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It's funny how these big companies try so hard to make their office space as "cool" as possible and think employees enjoy them but the moment they are given the

It's funny how these big companies try so hard to make their office space as "cool" as possible and think employees enjoy them but the moment they are given the choice to work remotely almost nobody wants to go back to office, at least not on a daily basis..

ido 5y ago
I interviewed at google (not googleplex but one of their other very fancy offices that spans multiple stories of an expensive skyscraper). The office seemed great as did all the amenities. But it was an hour's commute in each direction and if I had to work there I'd have worked from home as often as I could.
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  For me, the desire to avoid ridiculous commute times is the most relatable issue. A two hour daily commute is like adding an additional day to your work week.
closeparen 5y ago
We opened applications for full-remote status; the uptake was something like 5%. Almost nobody minds the office enough to fill out an HR JIRA.
- forgotmypw17 5y ago
  Maybe that says something about JIRA?
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  Who are "we"?
- caskstrength 5y ago
  JIRA? Most of your coworkers just couldn't find the right project and then fill all the necessary tags/fields correctly.
izacus 5y ago
> ... almost nobody wants to go back to office, at least not on a daily basis.. Last I checked, that's not really true for any of those companies. Where did you pick up the "almost nobody" part?
- drstewart 5y ago
  They mean almost nobody on the online echo chambers they frequent
- Supermancho 5y ago
  The number of people showing up to offices that are optionally open are very very low by observation. My regional office houses ~200 cubes, and has an optional attendance of <3 every day. Downtown Seattle (around our 5 block area) is sparsely populated compared to 2 years ago. The hq houses about 7000 has at attendance of about <3% in another state. > almost nobody wants to go back to office, at least not on a daily basis Where's the evidence people DO want to go back to the office?
Kranar 5y ago
I entirely disagree with your assessment. From what I know, most Apple employees want to go back to the office and are happy to do so. While a non-negligible minority would prefer to work from home, that's a far cry from claiming almost no one wants to go back to the office.
- aaroninsf 5y ago
  Exact opposite in my circles, possibly because we inhabit different demographics. Mine: parents with kids. Not one wants to return to wasting hours on commute, which is particularly egregious at Apple because many are not allowed to work on the bus because of the culture of paranoia and disclosure.
  - go_blue_13 5y ago
    Same story in my circle, which is all young singeltons. Nobody wants to have to commute down to Cupertino multiple times per week
throwaheyy 5y ago
Almost no one? Based on what? Most people where I work are not going in to the office every day, but it cannot be inferred that it is because they don’t want to. The thought of permanent WFH, with your job occupying a corner of your 600 sq ft apartment in perpetuity, is demoralising. Just having the option of a change of scenery, even if one doesn’t make use of it every day or even once in a given week, makes a huge difference. In my opinion the pushing of permanent WFH by a certain privileged set is an obnoxious display of housing privilege. Of course that group has a big house in the countryside among the birds and the trees, where they don’t have to deal with neighbours, traffic noise, or other distractions. But that doesn’t entitle them to make those decisions or project their opinions onto the rest of us.
- sosborn 5y ago
  > Just having the option of a change of scenery, even if one doesn’t make use of it every day or even once in a given week, makes a huge difference. This, to me, is the crux of the matter. I can accept that there are days when I'm needed in the office, but for the vast majority of days when I'm not, having the ability to decide has incredible benefits for me, and the company doesn't miss out on anything.
- VLM 5y ago
  My house is vastly nicer than any workplace I've ever visited. Admittedly I was never a servant at a castle or museum or something cool like that. There is some confusion between covid lockdown vs WFH. I live in a recreational state with great phone coverage and wifi everywhere, I must spend at least half my time at some comfy park or a table outdoors at a coffee shop or something similar. Certainly I spend a lot of working hours in my nice back yard. The impression I've gotten is people are not getting locked down and chained to a desk for WFH, just get the work done, doesn't matter if I'm reading engineering datasheets at the local bar (before drinking...) or the tables at the local park, etc.
  - throwaheyy 5y ago
    Thank you for proving my point.
treesknees 5y ago
One thing that bothered me when I interviewed at Google is how much they talked up the perks. Everything from free shuttle service to free food, to all of these "extracurricular" perks like movies, laundry/drycleaning, hair cuts, etc. The campus felt designed to suck more work hours out of you. If I go play ping pong for an hour, do I now owe that hour to the company later? If I'm working past 5, will I be inclined to keep working because I can just go grab a free bite to eat later? My current employer offers a few perks. We have pool tables, video games, etc. But you'll pretty much never find people using them because they're busy working. Seems like mostly a recruiting tool and little more. That's why I'm perfectly fine staying home and not utilizing the cool office space. I didn't use that stuff anyway.
- munificent 5y ago
  Googler here. I can speak to my experience, but others have their own. > The campus felt designed to suck more work hours out of you. Another way to describe it is that the campus is designed to suck more employees away from the competition. If you assume the existence of an employee as a given, then the only reason for a perk must be to extract more labor from that employee. But that's not how Google is looking at it. They're trying to convince good employees to work for them instead of other tech companies. Those perks exist to keep the grass greener on Google's side of the fence instead of Facebook/Apple/Amazon/etc. This provides an entirely rational/economic answer for nice perks without needing overtime to justify them. (There are, of course, also plenty of non-financial justifications for the perks.) In the Google offices I've worked in, they tend to be almost completely empty by 6:00. > If I go play ping pong for an hour, do I now owe that hour to the company later? My experience is that different employees have different feelings about that. Some do, some don't. Personally, I don't feel I owe the company another 30 minutes if I go outside for a walk because the walk tends to reinvigorate me and increase my productivity. But I would probably feel weird if I was playing a game for a significant period of time more than once a week or so. > If I'm working past 5, will I be inclined to keep working because I can just go grab a free bite to eat later? Some do, but dinner is extremely low-key compared to lunch. On the rare times I've been around at dinner time, the cafes are mostly empty with just a few partaking.
thanhhaimai 5y ago
I disagree with this statement I don't want to go back to the office not because I want to WFH. It's because COVID is still a big threat. I'd go back to work in the office in a heartbeat if there isn't a pandemic around. The office is cool, and the in person interaction is great, despite me being an introvert. Unless we have data on how many people choose to work remotely due to COVID, I would not hastily attribute those people to the camp of "only want to work remotely".

