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Google doesn’t want employees working remotely anymore

• Agoreddah 3y ago
  I work remotely for more than 5 years. After my daughter was born, the productivity is a rollercoaster and I needed to modify my working schedule by a lot according her daytime activities. I think, I could provide a more precise output sitting in an office, on the other hand I need to be a very effective and finish the task before she starts to play around me :)
• esel2k 3y ago
  3 days on site requires you to live close and will explode even more housing costs, driving lower wage people to leave. I just don’t get why companies and government don’t work out something that would benefit the country as a whole in the longer term. 2 days on site would eventually allow for a one night stay in a hotel in the area and focussed 2 days team work. I can say that I will only start looking in my area in the future and evtl earn less, start to consume less as relocating is no option.
• t43562 3y ago
  It's a pain when someone in my teams meetings is in the office because of all the noise in the background. This makes me laugh because it's clear that there's a lot of distraction going on there. "Communication" can also mean getting distracted or drawn into irrelevant discussion or being continuously interrupted by people wanting something. I think it's quite ridiculous to claim to value personal presence in an age where I'm working with people all day who are in other countries and other offices - even down the hall - and that's all happening by chat and email and teams meetings. I really think it's about the way some people manage lazily by looking to see if you're typing or not instead of looking at results and understanding the work. It's nice to meet people in person once or twice but I don't need to see any of them once a week or once a month. I only manage 3 people but I have to work with a lot of people to get things done and have to understand their personalities and points of view and what they're doing up to a point. I can't come up with a reason why I would want to be able to look over their shoulder.
  • gregoriol 3y ago
    The noise and interruption problem can be about the same at home: whether it's the spouse, the children, the dog, a neighbour, some builders doing work in the street, ... You can only get quiet time if it is properly managed, and in an office it is more manageable to have private spaces instead of open spaces, than it is to have a separated office at home.
    • offices 3y ago
      The discourse around offices is almost as if they didn't exist before COVID. This: > in an office it is more manageable to have private spaces instead of open spaces was largely unsuccessful almost everywhere and the trend was for more open, more distracting spaces as time progressed. It was to the point that complaining about open offices & wishing we could complain about cubicles like our predecessors was a tired topic on HN.
      • JKCalhoun 3y ago
        Were offices "unsuccessful"? Because I always assumed the open spaces trend was just pablum being served up by Corporate to take us (engineering) down a notch. The open work spaces thing too allowed for rapid over-hiring without having to have the real estate to back it up.
        • cmiles74 3y ago
          Agreed, it was always about reducing cost.
          • greedo 3y ago
            Not always. You have to include the fad component. Our company isn't cost constrained, nor were we hiring a ton of new talent. Yet we updated our office layout and furnishings 2x in the last 8 years to look "better." Never underestimate the desire to keep up with the Joneses.
• timcavel 3y ago
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• helij 3y ago
  I see a huge shift in narrative even in comments around the Internet about return to office. Just saying. I am a manager and manage a team of six people. One of them is in a completely different country. I trust all people in my team to do their job properly and am available to them all the time if needed. It works. Our team is profitable and we do a good job. Client and employee retention is high. Managers requiring return to office and 'butts in seats' have their own issues. Nothing to do with work, communication, performance. That applies to jobs that can actually be done remotely of course.
  • wepple 3y ago
    You mention that your team is profitable and your client retention is high: this suggests a very particular type of business. Could it be that the nature of your work is well suited to remote work? Perhaps you’re delivering fairly well-known outputs or have really mature processes around getting work done? It would be interesting to ponder some of the worlds greatest creations and timelines they were created on, if folks had all been remote. Could the transistor have been created if your physicist and mathematician were both sitting at a slack screen?
    • hackernewds 3y ago
      The opposite argument. Could AI advancements have accelerated if your ML engineers had to live in a crumbling city spending 25% of their work hours commuting and preparing to commute?
      • wepple 3y ago
        > Could AI advancements have accelerated Can you point to the data that shows AI engineers work remotely or from an office? > live in a crumbling city spending 25% of their work hours commuting and preparing to commute You’re clearly showing some bias here. Sorry that you’ve had bad experiences with cities, but it’s not useful to project that on to blanket arguments
        • Xenoamorphous 3y ago
• valleyjo 3y ago
  Personally I highly prefer the office. I hate the commute but prefer the office. It’s a great conundrum for me. I guess this is a hot take - but I miss the pre pandemic days when most people were in the office most days. My takeaway from this experience is to bemoan the construction of US society around cars. If we all lived close to the office and or had quicker / easier transport maybe this would be less of a problem.
• 666satanhimself 3y ago
  [dead]
• Aeolun 3y ago
  Meanwhile, we were just issued a “please work in the office at least 2 days a week” notice, and everyone just shakes their head and stays home anyway.
• kilolima 3y ago
  Are they going to provide a pay raise for the lost time commuting or do they just expect their employees to take a quality of life hit without recompense?
• what-the-grump 3y ago
  Vacancy rates for commercial real estate are what 20-30%? While the economy continues to grow, so no this narrative about productivity is pure bs. Every post about how I overhead some conversation, the problem is you not knowing how to manage people. There are field workers, trades, all of India working remotely, always, long before Covid. Had a 4 hour call to fix a bug , 1 on 1, never got distracted, no one butted in, no one asked to go out for lunch, coffee, had some bs made up management emergency that required everyone. No one told me that x,y,z brought apples and they are in the kitchen. My working day has more working hours than it ever did while living in NYC because as everyone knows ~20% of your waking hours are spent commuting. Oh I remembered my all time least favorite activity, where we pile into a room to eat team lunch with plastic utensils off paper plates, while someone from some management organization tells us how we should see the world… yeah no thanks. I wonder why is there is no demand for commercial r/e oh that’s right because unless you are a unicorn company or actually physically need to be at a location to perform a task, the vast majority prefers working from home.
  • dalbasal 3y ago
    >Had a 4 hour call to fix a bug , 1 on 1, never got distracted, So here' what is missing from a lot of modern work. The stuff you're doing requires input from multiple people. The overhead for 6 hrs of actual work is 60 hours of scheduling, meetings, additional people, your-court-my-court. Meanwhile, semi-spontaneously spending a half day on something because "good progress" is something people hide. what kind of a ridiculously long "meeting" is that? "Meetings" as a concept, has replaced working with people.
    • matwood 3y ago
      > "Meetings" as a concept, has replaced working with people. Organizations are in decline when they begin to think of meetings as the work instead of the meeting output.
  • walthamstow 3y ago
    > Had a 4 hour call to fix a bug , 1 on 1, never got distracted, no one butted in, no one asked to go out for lunch, coffee, had some bs made up management emergency that required everyone. You had a 4 hour call and didn't take a single break for lunch or coffee or even just to stand up and stretch legs?
• voytec 3y ago
  Smaller companies and organizations have an incentive of going remote-only or mostly-remote to save on rent. Google owns offices. Similarly, Apple may have not demanded workers' presence in office if they haven't built their huge doughnut in Cupertino. One can only hope that smaller orgs won't brainlessly copycat Google "because it's Google, they're big so they must know what they're doing".
