5 ms·

It's weird how directly the incentive is to increase your carbon footprint. They'll essentially pay you more for contributing to congestion and pollution.

nostrebored 5y ago
Because employees in the office are more productive.
- bodge5000 5y ago
  Thats quite the leap of judgement, and I'd say its almost certainly not true (and quite possibly the opposite, I know thats been the case for me).
  - Fnoord 5y ago
    Not universally true, indeed. However if you got little children, it is most certainly true.
    - mingusrude 5y ago
      Why would it be more productive to work in the office and have the children at day care than working from home and have the children at day care?
      - Fnoord 5y ago
        Daycare? In August? Not here. They got vacation. Daycare's closed. School vacation lasts 6-8 weeks (6 for our's). I do have vacation days left, but not for 6 weeks.
    - bodge5000 5y ago
      I can see why you'd think that, but again having worked with many people who do, I don't see a difference. Of course personal experience is far from hard data, but with a lack of decent data to go off on the subject (partially to do with the fact that productivity is a very vague term, with many disagreeing on how it should be measured, especially with the constant number of external factors affecting it), I can only go by what I experience. I also notice those with children think they're being less productive, whereas the rest of the team doesn't actually notice, so that could be a factor. Thats not saying that WFH is beneficial to all, of course not. I think theres a massive range of factors, children of course being one of them, but I think it comes down to the individual, rather than any broad strokes we can attempt to make.
    - thegginthesky 5y ago
      This is arguably false. Anecdotally, I have small children at home and worked from home even before the pandemic when my company had an office. I have climbed the corporate leader every evaluation period because of my performance, while coworkers who were exclusively in the office weren't so fortunate. It just goes to show that people are very different and it's impossible to generalize statements based on a single variable (has_children=True)
      - pc86 5y ago
        Are productivity and successfully playing office politics to get a promotion related?
        thegginthesky 5y ago
        I never had to play office politics, because the opportunities for doing so while doing remote work is close to none. I guess I have the habit of keeping my work documented which helps when I'm asked for proof of anything. But at the same time people can see how much work I do at any time too.
      - Fnoord 5y ago
        I was talking about little/small children, not children in general. I believe the point is true for children in general as well (during vacation / lockdown specifically), but toddlers and babies require a lot of attention and maintenance. Are you responsible for your children? If not, then with regards to work(load) its akin to having no children at all. You say its arguably false, yet ~90% in my team have children (I'm one of the few with toddlers). And the one who doesn't have children split up recently (due to relationship stress, which now lead to more stress, the irony..). Everyone in my team's productivity suffers since they have to work from home. And on top of that, there's another data point: mothers. They get structurally paid less than men and other women.
    - matthewowen 5y ago
      Not at all - I use daycare the same whether remote or in the office, as do basically all my coworkers with kids. I do save time tho by only having to travel between two locations rather than three.
  - saiya-jin 5y ago
    In big corporations, especially not the best working ones (tons of internal politics, people ignoring emails/calls etc.), it is unfortunately true for many complex processes. I could achieve before some tasks in 3 mins by just going to respective folks, interrupting them nicely and get the stuff done. Now I am chasing them for a week for same trivial task. May not be an issue at Google, I would expect them to be less dysfunctional then our broken corp, but most multinationals are super far from well oiled machine.
    - bodge5000 5y ago
      I'd say its true for some individuals, not corporations. I don't want to give a blanket statement and say everyone works better from home, thats my whole problem with the blanket statement that everyone works better from the office. Give people a choice where they can still do their job either way As for my current position, its certainly not Google, and I wouldn't call it a well oiled machine. Don't get me wrong, its a really nice place to work, but yeh, we have a few of our own problems ;)
- darkerside 5y ago
  More productive can be different from more effective. Sometimes I'm more productive from home, but it takes longer to realize we've built the wrong thing. That said, I agree that organizations tend to optimize for productivity as a proxy for effectiveness, so I agree with you in that way.
- kristopolous 5y ago
  The planet is actually on fire, right now, as you read this. So fuck productivity. We can manage. We must sacrifice the inconvenience of wasting our time commuting because of some arbitrary productivity definition to stop the surface of the planet from being engulfed in flames. There's also a pandemic that's killed 4.3 million people because productivity is apparently more important than containing the outbreak of a deadly disease. Really, to hell with that.
  - pc86 5y ago
    The planet is always on fire in a couple dozen places. This is about as useful as saying "The planet is actually underwater, right now, as you read this." Of course it is. That's sort of how it works. Whether or not someone rides the train isn't going to change anything.
    - deathgripsss 5y ago
      I think the fire is metaphorical
      - kristopolous 5y ago