ido 5y ago

I interviewed at google (not googleplex but one of their other very fancy offices that spans multiple stories of an expensive skyscraper). The office seemed great as did all the amenities. But it was an hour's commute in each direction and if I had to work there I'd have worked from home as often as I could.

GeekyBear 5y ago
For me, the desire to avoid ridiculous commute times is the most relatable issue. A two hour daily commute is like adding an additional day to your work week.

closeparen 5y ago

We opened applications for full-remote status; the uptake was something like 5%. Almost nobody minds the office enough to fill out an HR JIRA.

forgotmypw17 5y ago
Maybe that says something about JIRA?
thaumasiotes 5y ago
Who are "we"?
caskstrength 5y ago
JIRA? Most of your coworkers just couldn't find the right project and then fill all the necessary tags/fields correctly.

izacus 5y ago

> ... almost nobody wants to go back to office, at least not on a daily basis.. Last I checked, that's not really true for any of those companies. Where did you pick up the "almost nobody" part?

drstewart 5y ago
They mean almost nobody on the online echo chambers they frequent
Supermancho 5y ago
The number of people showing up to offices that are optionally open are very very low by observation. My regional office houses ~200 cubes, and has an optional attendance of <3 every day. Downtown Seattle (around our 5 block area) is sparsely populated compared to 2 years ago. The hq houses about 7000 has at attendance of about <3% in another state. > almost nobody wants to go back to office, at least not on a daily basis Where's the evidence people DO want to go back to the office?

