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Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work
- briga 6y agoI'm guessing they found that employees aren't as productive when they not obliged to show up to the office every day. Not to mention when they're not provided with a steady stream of free food and coffee. Fourteen days a year seems pretty limited--weren't Googler's working from home more often than that before the pandemic?
- lupire 6y agoThat's quite speculative, considering how open offices are terrible for productivity but the companies still require it. Most likely it's just management bias.
- BrissyCoder 6y agoFound that my productivity - and that of the team I'm on -has gone through the roof since WFH. I'm on a fairly small team though (2-3 devs). I suspect that productivity changes are different in larger, more corporate settings where it is less conspicuous when a worker abuses the circumstances.
- ev1 6y ago(Non-Google GAFAM anecdote) Same, my team has gone way through the roof in productivity, delivering more than ever. At some point we actually ran out of stories to do even with more work and had to come up with more. As a note, over than half the team already WFH'd at least 1 day a week in normal conditions, and there was sufficient team trust that everyone would do the right thing, nobody minded if you ran out for errands or lunch unannounced - people would quickly check if any meetings were scheduled usually before running out, items were completed ahead of schedule. I've been doing a 30m-1h nap in the middle of the day and that's helped a lot too. I've also managed to not catch a cold or flu for the first time ever. My previous daily commute was min 1-2hrs each way in completely stopped traffic on a standing room only bus/train with multiple transfers and involved waking up even earlier than that to not be refused entry to an overfilled bus. I've seen a teammate or two be playing actual games (ranked apex legends in this case) during meetings but honestly, they were still responding, answered questions, and that meeting could have been a slack thread but some other teams are not nearly as competent at reading README.md.
- person_of_color 6y agoGod no.. remote wirk advocates needed Google
- tyingq 6y agoThat's interesting, since my assumption is that Google would be fairly data driven. I'd be curious if Googlers feel like this is because they are really seeing reduced productivity, or if there's a different motivation.
- dmitrygr 6y ago> Google would be fairly data driven That was Google. No longer. Xoogler (2012-2019)
- d3ntb3ev1l 6y agoGoogle HR told me “data showed remote doesn’t work” I asked for the data and never got it. I don’t work their anymore
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y agoI think you'll be looking for a while if your standards for an employer is that you have arbitrary access to the data they use to make decisions. There are a handful of radically transparent employers out there but it is the vanishing exception, not the rule.
- disgruntledphd2 6y agoWell the trouble is if you tell everyone that you are data-driven, and do so in most cases, then people are definitely going to ask about what data you used to make a decision. If you're explicitly HiPPO based decision making, this tends not to happen.
- bla3 6y agoHow do they know it's "remote" and not "working during a pandemic"?
- acover 6y agoCompanies have been testing this for ages. It's the holy grail to have remote work on par with in office.
- grillvogel 6y agodamn i guess all the megacorps decided to announce today
- castlecrasher2 6y agoAs someone who's worked only remotely for several years, this makes sense. I know many will disagree with this assertion but in my estimation in-person collaboration is far better than online-only. I think the best balance is at least a couple days per week in the office and the rest remote.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago"Couple days per week in the office" kind of defeats the whole point of going remote in the first place.
- mgkimsal 6y agoFor some people, yes. For others, no. I've been 'remote' for... 12 years now, but do travel to offices sometimes, and do enjoy being able to do some face to face time with folks, even sometimes for multiple days or weeks at a stretch. The core matter is who decides when I need to be in an office. If it's me or mostly me, it's great. If it's solely at the discretion of others, that's where problems often are (regardless of whether it's full time or not).
- mech422 6y agoPersonally, I'm over 20 years WFH now and love it. The last 5 years have been working with people on other continents, and I actually had the choice of time zones to work (I usually work nights for this, as I'm a night owl and it lets me sleep during day time when Arizona summers get hot). I haven't had any of the issues people seem to encounter. I don't work to socialize, so I don't miss lunches and such. For programming or devops stuff, you can definately do 100% remote. I understand people have different tastes, so I find it funny how polarized people get about it. In-office to WFH is a spectrum - just pick the spot your comfortable on it.
- mgkimsal 6y ago> In-office to WFH is a spectrum - just pick the spot your comfortable on it. Yep. It's the autonomy part that is the problem in nearly all cases. Choosing your own spot on that spectrum is the key part. And your spot may have to change over time, based on other parts of your life. Being forced to spot X is where all the contention comes in, it seems. I did miss occasional lunches, dinners, break room chats with folks, but now run a coworking spot in town. I have most of the socialization aspects I missed, without them being tied to work (no office politics with these folks, just... socialization).
- caniszczyk 6y agodid everyone starting leaving the hell hole known as Mountain View?
- lupire 6y agoWhat does "accelerating" mean?
- maxerickson 6y agoThey are opening the offices earlier in the year than they had planned. Presumably the increasing availability of vaccines factors into it, lots of new information between Nov 1. and the last few weeks.
- ryandrake 6y agoIt seems foolish to rush things as cases are once again back on the rise, which means deaths will likely be rising in about 2 weeks. And why are cases on the rise? Because people are, once again, pretending we are getting back to normal and going back to their old germ transmission daily life. How many times do we need to go through this Grand Opening / Grand Closing cycle before we learn?
- maxerickson 6y agoYeah, I wasn't endorsing it. (Fully) Vaccinated people spending time together seems safe enough though, so the choice to work in office is probably fine (whereas requiring it is premature).
- xur17 6y agoI'm guessing they are looking forward to the point at which "everyone that wants a vaccine can get one", at which point safely opening an office building should be doable.
- bilal4hmed 6y agoAfter spending more than a year remote, full remote is difficult ( not impossible ) . Most of us have settled on 3 days at home, 2 days at work, so we can socialize, make new connections or just simply have lunch. Going back to in office 100% is a thing of the past unless you are a team that has to be there - making hardware etc. For ex I cant imagine the Pixel team working 100% remote.
