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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 _

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
ngrilly 3y ago
In which city was it? Sounds like a nice place. I live and work in Stockholm and it's similar to what you described.
dontupvoteme 3y ago
It's really telling how those of us in Europe have much different opinions than those of us in America. The office was horrible back there, here I enjoy going in tuesday-thursday.
jimsimmons 3y ago
Europeans or literally anyone else are nicer workplace people. American Corp culture is toxic af. Money thirst, shameless self promotion, competition etc really make you anxious all the time.
- mupuff1234 3y ago
  A big portion of the employee base of American tech corporations isn't even American - so nicer than who exactly?
  - jimsimmons 3y ago
    Culture and nationality are different things. Competitiveness and toxicity go hand in hand
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  I haven’t found my European colleagues to be any nicer than the American ones. In fact, they’re often more straightforward in ways that would seem inappropriate or cruel in America. What they are not, however, is so deeply motivated by fear that if they lose their job, they’ll lose their house/health insurance/families, be labeled a worthless outcast by society etc. That seems to be the primary difference in determining how toxic people’s behavior is in the workplace.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - jimsimmons 3y ago
    Definitely. I didn’t mean Americans are toxic. Workplace makes them different people though
  - zeroonetwothree 3y ago
    Most of the engineers I know aren’t worried about getting another job. Everyone I know laid off from Big Tech the past year found another job instantly. Probably it’s more true for other roles
smt88 3y ago
There's a growing consensus that most people like having an office to go to (more social, separated from kids/partners, etc.) but hate to commute. As a thought experiment, people should ask themselves: if I could walk 5 min to my office, would I still want to work from home?
- RMPR 3y ago
  > I could walk 5 min to my office, would I still want to work from home? I walk 5 min to my office and I still want to work from home most of the time. I like going to the office as well, but I prefer staying home.
- lexandstuff 3y ago
  It's not just the commute. It is so hard to focus in an open-plan office, which most tech companies still insist on.
- Asmilex 3y ago
  I live in a relatively small city of Spain, working for a considerably big consulting company. It takes 30 minutes to walk to the office from my home, and I'm on remote 1-2 days a week. This is a lovely balance. While the vast majority of my team is distributed across the country (and Europe, too), having the flexibility to stay at home or work alongside colleagues from other projects is great. Need to focus on development one day? I'll stay at home, since it is more peaceful and my equipment is better (long live big screens with high refresh rates). Want to not worry about cooking and have lunch with other people? I'll go to the office. I'm also quite active too. It can be a bit tedious, but walking at least 6km everyday does wonders for your health. Specially since I'm a type 1 diabetic. Nevertheless, my contractor is far from perfect (I could rant for hours about how absolutely crap our company laptops are for developers). But it seems like these kinds of situations can only happen in small, compact cities; which is usually the case for Europeans and rarely for US cities. I'd highly recommend hybrid to anyone who can afford it, but, as always, your mileage may vary
  - intelthrow6 3y ago
    Off-topic: but do you know how the college/university situation is in Spain vis-a-vis Americans and PhDs? I’m going to be doing one in mainland Europe, and a friend has recommended Spain and Portugal.
bugglebeetle 3y ago
I went to Europe on a work retreat with all my coworkers last month, ~1/2 of whom are based there, and came to the same conclusion. “Oh, it’s actually just America that is so wildly inhospitable, not being back in the office.”
- ghaff 3y ago
  When I visit Europe for business, etc. I tend to stay in core downtown. A lot of my co-workers in Europe don't actually do that and drive to an office outside the city.
  - bugglebeetle 3y ago
    For me, it’s more about the habitability of the European cities themselves than anything related to the relative commutes. It’s quite nice to be able to step outside the office for lunch or a coffee, sit in the park, and see others (of all ages) enjoying well-designed public spaces. Thats mostly impossible outside a handful of major metropolitan areas in the US, and then there, largely only in specific, wealthy neighborhoods. You have to get in a car, drive to Panera or whatever other miserable chain, quickly eat your microwaved meal, and then drive back before your break is over.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Yes, although where I work, most of our main European offices are not in the city. (This is true in North America as well.) We have some smaller satellite offices in cities proper but they're mostly for customer and other visits.
pradn 3y ago
