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Nobody wants to give up a something once it becomes a part of their life that they enjoy. The FANG workers got a taste of not having a daily long commute and d

Nobody wants to give up a something once it becomes a part of their life that they enjoy. The FANG workers got a taste of not having a daily long commute and don't want to give this small life improvement back. Getting back several hours of your life is pretty big. FANG companies however have gotten a taste of nearly unlimited power and have not heard "no" in years. They too don't want to give this up. This is why they demand the butts back in the cramped open seating office. Does anyone buy their "we will allow you to apply for remote work" BS? That is just something to get you back in the office. They will quietly deny your request later. People can call these FANGers spoiled, but I really hope they win. It would benefit everybody, but the CEOs of the world.

philote 5y ago
Before the pandemic FANGs seemed to want everyone in the office as much as possible. That's why they have their own cafeterias/restaurants, daycare, workout rooms, etc. They wanted employees in the office, working a minimum of 40 hours a week. I'm guessing even though remote work is going fine for now, they're concerned they're not going to be able to keep getting over 40 hours of week out of employees. (This is conjecture on my part, I have no idea how many hours FANG employees tend to work).
- brandmeyer 5y ago
  > (This is conjecture on my part, I have no idea how many hours FANG employees tend to work). Then don't conjecture. Speculation doesn't add to the conversation. In the absence of evidence, it just spreads a misinformation virus.
  - acituan 5y ago
    Without due speculation we could only talk about fully established facts. That would make a very infertile conversation. Also you should have more trust for your fellows in dialogue here, that they do have some immune function against misinformation viruses.
    - brandmeyer 5y ago
      My experience in the software industry is that engineers are just as susceptible to misinformation as everyone else. It is the exact same process which reinforces beliefs in flat-earth, anti-vax, chiropractic, homeopathy, the stolen-election narrative, and other such nonsense. A number of folks are asking the question, "why does the HN consensus appear to be so far away from my experience?" I think the answer is really that noise is being amplified and echoed above the signal. If you know you're just guessing based on what "seems reasonable" and "matches what other people are saying" you need to stop and re-evaluate the validity of your beliefs. That's an important part of critical thinking which is sorely lacking in this forum right now.
      - philote 5y ago
        I hope you see the irony in this. Many of your comments, including this one I'm replying to, have "I think ..." which is really just speculation. I mean, you say "It is the exact same process which reinforces beliefs in flat-earth, anti-vax, chiropractic, homeopathy, the stolen-election narrative, and other such nonsense.". But is that true? How do you know? Do you have all the facts? I'm sure it seems reasonable and matches what others think...
      - acituan 5y ago
        Thanks for your input regarding critical thinking skills. Below are my suggestions for you, inspired from CBT skills. Normally it is a faux pas to point out cognitive distortions in other people's thinking, but looks like you're up for a direct conversation so I'll reciprocate; - don't read minds; dialectic can only happen if we allow the flow of conversation back and forth. Cutting that flow prematurely happens for example when we assert that we know what the other person is thinking. - don't use should statements; don't enter the scene with imperatives and normativities. At best it is insulting to fellow adults you're talking to, at worst it again kills the dialectic. Conversation requires trust in the other person being able to unpack and reality test what is being said. It requires an assumption of good enough character. Talking down to people is a self fulfilling prophecy; when you show you have very little expectation in having a good faith conversation you have already created it. - let go of black and white thinking; simple categories are useful but have serious precision errors. I invite you to consider "truth", "knowledge", "validity" as shades of gray instead of discrete categories while talking to people, because it allows parties of a dialogue to puzzle together the subsets of truths they have. - don't overgeneralize; don't take a comment and overgeneralize that to a person's essence e.g "they are a person who always does this". Don't take a few comments and overgeneralize that to the entire forum. Don't use labels. - don't discount the positives and filter in only the negatives; instead of focusing where people might have missed your expectations in critical thinking, see if you're downplaying or outright ignoring when they are in fact demonstrating it. Hope it helps.
  - philote 5y ago
    Many comments in this thread are speculation/conjecture, I was honest enough to label mine as such. We're not running studies or experiments here, this is a place to converse. My comment allows others to provide additional evidence for or against my theory.
  - MarkPNeyer 5y ago
    > . Speculation doesn't add to the conversation. In the absence of evidence This is an interesting claim. Do you have evidence for it?
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      I listened to a Cartalk or maybe This American Life segment many years ago that asked the question “Are two people talking about something they do not know anything about better or worse off after talking about it?” The consensus was that the downside risk is the two people coming to various conclusions even though they knew nothing about it simply due to our cognitive biases and how we interact with each other. Therefore, two people talking about something they do not know anything about might very well be worse off than had they not talked about it at all.
  - echelon 5y ago
    I hate every time this mandate is slinged around as if this is the only way humans can operate intelligently. Humans are deductive creatures and we're not terrible at constructing and testing hypotheses. A lot of value can be derived from discussing inconclusive topics, and an understanding of new subject matter can be established for those unfamiliar. It's a valuable exercise to walk through supporting facts. I wish we didn't cry every time we conjecture.
- klipklop 5y ago