- paulcole 6y ago> just simply have lunch. I thought I had to be in an office for this as well then discovered this entire room in my apartment full of mostly unassembled food.
- maxerickson 6y agoYou realize you aren't talking about the same sense of the word?
- CountDrewku 6y agoYou realize it's sarcasm right?
- maxerickson 6y agoI see that it is sarcastic in form, but it doesn't address the meaning of the initial comment, which was about sitting down for a meal and chatting, not about food.
- CountDrewku 6y agoThat's the joke....
- kelnos 6y agoIt wasn't funny.
- jlawer 6y agoI find this interesting that the new economy Google is so set on office work where as Shell (at least in .au) is planning on staff having an office / work from home mix. They have even reduced overall office space so that they don't have enough spaces for all employees to work from some local offices.
- 0xy 6y agoRemote work is terrible for productivity especially if the company was not already remote first. In my employer, we've noticed a 30-40% productivity dip across the board. Not only that, but people are reporting more stress and are working unhealthy hours. Replying to emails at 9pm, etc. The communication breakdowns are constant. Previously you'd absorb information through osmosis, but the watercooler chat about projects and upcoming initiatives has outright stopped. If in person meetings are 10 in terms of information bandwidth, video calls are less than 6. They're just terrible. Oh, I accidentally interrupted someone yet again because of lag despite us all having fiber internet. Amazing.
- callahad 6y agoAre you sure the elevated stress and lowered productivity are due to remote work, and not other environmental factors (i.e., a global pandemic, lockdown, etc.)?
- hedora 6y agoOdd. We supposedly saw a doubling of productivity. We have many offices in offices in different timezones, and remote-only helped cross office collaboration. Also, the company is open floor plan, which is well-known to be productivity minimizing. On top of that, we’re pathologically meeting-heavy (“Don’t write it down or send an email. Schedule a meeting instead.” is part of new-hire training.) If I weren’t under NDA, and I had business school contacts, I’d try to write this up as a case study.
- perardi 6y agoYour feelings are very much not shared in regards to productivity. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/covid-19/us-remote-work-survey.html https://www.pwc.com/us/en/library/covid-19/us-remote-work-su... I will grant you that multi-person video meetings are subpar. Which is a blessing, because now we have smaller meetings.
- 0xy 6y agoWould Google be doing this if they thought it would reduce productivity?
- justaguy88 6y ago"I spent all this money on offices, better force the minions to sit in them"
- lmilcin 6y agoIf that was really the case Google would just sell all these. Do you understand how costly it is to maintain offices?
- paulryanrogers 6y agoI worked at a place with a historic, beautiful, downtown office. It was great ... for a while. Then they expanded but the location could not. My enjoyment dropped rapidly once we were five to a desk. The question of remote work came up and upper management was heavily invested in on site ICs. And this around the time they promoted some semi-remote folks to be our managers. It was weird. Possibly some trust issues from past contractors. EDIT: Forgot to mention they did specifically call out the expense of the location and parking privileges as a reason to disallow remote work.
- lmilcin 6y agoThe worst time I had was when I got to manage a team of 5 at a remote location. All 5 guys were sitting together. There was only one conference room equipped with videoconference gear. I tried maintaining at least one meeting a week but it had to be booked a lot in advance and I was frequently preempted by higher management because this was the only one room. Usually at the last moment (and I had once been evicted in the middle of the meeting). There was no budget for me to visit them at the office so all in all I saw them in person twice. Not twice a month or even twice a year. Twice. Total.
- rodgerd 6y agoYou act as though people are rational actors.
- hedora 6y agoIt’s likely less costly to the decision maker than admitting a mistake and changing course would be.
- mbgerring 6y agoIt would be interesting for someone to look into the value of the commercial real estate holdings of the big tech companies in any examination of why they are declaring the end of permanent remote work.
- frongpik 6y agoIt's published in quarterly financial reports. Iirc, their real estate is worth 100B.
- eximius 6y agoThe title and article feel slightly misleading. It is allowing some offices to have people who want to come back early, come back. It is sticking by its commitment of allowing WFH until September and looking at hybrid models for after. Personally, a hybrid model seems ideal to me. I dislike remote full time.
- Aeolun 6y agoA hybrid model with a maximum of 14 days a year is not a hybrid model at all. That’s the real news for me. After the pandemic is over Google will go back to a full-onsite team.
- eximius 6y agoMy understanding is that's not the case, that the 14 day limit (which I haven't heard about, actually) is for only WFH full time over an extended period.
- Aeolun 6y agoThat’s certainly possible, but not what the article writes: > for a maximum of 14 days remote per year I don’t know how to make ‘14 days in a row’ out of that :)
- UncleMeat 6y agoThe article is poorly researched and is not explaining the 14 day thing correctly. I'm sure that the actual email will be leaked at some point but since it is listed as internal only, just know that it isn't what is described in the article.
- cmrdporcupine 6y agoI don't know where this 14 days came from. I don't think I'm leaking anything serious by saying: I didn't see it in the internal comms.
- nightshadetrie 6y agoGoogle use to be a good company to work for.
- throwawaysea 6y agoThis focus on returning to work or a hybrid model really seems like a missed chance to pivot the economy in a new direction. It would be great if these companies let employees work remotely full time if they choose. That'll allow people to have more freedom in where and how they live, and also distribute the economy more evenly. Right now, working for big tech companies means having to live in one of a few big city centers, that all share virtually the same cultures (socially and politically) and lifestyles. Haven't people figured out how to make remote work successful in this last year? Anecdotally, it seems like most people are just as productive.
