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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

#501

Post by mattm »

bluGill wrote: post #460
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This chestnut 'home has too many distractions' line is getting old. Work has equivalent distractions, and those people actually get paid to distract you. It takes time management wherever you sit your butt.

Work distractions are generally work related. The person at work who closes his door gets more output, but often that isn't the output that is needed. The person who pays attention to work distractions gets less work done total, but more useful work. Home distractions are not the same.

It's a nice thought but is there any evidence of this? I've also heard this quote "If you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But ten years later somehow, you don't quite know what problems are worth working on."

In my experience at work, I've seen the opposite. The people most distracted get the least done and it's obvious to everyone on the team. Plus obviously you do need to pay attention to some distractions. Going too far in one direction is not good. I think, however, most people lean more towards distractions than focus.

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

#502

Post by mech422 »

mgkimsal wrote: post #479
mech422 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I'm over 20 years WFH now and love it. The last 5 years have been working with people on other continents, and I actually had the choice of time zones to work (I usually work nights for this, as I'm a night owl and it lets me sleep during day time when Arizona summers get hot). I haven't had any of the issues people seem to encounter. I don't work to socialize, so I don't miss lunches and such. For progra…

> In-office to WFH is a spectrum - just pick the spot your comfortable on it. Yep. It's the autonomy part that is the problem in nearly all cases. Choosing your own spot on that spectrum is the key part. And your spot may have to change over time, based on other parts of your life. Being forced to spot X is where all the contention comes in, it seems. I did miss occasional lunches, dinners, break room chats with folk…

Luckily, I think the autonomy part is on the rise...At least for tech workers. I basically no longer entertain positions that aren't 90+% WFH (so companies do quarterly or yearly get togethers, which aren't so bad), and there seems to be more of them all the time. In an industry where working with 'offshore' dev. groups is fairly routine, it seems especially silly to require 'local' resources to come on-site.

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

#503

Post by commandlinefan »

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…

> need to be physically colocated to be productive

I suspect that my employer will have us back in the office before the end of the year after a year of remote working. Although I actually sort of prefer the office myself, the whole "physically colocated" thing is especially comical in my situation (which I think is common in most big corporations) - none of the people I actually work with are in the same office, or even the same time zone, as me. So I'll drive a half hour each way to essentially be a remote worker anyway, and I definitely won't be the only one.

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

#504

Post by motohagiography »

Price it in. 8h work + 2h commute means minimum 25%+ higher comp to come into the office. We now know it's not necessary for the majority of work.

Managing salaried employees by optimizing their productivity as hourly labourers is essentially abuse.

The secret is to always maintain an opportunity funnel and a pipeline of potential job opportunities that you can convert into interviews or jobs within a few weeks.

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

#505

Post by unishark »

thirtythree wrote: post #441
belval wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For real, how hard is it to say "I am working, talk to you at lunch"?

OP already explained that the partner does not see sitting at a computer as working. They have different underlying assumptions which need to be addressed. That can be hard but not worth throwing away a relationship unless one person won't work towards resolving it.

Or, rather than hinging your relationship on the current extraordinary pandemic situation, just leave it unresolved and avoid working from home as much as possible. Presumably it will get easy to avoid again.

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

#506

Post by specialist »

stolenmerch wrote: post #452
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This chestnut 'home has too many distractions' line is getting old. Work has equivalent distractions, and those people actually get paid to distract you. It takes time management wherever you sit your butt.

> Work has equivalent distractions For you maybe. For some of us, the office is like a monastery compared to home and is the only place where deep work is even close to possible. As we return to normal, I hope more employers embrace a hybrid approach that allows everyone to thrive.

I've been advocating "quiet rooms", for head's down working, like a law library.

Mitigation until such time employers acknowledge decades of empirical evidence that open offices and cube farms sabotage productivity, health, morale. (Never.)

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

#507

Post by okprod »

beforeolives wrote: post #308
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…

This is way more nuanced than introverts-extroverts. I'm not a massively social person and I prefer working in an office over working from home by a very large margin.

My wife is exactly the same, while I'm fine with either (prefer meetings in-office but have been working 100% from home over a year now; though I personally haven't "made friends" from my work/office since I hit management, so an office setting doesn't provide that incentive to me).

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

#508

Post by arwhatever »

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've worked directly across the street from where I live on a couple of occasions, and even that prevents you from being able to travel to another location to work (remotely), just for the sake of enjoying some other location.

Makes me realize that butts-in-seats vs. commute distance are equally valid, but somewhat separate considerations.

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

#509

Post by caskstrength »

austinjp wrote: post #288
wg0 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What about those who _do_ want a friendly workplace with some element of social interaction?

> What about those who _do_ want a friendly workplace with some element of social interaction?

What about them? I assume they will be welcome to go back to the office one the whole pandemic thing becomes less of an issue.

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

#510

Post by mattm »

kyrra wrote: post #477
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…

Googler opinions are my own. I'd disagree at least a little here. Google has been surveying their staff about what they want to do after the pandemic is over, see this twitter thread where Google published some of it's data: https://mobile.twitter.com/lifeatgoogle/status/1308529118531... People are split on what they want. Maybe people could be better trained to wfh, but some of us just prefer an office. While I am l…

That doesn't seem split at all. The vast majority don't seem to want to be in the office everyday. They disregarded those survey results though for their decision.

The vast majority prefer not to come to the office everyday. Google says you can only work from home slightly more than 1 day per month.

If they took the survey into account, it would have been the opposite - you're only required to come into the office 14 days per year.

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