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

reuters.com

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

#881

Post by jballaballa »

I'm not really sure what other people think the long term effect of shifts to remote work will do, but to me it seems like, long term, tech salaries will be lower. It doesn't really make sense to me to pay the same Silicon Valley wages when people can be working from anywhere. Why would I pay an extremely high wage to someone living in the Bay Area when I could instead pay a lower salary to someone in India who speaks perfect English and is willing to work CA timezone hours? In the short term, companies might keep salaries where they are to avoid disruption, but long term I'm not so sure.

Obviously, companies have to compete with other companies from all over the world for tech talent, but the ratio of tech money to tech talent is much higher in certain parts of the U.S. than pretty much anywhere else in the world. As a result, if that money gets to shop for talent around the entire world then the 'price' for that talent seems like it will go down. But maybe there is something I am missing.

And maybe all the people who want to go full time remote are ok with that, but depending on how big the pay cut is, maybe not. Presumably, if companies now see less benefit in having in-office engineers, then everyone including in-office workers will get pay cuts due to the globalized market for talent. So perhaps, selfishly, we should want companies to put a high value on being in person, but I guess we will have to wait and see.

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

#882

Post by amrocha »

berg117 wrote: post #238
ejb999 wrote: post #111

I have been fully remote my entire career (several decades), in fact in 30+ years have never been on site anywhere for more than 2 weeks total. Wouldn't have it any other way. But as a counter-point, seeing a whole bunch of people who were never remote before, how little work they are actually doing, it is no surprise to me that a lot of employers are going to start forcing - to the extent possible - employees back i…

I think a small percentage of people are self-motivated, and more productively at home, but watching this all play out for the last 2 years makes me realize that an awful lot of people are going to try to get away with absolutely anything they can - including working as little as possible - when allowed to be on their own. It's not that they're trying to "get away with absolutely anything". It's that their survival i…

I promise you, there's lots of people out there that used to be great co-workers in the office that are now struggling and not getting much done remotely.

Maybe they're in a blind spot for you, but I guarantee you they exist, and they're probably the majority.

The environment that you work in has an effect on how well you can do the work.

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

#883

Post by itsoktocry »

com2kid wrote: post #673
librish wrote: post #84

I think anyone who's claiming that remote work has been "proven" to be better or worse is wrong. There are some studies but they use estimations and proxies, carrying the same flaws as doing performance reviews based on lines of code. We've proven that the big tech companies can go fully remote and not completely crash and burn, that's about it. Some people love the lack of commute and less semi-forced hanging out, s…

> Some people love the lack of commute and less semi-forced hanging out, some people hate onboarding on a new company as a remote person and so on and so on. My team has been able to hire people from all across the country, gaining access to talent that we normally would not have been able to reach. Because my entire company has gone fully remote, if someone on the team has to take a trip overseas, they can choose to…

>My QoL is insanely improved.

My question is: how did people not realize this before the pandemic?

The workers of Silicon Valley (and other urban centres) literally created and sustained this problem all by themselves: "You have to get to Silicon Valley!"

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

#884

Post by DrammBA »

gbear605 wrote: post #861
nextlevelwizard wrote: post #853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a opposite view: Some team members output has severely dropped. I've seen people playing video games during work hours for example. Also work and free time has mixed to a point where people just randomly take hour or two to go skiing or for a walk and routinely just quit at the normal time. Commuting is different in different places. For me it is 15 minute drive to the office from a neighboring smaller city where…

> Yes, they are now open, but there is also like a meter of snow outside Wouldn’t that snow be just as annoying to deal with for getting to work?