- frongpik 6y agoThis also proves that the climate change initiative is a wash. They can't take co2 emissions seriously and at the same time demand 100k employees to spend 1 hour a day driving to offices. That's like what, 100 millions gallons of gas per year, or 1 gigaton of co2, burned needlessly, only to improve some corporate metrics.
- cozzyd 6y agoOr you can take the bus or train?
- akadruid1 6y agoIn most places, buses are not substantially better emissions-wise than private cars. Typical deployments have them travelling empty or nearly empty most of the day which negates the savings of packed rush hour trips. Trains are much better of course but only exist for a few routes. Both are substantially worse than working from home.
- cozzyd 6y agoThat certainly does not describe the buses I ride, and whether or not you take the bus has a very marginal effect on total emissions from the bus.
- jpeg_hero 6y agoI feel like the "max 14 days per year" put the slam down on 2 days home / 3 days office everyone said would happen.
- Schweigi 6y agoHeck, it's not even good enough for 1 day at home per week. It's basically only useful for cases where you need to stay home because of a sick kid or someone is coming over for house repair/maintenance.
- hedora 6y agoI’ve never worked somewhere where that sort of thing was tracked. It sounds like Google will be tracking moving forward. Uggh.
- ipaddr 6y agoNot if you choose to not opt in. If you choose to not opt-in you will still take those days but you will be unable to work from home around whatever emergency or appointment you have. It's a trick.
- beisner 6y agoThe article is ambiguous about that. One interpretation is "max 14 days of remote work per year where you can't be in the office 3 days a week" (which is separately mentioned later in the article).
- bootsz 6y agoThe article is wrong. The 14 day limit applies only to working from a different country than the one your job is based in. Partial WFH is very much still on the table for the foreseeable future as far as we know.
- rainyMammoth 6y agoThe typical googler is a 20 or 30-something that has close to zero life interest outside work. I would not expect them to want to stay remote as their social life revolves around Google. Sadly, from what I have seen most people with a good work life balance want to stay remote while people with few other life interests want absolutely go back to work. I predict that in a couple years this will be part of the culture of each company. You will chose a company based on your desire to become close friends with your colleagues or live a great life outside the office.
- clpm4j 6y agoI'd actually say the typical Googler is a 30 or 40-something married person with a kid or two.
- swat535 6y agoIf you're 30-40 married with kids, you don't have the time to do leetcode for 6 months to pass the interviews..
- vlovich123 6y agoGranted I didn't ask if that was standard interview prep for them prior to interviewing, so this is partly my own biases filtering through, but I didn't get the sense that the seasoned 30-40 yold engineers were on leetcode for 6 months to pass interviews. I'm not saying none of them do that, but I found the Google interview process pretty standard fare for any place that has a similar quality bar. I remember my interviews with Google & Facebook as a new grad & they felt far more grueling than as a senior engineer (that & 10 years ago they were still asking those brain teasers like find the voltage between two points of an infinite lattice circuit). At this stage in my career, I've found the interview questions are all about how to design large pieces of software with the coding aspect being a smaller piece of the pie to make sure I'm not BS'ing.
- skybrian 6y agoGoogle has over a hundred thousand employees so discussing stereotypes isn't all that useful. For example, maybe you got in before you had a kid? Also, you don't necessarily need to study that much to pass the interview.
- rllearneratwork 6y ago"a maximum of 14 days remote per year" -- WHAT? They need to apply for that?
- ralph84 6y ago> If employees want to work from home beyond Sept. 1, they will need to formally apply for a max of 14 days annually Somehow this sounds to me like: "Oh, and remember: next Friday... is Hawaiian shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans."
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- petre 6y agoThat's even more tiring than going to work everyday. Now you have to shop for a shirt that you'll probably never wear again.
- chucky 6y agoIt's an Office Space reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p8Ni1sXBLk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p8Ni1sXBLk
- nullsense 6y agoI'm gonna need every Dev who hasn't seen that movie to go ahead and watch it this Saturday. Oh, and if I could go ahead and get them to re-watch it on Sunday too, that'd be great.
- alexgmcm 6y agoIt's one of my favourite films. The weird thing is I watched it before going to college and now I am working for several years it still feels super-relevant to the modern workplace.
- nullsense 6y agoSame and same. The longer I work as a dev and the more times I watch it the funnier it gets.
- DoreenMichele 6y agoI have a permanently impaired immune system and had a corporate job for five years. There are things that can be done to help make offices less of a health hazard even in the face of something like covid and most people don't cope well with remote work. It takes a lot of practice to get good at effective emails in place of face to face conversations. I actually tended to email my immediate boss my questions. With my eyesight issues or whatever, I seemed incapable of figuring out how to show up at her cubicle with good timing like other people routinely did. When I and two other people on my team were moved to a newly created troubleshooting team but kept the same technical lead, my work life hardly changed. I continued mostly emailing my questions and getting what I needed. My two coworkers who had been dependent on being able to talk with her face to face were blowing a gasket now that their desks were too far from hers to conveniently slip into her cubicle like they were used to doing. I can handle remote work. I've spent a lot of time doing things online for a lot of years. But I'm not surprised that it's been a tough work year for most people and productivity seems to have generally been down. Working remotely takes a different skill set and many people simply don't have it, even people who work at a computer all day.
- blahgoog 6y agoHow long until Verizon acquires them?
- aaomidi 6y agoI'm so glad I left my big tech job.
- tyingq 6y agoAnd, now that they don't have to be first, Amazon is in: Amazon updates remote work guidance, plans to ‘return to an office-centric culture as our baseline’ https://www.geekwire.com/2021/amazon-updates-remote-work-guidance-plans-return-office-centric-culture-baseline/ https://www.geekwire.com/2021/amazon-updates-remote-work-gui... oof.
