday became CEO on August 10, 2015. Google+ was launched in 2011. (And the "real name" policy was a PR disaster.) Google Reader was shut down in 2013. (You can hardly find a PR disaster that people in the tech world complain about more.) Google, Apple, Intel, Adobe had an anti-poaching agreement that finally got settled in 2015, but they were getting bad press before…

When did they drop “don’t be evil”?

Re: Google asks some employees to share desks amid office downsizing

#114

Post by [deleted] »

ren_engineer wrote: post #58
ndneighbor wrote: post #24

Look... if you want people to RTO, maybe make it so that there's less overhead? Reading this article made me just want to stay at my own desk at home.

whole thing makes no sense, just feels like leadership is flailing. Is RTO just sunk cost fallacy due to these big companies having spent billions on real estate and fancy buildings? There seems to be minimal benefits to mandating it, it shrinks your talent pool, makes employees less efficient due to commute, forces you to pay more in tech hubs, and makes you spend more on office stuff. The only benefit is the comple…

[deleted]

Re: Google asks some employees to share desks amid office downsizing

#115

Post by mahoho »

Aside from all the other glaring issues with this model with respect to workers' wellbeing, do they even consider how it affects people who need specific ergonomic or accessibility accommodations? Like, my own desk has a ton of stuff I need just to get through a day of computer use: split keyboard, clamp-on keyboard tray, vertical mouse, trackball. Am I supposed to just haul all that crap in, set it up, tear it down, and haul it back home every day?

I doubt the storage situation helps much either; I know someone who works for another company that recently switched to this and he can't even fit basic work tools like a headset into his locker.

Re: Google asks some employees to share desks amid office downsizing

#116

Post by outworlder »

WWLink wrote: post #111
brailsafe wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn idk which I'd rather have. Some cube farms are next-level depressing. When I was younger, I think part of what made the prospect of moving out of my hometown more compelling was the fact that a giant mega-insurance company ended up being the main endpoint for CS grads. I got to visit once and it was _not_ pretty. Tightly enclosed cubes with tall aging white walls, one source of sunlight if that. They must of rea…

Open or not, the important factor is how much free space you have around you. I claim that a crowded cubicle setup will be worse than a spacious open office. Granted, SPACIOUS open offices are really rare - the largest motivator is to crowd as many people in as possible. You know what the icing on the cake is? Open office workspaces are almost always crowded into a building that was made for cubicles or a warehouse o…

> Open office workspaces are almost always crowded into a building that was made for cubicles or a warehouse or whatever.

Yeah! See, at least with cubes you know exactly where your "space" ends. Not so with many open plan offices, they can always try to cram more.

Re: Google asks some employees to share desks amid office downsizing

#117

Post by jrockway »

shmatt wrote: post #51
Insanity wrote: post #31

It seems like each day there's an article lately about reasons _not_ to work at Google. Sad to see how they went from an enviable place to work to a place to avoid these past years. (Although internally, things might be better than it looks from the outside of course)

I'd work from a toilet stall for a Google L6 comp band I doubt any Googlers actually care about this stuff

Google definitely doesn't have a spare toilet for you. I remember a group of coworkers threatening to file a complaint with OSHA because the number of toilets was so limited. (I just used the bathrooms that were part of the building but not managed by Google. They were not "nice" so nobody was ever in there, but it was better than waiting in line to use the facilities.)

Re: Google asks some employees to share desks amid office downsizing

#118

Post by dsr_ »

shmatt wrote: post #51
Insanity wrote: post #31

It seems like each day there's an article lately about reasons _not_ to work at Google. Sad to see how they went from an enviable place to work to a place to avoid these past years. (Although internally, things might be better than it looks from the outside of course)

I'd work from a toilet stall for a Google L6 comp band I doubt any Googlers actually care about this stuff

Toilet stalls can be booked for no more than 15 minutes at a time.

Re: Google asks some employees to share desks amid office downsizing

#119

Post by sgtnoodle »

convolvatron wrote: post #63
Wonnk13 wrote: post #52

Not surprising, shit like this was happening pre-covid as well if you look for it.

after finally landing a job at Google after 8 months of back and forth I was pretty seriously disappointed to be assigned less than 20 square feet in the middle of a row of chairs that guaranteed someone would hit the back of my chair every couple minutes, and that I would be hard pressed to go to the bathroom without doing the same to the other 20 people in the row.

I worked on a project in X, and we moved from the main campus to The Rails. Not to claim we deserved more space, but we often had a bunch of hardware on our desks and so the norm was for an L shape. A week before the move, I went by to check the new desk setup. The contractors had messed up the spacing, and every row of cubes had about 6" of extra space, except for the last row with my desk. My row had about 3' less space, and you literally had to do a slalom to get to my desk. Thankfully they were able to mostly fix it...

Re: Google asks some employees to share desks amid office downsizing

#120

Post by gwoplock »

scarface74 wrote: post #105
CydeWeys wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a Googler who very much cares about having my own desk. I hate WFH because I find it to be miserable, strongly prefer WFO, and this would make WFO miserable too. I'm not gonna be miserable for 8 hours every day for any amount of money.

How is WFH miserable and if it is, it’s your home, can’t you make it more comfortable?

Not OP, but for me, it's the isolation. I wouldn't quite call it miserable unless I can't go out. I lasted only a few days into WFH for COVID before I went to live with my parents until I was forced back to the office. Just a few weeks ago I was snowed in for a week and I was about to crawl up the walls.
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