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Google to cut down on employee laptops, services and staplers

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Re: Google to cut down on employee laptops, services and staplers

#41

Post by ethbr0 »

jerf wrote: post #31
taeric wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also... how bad off is the company if they are worried about the expense of staples/tape!? Just, wow.

One wonders how large that line item could possibly be across literally the entire company. Running a quick Fermi calculation, multiplying my personal rate of staple usage over the past year by the number of employees at Google we get... $0 spent on staplers. This may be an underestimate. Still... here's 5,000 staples for 4.29, with no particular effort put into price shopping: https://www.officedepot.com/a/products/…

The alternative explanation is that they have a theft problem.

Maybe some intern realized they could arbitrage $0 work staplers into >$0 eBay staplers.

Re: Google to cut down on employee laptops, services and staplers

#43

Post by absrd »

wushupork wrote: post #32

A friend of mine worked at a public airline and whenever they had a bad quarter, things like coffee would get cut so people would feel it. But those types of industries operate on razor thin margins.

how did your friend feel it when they had a good quarter?

Re: Google to cut down on employee laptops, services and staplers

#45

Post by ghaff »

I used a stapler at home yesterday though I'm sure I have a great deal of redundant paper-related office stuff I rarely use.

I guess the purpose of a company-wide email is to signal "Tighten your belts." But it absolutely makes sense to cut back on supplies that aren't needed as much or don't need to be refreshed as much--or on services that aren't being utilized with fewer people in offices.

Re: Google to cut down on employee laptops, services and staplers

#46

Post by yamtaddle »

mikestew wrote: post #26

Surely I can't be the only HN reader that thought, "I can't remember the last time I touched a stapler." Frankly, I think the headline writer threw staplers in there just for the sizzle. If I might so boldly suggest reading TFA, staplers are just one example of other things that made a lot of sense. Yoga classes on a Friday afternoon when a lot of folks WFH (or not at all on a Friday afternoon)? Handing out multi-cor…

> Handing out multi-core full-blown laptops to non-technical roles that could just as easily get by with a Chromebook?

I have, over and over, seen companies burn the cost of a decent laptop at a rate between one per quarter and one per month per employee because they try to cheap out and the shitware they force on their workers runs like crap on anything that's not fairly powerful, wasting hours per week per employee.

Whole divisions at some larger companies lose incredible amounts of money every year over reluctance to give the mere worker-drones nice hardware.

Re: Google to cut down on employee laptops, services and staplers

#47

Post by JumpCrisscross »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #8

Wow, just wow. I have no doubt that Google has a lot of excess to cut, but IMO I always see it as the death knell for large companies when they start a nickel-and-dime approach to cost cutting. I can certainly see the argument for cuts where they are needed to improve focus, and lots of the FAANGs had too many "frilly" expenses in the past 5-10 years, but cutting expenses that improve your employee's productivity is…

> death knell for large companies when they start a nickel-and-dime approach to cost cutting

Nickel and dimming would be requiring approvals and paperwork to buy a stapler. This is Google just not buying them. That seems reasonable at a tech company?

Re: Google to cut down on employee laptops, services and staplers

#49

Post by rwmj »

mikestew wrote: post #26

Surely I can't be the only HN reader that thought, "I can't remember the last time I touched a stapler." Frankly, I think the headline writer threw staplers in there just for the sizzle. If I might so boldly suggest reading TFA, staplers are just one example of other things that made a lot of sense. Yoga classes on a Friday afternoon when a lot of folks WFH (or not at all on a Friday afternoon)? Handing out multi-cor…

How do you attach multiple pages together? I use a stapler about as often as I use a printer, which is to say about once every month or two.

Re: Google to cut down on employee laptops, services and staplers

#50

Post by ht_th »

jerf wrote: post #31
taeric wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also... how bad off is the company if they are worried about the expense of staples/tape!? Just, wow.

One wonders how large that line item could possibly be across literally the entire company. Running a quick Fermi calculation, multiplying my personal rate of staple usage over the past year by the number of employees at Google we get... $0 spent on staplers. This may be an underestimate. Still... here's 5,000 staples for 4.29, with no particular effort put into price shopping: https://www.officedepot.com/a/products/…

Worse, if stapling at the reception now takes significant more time than stapling before, that's costly too. Particularly when the stapler is in use when you need it, or someone borrowed it and now no-one can find it. Before you know it, you've wasted an hour stapling a stack of forms or so.

As an aside, the organization I worked at before had two to four secretaries per floor. Before the pandemic, most were in their offices when you needed anything practical, like staples, batteries, etc. After the pandemic, most of them work from home most days of the week. That's great for them, but I've had days that I had to go through the whole building to get this or that.

These small informal conveniences and ways-of-working aren't on the organization's radar, and when they're gone, it takes some doing to get them organized again. Until then, and until everyone in the organization knows about the new ways of working, this can be quite frustrating and inefficient.

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