I work about 10 min away from the Chelsea Google office in NYC. It's just like you said. I usually start my day reading near my apartment and then going to the office. The subway is right under the building, so I can often get to where I'm going after work conveniently. The pharmacy and groceries are on the way home. When I'm not feeling well, I just go home to rest. Or if I'm need to go home and wait for a package. But lower Manhattan is one of the few pockets of "European-style" walkable areas in the country.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  When I lived in Chelsea, Google contacted me and insisted I fly out to San Francisco for a curated tour of Mountain View “Where leadership roles had to be” I said I wanted to walk to work to the giant billion dollar office down the street, I love Chelsea, I love the Meatpacking District, I love the Highline and the things around that office, I love models But “roles with direct reports had to be in mountain view” and they assured me I would be so impressed with the highly coveted Mountain View and highly coveted Google the only thing seared in my brain from that trip was standing at an elevator that had a warning sign that I might get cancer if I use it, in the middle of a sprawling boring unwalkable suburb and a janitor being my best source at the time that its a boilerplate disclaimer. He was right. But that was my experience.
  - smsm42 3y ago
    Ah prop 65 warnings. They are literally everywhere in California. I wish I could say it's the most stupid thing in California, but unfortunately there are many more. California's voters like it that way.
  - lisasays 3y ago
    Can you tell us more about the cancer elevator, please?
    - yieldcrv 3y ago
      “Prop 65 warnings” are a California-ism where they got the people to vote on a good idea(tm) of having a carcinogen database, and then soon after that, a lawyer saw he could sue everyone and win and did, so to prevent that everyone puts unconfirmed carcinogen disclaimers on everything to the point that it is useless. Fast forward to me being flown out to California and having to make a judgement call at the cancer elevator.
tayo42 3y ago
do you live in europe or are you an american on a working vacation? if the later, it might just be the novelty of it making it interesting or the location of the hotel and office being close
eBombzor 3y ago
I go to an office where they have the AC running on full blast. It's insane, I'm freezing inside, and then outside it's like 90 F. Why do office people do this? Is it like that in EU or is it just a NA thing? Imagining your scenario is like utopia to me. I hate going on the bus, always some crazy homeless person there, but I don't want to pay for parking either. I wouldn't mind the office if it was like that. Safe and easy to get to. What a dream.
- mcv 3y ago
  Big offices in the EU often do have AC, and sometimes have it set too cold. Smaller companies in older buildings often don't have AC and a much more pleasant atmosphere as a result. I'm not a fan of AC, but apparently some people like it. Also a reason to work from home: you work in an environment that you control, and aren't at the mercy of Facilities.
- xur17 3y ago
  My last in person employer was exactly described. I wore a sweatshirt in the summer, but my hands were always cold, and I looked forward to walking to lunch to warm up a bit.
- chrisbolt 3y ago
  Could you clarify what temperature "freezing" was?
  - skirmish 3y ago
    It's usually a ventilation duct aimed at your head and blowing cold air at you the whole day. Temperature could be around 70 degrees but it gets chilly when it is blowing at you all the time.
    - zeroonetwothree 3y ago
      That seems like poor design, proper ventilation shouldn’t be directly aimed at any humans. But 70 degrees seems like a very standard temperature for indoors, I wouldn’t consider that cold.
kylec 3y ago
Are offices in Europe open offices like in the US? Because those are a big reason why I prefer to work from home
- mcv 3y ago
  I've worked in a lot of open offices in Europe, but they're not the hellish places that American open offices seem to be from what I keep hearing about them. Well, one was: at Adyen, way too many people in a single room, on tiny desks, with nothing to separate different teams. That looked like a terrible place to work.
- jenadine 3y ago
  Depends on the company
nonethewiser 3y ago
> Its a couple blocks away. From what? Your home? Hotel?
jemmyw 3y ago
I agree. I used to occasionally take my daughter into the office in Copenhagen when she was 5. The first time I thought I'd have to sacrifice some of my work time to make sure she was Ok and stop her getting underfoot / disrupting anyone else. Instead she got taken away by the design department to help make company videos. When I worked for the same company in America - no way. I wouldn't have even tried.
- WirelessGigabit 3y ago
  I guess you work in the wrong location then. I see people taking their kids to work quite often.
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  To me as someone without children, if I worked in that design department and was forced to work from the office, they’d have my resignation the morning of the second time this happened. Get a babysitter or work from home. I didn’t chose for people to have children that they miss all day. I shouldn’t be burdened at work by their choice. At least not twice.