  • chasd00 3y ago
    At my company, I recently joined a team that meets in the office once per week. I haven’t been to an office in years. It looks incredibly expensive, two floors in a very nice office building with every bell and whistle you can imagine. I saw maybe 30 people there total (including my once-a-week team). The rent plus the cost of operating the place… I can’t even guess how much money is being wasted. Shareholders would be pissed.
• dghughes 3y ago
  I'd say age is certainly a factor in this issue. Generation Gap for the 21st century. My Gen X generation would be used to office work but comfortable with modern technology. Although many times for complex subjects when you get into back and force messages "just call me" would enter my brain. Millennial would be similar but grew up with more tech. Voice calls on phones would have been replaced by texts when they were young. Last golden age of TV was over so not much of a draw. I'd guess messaging would be more comfort that for all except the oldest audio voice calls. They be more comfortable working remotely but have certainly experience office life. I'd Gen Z was born into tech never knowing TV and wouldn't care. Face to face in an office wold be alien for some maybe they never even had a job yet. Email would be ancient tech, messaging is basically speech and cryptic at that. Basically I think there is a clash of culture and it depends on your generation how comfortable you are which results in how efficient of a worker you are.
  • jcpst 3y ago
    An office isn’t that alien to anyone who has been to school. It’s essentially a training ground for working in an office.
    • dghughes 3y ago
      It's a training ground for the job not really for office politics and office life. There should be a required university course "How to survive in an office 101"
  • Mashimo 3y ago
    What percent of Gen Z don't have face to face at school or uni?
    • dghughes 3y ago
      In an office. Maybe it's just me but an office environment would be different than a university environment. It's similar yes but not the same. There are more consequences for your actions in an office plus you are getting paid. Offices would have a wide range of ages compared to a University.
• helen___keller 3y ago
  Meanwhile I (amazon) am returning to my local office by myself as the rest of my team is in Seattle or California The next year or three will be weird for office work, but at the end I’m fairly convinced it will look like pre-pandemic (5 days butt in seat, teams colocated, remote is 2nd class citizen)
• 0xRusty 3y ago
  What I don't get in all this is the at the beginning of the pandemic, HR, management etc made it very very clear that this was all a temporary situation and remote work would be allowed (enforced) for the short duration of the pandemic and then everybody would be expected to return to the office. I'm sure everyone was given a letter to that effect by HR. What is now going on with this "surprised Pikachu face" where everybody thinks that they can just stay remote for all time? It's ridiculous. If you decided to sell your house or give up your rental in a good (perhaps expensive) location in the city near your place of work for a "better life" outside the city in new accommodation, well under the knowledge that after the pandemic offices might very well return to work and are now complaining about things like commute and quality of life is frankly laughable. You took a hell of a risk doing that and it's now not paying off. The thing about being in an office is it's not about you, it's not about what you want and how your life is better being away from the office. It's about what you bring to everybody else, what you bring to a team of people more junior than yourself and what you can do to help other people. It's extremely hard to find new talent in a junior team working remotely - in fact I'd say it's almost impossible. Pulling up the ladder behind you now that you've got yours and a comfortable life outside the office is frankly selfish. I can see that managers often get the blame here with comments like "they just need people to manage in the same building" I think that's very unfair because actually what they are trying to do is to manage a team of all skill levels and seniorities and by having a remote, or even semi remote, workforce that job is made much more difficult. Covid started about 3 years ago so anyone with less than 3 years of professional experience has probably never ever seen a real working office, just remember that.
  • maeln 3y ago
    It's worker fighting for more right. I don't see the problem there. I does not mean that it is "right", or good for the company, for the team or "morally good". In an ideal world we should all work for "the greater good", but this is just a job. Trying to get more out of your labor is fine. Company always try to squeeze as much as possible out of their worker, why should it be wrong to do the same ? It is a business relationship.
• hindsightbias 3y ago
  We're three years into this experiment and still no productivity studies referenced in any of these threads. Anecdotes ARE all our anecdata now.
• JSavageOne 3y ago
  I really hope Google and other remote-hostile companies lose their prestige as some kind of stamp of excellence that's supposed to signal you're some higher caliber engineer. I never applied to work there because of their absurd interview process (along with other FAANGs) which require candidates to spend months on "interview prep" grinding Leetcode questions - a colossal waste of everyone's time. Even during COVID when all companies were remote I didn't apply because most big corporations tend to require employees to be trapped in their country unless you go through the hassle of transferring offices, and I prefer the freedom to live wherever I want. This banning of remote work is so backwards, and will only contribute to their demise from their former peak. Next thing you know Google will no longer be seen as a "cool" place to work, and face the same fate as many former behemoths like IBM and Yahoo. At this point I wonder who even desires to work at companies like Google except for entry level hires, prestige whores, and old people with families wanting stability.
  • rr808 3y ago
    It certainly is a big test. Seems the most aggressive RTO companies are traditionally the best performing - Meta Google Goldmans, JPMorgan. Its going to be fascinating in 10 years looking back to find out who was right.
    • wil421 3y ago
      Meta and Google have insane cash cows and they are outliers no matter where their workers work. Other huge companies like Walmart and Amazon have huge workforces that have to work somewhere. I’d like to see breakdowns by industries: healthcare, retail, tech, or oil. It’s going to be hard to tell what’s related to the Covid shutdown and what’s related to remote working.
      • cmrdporcupine 3y ago
        Also just the shift in the economy generally. We've entered a new era in the longer term economic cycle. Many of the "rules" that applied from 2008-2022 no longer apply: Annual two digit increases in ad impressions and clickthroughs and CPMs etc are not necessarily going to happen for Google. Access to cheap Chinese hardware manufacturing may diminish as more things near-shore, supply chains continue to be messed with by wars (trade and physical) and economic disruption generally. Tech employee preferences are shifting in terms of what they are willing or able to work on, and where they want to work. VCs have cut back a huge amount in general, but their emphasis is also shifting. So, yes, it will be really hard looking back to see what's WFH/RTO related and what's just a result of a rather massive restructuring generally.
• btbuildem 3y ago
  I did a silly little exercise the other day, pitting my company's official Corporate Values against the non-negotiable RTO policy they forced into effect a couple months ago: Megacorp's recent mandatory return-to-office (RTO) policy, when evaluated against its stated corporate values, raises several potential points of conflict. Integrity: The company's value of integrity may be questioned if the policy is perceived as being imposed without transparency or clear rationale. If the decision-making process was opaque and unaccountable, it could undermine trust and the sense of fairness. Innovation: A mandatory RTO policy could be seen as inconsistent with the value of innovation. Innovation often involves embracing change, adapting to new circumstances, and leveraging new tools and methods – remote work included. Thus, reverting to traditional office work may be seen as regressive. Customer-first mindset: If the RTO policy adversely affects employee morale, productivity or retention, there might be indirect negative impacts on customer service and satisfaction. Entrepreneurial thought and action: Entrepreneurship often entails autonomy, flexibility, and the ability to work independently. A top-down policy mandating return to the office might be seen as limiting these aspects, potentially contradicting this corporate value. Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion: A mandatory RTO policy could disproportionately impact employees who have caregiving responsibilities, health concerns, or other personal circumstances that make remote work more feasible and attractive. This could lead to concerns about inclusivity and equity. Collaboration: While collaboration can indeed be enhanced by in-person interaction, modern digital tools also enable effective remote collaboration. Thus, enforcing a return to the office might be seen as a narrow interpretation of this value. Competitive Spirit: If other companies are offering flexible or remote work arrangements, a mandatory RTO policy might affect Megacorp's ability to attract and retain top talent, impacting its competitiveness. Execution: Depending on the details of the RTO policy, it could potentially disrupt work schedules and productivity, thus affecting the company's capacity for effective execution.
