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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

#361

Post by em500 »

wg0 wrote: post #262
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…

Absolutely - in knowledge economy, insisting on physical presence is darn damn stupid. And I don't want to hang "with friends at work" I go to "work" that has to be specified clearly and that I expect to deliver with purely professional merit driven collaboration and not friendships and gangs. I have friends or would love to have friends out of the place where I work. I want strict compartmentalisation between work a…

> Absolutely - in knowledge economy, insisting on physical presence is darn damn stupid.

I could also surmise that in a knowledge economy, high bandwith and low latency connections are very importance, and that in-person communication are much higher bandwith and lower latency than remote.

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

#362

Post by torgian »

To me, after reading the article, it seems like Google saw all these offices they have and realized all the money would go to waste if people don’t use them.

And then there’s the middle manager aspect.

Google made these offices with the idea to make people feel like the office is “home”. Snacks, food, bring your dog, etc all screams “why go home when you have everything here?”

The cynic in me believes that is exactly their aim, to keep people at the office longer and middle manage.

That said, I do believe that a lot of people have a hard time not working in an office. These people should still have the choice, though, and these offices should not feel like home. Because it isn’t.

But this is still something that many companies will take advantage of; it simply costs less to not rent an office. Yes, they should also pay for part of the rent and internet bills for the employee, but it would still cost less than renting a huge building. Especially in Silicon Valley.

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

#363

Post by pbourke »

ScoobleDoodle wrote: post #314

In my mind this past year of pandemic work from home hasn’t been an accurate depiction of normal (non-pandemic) work from home because of the forced isolation in the hours outside of work. It seems like the pendulum is swinging back too far too fast to in office work. I like work from home and get to focus more effectively than the open office. I’m pretty deep on the introvert side of the scale and this pandemic has…

I agree with you. Under normal circumstances you’d be able to meet people, go out to eat, take a trip, etc while WFH. For many people it’s basically been “house arrest” for over a year now.

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

#364

Post by lentil_soup »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #354
bumbada wrote: post #334

I have been working remotely for decades. Most people can't work remotely and productively because they are not trained to do so. E.g. You are in your office (inside your home) and your wife, your dog or child enters it demanding you do some kind of non important issue right now, distracting you from your work.You need to be trained to not them let them distract you. The people living in your house need to be trained…

> or just lack the initiative, knowledge and internal motivation to work without external pressure and supervision I will humbly raise my hand and admit to this. As someone who has so far really enjoyed the lifestyle benefits of WFH but has struggled with this, what advice/tips/strategies/recommendations can you or other senior remote engineers provide on how to improve this specific aspect?

I cannot recommend a co-working space enough.

My life improved so much since working from a co-working. I looked for a place that shared my work/life style and I've made friends, we share lunch, we've gone on trips, we usually share a friday drink, etc. And since everyone works on different things and/or companies it's quite interesting as well to get some other input that's not just work colleagues.

I also looked for a place 2min from my house so I still have most of the benefits of WFH

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

#365

Post by hyko »

gfxgirl wrote: post #264
hyko wrote: post #140

When will introverts realise that their working conditions are being dictated to them by extroverts? The pandemic-driven remote working is hell for some people, and unfortunately they call the shots. I don’t mind coming into your office now and again (there’s a special dimension to IRL connections), but the reason I don’t want to work there full time is that it’s crap for knowledge work. I outspend you by 10x per hea…

For me, either I can go to the office 90% of the time or I can burn out from being alone at home and only talking to people via chat/video. My personal live is qualitatively better when I go to work most of the time. There are tradeoffs but on the whole the benefits of WFH (less interruptions) don't make up for the isolation. In the same way working 60-80hrs a week will start being more productive at the start but ev…

I’m not suggesting WFH is right for everyone; I think you should have the right to work the way you need to, as you know yourself and your work best. I personally feel you have nothing to fear in terms of numbers, because there’s an enormous bias towards IRL work for both strong and weak reasons.

I think one of the major challenges for an organisation is how to get peak performance from a diverse team (in terms of life circumstances and personality) and still maintain one culture and a ‘team mind’ where everyone is safe and content with their work.

I’m not a WFH evangelist really: remote is just another modality, with its own costs and benefits. It just doesn’t seem to get a fair hearing in a lot of places.

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

#366

Post by globular-toast »

wg0 wrote: post #262
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…

Absolutely - in knowledge economy, insisting on physical presence is darn damn stupid. And I don't want to hang "with friends at work" I go to "work" that has to be specified clearly and that I expect to deliver with purely professional merit driven collaboration and not friendships and gangs. I have friends or would love to have friends out of the place where I work. I want strict compartmentalisation between work a…

Agreed. Some people really seem to think work looks like this: https://www.dreamstime.com/happy-diverse-office-workers-team...

If any serious work is being done in a company, it does not look like that. Why do people keep pedalling this lie? A big problem in engineering is a lot of the work is done by engineers in private and the supervisors don't get to see it or experience it. So they think it happens by magic and that maybe the laughing execs actually contributed to it.

Unfortunately there's a huge amount of people employed in offices who literally do come in all day and don't do any work. Working from home means you actually have to have some work to do. What we're seeing is a load of people realising they have no work to do.

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

#368

Post by dgellow »

lentil_soup wrote: post #364
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or just lack the initiative, knowledge and internal motivation to work without external pressure and supervision I will humbly raise my hand and admit to this. As someone who has so far really enjoyed the lifestyle benefits of WFH but has struggled with this, what advice/tips/strategies/recommendations can you or other senior remote engineers provide on how to improve this specific aspect?

I cannot recommend a co-working space enough. My life improved so much since working from a co-working. I looked for a place that shared my work/life style and I've made friends, we share lunch, we've gone on trips, we usually share a friday drink, etc. And since everyone works on different things and/or companies it's quite interesting as well to get some other input that's not just work colleagues. I also looked fo…

Reading this thread makes me realize that not everybody is currently in a lockdown. Co-working spaces where I am are closed (due to the virus) since ~October and won't reopen before a while :(

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

#369

Post by heymijo »

gfxgirl wrote: post #252
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…

Disagree completely. All metrics at my company, gamedev, show throughput is down ~66% since WFH Me, I want to go back to the office. Like hanging out with my work friends.

This past year wasn't WFH. This was WFH during a pandemic. Thinking they are the same is a mistake.

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

#370

Post by swiley »

yellowapple wrote: post #260
petre wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's even more tiring than going to work everyday. Now you have to shop for a shirt that you'll probably never wear again.

Joke's on y'all, I wear floral shirts every day.

They're very underrated, I love them since the east coast is very humid and they breath much better than t-shirts.
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