4 ms·

No telecommuting allowed: Why is Google investing billions in office buildings?

34 points by kimsk112 9y ago

justinlardinois 9y ago
I've never worked at Google, but does it not have a work from home policy? This op-ed seems to be a false dichotomy based on a false premise.
mcv 9y ago
Interesting argument, but personally I'm not a big believer in telecommuting anymore either. It used to sound great, but in the end, I think I'm more productive if I work with my team, and that's easier when you're working in the same physical space together. On the other hand, the article says Google tested this productivity, and apparently there's no difference between telecommuting and working in the office.
- commandlinefan 9y ago
  > same physical space together But with some sound-blocking partitions, please. (Currently listening to the guy next to me shout into his speaker phone, trying unsuccessfully to drown it out with music...)
  - sli 9y ago
    Political debates on the dev floor are the bane of my existence. I have earbuds, but lately I've just started just leaving the room until it's over and letting the company pay me for the downtime. I am just extremely allergic to contentious political yakking derailing my work. So instead of fighting it, I just let them derail it and take an hour break. I won't pretend like it's the best idea, but I'm still not the one derailing everyone's flow.
  - mcv 9y ago
    I find a quiet spot whenever I need to shout into my phone (which is practically never). The office where I currently work has a big open plan, with some partitions between different teams if they want to, but also small enclosed offices for people who need privacy and big sound-blocking chairs for private talks or phone calls. It works quite well.
- sjg007 9y ago
  I think telecommuting is fine for certain roles. Sales is largely telecommute, some software dev is, if you have second or third offices that cross talk then you are already remote.
WorldMaker 9y ago
A personal frustration that directly came across for me in two interview cycles a couple years back with Google was my questions about telecommuting were all met with consternation (I don't want to live/work in Mountain View), yet in two interview cycles with something around a dozen people involved, the majority of actual interviews involved no one actually physically in Mountain View and several that entirely telecommuted. Some of that is just the roulette of the draw of the specific teams I interviewed with in those cycles, but it certainly seemed to send a couple of clear messages to me: 1) telecommuting is reserved for a specific class of seniority with seemingly a certain hard-headedness required, 2) Google recruiters were more than willing to waste my time by flying me all the way out to Mountain View for 100% virtual interviews, when I could have happily done all the Google Hangouts work from home. (Also, 3) Google doesn't value my technical skills, but that's another argument for a different day.) Sure, it was good to see a bit more of Mountain View since that is where the Recruiters kept insisting I had to live/work at least for the first few years (despite the one team being primarily based in New York, and the other in SF), but it mostly just cemented my opinion that Mountain View is a suburban place like most other suburbs in America (car commute practically required; not very walkable/pedestrian friendly) and overall I'd prefer not to be there, because there are enough suburbs where I already live. Sorry to rant a bit about it, but I do find some interesting hypocrisy in Google's views of remote work and work/life balance. Especially to be directly told that remote work was entirely not an option, but then proceed to be given so many remote interviews over Hangouts. Seemed a clear "you will do what I say, not what I do" message.
csense 9y ago
At a lot of companies, it's hard to telecommute unless you get your foot in the door by working with them for a while and becoming invaluable, giving you enough leverage to demand it in the next time you negotiate employment terms. This is a real shame, since millions of people live in flyover states, and some of them are probably talented programmers who can't or won't move to tech hubs for one reason or another. (I'm one of them.) It's a missed opportunity for tech companies, and it damages the social and political fabric of our society by isolating the wealth being created by the technology industry to a few big cities.

34 points by kimsk112 9y ago

I've never worked at Google, but does it not have a work from home policy? This op-ed seems to be a false dichotomy based on a false premise.

mcv 9y ago

Interesting argument, but personally I'm not a big believer in telecommuting anymore either. It used to sound great, but in the end, I think I'm more productive if I work with my team, and that's easier when you're working in the same physical space together. On the other hand, the article says Google tested this productivity, and apparently there's no difference between telecommuting and working in the office.

commandlinefan 9y ago
> same physical space together But with some sound-blocking partitions, please. (Currently listening to the guy next to me shout into his speaker phone, trying unsuccessfully to drown it out with music...)
- sli 9y ago
  Political debates on the dev floor are the bane of my existence. I have earbuds, but lately I've just started just leaving the room until it's over and letting the company pay me for the downtime. I am just extremely allergic to contentious political yakking derailing my work. So instead of fighting it, I just let them derail it and take an hour break. I won't pretend like it's the best idea, but I'm still not the one derailing everyone's flow.
- mcv 9y ago
  I find a quiet spot whenever I need to shout into my phone (which is practically never). The office where I currently work has a big open plan, with some partitions between different teams if they want to, but also small enclosed offices for people who need privacy and big sound-blocking chairs for private talks or phone calls. It works quite well.
sjg007 9y ago
I think telecommuting is fine for certain roles. Sales is largely telecommute, some software dev is, if you have second or third offices that cross talk then you are already remote.

WorldMaker 9y ago

A personal frustration that directly came across for me in two interview cycles a couple years back with Google was my questions about telecommuting were all met with consternation (I don't want to live/work in Mountain View), yet in two interview cycles with something around a dozen people involved, the majority of actual interviews involved no one actually physically in Mountain View and several that entirely telecommuted. Some of that is just the roulette of the draw of the specific teams I interviewed with in those cycles, but it certainly seemed to send a couple of clear messages to me: 1) telecommuting is reserved for a specific class of seniority with seemingly a certain hard-headedness required, 2) Google recruiters were more than willing to waste my time by flying me all the way out to Mountain View for 100% virtual interviews, when I could have happily done all the Google Hangouts work from home. (Also, 3) Google doesn't value my technical skills, but that's another argument for a different day.) Sure, it was good to see a bit more of Mountain View since that is where the Recruiters kept insisting I had to live/work at least for the first few years (despite the one team being primarily based in New York, and the other in SF), but it mostly just cemented my opinion that Mountain View is a suburban place like most other suburbs in America (car commute practically required; not very walkable/pedestrian friendly) and overall I'd prefer not to be there, because there are enough suburbs where I already live. Sorry to rant a bit about it, but I do find some interesting hypocrisy in Google's views of remote work and work/life balance. Especially to be directly told that remote work was entirely not an option, but then proceed to be given so many remote interviews over Hangouts. Seemed a clear "you will do what I say, not what I do" message.

csense 9y ago

At a lot of companies, it's hard to telecommute unless you get your foot in the door by working with them for a while and becoming invaluable, giving you enough leverage to demand it in the next time you negotiate employment terms. This is a real shame, since millions of people live in flyover states, and some of them are probably talented programmers who can't or won't move to tech hubs for one reason or another. (I'm one of them.) It's a missed opportunity for tech companies, and it damages the social and political fabric of our society by isolating the wealth being created by the technology industry to a few big cities.