  - jemmyw 3y ago
    Nobody was obligated to do anything. We had a lot of space in the office and she could have happily watched TV on her laptop and done some coloring in the corner with me. I would have left if she was disruptive, but she was very calm. The design department came and took her because they wanted to. I didn't ask them to look after her, I was actually reluctant to let her get involved. I would never have asked someone else to look after my kid, they actively wanted to involve her and asked me about bringing her in again. I think in the circumstances your resignation would have made you look a total prat.
  - killjoywashere 3y ago
    Because a 5 year old was present?
    - unsupp0rted 3y ago
hintymad 3y ago
I always wonder why city centers in Europe and Asia feel so safe and prosperous, while many US cities are like, you know.
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  There’s kind of an obvious answer that starts with the letter ‘g’
  - bart_spoon 3y ago
    No, it’s not guns. They probably don’t help, but I think that’s way too simplistic. I’m not worried at all about having a gun pulled on me in San Francisco, but it can feel quite unsafe at times due to rampant drug use and untreated mental illness, burglary and theft, and general unsanitary conditions. I think it’s far more deep rooted in an American culture of hyper-individualism and anti-social behavior, said untreated mental illness and drug addiction, and poverty. Take guns away and I think 90% of the problem remains.
- anonyfox 3y ago
  working social systems instead of neoliberal theocrats with weapons/police/prison-complex. Cities are walkable by design (most built before there were cars at all) and you can clearly correlate quality/quantity of public transport with quality of live. More money ends up in regional projects/maintenance of public goods instead of either going into private billionaires pockets (trickle down!!…) and/or military industrial complex. Specifically China: high coverage of CCTV and effective police forces. Like it or not, but even young women feel save going alone through a big city at night. Specifically Japan: society is very collectivistic and people go out of their way to not even disturb others. People even carry their trash in their pocket instead of throwing it on the streets. Specifically Europe: the richer you are, the higher the chances you live close to a city centre, villages/suburbs are for poor people/families/weirdos.
User23 3y ago
Where in Europe? It's not a big place, but there are some pretty major regional differences, even within countries.
- lost_tourist 3y ago
  Europe isn't a big place? 400,000,000+ people O_O
  - Shorel 3y ago
    Well, I find that to be true. It is a highly populated region, without the empty distances found in America.
- Mashimo 3y ago
  > It's not a big place It's about the same size as continental US of A. Quite big I say.
irrational 3y ago
I live about 2 miles from my work. The campus is beautiful. The building are gorgeous. The work environment is top notch. Between my house and campus is a nice 15 minute bike ride on paths through forests. It’s quite a nice and easy ride. Or I could drive there in about the same amount of time. I hate it. I completely refuse to go in. I am working from home until they fire me.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  Out of curiosity, what makes WFH so compelling in that situation?
  - irrational 3y ago
    I hate the time it takes to get ready. I hate the time commuting there and back. I hate not being in my own home. I hate having to pack a lunch. I hate not seeing my family as frequently.
    - XajniN 3y ago
      This. No one is talking about the little things. My commute is around half an hour in one direction, and it’s mostly enjoyable (7-8 minutes walking, 22 minutes in metro). What I hate is getting ready. My first meeting is at 10am, and I have to wake up at least at 8 if I’m going to the office (have a bite, take my dog out, shower and stuff). If I’m working from home, I can get up at 9:45. While having colleagues around is sometimes beneficial, everything else is worse. My chair at home is more comfortable, I can keep the light dimmed, I can fart freely, I don’t have to wear shoes all day, etc.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
jowdones 3y ago
I live in Europe (well, Eastern Europe) and couldn't afford to live in an apartment close to the office, so my commute from / to the suburb is 1.5 hours each way, I'd literally get mental health problems at 3 hours a day in the traffic. So no way I'm returning to the office. Almost all employers here state at least hybrid work (3 office + 2 home) on paper but in reality with tacit acceptance from management it's nearly 100% remote only, with occasional meetup in the office. Like once per sprint or even less.
- rtontic 3y ago
  Funny, me experience is quite opposite. Also in eastern europe, takes me 30 minutes on foot to get to the office. And the walk is quite enjoyable!
- prox 3y ago
  Have you been feeling better now that you work from home?
  - jowdones 3y ago
    yes
selfawareMammal 3y ago
