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Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

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Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#321

Post by exactlysolved »

bilal4hmed wrote: post #13

After spending more than a year remote, full remote is difficult ( not impossible ) . Most of us have settled on 3 days at home, 2 days at work, so we can socialize, make new connections or just simply have lunch. Going back to in office 100% is a thing of the past unless you are a team that has to be there - making hardware etc. For ex I cant imagine the Pixel team working 100% remote.

Not something I have direct experience of, but don't most engineers, designers working on hardware projects spend a similar amount of time working at a computer with a screen, keyboard and mouse as software people do? I assume that the vast majority of them are not in a fab/laboratory/solder station on a weekly basis.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#322

Post by muxator »

darawk wrote: post #292
raducu wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, no, their primary concern is their own interest. A lot of politics gets much harder in remote work, and this is what these people are best at. It's not productivity, it's politics that is much harder to do when remote working.

You think that executives are forcing developers to come into the office so that they can play politics with their subordinates?

Probably yes

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#324

Post by cblconfederate »

sharken wrote: post #263
cblconfederate wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, remote working is still in its infancy and has a lot of potential for improvement. Office has maxed out and just bumps back and forth.

I don't think remote working is in its infancy, it's more a case of the scope has been changed the recent year or so. The benefits of remote work is mostly being able to focus and reducing the daily commute. However remote work never brings the same connection to your co-workers as being physically present in an office and in my opinion that is extremely important. I understand very well that those with long commutes…

I believe it still is in its infancy. Cities and societies have not adapted for remote workers yet, at all. OTOH the office has a whole ecosystem of transportation, real estate, cafeterias, cleaning etc that is adapted to it.

Sure, being in the same space is a different kind of connection, the question is which part of that connection is needed for work. I 'd personally rather share a cowork space with my friends rather than whoever the company chooses for me, and i think that's going to be a trend in places that house lots of remote workers. There are in fact cities being redesigned around remote workers like Madeira. I think the actual problem that people complain about is not the lack of physical bodies at work, but the lack of physical bodies in general. That needs to change if people are going to work remote in large percentages, people will need to either find more friendly neighbors or just start talking to their neighbors , like people did a few decades ago.

And then we haven't even began to scratch the surface of ways to connect with coworkers. I find that sharing a gaming environment (like e.g. secondlife) gives a sense of presence, space, and connection and takes away that lingering anxiety of "where is everybody?" that I get when i work at home. Slack also does that to a small extent.

Ultimately, remote work is objectively giving people more options, and that is a measure of progress, so I see the transition as inevitable. I think people are being held back by the current designs of modern big cities, which have been entirely shaped around the home-work routine. In fact, large parts of the rewards of "real life" (e.g. making new friends) has been moved to the office for purely logistical reasons (other places of congregation stopped existing). This isn't inevitable, remote workers will develop new habits in a few years. Historically it's the cities that changed to adapt to work conditions, not the other way around , and now a critical mass of workers is ready for the change (In fact, the switch to remote was possible years earlier, COVID just accelerated it).

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#325

Post by delfaras »

Valkhyr wrote: post #129

After a year working remotely, I don't think I'd be willing to go back to working fully (or even primarily) in the office. I could do a day here or there for team-building activities or major meetings, but that's pretty much the extent I'd be willing to do. Granted, this is based on having a 40-minutes train commute (each way, so 80 minutes/day), but unless I could have a 10 minute walk or bike commute I don't think…

I have a ~ 10 minutes walk commute to work and event I share your opinion, I wouldn't want to go back to the office either

I used to work remotely for a different continent + 9 hours diff timezone and that was as painful as it can get: different hours for meetings, not knowing anything about my coworkers was really exhausting

But with the ability to go back to the office only when I need to and focus on my work much better at home, I don't think I'd ever want to go back anytime soon

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#326

Post by TeMPOraL »

eertami wrote: post #265
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing, right. The problem isn't remote or office per se, it's the commute to and from the office that's the issue. I can definitely focus more at home, but I really miss my 30 minute bike commute.

>I really miss my 30 minute bike commute. I've seen this argument before, and I don't understand how working from home changes this honestly. Why not just start your day with a bike ride for leisure? Unbound by the location of your office you can now cycle to any arbitrary location. If you struggle to do it without a reason, perhaps cycle to a bakery or store and pickup some fresh food for the day.