- person_of_color 6y agoToday is a big disaster for those who foresaw changes in the workplace. Now we have only tier 2 companies (Dropbox/Spotify) who have gone full remote.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoSalesforce?
- Mandatum 6y agoIt's a lie. The offices are open and very full where they are allowed to (SK, JP, AU, NZ).
- carlivar 6y agoTier 2 in what exactly?
- executive 6y agoSpotify Samsung app is still audio only
- jeffbee 6y agoIn this sense I'd imagine. https://finance.yahoo.com/chart/GOOG#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 https://finance.yahoo.com/chart/GOOG#eyJpbnRlcnZhbCI6IndlZWs...
- dboreham 6y agoDatapoint: long ago (decades) I worked for a large well known valley software company, for several years. During that time I worked with many colleagues who were somewhere on the same campus, but I never physically met them. Obviously I was around my team mates, manager, and I attended many cross-group in-person physical meetings, but the number of people I interacted with online only was large. This was before video conferencing existed, just email phone and IM.
- pts_ 6y agoI always preferred text since irc days.
- Valkhyr 6y agoAfter a year working remotely, I don't think I'd be willing to go back to working fully (or even primarily) in the office. I could do a day here or there for team-building activities or major meetings, but that's pretty much the extent I'd be willing to do. Granted, this is based on having a 40-minutes train commute (each way, so 80 minutes/day), but unless I could have a 10 minute walk or bike commute I don't think my opinion would materially change, and that's pretty unlikely where I live due to downtown property/rent prices (Tokyo).
- izacus 6y agoI wonder how many people's opinions will change after a longer time. I wrote the exact same type of posts five years ago when I started my first fully remote job. After two years or so I had to look for an office because the isolation is just murderous and it takes a long amount of time to actually start showing its teeth.
- mewse 6y agoI can highly recommend renting a co-working space once that's a viable option wherever you are in the world. These can be surprisingly inexpensive and often come with internet, electricity, etc. included. Gives both the "short commute" benefit of work-from-home, as well as the "maintaining a clear separation between home and work" benefit of on-location-work. And for me personally (as an introvert), it was fantastic to have people around that I could talk to socially, but who weren't directly involved in my work and who weren't going to make demands of me. Totally removed the feelings of isolation, and formed a bunch of new friendships that didn't rest on obligations to my employer.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hyko 6y agoWhen will introverts realise that their working conditions are being dictated to them by extroverts? The pandemic-driven remote working is hell for some people, and unfortunately they call the shots. I don’t mind coming into your office now and again (there’s a special dimension to IRL connections), but the reason I don’t want to work there full time is that it’s crap for knowledge work. I outspend you by 10x per head in my home office, and everything there is to my exact specification. The whole field of modern office design should be a discredited pseudoscience; management is addicted to it because of the real estate crisis though. This is also kind of terrible, because a lot of people use FAANG as their North star for every policy decision. “Well Google use primary colours in their logo, Brian”
- amir734jj 6y agoVery well said. I am actually more productive working from home. I think asking everyone to work at the office again is just a decision by extrovert people managers.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- CapricornNoble 6y ago>>>When will introverts realise that their working conditions are being dictated to them by extroverts? This is my exact complaint, even in the Marine Corps. All of our senior leadership are charismatic extroverts. They are trying to adapt "distributed command & control" because they recognize that large management nodes are easy to spot and kill. But they still insist on all forms of concentrated workspaces, in-person meetings, video teleconferences, etc... We have the technology, but it will never be fully embraced because it is fundamentally anathema to the character of our decision-makers.
- laurent92 6y agoOur political conditions are also driven by extroverts. Our promotions are also driven by extroverts. Our insurance for the house, and the value we add as programmers, extroverts organize the world and take their share. I consider being extrovert as a quality for many things, and one has to learn to be versatile, even if I don’t like it personally.
- noisy_boy 6y agoI think this is mostly driven by management's insecurities / needs to see their "subjects" right in front of them and their typical need to "show" their activities in an obvious/noisy way. Typical managers tend to be extroverts and find allies in other extroverts or in people who happen to work in/enjoy the social interaction in office. Unfortunately there is not much representation of introverts in the decision making circle so those people will be once more thrown under the "quality-of-face-to-face-interactions" bus. Engineering-driven, low-politics, not-so-large orgs might do things a bit differently.
- nlitened 6y agoI would imagine that in Google most managers would be former engineers. If that is true, there might be more to the story rather than introverts/extraverts split.
- muro 6y agoI don't think a decision like this is made by "most managers". This is probably a CEO decision.
- DataJunkie 6y agoThis is a one size fits all "solution" designed at the top. That's all I am saying.
- joe45643234 6y agoThat makes sense. Sunar Pichai is no coder like Jeff Dean or Sanjay.
- chii 6y ago> in Google most managers would be former engineers former engineers - that is, they no longer want to be an engineer, but chose the management path. It's quite likely that engineering work is merely a stepping stone for someone like that who intends to advance their career in the management track. I would expect an over-representation of extroverts in this category. Introverted engineers remain engineers because they like the work, and are only forced out when the pay no longer match their output (but can not move up any more due to the engineering track being "ceiling" compared to the management track).
- xgeua 6y agoIf the employees of these companies want a remote life after the experience of this past year, they'll leave the company. If the companies are experiencing enough loss they may reconsider their remote stance. I think it's unlikely though. More likely than not some employees will leave and the company will hire new employees that don't want to work remote.
- ornornor 6y agoI don’t believe that. Everyone else is cargo cutting FAANG. If they go back to no remote then everyone else will follow and if you want remote work it will be as hard as it’s historically been to get it, ie 1:10 ratio (making the particular ratio up) for available remote jobs to remote seekers. It’s the same as “if you don’t like it here and don’t mind not having a roof over your head, you’re free to quit and go work somewhere else with better conditions”. It’s not as dramatic in SE because we’re in demand but it’s still not trivial to do everywhere. And it’s even worse for less in demand jobs.