European engineer here. All you said is totally valid, but still, what people complain here is "forcing" to go back to the office. What advantage does forcing people to work out of their homes bring? It can only be justified with "companies don't trust their employees"
- MrScruff 3y ago
  I’ve heard a lot of people saying ‘Why should I return to the office, I’m just as productive at home.’ at my work. And many people are, for the parts of their job which require little collaboration. But the company (via the leadership) sees this type of low collaboration work as being only a component of their jobs and so mandates hybrid working. Individual employees may disagree, but they’re not the ones responsible for running the company, and they can’t pick and choose which components of their job they want to engage in.
  - theonlybutlet 3y ago
    Probably a case of management not understanding the job at hand. Certain jobs basically don't require true collaboration, actions are limited by process and rules. It's basically just a conversation they're getting, one that could be had via phone, video call or even email/teams/slack.
    - MrScruff 3y ago
      I'm sure that's true for certain jobs at certain levels, but in my industry most people need to closely collaborate with people from different disciplines on an almost daily basis.
expertentipp 3y ago
> My company has offices in Europe and I _love_ going to the office over there. Hate it in America. Love it in Europe I was in US only once for business travel, in large city. Seeing the sea of people during rush hours on the sidewalk and in trains, moving towards dense "downtown" looked like every hollywood movie, in negative way. I like commuting by bicycle in European cities.
- leoedin 3y ago
  Lots of people commuting to the city centre isn't a US thing. Paris and London are the same - and I'm sure other cities I haven't experienced. It's a big city thing.
pony_sheared 3y ago
It's the toilet cubicles. Americans have renormalised having a communal poo like the Romans.
kjeksfjes 3y ago
I live in Europe. And love working from home. It's not that I hate going to the office, but it's so convenient to have the possibility work from home, since some days I need to focus. I often get much more done from home, since the workplace has a lot of distractions. I also have a family, and I get much more time with them. I think Google would benefit from giving a little slack there.
throwaway2037 3y ago
The city is so safe he could take the subway on his own if he wanted to. What city!? Tokyo or Seoul, I could believe it was that safe for children, but continental Europe? Certainly not London.
- foldr 3y ago
  The subway is perfectly safe for kids in London. You see unaccompanied kids on it all the time.
  - rcpt 3y ago
    Yeah but the crosswalks
    - foldr 3y ago
      ?
- sschueller 3y ago
  Zürich Switzerland or any other city/town in Switzerland. You will see very young kids going to school alone taking public transport. They are taught at an early age how to deal with crosswalks etc. (In Switzerland all traffic is required to stop at a cross walk for pedestrians, there is only an exception for trams and buses however those will stop for children), waiting until the car has completely stopped and only then crossing. School kids also all wear a high visibility type sash on their commute.
  - trallnag 3y ago
    This is a bad example. Zürich is a tiny city compared to behemoths like London, Paris, and Berlin.
    - JanSt 3y ago
      is it only allowed to live in behemoths?
godelski 3y ago
For me it is less about distance from home/commute, but isolation/distractions. It is easy to get distracted and unless I have an office where I can __close a door__, I want to work from home (I live alone). I'd prefer the office. I don't need isolation all the time. But when I do, it is critical or I'm not getting any work done. It is already difficult enough with Slack and everything pinging me all the time, despite trying to minimize notifications I can receive (I'm religious about this). People @channel instead of @here, so even muted channels ping me. Every app has poor notifications that are "get a billion pings", "in theory this work, in practice you get the same", and "no notifications." (seriously, how is this not solved?) I can't do the latter or my boss gets mad, and the other two just ping me all day. It's false positive overload. At least in the office I can turn off all my notifications, turn my computer on focus mode, turn my music up, and rely on the fact that if someone really needs me, they'll __knock on my door__ (or have someone do it for them). But many places have open floor plans or cubicles, and these are worse than slack. Don't get me wrong, I love the collaboration and I think being localized does help people work as a team. Whiteboard collaborations are an essential tool when working as a team. But at the same time, there are times where I need to just be left alone to get my work done. The door lets me clearly visually communicate this to my coworkers. So give me an office with a door (don't cheat with a glass room) or send me home. You're paying me to work, right? Give me a door.
nextlevelwizard 3y ago
It sure does feel like most anti-office people do complain about multi hour commutes and being stuck in traffic or whatever. That is very much American issue.

