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There was a blog post posted here recently from someone who saw Google as a "family" and drank a lot of koolaid, as well as stories of high levels of entitlemen

by lhorie 6y ago

There was a blog post posted here recently from someone who saw Google as a "family" and drank a lot of koolaid, as well as stories of high levels of entitlement. I wonder if there's a similar phenomenon going on where people assume that companies pampering them is a given and that they can get anything they want by complaining enough. What they might find instead is the shock that "grass is greener on the other side" was a lie all along.

kyle-rb 6y ago
What grass though? This subset of employees seem to value working remotely above free food or massages or whatever other in-office perks. Work-from-home as a perk has a negative cost, so it's not crazy to think that companies might start offering it.
- ryan_j_naughton 6y ago
  >Work-from-home as a perk has a negative cost Negative cost but also negative revenue / productivity loss if not done properly. Most data appears to show the hybrid model is the best for productivity. WFH several days a week, enabling focus and limiting distractions. Work from the office a couple days a week to enable coordination, connection, innovation, and alignment. This forced experiment in 100% WFH was clearly bad for productivity. The reason tech companies provided so many perks in the past wasn't simply as a recruitment technique. A lot of it was to create an environment where workers worked longer hours and thus the firm got more productivity out of each worker. The cost-benefit analysis clearly supported that before. A caterer's salary is far lower than an engineer's.
  - d0mine 6y ago
    > This forced experiment in 100% WFH was clearly bad for productivity. Could you link to some data that demonstrates that? > A lot of it was to create an environment where workers worked longer hours and thus the firm got more productivity out of each worker. "longer hours" "more productivity" is obviously false for the extremes. It is unclear what is the threshold when a programmer starts to introduce more issues than they fix. It is hard to measure productivity for a programmer (e.g., what might be productive short-term may be counter-productive long-term).
  - TomSwirly 6y ago
    > Most data appears to show the hybrid model is the best for productivity. Can we see the data? > Work from the office a couple days a week to enable coordination, connection, innovation, and alignment. I see you are fully buzzword enabled. > This forced experiment in 100% WFH was clearly bad for productivity. "Clearly"? Can you back up your dramatic claims with evidence? When I worked at Google, it was so noisy that I did most of my work from home anyway, but showed up for a few hours a day because I had to.
  - jumby 6y ago
    > A lot of it was to create an environment where workers worked longer hours and thus the firm got more productivity out of each worker Also known as: working for free
  - BTCOG 6y ago
    As an ISP engineer, I can tell you my company has numbers and figures that we are much more productive in networking, applications teams and development, and a handful of other teams across the board by working remotely. Been selling off officespace all last year and continuing to do so. We do work more working from home. And all that said, they know full well what teams should be back in the office and those of us who could feasibly work permanently from home.
- lhorie 6y ago
  In this case, by "grass" I mean the combination of which subset of employers pay comparably to google, plus allow unrestricted WFH, plus have similar levels of infrastructure quality (such that your day to day doesn't involve dealing with broken infra or some such), number of meetings, levels of autonomy, etc. I'm sure that there is a subset of jobs that ticks all those boxes, but what I don't believe is that they're in such abundance that one can simply quit google and stumble into one by simply waving around their xoogler status. More likely than not, people following through w/ quitting will realize that work satisfaction does not solely depend on a single dimension (WFH-ness)
NeverFade 6y ago
How are these employees "pampered"? They found they enjoy working from home, so they prefer to keep doing that, and if Google doesn't oblige them, they'll start shopping among the many companies that currently do. The free market at work.
- lhorie 6y ago
  According to the blog post I mentioned, before WFH, Google apparently used to go out of its way to literally pamper engineers, with things like fancy cafeteria offerings, laundry services, massages, etc. I think it's important to keep in mind that when some people's complaints are on the level of "ugh, sushi again?", that their levels of entitlement may be a bit uncalibrated from the reality of how other companies treat employees.
  - NeverFade 6y ago
    The pseudo-moral judgement on Google's relations with its employees is out of place. Google provides certain benefits to its employees, not out of the kindness of its heart or out of moral consideration, but because business analysis has determined it's in Google's own benefit to do so. To make itself more attractive, build up a prestigious brand as an employer, keep people working longer hours, etc. The moment they determine it's no longer in their interest to provide you with these benefits - they'll fire you. So let's stop pretending one party or the other here is acting on some moral basis. This is just business.
    - lhorie 6y ago
      For the record, I didn't mean to imply any sort of moral judgment about Google itself, I was merely relating facts about Google perks and reports of how some employees reacted to them. The point, in fact, is mostly about the employees, who have often been characterized as out-of-touch with the workings of the world outside Google.

