5 ms·

Are you sure it's that simple? Google was previously known in the wider world for imposing longer than average work days under the guise of "you love it here a

Are you sure it's that simple? Google was previously known in the wider world for imposing longer than average work days under the guise of "you love it here at the office we have pingpong and rock climbing". It wasn't about extracting productivity, it was about imposing culture.

ashtonkem 5y ago
Given what we know about longer hours and productivity, plus Google’s low retention figures, I’m going to go with the latter.
- arebop 5y ago
  What do we know about Google's retention figures?
  - steelframe 5y ago
    I'd like to know that too. Anecdotally, in the past 6 months 7 people I've previously worked with on projects at Google left after having been there about 10 years.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      I don't know how good the data out there is but the meme seems to be that people are moving around a lot right now. Certainly I've seen a disproportionate number of long term employees I know deciding to either retire or switch jobs.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    Can’t speak post Covid, but last time I checked they weren’t terribly impressive. IIRC the median was 1.1 years. Facebook usually tops the FAANG charts for retention, but the numbers still aren’t great.
wutbrodo 5y ago
> Google was previously known in the wider world for imposing longer than average work days under the guise of "you love it here at the office we have pingpong and rock climbing". Honesty, in my experience this impression is just desperate cope from people with worse work environments. My time at Google was the easiest/most relaxing of my career by far. Hell, that's why I left. But whenever people would ask me about all the flashy perks and I'd confirm we had them, 100% of the time they'd follow up by _telling_ me (not asking): "they work you like a dog though". It was an early and dramatic lesson in how powerfully people are chained to the just-world fallacy: their emotional incontinence was severe enough that it literally prevented them from conceiving of a work environment that was simply more pleasant than theirs. Google's perk-filled environment doesn't need to be explained by anything but golden handcuffs + productivity boosts from having recreation/convenience onsite.
- 52-6F-62 5y ago
  Hey hey—I didn't say one way or the other whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. But I've been in and out of Google (Waterloo). They were there long, long hours often. Just the same, people seemed happy and fulfilled. I don't think I would be—I covet my time. But I recognize that it wasn't designed around me, so whatever. It's a fact of the process though: Google wanted people in the office longer, so they installed resources to keep people in the office longer. In that way, it's not overly surprising to me that they're trying to get people back into the office. Similarly with Apple: they didn't build that big fancy ring for nothing.
  - guyzero 5y ago
    Depending which team you're on, just work west coast hours from Waterloo. No one will notice.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - wutbrodo 5y ago
    > Hey hey—I didn't say one way or the other whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. But I've been in and out of Google (Waterloo). They were there long, long hours often. Just the same, people seemed happy and fulfilled. "Imposing" in your original comment is doing a lot of work here. Creating an environment that benefits your employees and allows them to be happier, more fulfilled, _and_ more productive doesn't quite fit the framing of being "imposed" upon. You could just as well say that companies who allow remote work are "imposing" longer hours/more productivity on those for whom a flexible schedule is a better fit. But that renders the point meaningless.
chitowneats 5y ago
Imposing culture and keeping people around at all hours was in the service of company productivity. At least that is their philosophy. It really is that simple.
- 52-6F-62 5y ago
  > in the service of company productivity This is the only thing I question, given the mix of data suggesting the opposite is true. Stanford ran a project about it some time ago: https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/crunchmode/econ-hours-productivity.html https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/crunc... That may boil down to execution, though. That project emerged out of pretty scathing posts from the boiler room programming environments of EA. I'm pretty confident Google operates very differently, and probably learned from those calamities.
- igetspam 5y ago
  I can confirm that we happily worked nitty days for a very long time and the perks helped keep us happy and sane. After some number of years though, your personal well of energy starts to dry up and no amount of weird crap in a fridge is going to solve it. We were very productive until that point though.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  I doubt it. We know that over work reduces creativity and productivity. Hell, as an outsider you can practically see this in what Google offers; they’ve totally lost their way and keep rehashing the same products in repeatedly inferior ways. Rather, I think that they feel that it’s more productive or that it gives them more control. Neither of which is a rational argument

ashtonkem 5y ago

Given what we know about longer hours and productivity, plus Google’s low retention figures, I’m going to go with the latter.