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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

ngrilly 3y ago

In which city was it? Sounds like a nice place. I live and work in Stockholm and it's similar to what you described.

dontupvoteme 3y ago

It's really telling how those of us in Europe have much different opinions than those of us in America. The office was horrible back there, here I enjoy going in tuesday-thursday.

jimsimmons 3y ago

Europeans or literally anyone else are nicer workplace people. American Corp culture is toxic af. Money thirst, shameless self promotion, competition etc really make you anxious all the time.

mupuff1234 3y ago
A big portion of the employee base of American tech corporations isn't even American - so nicer than who exactly?
- jimsimmons 3y ago
  Culture and nationality are different things. Competitiveness and toxicity go hand in hand
bugglebeetle 3y ago
I haven’t found my European colleagues to be any nicer than the American ones. In fact, they’re often more straightforward in ways that would seem inappropriate or cruel in America. What they are not, however, is so deeply motivated by fear that if they lose their job, they’ll lose their house/health insurance/families, be labeled a worthless outcast by society etc. That seems to be the primary difference in determining how toxic people’s behavior is in the workplace.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jimsimmons 3y ago
  Definitely. I didn’t mean Americans are toxic. Workplace makes them different people though
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  Most of the engineers I know aren’t worried about getting another job. Everyone I know laid off from Big Tech the past year found another job instantly. Probably it’s more true for other roles

smt88 3y ago

There's a growing consensus that most people like having an office to go to (more social, separated from kids/partners, etc.) but hate to commute. As a thought experiment, people should ask themselves: if I could walk 5 min to my office, would I still want to work from home?

RMPR 3y ago
> I could walk 5 min to my office, would I still want to work from home? I walk 5 min to my office and I still want to work from home most of the time. I like going to the office as well, but I prefer staying home.
lexandstuff 3y ago
It's not just the commute. It is so hard to focus in an open-plan office, which most tech companies still insist on.
Asmilex 3y ago
I live in a relatively small city of Spain, working for a considerably big consulting company. It takes 30 minutes to walk to the office from my home, and I'm on remote 1-2 days a week. This is a lovely balance. While the vast majority of my team is distributed across the country (and Europe, too), having the flexibility to stay at home or work alongside colleagues from other projects is great. Need to focus on development one day? I'll stay at home, since it is more peaceful and my equipment is better (long live big screens with high refresh rates). Want to not worry about cooking and have lunch with other people? I'll go to the office. I'm also quite active too. It can be a bit tedious, but walking at least 6km everyday does wonders for your health. Specially since I'm a type 1 diabetic. Nevertheless, my contractor is far from perfect (I could rant for hours about how absolutely crap our company laptops are for developers). But it seems like these kinds of situations can only happen in small, compact cities; which is usually the case for Europeans and rarely for US cities. I'd highly recommend hybrid to anyone who can afford it, but, as always, your mileage may vary
- intelthrow6 3y ago
  Off-topic: but do you know how the college/university situation is in Spain vis-a-vis Americans and PhDs? I’m going to be doing one in mainland Europe, and a friend has recommended Spain and Portugal.

bugglebeetle 3y ago

I went to Europe on a work retreat with all my coworkers last month, ~1/2 of whom are based there, and came to the same conclusion. “Oh, it’s actually just America that is so wildly inhospitable, not being back in the office.”

ghaff 3y ago
When I visit Europe for business, etc. I tend to stay in core downtown. A lot of my co-workers in Europe don't actually do that and drive to an office outside the city.
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  For me, it’s more about the habitability of the European cities themselves than anything related to the relative commutes. It’s quite nice to be able to step outside the office for lunch or a coffee, sit in the park, and see others (of all ages) enjoying well-designed public spaces. Thats mostly impossible outside a handful of major metropolitan areas in the US, and then there, largely only in specific, wealthy neighborhoods. You have to get in a car, drive to Panera or whatever other miserable chain, quickly eat your microwaved meal, and then drive back before your break is over.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Yes, although where I work, most of our main European offices are not in the city. (This is true in North America as well.) We have some smaller satellite offices in cities proper but they're mostly for customer and other visits.