• allturtles 3y ago
  There are a ton of dueling anecdotes in these comments. Is there any actual data on remote work productivity? To me the dominant fact is that COVID happened and work seemed to continue just fine. This strongly implies to me that remote work is not a major productivity drain. But I realize there are various counterarguments (e.g. it could not have been sustained, because junior employees can't onboard successfully remotely). I don't buy them personally but I only have anecdotes, which is all anyone seems to have.
  • tester756 3y ago
    >Is there any actual data on remote work productivity? How would you even benchmark this in software world? Companies, teams, products or even months differ strongly
    • allturtles 3y ago
      Yes. So why is there so much confidence (in both directions) in this thread about the productivity impact of remote work? It seems people are just projecting their own biases or experiences as universalizable facts.
      • tester756 3y ago
        I'm not sure about productivity, but remote work makes my life better by shitton. I sleep more, I have way way more time, I don't have to spend money on transport. And at the end of the day I'm still working in mostly international setting across whole globe, so is remote really this big problem?
      • jmcomets 3y ago
        It's a mix of bikeshedding (many people experienced remote work during the COVID lockdowns) and there being no data available for this. Also consider who would be more likely to respond in this thread: people heavily invested in or against remote work (since there is no actual data). Always-relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/
• T3RMINATED 3y ago
  [dead]
• throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
  Strike or Quit
• ragnese 3y ago
  Remote work has pros and cons--both at an organization level and at an individual level. I think that "both sides" have argued the pros and cons enough that I don't need to repeat them here. It's clear to me that no work situation is ideal for everyone or every group. My "selfish" point of view is that I hope that remote work takes over more and more, and that companies stop forcing workers back into the office full-time. My personal life situation makes remote work almost a requirement if I want to continue being a software developer. I'm divorced with a young son over whom I have 50% custody. I won't move to a "tech hub" city for a job and abdicate my responsibilities as a father. Even my current job is only a 40 minute commute for me by car, and I still only go to the office once or twice per week: the days that I have to drop off or pick my son up from school won't really accommodate a 40 minute commute unless I'm only going to work a 5-6 hour day. I count myself as very fortunate that my current work situation is with wonderful people, who all have families as well, and mostly-remote was part of my initial negotiation. On the flip side of feeling fortunate, I have to remind myself that the company is fortunate, too. Not that I'm not humble, but I do think I'm a pretty good software dev and a generally good employee who takes pride in their work. I guess the point of spilling out my personal life story on the internet is that I hope that companies realize that forcing on-location work is not just a choice between an employee being at home or being in the office; it may be a choice between having a good employee and not having them at all.
  • cosmiccatnap 3y ago
    [flagged]
    • A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago
      It is more along the lines of: we are not all the same. We are all wired in different ways. Different things make us tick. I don't particularly enjoy social interactions. Frankly, I am drained by them, but to others those same draining experiences are a source of energy. I assume there is some sort of solution, but right now it remains a tug of war mixed in with a weird game of chicken. In other words, there should be a way to accommodate everyone. In fact, there is one. We just seem to want to do it.
    • 3y ago
• 2devnull 3y ago
  The compromise is simple but nobody wants to say it, only single people who live alone should be allowed to work from home. People with kids or spouses, or those with roommates, should not be allowed to work from home because many in that situation (I’ve learned) do very little work and others have to take up the slack.
  • maxehmookau 3y ago
    LOL. "Hey, so I see you're living with other human beings. I'm afraid remote work isn't open to you." "Oh, ok that seems fair. As a result of the fact that I can't afford a home all to myself, I will absolutely commute for 2 hours a day to come to an office filled with other parents and caregivers." Nobody's saying it because it's nuts dude.
    • 2devnull 3y ago
      I mean information security matters. Physical access is an issue. But I was sort of joking anyway.
• gamekathu 3y ago
  I'm in a tough spot with this new RTO guidelines (similar ones issues by my company). I live ~2-2.5 hours from my assigned office due to two-body problem. I travel to the office once/twice a week, but thats the max I can do - 3 days per week is impossible. I'm more productive WFH, however I utilize my office time to meet as many people in-person I can. However recently that has reduced to mostly VC time in-office as most of my team are from a different coast altogether. To me, going forward Remote works best, but these blanket rules really doesn't work for all edge cases like mine.
• maxehmookau 3y ago
  I still don't understand that a company who makes a ton of money from creating tools that fascilitate better remote working is against its own employees doing it. Remote work is here to stay. Sure, colocated work is too, but trying to put the genie back in the bottle _at a tech company_ is surely a losing battle. Or is the total comp at Google really that good?
• hackernoteng 3y ago
  I live about 1:30 hour from my office. Before covid I went in 2x per week. Since covid I've been to the office about 6 times in 3 years. Never going back to a regular commute. Never. Open floor plan is terrible for thought-work (programming). Having my own home office and regaining several hours per week is priceless. I would gladly take a 50% pay cut if they required me to return to commute.
• gurumeditations 3y ago
  Hopefully real estate prices will go down now that rich tech workers have to move back to the tech centers.
• HelloNurse 3y ago
  It seems just another masked round of layoffs. If the remote worker is important, an exception will be made and nothing will change; if the remote worker is redundant, it's very regrettable that they are unable to adjust to the shifting realities of the workplace.
• backtoyoujim 3y ago
  This whole thing reminds me of that letter that gets passed around from time to time online written by one Jourdon Anderson to his former white male American slaver Colonel P. H. Anderson. I had to look it up to find the postscript which I think is very precient today: "P.S.— Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me."
• biofunsf 3y ago
  Selfishly, I love remote work. But I also think I’m not quite as productive or engaged when I’m fully remote. Still pretty productive, but not quite. (Compared to a sane in-person company without copious interruptions) That’s a fine tradeoff for me. I’d much rather get the same salary, work from home, and just be marginally less productive.
• picometer 3y ago
  From the article: > The email also reminds [non-remote-designated] employees […] that managers can factor their absences into performance reviews. Requiring on-site vs remote work is one thing; tying it to performance considerations is another. If an employee is performing well against all other standards and isn’t causing collaboration problems, but has absences against the on-site policy, that should prompt a totally different conversation. Overall, that note (plus the fact that it was sent in a company-wide memo - recall how huge Google is) seems like it creates gray areas for incompetent managers. Or, for a way to make any manager’s job easier during layoffs.