        Not really. They have become way worse as a direct result of climate change because of the way we run our civilization. It's systemic things like this (a cultural affectation for working in an office) that influence this. It's a societal problem that can't be fixed with individual action. We've tried to neoliberal our way out of it for 40 years ever since the bottling industry made the crying indian ad to blame the individual and it hasn't helped.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
      But it’ll change if you get significant portions of the behave differently. During the beginning of the pandemic there were loads of stories of wildlife coming back to certain areas, pollution disappearing. So everyone WFH will in fact have an impact. I took a bit of a pay cut during the pandemic too. All this staring at my screen for longer hours was really taking a toll. Maybe this is a good time to think about what kind of lifestyle you want and how to get it. If Googlers really believe in the work they are doing and they are treated well, maybe stay. If you only want the money quit and don’t look back.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  This has not been my experience; my teams are actually more productive from home. And not by a small amount. In a vacuum this isn’t a trend, but remote work does work well for so many people that the jobs that offer fully remote options are going to capture the lion’s share of the talent. There’s not a whole lot (if any) of competitive disadvantage in doing so, but there’s a whole lot of competitive disadvantage in not offering remote work to all employees. The Nash equilibrium is to offer remote work for all those who want it, so that’s what most companies will do.
- helsinkiandrew 5y ago
  Of course its different for everybody, but for a recent study of "IT professionals", productivity goes down but the amount of work goes up: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/2021-56/ https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/2021-56/ This was early on in the COVID lockdown, presumably better remote centered management/tools would increase productivity.
  - nlitened 5y ago
    On one hand we say that IT professional's work cannot reasonably be quantified in a scalar KPI measured by management, on the other hand we like to say that "recent studies" show that some numeric expression of productivity or work done improves with remote work. Sounds kind of hypocritical to me.
- nonameiguess 5y ago
  That's not what they're doing at all. The pay is based on location, not whether you're in an office or not. Work out of an office in a lower cost-of-living region and you still earn less than someone working from home in a higher cost-of-living region.
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  That's a very absolutist statement, personally I'm more productive at home where I don't have the interruptions of an open office and there's no feeling of having people watching over my shoulder.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  That's highly debatable.
Ensorceled 5y ago
They'll essentially pay you more for being more productive. There are very few people that are more productive out of the office. Google/Facebook/Apple have the stats ... if they want you back in the office it's because they've seen productivity go down.
- kilroy123 5y ago
  Where is the data that shows this? I've worked remotely since 2015 and I don't buy this.
  - dijit 5y ago
    Also if they’re suddenly paying more for productivity: how do you explain the rise of the open office- proven over and over to decrease productivity?
    - Cederfjard 5y ago
      I don’t have any data either way, but it could technically be the case that the productivity gains from working in an open plan office offset the costs compared to allowing people to work from home, but that the same is not true when comparing an open office to a traditional one. I guess it depends on if you believe these companies work off good data or not.
  - Xevi 5y ago
    I don't believe it either. I work for a company that has hundreds of remote employees right now and it's been going really well for the past 1.5 years now.
  - bodge5000 5y ago
    You don't need to see the data, just believe the big 3 tech companies, they'd never lead you astray
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  If this were the plan, then this would be addressable in performance review. Remote workers would be less productive and get lower performance reviews and get paid less. Further, working remotely from Idaho and working remotely from just outside NYC would presumably have the same productivity hit, but they lead to very different pay rates.
purple_ferret 5y ago
How's that? If you live in NYC, you get paid more. People who live in NYC have the amongst the lowest carbon footprint in the nation. If you live in a dense urban area, you generally will have a lower carbon footprint.
- schnable 5y ago
  I wonder if that holds up for remote workers outside of dense metros who don't have to commute.
- namdnay 5y ago
  I think the argument is that it encourages working from a big office, but actually living far away. So you're getting paid a manhattan salary but you're living in new jersey or wherever. And you're spewing out CO2 to get from one to the other every day
  - CydeWeys 5y ago
    Most people living in NJ but working in NYC are taking trains or buses into the city, so the marginal carbon footprint there isn't as big as you might think. There's only a couple suitable river crossings for this commute and they're already facing hour-long delays during commuting hours, so there's no room to add more cars commuting into NYC (nor anywhere for them to park in NYC anyway). Fortunately these river crossings have dedicated bus lanes during rush hour, which move more people than all the other lanes combined.
- snicker7 5y ago
  Not everyone who works in NYC is a NYC resident. The entire state of NJ basically exists for people commuting to NYC. half of the entire state is basically highways and parking lots.
  - gowld 5y ago
    But WFH is not commuting.
eru 5y ago
Well, Germany has (or used to have) a tax subsidy for commuting, too. See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendlerpauschale https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendlerpauschale (might need Google Translate).

