9 ms·

After two years of not being in the office, I don't see how anyone can justify going into the office without putting themselves into a quagmire of hypocrisy and

After two years of not being in the office, I don't see how anyone can justify going into the office without putting themselves into a quagmire of hypocrisy and contradiction.

foogazi 5y ago
What do you mean ?
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  "Despite shipping more than ever and having higher velocity than ever before remote work clearly does not work hence you must return to the office"
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    I do think there's something to be said for the long term culture effects remote work has. Maybe the current employees who used to work in the office are more efficient remote, but is the same true for new remote workers? What about in a few years when a large percentage of the employees may have never worked in the office at Google?
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      If any company Google should be able to create a compelling online employee culture and it does and did before covid.
  - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    > "Despite shipping more than ever and having higher velocity than ever before I've been a member of several manager-centric forums since before COVID. This was definitely not the case for most teams. The sudden switch to remote was not a productivity or even a morale boost for most.
    - astura 5y ago
      It's kinda crazy how different perspectives are... From what I hear: Average employee: "I am just as productive (or even more productive) working from home than when I was at the office. This is totally sustainable." Average Manager: "I've noticed a huge drop in productivity from my employees since they have been working from home. This is entirely unsustainable." This is what I hear from friends in other occupations, not just software, but also from my friends in software too. Of course, both can be true if just a small percentage of employees drop productivity immensely while everyone else's remains the same... But it's probably more likely that the employees are... not great at judging their personal productivity. I just find the dichotomy fascinating. - I don't have a race in the horse as I never went remote.
      - formerly_proven 5y ago
        I obviously can only speak for my company. > it's probably more likely that the employees are... not great at judging their productivity At my company "let's get everyone stuffed back into the office asap because productivity" was mgmts slogan, but that position became pretty much indefensible after they announced that 2021 was literally the best year ever (highest revenue, highest revenue rise yoy absolute and %, largest increase in headcount, highest number of projects shipped, highest number of new projects etc.)
- barkerja 5y ago
  I believe they mean from the perspective of the employer. If a team has been able to fully function these past two years and the employees prefer working from home, there's little — if any — justification the employer can make for the return to office.
  - yodsanklai 5y ago
    Playing devil's advocate, because I enjoy remote working, but it's not the same thing to have a full team remote, and only half of the team.
    - Morgawr 5y ago
      It honestly really depends. I'm a Googler and work in a team/org that was already heavily distributed all over the world. I am located in Japan, work with people in Europe, US (both coasts), Australia, Taiwan. While me being in the office means I get to talk in person with some people that are in my team (but which I'm not directly working with because my projects are with people located elsewhere anyway), and it's a nice social environment, work-wise it makes no difference for me because the people I have meetings with, I exchange emails, IMs, send code reviews, etc are spread all over the world anyway. I personally prefer working from home, I have my test devices here, I set up my own home office, I don't need to waste time commuting, I have more time to take care of things around my house and/or my family if needs be, and I actually find myself working more focused and wasting less time than I did when I was in the office. I know this is not for everyone but the fact that my other team members might or might not be in the office has pretty much 0 effect on my work performance because I wouldn't even know nor care about. Just my two cents.
- 09bjb 5y ago
  $GOOG stock has pretty much doubled since the beginning of the pandemic, meaning the company has been having absolutely no trouble whatsoever doing its job with a fully remote workforce for 2 years now. They don't "need" employees to come back to the office.
  - Graffur 5y ago
    I don't think the stock price reflects that too much. You can't attribute the doubling to workers being at home. If it dipped when workers went back to the office.. that also would not mean much.
  - whiplash451 5y ago
    Two years aren't much at the time scale of Google. The effects of switching from in-person to remote (and vice-versa) are much longer term.
    - dymk 5y ago
      I don't think I agree. But I'm curious, in your opinion, how long is long enough to be able to say if WFH has had an impact on the company's bottom line?
      - whiplash451 5y ago
        A decade, maybe more.
  - dnissley 5y ago