pradn 3y ago

I work about 10 min away from the Chelsea Google office in NYC. It's just like you said. I usually start my day reading near my apartment and then going to the office. The subway is right under the building, so I can often get to where I'm going after work conveniently. The pharmacy and groceries are on the way home. When I'm not feeling well, I just go home to rest. Or if I'm need to go home and wait for a package. But lower Manhattan is one of the few pockets of "European-style" walkable areas in the country.

yieldcrv 3y ago
When I lived in Chelsea, Google contacted me and insisted I fly out to San Francisco for a curated tour of Mountain View “Where leadership roles had to be” I said I wanted to walk to work to the giant billion dollar office down the street, I love Chelsea, I love the Meatpacking District, I love the Highline and the things around that office, I love models But “roles with direct reports had to be in mountain view” and they assured me I would be so impressed with the highly coveted Mountain View and highly coveted Google the only thing seared in my brain from that trip was standing at an elevator that had a warning sign that I might get cancer if I use it, in the middle of a sprawling boring unwalkable suburb and a janitor being my best source at the time that its a boilerplate disclaimer. He was right. But that was my experience.
- smsm42 3y ago
  Ah prop 65 warnings. They are literally everywhere in California. I wish I could say it's the most stupid thing in California, but unfortunately there are many more. California's voters like it that way.
- lisasays 3y ago
  Can you tell us more about the cancer elevator, please?
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    “Prop 65 warnings” are a California-ism where they got the people to vote on a good idea(tm) of having a carcinogen database, and then soon after that, a lawyer saw he could sue everyone and win and did, so to prevent that everyone puts unconfirmed carcinogen disclaimers on everything to the point that it is useless. Fast forward to me being flown out to California and having to make a judgement call at the cancer elevator.

tayo42 3y ago

do you live in europe or are you an american on a working vacation? if the later, it might just be the novelty of it making it interesting or the location of the hotel and office being close

eBombzor 3y ago

I go to an office where they have the AC running on full blast. It's insane, I'm freezing inside, and then outside it's like 90 F. Why do office people do this? Is it like that in EU or is it just a NA thing? Imagining your scenario is like utopia to me. I hate going on the bus, always some crazy homeless person there, but I don't want to pay for parking either. I wouldn't mind the office if it was like that. Safe and easy to get to. What a dream.

mcv 3y ago
Big offices in the EU often do have AC, and sometimes have it set too cold. Smaller companies in older buildings often don't have AC and a much more pleasant atmosphere as a result. I'm not a fan of AC, but apparently some people like it. Also a reason to work from home: you work in an environment that you control, and aren't at the mercy of Facilities.
xur17 3y ago
My last in person employer was exactly described. I wore a sweatshirt in the summer, but my hands were always cold, and I looked forward to walking to lunch to warm up a bit.
chrisbolt 3y ago
Could you clarify what temperature "freezing" was?
- skirmish 3y ago
  It's usually a ventilation duct aimed at your head and blowing cold air at you the whole day. Temperature could be around 70 degrees but it gets chilly when it is blowing at you all the time.
  - zeroonetwothree 3y ago
    That seems like poor design, proper ventilation shouldn’t be directly aimed at any humans. But 70 degrees seems like a very standard temperature for indoors, I wouldn’t consider that cold.

kylec 3y ago

Are offices in Europe open offices like in the US? Because those are a big reason why I prefer to work from home

mcv 3y ago
I've worked in a lot of open offices in Europe, but they're not the hellish places that American open offices seem to be from what I keep hearing about them. Well, one was: at Adyen, way too many people in a single room, on tiny desks, with nothing to separate different teams. That looked like a terrible place to work.
jenadine 3y ago
Depends on the company

nonethewiser 3y ago

> Its a couple blocks away. From what? Your home? Hotel?

jemmyw 3y ago

I agree. I used to occasionally take my daughter into the office in Copenhagen when she was 5. The first time I thought I'd have to sacrifice some of my work time to make sure she was Ok and stop her getting underfoot / disrupting anyone else. Instead she got taken away by the design department to help make company videos. When I worked for the same company in America - no way. I wouldn't have even tried.