- benhurmarcel 6y ago> that don't want to work remote Or most likely, employees who will accept to commute for the salary that Google offers.
- MrGilbert 6y agoMy company is located in a place that's pretty difficult to reach via public transport. It's common knowledge that owning a car is expensive. We are working fully remote since november, and I realized that I just own a car for the sake of getting to work. Don't get me wrong: I like to drive "somewhere" on the weekend or visit family and friends, but for that, an older car would be fine enough. Heck, I could even persue my dream of a convertible. I just own a decent car to have a reliable way to get to work. Every. Day. Things might change for me moving forward.
- Cd00d 6y agoI'm a little shocked by this. I thought the big tech companies and Google specifically were leading the charge in "we will allow significant WFH forever going forward", but maybe I wasn't paying enough attention. Personally, I'm at a small data company, and we're opening a new office for people where WFH is a burden (NYC apartments and all), but is so far voluntary. In fact, I think there are only seats for less than 1/3 of the company. I've been really impressed with how smoothly everyone shifted to all zoom all the time mode, and honestly, my small conference room meetings have been more productive the last year.
- izacus 6y agoOk, so I'm a bit surprised by these responses. Google is obviously a company that marketed itself majorly by their extensive offices with perks like free food, coffee, snacks, gyms, etc. Their office design, campus and related perks were always on the forefront of their pitch. I don't quite understand why you'd expect them to be on the forefront of WFH.
- derwiki 6y agoAt the beginning of the pandemic, their policies seemed aligned with WFH. Surprising to hear the opposite so soon.
- hellbannedguy 6y agoI think they were all lying about how they liked WFH? They want employees in their cells. Zuck has been buying up commercial space in SF a few weeks into this pandemic.
- izacus 6y agoI don't remember Google ever claiming they're liking WFH and will extend it? Did you mix up the companies?
- dimmke 6y agoThe insistence on comparing going into an office to jail that I see all over this thread really bothers me. This is such an extremely privileged viewpoint. When you're a minimum wage McDonalds worker, you can get written up for being 5 minutes late. But if you make $350k a year, being asked to come into a physical office to perform work is similar to jail. Okay. I guess the similarity is that they both serve meals :)
- runawaybottle 6y agoI say what’s up to most of the team till about noon, and unless I have meetings I mostly nap a bit. I wake up early and do my work. Before the pandemic I used to goto work and not do shit. Wake up early on one or two days and do my work. It’s the same exact routine except now I have to pretend in the office when I could just be napping and doing better work later. :shrugs: I’ll find a way around whatever bullshit the suits come up with.
- JackPoach 6y agoAs a person who has first-hand experience working with dedicated Google managers - this is great news. I used to be able to get answers very quickly, but even the simplest issues nowadays can take up to 3 weeks to get resolved. "Everyone is remote, you understand" - is the usual reply. I can any guess how terrible it's for regular businesses that don't have assigned dedicated account managers.
- DataJunkie 6y agoLMAO. You don't deal with anyone at Google.
- shmerl 6y agoThat's a weird decision for Google. Bad management.
- raverbashing 6y agoWell, it's a nice move by Google. It makes sure that people who are aligned with new ways of working have less reasons to work there. It also sends a strong signal the PHBs have taken over. Thanks for letting me know, so I know not to apply.
- skocznymroczny 6y agoI enjoy working from home. If reopening offices means going back to the office and having to sit in a mask for eight hours a day, no thank you.
- wu_187 6y agoThis is why we need unions. Do employees get to sue Alphabet if they get covid from the office?
- qbasic_forever 6y agoThey would have to prove negligence of some sort, and I guarantee Google has enough lawyers on payroll to make that absolutely impossible without the most egregious evidence (like multiple videos of your manager walking up to you and saying "look at this nice bottle of pure COVID-19... be a real shame if I drop... OOPS I SPILLED IT ON YOU! ahhhh!!"). Remember, this is a company that has had senior executives have extremely real and credible sexual misconduct allegations made against them only to see them sent off with million dollar golden parachutes: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-... You will not win a legal battle against Google, period.
- kmlx 6y agoisn't it easier just to move jobs? having google on your resume means you can get hired anywhere.
- pts_ 6y agoIt should be made optional because WFH every day is boring but working from office everyday is hectic and risky now.
- wu_187 6y agoWhat nobody is saying is that covid is not going away. This is highly irresponsible of Google given they have all the research in the world showing that. They already have the ideal situation set up to mitigate the risk of getting and spreading it. The vaccines aren't and never claimed to be 100% effective against covid, and as new variants have emerged, it's looking more like covid is going to be the next annual flu, except with all of the worst symptoms of covid, which can include death. Our administration needs to pass legislation to prevent companies from forcing people back into offices. This is rediculous.
- ohthehugemanate 6y agoJust in case you were operating under the illusion that tech giants are run by forward thinking executives who are immune to the usual politics and problems of corporate life. Nope, most of their exec layer is a bunch of people who cut their teeth the industry in the 90's, and are operating within a thick fog of local workplace politics. I guarantee that behind this move is an executive who believes that developers need to be physically colocated to be productive, because that's how it worked when he was coming up at WordPerfect or whatever. Backing it is also a group of people who have a lot to gain from it politically. At my employer we have some pockets of embarrassing leadership like this, but thankfully I haven't seen it in anyone senior enough to make global policy like this. My department is letting go of remote teams and only hiring in a handful of cities around the world, while ramping up office space spending. It's more expensive, less flexible, and less productive... and everyone knows it. But I guess it makes some people feel important, and it's how some others remember developing when they last did it 20 years ago. So it's happening anyway, and many of their best engineers are now on the market.