    Using the stock price of a technology company to judge the productivity of it's workers? Surely that's a component of stock price, but man this seems like a huge leap to make such a claim
    - vgeek 5y ago
      Maybe argue the inverse-- that most of their employees aren't actually productive? They're at over 150k FTEs and probably well over 100k temps/contractors, how many of them are doing things that materially impact revenue versus steady state or just looking busy? Every refresh of the golden goose Adwords makes it easier to just plug in a credit card and blindly spend without ever hearing from an account rep who manages 100's of other SMB accounts. Once they have so much inertia on their yellow page 2.0 search & video ad monopoly, where else will advertisers turn?
Gigachad 5y ago
If I was working at Google I'd want to be in the office just for the experience. Know someone who did work at Google for a few years and he said he would often bump in to incredible people in the rec areas and get to talk to all kinds of interesting figures like the creator of Vim or some of the top brains of ML. It's a bit different when you are just pumping out some generic SaaS product and can do fine in isolation at home.
- xiphias2 5y ago
  I worked as well in the Zurich office where Bram was working, and it was amazing experience until they took out the walls and made open offices. I would never go back to an open office.
- dymk 5y ago
  Just go to a conference once a year if that's what you feel you're missing. To sacrifice a good portion of your life commuting, just for the chance of bumping into an idol figure seems like a net loss.
  - ceras 5y ago
    Not everyone has a long commute, nor does everyone have a commute they dislike. For example many people like biking to work, or reading on transit.
    - dymk 5y ago
      Show of hands, for whom here does their commute contribute positively to their quality of life?
      - amrocha 5y ago
        I loved my commute
      - azemetre 5y ago
        I live near one of the subway stops in Boston (10 minute walk) and I absolutely miss my commute. Before the pandemic I would typically walk 7 miles a day, now I have to force myself to walk 3 miles. Most of my hobbies would be in the city as well (meetups, concerts, board games, dating). All that has took a massive hit but the city is slowly coming back. My current team prefers working remote and TBH I don't like it. I want to be in an office with others. It's nice having a clear separation of work and home. I don't like how companies are able to subsidize business costs (electricity, rent, maintenance, food, internet) through my home. They aren't reimbursing me for this, nor would I expect it. IDK, I just miss the old ways.
rr808 5y ago
I'm going to strangle my wife and kids if I have to stay in my apartment with them another two years.
- csa 5y ago
  Strongly suggest a co-working space nearby if that’s the situation at home. It would suck to have to pay for something that other folks don’t have to pay for, but if that’s the reality you find yourself in… Obviously upgrading to a place with a dedicated office would probably be comparable, but that makes some assumptions on my part that might not be accurate or reasonable.
  - davidw 5y ago
    A lot of companies will pay for stuff like a coworking space. It's a legit business expense. I specifically made sure to ask about that before I started at my current gig.
- dymk 5y ago
  This is why I moved out of the city into a big house with a backyard and home office. And it's cheaper than the apartment.
  - bradlys 5y ago
    I mean - that's great if you want to give up all your existing friendships and possibly your family. Hard sell for the rest of us.
    - dymk 5y ago
      It's surprisingly doable if you plan ahead. I'm about a 30 minute drive to the city, so there's not really an impact on my social life.
time_to_smile 5y ago
Being in a "quagmire of hypocrisy and contradiction" has never been a problem for large corporations (or even small companies) in my entire career. Never once have I pointed out an obviously ridiculous contradiction in practices "but won't this actually hurt our customers?" and had the response be anything near "oh no! you're right, better fix that!" Remote work is a great example: long before pandemic most C-level execs and other important personal were almost never in the office, always attend meeting remotely (sometimes even just by phone), and yet love to talk about how work can't happen without everyone being in the office. Trust me if you can manage the entire company from your Florida vacation home, I'm sure we can get these models deployed to production from my home office.
alecbz 5y ago
What do you mean? I voluntarily go to my company's office every day because I hate WFH. What's hypocritical or contradictory?
jeffchien 5y ago
I don't see why opinions have to be extreme and any mixed or nuanced takes have to be labeled as contradictory. It's possible to like aspects about WFH/remote work, and like aspects about on-site work (at least from before the pandemic). For example, I like not having to commute, but I miss being able to ask questions face-to-face. I hope everyone gets to choose their option, but I find it really tiring to be told by either side that I *WILL* be more productive or be happier one way or another. I'm perfectly capable of figuring out that myself.
danans 5y ago
Why does anyone have to justify going in to the office, and to whom do they need to justify that?

