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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

#391

Post by intricatedetail »

kelnos wrote: post #224
Cd00d wrote: post #151

I'm a little shocked by this. I thought the big tech companies and Google specifically were leading the charge in "we will allow significant WFH forever going forward", but maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. Personally, I'm at a small data company, and we're opening a new office for people where WFH is a burden (NYC apartments and all), but is so far voluntary. In fact, I think there are only seats for less than…

For Google, this doesn't surprise me at all. A big part of how they get people to work more is to keep them on campus as long as possible, and on-site incentives like meals, laundry, massage, etc. all serve that goal. The fact that Google's offices are often referred to as "campuses" rather than "offices" drives that point home as well.

I find these "services" that some companies offer degrading, as they decide for me what should I eat or where wash my clothes etc. They should instead pay employees more so they could afford these things on their own if they wanted.

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

#392

Post by chii »

izacus wrote: post #181
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 wonder how many people's opinions will change after a longer time. I wrote the exact same type of posts five years ago when I started my first fully remote job. After two years or so I had to look for an office because the isolation is just murderous and it takes a long amount of time to actually start showing its teeth.

> isolation is just murderous and it takes a long amount of time to actually start showing its teeth.

i wonder if people who feel this way aren't getting socializing done outside of work, and is using work as a form of socialization?

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

#394

Post by chii »

nlitened wrote: post #152
noisy_boy wrote: post #142

I think this is mostly driven by management's insecurities / needs to see their "subjects" right in front of them and their typical need to "show" their activities in an obvious/noisy way. Typical managers tend to be extroverts and find allies in other extroverts or in people who happen to work in/enjoy the social interaction in office. Unfortunately there is not much representation of introverts in the decision maki…

I would imagine that in Google most managers would be former engineers. If that is true, there might be more to the story rather than introverts/extraverts split.

> in Google most managers would be former engineers

former engineers - that is, they no longer want to be an engineer, but chose the management path. It's quite likely that engineering work is merely a stepping stone for someone like that who intends to advance their career in the management track. I would expect an over-representation of extroverts in this category.

Introverted engineers remain engineers because they like the work, and are only forced out when the pay no longer match their output (but can not move up any more due to the engineering track being "ceiling" compared to the management track).

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

#395

Post by daemin »

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…

The problem is the working environment in general, doesn't matter if it's at home or in an office, if the surrounding environment is full of distractions then productivity will be as bad everywhere.

For a knowledge worker where they need to concentrate there needs to be a quiet distraction free environment without interruptions. If this is at home in a separate low-traffic room or in an office with few people and a door that can be closed , both will work well. However I don't think many people's environments are like that in either place.

So to me there's no difference between working at home or the office, if you're going to have people interrupting you, high levels of background noise, and other visual/scheduling distractions.

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

#396

Post by throwaway316943 »

varispeed wrote: post #344
beforeolives wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a hybrid model the people who choose to be remote are damaging their own impact and career development. That's a tradeoff they're free to make if they want but it's the reason why I think hybrid models won't last for too long.

Longing for a career at a one company it seems like a concept from the 80s-90s or movies, where you start as a janitor and finish as a director. However, this indeed can impact your day to day life at a company, as managers will develop biases towards people who they socialise with. That's why I think any kind of socials are a bad idea as they may be potentially discarding people who are bad are socialising but are g…

The reverse is true as well. A company with no focus on social interaction drives away people that enjoy socializing with their work mates. For them it makes the office seem like a cold and uninviting place and they’re more likely to take that job offer from a friend. I agree that everyone needs friends outside of work and that you shouldn’t be really close friends with people at work since it can lead to complications but there are benefits to being able to chat with the people at work about non-work related things and to let your hair down a little.

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

#397

Post by bsagdiyev »

intricatedetail wrote: post #380
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…

Worst thing is that my partner thinks sitting by a computer is not work and she feels entitled to interrupt any time she pleases. I didn't know that side when I worked in office. The first few months were difficult and she only came to terms with that when I started packing my things and said I will be moving out. I learned that this is probably wrong relationship but it is hard to throw away those years, but I can't…

I can help with this a bit, we suffered this really badly when COVID started which was exacerbated by our first child only being 9 months old or so at the time.

Aside from the obvious (wear headphones, keep work area away from common areas) something else we did was set a boundary limit. If I was in the bedroom, that was now the “office” and was to be treated as such. This one is more personal but I tended to get too annoyed at the interruptions at first without realizing that I needed to make more effort to help and not be (to put it bluntly) a dick about it. My girlfriend started getting in the habit of tidying up or doing crafts during her downtime instead of coming to me after we discussed the huge amount of distraction it caused.

Ultimately though the living situation is what made it hard. We were in San Diego, in a cramped two bedroom apartment that had no privacy. We moved and bought a house where I now have a large upstairs loft area as my office. That is absolutely not the answer to everything but I think some of the issue is just most people not being prepared or having the right accommodations.

My advice sucks but if you have any specifics I can try to help out and answer more. It’s hard but hang in there if you feel it’s just a rough spot.

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

#398

Post by chii »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #349
Cd00d wrote: post #151

I'm a little shocked by this. I thought the big tech companies and Google specifically were leading the charge in "we will allow significant WFH forever going forward", but maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. Personally, I'm at a small data company, and we're opening a new office for people where WFH is a burden (NYC apartments and all), but is so far voluntary. In fact, I think there are only seats for less than…

When companies started announcing "permanent 100% WFH" last Spring I knew it would never last. I feel bad for the people who picked up and moved from SV or NYC and now are being told to expect to be back in their old office by June. Though it was naive to think you could move to a cabin in Wyoming with a Starlink and continue to pull an SV or NYC level TC.

> move to a cabin in Wyoming with a Starlink and continue to pull an SV or NYC level TC.

so why exactly shouldn't that be possible!? It's not like the work/output decreased (for the most part). The only legitimate way for compensation to drop should be due to competition - allowing remote should also mean allowing more people to apply for a position, and thus, higher supply of potential workers. This _should_ naturally lower compensation, but not immediately.

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

#399

Post by wccrawford »

nullsense wrote: post #242
tkiolp4 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that everyone (in the team) needs to be in the office the exact same two days. That’s difficult to synchronize, some people may want to be at the office on Fridays, while other may prefer Mondays or Wednesdays or...

Currently in a 2 days WFH scenario atm where everyone just picks whatever random days they want. I'm not a fan. There's almost no consistency even though people set which days they are at home. Hard to describe, but it's mentally impossible to keep track of when starting a meeting if everyone is in the meeting who is supposed to be because I can't keep track of everyone's days, so I don't know if they're just not on…

I'm sure that's confusing, but it occurs to me that it'd be a lot less confusing if you just assumed that anyone who is late needs a ping, even if they haven't actually forgotten. Even if they're only late by 1 second. Just ping them. If they're grabbing a coffee, they're still late. Non-emergency reasons are not an excuse to hold everyone else up.

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

#400

Post by wffurr »

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.

Google’s network security posture was ideal for WFH. BeyondCorp[1] had already been widely rolled out to most internal services and most internal networks in offices had been converted to MNPs: Managed Non-Privileged networks.

The pandemic has been a great stress test for finding the limitations and gaps; like figuring out the remaining use cases for VPN and MNP exceptions, and accelerating the use of data center-hosted VMs instead of desk workstations.

None of this had any bearing on the company culture however, which was and is very office-centric. It’s been clear from the beginning that WFH was temporary.

[1]: https://cloud.google.com/beyondcorp

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