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Google employee here, using a throwaway. In my experience there are very few teams/managers who actually enforce the return to office mandate. No one cares whe

Google employee here, using a throwaway. In my experience there are very few teams/managers who actually enforce the return to office mandate. No one cares whether you show up, regardless of whether you bother submitting the official WFH application. Based on how many seats I usually see filled, I'd guess that less than 20% of people are actually coming to the office.

scarface74 4y ago
Unofficial enforcement wouldn’t help me. I can’t buy a house in a low cost of living area based on the whims of a manager.
- Portside4336 4y ago
  Yeah admittedly it only helps those willing to live near their office, but it's better than nothing.
- joshstrange 4y ago
  This is my #1 nitpick when I hear "no one enforces that" when talking about a company rule or something in the handbook. That's all well and good... today... with my current manager... but I don't want to build my life on such shaky ground. Make it official. This was my biggest issue with the WFH policy at my last employer, it was 100% manager discretion (in part so they could prevent a few departments from taking advantage while maintaining the "we all follow the same rules regardless of department"-lie). I was taking 2 days a week as WFH but I always knew it could be taken away in an instant and HR tried to soothe me with "It's totally allowed, don't worry about it". Of course I also had issues with it not being extended to the rest of the company and, in what will come as surprise to no one, the whole office went to WFH in 2020 after years of them telling me it couldn't be done.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    The initial recruiter who reached out to me about a position could never tell me definitely whether my position would be permanently remote or not. Just when I was about to end the conversation, they recommended I apply for a position that was in a “virtual location”. The only requirement they had was that I need to be somewhere near a major airport and be able to travel. That hasn’t happen that often yet.

scarface74 4y ago

Unofficial enforcement wouldn’t help me. I can’t buy a house in a low cost of living area based on the whims of a manager.

Portside4336 4y ago
Yeah admittedly it only helps those willing to live near their office, but it's better than nothing.
joshstrange 4y ago
This is my #1 nitpick when I hear "no one enforces that" when talking about a company rule or something in the handbook. That's all well and good... today... with my current manager... but I don't want to build my life on such shaky ground. Make it official. This was my biggest issue with the WFH policy at my last employer, it was 100% manager discretion (in part so they could prevent a few departments from taking advantage while maintaining the "we all follow the same rules regardless of department"-lie). I was taking 2 days a week as WFH but I always knew it could be taken away in an instant and HR tried to soothe me with "It's totally allowed, don't worry about it". Of course I also had issues with it not being extended to the rest of the company and, in what will come as surprise to no one, the whole office went to WFH in 2020 after years of them telling me it couldn't be done.
- scarface74 4y ago
  The initial recruiter who reached out to me about a position could never tell me definitely whether my position would be permanently remote or not. Just when I was about to end the conversation, they recommended I apply for a position that was in a “virtual location”. The only requirement they had was that I need to be somewhere near a major airport and be able to travel. That hasn’t happen that often yet.