r/technology
•
u/chrisdh79
•
Feb 23 '23
•
2
Google tells employees to share desks as it looks to cut costs | Google has a market cap of $1.18 trillion Business
https://www.techspot.com/news/97705-google-tells-employees-share-desks-looks-cut-costs.html17.2k
u/hells_cowbells
Feb 23 '23
•
"You must return to the office. We don't actually have anywhere for you to sit, but you must come into the office"
Brilliant!
1.1k
u/rexspook Feb 23 '23
This is AWS right now. A few weeks ago they switched to “agile” desks. Now they’re telling us we have to go to the office
309
u/hells_cowbells Feb 23 '23
Wow, that sucks.
402
u/rexspook Feb 23 '23
The internal memo was also very vague. No mention of what will happen to employees that do not live near an office. Especially those that are coded as virtual with no home office. Told we’d get more details soon, but the plan is effective May 1
→ More replies455
u/djn808 Feb 23 '23
I don't get how this ploy to not pay unemployment by getting them to quit instead will be successful. Telling someone you hired remotely 300 miles from your office to come in regularly sounds like open and shut constructive dismissal to me. Not even going that far. Telling all your employees to show up when you got rid of all your seating also sounds like an easy UI case win.
235
u/rexspook Feb 23 '23
Idk. I’m staying until they fire me for not coming in. As of right now I haven’t personally been told to come in. I think they’re still shaking that detail out. They really only have two options: allow us to continue working remotely or fire us. Both options should be fine from a legal standpoint for them
→ More replies→ More replies70
u/Sparrowflop Feb 23 '23
Because 'Amazon laid off X workers' is different from 'X workers quit' in the headlines.
Amazon famously over-hired during Covid, for obvious reasons, and is now settling down to running weight again. But if you terminate those employees it causes a backlash (see the previous month's news cycle on that), so you aim for constructive dismissal. You don't fight the cases where they apply for unemployment, because the majority won't, so you get out of having to pay a decent chunk of that, plus you avoid paying the California termination fees if they apply.
→ More replies98
u/piewhistle Feb 23 '23
“I need to talk to Gary. Good thing we’re both here in the office! Uhh, but where is he today? F-it, I’ll call him on Teams.”
→ More replies91
u/oupablo Feb 23 '23
"agile" desks is just a way of saying, "we don't even care about you enough to give you your own space employee 32718715."
I kind of get the idea of having a space set aside for people that are in sporadically (i.e. a couple times a month/year) that can be shared. I don't get it for someone that is supposed to be in there all the time.
→ More replies56
u/mindrover Feb 23 '23
Agile desks sounds like the next Boston Dynamics project.
When you have a meeting, your whole desk gets up and trots over to the conference room.
→ More replies→ More replies136
u/Darth_Innovader Feb 23 '23
When my company implemented this I wrote a detailed case about how shared space would increase germs and risk of illness. They ignored it and then Covid hit. I quit smugly.
→ More replies73
u/rexspook Feb 23 '23
I haven’t been to the office, but there have been mentions in slack of how gross desks are left. It also just totally eliminates one of their big reasons for wanting us to be in the office. The ability to go to a specific person and ask a question in person. How will I know which desk they’re at? What if they’re not there on the days I’m in office? It’s so stupid.
Also, at least I used to be able to personalize my work area. Now it’s like working in a noisy public co-working place every day
→ More replies5.2k
u/Enabling_Turtle Feb 23 '23 edited Feb 23 '23
That literally happening at my company. Fortune 500 company and my team has to have a seating calendar because they won’t give us desks (they actually took some away).
Edit: Since this is taking off, don’t even get me started on the fucking parking situation. You need a pass to park there, it’s supposed to take a couple days for them to get you the pass when you request one.
Currently sitting at multiple weeks with no pass, so I park in visitor (supposed to be time limited to a few hours parking). Security stopped me to ask why I parked there and I told them I’m waiting on a pass. They had the audacity to tell me to move the car before they tow it. My reply was to the effect of “listen man, I get your just doing your job, but there is nowhere to park here without a pass and I’m required to be here 3 days a week. The only reason I park there is because I don’t have a pass after multiple weeks waiting for one.”