- thomasfromcdnjs 6y agoAnecdotally, I've been a remote engineer on and off for ten years. There have been plenty of companies where I thought we might have achieved more with an office. Yes, I understand you can always improve your processes but there does feel like there are fundamental limitations with remote work.
- cblconfederate 6y agoThe thing is, remote working is still in its infancy and has a lot of potential for improvement. Office has maxed out and just bumps back and forth.
- sharken 6y agoI don't think remote working is in its infancy, it's more a case of the scope has been changed the recent year or so. The benefits of remote work is mostly being able to focus and reducing the daily commute. However remote work never brings the same connection to your co-workers as being physically present in an office and in my opinion that is extremely important. I understand very well that those with long commutes like the work from home idea, most of the time it also enables them to have a nicer house/apartment than what would be available in the city. Since that is at the cost of those living in the city with shorter commute, there will always be mixed feelings about working from home/remote working at the workplace.
- dominik-2020 6y agoHey guys, why don't you guys stop browsing hacker news and go back to your 200k/year job.
- iovrthoughtthis 6y agothe problem was never remote vs colocated. it was commuting. offices are fine (though not required). travelling for > 15-20 mins to and from work is what sucks the most. we need local office hubs. work around your local community for your employer near your home.
- dkarp 6y agoSort of. Commuting is one side of it. There’s also the issue many people have of not being able to do deep work in a busy open plan office.
- intricatedetail 6y agoThis. In some jobs I was forced to procrastinate in the office and then finish work at home because I just couldn't focus in the open plan. When at review I asked for a separate office (company had this ability) they said I am not a manager so I can't. I left them soon after.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dvh 6y agoIs this 1st April joke?
- qbasic_forever 6y agoIf any Google employees are reading this thread and don't agree with this move, it seems like the kind of issue that the Alphabet Workers Union would be in a perfect position to help push back on. Join up: https://alphabetworkersunion.org/ https://alphabetworkersunion.org/
- BreakfastLover 6y agoThe union is probably the reason. Pretty hard to have a strong united culture when everybody is at home reading the NYT about how Google is evil. It's easier to think of Google as good when you face your coworkers, but when they are behind avatars and just text, it's easier to fall for the propaganda of the NYT et.al
- qbasic_forever 6y agoYou're going to have to walk me through this logic, because to me it reads as: 1. Alphabet Workers Union exists. 2. ??? 3. Google is forced to return all its workers to in person work during a global pandemic.
- aspaceman 6y agoI really don’t understand this argument. The reason Google is bringing people back is to have a united culture, which they need because the NYT is naughty? Not following here.
- BreakfastLover 6y agoI exaggerated with the union comment, but my point was that Google is now having a very divided workforce and having them work remotely is not going to help, especially when the outside world they read (e.g. NYT) is all about blaming Big Tech for everything.
- qbasic_forever 6y agoHowabout we get this raging pandemic under control first, and then companies can sort out how to get back into offices. There is far too much hubris and suicidal optimism at the idea that in a month everything is safe to share air with others again. Over half of the country is surging in new cases for a potential huge 4th wave, we're starting to see some vaccine breakthrough cases including unexpected hospitalizations and deaths from fully vaccinated folks, and children are still totally unvaccinated for at least the next 6-12 months. We also have only begun to verify mRNA boosters will work and be feasible to adapt to the ever-changing variants. All of these problems are surmountable and I fully expect to see them solved, but not in a couple months.
- 01100011 6y agoIf climate change is real, then commuting is going to die sooner or later.
- DrBazza 6y agoPerhaps this will trigger a number of employees to leave for other companies with more flexible policies, or more interestingly, trigger a new wave of start-ups.
- ScoobleDoodle 6y agoIn my mind this past year of pandemic work from home hasn’t been an accurate depiction of normal (non-pandemic) work from home because of the forced isolation in the hours outside of work. It seems like the pendulum is swinging back too far too fast to in office work. I like work from home and get to focus more effectively than the open office. I’m pretty deep on the introvert side of the scale and this pandemic has been too isolating for even me. Which is to say I don’t think work from home should be removed because most everyone is socially needy now. I’m looking forward to being with friends again. But I do not want to go back to working in the office. I’m hoping my work has max one required office day for meetings a week, but not more, and hopefully less.
- pbourke 6y agoI agree with you. Under normal circumstances you’d be able to meet people, go out to eat, take a trip, etc while WFH. For many people it’s basically been “house arrest” for over a year now.
- keinten 6y agoAs what would be described as an aspergers person, I find offices full of people playing bizarre political and social games with each other that I don't have any particular interest in and the workplaces themselves to be extremely unproductive. I hate working in offices with people often appointed due to nepotism or just because they are like the person hiring, that I would rather be poor then work in them. The entire concept of workplaces, how they are run, and what people do is created by the normal person and for the normal person. This is completely irrespective and often counter to what produces the best outcome. It is about the social needs of these people, not the needs of the product.
- flr03 6y agoYes, but that's an illusion to be believe that political games, nepotism etc would disappear without offices. That's just how working in a corporation is, sadly.
- mekkkkkk 6y ago"What produces the best outcome" is doing a lot of work in that last paragraph. Having a nice culture and enjoying the work is a pretty essential part for most people. This may or may not disturb the raw productivity, but still leads to a better outcome in the form of teamwork, resilience and retention.
- damsta 6y agoFor a company that provides so many tools for remote work, they are trying so hard to show that they do not believe in them.