WirelessGigabit 3y ago
I guess you work in the wrong location then. I see people taking their kids to work quite often.
unsupp0rted 3y ago
To me as someone without children, if I worked in that design department and was forced to work from the office, they’d have my resignation the morning of the second time this happened. Get a babysitter or work from home. I didn’t chose for people to have children that they miss all day. I shouldn’t be burdened at work by their choice. At least not twice.
- jemmyw 3y ago
  Nobody was obligated to do anything. We had a lot of space in the office and she could have happily watched TV on her laptop and done some coloring in the corner with me. I would have left if she was disruptive, but she was very calm. The design department came and took her because they wanted to. I didn't ask them to look after her, I was actually reluctant to let her get involved. I would never have asked someone else to look after my kid, they actively wanted to involve her and asked me about bringing her in again. I think in the circumstances your resignation would have made you look a total prat.
- killjoywashere 3y ago
  Because a 5 year old was present?
  - unsupp0rted 3y ago

hintymad 3y ago

I always wonder why city centers in Europe and Asia feel so safe and prosperous, while many US cities are like, you know.

zeroonetwothree 3y ago
There’s kind of an obvious answer that starts with the letter ‘g’
- bart_spoon 3y ago
  No, it’s not guns. They probably don’t help, but I think that’s way too simplistic. I’m not worried at all about having a gun pulled on me in San Francisco, but it can feel quite unsafe at times due to rampant drug use and untreated mental illness, burglary and theft, and general unsanitary conditions. I think it’s far more deep rooted in an American culture of hyper-individualism and anti-social behavior, said untreated mental illness and drug addiction, and poverty. Take guns away and I think 90% of the problem remains.
anonyfox 3y ago
working social systems instead of neoliberal theocrats with weapons/police/prison-complex. Cities are walkable by design (most built before there were cars at all) and you can clearly correlate quality/quantity of public transport with quality of live. More money ends up in regional projects/maintenance of public goods instead of either going into private billionaires pockets (trickle down!!…) and/or military industrial complex. Specifically China: high coverage of CCTV and effective police forces. Like it or not, but even young women feel save going alone through a big city at night. Specifically Japan: society is very collectivistic and people go out of their way to not even disturb others. People even carry their trash in their pocket instead of throwing it on the streets. Specifically Europe: the richer you are, the higher the chances you live close to a city centre, villages/suburbs are for poor people/families/weirdos.

User23 3y ago

Where in Europe? It's not a big place, but there are some pretty major regional differences, even within countries.

lost_tourist 3y ago
Europe isn't a big place? 400,000,000+ people O_O
- Shorel 3y ago
  Well, I find that to be true. It is a highly populated region, without the empty distances found in America.
Mashimo 3y ago
> It's not a big place It's about the same size as continental US of A. Quite big I say.

irrational 3y ago

I live about 2 miles from my work. The campus is beautiful. The building are gorgeous. The work environment is top notch. Between my house and campus is a nice 15 minute bike ride on paths through forests. It’s quite a nice and easy ride. Or I could drive there in about the same amount of time. I hate it. I completely refuse to go in. I am working from home until they fire me.

CoastalCoder 3y ago
Out of curiosity, what makes WFH so compelling in that situation?
- irrational 3y ago
  I hate the time it takes to get ready. I hate the time commuting there and back. I hate not being in my own home. I hate having to pack a lunch. I hate not seeing my family as frequently.
  - XajniN 3y ago
    This. No one is talking about the little things. My commute is around half an hour in one direction, and it’s mostly enjoyable (7-8 minutes walking, 22 minutes in metro). What I hate is getting ready. My first meeting is at 10am, and I have to wake up at least at 8 if I’m going to the office (have a bite, take my dog out, shower and stuff). If I’m working from home, I can get up at 9:45. While having colleagues around is sometimes beneficial, everything else is worse. My chair at home is more comfortable, I can keep the light dimmed, I can fart freely, I don’t have to wear shoes all day, etc.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

jowdones 3y ago

I live in Europe (well, Eastern Europe) and couldn't afford to live in an apartment close to the office, so my commute from / to the suburb is 1.5 hours each way, I'd literally get mental health problems at 3 hours a day in the traffic. So no way I'm returning to the office. Almost all employers here state at least hybrid work (3 office + 2 home) on paper but in reality with tacit acceptance from management it's nearly 100% remote only, with occasional meetup in the office. Like once per sprint or even less.

rtontic 3y ago
Funny, me experience is quite opposite. Also in eastern europe, takes me 30 minutes on foot to get to the office. And the walk is quite enjoyable!
prox 3y ago
Have you been feeling better now that you work from home?
- jowdones 3y ago
  yes

selfawareMammal 3y ago

European engineer here. All you said is totally valid, but still, what people complain here is "forcing" to go back to the office. What advantage does forcing people to work out of their homes bring? It can only be justified with "companies don't trust their employees"