• freedude 3y ago
  This is a good thing. It will force some to venture out on their own where they will learn to stand on their own two feet. Or it will hold employees accountable to the shareholders (owners of the company) to provide a collaborative, in-person, company culture which ultimately enhances productivity and efficiency. In short, Grow Up! (a message from a tech worker who has rarely worked from home and has reaped the benefits of in office work throughout the pandemic)
  • maxehmookau 3y ago
    Absolute nonsense. First off, employees aren't directly accountable to shareholders. Nor should they be. Company boards are. Secondly, how about providing a collaborative, remote company culture which enhances productivity and efficency? Which also widens the global hiring pool and doesn't discriminate against those who can't travel for hours a day. For tech companies, forcing their workers in to metal tubes and high-rises for hours a day will never be as purvasive as it is now, and I hope it stays that way. (A message from a tech worker who performs great at his remote job for the last 8 years and has reaped the benefits of remote work before, during and after the pandemic)
    • freedude 3y ago
      "First off, employees aren't directly accountable to shareholders. Nor should they be. Company boards are." In the real world this statement is demonstrably false. Ask the majority of employees in the world, because if they aren't the owner they are working directly for the primary shareholder of the business.
  • ausbah 3y ago
    >Or it will hold employees accountable to the shareholders (owners of the company) I own stock in my company, I don't want to go back to office. if you really care about coddling shareholders I suppose you're also in favor wage suppression, anti-union activity, corporate job cuts, and all the other anti-worker crap management & owners throw down. in short, grow up & realize a mindset like yours just holds the people who actually get stuff done back
• shadykiller 3y ago
  The biggest factor for RTO/Hybrid for most, is that they moved to a lower cost area. I was in South Bay - bough a 70 year old just before pandemic - a small house for a lot of money. I found a huge, value for money house, 1.5 hours away from the south bay, for far less and sold off my south bay one. There's no way I'm coming back to south bay and pay more in rent for a small apartment than I pay in mortgage. Even hybrid is a pain with commute totaling 3-4 hours on weekdays
• Mizoguchi 3y ago
  Undoubtedly there are certain roles that require on-site physical presence. I doubt that's the case for most roles at Google. "Our offices are where you’ll be most connected to Google’s community." Why and how? So you move away from your parents house and you stop being connected to them?
• Kiro 3y ago
  I must be a useless worker because I really can't relate to everyone praising the productivity when WFH. My productivity is almost non-existent unless I have a super interesting task. Seriously, I can't be the only one who is just slacking off when working from home.
  • nkjnlknlk 3y ago
    It sounds like there is a mix and the most vocal ones are those whose preferred method of working is being threatened. :) I slack off in office for a similar duration that I do at home. They might be different but the "productivity" is identical if not favoured at home because I'm more comfortable. I'll spend time configuring my nvim or reading some interesting but unrelated technical article/book or getting snacks or HN or reddit in the office. At home I might just take a nap or shower or go to the gym (or do one of the aforementioned things). People operate differently but for me I'm only going to produce as much value as I believe I'm getting paid for. Not more and not less. I see the request to go back to office as managers believing they can act as a coercive force which might work on some (perhaps many) people.
• ausbah 3y ago
  if companies want people back in the office they should be required to start compensating for commutes. travel time, gas / electric for vehicles, etc. I sincerely do not give a damn about "productivity" or any other corporate BS from management when they can't even put their money where their mouth is
  • fluxem 3y ago
    They already were. Before the pandemic, the compensation for commute was part of the salary. And you were expected to come to the office every day. It was your choice to move 2 hours away from the office instead of having 15min commute.
• say_it_as_it_is 3y ago
  A workplace is not a community. Google alumni don't get together at barbecues and reminisce about the good of days. They're not raising houses together for Habitat on the weekends. It's unethical dark manipulation all the way down the line. ex-Googlers should class-action sue for emotional damages experienced by losing their only community when they are laid off Let's see how valuable community is, then, for Google when it becomes a liability.
• scythe 3y ago
  It seems like the most likely explanation for this is that it's a "soft layoff"; rather than endure the PR and morale hit of a real layoff, let them quit. Plus, even if remote work is not a within-worker disadvantage versus office work, management may nonetheless estimate that people willing to come in to the office are more attached to their jobs. Or as it is said: the purpose of a system is what it does. If the primary effects are likely distributional via who remains a Google employee, then we can infer the goal of the decision.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• thecrumb 3y ago
  Dead horse. Please stop kicking me...
• consultSKI 3y ago
  Does anyone besides FAAM-sized entities care what Google thinks or does? There is a very real reason disruption matters. Can Google be disrupted? Absolutely. However, will they? I believe so. But not by playing by the same rules.
• bdavbdav 3y ago
  Reading a lot of the comments, I think I must be an outlier. I've got a nice study at home, with a really good PC setup, rock solid gigabit internet, very nice office chair, all the coffee in the world. But I still really like going into the office as much as possible. I love the cycle in, the coffees with colleagues, being able to just "chat" without scheduling a call, getting lunch out with people.
  • acchow 3y ago
    Same. I bike to the office everyday despite having a remote job. Getting outside feels great
    • bdavbdav 3y ago
      I need to get better at doing that. The cycle to the office (55 mins / 23kms each way) is really good on the days I go in, but I just can't motivate myself to do the same on the days when I'm not going in!
• partiallypro 3y ago
  I honestly don't know if I could work another job where I can't work remotely. If circumstances were dire and I just had no choice, I guess I'd bite the bullet, but I would demand a -lot- more money. Even if you live close, it can take up to an hour to get to my office downtown, that's 2 hours a day that I'm sitting in traffic and not getting paid for...it actually costs me time and money. Time that is impossible to get back. I've made countless friends over the years from office work, met one of my best friends working in an office and made a lot of contacts that have helped my career; but I'm not in my 20s anymore, barely clinging to my 30s, the office environment is mostly useless to me now. The main drivers I see behind this is to save commercial real estate investments. Productivity can't be dropping much, if at all, if companies are still making record profits while cutting back on their workforce. I can understand wanting to meet up for a big collaboration, but after that you can go back to remote and then meet up again, that doesn't require a 5-day work week in the office.
• phendrenad2 3y ago
  If your entire team is in the office, that can be much more productive than remote work. But how many companies will be able to get even 50% of a team in the same office at once, even if they force everyone to RTO? Companies already moved away from that when they started setting up offices around the world and allowed people to effectively work from anywhere. If 25% of your team is in an office in Belgium, 25% in San Francisco, 25% in Mumbai, 25% remote... is it the 25% remote that is really holding back workplace synergy?