After two years of not being in the office, I don't see how anyone can justify going into the office without putting themselves into a quagmire of hypocrisy and contradiction.

foogazi 5y ago

What do you mean ?

formerly_proven 5y ago
"Despite shipping more than ever and having higher velocity than ever before remote work clearly does not work hence you must return to the office"
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  I do think there's something to be said for the long term culture effects remote work has. Maybe the current employees who used to work in the office are more efficient remote, but is the same true for new remote workers? What about in a few years when a large percentage of the employees may have never worked in the office at Google?
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    If any company Google should be able to create a compelling online employee culture and it does and did before covid.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > "Despite shipping more than ever and having higher velocity than ever before I've been a member of several manager-centric forums since before COVID. This was definitely not the case for most teams. The sudden switch to remote was not a productivity or even a morale boost for most.
  - astura 5y ago
    It's kinda crazy how different perspectives are... From what I hear: Average employee: "I am just as productive (or even more productive) working from home than when I was at the office. This is totally sustainable." Average Manager: "I've noticed a huge drop in productivity from my employees since they have been working from home. This is entirely unsustainable." This is what I hear from friends in other occupations, not just software, but also from my friends in software too. Of course, both can be true if just a small percentage of employees drop productivity immensely while everyone else's remains the same... But it's probably more likely that the employees are... not great at judging their personal productivity. I just find the dichotomy fascinating. - I don't have a race in the horse as I never went remote.
    - formerly_proven 5y ago
      I obviously can only speak for my company. > it's probably more likely that the employees are... not great at judging their productivity At my company "let's get everyone stuffed back into the office asap because productivity" was mgmts slogan, but that position became pretty much indefensible after they announced that 2021 was literally the best year ever (highest revenue, highest revenue rise yoy absolute and %, largest increase in headcount, highest number of projects shipped, highest number of new projects etc.)
barkerja 5y ago
I believe they mean from the perspective of the employer. If a team has been able to fully function these past two years and the employees prefer working from home, there's little — if any — justification the employer can make for the return to office.
- yodsanklai 5y ago
  Playing devil's advocate, because I enjoy remote working, but it's not the same thing to have a full team remote, and only half of the team.
  - Morgawr 5y ago
    It honestly really depends. I'm a Googler and work in a team/org that was already heavily distributed all over the world. I am located in Japan, work with people in Europe, US (both coasts), Australia, Taiwan. While me being in the office means I get to talk in person with some people that are in my team (but which I'm not directly working with because my projects are with people located elsewhere anyway), and it's a nice social environment, work-wise it makes no difference for me because the people I have meetings with, I exchange emails, IMs, send code reviews, etc are spread all over the world anyway. I personally prefer working from home, I have my test devices here, I set up my own home office, I don't need to waste time commuting, I have more time to take care of things around my house and/or my family if needs be, and I actually find myself working more focused and wasting less time than I did when I was in the office. I know this is not for everyone but the fact that my other team members might or might not be in the office has pretty much 0 effect on my work performance because I wouldn't even know nor care about. Just my two cents.
09bjb 5y ago
$GOOG stock has pretty much doubled since the beginning of the pandemic, meaning the company has been having absolutely no trouble whatsoever doing its job with a fully remote workforce for 2 years now. They don't "need" employees to come back to the office.
- Graffur 5y ago
  I don't think the stock price reflects that too much. You can't attribute the doubling to workers being at home. If it dipped when workers went back to the office.. that also would not mean much.
- whiplash451 5y ago
  Two years aren't much at the time scale of Google. The effects of switching from in-person to remote (and vice-versa) are much longer term.
  - dymk 5y ago
    I don't think I agree. But I'm curious, in your opinion, how long is long enough to be able to say if WFH has had an impact on the company's bottom line?
    - whiplash451 5y ago
      A decade, maybe more.
- dnissley 5y ago
  Using the stock price of a technology company to judge the productivity of it's workers? Surely that's a component of stock price, but man this seems like a huge leap to make such a claim
  - vgeek 5y ago
    Maybe argue the inverse-- that most of their employees aren't actually productive? They're at over 150k FTEs and probably well over 100k temps/contractors, how many of them are doing things that materially impact revenue versus steady state or just looking busy? Every refresh of the golden goose Adwords makes it easier to just plug in a credit card and blindly spend without ever hearing from an account rep who manages 100's of other SMB accounts. Once they have so much inertia on their yellow page 2.0 search & video ad monopoly, where else will advertisers turn?