  Sure it's N=1, but I worked more than 40 hours every single week when I was at a FANG. I used to laugh at all the perks because who actually had the time to use most of them other than interns. Times I used a climbing wall or nap pod: 0 In the end even the free lunch was annoying. (Yes I am going to complain about "free" food.) It just lead to short lunches where people go back to their desk as soon as they could. I love the social aspect of lunch and it's the highlight of my day to eat with friends. When you are trapped on campus that rarely happens. I was immediately happier when I left and got the social aspect of the middle of my day back. Went from taking like 20-30 minute lunches to like 70. Leaving the office and eating lunch with good friends a few times a week is a huge moral boost over waiting in some silly named tech cafeteria. Don't get me wrong pre-FANG I dreamed of how nice it would be to eat at on campus free cafes. Later on I realized it was mostly there to keep you from taking a long lunch stuck in traffic.
  - yupper32 5y ago
    See I was the opposite. I had no time as an intern but have plenty of time as a full timer. It seems like it's almost completely self-inflicted if someone doesn't have time as a full timer (at the 2 Big-N tech companies I've been at). I didn't have time as an intern because I wasn't confident and felt I needed to prove something. Now, many years into it, I know I can work my 40 hour weeks, enjoy the perks for what they are, and relax most of the time. I've never understood why people consider perks like food as traps to keep you on campus. Nothing stops you from leaving campus for lunch, as long as there's not some meeting you scheduled. Nothing stops you from working 40 hours a week, unless you choose to work more to get ahead faster.
    - klipklop 5y ago
      I agree with you there about some interns being very busy. I do remember interns that had a lot of self imposed pressure to perform. If they even had say a minor issue with their work issued laptop they would be in a panic because of the time lost. Also totally agree with you not having to work so many hours, but this is exactly why they love the college grad pipeline. So many fresh workers with something to prove. The problem with nothing stopping you from leaving campus for lunch is that it's hard to convince your work-buddies to join you. Free is very compelling to some. And all your co-workers plan their meetings around this truncated lunch break.
- jensensbutton 5y ago
  At my FAANG they did studies and on average people are working MORE hours each day since the switch to WFH. If they were concerned about maximizing hours then they'd leave it as in. I suspect there are other concerns.
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    I have to wonder whether they're available for more hours or actually putting in more work. Home distractions tend to extend the work day for people who have pride in their craft.
    - IggleSniggle 5y ago
      At least for me, the hours I used to spend driving my car are now spent doing actual work, because that’s what I’d rather be doing anyway. The only reason I don’t work more hours as it is is that I have other obligations. Just seems like a total waste of resources along multiple dimensions to have me driving around my brain.
  - philote 5y ago
    There could definitely be other concerns too. Such as security. It'd be much easier for someone to copy a code base, or get evidence of wrongdoing by your employer, or whatever, when at home rather than in an office. It's also harder to secure all your employees' home networks than one office network. But I wonder how many people who work at offices still bring their laptops home to use.
  - pandaman 5y ago
    This had been my experience too. I don't think I had been more productive - many times I've just stayed late poking at the problem I'd normally leave for the next day when working in the office. Most of these times I still solved it the next day with the new ideas after a night's sleep. Not to mention I've got many ideas from random discussions with colleagues, which ceased with the WFH. So return to the office is a win-win for me and my employer: I work less and I am more productive.
totalgeek 5y ago
Let's not also forget the ability to take your pay from say a major metropolitan area like San Francisco, and work remote where you get more bang for your buck like Wyoming. When I was working in the bay area I would've happily taken a 10-20% pay cut in order to work remote from anywhere. I would've been happy with a mandate of 'come into the office for a week (on the company dime of course) once a quarter, bi-annually or whatever'
- ryandrake 5y ago
  I think many of the companies that have announced remote options will also be adjusting salaries based on the local area's cost of living or cost of hiring or some other similar factor.
- Finnucane 5y ago
  Of course, a lot of people taking their big tech paychecks to some lower-cost place will just be exporting the problem to another place. A sudden big inflow of cash into a low-cost area is going to raise prices.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Some people earning more money and reducing the income/wealth gap is not a terrible problem to have. The rapid-ness might cause some friction in the short term, but the alternative of stagnation and deflation in the long term is a far worse problem.
  - jstepka 5y ago
    Since before anyone on this board was born companies, have adjusted pay based on location using charts like this; https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/05/25/us-dollar-how-much-its-worth-value-in-every-state/39501091/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/05/25/us-dollar-ho... To think this time is different is to be ignorant.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    You're assuming that every city refuses to build housing. That is true in California but not in the US as a whole.
acituan 5y ago
> This is why they demand the butts back in the cramped open seating office It is also the astronomical real estate money they had sunken into new office spaces.
- rcpt 5y ago
  I don't think that's true. 1B is a big office but it's only a couple days of revenue
zbrozek 5y ago
I found that meetings of dubious utility grew to fill every working hour and then some. I'm quitting and accepting a long commute to reclaim lifespan.
baud147258 5y ago
Where I work, those who want to continue to WFH can and those who want to go back to the office can; living 10 minutes away, I'm happy to go there two-three days a week and be physically in the same space as the colleagues who also want to be there (mostly those who live close by and also want to go to the office); also I appreciate the coffee machine, HVAC and opportunity for lunch and coffee breaks with the colleagues. While those who live 1h+ from the office or prefer to WFH can continue that way. Of course upper management isn't clear on if it will continue to function this way (I certainly hope so for my colleagues who are happy to avoid their commute).
claudiawerner 5y ago
My pay stinks (from what I can tell looking around on the net and at some former friends from university) and I'm going to have to move to the office for the first time soon. I'm unmotivated to work at home, and I'll be even less motivated at this pay to go into work and write C and Python all day on projects that don't interest me in the least. I don't want to have to move.