No one has bothered me since, but still no pass…
420
u/bekunio Feb 23 '23
My company took it even further. They converted some desks to 'laptop usage only', but majority of people didn't get their business laptops yet (waiting time is 6+ months).
291
u/tehspiah Feb 23 '23
"we made this decision, but didn't inform the IT department, now get on buying laptops for 70% of our workforce"
I work in the IT department :( We have this issue, but on a smaller scale. Mostly with staff who quit and don't return their hardware, and that department not allocating budget for loaner laptops.
61
u/bekunio Feb 23 '23
First problem was with vendor. Apparently getting circa 6k laptops on short time was not that feasible. Local IT became bottlebeck only after vendor figured out their own problems :) And of course these new desk must be smart and modern. With 34 inch ultra wide monitors. With no software to manage screen area available to the users...
→ More replies142
u/SOUTHPAWMIKE Feb 23 '23
My favorite example of this was a post from a few years ago. Another IT guy took a picture from inside his home office, of a literal pallet of laptops outside his front door. He claimed that when his company switched to WFH due to COVID-19, someone had the laptops shipped directly to his house so he could get them ready for other employees, except no one had told him about it in advance.
→ More replies→ More replies46
u/Ichera Feb 23 '23
My personal favorite of these comes from long before covid... a unamed federal organization decided that they were going to give every employee a laptop, after jumping through all of the hoops they started receiving them at offices.
Someone somewhere decided that they were worried seriously about office theft of the laptops, so they bolted them to desks.
→ More replies→ More replies22
u/Va-Va-Vooom Feb 23 '23
Not trying to one up you, But. I worked at a company with laptop use only desks, and there's a first come first serve policy. If you are too late, the desks are all in use and you can go back home.
→ More replies34
u/bekunio Feb 23 '23 edited Feb 23 '23
We had a problem like that, that's why company recently introduced website to book a desk for given day. So company forces me to book the desk, come to the office (dress nicer and spend time on travel) dragging the laptop with me. All of this to work remotely from a place with worse conditions I have at home. Why work remotely? Because out of approx 20 people I deal with on a daily basis, only 2 lives in the same country as me.
2.2k
u/hells_cowbells Feb 23 '23
Amazing. I bet that really "enhances collaboration", eh?
1.2k
u/SuperToxin Feb 23 '23
“We don’t want anyone having their own desk because communal desks allow you to sit next to people who you might not have before and now you can collaborate more!”
1.2k
Feb 23 '23
[deleted]
516
u/oced2001 Feb 23 '23
And somebody in your group thinks bathing regularly is unhealthy to your immune system.
279
u/slinkymello Feb 23 '23
There was this one guy in my office prior to COVID, never showered, had a ring of empty space around him and introduced bed bugs to the work area… unreal man
→ More replies180
u/xX69WeedSnipePussyXx Feb 23 '23
I once walked into the bathroom and saw a contractor peeing in a urinal-5 year old style pants around his ankles.
72
u/Agent23tv Feb 23 '23
I once walked into men's rr and the guy in the stall took off his pants and hung them over the stall had newspaper all over the floor and used his hand or something to wash himself like a bidet.
60
u/AlternativeTable1944 Feb 23 '23
God I wish I could be that comfortable in a public bathroom
→ More replies→ More replies21
→ More replies50
u/Hippopoctopus Feb 23 '23
One of my earliest memories is learning at day care that "only babies" pee with their pants all the way down.
→ More replies86
→ More replies156
Feb 23 '23
[deleted]
→ More replies136
u/Long_Educational Feb 23 '23
And the bathrooms! That smell is forever in my memory. Worse than any highway public rest area. And who's idea was it to put the breakroom 15 feet from the bathrooms where you can still smell the toilets while you use the microwave.
At least the outdoors campus was nice.
→ More replies121
u/psilokan Feb 23 '23
What blows my mind is you can hire a bunch of highly educated and trained engineers but they still leave shit or piss on the toilet seat and toilet paper all over the stall.
→ More replies56
u/abigscaryhobo Feb 23 '23
Man I work in a pro environment with engineers as well but you guys sound like you work in hell where people sweat too much and your bathrooms need cleaned. I worked in warehouses that sound better than these comments
→ More replies113
u/rwilcox Feb 23 '23
… and LOL at needing/wanting/getting that second monitor, special ergonomic keyboard or even just family pictures at your workspace, because it’s yours for just today….