It's much easier to do something when you have no choice but to do it. If you have to commute to office, you have to do it, period. If you want to do "virtual commute time" when working from home, you have to somehow justify it to yourself (and your spouse), against the ongoing pressure of thoughts and words like, "I can skip my 'commute' this time to do just this one errand / complete this one task / read this HN article...".

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#327

Post by heisenbit »

lkramer wrote: post #267
ohthehugemanate wrote: post #199

Just in case you were operating under the illusion that tech giants are run by forward thinking executives who are immune to the usual politics and problems of corporate life. Nope, most of their exec layer is a bunch of people who cut their teeth the industry in the 90's, and are operating within a thick fog of local workplace politics. I guarantee that behind this move is an executive who believes that developers n…

One thing I have noticed is that while the old hats (those hired some time before the pandemic) are as productive, or maybe even more productive while working remote, it's a struggle to bring in new people, especially more junior people. Maybe these are problems that can be solved, but it seems that an already a challenging and stressful situation, joining a new company, is even more difficult when you are not able t…

I have joined a company remotely and I don't feel I got slower productive than before. The ability to do pair work is almost enhanced and the fact that everyone is able and willing to be called in to help has accelerated learning and integration in some areas which I found harder in the past.

Also keep in mind that it may be slower than with direct in person mentoring but there can also be the opposite of in person mentoring and then being locked in the same office can become extremely stressful.

I also run a small team with new hires on one day and I'm seeing great productivity and teamwork.

We are going back to the office eventually but I don't think the on-site requirements will be as strict as in the past. In the medium term I see us moving towards a more flexible model beyond just the flexible allocation of desks (which imho. is a horrible thing, pretending to be office workspace and serving neither then needs of people there nor the companies output).

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#328

Post by cmrdporcupine »

derwiki wrote: post #193
izacus wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so I'm a bit surprised by these responses. Google is obviously a company that marketed itself majorly by their extensive offices with perks like free food, coffee, snacks, gyms, etc. Their office design, campus and related perks were always on the forefront of their pitch. I don't quite understand why you'd expect them to be on the forefront of WFH.

At the beginning of the pandemic, their policies seemed aligned with WFH. Surprising to hear the opposite so soon.

I wouldn't say that. We were sent home to protect us and our community. I don't think WFH execution at Google has been better than anywhere else. My experience on a team that did embedded/hardware work is I suppose an outlier, but Google has policies like "no source code on laptops" and the like that make remote work tricky in many circumstances -- none of that changed. I am however much happier now that I've transferred into a more traditional cloud-based org.

Myself, I am looking forward to a return to the office, 3/5 days a week, despite me having a long commute and driving giving me back pain: because this last year and a bit has not been pleasant at all.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#329

Post by rightbyte »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #318
sharken wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think remote working is in its infancy, it's more a case of the scope has been changed the recent year or so. The benefits of remote work is mostly being able to focus and reducing the daily commute. However remote work never brings the same connection to your co-workers as being physically present in an office and in my opinion that is extremely important. I understand very well that those with long commutes…

> The benefits of remote work is mostly being able to focus and reducing the daily commute. One of the reasons there's so much opposing views on WFH is that there are also other big benefits, that apply only to a subset of the population. Among those are, the ability to optimize your workspace for your own needs, and not having to have the "connection to your co-workers". For some of us[0], this can easily make 2-5x…

> E.g. you can take a break to run a personal errand in the middle of a work day,

No cummute is saving me a workday of time a week. When I was home 1830ish the usual errand places are closed where I live.

I don't even remember how I did errands while commuting. I guess I didn't.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#330

Post by cmrdporcupine »

Aeolun wrote: post #67
eximius wrote: post #39

The title and article feel slightly misleading. It is allowing some offices to have people who want to come back early, come back. It is sticking by its commitment of allowing WFH until September and looking at hybrid models for after. Personally, a hybrid model seems ideal to me. I dislike remote full time.

A hybrid model with a maximum of 14 days a year is not a hybrid model at all. That’s the real news for me. After the pandemic is over Google will go back to a full-onsite team.

I don't know where this 14 days came from. I don't think I'm leaking anything serious by saying: I didn't see it in the internal comms.
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