Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4 • Hacker News Board

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

#931

Post by craigie » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 3:54 PM UTC

vladvasiliu wrote: post #724

deanCommie wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree, but I am getting 1/8th of my waking hours back from commuting. What about all the people who already knew spending 2 hours commuting was a terrible use of our time before the pandemic, regardless of how much of a bigger house we could get? So we lived in dense cities, in walkable neighborhoods, where the office was a 15 minute walk away but so were restaurants, parks, grocery stores, and theaters? But part…

You can probably still go back to the office even if your colleagues work from home. And if not, there are probably coworking spaces, or similar. Why must there be a one-size-fits-all situation? Also, if WfH spreads, many of the people who made the same choice, getting a small apartment in a dense city for living only, will probably make a different choice now and move somewhere else. I know many people who did just…

Co-working spaces are likely to be more expensive than working at home. Who pays?

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

#932

Post by nextlevelwizard » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 3:55 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #894

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…

> 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…

Except productivity has not stayd at the same level. We can clearly see that we've been pushing fewer features per quarter into production.

Also one guy doing this overtly errodes the whole team. Like why should I work all day while you play video games or go skiing or whatever in the middle of the day? Yeah nobody is complaining because they are being nice and/or assuming that your productivity has dipped do to the pandemic.

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

#933

Post by alecbz » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #569

alecbz wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote and in-office are both pretty inherently social decisions. If you're remote, you don't want to be left out if other team members are in person. If you're in-office, most of the benefits depend on other people also being in-office.

I'll be frank. I don't want to be forced to socialize with coworkers. They need to make friends outside of work if they need socialization time. I may socialize with people from work, but will do it on my own terms. The collaboration thing is almost never really about collaborating or efficiency, it's just the polite way of saying they want to force others to fulfill their social needs.

> I don't want to be forced to socialize with coworkers.

Okay, sounds like you prefer remote work then? I don't see what's wrong with someone else preferring in-person work.

> The collaboration thing is almost never really about collaborating or efficiency,

Disagree, there's definitely conversations that are much easier to have in-person. Both just "locally" for individual conversations, but also in terms team bonding and trust that allow other kinds of conversations to happen at all.

That said, I think it is _also_ about socializing.

> they want to force others to fulfill their social needs.

You cannot get around needing others to fulfill social needs, that's what social means.

In what way is this "forcing" in a way that's different than how other social interactions work?

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

#934

Post by ddingus » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:06 PM UTC

hkt wrote: post #769

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.

Quick naps are hugely underrated. 20 minutes of sleep in the afternoon and afterwards I could do my job while juggling knives (figuratively). A manager I worked with once pre-pandemic had his idea of "business hammocks" for the office repeatedly shot down. He was a genius though.

We had a couch for a while. At other jobs, I setup the back of my Expedition. Tinted windows, bedding, a few comforts and I knocked out the short nap all the time. Would/will do again.

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

#935

Post by Forgeties79 » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

passivate wrote: post #429

Forgeties79 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like most work related policies, I think this falls squarely under “it depends.” I’m an in-house video producer for a tech start up. I absolutely do not need to be in the office most days, let alone every day.

But is a job just an exchange of labor for payment? I view it as so much more. Even if we look at it from a job perspective, its also an opportunity to build personal connections between team members; "I owe you one" - goes a long way. Yes you can absolutely build these personal connections online, and it may be easier for introverted people, but I would say for most people a handshake or a smile passing down the hal…

My friend, 95% of my coworkers have very little understanding what I do to the point where I could ghost for a week and there’d be probably 80% chance no one would be the wiser. Lots of jobs are like that. Deadline are generally floating, a project can take 30min or 30 days, and micromanaging doesn’t help much if at all. I keep track of what I’m doing on GitHub, make sure my backups are good, and do my thing. They don’t need me there and when I am in the office, very few people need to talk to me lol

I say this as a very social person. I like having colleagues. But the fact is I just don’t need to be in there most days, and they don’t understand what I do beyond “video,” so they don’t offer a lot of opportunity beyond that if we are being very utilitarian about it (which I generally don’t).

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

#936

Post by craigie » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:11 PM UTC

Terretta wrote: post #852

underdeserver wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Local vs. global optimization … You sure your priorities are of so much more significance than what the person is working on that they justify destroying the concentration of intellectual property creation and forcing a preemption of this other person’s task or reorder of their stack? If you’re blocked for lack of a task switch, what are you blocking in turn by causing a new interrupt and switch? Instead of crashing…

Really the only one who should be deciding if an interruption from one person to another is worthwhile should be the manager. They know whose time is more valuable to the company at that time. Plus managertime is easily interuptible.

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

#937

Post by UltraViolence » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

BoxOfRain wrote: post #813

UltraViolence wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about the tech-companies, it's about their employees: many of them simply don't want to come back to the office! What if many of them switch to companies that allow fully remote working? Google will lose out on a lot of talent and will eventually suffer in the quality of its products. I personally believe there's no difference in the volume of work produced by people working remotely, providing they don't ha…

I do wonder what the critical percentage of people refusing to return to the office is for companies to offer remote as standard? I quit my old job over a return to the office policy and fully intend to never return because I deeply despise commuting, open offices, the interruption-driven culture of in-person work, and urban existence in general. I realise I'm probably a bit of an extremist in this respect though, I'…

I don't think it needs to be a percentage. Every company has earmarked certain employees as "critical" to their day-to-day functioning. If these start leaving in droves, even if it's only a few, management might turn around pretty quickly.

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

#938

Post by kbos87 » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

djanogo wrote: post #486

kbos87 wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company allows whatever you want. Partners company allows hybrid, not full remote unless that was something you negotiated at the start or got them to change. Those are two very different things.

Does your company have web app where employee can choose what they prefer, submit it, and done?, or bunch of management have to approve that request?

Nope, there’s no management or oversight of who is in and when.

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

#939

Post by throwaway22032 » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

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…

It's not that common IME for there to actually be a real debate but rather simply some sort of power play/expression of desire for personal benefit.

If you expect that literally every business going forward is going to be happy with WFH then you're taking an unreasonable stance. The same is true in the opposite direction - as much as I'd like it to be the case, not everyone is going back to the office, structural changes have taken place that would make that difficult even if it were desired.

It follows then that some people will have to switch companies. This really isn't a big deal, the entire point of having a job market is that people should be continuously doing this otherwise the market isn't efficient.

You can see it in the rhetoric here - "forced to go in". There is no force involved.

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

#940

Post by Forgeties79 » Thu, Mar 03, 2022, 4:18 PM UTC

ChrisRR wrote: post #775

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…

It's like every study that "proves" that 4 day weeks are better. They never seem to extend any further than the initial honeymoon period before the novelty wears off

My company implemented 36hr weeks (done at noon Friday) about 6mo ago and it continues to be super popular/effective. It’s consistently the benefit we discuss/list as a favorite and our company is onboarding more users than ever (important for our growth).

Obviously it’d be ridiculous to say it helped our business grow outright, but it’s clearly not a hindrance and 6mo in there’s been no discussion of ending it. Hell our CEO has discussed canceling Friday entirely.