• pnathan 3y ago
  I work remote for a startup. I have a 15 minute walk to my kids' school - not a bad one either, a 30 second walk to the bus stop, a 3 minute walk to the grocery store, a 7 minute walk to the fancy grocery store near the hardware store. My religious group is a 2.5 mile drive/bike. We are approximately one hour from grandparents. I have an old house with a small backyard and gardens, a neighborhood stuffed with kids and a community that values kids. In addition, I can save money. Absolutely none of that is possible for my (quite decent) income in Seattle (closest tech hub). To move me to a par Seattle house with par livability, par neighborhood, and par mortgage cost (but further away from grandparents), would be on the order of a +1M outlay - maybe +750K (but I haven't checked recently). (Wedgewood, Ravenna, or Magnolia neighborhoods, if you're curious). In short: moving to a tech hub would be a radical downgrade to the quality of life. As another posted: > ... There is one side that is unambiguously pro-family, pro-environment, pro-church involvement, pro-bowling league, pro-parents in kids lives, pro-marriage, pro-divorced child raising. ... concur. I would also note, pointedly, that if you're a bigshot in a major tech company in a metro hub, you should be having very serious discussions with the city government about workforce housing for the > 30 set. It is actually possible to have a good metro life - if the city is designed for it.
• varelse 3y ago
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• HEmanZ 3y ago
  I don’t get the vehemence on these threads. If you don’t like it, work for someone else. There is and always has been massive diversity in tech work arrangements. I’ve met engineers who have been remote-only since the 80s. Most large companies will relax their policies if you’re a good producer or have a trusting manager, long before Covid. And when I look at job openings, the vast majority still list “remote” for engineers and technical roles. It’s painful to see the most entitled industry in the world angry that they have to switch companies sometimes…
  • deleted 3y ago
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• runamok 3y ago
  It's actually to their benefit to allow fully remote because if you force me to live in the bay area you need to pay me 30%+ more to pay the bank for my mortgage or my landlord.
• drc37 3y ago
  Could it be that all these complainers about going back to work don't want to lose out on their 2nd job? https://www.businessinsider.com/over-two-thirds-us-remote-workers-two-or-more-jobs-2021-11?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/over-two-thirds-us-remote-wo...
• RadixDLT 3y ago
  well of course they don't want you to work from home, they want to be able to look over your shoulder, making sure you don't leak any secrets ;)
• throwaway292939 3y ago
  In the long run, I look forward to people and companies sorting themselves to their respective camps of "remote" vs "non-remote". Economics will prove which one works better.
• rektide 3y ago
  Just like everyone got a bunch of ultra low interest mortgages & now will never consider relocating, a bunch of employees got work remote jobs at companies & positions that will be much harder to get again.
  • mrits 3y ago
    It's really insane how if I tried to buy the same house I bought 5 years ago my payment would be right under 3x. At 40 it would be almost cheaper for me to retire than to move -- especially from Austin to California.
    • willcipriano 3y ago
      I bought 8 years ago. My mortgage is a couple hundred less than a crappy one bedroom apartment now. Would probably be better off getting a job at Walmart or something than move.
      • chii 3y ago
        > My mortgage is a couple hundred less than a crappy one bedroom apartment now. the total cost of ownership is not just the mortgage interest payments - it must include the cost of the equity you invested, which is both the initial deposit as well as any principle payments made so far. If you added all this up, it would be quite likely similar to the cost in rent of a similar house/apartment.
        • chasd00 3y ago
          Idk my mortgage is about the same as rent in a medium apartment in dfw and def. Less than rent for a house and dfw is not a super high cost place to live. I have a family of 4 people living here plus a MIL in a smaller house built adjacent and over the garage. Renting the equivalent would mean probably 3 separate apartments.
        • willcipriano 3y ago
          Then I'd have no equity and be at the mercy of the whims of a landlord. I'd rather take a big pay cut.
• jleyank 3y ago
  ... except if the air is bad due to Canadian forest fires (which truly sux right now). NYC today looks like Ottawa a day or two ago. People are cranking up their HEPA filters and digging up masks from 2020/Covid. On the serious side, companies that will trust their staff and let them work as they wish when it's ok for productivity will be the ones that have the best chance to pull in talent and the largest pool to fish in.
• henearkr 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • rayiner 3y ago
    Pandemic is so over I didn’t even realize that anyone had moved the goalposts to “nose-spray vaccines.”
    • johnthescott 3y ago
      clap clap. gonna steal "nose-spray vaccines”.
  • thunderbird120 3y ago
    I don't think there are any serious groups which are not acting like the pandemic is over by all practical standards. Variants descended from the Spanish flu still infect and kill people but that pandemic is not ongoing. The point at which it made sense to accept even very mild disruptions to daily life due to COVID has passed and nearly everyone understands that.
    • deleted 3y ago
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    • charlieyu1 3y ago
      The pandemic is over, but the economical damage is permanent. Cost of living is rising and never going back. Small and medium businesses are closing while enterprises are cutting head counts.
      • quadrangle 3y ago
        When WWII ended, the changes it made to the world never reverted to the prior status. Also, the rest of history since then has been completely dominated by the effects of WWII and its continuity including the very next wars such as conflicts in Israel, Korea, cold-war, and more. There was no point where the issues really ended, but we do reasonably say that WWII ended. What came next and later was something distinct enough that we consider it something else. What we have in covid reality today is a continued world with covid existing and a ton of irreversible changes that covid time made to the world. But that's not denied when people say the pandemic is over.
• ggm 3y ago
  For those who are remote and who live near a Google office, we hope you’ll consider switching to a hybrid work schedule. Our offices are where you’ll be most connected to Google’s community. Going forward, we’ll consider new remote work requests by exception only.” now.. maybe it's just me, but re-reading that sentence makes my eye note "AND WHO LIVE NEAR" as well as CONSIDER SWITCHING as well as EXCEPTION ONLY. Is EXCEPTION ONLY limited? how do we know? what about "how big is LIVE NEAR" as a cohort. The article is a hot take I want to believe too, but legalistic reading says its "doesn't want" in the sense of "want, not is not permitting" nobody is being strongarmed, from whats read above. There's getout clauses a-plenty for any authorised manager to 'exception' their way out of this. Google doesn't want people to leave en mass, or unionise either. Want doesn't drive hard sometimes. The real world intrudes.
  • gardnr 3y ago
    It seems the exception process will be required: https://www.inc-aus.com/minda-zetlin/google-exec-remote-work-wfh-urs-hlzle-employees-complaints.html https://www.inc-aus.com/minda-zetlin/google-exec-remote-work...
  • kyrra 3y ago
    The "exception only" links to further reading for Googlers that got the email.
• kosei 3y ago
  I wonder how long it takes to go from “those who live near Google offices” to “all employees”. Once 80-90% of employees are back at work regularly it’s not a stretch to believe that those few people who are always remote will be seen as less effective and less connected to their peers going into the office everyday. This is likely one step of many.
  • bagacrap 3y ago
    > For those who are remote and who live near a Google office, we hope you’ll consider switching to a hybrid work schedule. Our offices are where you’ll be most connected to Google’s community Definitely sounds like a veiled threat to one's career if they don't choose to be connected to the community
• explaininjs 3y ago
  I saw a Twitter thread about this that I didn’t want to engage in there, but figure I might get more intelligent discussion here. Basically there’s a motif like “we should allow people to work where they’re most comfortable and productive!”, but what about the folks that are most comfortable and productive in an office surrounded by other folks also working on the same product as them? On one hand I don’t think people who don’t want to work should be forced in, but on the other it seems like a lot of companies are taking this as an opportunity to get rid of offices all together. Just look at recent “who’s hiring’s”: the majority are exclusively remote, leaving folks like me who would prefer to work with others and don’t mind moving no options.