- bumbada 6y agoI have been working remotely for decades. Most people can't work remotely and productively because they are not trained to do so. E.g. You are in your office (inside your home) and your wife, your dog or child enters it demanding you do some kind of non important issue right now, distracting you from your work.You need to be trained to not them let them distract you. The people living in your house need to be trained as well on what to do. The training for working in the(external) Office started at school, from a time fiber optics telecommunications were unheard for common mortals. Most people feel alone because they lack the social skills to make friends outside work, or just lack the initiative, knowledge and internal motivation to work without external pressure and supervision. The companies that will solve this issue at big scale in the future are those that solve it because the they have to in order to survive(against established companies). It will be a startup that faces all the risks involved, not an established company like Google or Facebook. It will not be companies that could pay millions for people living in ultra expensive places and are already making big bucks doing that. They don't need to change because the system already works for them.
- DoingIsLearning 6y ago> or just lack the initiative, knowledge and internal motivation to work without external pressure and supervision I will humbly raise my hand and admit to this. As someone who has so far really enjoyed the lifestyle benefits of WFH but has struggled with this, what advice/tips/strategies/recommendations can you or other senior remote engineers provide on how to improve this specific aspect?
- lentil_soup 6y agoI cannot recommend a co-working space enough. My life improved so much since working from a co-working. I looked for a place that shared my work/life style and I've made friends, we share lunch, we've gone on trips, we usually share a friday drink, etc. And since everyone works on different things and/or companies it's quite interesting as well to get some other input that's not just work colleagues. I also looked for a place 2min from my house so I still have most of the benefits of WFH
- varispeed 6y agoI am an introvert and I am never going back to office. If I won't find work in a forward thinking company I'll do something else, but never in the office. Because of the time gained by not communing, I was finally able to do my hobbies and researching my own business that hopefully I'll make happen next year. Even if they wanted to pay for time spend on commute, no thank you. I realised the time I would be losing is priceless. You won't ever have it. If that means I'll earn less or nothing at all? So what, I'll be happier. Also - we should start demanding that companies will pay for use of our homes as their office. How come paying rent to some rich office owners is fine, but if a worker wants to be paid for use of his or hers home is not?
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- DebtDeflation 6y agohttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-31/ibm-expects-80-of-its-employees-to-work-hybrid-post-pandemic https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-31/ibm-expec... IBM expects >80% of their employees to be spending at least 3 days per week in the office post-pandemic. Parents will be allowed to continue to WFH until schools re-open in September. And they're labeling THIS as a "hybrid model".
- torgian 6y agoTo me, after reading the article, it seems like Google saw all these offices they have and realized all the money would go to waste if people don’t use them. And then there’s the middle manager aspect. Google made these offices with the idea to make people feel like the office is “home”. Snacks, food, bring your dog, etc all screams “why go home when you have everything here?” The cynic in me believes that is exactly their aim, to keep people at the office longer and middle manage. That said, I do believe that a lot of people have a hard time not working in an office. These people should still have the choice, though, and these offices should not feel like home. Because it isn’t. But this is still something that many companies will take advantage of; it simply costs less to not rent an office. Yes, they should also pay for part of the rent and internet bills for the employee, but it would still cost less than renting a huge building. Especially in Silicon Valley.
- wffurr 6y agoThere were reasons they invested heavily in offices in the first place; there’s a strong belief (perhaps justified, I couldn’t say) that innovation is more likely to happen with everyone in the office and partaking of amenities in common spaces were serendipitous conversations occur that spark the next billion dollar project. I’ve heard this theory as maximizing the odds of such a lucky conversation. Increasing the innovation “surface area” by having more people having more chance encounters. There’s probably other reasons to it too, but there’s also reason to believe that same type of innovation doesn’t happen as readily online. It’s the same theory why industries tend to cluster in certain areas; not just access to a pool of ready-trained employees but also a thriving innovation scene due to the proximity of all those experienced, motivated people.
- swiley 6y agoSo: You must live somewhere with the highest cost of living. Working on software that intentionally isolates and manipulates people And now you don't even get to work from your overpriced home. I'm sure there won't be a retention problem,
- wffurr 6y agoThat’s a pretty uncharitable way of describing all of Google’s software. There’s a lot more to Google than just the YouTube ranking algorithm, if that’s what you’re referring to. It’s also not in the least different from pre-pandemic, and there wasn’t much of a retention problem then, either, as far as I know. There’s also plenty of offices in places that don’t have the very highest cost of living, and Google committed to expanding those as well.
- AzzieElbab 6y agoHope this does not start a trend
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- AzzieElbab 6y agoApril fools?
- jjjeii3 6y agoInstead of being thankful to employees for increasing Google stock price by 50% in the last 12 months, Google now try to repress the staff. Another reason not to use Google services.
- throwaway122378 6y agoAt the beginning of the pandemic did google not announce that employees can work remotely
- kristianc 6y agoWhat surprises me about this whole discourse is how quickly the narrative has been rewritten. Read any article from the likes of HBR from 2019 and it's apparent that much, much research shows that offices, and open offices in particular are toxic for productivity - and that the 'water cooler' collaboration effect has been vastly overstated. Sometimes in an open office you could go several hours without getting anything done at all because someone had decided to hold an impromptu meeting by your desk. And irony of all ironies - you put your headphones in at a loud enough volume to drown out the noise and then get tapped on the shoulder for 'distracting' people. Fast forward a year and a half and the 'water cooler' myth seems to be accepted as fact, and none of the business press seems to mention at all the harmful effects of open offices on productivity. It's not like good ideas ever came from those interactions - they tended to produce the half baked ideas, and definitely didn't produce the x-functional alignment it actually takes to get anything done in most orgs. The switching cost of interruption - or even the fear that you could at any moment be interrupted - is a complete inhibitor to deep work. My only hope is that when people are inevitably forced back into the office, people will be able to be more productive because of 40% fewer people being in them.
- ErrantX 6y agoSo I wonder if the answer actually is; this is an example of correlation != causation. Or in other words; negative drivers to productivity are not related as closely to locale as previously thought.
