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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

#291

Post by andrewprock »

ryandrake wrote: post #262
rightbyte wrote: post #9

It would be interesting to know the median commute time for those who say they will quit or not. For me it is just insane even thinking about going to go back to 2h commute each day. I don't even know why I considered that OK.

My Bay Area commute is 4+ hours daily, depending on traffic. I don't make nearly enough to be able to afford a $2M "starter home" on the Peninsula, and do not want to be packed into a tiny apartment in the faceless UglyCube#51 apartment complex. COVID-19 and remote work has been a huge quality of life improvement for me.

Starter homes on the Peninsula are less than $1m. Maybe you are restricting yourself to high end Peninsula neighborhoods?

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

#292

Post by s0rce »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #216
s0rce wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

I tried that. I'm not motivated enough. Totally my problem but the structure of communting was really helpful in getting me to do it everyday.

Also, I live 300ft up in the Oakland hills so going out and back in the morning to WFH means I have to climb back up or jut ride in the hills which involves more climbing. Going to work is downhill!

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

#293

Post by adkadskhj »

aljg wrote: post #283
adkadskhj wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Let me know when google undermines American democracy, enables a genocide in Myanmar, or casually starts kicking human rights activists off its products. Or by “squint” do you mean “close?”

Google has provided a platform that for years benefited off of extremists and only recently started taking action against it.

It provided multiple platforms that, like Facebook, optimized user clicks in ways that ended up causing significant harm. Radicalizing extremists and pushing racism, homophobia, misinformation, etc.

One may be objectively worse than the other, but lets not pretend that Google conveniently forgot "Do no evil" until it was notified of it's own actions by the public. Only with its back against the wall did it recognize the problem.

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

#294

Post by robotresearcher »

dont__panic wrote: post #178
Uberphallus wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I've lived both experiences: it was perfect for me when my son, few months old, was sleeping the most part of the day. But once a kid switches to 1 nap per day, it's impossible to have a schedule to have any kind of focused work. Day care here have long waiting lists and they've been closed for half of the pandemic anyway.

Wouldn't daycare present just as much of an issue if you started working from an office?

Less so when the daycares are fully open again.

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

#295

Post by sgtnoodle »

swiley wrote: post #285
sgtnoodle wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I was there, they had a big "mobile first" push, and they were encouraging employees to try working exclusively from phones and tablets one day a week. Of course as an embedded software engineer working within their IT policies, I had my gubuntu workstation, macbook, and a gubuntu laptop, and I also had a windows laptop to pull out once a month or so when I needed to run obscure windows only tools. For a while…

That's surprising. I always thought Android was terrible for development because of a lack of dogfooding but it sounds like they actually try to use it.

At the time at least, the extent of working on mobile devices seemed to be catching up on emails and messages, and calling into meetings.

Google doesn't allow source code to be stored locally on mobile devices including laptops for security reasons. IT managed laptops can at least connect to some internal systems, and while I was there they rolled out tools to make it productive to code from laptops. As far as I know though, no one codes on an Android device. Maybe that's changed since I left.

Google does in general do a pretty good job dogfooding, I think. All the things about Google services that drive folk crazy tend to drive Googlers more crazy by 10x. I still have a special hate for Drive's search functionality, for example...

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

#296

Post by krzepah »

justarandom wrote: post #107
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.…

My company made a survey earlier this year about WFH. There was overwhelming support for it. Around 90 % want to work at least one day per week from home. A quarter want to work completely from home. Employer satisfaction went up a lot in 2020. Productivity, revenue, earnings and new hires reached unprecedented levels for the company. Management went over this in the virtual all-hands meeting. They acknowledged all t…

Direction out of touch with the importance of cultural well-being. At this point I'm not accepting talks with companies that do that and point them to their online onboarding and processes. If they are so lonely that they value what they see more than the work done then I have other companies and other priorities.

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

#297

Post by jinushaun »

Don’t know about anyone else, but I’d rather not being “working from my kids’ bedroom”.

Tech has had generous WFH policies forever—before the pandemic. Nearly every big meeting I was part of included one or more persons on zoom. I would slack people I sit next to.

What’s different now is that we don’t have a choice to stay home. When these big companies recall people back to the office, we’ll all go back to our normal work schedules—which for many pre-pandemic already included a lot of WFH.

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

#298

Post by throwaways885 »

hnnnnnnng wrote: post #272
throwaways885 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that's a popular trope, but I really mean the 'cannot code' crowd. They are separate groups.

I don't understand how cannot code would even hold a job for more than a month.

There are many people who can't do anything except React.js, for example.
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