He's definitely double dipping on the "I want to return to the office" and "It sucks going outside"

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

#885

Post by hackerfromthefu »

rightbyte wrote: post #739
AdamJMarsh wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except you're also affecting the individual productivity of others. The tap on the shoulder is the most annoying thing working on site. There's no respect for the urgent & critical tasks. You would want others to spend 2 hours commuting, wasting time on parking, food & fuel just to be able to physically speak to them. What a waste of our current technological advantages. Why bother working in tech, when you don't use…

I had a collegue who would literary tap me on the shoulder. It was a loud open office so I had noise cancelling headphones. It was insanely annoying. And when I told him to please stop, he started to wave his hand in my peripheral vision. I pretty much gave up trying to make him behave. I mean those headphones are not that good you can just speak ... Just the risk of such things makes it hard for me to concentrate. T…

A useful tactic in this situation is to not reward the colleague for interrupting you like that.

e.g. you could answer, but state you are in the middle of something, can't focus now, and please send you an email. If you are politely obstinate enough they will soon learn they are wasting their time with the interruptions and will be trained to send an email straight away instead.

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

#886

Post by BurningFrog »

headmelted wrote: post #788
com2kid wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people love the lack of commute and less semi-forced hanging out, some people hate onboarding on a new company as a remote person and so on and so on. My team has been able to hire people from all across the country, gaining access to talent that we normally would not have been able to reach. Because my entire company has gone fully remote, if someone on the team has to take a trip overseas, they can choose to…

To extend this, more useable time with family. For many people with younger children (and therefore early evening bedtimes), having or not having a commute is not a difference of an hour or two of your day - it's the difference between spending time with your family during the week versus not at all. I've heard this from many friends (and some family) across different industries - hardly any have wanted to stick thei…

This is of course true.

OTOH, WFH people living alone can go many days without any human interaction.

There is no arrangement that is "best" for everyone.

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

#887

Post by bjarneh »

underdeserver wrote: post #758
bjarneh wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want to be able to quickly resolve any issues in person, not over voice call or slack.. Isn't this the main problem? I hate everyone who comes barging in and wants to "resolve issues" quickly. Not saying I love remote work, but I cannot stand working a place where people are "allowed" to disturb me. I don't even log into Slack/Teams/Skype or any of that nonsense; I don't even want to be disturbed in my virtual wo…

That's great, but I don't want to work with you, because something you're working on or something you're responsible for is blocking me and I have no way of making progress.

> I have no way of making progress

This is how you make "progress", by disturbing people who are working?

It's probably for the best that we work different places :-)

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

#888

Post by jsjohnst »

fzzzy wrote: post #870
com2kid wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some people love the lack of commute and less semi-forced hanging out, some people hate onboarding on a new company as a remote person and so on and so on. My team has been able to hire people from all across the country, gaining access to talent that we normally would not have been able to reach. Because my entire company has gone fully remote, if someone on the team has to take a trip overseas, they can choose to…

> Because my entire company has gone fully remote, if someone on the team has to take a trip overseas, they can choose to continue working if so desired. Just so you know, this is not legal. I hate it.

> Just so you know, this is not legal.

Your blanket statement is wrong. If you’d said “likely not legal”, you’d be correct. Someone could very well get work visas and have their employer approve the travel and accept the likely required nexus in said country.

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

#889

Post by SuoDuanDao »

bradleyjg wrote: post #845
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should have an option to go fully remote, not be forced to do X number of days because reasons. This is the problem that remote work solves. It gives you some sense of autonomy so that you don't feel like a completely subservient slave. Also you said objectively it has not been proven but your subjective opinion is that it's better to be in office. What I will counter is that remote is almost certainly better…

What I will counter is that remote is almost certainly better for the environment Being forced to live in expensive cities … and suffer the misery of public transport, yeah no thanks. In your attempt to throw everything against a wall to see what sticks you’ve contradicted yourself. Living in dense cities and taking public transportation is good for the environment. You want to work from home—own that instead of tryi…

>Living in dense cities and taking public transportation is good for the environment.

Citation?

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

#890

Post by unicornfinder »

adrianN wrote: post #677
Salgat wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The typical tenure for many developers is 2-3 years. 2 years is a long time for a software company.

That really depends on the software company. There are plenty of places where two years as about two releases of the product.

Indeed. Not to mention if you're at one of the bigger companies then you're more likely to change teams than leave the company entirely.
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