philote 5y ago

Before the pandemic FANGs seemed to want everyone in the office as much as possible. That's why they have their own cafeterias/restaurants, daycare, workout rooms, etc. They wanted employees in the office, working a minimum of 40 hours a week. I'm guessing even though remote work is going fine for now, they're concerned they're not going to be able to keep getting over 40 hours of week out of employees. (This is conjecture on my part, I have no idea how many hours FANG employees tend to work).

brandmeyer 5y ago
> (This is conjecture on my part, I have no idea how many hours FANG employees tend to work). Then don't conjecture. Speculation doesn't add to the conversation. In the absence of evidence, it just spreads a misinformation virus.
- acituan 5y ago
  Without due speculation we could only talk about fully established facts. That would make a very infertile conversation. Also you should have more trust for your fellows in dialogue here, that they do have some immune function against misinformation viruses.
  - brandmeyer 5y ago
    My experience in the software industry is that engineers are just as susceptible to misinformation as everyone else. It is the exact same process which reinforces beliefs in flat-earth, anti-vax, chiropractic, homeopathy, the stolen-election narrative, and other such nonsense. A number of folks are asking the question, "why does the HN consensus appear to be so far away from my experience?" I think the answer is really that noise is being amplified and echoed above the signal. If you know you're just guessing based on what "seems reasonable" and "matches what other people are saying" you need to stop and re-evaluate the validity of your beliefs. That's an important part of critical thinking which is sorely lacking in this forum right now.
    - philote 5y ago
      I hope you see the irony in this. Many of your comments, including this one I'm replying to, have "I think ..." which is really just speculation. I mean, you say "It is the exact same process which reinforces beliefs in flat-earth, anti-vax, chiropractic, homeopathy, the stolen-election narrative, and other such nonsense.". But is that true? How do you know? Do you have all the facts? I'm sure it seems reasonable and matches what others think...
    - acituan 5y ago
      Thanks for your input regarding critical thinking skills. Below are my suggestions for you, inspired from CBT skills. Normally it is a faux pas to point out cognitive distortions in other people's thinking, but looks like you're up for a direct conversation so I'll reciprocate; - don't read minds; dialectic can only happen if we allow the flow of conversation back and forth. Cutting that flow prematurely happens for example when we assert that we know what the other person is thinking. - don't use should statements; don't enter the scene with imperatives and normativities. At best it is insulting to fellow adults you're talking to, at worst it again kills the dialectic. Conversation requires trust in the other person being able to unpack and reality test what is being said. It requires an assumption of good enough character. Talking down to people is a self fulfilling prophecy; when you show you have very little expectation in having a good faith conversation you have already created it. - let go of black and white thinking; simple categories are useful but have serious precision errors. I invite you to consider "truth", "knowledge", "validity" as shades of gray instead of discrete categories while talking to people, because it allows parties of a dialogue to puzzle together the subsets of truths they have. - don't overgeneralize; don't take a comment and overgeneralize that to a person's essence e.g "they are a person who always does this". Don't take a few comments and overgeneralize that to the entire forum. Don't use labels. - don't discount the positives and filter in only the negatives; instead of focusing where people might have missed your expectations in critical thinking, see if you're downplaying or outright ignoring when they are in fact demonstrating it. Hope it helps.
- philote 5y ago
  Many comments in this thread are speculation/conjecture, I was honest enough to label mine as such. We're not running studies or experiments here, this is a place to converse. My comment allows others to provide additional evidence for or against my theory.
- MarkPNeyer 5y ago
  > . Speculation doesn't add to the conversation. In the absence of evidence This is an interesting claim. Do you have evidence for it?
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I listened to a Cartalk or maybe This American Life segment many years ago that asked the question “Are two people talking about something they do not know anything about better or worse off after talking about it?” The consensus was that the downside risk is the two people coming to various conclusions even though they knew nothing about it simply due to our cognitive biases and how we interact with each other. Therefore, two people talking about something they do not know anything about might very well be worse off than had they not talked about it at all.