Kranar 5y ago

I entirely disagree with your assessment. From what I know, most Apple employees want to go back to the office and are happy to do so. While a non-negligible minority would prefer to work from home, that's a far cry from claiming almost no one wants to go back to the office.

aaroninsf 5y ago
Exact opposite in my circles, possibly because we inhabit different demographics. Mine: parents with kids. Not one wants to return to wasting hours on commute, which is particularly egregious at Apple because many are not allowed to work on the bus because of the culture of paranoia and disclosure.
- go_blue_13 5y ago
  Same story in my circle, which is all young singeltons. Nobody wants to have to commute down to Cupertino multiple times per week

throwaheyy 5y ago

Almost no one? Based on what? Most people where I work are not going in to the office every day, but it cannot be inferred that it is because they don’t want to. The thought of permanent WFH, with your job occupying a corner of your 600 sq ft apartment in perpetuity, is demoralising. Just having the option of a change of scenery, even if one doesn’t make use of it every day or even once in a given week, makes a huge difference. In my opinion the pushing of permanent WFH by a certain privileged set is an obnoxious display of housing privilege. Of course that group has a big house in the countryside among the birds and the trees, where they don’t have to deal with neighbours, traffic noise, or other distractions. But that doesn’t entitle them to make those decisions or project their opinions onto the rest of us.

sosborn 5y ago
> Just having the option of a change of scenery, even if one doesn’t make use of it every day or even once in a given week, makes a huge difference. This, to me, is the crux of the matter. I can accept that there are days when I'm needed in the office, but for the vast majority of days when I'm not, having the ability to decide has incredible benefits for me, and the company doesn't miss out on anything.
VLM 5y ago
My house is vastly nicer than any workplace I've ever visited. Admittedly I was never a servant at a castle or museum or something cool like that. There is some confusion between covid lockdown vs WFH. I live in a recreational state with great phone coverage and wifi everywhere, I must spend at least half my time at some comfy park or a table outdoors at a coffee shop or something similar. Certainly I spend a lot of working hours in my nice back yard. The impression I've gotten is people are not getting locked down and chained to a desk for WFH, just get the work done, doesn't matter if I'm reading engineering datasheets at the local bar (before drinking...) or the tables at the local park, etc.
- throwaheyy 5y ago
  Thank you for proving my point.

treesknees 5y ago

One thing that bothered me when I interviewed at Google is how much they talked up the perks. Everything from free shuttle service to free food, to all of these "extracurricular" perks like movies, laundry/drycleaning, hair cuts, etc. The campus felt designed to suck more work hours out of you. If I go play ping pong for an hour, do I now owe that hour to the company later? If I'm working past 5, will I be inclined to keep working because I can just go grab a free bite to eat later? My current employer offers a few perks. We have pool tables, video games, etc. But you'll pretty much never find people using them because they're busy working. Seems like mostly a recruiting tool and little more. That's why I'm perfectly fine staying home and not utilizing the cool office space. I didn't use that stuff anyway.

munificent 5y ago
Googler here. I can speak to my experience, but others have their own. > The campus felt designed to suck more work hours out of you. Another way to describe it is that the campus is designed to suck more employees away from the competition. If you assume the existence of an employee as a given, then the only reason for a perk must be to extract more labor from that employee. But that's not how Google is looking at it. They're trying to convince good employees to work for them instead of other tech companies. Those perks exist to keep the grass greener on Google's side of the fence instead of Facebook/Apple/Amazon/etc. This provides an entirely rational/economic answer for nice perks without needing overtime to justify them. (There are, of course, also plenty of non-financial justifications for the perks.) In the Google offices I've worked in, they tend to be almost completely empty by 6:00. > If I go play ping pong for an hour, do I now owe that hour to the company later? My experience is that different employees have different feelings about that. Some do, some don't. Personally, I don't feel I owe the company another 30 minutes if I go outside for a walk because the walk tends to reinvigorate me and increase my productivity. But I would probably feel weird if I was playing a game for a significant period of time more than once a week or so. > If I'm working past 5, will I be inclined to keep working because I can just go grab a free bite to eat later? Some do, but dinner is extremely low-key compared to lunch. On the rare times I've been around at dinner time, the cafes are mostly empty with just a few partaking.

thanhhaimai 5y ago

I disagree with this statement I don't want to go back to the office not because I want to WFH. It's because COVID is still a big threat. I'd go back to work in the office in a heartbeat if there isn't a pandemic around. The office is cool, and the in person interaction is great, despite me being an introvert. Unless we have data on how many people choose to work remotely due to COVID, I would not hastily attribute those people to the camp of "only want to work remotely".