nostrebored 5y ago

Because employees in the office are more productive.

bodge5000 5y ago
Thats quite the leap of judgement, and I'd say its almost certainly not true (and quite possibly the opposite, I know thats been the case for me).
- Fnoord 5y ago
  Not universally true, indeed. However if you got little children, it is most certainly true.
  - mingusrude 5y ago
    Why would it be more productive to work in the office and have the children at day care than working from home and have the children at day care?
    - Fnoord 5y ago
      Daycare? In August? Not here. They got vacation. Daycare's closed. School vacation lasts 6-8 weeks (6 for our's). I do have vacation days left, but not for 6 weeks.
  - bodge5000 5y ago
    I can see why you'd think that, but again having worked with many people who do, I don't see a difference. Of course personal experience is far from hard data, but with a lack of decent data to go off on the subject (partially to do with the fact that productivity is a very vague term, with many disagreeing on how it should be measured, especially with the constant number of external factors affecting it), I can only go by what I experience. I also notice those with children think they're being less productive, whereas the rest of the team doesn't actually notice, so that could be a factor. Thats not saying that WFH is beneficial to all, of course not. I think theres a massive range of factors, children of course being one of them, but I think it comes down to the individual, rather than any broad strokes we can attempt to make.
  - thegginthesky 5y ago
    This is arguably false. Anecdotally, I have small children at home and worked from home even before the pandemic when my company had an office. I have climbed the corporate leader every evaluation period because of my performance, while coworkers who were exclusively in the office weren't so fortunate. It just goes to show that people are very different and it's impossible to generalize statements based on a single variable (has_children=True)
    - pc86 5y ago
      Are productivity and successfully playing office politics to get a promotion related?
      - thegginthesky 5y ago
        I never had to play office politics, because the opportunities for doing so while doing remote work is close to none. I guess I have the habit of keeping my work documented which helps when I'm asked for proof of anything. But at the same time people can see how much work I do at any time too.
    - Fnoord 5y ago
      I was talking about little/small children, not children in general. I believe the point is true for children in general as well (during vacation / lockdown specifically), but toddlers and babies require a lot of attention and maintenance. Are you responsible for your children? If not, then with regards to work(load) its akin to having no children at all. You say its arguably false, yet ~90% in my team have children (I'm one of the few with toddlers). And the one who doesn't have children split up recently (due to relationship stress, which now lead to more stress, the irony..). Everyone in my team's productivity suffers since they have to work from home. And on top of that, there's another data point: mothers. They get structurally paid less than men and other women.
  - matthewowen 5y ago
    Not at all - I use daycare the same whether remote or in the office, as do basically all my coworkers with kids. I do save time tho by only having to travel between two locations rather than three.
- saiya-jin 5y ago
  In big corporations, especially not the best working ones (tons of internal politics, people ignoring emails/calls etc.), it is unfortunately true for many complex processes. I could achieve before some tasks in 3 mins by just going to respective folks, interrupting them nicely and get the stuff done. Now I am chasing them for a week for same trivial task. May not be an issue at Google, I would expect them to be less dysfunctional then our broken corp, but most multinationals are super far from well oiled machine.
  - bodge5000 5y ago
    I'd say its true for some individuals, not corporations. I don't want to give a blanket statement and say everyone works better from home, thats my whole problem with the blanket statement that everyone works better from the office. Give people a choice where they can still do their job either way As for my current position, its certainly not Google, and I wouldn't call it a well oiled machine. Don't get me wrong, its a really nice place to work, but yeh, we have a few of our own problems ;)
darkerside 5y ago
More productive can be different from more effective. Sometimes I'm more productive from home, but it takes longer to realize we've built the wrong thing. That said, I agree that organizations tend to optimize for productivity as a proxy for effectiveness, so I agree with you in that way.
kristopolous 5y ago
The planet is actually on fire, right now, as you read this. So fuck productivity. We can manage. We must sacrifice the inconvenience of wasting our time commuting because of some arbitrary productivity definition to stop the surface of the planet from being engulfed in flames. There's also a pandemic that's killed 4.3 million people because productivity is apparently more important than containing the outbreak of a deadly disease. Really, to hell with that.
- pc86 5y ago
  The planet is always on fire in a couple dozen places. This is about as useful as saying "The planet is actually underwater, right now, as you read this." Of course it is. That's sort of how it works. Whether or not someone rides the train isn't going to change anything.
  - deathgripsss 5y ago
    I think the fire is metaphorical
    - kristopolous 5y ago
      Not really. They have become way worse as a direct result of climate change because of the way we run our civilization. It's systemic things like this (a cultural affectation for working in an office) that influence this. It's a societal problem that can't be fixed with individual action. We've tried to neoliberal our way out of it for 40 years ever since the bottling industry made the crying indian ad to blame the individual and it hasn't helped.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
    But it’ll change if you get significant portions of the behave differently. During the beginning of the pandemic there were loads of stories of wildlife coming back to certain areas, pollution disappearing. So everyone WFH will in fact have an impact. I took a bit of a pay cut during the pandemic too. All this staring at my screen for longer hours was really taking a toll. Maybe this is a good time to think about what kind of lifestyle you want and how to get it. If Googlers really believe in the work they are doing and they are treated well, maybe stay. If you only want the money quit and don’t look back.
wayoutthere 5y ago
This has not been my experience; my teams are actually more productive from home. And not by a small amount. In a vacuum this isn’t a trend, but remote work does work well for so many people that the jobs that offer fully remote options are going to capture the lion’s share of the talent. There’s not a whole lot (if any) of competitive disadvantage in doing so, but there’s a whole lot of competitive disadvantage in not offering remote work to all employees. The Nash equilibrium is to offer remote work for all those who want it, so that’s what most companies will do.
helsinkiandrew 5y ago
Of course its different for everybody, but for a recent study of "IT professionals", productivity goes down but the amount of work goes up: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/2021-56/ https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/2021-56/ This was early on in the COVID lockdown, presumably better remote centered management/tools would increase productivity.
- nlitened 5y ago
  On one hand we say that IT professional's work cannot reasonably be quantified in a scalar KPI measured by management, on the other hand we like to say that "recent studies" show that some numeric expression of productivity or work done improves with remote work. Sounds kind of hypocritical to me.
nonameiguess 5y ago
That's not what they're doing at all. The pay is based on location, not whether you're in an office or not. Work out of an office in a lower cost-of-living region and you still earn less than someone working from home in a higher cost-of-living region.
BoxOfRain 5y ago
That's a very absolutist statement, personally I'm more productive at home where I don't have the interruptions of an open office and there's no feeling of having people watching over my shoulder.
ekianjo 5y ago
That's highly debatable.