→ More replies50
59
u/Johnny_bubblegum Feb 23 '23
You get to just leave when you're done with you work?
I just get more to do.
49
u/Aethenil Feb 23 '23
Yeah at my old job we were passive aggressively judged for leaving before 430. A couple people even ended having their badge usage audited. Pretty grim.
→ More replies→ More replies84
u/jeerabiscuit Feb 23 '23
Hell i had to work slowly in offices because others would hostilely snort and give me death stares from envy
→ More replies458
u/Lanverok Feb 23 '23
You know, I’ve noticed the executives making those decisions never have communal desks… How odd.
→ More replies208
u/Stillwater215 Feb 23 '23
I’ve got to give my CEO and other officers some props. We moved into a new space a few years ago, and they wanted to have an open concept. They could have given themselves offices, but rather decided to put their desks in some of the most accessible sections of the space.
292
u/qoou Feb 23 '23
This is theoretically how things work at my office. Except in reality the executives book up the conference rooms all day and work in an unofficial office.
→ More replies134
u/ArchmageXin Feb 23 '23
One of my former employer took the completely opposite. The founder/CEO of a 7000 employees company sits with the accounting team and all department head sit with their team (basically an converted factory floor with 36 seats divided into 6 "Island cubicles").
Our firm used to proudly boast to visitors how our founder is a "man of the people" with his work desk right next to everyone, and anyone can walk up to his desk and ask questions, and the senior management team all have the same practice.
Then eventually we had to get offices for all them because it was stressing all the staff out with the senior management team "walk the floor", all the time.
The founder still jokingly refer his office as "the prison" to this day.
→ More replies84
u/usgrant7977 Feb 23 '23
I despise my supervisors staring at me all day. I want them in an office where I can talk to them if I need to, and otherwise they can't stalk me.
→ More replies50
u/greedcrow Feb 23 '23
Additionally if I want to have a private talk with my boss, I dont want everyone to know about it.
→ More replies177
u/Apprehensive_Ad1744 Feb 23 '23
Same thing happened with my company. Senior leadership sits in the same cluster fuck as everyone else.
I don't give them credit though, because the reality is that they spend 90% of their time in meetings so they wouldn't use their desk no matter where it was.
→ More replies70
88
u/sporkpdx Feb 23 '23 edited Feb 23 '23
I worked at a company where the CEO prided themselves on "having a cube" because they were "no better than anyone else."
My cube wasn't big enough for me to stretch my arms out in. His "cube" was large enough that they would have squeezed 8+ of us in that same space.
But, sure, it was made of the same partition walls. Technically correct, best kind of correct, etc.
→ More replies→ More replies85
Feb 23 '23
[deleted]
→ More replies41
u/Stillwater215 Feb 23 '23
If I could work from home, I would. Unfortunately, that would likely be a felony (Synthetic chemist, lol).
→ More replies→ More replies53
u/darkstar3333 Feb 23 '23
The reality is that people just book the same desk over and over.
People are creatures of habit.
→ More replies64
u/altaltredditaccount Feb 23 '23
At my office, not all desks are created equal. Some have USB C chargers, some still use the old style, some both monitors work, other times they’re just there for decoration. I book the same desk whenever I come cause it’s the only one that actually works.
They did our roll out so poorly. I think maybe only 80% of our desks are actually functioning as intended
→ More replies91
u/apiso Feb 23 '23
You can’t truly collaborate with a person, work as a unit, until you are inside them. Common knowledge.
→ More replies24
51
u/sur_surly Feb 23 '23
I think they call it "agile seating" and I think it's more about alternating days if you're not coming in 5 days a week. Defeats collaboration though since you aren't there at the same time. 🤷♂️ I may be wrong though. Maybe it's switching from couch to desk half the day
→ More replies41
u/hells_cowbells Feb 23 '23
Exactly. The collaboration thing is bullshit if half the people aren't there at the same time.
→ More replies28
u/imitation_crab_meat Feb 23 '23
The collaboration thing is bullshit even if everyone's there when you have to book your desk on a day-to-day basis and your team isn't even sitting together.