- echelon 5y ago
  I hate every time this mandate is slinged around as if this is the only way humans can operate intelligently. Humans are deductive creatures and we're not terrible at constructing and testing hypotheses. A lot of value can be derived from discussing inconclusive topics, and an understanding of new subject matter can be established for those unfamiliar. It's a valuable exercise to walk through supporting facts. I wish we didn't cry every time we conjecture.
klipklop 5y ago
Sure it's N=1, but I worked more than 40 hours every single week when I was at a FANG. I used to laugh at all the perks because who actually had the time to use most of them other than interns. Times I used a climbing wall or nap pod: 0 In the end even the free lunch was annoying. (Yes I am going to complain about "free" food.) It just lead to short lunches where people go back to their desk as soon as they could. I love the social aspect of lunch and it's the highlight of my day to eat with friends. When you are trapped on campus that rarely happens. I was immediately happier when I left and got the social aspect of the middle of my day back. Went from taking like 20-30 minute lunches to like 70. Leaving the office and eating lunch with good friends a few times a week is a huge moral boost over waiting in some silly named tech cafeteria. Don't get me wrong pre-FANG I dreamed of how nice it would be to eat at on campus free cafes. Later on I realized it was mostly there to keep you from taking a long lunch stuck in traffic.
- yupper32 5y ago
  See I was the opposite. I had no time as an intern but have plenty of time as a full timer. It seems like it's almost completely self-inflicted if someone doesn't have time as a full timer (at the 2 Big-N tech companies I've been at). I didn't have time as an intern because I wasn't confident and felt I needed to prove something. Now, many years into it, I know I can work my 40 hour weeks, enjoy the perks for what they are, and relax most of the time. I've never understood why people consider perks like food as traps to keep you on campus. Nothing stops you from leaving campus for lunch, as long as there's not some meeting you scheduled. Nothing stops you from working 40 hours a week, unless you choose to work more to get ahead faster.
  - klipklop 5y ago
    I agree with you there about some interns being very busy. I do remember interns that had a lot of self imposed pressure to perform. If they even had say a minor issue with their work issued laptop they would be in a panic because of the time lost. Also totally agree with you not having to work so many hours, but this is exactly why they love the college grad pipeline. So many fresh workers with something to prove. The problem with nothing stopping you from leaving campus for lunch is that it's hard to convince your work-buddies to join you. Free is very compelling to some. And all your co-workers plan their meetings around this truncated lunch break.
jensensbutton 5y ago
At my FAANG they did studies and on average people are working MORE hours each day since the switch to WFH. If they were concerned about maximizing hours then they'd leave it as in. I suspect there are other concerns.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  I have to wonder whether they're available for more hours or actually putting in more work. Home distractions tend to extend the work day for people who have pride in their craft.
  - IggleSniggle 5y ago
    At least for me, the hours I used to spend driving my car are now spent doing actual work, because that’s what I’d rather be doing anyway. The only reason I don’t work more hours as it is is that I have other obligations. Just seems like a total waste of resources along multiple dimensions to have me driving around my brain.
- philote 5y ago
  There could definitely be other concerns too. Such as security. It'd be much easier for someone to copy a code base, or get evidence of wrongdoing by your employer, or whatever, when at home rather than in an office. It's also harder to secure all your employees' home networks than one office network. But I wonder how many people who work at offices still bring their laptops home to use.
- pandaman 5y ago
  This had been my experience too. I don't think I had been more productive - many times I've just stayed late poking at the problem I'd normally leave for the next day when working in the office. Most of these times I still solved it the next day with the new ideas after a night's sleep. Not to mention I've got many ideas from random discussions with colleagues, which ceased with the WFH. So return to the office is a win-win for me and my employer: I work less and I am more productive.