  • sottol 3y ago
    My guess is that established companies (esp. those with existing offices) will require on-site work, new companies without will more likely not... more flexibility for founders and reduced costs if they believe in remote. That should leave everyone with plenty of options, but on-site + startup combo would have fewer positions and vice-versa remote + established company. Otoh, over time I could see a profound shift to remote if these new companies were to start replacing old ones and remote worked for them. But there might be a limit where a certain company size favors on-site.
    • explaininjs 3y ago
      Unfortunately the best work experiences I’ve had are in micro-small scale startups in SF/NY where I walk to work every day, sit in the same office with a couple/handful of people who I know are passionate about the same problems I am, and we all have the opportunity to brain-dump in person at will. Arraigning zooms will never compadre to the fidelity of a face to face interaction.
  • azemetre 3y ago
    This doesn't seem like a hard problem, if you want to work in an office seek out companies that are working in the office. What's the issue here? Plenty of companies require it and are slowly enforcing it. I don't know where you live but plenty of companies in Boston, which use to be remote, are requiring more people to come in the office now (DataDog, Klaviyo, Chewy, all the finance/insurance companies, DOD contractors, and lots of the satellite big tech offices like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, SalesForce, etc are requiring it). Are you upset that more interesting companies/problems to work on are mostly remote teams? Remote work is one of the few hard, real, and sought after benefits people want that a company of any size can provide to stay competitive in the labor market. As for me, I have no problem working in an office but the commute needs to be less than an hour of walk + subway/bus otherwise it's too much of a negative externality. Maybe there should be more offices where people live and not massively congregated into a single location? You can blame poor planning for that. There's no reason why there can't be more mixed developed neighborhoods.
• marstall 3y ago
  What I'm seeing looking for remote work at tech companies right now: - startups: MANY (most?) are committed to "remote-first" and talk about this prominently on their careers page - larger companies (~1000+ employees): do seem to be making more noise about being in the office 2 days a week. - really big companies: still ignore my English Major ass so idk
  • contracertainty 3y ago
    My company ('systemically important' bank, ~100k enployees) is trying furiously to get us into the office 2 days a week. For many people this is more than was required of them pre-COVID. What is actually happening is that people come in 1 day but there is nowhere to sit appropriate for development or any kind of 'engineering' work unless they are on site before 8am (no good for those of us with school runs to do). If there's no desk we're being asked to sit at benches or refectory style tables with our tiny laptop screens. The actual result of this is a day of no work, and, being europe, it means a bunch of people filling in the accident book saying they have a neck injury at the end of each day. This is going to get worse as they pressure people to come in without adequate desk numbers. The unions are swamped with complaints (yay for unions!). If people can find a desk they are surrounded by project manangers or non-technical staff from other teams who are on calls all day with people who are remote, and they themselves are on calls with people who are remote, at home or in another EU country, India/US/etc. No synergy, no quick chats by the water cooler/kettle. ##Remote, virtual global teams do not benefit from being in the office.## On a more personal note, I'm also finding it's a very noisy, distracting environment. For neurodivergent people (ADHD, Autism) the office is actually really challenging. I find I have to go and close myself in a meeting room to get some quiet at several points throught the day, and I leave early. It's exhausting. I'd estimate that 80-90% of my team are neurodivergent engineers, cryptographers, or architects, and are actively seeking remote positions. I wholly support their efforts. I am 100% sure this drive to get people in is because senior management are bored and lonely at home and don't want to come into empty offices. They've paid for these giant offices in London, NY and elsewhere, which cost a fortune, and need to see bums on seats. The way they stay up to speed on what's going on is chatting to people in the halls and corridors, so they don't even really need a computer! They live in a different world. Screw banks, anyway.
• sitkack 3y ago
  Depending on the org, most Google employees are already part of a distributed team. This is nothing but making management appear functional and bean counters that manage the buildings feel like their buildings are being used. Has zero to do with productivity.
  • ninkendo 3y ago
    Or they’re legitimately seeing the dire condition Google has been finding itself in with the lack of product success and increasing existential threats of LLM’s, the declining health of the open web from which they derive their profits, etc etc, and taking a hard look in the bloat they have in their existing workforce. If management is heavily signaling they don’t want remote work, believe them. When the layoffs come, the remote workers will be very close to the front of the line to get the axe.
    • chasd00 3y ago
      > Or they’re legitimately seeing the dire condition Google has been finding itself in That predates wfh by like 5 years though
    • lmm 3y ago
      "Something must be done, this is something..."?
      • ninkendo 3y ago
        Not saying I agree with it, just that it’s not the idle threat OP was making it out to be… if the bean counters who are saying “something must be done” are actually in charge, maybe it doesn’t matter whether it’s really about performance…
        • sitkack 3y ago
          I am not saying the threat is idle. I am saying the action is unwarranted, the performative play is real for all levels. Sundar is larping as a leader. He is at best a substitute teacher.
• keenmaster 3y ago
  Soon many companies will not renew their lease, and there won’t be much office to return to. Those that invested a lot in their office space will try to make the best use of it, but in the long run it’s more profitable to downsize offices.
• stickyricky 3y ago
  I'm one of those weirdos who hates going in to the office. However, I'd like to provide a counter-point to that fact. My company has offices in Europe and I _love_ going to the office over there. Hate it in America. Love it in Europe. The question I ask myself is why? I don't feel isolated from my family. Its a couple blocks away. Safe and easy to get to. My son whose very young could safely walk there and back without being harmed (intentionally or accidentally). The city is so safe he could take the subway on his own if he wanted to. If I want to go home I can. If I want to go to lunch my family can meet me halfway. The office in Europe _feels_ like an extension of home (in my experience - maybe not true for all). I feel a general sense of ease there. Taking the subway in New York or driving to work in Houston feels like a horrific burden that I'm just not willing to put up with anymore.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • poisonborz 3y ago
    > Its a couple blocks away. Imagine this not being the case. And I don't mean a different district, but some neighbouring town. Not many people like to live in a city, and it's also not scaleable for a company to have most of its employees living around a specific office. Especially true for EU cities that all have huge satellite regions with cozy villages and small towns.