MrScruff 3y ago
I’ve heard a lot of people saying ‘Why should I return to the office, I’m just as productive at home.’ at my work. And many people are, for the parts of their job which require little collaboration. But the company (via the leadership) sees this type of low collaboration work as being only a component of their jobs and so mandates hybrid working. Individual employees may disagree, but they’re not the ones responsible for running the company, and they can’t pick and choose which components of their job they want to engage in.
- theonlybutlet 3y ago
  Probably a case of management not understanding the job at hand. Certain jobs basically don't require true collaboration, actions are limited by process and rules. It's basically just a conversation they're getting, one that could be had via phone, video call or even email/teams/slack.
  - MrScruff 3y ago
    I'm sure that's true for certain jobs at certain levels, but in my industry most people need to closely collaborate with people from different disciplines on an almost daily basis.

expertentipp 3y ago

> My company has offices in Europe and I _love_ going to the office over there. Hate it in America. Love it in Europe I was in US only once for business travel, in large city. Seeing the sea of people during rush hours on the sidewalk and in trains, moving towards dense "downtown" looked like every hollywood movie, in negative way. I like commuting by bicycle in European cities.

leoedin 3y ago
Lots of people commuting to the city centre isn't a US thing. Paris and London are the same - and I'm sure other cities I haven't experienced. It's a big city thing.

pony_sheared 3y ago

It's the toilet cubicles. Americans have renormalised having a communal poo like the Romans.

kjeksfjes 3y ago

I live in Europe. And love working from home. It's not that I hate going to the office, but it's so convenient to have the possibility work from home, since some days I need to focus. I often get much more done from home, since the workplace has a lot of distractions. I also have a family, and I get much more time with them. I think Google would benefit from giving a little slack there.

throwaway2037 3y ago

The city is so safe he could take the subway on his own if he wanted to. What city!? Tokyo or Seoul, I could believe it was that safe for children, but continental Europe? Certainly not London.

foldr 3y ago
The subway is perfectly safe for kids in London. You see unaccompanied kids on it all the time.
- rcpt 3y ago
  Yeah but the crosswalks
  - foldr 3y ago
    ?
sschueller 3y ago
Zürich Switzerland or any other city/town in Switzerland. You will see very young kids going to school alone taking public transport. They are taught at an early age how to deal with crosswalks etc. (In Switzerland all traffic is required to stop at a cross walk for pedestrians, there is only an exception for trams and buses however those will stop for children), waiting until the car has completely stopped and only then crossing. School kids also all wear a high visibility type sash on their commute.
- trallnag 3y ago
  This is a bad example. Zürich is a tiny city compared to behemoths like London, Paris, and Berlin.
  - JanSt 3y ago
    is it only allowed to live in behemoths?

godelski 3y ago

For me it is less about distance from home/commute, but isolation/distractions. It is easy to get distracted and unless I have an office where I can __close a door__, I want to work from home (I live alone). I'd prefer the office. I don't need isolation all the time. But when I do, it is critical or I'm not getting any work done. It is already difficult enough with Slack and everything pinging me all the time, despite trying to minimize notifications I can receive (I'm religious about this). People @channel instead of @here, so even muted channels ping me. Every app has poor notifications that are "get a billion pings", "in theory this work, in practice you get the same", and "no notifications." (seriously, how is this not solved?) I can't do the latter or my boss gets mad, and the other two just ping me all day. It's false positive overload. At least in the office I can turn off all my notifications, turn my computer on focus mode, turn my music up, and rely on the fact that if someone really needs me, they'll __knock on my door__ (or have someone do it for them). But many places have open floor plans or cubicles, and these are worse than slack. Don't get me wrong, I love the collaboration and I think being localized does help people work as a team. Whiteboard collaborations are an essential tool when working as a team. But at the same time, there are times where I need to just be left alone to get my work done. The door lets me clearly visually communicate this to my coworkers. So give me an office with a door (don't cheat with a glass room) or send me home. You're paying me to work, right? Give me a door.

nextlevelwizard 3y ago

It sure does feel like most anti-office people do complain about multi hour commutes and being stuck in traffic or whatever. That is very much American issue.