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Google has gotten so cheap, employees now have to share desks

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Re: Google has gotten so cheap, employees now have to share desks

#81

Post by JPKab »

6510 wrote: post #67
JPKab wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you pay to rent a car for 5 days if you were only going to drive it for 2 days? You wouldn't, because you care about your own money. Why is it that we pretend like "shareholders" are these mythical beasts that are different than us? I have money in the stock market. You probably do as well. Why does your money suddenly become ok to waste if it's invested in a company? 5 days a week, yes, everyone gets their own…

I have my own desk at home and I'm not sharing! I'm quite used to spending part of my paycheck on things like renting my own toilet, my own bathroom, kitchen with my own coffee maker and while it is used for a much larger part of the day my bedroom is only used I have no idea why we are doing this! > Would you pay to rent a car for 5 days if you were only going to drive it for 2 days? You wouldn't, because you care a…

You can drive your car anytime you want, and you do. It’s not limited to a designated schedule of 2 days a week and 8 days a month and never on holidays. Same with everything else you said in your dishonest, bad faith comparison. Personal is not business.

I’m a cofounder at my current startup so I guess I think differently about a business paying for things that are needlessly idle for no reason, but you do you. We don’t think paying for office space makes sense at all and don’t. But if we did, no way are we flushing cash down the toilet for overly indulged devs when that cash can go to raises and bonuses for top performers (morale). And if a top performer wants a dedicated, non shared desk, well ok. We will offer them a choice between a salary boost or the desk.

Re: Google has gotten so cheap, employees now have to share desks

#82

Post by JPKab »

srj wrote: post #78
JPKab wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not 2010 anymore. Google sucks to work at if you're a talented engineer that actually wants to do impactful things. In fairness I should specify that there are a few teams at Google that do amazing things but the vast majority of the employees are just cogs in a vast machine. This article sums it up: https://medium.com/@pravse/the-maze-is-in-the-mouse-980c57cf...

Is there a new best place to go?

Look at the jobs link on ycombinator.

Startups that don’t suck. But if you want a big, safe company…… hmmm, maybe MSFT, Salesforce, Netflix…. Honestly I hate big companies so wish I could recommend better.

Re: Google has gotten so cheap, employees now have to share desks

#83

Post by robswc »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #34
robswc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly hate open offices so much. I'm constantly amazed any work gets done with the layout.

The hilarious contradiction: Companies: please come back to the office Employees: why? Why have them at all? I don't have an "office" I have a small section of table. At home I have an office. Companies: we invested money in these work spaces and want them to be used Employees: you mean the shitty open space you moved to in order to save money rather than real "offices"? the ones that make us provably/demonstrably le…

Yep! I mean honestly, a rather nice "perk" of working with a company could be a private office, almost like an extension of your home... but within reason. They have the building anyways.

Similar to how professors at university usually have such an office.

With how much remote work has taken off and how much companies want to bring at least some people, this is certainly a perk that I would consider.

Re: Google has gotten so cheap, employees now have to share desks

#84

Post by robswc »

JPKab wrote: post #11
robswc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly hate open offices so much. I'm constantly amazed any work gets done with the layout.

I despise them. I'm convinced that they became "cool" purely for two reasons: 1.) Bosses loved the feeling of superiority they had by having their own office but everyone else is sitting out in the open where they can easily see them all and bother them at a moment's notice. 2.) Fresh out of college grads would see them and get this feeling of a cool, buzzing, hypersocial hive that made them feel all good inside.

Yep, I will 100% admit they "look better" but I'm convinced productivity is not the same. I'm all for having "collaborative" spaces but surely the optimal environment is one where employees can get hours of work in without distraction. With an open office, the opportunity for distraction is practically everywhere.

Re: Google has gotten so cheap, employees now have to share desks

#85

Post by lovich »

JPKab wrote: post #81
6510 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my own desk at home and I'm not sharing! I'm quite used to spending part of my paycheck on things like renting my own toilet, my own bathroom, kitchen with my own coffee maker and while it is used for a much larger part of the day my bedroom is only used I have no idea why we are doing this! > Would you pay to rent a car for 5 days if you were only going to drive it for 2 days? You wouldn't, because you care a…

You can drive your car anytime you want, and you do. It’s not limited to a designated schedule of 2 days a week and 8 days a month and never on holidays. Same with everything else you said in your dishonest, bad faith comparison. Personal is not business. I’m a cofounder at my current startup so I guess I think differently about a business paying for things that are needlessly idle for no reason, but you do you. We d…

Implying that people have their own assigned space to work in is something "...for overly indulged devs..." is a frankly amazingly hypocritical response from what seems to be an overly entitled business owner.

You walk it back slightly by saying that you offer the choice between the cost savings or the desk to the worker, but somehow I doubt that the worker's are getting the whole cost savings or that you wouldn't start bucketing them as no longer a top performer for making what you view as a sub optimal choice.