  • dspillett 3y ago
    > I'm one of those weirdos who hates going in to the office. I feel like a weird one for the opposite of that. It is nice having the option of working from home, or from my parents in the next county and I need to bob off to look after them, and the cats certainly appreciate me being around more when I WFH, but I don't get on with it long term. I like home being home and work being work, and I generally prefer work to stay out of my home. I also prefer working in the same room as the people I'm working with¹ and consider hybrid to be a lie. We are officially hybrid, but really I'm remote most of the time because even though I go to the office many of the people I'm working with usually do not. Not that I begrudge other people doing what works best for them, and we get the job done so I don't see a productivity problem, but my level of comfort or lack thereof might mean I go for a bigger career change if I decide to move on from here (because every tech company I know locally seems to be the same in those respects). Having said that I have the advantage of being near the office, a 15 minute walk² through a relatively nice city (York, the real one in the UK), so I don't have to factor a long commute into my likes/dislikes. -- [1] I think I'm sometimes seen as difficult for avoiding phone and video calls as I really don't find them comfortable: unless it is a group thing or a situation that benefits from screen sharing either come talk to be _really_ in person or send IMs/emails. [2] Or a 10 minute jog when running late, or much longer if I take a more scenic route
• TallGuyShort 3y ago
  Google seems to have always said this externally, but every time I met with Google pre-COVID, all their engineers dialed in from home. Managers in the office. I would even travel to their office. Engineers? Nope. At home.
  • bagacrap 3y ago
    Team by team
    • TallGuyShort 3y ago
      Okay but I can think of 5 teams, all of whom showed this behavior? Even if it is "team by team" that is not the same as what Google seems to generalize about itself.
      • bagacrap 3y ago
        Google historically was pretty chillaxed and let managers set standards for their team. It sounds like now Google is going to be tracking attendance a bit more closely. I don't think Google would be doing this if it didn't have data showing productivity had been suffering.
• sethgoodluck 3y ago
  Honestly, I got a job last year in a hybrid office and i love it. We are treated like adults. We can step out if we need to. We can remote in an extra day or come in an extra day if we feel like it. I also love my team and hanging out at our desks was something I didn't realize I missed until I had it again. Remote is cool. Full time strict office is blah. Hybrid flex is lovely
  • hcks 3y ago
    You’re aware that this is absolutely standard right?
  • chasd00 3y ago
    I recently joined a team that meets in the office once per week on Wednesday. It was nice to go in for the novelty, my office is very nice so it was kind of like going to an expensive hotel for a day. I didn’t feel any less or more productive though. It was good to overhear the insanity of very very junior people and be able to correct them before they try to type it out however.
  • selfawareMammal 3y ago
    But when you say hybrid, does that mean people can go to the office if they want or they're controlled and forced to go at least X days?
• ChatGTP 3y ago
  Does anyone else feel like this mostly undermines the entire point of "tech" and "the web"? What the hell is the point of having a hyper connected, super charged by AI world, when ultimately it boils down to having to "go to an office"? I honestly feel like 95% of tech is smoke and mirrors, the people who own "tech" know this so they end up just asking people to come back to work to help them sell advertisements, which seems like the only way we know how to make money from all this "innovation". It's really quite mad.
  • ozgung 3y ago
    Great point. For at least the last three decades, everything in tech is about "connectivity", "mobility", "cyberspace" and recently "telepresence" and "metaverse". And yet, the solution they use for themselves an 18th century invention: the office building.
  • adammunich 3y ago
    it's about control
    • ChatGTP 3y ago
      What control would one gain over someone by being in the office? I work for a remote, I can get fired if I'm not performing just like anyone else.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• gorgoiler 3y ago
  Is there some kind of standards-document available for what makes an office comfortable? I love the collaboration of office work but I also am extremely uncomfortable with bright light, a lack of good food, and a computer setup dictated by others. It’s not enough of a distraction to want to walk away from the job — the work is great and the engineers are smart — but there’s this general lack of care and attention to detail in my workplace that makes it far inferior to my own home. A set of core values to share with my office manager would be great. Another idea would be to find some kind of training for them in how to turn an impersonal office space into a cared-for home-from-home. Something like Patty McCord’s / Netflix’s employee handbook, but for lighting, desks, colors, and espresso machines. It sounds so ridiculously trivial and entitled, but in business we are always trying to stay ahead of our competitors yet when it comes to the workplace the competition is gorgoiler’s home, which is stiff competition indeed.
  • RangerScience 3y ago
    I don't think so? I feel like that's the sort of thing that'd make the front page here, and I haven't seen something like it in a decade. It's a good idea tho!
  • maccard 3y ago
    That couldn't really exist as people are different and want different things. Using just the "espress machines" category, my partner hates light roasted third wave coffee and I like it. The only way to win is to have both a small roasters beans and Starbucks or equivalent beans.
• wly_cdgr 3y ago
  Cool, I don't want to work at Google anymore.
  • tucnak 3y ago
    They don't care
    • wly_cdgr 3y ago
      Their loss
      • Mashimo 3y ago
        Is it though?
        • wly_cdgr 3y ago
          I don't care
  • otabdeveloper4 3y ago
    Wow, you're quite lucky, because Google doesn't want you working for them either.
    • wly_cdgr 3y ago
      Nothing wrong with a win win
• johnthescott 3y ago
  what is missing from remote work is the casual learning when folks are standing in front of you. i miss those exchanges during remote work. what i do NOT like about working in office is the bloody commute. as a contractor, the simple fix is to charge much more when traveling. we charge by the week, not the day nor the hour, for example, discounts given for monthly stays.
  • Brystephor 3y ago
    Maybe it's just my work experience, but I've learned nothing more since coming to the office. The majority of conversations that happen near me are between people in their native language which I do not understand. So maybe it could be happening, but if it is, it's not happening for me
• uwagar 3y ago
  corporations are the totalitarian regimes of humanity.
• iamnotsure 3y ago
  "Going forward" does not mean not going in circles.
• nathias 3y ago
  I'm at least 2x as productive remotely than in the office. Even if commuting didn't waste my time for no reason and I'd like to hang out with people at the office I don't think it would be a good idea.
  • avocabros 3y ago
    Wat? 2x? You can lock yourself in a conf room in the office and...it'll be effectively the same as if you were remote, right? I don't see the reasoning
    • danielbln 3y ago
      All the people in here that can lock themselves into conference rooms for 8h, makes me wonder why companies even have open plan offices to begin with. I know that if I squat a conference room at all times, I'd get an ear full. Also conference rooms are for conferences, not for long term focused work at an ergonomic desk. Other things that make me more productive at home: I'm in an environment I like, surrounded by my wife and pet, at a desk that is just dialed in to how I like it, with very few distractions, zero commute means more sleep, kitchen at home means better food, proximity to my house means I can do some chores while on break etc.
    • nkjnlknlk 3y ago
      Are you as comfortable in an office as at home? When I'm in office I can't wait to get home. When I'm WFH I don't think about time I think about tasks.
• golemiprague 3y ago
  [dead]
• erfgh 3y ago
  Fully expect most people in the discussion to be pro-remote-work. But does anyone have hard evidence that working from home is as productive as working in the office?