27
u/_AgentMichaelScarn_ Feb 23 '23
Client I work for removed a bunch of desks to add in bullpens for "collaboration" but when you look at the numbers (30 desks vs 150 bullpen seats) you know for a fact that it was just to pack us in like sardines....oh and our teams are co-located so like, collaboration in person on what exactly?...
20
u/DenikaMae Feb 23 '23
HR has spoken with me twice about "the appropriateness of sitting in someone's lap during work hours".
→ More replies→ More replies45
u/Bubba_Lewinski Feb 23 '23
Not to mention spread of virus, colds, cleanliness and overall grossness.
→ More replies13
u/hells_cowbells Feb 23 '23
"Here's some hand sanitizer. Good luck!"
27
u/PerviouslyInER Feb 23 '23
Here's a poster telling you to "keep the desk clean using the provided cleaning materials" (no such cleaning materials actually present)
157
u/new2accnt Feb 23 '23 edited Feb 23 '23
The canadian federal government has mandated RTO, despite significantly cutting back on office space and infrastructure, dispensing with assigned cubicules and forcing some open-space/no partition layout on workers. All in the name of "collaboration".
Many have to use some reservation system to find a workplace for the day, meaning you could end up working in a different location every day of the week you're "in the office".
Because a number of teams are geographically dispersed and because local team members might end up in different buildings (remember, first come, first served), team meetings will have to be virtual (MS/Teams, etc.). Totally different than WFH.
(Ed.: And even if you're in the same building than your co-workers, the team could be on different floors. Yay for "collaboration".)
BTW, in some offices, if you have to have a virtual meeting, you will have to go into some sort of "cone of silence" phone booth style of thing in the middle of the floor space. You just can't make this sh*t up.
One more thing: of course, the higher-ups still have their enclosed offices with doors, landline, desks with drawers and shelving units, coat hangers, etc.
48
u/Enabling_Turtle Feb 23 '23
I can relate to a lot of this because theres some similarity. Adding to the frustrations is we have multiple different types of laptop in use (multiple manufacturers). So you have to bring all your own stuff every day (dock, power cords, mouse, keyboard, etc).
→ More replies34
u/new2accnt Feb 23 '23
So you have to bring all your own stuff every day (dock, power cords, mouse, keyboard, etc).
We were issued tablets (Surface Pro) to facilitate WFH before the pandemic, so that we could keep working in the event we had stay home for one reason or another. So you could grab what you needed and go home with it without being loaded like a pack-mule (assuming you have a matching docking station at home).
Because of the version of hosteling (? hoteling?) the employer is now forcing on us, there is no standardised workspace configuration. So you have to lug our entire workspace with you (kb/m, docking station, power bar, etc.) which defeats the idea of using tablets to be lighter on our feet.
Not only that, but because of the amount of stuff one has to carry, it makes using mass transit very impractical, thus forcing you to drive in to work. So good luck finding a parking space not too far from the office (and it's not always the same building).
Once you make it in, because you don't know who was previously using your workspace of the day, you have to spend time cleaning it and adjusting everything as you try to get ready for work. A lot of disinfecting wipes gets used, I can tell you. You're also supposed to clean up that workspace at the end of the day. BTW, forget about ergonomic chairs and whatnot.
Then they wonder why they're having trouble recruiting new resources and/ore retaining the current people they have.
→ More replies40
u/emergent_segfault Feb 23 '23
Without bodies to toil inside them, commercial realstate will collapse...nevermind the balance on those leases still have to be paid out.......so basically The Goverment is like "fuck what you want or your mental health, or the fact that RTO is taking money out of your pocket because we have to protect corporations from their bad investments..."
→ More replies→ More replies76
u/Ok_Anywhere_1791 Feb 23 '23
they actually took some away
What was the purpose of that? It doesn't cost money to keep desks you already have.
→ More replies126
u/new2accnt Feb 23 '23
It's the space those desk take. Many orgs are cutting back on office space.
Also, the same orgs want to force a "hybrid" work model: part-time at work, part-time at home, because office space has been turned into a game of musical chairs. You just can't have everyone back into the office full time because the space & infrastructure no longer can support everyone being present at the same time.