Re: Google has gotten so cheap, employees now have to share desks

#86

Post by omeze »

xyst wrote: post #45
omeze wrote: post #6

Google (at least circa 2014 when I graduated) has slowly taken on the image of a “retirement home” (i.e. where you go to turn your brain off and clock in to get paid) in elite STEM undergrad programs. Oracle had solidified their spot, but at least at Google it used to be easy to find interesting teams if you knew people there to navigate the team matching process. Now it’s decline is in full swing, its sad but seems…

you described the work environment at pretty much any Fortune 500 company (tech or not)

Sure, but timing matters. Google circa 2008 was (from what I hear) still amazing despite being public.

Re: Google has gotten so cheap, employees now have to share desks

#87

Post by omeze »

gedy wrote: post #33
omeze wrote: post #6

Google (at least circa 2014 when I graduated) has slowly taken on the image of a “retirement home” (i.e. where you go to turn your brain off and clock in to get paid) in elite STEM undergrad programs. Oracle had solidified their spot, but at least at Google it used to be easy to find interesting teams if you knew people there to navigate the team matching process. Now it’s decline is in full swing, its sad but seems…

No connection to Google, but I'd be cautious about ageism in this type of thinking. Been at places before where young guys mostly burn themselves into the ground "working hard" coding all sorts of stuff that really didn't matter, or sacrificing their personal time and life for code. The older guys were considered "unmotivated" because they didn't overwork when they knew it wouldn't matter.

Yes, didnt mean to be ageist. Its a mindset thing- 22 y/os would go to Oracle knowing they could clock in 25 hours a week. I’ve worked with 40+ y/o engineers who still show up fresh everyday and work a standard 40 hours, but were efficient, great teammates and leaders.

Re: Google has gotten so cheap, employees now have to share desks

#88

Post by cosentiyes »

Galanwe wrote: post #56
AlotOfReading wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 3 months ago I went full thin-client using similar internal tools. 90+% of my workflow is using terminals and editors that work brilliantly over an SSH tunnel. For the stuff that can't be done on a remote computer (flashing boards, physical hardware), I have a couple scripts that allow me to do that locally. The whole thing has turned out to be less work than the physical tower under my desk.

But we're not talking about the same thing here. I do also work 99% in the terminal, and SSH is perfectly okay. But my window manager is running locally. In a thin client/remote desktop setup the WM is running remotely. From my experience, this makes the mouse and keyboard ever so slightly laggy that's it's very annoying.

I'm under the impression that the vast majority of people use their cloudtop over ssh and a remote vscode connection. I only ever use a remote gui for a few minutes every X weeks to do chrome-based auth for an nonstandard workflow.

Re: Google has gotten so cheap, employees now have to share desks

#90

Post by 6510 »

JPKab wrote: post #81
6510 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my own desk at home and I'm not sharing! I'm quite used to spending part of my paycheck on things like renting my own toilet, my own bathroom, kitchen with my own coffee maker and while it is used for a much larger part of the day my bedroom is only used I have no idea why we are doing this! > Would you pay to rent a car for 5 days if you were only going to drive it for 2 days? You wouldn't, because you care a…

You can drive your car anytime you want, and you do. It’s not limited to a designated schedule of 2 days a week and 8 days a month and never on holidays. Same with everything else you said in your dishonest, bad faith comparison. Personal is not business. I’m a cofounder at my current startup so I guess I think differently about a business paying for things that are needlessly idle for no reason, but you do you. We d…

I often joke to my migrant coworkers that they don't understand, they think you work in order to live but here in the west we live to work.

Everything is about work. We allow people to have a home and a car... wait for it... so that they can work! If salaries are to small to survive people stop working, if they are to big they also stop working. We've tailored the salary to squeeze out maximum productivity. Where homes and/or food are cheap employees are also cheap and visa versa.

This is no accident!

I applaud that you are not renting office space, your programmers already have a desk and a computer and their salary is such that they can and will replace it. You are going to pay for that. You have to or they will go work some place else where the salaries are more calibrated.

If you will ever do offices you will need a good excuse for it. What that might be we don't know but you will need something in return for sacrificing productivity. As everything is about work that what the proverbial top performer wants is probably related to work too! If they are more productive if you give them their own office you would have to figure out if it is worth it.

It would have to be some office if they are to feel at home there. Or actually, if they are to be more comfortable than at home.

The whole premise is absurd, the product they make (if not interrupted) is 1's and 0's it can easily be shipped all over the world. 2 desks will make it slower and needlessly complex.

Maybe the migrants are right and we are wrong. Maybe the show should be about living not about working. One time a coworker who barely speaks the language was asked if he could do a 7 day work week again. He reluctantly agreed and asked "but when do I live?"

Yeah, the old ways deserve every bit of mockery. The revolution has to happen now or it wont happen at all.

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