totalgeek 5y ago

Let's not also forget the ability to take your pay from say a major metropolitan area like San Francisco, and work remote where you get more bang for your buck like Wyoming. When I was working in the bay area I would've happily taken a 10-20% pay cut in order to work remote from anywhere. I would've been happy with a mandate of 'come into the office for a week (on the company dime of course) once a quarter, bi-annually or whatever'

ryandrake 5y ago
I think many of the companies that have announced remote options will also be adjusting salaries based on the local area's cost of living or cost of hiring or some other similar factor.
Finnucane 5y ago
Of course, a lot of people taking their big tech paychecks to some lower-cost place will just be exporting the problem to another place. A sudden big inflow of cash into a low-cost area is going to raise prices.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Some people earning more money and reducing the income/wealth gap is not a terrible problem to have. The rapid-ness might cause some friction in the short term, but the alternative of stagnation and deflation in the long term is a far worse problem.
- jstepka 5y ago
  Since before anyone on this board was born companies, have adjusted pay based on location using charts like this; https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/05/25/us-dollar-how-much-its-worth-value-in-every-state/39501091/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/05/25/us-dollar-ho... To think this time is different is to be ignorant.
- imtringued 5y ago
  You're assuming that every city refuses to build housing. That is true in California but not in the US as a whole.

acituan 5y ago

> This is why they demand the butts back in the cramped open seating office It is also the astronomical real estate money they had sunken into new office spaces.

rcpt 5y ago
I don't think that's true. 1B is a big office but it's only a couple days of revenue

zbrozek 5y ago

I found that meetings of dubious utility grew to fill every working hour and then some. I'm quitting and accepting a long commute to reclaim lifespan.

baud147258 5y ago

Where I work, those who want to continue to WFH can and those who want to go back to the office can; living 10 minutes away, I'm happy to go there two-three days a week and be physically in the same space as the colleagues who also want to be there (mostly those who live close by and also want to go to the office); also I appreciate the coffee machine, HVAC and opportunity for lunch and coffee breaks with the colleagues. While those who live 1h+ from the office or prefer to WFH can continue that way. Of course upper management isn't clear on if it will continue to function this way (I certainly hope so for my colleagues who are happy to avoid their commute).

claudiawerner 5y ago

My pay stinks (from what I can tell looking around on the net and at some former friends from university) and I'm going to have to move to the office for the first time soon. I'm unmotivated to work at home, and I'll be even less motivated at this pay to go into work and write C and Python all day on projects that don't interest me in the least. I don't want to have to move.