How this can be better than WFH, I don't have the foggiest.
It makes sense on paper for some bean counters, but reality says otherwise.
94
u/Teamerchant Feb 23 '23
This is because despite us thinking leadership has some innate ability to make decisions 90% are just morons that were at the right place, at the right time, with the right network, and spoke the right way.
I long for a day when I'm actually impressed by a leader. The truth is like any other professional industry, they just have a certain skill set and they made the barriers to entry a robust network as opposed to certifications, skills and education. They also just happen to be in a position where inflating someone else's compensation makes it easier to inflate their own, which has led to them leaching 300x-400x more compensation than they should receive.
47
→ More replies14
u/jollyreaper2112 Feb 23 '23
I could see an argument for certain kinds of teams. You only need to get together a few times, otherwise you can work from home. You then have hotel plan seating. But no company I've seen is rolling it out in such a logical fashion. It's all haphazard and arbitrary.
258
u/Sharticus123 Feb 23 '23
They’re just trying to get as many people to quit as they can so they don’t have to pay out severance.
→ More replies106
159
u/kc3eyp Feb 23 '23
"we leased this shit hole for the next 5 years and by God you're going to use it"
→ More replies58
u/hells_cowbells Feb 23 '23
They could just do like Twitter and just stop paying rent.
→ More replies39
u/mailslot Feb 23 '23
This reminds me of the cheapest CEO I had ever worked for. He took me shopping and found some 1970s “desks” at a used furniture store. He liked this particular design because it was triangle wedged and you could fit four in the same space as one cubicle. There wasn’t enough space for personal items, or even a keyboard, so we had to install keyboard trays that would hit people’s knees.
It took a revolt before he backed down.
→ More replies98
u/eveningsand Feb 23 '23
"this should be familiar to those of you who've served on submarines..."
→ More replies32
u/Paranitis Feb 23 '23
"Just because you are piloting a sinking ship, doesn't make it a submarine".
→ More replies30
u/irrational_design Feb 23 '23
This is literally what my company did and is doing. They only provide enough seating for 70% of full time employees. They figure the other 30% will be in meetings or not in the office.
→ More replies443
u/boot2skull Feb 23 '23
Try asking an executive to work in the office. Actually try tracking how long they’ve traditionally worked in the office. I’m sure it varies by company but in my experience they have the biggest and most vacant offices. They should practice what they preach for once, but alas the common worker sweats long before the executive.
74
u/Noncoldbeef Feb 23 '23
C-Level are never in their offices, never come early, never stay late. But they are first to complain about people 'no longer wanting to work anymore'
As I troubleshoot their VPN from one of their cabins
→ More replies163
u/hells_cowbells Feb 23 '23
We have that problem at my office. We have to come in 3 times a week, but management is usually nowhere to be found.
126
u/boot2skull Feb 23 '23
Excusing themselves from rules just because they "can" just makes people question the purpose of the rules, and is a bad leadership practice. If being on-site makes us more productive, executives are saying productivity isn't that important if they exclude themselves. It's like saying "everyone should work hard and produce, except those of us who can avoid rules."
→ More replies61
u/hells_cowbells Feb 23 '23
It's not like executives are actually productive, anyway.
→ More replies→ More replies25
u/Daredizzle Feb 23 '23
Last company I was at forced 3-days a week while newly hired VPs were full remote. They even let a department lead go and used the excuse that he didn't come into office. So hypocritical.
21
u/omnigear Feb 23 '23
That why I quit my last company .
The main guy who hired me went full remote and left the state , the other guy in charge is also remote . Then they hire his son remote and deny me work from home .
28
u/bluGill Feb 23 '23
A few years back the executive over my group had a sign on his office "usable for meetings" that he put up when he wasn't around. My group had several meetings in there because it wasn't a bookable room and so when we needed to gather suddenly it was always free.
I think when he was in the office it sat at an empty desk like the rest of us. However a few times a year he had something that needed a private office and he had it. (should have been a bookable room though for how little he used it)
→ More replies25
70
u/Prodigy195 Feb 23 '23
There is some sales exec that sits on my floor and their office is in the path that most people take to go to the floor bathrooms. So we all walk past it regularly when we do go in.
