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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

#891

Post by unicornfinder »

edgyquant wrote: post #458
munificent wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We've proven that the big tech companies can go fully remote and not completely crash and burn, that's about it. Agreed. We've proven that big tech companies can continue to be productive for up to two years going remote. I suspect that that doesn't generalize very well to being completely remote over the long term. It works well when you already have a bunch of personal relationships between teammates that were es…

I joined a new org earlier this year, fully remote, and my last gig was only a week in person before the pandemic started. I have also onboarded half a dozen juniors in the last few months, again all remote. Your comment is completely out of touch.

My company is fully remote, and whilst I'd agree that it's certainly doable to onboard people remotely (we've absolutely done this successfully), I would also say it really depends on the types of people and I suspect possibly the roles as well.

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

#892

Post by l30n4da5 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #886
headmelted wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

dont threaten me with a good time

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

#893

Post by josephd79 »

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…

I am the complete opposite. My work productivity has went way up because I do not have people tapping me on the shoulder. I agree that working remotely isn't for everyone.

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

#894

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #853
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…

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…

> Some team members output has severely dropped. I've seen people playing video games during work hours for example.

I'm going to be honest with you, I occasionally play video games during work hours at the office too. Way I figure it, if no one is saying anything about my output then they are receiving the value they expect for what they're paying me, and I'm not charitable enough to give them more than that.

I was only able to work from home during this whole thing for 2 weeks when the entire department had COVID (myself included). I played through Factorio[0] during those two weeks and nobody noticed.

[0] I didn't like it. It's very well made and I cannot say it doesn't successfully implement exactly the experience it intends to, I just didn't actually have fun.

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

#895

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

BurningFrog wrote: post #886
headmelted wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But this doesn't remove the option for people to socialize or interact with humans. If not for COVID there'd be no reason that WFH people living alone couldn't have seen other people over the last two years. In fact, without a commute people now have more time to be able to socialize if they so choose with the people they want to socialize with.

You can't really get time with your kids when you work from the office, but you can get socialization when you're not working.

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

#896

Post by hbn »

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…

I certainly like being able to roll out of bed and put on a coffee 10 minutes before starting work, but if I'm being honest with myself, the idea of receiving all my regular human interaction through a badly made Electron app from Microsoft for the rest of my life is just not a good idea in the long run.

And maybe I'm just crazy but it seems like software even from the big companies has gotten worse through the pandemic. Which wouldn't surprise me that it's hard to keep everyone working together and on the same page through online calls and chats. I personally feel like I'm not quite as engaged being at home, surrounded by distractions compared to being in an office where my brain goes into work mode.

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

#897

Post by fernandotakai »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #853
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…

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…

>I've seen people playing video games during work hours for example.

as long as their tasks are done, who cares? i take a 30min nap after lunch almost every day but i could also do a FFXIV dungeon instead.

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

#898

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

ihateolives wrote: post #795
teekert wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much agree and I’m looking for another job because my company is forcing me back for 3/5 days because of this. I’m not going back to that.

Onsite/online split is the worse, unless you work with just a laptop and nothing else then you'd have to have duplicate setups at work/home and at least I'm always leaving things eithere here or there and then missing them.

Or you just remote in to your work machine.

Well, at least those of us who work in Windows can have a pretty great experience because RDP is the shit. Leave a session running at work with a bunch of shit open, connect to it from home and everything resizes and rearranges to fit however many monitors and at whatever resolutions you decided to pass to it, disconnect the session and login locally at work again...

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

#899

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

hbn wrote: post #896
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…

I certainly like being able to roll out of bed and put on a coffee 10 minutes before starting work, but if I'm being honest with myself, the idea of receiving all my regular human interaction through a badly made Electron app from Microsoft for the rest of my life is just not a good idea in the long run. And maybe I'm just crazy but it seems like software even from the big companies has gotten worse through the pande…

> the idea of receiving all my regular human interaction through a badly made Electron app from Microsoft for the rest of my life is just not a good idea in the long run.

I find the idea that all your regular human interaction comes from people you work with infinitely more dreadful.

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

#900

Post by GFischer »

Aeolun wrote: post #817
bipvanwinkle wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I don’t if it’s for everyone, but i love it. No commute, healthier food, access to a bed for a quick nap, and a nice office. 10/10 would do again.

As soon as they give me a 12sqm private office with a view, I’ll be happy to go back to the office.

I have a corner cubicle with a view, I don't want to go back to the office anyways.
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