Google employees who work from home could lose money • Hacker News Board

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#191

Post by _fizz_buzz_ » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

heipei wrote: post #163

Raphael_Amiard wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm used to the conversation in here being extremely US-centric, but realize that this is much less true for European cities with good public transportation. I haven't ever used a car to go to work in my life. I'm also very concerned about this better world where people stay home to save the planet. The common level of social interactions in the modern world is already low enough in my opinion. EDIT: It rarely happen…

It's less true, but still very much true. In Germany for example, commuting via car unlocks tax incentives per extra kilometer traveled.

The "Entfernungspauschale" is not tied to the mode of transportation. You get a tax write off for the distance that you commute (regardless if you walk, drive a car, take a bike or ride a train). But I do believe it's the wrong incentive.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#192

Post by gowld » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

namdnay wrote: post #150

minikites wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finding cheaper labor elsewhere further concentrates wealth. The only way to spread out the wealth would be to mandate the same salary across regions.

That sounds good, but how do you determine this new universal salary? It's either going to be absurdly over market (are you going to pay fresh grads in Hyderabad 150k USD a year?) or absurdly under market (are you going to pay fresh grads in Mountain View 30k USD a year?)

Same way oil is priced, at the market clearing rate. Maybe it's $60K/yr and we have happy Indians and Romanians and no Californians.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#193

Post by sdevonoes » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

Lariscus wrote: post #18

Don't forget, to the CEO and their cronies you are all just peons. If they could pay you nothing at all they would absolutely do so.

Exactly. Not sure why people get surprised, this sort of things (company wins, employees lose) happen all the time. I imagine that since this is HN, people here have Google in some kind of a throne and they think Google employees (engineers, mainly) have some sort of privileges that make them immune. Well, Google is just like any other company out there and Google engineers are just like any other employees out there, peons with zero power of decision. I hope I'm wrong and Google engineers take a step forward to avoid this pay cut, otherwise this will happen in every dumb IT company out there as well (because, if Google does it, it must be good).

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#194

Post by bartread » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 1:25 PM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #44

Class A office space in Manhattan is about $70/sqft, and the average office employee gets 150 sqft allocated (desk, hallway, conference room, supply closets...) Google is probably 170. That's $11900 annually that they save by not having an employee take up office space. No, it's not fungible on a small scale, but it's certainly fungible on a large scale: reduce your office needs by 100 people and you can rearrange de…

> sublet that 17000 sqft.

Who to if everybody is working from home?

Not that they are but there also aren't an infinite supply of companies that want to rent office space when many workers are now either WFH or hybrid working and only going in a couple of days each week.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#195

Post by alistairSH » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #151

purple_ferret wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it? Remote work might incentive overall less density, which, on the whole, leads to a bigger carbon footprint per capita.

Depends on where people want to live and work. But a big part of why lower density is bad is because it leads to lots of commuting.

Commuting is no doubt a large contributor to carbon emissions. But, suburban and rural living lead to car-centric lifestyles in general. Driving to school, to the grocer, to entertainment and dining, etc. Plus all the infrastructure to support that - more roads, giant parking lots, etc.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#196

Post by dqpb » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

throwaway_qcjal wrote: post #10

I think this is making a whole lot of out nothing, or at least not much. Google would determine your pay based on your work location, regardless of whether that's your home or the office. As a result people that lived far from the office in a typically less expensive area could see their pay drop.

Do you think they should reduce salary for people who have paid off their mortgage? Those people also have lower cost of living.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#197

Post by rescripting » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

unmole wrote: post #91

kristopolous wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The planet is actually on fire, right now, as you read this. So fuck productivity. We can manage. We must sacrifice the inconvenience of wasting our time commuting because of some arbitrary productivity definition to stop the surface of the planet from being engulfed in flames. There's also a pandemic that's killed 4.3 million people because productivity is apparently more important than containing the outbreak of a…

> The planet is actually on fire, right now, as you read this. This really isn't different from the person who brought a snowball into the US Senate. > There's also a pandemic that's killed 4.3 million Google requires employees working from the office to be vaccinated.

It's just a hyperbolic way of saying "climate change is real". Bringing a snowball into the US Senate is a hyperbolic way of denying reality. So they're different in that sense.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#198

Post by eru » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

ransom1538 wrote: post #138

dsr_ wrote: post #44

Class A office space in Manhattan is about $70/sqft, and the average office employee gets 150 sqft allocated (desk, hallway, conference room, supply closets...) Google is probably 170. That's $11900 annually that they save by not having an employee take up office space. No, it's not fungible on a small scale, but it's certainly fungible on a large scale: reduce your office needs by 100 people and you can rearrange de…

"Google is probably 170. That's $11900 annually that they save by not having an employee take up office space." They are locked into leases and/or have purchased the buildings outright. So the cost is sunk. This is why google is upset and will take salary away from remote workers.

Google is continuously hiring and growing.

If they can slow down the growing of office space without slowing down hiring, that's a win.

Yes, they are locked in to some leases and have bought some buildings. But at any one time, some leases will run out, and some buildings will be transacted.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#199

Post by burkaman » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 1:26 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #60

dsr_ wrote: post #44

Class A office space in Manhattan is about $70/sqft, and the average office employee gets 150 sqft allocated (desk, hallway, conference room, supply closets...) Google is probably 170. That's $11900 annually that they save by not having an employee take up office space. No, it's not fungible on a small scale, but it's certainly fungible on a large scale: reduce your office needs by 100 people and you can rearrange de…

> If Googlers had any collective bargaining power, they wouldn't be getting salary reductions: they would be getting extra expense money for desks, chairs, and ISP upgrades. Since Google already pays the most, where do you threaten to leave to while bargaining?

You don't threaten to leave, the whole point of unions is to attempt to equalize a negotiation when workers can't easily get another job. Dockworkers don't threaten to go work at a competing port, they threaten to stop working and shut down the dock.

Re: Google employees who work from home could lose money

#200

Post by system16 » Tue, Aug 10, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

Jach wrote: post #93

rjzzleep wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why they have it all there is specifically to abuse your work hours. Hungry, don't have any food? Go back to the office real quick to grab a snack on a Sunday. And well you might have just figured out something so you might end up back at your desk. There are enough studies on why those campuses are designed that way. The convenience is designed at making sure you spend more time at work.

That's one reason, not the reason. However it's interesting to note that the convenience factor aimed at getting people to do "just a little more" is even more greatly amplified by just enabling WFH. Indeed a lot of companies noticed that people were working way more after WFH than beforehand, but after a while they had to start messaging against it because that burns people out. Unfortunately the concept of "work-li…

> convenience factor aimed at getting people to do "just a little more" is even more greatly amplified by just enabling WFH

I can absolutely attest to this. Since WFH, at least a couple of times a week or on the weekend I'll have little a-ha moments or things I want to test. I reason I'll just quickly log in to my work laptop to play around for a few minutes... that often turns into a couple of hours. It usually results in the problem being solved and me riding the 'high' for the rest of the evening/weekend.

That never would have happened without WFH. I'm not even complaining because I'm doing it on my own terms and am in no way obligated to do it.