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Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

businessinsider.com

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Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#211

Post by lhorie »

kyle-rb wrote: post #145
lhorie wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a blog post posted here recently from someone who saw Google as a "family" and drank a lot of koolaid, as well as stories of high levels of entitlement. I wonder if there's a similar phenomenon going on where people assume that companies pampering them is a given and that they can get anything they want by complaining enough. What they might find instead is the shock that "grass is greener on the other side…

What grass though? This subset of employees seem to value working remotely above free food or massages or whatever other in-office perks. Work-from-home as a perk has a negative cost, so it's not crazy to think that companies might start offering it.

In this case, by "grass" I mean the combination of which subset of employers pay comparably to google, plus allow unrestricted WFH, plus have similar levels of infrastructure quality (such that your day to day doesn't involve dealing with broken infra or some such), number of meetings, levels of autonomy, etc.

I'm sure that there is a subset of jobs that ticks all those boxes, but what I don't believe is that they're in such abundance that one can simply quit google and stumble into one by simply waving around their xoogler status.

More likely than not, people following through w/ quitting will realize that work satisfaction does not solely depend on a single dimension (WFH-ness)

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#212

Post by mLuby »

mc32 wrote: post #37
dcolkitt wrote: post #7

It seems strange that Google management would push so hard on this. Nearly everyone I've spoken to has reported that WFH productivity has been equal, if not better than pre-pandemic. What possible upside could there be that justifies forcing the issue and hurting morale by pissing so many people off? Sure, maybe there's an argument that a fully remote company has a hard time propagating a coherent corporate culture.…

Google isn’t Yahoo for sure and I presume they have better ways to know if people are putting in work —but... Marissa Maier had the unfortunate discovery that many of her remote workers were ghost workers. On the payroll but not doing much. Some might have even had other full-time jobs. That’s bound to happen when you have large workforces. You have groups of people who make it so that productive people can’t have ni…

> Marissa Maier had the unfortunate discovery that many of her remote workers were ghost workers.

The key word is "discovery" not "remote." Measure and reward good workers, identify and help (or fire) bad workers. Is physically watching where the bodies are still the best we can do here?

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#213

Post by djhdheke »

adkadskhj wrote: post #125
elite_hackers3 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then you’d have to work for Facebook… cringe

We're talking about Google employees here. Squint your eyes and they look like the same company.

Google gave us maps, Gmail, Google, android...

Facebook is probably a net negative for the whole world. If fb would evaporate tomorrow no one would care.

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#214

Post by throwaways885 »

throwaway6734 wrote: post #200
throwaways885 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As in, a significant chunk of candidates cannot write code, have outright lies on their CV, have never used anything other than visual basic, etc... In addition, basic statistics suggests you need all new hires to be better than 50% of the existing company, or your average skill level will go down, which makes hiring just hard mathematically.

Can't you rule a lot of those candidate (other than CV liars) out algorithmically? >In addition, basic statistics suggests you need all new hires to be better than 50% of the existing company, This seems especially difficult when hiring graduates/junior roles due to the lack of unknowns. Thanks for taking the time to respond!

> Can't you rule a lot of those candidate (other than CV liars) out algorithmically?

I think all companies do this, but it's really easy to game the metrics. People do it unconsciously, even.

> This seems especially difficult when hiring graduates/junior roles due to the lack of unknowns.

Yep, so it takes hours of interviewing per candidate, across dozens of candidates just to hire to minimise the risk for one role. At a global level, FAANGs are hiring loads, but at a team/local level there's never enough people due to specific team needs or turnover.

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#215

Post by sam0x17 »

microtherion wrote: post #162
theflyinghorse wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A new job that carries same prestige and benefits?

There is the prestige & benefit of having worked for a FAANG, which, once attained, stays on one's resumé forever, so maybe for some people, tradeoffs that are worth it to attain such a job may no longer be worth it to remain in that job after a few years.

Yeah I think the play is to work for FANG for 1-2 years and then skedaddle really no reason to stay not like they're going to promote anyone to something meaningful unless you are truly a superstar.

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#216

Post by CodeGlitch »

s0rce wrote: post #134
adkadskhj wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting ~11 hours of my life back from commutes a week alone is worth it. That's almost a full day! (assuming 16h wake cycles) Would i prefer in-office if i didn't have to commute? Maybe. The downsides are just not worth the upsides, though. To me.

I have a nice ~20min (4-5mi) bike ride to/from work in the SF East Bay, usually good weather. Found a route with bike lines and moderate traffic so its pretty nice. I'm looking forward to going back to the office more.

I mean you could go for an even nicer bike ride every day if you were WFH and can choose to cycle anywhere you fancy.

...just a thought :)

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#217

Post by ghaff »

nunez wrote: post #45
dcolkitt wrote: post #7

It seems strange that Google management would push so hard on this. Nearly everyone I've spoken to has reported that WFH productivity has been equal, if not better than pre-pandemic. What possible upside could there be that justifies forcing the issue and hurting morale by pissing so many people off? Sure, maybe there's an argument that a fully remote company has a hard time propagating a coherent corporate culture.…

Not strange if you've worked there; they absolutely love centralizing people at their hubs and were _never_ WFH/remote friendly

I know someone fairly well known in Web circles who got hired by Google. They were remote but there was clearly not a meeting of the minds. They apparently heard maybe move to SF someday but could stay remote as long as they wanted to. And Google apparently heard remote for (only) the immediate future. At some point I gather it became a matter of "This actually isn't optional" and they ended up leaving.

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#218

Post by KETpXDDzR »

dcolkitt wrote: post #7

It seems strange that Google management would push so hard on this. Nearly everyone I've spoken to has reported that WFH productivity has been equal, if not better than pre-pandemic. What possible upside could there be that justifies forcing the issue and hurting morale by pissing so many people off? Sure, maybe there's an argument that a fully remote company has a hard time propagating a coherent corporate culture.…

Why would anyone say that WFH has a bad/lower productivity? Engineers and managers are motivated to report high productivity (as long as it's inevitable) and since it's hard to measure it's easy to fake.

I noticed that some of my colleagues do almost nothing since their supervisors are not checking. I definitely work less and am less productive, too. At least that's my feeling.

Src: Located and working in bay area at FAANG company

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#219

Post by lhorie »

NeverFade wrote: post #176
lhorie wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a blog post posted here recently from someone who saw Google as a "family" and drank a lot of koolaid, as well as stories of high levels of entitlement. I wonder if there's a similar phenomenon going on where people assume that companies pampering them is a given and that they can get anything they want by complaining enough. What they might find instead is the shock that "grass is greener on the other side…

How are these employees "pampered"? They found they enjoy working from home, so they prefer to keep doing that, and if Google doesn't oblige them, they'll start shopping among the many companies that currently do. The free market at work.

According to the blog post I mentioned, before WFH, Google apparently used to go out of its way to literally pamper engineers, with things like fancy cafeteria offerings, laundry services, massages, etc. I think it's important to keep in mind that when some people's complaints are on the level of "ugh, sushi again?", that their levels of entitlement may be a bit uncalibrated from the reality of how other companies treat employees.

Re: Google's push to bring employees back to offices, some say they'll rather quit

#220

Post by dqpb »

They should quite and start startups or join startups.

Google is good when you’re right out of college or when you’re nearing the end of your career.

But when you’re in the prime of your career, do you really want to waste those precious few years making Larry and Sergey richer?

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