- betterunix2 6y agoMaybe everyone working from home has been even worse for productivity than open offices. I know my own productivity has suffered, and I know I am not an outlier. People with toddlers in their home face constant interruptions (daycare has become unreliable -- one positive COVID test can shut a daycare down for two weeks), many people have limited space for a home office and nowhere to put a proper desk, etc. My own team frequently used whiteboards when we were at the office and touchscreens (of whatever size) really are not the same. I know WFH has been fine, even positive, for some people. For a lot of us it has been a disaster and it seems that Google determined that it is a net negative.
- flippinburgers 6y agoI guess I am an extreme in that I hate going into work. WFH forever please.
- bbarnett 6y agoMy first read I saw "pornodoro", then timer, and thought this comment was going in a whole other direction.
- akhilcacharya 6y agoAnother article about Amazon doing the same https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26650430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26650430
- motohagiography 6y agoPrice it in. 8h work + 2h commute means minimum 25%+ higher comp to come into the office. We now know it's not necessary for the majority of work. Managing salaried employees by optimizing their productivity as hourly labourers is essentially abuse. The secret is to always maintain an opportunity funnel and a pipeline of potential job opportunities that you can convert into interviews or jobs within a few weeks.
- koide 6y agoEven though it's clear that to each their own. It's amazing how hard people can make life for themselves. I'm totally for you working at an office if you feel you're more successful and happier that way. But given you are somewhat forced to do something else, try to make it work. Of course there are exceptions and that people may have really dramatic households that make all of the below impossible. But, how many are there, really? I think it's mostly a matter of communicating and setting expectations properly. a) I'm interrupted at home. Communicate, talk to your kids and rest of the family (works from ages 4 and up, before then you need to agree for a partner/caretaker to handle kids) and let them know there are times they can't interrupt you but the key here is: offer times where they can! You can't expect to be left alone 8 hours a day in a row in this new arrangement. b) I can't work without pressure. Communicate, talk to your teammates and have a virtual room where you just work, without talking unless there's a question. There's also focusmate.com if you are afraid of your coworkers. Also, create a routine for yourself. Be unafraid of asking for help. c) I don't have friends or family. Will an office really change that? I know that the friends I made working at an office I still have, and that I've made friends working remotely too. As well as having the friends I made when young. Finally, many workplaces are not enabling workers to be successful remotely, becuase they don't know how to or they don't want to. You need to encourage async, reduce (not increase!) meetings, and offer more freedom to accommodate for the above.
- charlesu 6y agoI’ll go back to the office when they give me my own four walls and a door.
- tharne 6y agoThe whole "remote work is the new normal" didn't last long.
- prions 6y agoAs someone whose been in an awfully designed office at a "thrifty" company, I can't imagine how returning to that office would be a gain for me. I was put in a row of desks literally next to the open kitchen/conversation area. My day had constant distractions and I had no control over how I wanted my work environment to be. Working from home, I'm incredibly comfortable AND productive. The noise level, lighting, etc are all how I choose them. I dont have this tension around other people getting to decide for me how I want to work. If you work in a FAANG type of office environment, the above probably doesn't apply to you. Your office is professionally designed and cost many millions of dollars. You are given high quality equipment to make you comfortable. Your office has amenities that make being there easier.
- andrewzah 6y ago"Your office is professionally designed and cost many millions of dollars. You are given high quality equipment to make you comfortable. Your office has amenities that make being there easier. " My house is nice, and is custom-tailored to me. The amenities are exactly the amenities I want and use. The equipment is exactly what I want, not equipment that a distant person contracted out to a firm to mass produce for a general office. I understand that not every person is in a situation like this, but if you're working at a FAANG you should be making enough money to set up your living situation nicely. People should have the -option- to come into an office. Working at home gets lonely. But there is no reason that a FAANG is necessarily better or even good at providing an optimal work environment.
- xtat 6y agoThere's a part of me that wants to stop reading Google headlines and remember them as they were before the Great Decline.
- catattack2 6y agoExecutives likely have data showing that wfh doesn't work. From a cost perspective, most executives would prefer wfh because 1) the talent pool is greater 2) they can save on facility expenses 3) they can dramatically reduce compensation Over time (1) and (3) could see compensation easily halve as supply of developers becomes more easily globalized
- zcw100 6y agoEveryone keeps saying, "There are so many good things about WFH". Ya, good for you. People who make these decisions don't care what's good for you. "But I'm more productive when I'm happy" you say. They don't care how productive you are. They care how profitable you are with is the ratio of how productive you are to how much you cost. If they can hire three miserable people to do what you do at one fifth the cost they'll do it. You being a happy is incidental to what they're doing. "But they don't have to pay for office space". Sure, but you're totally discounting the amount of power that they gain by having control of your physical body. I get to tell you where to be, when to be there, and what to do. I have cameras and badges to verify you're there. You're also physically close so you're buying a house with a mortgage, putting your kids in school. If I fire you your only choice is something within a 100mi radius. I'm a member of local business groups so there's a good chance I know where you're going and maybe even play golf with the companies CEO. You better not burn any bridges on your way out or I might shake my head and make a face when I mention your name on the back nine. I guarantee you that some people will be allowed to work from home. Others won't. Right now they're busily working to determine which ones those will be where it's best for them. The outcome will be you'll always get the worst deal. The ones that are fungible and I can cut costs to the bone? Sure work from home. The ones that I need a little more leverage with? You're coming into the office. I'll even buy a foosball table and put some snacks in the kitchen if it makes you feel better. I don't really give a shit if you go across town. They take my people, I take yours. The point is your ours and we trade you as we see fit. Think I'm being dramatic. Think again https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-google-settle-antitrust-lawsuit-hiring-collusion https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/24/apple-goo...
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