Ensorceled 5y ago

They'll essentially pay you more for being more productive. There are very few people that are more productive out of the office. Google/Facebook/Apple have the stats ... if they want you back in the office it's because they've seen productivity go down.

kilroy123 5y ago
Where is the data that shows this? I've worked remotely since 2015 and I don't buy this.
- dijit 5y ago
  Also if they’re suddenly paying more for productivity: how do you explain the rise of the open office- proven over and over to decrease productivity?
  - Cederfjard 5y ago
    I don’t have any data either way, but it could technically be the case that the productivity gains from working in an open plan office offset the costs compared to allowing people to work from home, but that the same is not true when comparing an open office to a traditional one. I guess it depends on if you believe these companies work off good data or not.
- Xevi 5y ago
  I don't believe it either. I work for a company that has hundreds of remote employees right now and it's been going really well for the past 1.5 years now.
- bodge5000 5y ago
  You don't need to see the data, just believe the big 3 tech companies, they'd never lead you astray
UncleMeat 5y ago
If this were the plan, then this would be addressable in performance review. Remote workers would be less productive and get lower performance reviews and get paid less. Further, working remotely from Idaho and working remotely from just outside NYC would presumably have the same productivity hit, but they lead to very different pay rates.

purple_ferret 5y ago

How's that? If you live in NYC, you get paid more. People who live in NYC have the amongst the lowest carbon footprint in the nation. If you live in a dense urban area, you generally will have a lower carbon footprint.

schnable 5y ago
I wonder if that holds up for remote workers outside of dense metros who don't have to commute.
namdnay 5y ago
I think the argument is that it encourages working from a big office, but actually living far away. So you're getting paid a manhattan salary but you're living in new jersey or wherever. And you're spewing out CO2 to get from one to the other every day
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  Most people living in NJ but working in NYC are taking trains or buses into the city, so the marginal carbon footprint there isn't as big as you might think. There's only a couple suitable river crossings for this commute and they're already facing hour-long delays during commuting hours, so there's no room to add more cars commuting into NYC (nor anywhere for them to park in NYC anyway). Fortunately these river crossings have dedicated bus lanes during rush hour, which move more people than all the other lanes combined.
snicker7 5y ago
Not everyone who works in NYC is a NYC resident. The entire state of NJ basically exists for people commuting to NYC. half of the entire state is basically highways and parking lots.
- gowld 5y ago
  But WFH is not commuting.

eru 5y ago

Well, Germany has (or used to have) a tax subsidy for commuting, too. See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendlerpauschale https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendlerpauschale (might need Google Translate).