It's become a running joke that their office is basically the "I need a quick video conference room" because they have a private VC unit in the office and are NEVER there. So folks just started using it if they have an ad hoc/impromptu call.
And folks who go in other days of the week have repeated that they never see this person in the office.
→ More replies42
u/boot2skull Feb 23 '23
Isn’t that something too, that the vacant exec office has VC setup but they don’t use it, yet companies around the country are asking workers to sacrifice? And the workers who need it have to borrow it? I know one excess or misallocated VC setup isn’t going to change the world, but they seriously need to look in the mirror when asking workers to make sacrifices. It’s just a bad look to sit on their throne and dictate stuff to the peasants.
→ More replies→ More replies18
u/theth1rdchild Feb 23 '23
It was an eye opener to work a fortune 500 for a few years and realize that yes, the people who get paid the most do the least actual work. They get paid 6 figures or more to travel to different places and smile at each other. And it was true for me too - started at the bottom making 17 an hour and working my ass off. A few years later I was making good salary for my area and I did maybe 4-8 hours of actual work a week. This is genuinely not uncommon.
54
u/colin_staples Feb 23 '23
At least they're not Twitter : You must return to the office or you will be sacked. Also we refuse to pay rent on those office so the doors are locked.
→ More replies131
u/GrooseandGoot Feb 23 '23 edited Feb 23 '23
Feels like with every single publicly traded company, everyone is putting austerity and cost cutting measures in place in the hope of wooing potential investors (wall street) who are demanding this of them for continued financial investment.
Regardless of company, regardless of profits earned.
This is happening with every industry that is publicly traded and it's clear as day it's to place more authoritarian controls over their workers to squeeze every last penny out of the working class.
→ More replies34
u/Spatulakoenig Feb 23 '23
It’s also because leadership has so much of their comp tied to share performance.
In Google’s case, only this December Sundar Pichai had his PSUs increased from 42% to 60% while also demanding higher performance levels.
→ More replies→ More replies97
u/ajsayshello- Feb 23 '23
“Most Googlers will now share a desk with one other Googler,” the internal document stated, noting they expect employees to come in on alternate days so they’re not at the same desk on the same day.
They will have a place to sit, according to the report this article is citing. They have other problems, though, for sure.
→ More replies97
u/BarrySix Feb 23 '23
They will spend the first 20 minutes swearing and adjusting their desk and chair.
→ More replies51
Feb 23 '23
Sarah 5'1 sat there yesterday, sneezing and coughing in her hand but she would never stay home for a simple cold!
The viruses disperse from mouse and keyboard overnight, right?
→ More replies42
u/Occulto Feb 23 '23
I have my own mouse and keyboard that I use.
After a couple of years using good quality peripherals at home, I turned into one of those people who hates using a 20 dollar Dell keyboard.
But it's depressing having a random desk that's just a couple of monitors and a USB cable to attach my laptop.
I was never one for lots of personal items at my desk like some people, but a few bits and pieces made it a little bit more homely.
Now we have lockers to store our personal stuff and it feels like being back in high school.
→ More replies23
Feb 23 '23
I mean, our work is the place we spend most of our waken time. To have it be a random desk like a school cafeteria is not healthy. People need comfort, safety and belonging.
I like to know where I find the people I need to talk to. If I come in it's because I like to sit at my spot, talk to Tim and Maria and maybe jump into a conversation with Ron and Molly.
But if I have to sit in a room with 100 people, where the first hour or work stressed people will ask me if the desk next to me is free (sorry no) what's the point?
If Larry is going to be on the phone cold calling random poor fucks while I try figure out why everyone gets' the page in Spanish for some reason (goddamn cache). And then Scott is monologuing about some annoying sport at top volume 3 rows away...
6.7k
u/jax362 Feb 23 '23
Everyone in this thread is missing the point as to why GCP employees are pissed. It's not because they have to share a desk, it's because they are being mandated to return to the office under the guise of increased collaboration, but are then told to alternate days so the company can cut costs, thereby reducing collaboration by half.
The company is being incredibly inconsistent with their messaging. That is what is frustrating.