arebop 5y ago
What do we know about Google's retention figures?
- steelframe 5y ago
  I'd like to know that too. Anecdotally, in the past 6 months 7 people I've previously worked with on projects at Google left after having been there about 10 years.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I don't know how good the data out there is but the meme seems to be that people are moving around a lot right now. Certainly I've seen a disproportionate number of long term employees I know deciding to either retire or switch jobs.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Can’t speak post Covid, but last time I checked they weren’t terribly impressive. IIRC the median was 1.1 years. Facebook usually tops the FAANG charts for retention, but the numbers still aren’t great.

wutbrodo 5y ago

> Google was previously known in the wider world for imposing longer than average work days under the guise of "you love it here at the office we have pingpong and rock climbing". Honesty, in my experience this impression is just desperate cope from people with worse work environments. My time at Google was the easiest/most relaxing of my career by far. Hell, that's why I left. But whenever people would ask me about all the flashy perks and I'd confirm we had them, 100% of the time they'd follow up by _telling_ me (not asking): "they work you like a dog though". It was an early and dramatic lesson in how powerfully people are chained to the just-world fallacy: their emotional incontinence was severe enough that it literally prevented them from conceiving of a work environment that was simply more pleasant than theirs. Google's perk-filled environment doesn't need to be explained by anything but golden handcuffs + productivity boosts from having recreation/convenience onsite.

52-6F-62 5y ago
Hey hey—I didn't say one way or the other whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. But I've been in and out of Google (Waterloo). They were there long, long hours often. Just the same, people seemed happy and fulfilled. I don't think I would be—I covet my time. But I recognize that it wasn't designed around me, so whatever. It's a fact of the process though: Google wanted people in the office longer, so they installed resources to keep people in the office longer. In that way, it's not overly surprising to me that they're trying to get people back into the office. Similarly with Apple: they didn't build that big fancy ring for nothing.
- guyzero 5y ago
  Depending which team you're on, just work west coast hours from Waterloo. No one will notice.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  > Hey hey—I didn't say one way or the other whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. But I've been in and out of Google (Waterloo). They were there long, long hours often. Just the same, people seemed happy and fulfilled. "Imposing" in your original comment is doing a lot of work here. Creating an environment that benefits your employees and allows them to be happier, more fulfilled, _and_ more productive doesn't quite fit the framing of being "imposed" upon. You could just as well say that companies who allow remote work are "imposing" longer hours/more productivity on those for whom a flexible schedule is a better fit. But that renders the point meaningless.

chitowneats 5y ago

Imposing culture and keeping people around at all hours was in the service of company productivity. At least that is their philosophy. It really is that simple.

52-6F-62 5y ago
> in the service of company productivity This is the only thing I question, given the mix of data suggesting the opposite is true. Stanford ran a project about it some time ago: https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/crunchmode/econ-hours-productivity.html https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/crunc... That may boil down to execution, though. That project emerged out of pretty scathing posts from the boiler room programming environments of EA. I'm pretty confident Google operates very differently, and probably learned from those calamities.
igetspam 5y ago
I can confirm that we happily worked nitty days for a very long time and the perks helped keep us happy and sane. After some number of years though, your personal well of energy starts to dry up and no amount of weird crap in a fridge is going to solve it. We were very productive until that point though.
ashtonkem 5y ago
I doubt it. We know that over work reduces creativity and productivity. Hell, as an outsider you can practically see this in what Google offers; they’ve totally lost their way and keep rehashing the same products in repeatedly inferior ways. Rather, I think that they feel that it’s more productive or that it gives them more control. Neither of which is a rational argument