  • sensanaty 3y ago
    Me personally, I couldn't give the slightest hint of a shit about of it truly is more productive or not, I just know that I personally will never in my life step foot in an office ever again
  • alkonaut 3y ago
    It depends (Thanks senior developer!). On the type of work, on the organization. On one extreme you have me: I do 7.5h of focused "alone work" a day. And if I went to my office, none of the people I work with would be there, as they'd be in offices in other countries. We aren't a fast paced startup and our office has individual closed-door offices for each employee. So basically IF I went to the office I'd be sitting in a room by myself doing 7.5h of programming and 30 minutes of video calls to other countries. It's not going to be more productive there. Scientific studies, as always, will be hard to find. On the other extreme you have other people with other tasks and in other kinds of organizations. In reality though the biggest productivity boost for me is the lack of commute. Because let's face it, I'm not going to commute an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening AND be eight hours ass-in-seat. 10-11 hours away from home. It didn't happen when I did work in an office and it certainly won't happen now. The solution most did I guess was being creative and doing emails or calls while commuting. I had to pick up kids at school or kindergarten at say 3-4PM regardless of whether or not that school was an hour away or two minutes. That meant I often left the office at 2-3pm if commuting. Now I can do kid pickups, do 8h of ass-in-seat all in 8h per day (which is basically the total time of one day that I'm willing to allocate to my employer).
  • 000ooo000 3y ago
    If 'hard evidence' that WFO is superior to WFH were so easy to come by, organisations would be having a far easier time justifying their RTO antics.
  • avocabros 3y ago
• kanbara 3y ago
  one thing that i feel will come to a head is that there are many reasonable accommodations for wfh (family issues, health, flexibility, a11y) which i support, but that there is a growing resentment and classism associated with wfh. i love that people can wfh 100% and spend time in their _favourite_ place and raise their kids and see their family and do whatever they want, but it's quite possibly the most privileged position to be in globally. i wish that people put as much emphasis on their communities and raising wages and transforming their cities as they do about their absolute hatred of offices. i _support_ wfh, but some of the takes are pretty insufferable. "i want to be there for my kids" yeah so does EVERYONE. most workers cannot do that, must live very far away especially in the bay area, and don't have the resources to have a large enough space to do their job remotely, if they can do so at all. i feel so much sadness and pity for the state of affairs witnessing how privileged tech workers act. feels a lot like urban flight all over again, but this time instead of race, it's just wealth. i don't know how to support both wfh and a reasonable equitable society like that in europe, at least not with 40k FAANG workers demanding that they live their life how they want, when they want, where they want.
  • Devasta 3y ago
    With your view of the world, no one can campaign for any improvement in their conditions if there is someone who has it worse than them.
  • jlengrand 3y ago
    > i love that people can wfh 100% and spend time in their _favourite_ place and raise their kids and see their family and do whatever they want, but it's quite possibly the most privileged position to be in globally. i wish that people put as much emphasis on their communities and raising wages and transforming their cities as they do about their absolute hatred of offices. Very much agree, WFH is super privileged. Though I'd argue it's actually much easier for me with kids to help transform my city while WFH. Because I have more time to have workers at home, I can lunch out during the day, I can take a couple hours to participate in the local communities during the day (sports club for example) or simply use the local services while still managing a full day of work. With the commute and the office, the only thing I'm able to do is go home as fast as possible to get my kids back from school and go home to be with them. (oh and that's without counting actually helping the folks who have to be in the workplace, by reducing traffic and decongestioning after work opening hours)
• 5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
  if a company needs you at the office then they should pay for your travel as a minimum.
  • whywhywhywhy 3y ago
    I'm cool with remote peoples travel being paid for if I get the same money towards my mortgage when I can walk in.
    • 5350-uiop-1130 3y ago
      choosing where to live is a personal choice. choosing where to work isn't.
• scotty79 3y ago
  Is there any research about why companies might want people to come back to the office?
• danielrpa 3y ago
  This is the genius plan by Sundar Pichai, who prefers to blame WFH than himself for Google's failures.
• Tiktaalik 3y ago
  Google famous for being so particular about having data to justify their decisions, even down to the color of blue in the css. Do they have data to back this move up? Data that suggests that WFH is less effective? Or are they just annoyed that their expenditure on office real estate is being wasted?
  • nextlevelwizard 3y ago
    >Data that suggests that WFH is less effective? If you even have to ask this, you haven't interacted with many normal people working from home. Homes are full of distractions, especially if you have small kids. I bet your normal young dev with small child at home (even with their spouse taking care of the kid) does half as much work as they could have had they been at the office. Yes. yes. offices have brain drain in form of small talk and whatever, but at least you in a different environment and detached from your home. And yes there are some people who have the luxury of separate home office and if you dont have kids then that could easily be better for you. However we aren't maximizing only you but your team, your department, and ideally whole company.
    • switch007 3y ago
      > Homes are full of distractions My office has a loud sales team, a loud sales bell, chairs that nearly touch each other back-to-back, A/C that dries out my throat, people who spend 20 minutes chatting at desks, stupid policies that I can't keep up with (and daily moaning about something in Slack) and lots of viruses. My office has none of that. The biggest distraction is the nice view out of my window. Horses for courses and YMMV All it took was a little discipline not to be tempted to some chores doing the day. Pretty easy to overcome that
      • switch007 3y ago
        (Oops, the second "My office" should be "My home office")
    • Tiktaalik 3y ago
      The guy insisting on having an hours long zoom meeting at his desk is actually a lot more distracting than my cat. (I've mentioned to my boss that we should ban zoom meetings at desks and force people to use meeting rooms, but doesn't seem like anyone is listening to me yet)
• moi2388 3y ago
  Maybe they should focus on launching ANY successful product since 2009?!
• shp0ngle 3y ago
  I will say. I'm gonna be burned for this here, but... yeah I can tell that remote is far less effective. As a worker I like it! And there are some positives - mainly, you don't have to commute and live in a cheaper place. But as a manager, I see that it's just so far less effective, and I see how much more we can do it we meet together once in a while. One thing that's good is that it gives you access to a bigger talent pool, and you can pay people less, because they are happy they can work remote. I was originally against hybrid, because it's not really one thing or other thing, but now I start to see its positives too.
  • t-writescode 3y ago
    And at my company, we've seen performance and throughput improvements across the board that the managers themselves agree with :)
    • data_maan 3y ago
      [flagged]
      • serial_dev 3y ago
        Do you mean to ask if I sent three of my colleagues on a multi-year doctorate research program for a question that everybody seems to already know the answer to and is in agreement, or if I let my team work on my product?
        • data_maan 3y ago
          Sounds like you're a decision maker and you told like being told your decision are being made on a fragile basis. :) Let me tell you that the history of statistics is littered with unsound, but plausible looking decisions, to which "everyone already knew the answer". One example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias So yes, that's exactly what I mean. Though if they need multi-year training for a simple A/B test, then you should fire them :)
• data_maan 3y ago
  Everyone is talking about commute time and noise issues when it comes to going to the office. No one has mentioned the smell. Some office reek of fear. In other you can smell stress. When it rains and it's hot, there a diffuse sense of sweat from all the people swetting inside the office. Yet in other ones, usually the poorly built ones, there's a strong sense of plastic. The smell of the building is usually a constant background smell. Brick and mortar buildings smell much better than a glassy skyscraper with constant climatization. Is no one bothered by that? Usually home, or the local park, smell much better. I prefer to work in public parks rather than office.for exactly that reason.