1.5k
u/Newer_Wave Feb 23 '23 edited Feb 23 '23 •
They want people to get new jobs and are signaling the times of endless perks and comfort are over. Most companies lose people voluntarily after layoffs - that, combined with mandated office returns /cutting back on other stuff will likely help drive at least a little voluntary turnover. They know people don’t like this. But leadership can continue to do whatever they want.
1.9k
u/Daimakku1 Feb 23 '23 •
They are quiet firing.
898
u/CheeseSteak17 Feb 23 '23
A significant problem with “quiet firing” is that the employees who can prove they have value will leave first.
→ More replies430
u/CrystalSplice Feb 23 '23
You're assuming the employers care. I work in tech and my company laid off a lot of people last year. We had to hire some of them back because we lost too much knowledge and experience about our products. Most of the attrition since then has been high level, high performance engineers... because they can get paid more somewhere else.
→ More replies229
u/SRTHellKitty Feb 23 '23
I have a similar story with some colleagues quitting due to the end of remote work and the company realizing they've lost their best employees. Company wants them back, but HR has a rule to not re-hire employees for 1 year.
So instead of hiring them back, they are now contracted through a 3rd party and the company is probably paying over 2x their original salary.
41
u/CrystalSplice Feb 23 '23
We did that, too. With multiple people. A couple of them converted back to full time...I guess they proved their worth? We don't have a re-hire policy like that unless someone is fired for cause.
25
u/salientecho Feb 23 '23
WALTTTASM:
"Well at least they think they are saving money"
Was often said / heard by my dad working in biotech, about 10 years ago
→ More replies→ More replies94
u/caesar_7 Feb 23 '23
is probably paying over 2x their original salary.
Contracted through 3rd party usually means much more than x2.
157
u/brucecampbellschins Feb 23 '23 •
And the people left to pick up the slack get quiet promotions. No raise or anything, just more responsibilities.
→ More replies105
u/dgreensp Feb 23 '23
I love it haha. Don’t fire your employees, just decide it’s ok if every single one quits and act accordingly.
→ More replies41
u/GiggityGone Feb 23 '23
You joke but even Zuckerberg described embracing “forced attrition” to the tune of giving more work than possible and squeezing out people that refuse to do that much. Twitter is doing the same, though completely different instance
→ More replies→ More replies63
u/swentech Feb 23 '23
Exactly. The equivalent of moving you to a basement office with no window next to the janitors bathroom. They are hoping a few more people quit then they won’t have to pay severance or be blamed for layoffs.
→ More replies26
38
u/Nocturne444 Feb 23 '23
Irony is that they could cut more costs by letting people WFH and get rid of or rent all that office space they wouldn’t need…
→ More replies144
u/Yangoose Feb 23 '23
Reducing your workforce by making it a shitty place to work is a great way to get rid of all your best workers who have the highest job mobility...
With how mismanaged Google has been recently that makes perfect sense.
→ More replies84
u/JackONeillClone Feb 23 '23
Sundar Pichai did such a hit on Google's reputation and long time plans, I don't even know why he's still there.
They can't even launch a new product anymore because they lost everyone's trust.
→ More replies65
u/Yangoose Feb 23 '23
I was a google fanboy 10 years ago.
Now? I kind of wish they'd go away to make room for somebody better.
→ More replies→ More replies22
u/LittleWillyWonkers Feb 23 '23 edited Feb 24 '23
It just shows how the wallstreet system works. It doesn't matter if you are the biggest most successful company, if you can't continue to always put out record profits you are going to be treated like a company that is actually bankrupt but still doing business. Everyone has to fucking act like it is the end of the world, even though they have billions, 10's, 100's of billions, no matter the amount, it wasn't the MORE that we demanded. If they all didn't sleep with one another on boards, I'd say they need to stand up and say enough of this shit! We've made so many people millionaires, we're still making billions, back off, not all times are the best of times, we're human and we are going treat everyone employed with the respect they deserve. Again, back off. But that can't happen cause we've all sold our souls to this ever having to grow system, not just profitable but continued growth in profits.
313
u/SweetDank Feb 23 '23
ALL companies are being incredibly inconsistent with their RTO policies and messages.
Mostly because they're trying to veil their hypocrisy while flailing around with poor logical reasons for justifying their demands.
