Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google to cut down on employee laptops, services and staplers

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 107 posts

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

#61

Post by marcosdumay »

mikestew wrote: post #53
rwmj wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fine, you get a stapler. In five years at my current company, I don't know that I've even (literally) touched the one I was given. You could have mine, assuming I could even find it. It's probably right next to that tape dispenser and the stack of sticky notes that are still in the cellophane.

What share of your salary does a stapler cost?

When working on the office, it makes perfect sense to buy plenty of them so everybody would have one nearby (at the same cabinet as the perforator, folders, printer paper, extra sticky notes, pens, and whatever else).

When working at home, I'd guess it's used exactly never, so yes, it doesn't make sense to buy them.

Does everybody at Google work at home?

Anyway, the stapler is the most interesting part of the headline. How much did it cost to decide to stop buying them? Does it save enough to pay the decision-making?

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

#62

Post by taeric »

ethbr0 wrote: post #41
jerf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If that is a problem, you deal with it by litigation against the bad actor. No need for a corporate "lets drop all staples" announcement.

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

#63

Post by marcosdumay »

throwayyy479087 wrote: post #20
rootusrootus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company (mid sized software company) tried to eliminate plastic spoons from the break rooms. Not for any sort of noble environmental reason, either, but explicitly to cut costs. You can buy them in cases of 1000 for $7.20. I am a shareholder, but not powerful enough to call for the termination of whatever bonehead thought that was worth more than 2 seconds of thought.

$20 says the company that cared about the spoons had a special bathroom for executives.

You'll have a hard time finding anybody to take the other side of that deal.

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

#64

Post by ajmurmann »

deathanatos wrote: post #30
dralley wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have better than 25% operating margin on a company with massive revenue. They're fine, but the shareholders must be appeased with human sacrifice.

Do they? A large chunk of the market is held by retirement accounts. My 401k doesn't care about staplers, and I would very much value long-term gains over short-term savings. Collectively, 401k holders don't have much of a voice. I suppose Vanguard might, but even so, retirement accounts are specifically balanced such that they have less short-term risk the nearer they come to fruition, and Vanguard's motive, in theo…

Apparently activist investors have been pushing for cost cutting: https://www.wsj.com/articles/activist-investor-calls-on-goog...

I've read that activist investors have pushed for this at several tech companies and even heard theories that that's what actually kicked off the layoff avalanche.

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

#65

Post by taeric »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #47
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?

Nickel and dimming is when you are looking for cost savings that aren't even rounding errors in operational costs. Quietly not buying things that aren't getting used is fine. Announcing it as a "cost savings action" is borderline nuts in light of what that signals.

Note that none of us are discussing the fitness classes. Staples, though? Seriously? How did that make the memo?

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

#66

Post by Cockbrand »

absrd wrote: post #43
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?

Buzzed on caffeine, I'd assume.

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

#67

Post by taeric »

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…

Not wrong, but the same question goes to the internal memo. Why mention staples? Even if you are ramping down on purchasing them, you just stop buying them. You don't mention it.

And if you are worried about google handing out things nobody uses.... I have really bad news for you. :D

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

#68

Post by marcosdumay »

deathanatos wrote: post #30
dralley wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have better than 25% operating margin on a company with massive revenue. They're fine, but the shareholders must be appeased with human sacrifice.

Do they? A large chunk of the market is held by retirement accounts. My 401k doesn't care about staplers, and I would very much value long-term gains over short-term savings. Collectively, 401k holders don't have much of a voice. I suppose Vanguard might, but even so, retirement accounts are specifically balanced such that they have less short-term risk the nearer they come to fruition, and Vanguard's motive, in theo…

> My 401k doesn't care about staplers

Are you sure?

If it is actively managed, it cares about a whole lot of things that you don't know about. And if it passively invested, it cares about what the average of the active managers care about.

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

#69

Post by hotpotamus »

cscharenberg wrote: post #54
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…

Indeed. At a former employer, when they announced removing free soda, I assumed they were about to stagnate very hard. Compared to the costs and profits of flying hundreds of sales engineers around weekly and any executive-level expenses the cost rounded to zero. It was routine to hear about the $200/person dinners for big groups of leaders when courting visiting customers. So when they start cutting something as che…

Yeah, I talked to a project manager who was in the loop on one of these things once. They took suggestions for cost-cutting measures and apparently lots of people suggested getting rid of the soda (not me - I drank probably half a gallon of Sprite Zero a day back then). She said that for a global company with a couple billion in revenue, the soda costs were about $50K/year. Which tracks - these were fast food style fountains and my understanding is that the profit margins at retail are huge.

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

#70

Post by ElevenLathe »

absrd wrote: post #43
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?

Probably they would get free coffee.
Post reply on HN