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Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

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Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#191

Post by HWR_14 »

bbor wrote: post #116
HWR_14 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I am doing "2 days in office, 3 remote" for my employees, why would I want to pay twice as much so desks can sit vacant more than half the time?

Because the desk-sharing vibes are, as the kids wisely say, cursed. No personalization of decorations or monitors, can't work flexibly, etc. etc. etc.

It sends a powerful message that this isn't "your space". But if employees won't even come in most of the time, why should they get "their space"?

I agree, hotdesking when you're in the office most of the time is horrible. But if you want to primarily WFH, I don't understand why you also think you should get nice office space at a second location. When you go to another location for work (e.g. a client if you are a consultant), you don't have a nice personalized desk.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#192

Post by dumpster_fire »

alephnerd wrote: post #187
dumpster_fire wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, Xooglers are expected to do that. That's mostly the reason they are hired for. If they ever suggested just hosting a static page with 0.01 QPS on an existing API server, they'd be deemed as failed Googlers. Everyone expects them to be building Kubernetes, Terraform, and other useless bullshit that a startup with a total critical traffic of 10QPS absolutely doesn't need. We've also had ex-Facebookers…

1. Terraform is absolutely useful for both startups and enterprises. IaC makes everyone's (Platform, App, Ops, Security) lives easier from an accounting, governance, and reproducibility standpoint. 2. Terraform isn't a Google product. It's by Hashicorp

I know Terraform isn't by Google. I'm saying that's what Xooglers are expected to know since this new meta of IaC buzzword has been present in Google for close to a decade. It's nothing new.

Also, do you really need it when you're a startup running 3 EC2 clusters with "potentially tons of customers"? No.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#193

Post by lowbloodsugar »

bushbaba wrote: post #144
lowbloodsugar wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the CEO thought process used in a megacorp was appropriate for a four engineer startup, then he is a fucking idiot and you are better off out of that impending cluster fuck.

Often those who’ve only worked at small companies don’t grock how much organizational bloat is needed to run a large enterprise. Alignment cannot be done in a 50k employee company by having everyone hash it out over beers. Large companies also tend to have sociopaths become the VPs, who only care about their career progression and not the actual company direction.

The failure begins at around 150 employees, from what I've seen in startups I joined when smaller and grew to that point.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#194

Post by grogenaut »

bombolo wrote: post #184
grogenaut wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they do, thats why I said fire code. Here they show up, say fix this shit. and come back and check a week or 2 later. They came by and we moved around the same time.... the inspections are generally scheduled. It was only that crazy for about 3 weeks. longer and they would have probbably had a different fix.

> the inspections are generally scheduled. Found your problem right there.

It's usually short notice from what I know but yes... but also you gotta have the person with the keys around to let people in. They still find tons of stuff. They also freak out about dumb stuff like a sheet of paper taped to the window.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#195

Post by angmarsbane »

I come into the office 3-4 days a week, sometimes 5. We're technically hot-desking but I put all of my personal items on a desk. "MY desk" is always open for me now b/c it's uncomfortable for strangers to sit on a desk with someone else's family photos and tchotchkes. Bonus, all of my colleagues know exactly where to find me because I am in the same desk every time and I never have to readjust my chair/monitor etc.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#196

Post by timbit42 »

gumballindie wrote: post #172
theanonymousone wrote: post #73

Couldn't it be a "sign" that (at least) 100% back to office is off the table?

It may also be a sign of further layoffs.

A lot of people prefer being laid off than forced back to the office.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#197

Post by pseudalopex »

grogenaut wrote: post #158
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these actual desks, cubes, half cubes, or even smaller? You know your engineering forefathers used to have actual offices? I remember when cubes were a compromise. Then half cubes. Then just a long table with a seat. But yeah, they care about productivity. Also, real estate is an investment vehicle and depreciation/tax break primarily, adult day care center secondarily.

I worked at a Microsoft derrived game studio in 2010... the offices were glorious... but the devs literally only talked to each other once a week or at lunch. But they were doing things like implementing entire siggraph, which are 'near real time' aka 1-5 seconds per frame, papers into actual real time (sub .1 millis per frame) implemetations. theyd spend a week wiring bindings between c and glsl, and 3 months gettin…

Pair programming with all pairs trying to ignore or talk louder than all others is miserable. Open offices decrease face to face interactions empirically.

https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-truth-about-open-offices

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#198

Post by ffgjgf1 »

bbor wrote: post #167
ffgjgf1 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not like the USSR cared about the environment even the tiniest bit.. Under capitalism at least you get free speech and therefore some public pressure to impose various regulations.

Capitalism has nothing to do with freedom of speech. See: capitalist countries without freedom of speech.

Free market competition is impossible without some degree of free speech, so it depends on how you define ‘capitalism’

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#199

Post by eastbound »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #52
worrycue wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people can 'self-select' thus reducing headcount Self-select usually mean the brightest and most capable select another job though.

That is the weirdest part of this whole shift for me. Remote positions now get tons of applications and can afford to select best possible candidates, while 'old guard' is left with 'not best' candidates. Granted, some positions do not need a rocket scientist, but one would think a company would want someone, who is capable enough to have options. And yet, HRs across the US spectrum seem to be sending the same memo.…

Cliché that the best people are among the remote workers.

Are they, though? Coding well doesn’t make a good programmer. Interaction does, and influence in the office does.

I think remote workers just hate office politics, like everyone else, but that makes them non-contributing to company growth.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#200

Post by dang »

oofta-boofta wrote: post #46
nostrebored wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that maybe your priors are just wrong? I don't know a single person who prefers in-office work who thinks that remote is more effective, but I know many who have the opposite opinion but prefer the flexibility. Maybe there isn't a realistic way to make remote as productive. I'm honest enough to say that the social pressure that people bemoan makes me significantly more productive. I wish it didn't…

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