by lhorie 6y ago

kyle-rb 6y ago

What grass though? This subset of employees seem to value working remotely above free food or massages or whatever other in-office perks. Work-from-home as a perk has a negative cost, so it's not crazy to think that companies might start offering it.

ryan_j_naughton 6y ago
>Work-from-home as a perk has a negative cost Negative cost but also negative revenue / productivity loss if not done properly. Most data appears to show the hybrid model is the best for productivity. WFH several days a week, enabling focus and limiting distractions. Work from the office a couple days a week to enable coordination, connection, innovation, and alignment. This forced experiment in 100% WFH was clearly bad for productivity. The reason tech companies provided so many perks in the past wasn't simply as a recruitment technique. A lot of it was to create an environment where workers worked longer hours and thus the firm got more productivity out of each worker. The cost-benefit analysis clearly supported that before. A caterer's salary is far lower than an engineer's.
- d0mine 6y ago
  > This forced experiment in 100% WFH was clearly bad for productivity. Could you link to some data that demonstrates that? > A lot of it was to create an environment where workers worked longer hours and thus the firm got more productivity out of each worker. "longer hours" "more productivity" is obviously false for the extremes. It is unclear what is the threshold when a programmer starts to introduce more issues than they fix. It is hard to measure productivity for a programmer (e.g., what might be productive short-term may be counter-productive long-term).
- TomSwirly 6y ago
  > Most data appears to show the hybrid model is the best for productivity. Can we see the data? > Work from the office a couple days a week to enable coordination, connection, innovation, and alignment. I see you are fully buzzword enabled. > This forced experiment in 100% WFH was clearly bad for productivity. "Clearly"? Can you back up your dramatic claims with evidence? When I worked at Google, it was so noisy that I did most of my work from home anyway, but showed up for a few hours a day because I had to.
- jumby 6y ago
  > A lot of it was to create an environment where workers worked longer hours and thus the firm got more productivity out of each worker Also known as: working for free
- BTCOG 6y ago
  As an ISP engineer, I can tell you my company has numbers and figures that we are much more productive in networking, applications teams and development, and a handful of other teams across the board by working remotely. Been selling off officespace all last year and continuing to do so. We do work more working from home. And all that said, they know full well what teams should be back in the office and those of us who could feasibly work permanently from home.
lhorie 6y ago
In this case, by "grass" I mean the combination of which subset of employers pay comparably to google, plus allow unrestricted WFH, plus have similar levels of infrastructure quality (such that your day to day doesn't involve dealing with broken infra or some such), number of meetings, levels of autonomy, etc. I'm sure that there is a subset of jobs that ticks all those boxes, but what I don't believe is that they're in such abundance that one can simply quit google and stumble into one by simply waving around their xoogler status. More likely than not, people following through w/ quitting will realize that work satisfaction does not solely depend on a single dimension (WFH-ness)

NeverFade 6y ago

How are these employees "pampered"? They found they enjoy working from home, so they prefer to keep doing that, and if Google doesn't oblige them, they'll start shopping among the many companies that currently do. The free market at work.

lhorie 6y ago
According to the blog post I mentioned, before WFH, Google apparently used to go out of its way to literally pamper engineers, with things like fancy cafeteria offerings, laundry services, massages, etc. I think it's important to keep in mind that when some people's complaints are on the level of "ugh, sushi again?", that their levels of entitlement may be a bit uncalibrated from the reality of how other companies treat employees.
- NeverFade 6y ago
  The pseudo-moral judgement on Google's relations with its employees is out of place. Google provides certain benefits to its employees, not out of the kindness of its heart or out of moral consideration, but because business analysis has determined it's in Google's own benefit to do so. To make itself more attractive, build up a prestigious brand as an employer, keep people working longer hours, etc. The moment they determine it's no longer in their interest to provide you with these benefits - they'll fire you. So let's stop pretending one party or the other here is acting on some moral basis. This is just business.
  - lhorie 6y ago
    For the record, I didn't mean to imply any sort of moral judgment about Google itself, I was merely relating facts about Google perks and reports of how some employees reacted to them. The point, in fact, is mostly about the employees, who have often been characterized as out-of-touch with the workings of the world outside Google.