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Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

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Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#61
post #28
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean ?

$GOOG stock has pretty much doubled since the beginning of the pandemic, meaning the company has been having absolutely no trouble whatsoever doing its job with a fully remote workforce for 2 years now. They don't "need" employees to come back to the office.

Two years aren't much at the time scale of Google. The effects of switching from in-person to remote (and vice-versa) are much longer term.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing in SF is crazy expensive, commuting takes ages (and we've shown it's a complete waste) and a lot of people probably don't even want to live in California. Forget snacks, the amount of money you save by not living there and not commuting could pay for an in house chef.

If the last 3 years are any indicator, living in SF and the west coast in general means putting up with 2-3 months of choking, dangerous wild fire smoke every year too. It was a novelty for one summer but is slowly going to poison and cause serious long term harm the more it continues. I don't think people realize how unlivable the west coast is quickly becoming.

This year, the smoke from the California fires was actually much worse in Colorado & Utah than the bay area proper. You can't necessarily escape this by moving.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#63

After two years of not being in the office, I don't see how anyone can justify going into the office without putting themselves into a quagmire of hypocrisy and contradiction.

If I was working at Google I'd want to be in the office just for the experience. Know someone who did work at Google for a few years and he said he would often bump in to incredible people in the rec areas and get to talk to all kinds of interesting figures like the creator of Vim or some of the top brains of ML. It's a bit different when you are just pumping out some generic SaaS product and can do fine in isolation…

I worked as well in the Zurich office where Bram was working, and it was amazing experience until they took out the walls and made open offices. I would never go back to an open office.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#64
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of Silicon Valley, it is possible to live close to the office without a FAANG level salary. Beverages and snacks also are not that rare.

Well, you'd have to be outside of most big cities. Even on a tech salary, living near an office in central London isn't affordable. Not unless you're flat sharing which is basically mutually exclusive with having a family.

London is the only city in the UK where that's the case, and many boroughs are commutable - it's only really the centre that's a problem.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#65
post #10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commute sucks. Anything above 30min for one way is unbearable.

That's why I will continue to work from home. My old office is about 1/2 mile from Google HQ and pre-Covid it was 45-50 minutes each way unless I stayed in the office quite late.

[deleted]

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#66
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commute sucks. Anything above 30min for one way is unbearable.

Pretty sure google has their own bus with internet / capability to work on the way.

wasting 40+ min a day for a work-related commute still sucks, internet or not.

-xoogler

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#67

A gift to Meta recruiters, brought to you by Sundar.

Meh. It is unclear to me that so many people will want to work fully remote when their company offers a (real) office to work in 3 days a week. The mental benefits of in-person working can be significant.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's based on where you work. Though you can work remote from the same city as your current office and have no pay difference.

Can you go remote within commute distance of the office and keep your salary? What's the limit? Living in Pleasanton is cheaper than living in Mountain View, but still commutable. Living in Tracy is cheaper still and people still commute to the Bay Area from there. Living in Fresno or Sacramento is even cheaper and farther but still some people will do that commute daily.

It's all based off the CoL in county of your primary residence. Has nothing to do with the proximity to an office.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#70
post #30

I see two reasons to go back to the office: 1. You need a physical space to work from. 2. Your entire team is at the office as well and you can collaborate with them face to face. I imagine 1 is not a concern for most people who have adapted to the situation over the last two years. And 2 requires that most of your team is local and agrees to come in as well, which I can't see being too likely. For me personally goin…

For me personally going back to the office and still sitting in video calls all day with a geographically distributed team makes zero sense. It is a lot more comfortable to do it from home.

It's worse since we have an open office, so to do a video call you need to book one of the conference rooms that are in high demand, even the smallest rooms were perpetually booked even prior to the pandemic.

At least when working from home, I can do a video call any time without having to find a room. And I think people have forgotten about commutes and lunch. Now meetings are booked anytime from 8am-6pm and assume people will be available anytime from home. But since some people commute earlier and some people commute later to miss traffic, if everyone's back in the office, the only safe window to book a meeting is 10am-12pm and 1pm-4pm

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