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Google to cut down on employee laptops, services and staplers

cnbc.com

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

#91

Post by phist_mcgee »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #79
yamtaddle wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Handing out multi-core full-blown laptops to non-technical roles that could just as easily get by with a Chromebook? I have, over and over, seen companies burn the cost of a decent laptop at a rate between one per quarter and one per month per employee because they try to cheap out and the shitware they force on their workers runs like crap on anything that's not fairly powerful, wasting hours per week per employee…

My non-technical wife is always pegging her corporate computer running Adobe Creative Suite. I joke with her that she can use it as a heater in winter. Me? The programmer...I barely ever hear my fan.

I hope she gives the computer a kiss first.

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

#92

Post by Gigachad »

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…

I’ve seen employees who treat MacBooks like they were $5 note books which they repeatedly drop or spill drinks on and say “oh well, the company will get me another one”

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

#93

Post by seanmcdirmid »

phist_mcgee wrote: post #91
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My non-technical wife is always pegging her corporate computer running Adobe Creative Suite. I joke with her that she can use it as a heater in winter. Me? The programmer...I barely ever hear my fan.

I hope she gives the computer a kiss first.

Hopefully my comment was understood as pegging all her laptop CPU cores at 100%.

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

#95

Post by r00fus »

mindcrime wrote: post #51

If I owned any Google stock right now, I'd be thinking hard about selling it. Not because everything here is silly, but just because: A. over the course of 20+ years in this industry I've noticed a trend that when companies start worrying about things like tape dispensers or staplers (or the free coffee in the cafeteria, or the cost of the subsidized sodas in the breakroom, etc) it's almost always a Really Bad Sign f…

In the past 20 years, how many times have we had a low interest rate? Now ZIRP is dead, the incumbency of the USD as the world reserve currency is not a certain thing anymore.

Your average company in average times, sure your heuristic makes sense. I'm guessing this will give many other companies the green light to cut back their perks as well.

Just a thought - where are all those "best employees" going to go? Everyone is battening the hatches for a recession and VCs don't have tons of cash to hand out for new startups.

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

#96

Post by midoridensha »

yamtaddle wrote: post #46
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…

> Handing out multi-core full-blown laptops to non-technical roles that could just as easily get by with a Chromebook? I have, over and over, seen companies burn the cost of a decent laptop at a rate between one per quarter and one per month per employee because they try to cheap out and the shitware they force on their workers runs like crap on anything that's not fairly powerful, wasting hours per week per employee…

It sounds like the problem isn't the hardware, it's the shitty, bloated software.

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

#97

Post by midoridensha »

yashg wrote: post #58
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…

When I joined a new job about 7 years back I was given a brand new stapler, a roll of tape and other office supplies on the joining day. When I left 4 years later I hadn't even finished one cartridge of stapler lins. Tape was unused as well. A company of Google's size must be wasting a non trivial amount of money on things nobody uses as frequently anymore.

I can get a stapler and a tape dispenser (a really nice heavy one) for 110 yen each at my local Daiso. That's USD$0.83 each, at retail prices.

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

#98

Post by cm277 »

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…

It's just as likely (more so, given this is Google) that management is looking for a _visible_ sign of cost-cutting to pass a message to staff that times have changed, so chilling effect on raises/bonuses and probably increased attrition (which is more cost-effective than down-sizing and doesn't make headlines).

I am sure their finance people can read the expense %ages just as well as HN commenters: e.g. changing your cleaning supplier to a much cheaper one could actually save more $$$ but will not be staff-visible for a while. Perks are mainly signals, not cost centers.

Source: led down-sizing and kept perks when I wanted to retain people, reduced perks where I preferred some additional attrition.

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

#99

Post by belter »

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…

Google is starting to look like an IT episode of "Triangle of Sadness" - https://youtu.be/VDvfFIZQIuQ

The rich are the Phds and the Management is a crew asleep at the Helm...suddenly Kubernetes takes a whole new meaning...

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

#100

Post by strus »

rwmj wrote: post #49
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…

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.

I don't remember the last time I've printed anything at work, apart from my notice.
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