Gigachad 5y ago

If I was working at Google I'd want to be in the office just for the experience. Know someone who did work at Google for a few years and he said he would often bump in to incredible people in the rec areas and get to talk to all kinds of interesting figures like the creator of Vim or some of the top brains of ML. It's a bit different when you are just pumping out some generic SaaS product and can do fine in isolation at home.

xiphias2 5y ago
I worked as well in the Zurich office where Bram was working, and it was amazing experience until they took out the walls and made open offices. I would never go back to an open office.
dymk 5y ago
Just go to a conference once a year if that's what you feel you're missing. To sacrifice a good portion of your life commuting, just for the chance of bumping into an idol figure seems like a net loss.
- ceras 5y ago
  Not everyone has a long commute, nor does everyone have a commute they dislike. For example many people like biking to work, or reading on transit.
  - dymk 5y ago
    Show of hands, for whom here does their commute contribute positively to their quality of life?
    - amrocha 5y ago
      I loved my commute
    - azemetre 5y ago
      I live near one of the subway stops in Boston (10 minute walk) and I absolutely miss my commute. Before the pandemic I would typically walk 7 miles a day, now I have to force myself to walk 3 miles. Most of my hobbies would be in the city as well (meetups, concerts, board games, dating). All that has took a massive hit but the city is slowly coming back. My current team prefers working remote and TBH I don't like it. I want to be in an office with others. It's nice having a clear separation of work and home. I don't like how companies are able to subsidize business costs (electricity, rent, maintenance, food, internet) through my home. They aren't reimbursing me for this, nor would I expect it. IDK, I just miss the old ways.

rr808 5y ago

I'm going to strangle my wife and kids if I have to stay in my apartment with them another two years.

csa 5y ago
Strongly suggest a co-working space nearby if that’s the situation at home. It would suck to have to pay for something that other folks don’t have to pay for, but if that’s the reality you find yourself in… Obviously upgrading to a place with a dedicated office would probably be comparable, but that makes some assumptions on my part that might not be accurate or reasonable.
- davidw 5y ago
  A lot of companies will pay for stuff like a coworking space. It's a legit business expense. I specifically made sure to ask about that before I started at my current gig.
dymk 5y ago
This is why I moved out of the city into a big house with a backyard and home office. And it's cheaper than the apartment.
- bradlys 5y ago
  I mean - that's great if you want to give up all your existing friendships and possibly your family. Hard sell for the rest of us.
  - dymk 5y ago
    It's surprisingly doable if you plan ahead. I'm about a 30 minute drive to the city, so there's not really an impact on my social life.

time_to_smile 5y ago

Being in a "quagmire of hypocrisy and contradiction" has never been a problem for large corporations (or even small companies) in my entire career. Never once have I pointed out an obviously ridiculous contradiction in practices "but won't this actually hurt our customers?" and had the response be anything near "oh no! you're right, better fix that!" Remote work is a great example: long before pandemic most C-level execs and other important personal were almost never in the office, always attend meeting remotely (sometimes even just by phone), and yet love to talk about how work can't happen without everyone being in the office. Trust me if you can manage the entire company from your Florida vacation home, I'm sure we can get these models deployed to production from my home office.

alecbz 5y ago

What do you mean? I voluntarily go to my company's office every day because I hate WFH. What's hypocritical or contradictory?

jeffchien 5y ago

I don't see why opinions have to be extreme and any mixed or nuanced takes have to be labeled as contradictory. It's possible to like aspects about WFH/remote work, and like aspects about on-site work (at least from before the pandemic). For example, I like not having to commute, but I miss being able to ask questions face-to-face. I hope everyone gets to choose their option, but I find it really tiring to be told by either side that I *WILL* be more productive or be happier one way or another. I'm perfectly capable of figuring out that myself.

danans 5y ago

Why does anyone have to justify going in to the office, and to whom do they need to justify that?