→ More replies104
u/SentFromMyAndroid Feb 24 '23
Where I work, the CEO basically asked at a company meeting if we wanted to come back. It was an overwhelming no. That was that.
We have an office still, but it's smaller and only used when you want to.
Turnover plummeted.
→ More replies48
u/CantStopMeReddit4 Feb 24 '23
Whereas my company got employee feedback against going back to the office full time, then sent everyone back to the office full time in a message that began with “after listening to employee feedback”
37
u/zoinkability Feb 24 '23
More honest would be “after enduring employee feedback “ or perhaps “after ignoring employee feedback”
→ More replies229
u/BuccellatiExplainsIt Feb 23 '23
It's not just GCP btw, it's Google Cloud. GCP is a cloud platform for users, but it's just a part of Google Cloud.
→ More replies
79
u/dmazzoni Feb 23 '23
I worked at Google for 10+ years. Don't get me wrong, I had a great time there and at the time most of the employee perks were second to none.
But I never liked the open office plan, and over the years it got worse, not better.
Being able to customize my desk space was one of the things that made it bearable.
Also: It's not just knickknacks. Many employees customize their desk for accessibility or ergonomics reasons.
I really don't see how this is going to make employees happier about RTO.
→ More replies
1.3k
u/Bromswell Feb 23 '23
Corporate execs should try out their “new policies” on themselves before making their workforce comply.
360
u/Kilonoid Feb 23 '23
That would involve holding themselves accountable to the same brain-dead policies they had some expendable intern draft up, and we all know how that goes.
→ More replies85
u/pernox Feb 23 '23
More like a policy drafted by a big $$$ consulting company.
→ More replies39
Feb 23 '23
More like a policy drafted by an expendable intern at a big $$$ consulting company :D
→ More replies→ More replies188
Feb 23 '23 edited Mar 03 '23
[deleted]
→ More replies64
u/Bromswell Feb 23 '23
Open air, get sicker, zero privacy, not for me. Give me back my dignity AND my safe taupe cube please.
→ More replies
170
u/BarrySix Feb 23 '23
A place I used to work at didn't even have desks for my whole department. Or WiFi. And it was a bring your own laptop situation. I'm not even joking.
Yes it was IT work. And yes it was a multinational who among other things ran serious energy infrastructure including electricity distribution networks and nuclear power plants.
Also the management were utterly detached from reality, like delusional fantasists, but then I said IT work already so that's probably not a surprise.
44
u/Drauren Feb 23 '23
And it was a bring your own laptop situation. I'm not even joking.
I would've told them to fuck off. Under no circumstances is company IP touching my personal devices.
→ More replies23
u/BarrySix Feb 23 '23
I quit with no notice after a few months. It became obvious they were inept beyond anything I'd seen or heard of. They did pay me for months for doing very little because nothing worked there. We had a WiFi access point on a mobile connection shared by maybe 20 people because it was the only network connection we could get. All the compute was on Azure and it was all aweful and unstable. Accenture were there prolonging every project and every disaster so they could suck the most cash out of the situation. We borrowed desks from well funded departments who somehow got more desk space than they needed because they were important. Or used meeting rooms without booking them because we had no access to the booking system.
I still can't understand how they could behave like that and still be in business.
→ More replies→ More replies41
u/Zoolot Feb 23 '23
I worked for an aerospace company that didn’t have their patch panel/server room locked.
Took a year of me complaining for them to put a lock on the door.
Shortly after they got rid of me and the director and used a 3rd party IT group.
Additionally their top secret gov docs were on a tower in that room. Very easily stolen, lol.
295
u/SkiesFetishist Feb 23 '23
What a fucking joke. Come back into the office, we have 1 bathroom for all of you. There is a sign up sheet. One ply toilet paper. Times are tough on everybody, folks! Now, let’s wrap up this meeting, i’m wheels up to jackson hole in 25.
→ More replies
424
u/Troub313 Feb 23 '23
This buffoon makes $280m a year last time I checked... How about you spend $2m of that to buy desks for every employee.
→ More replies202
u/kurtpropan666 Feb 24 '23
But HE earned all that money, these employees who do the actually work and keep the company going didn’t, they didn’t work hard enough.
→ More replies
466
u/obliviousofobvious Feb 23 '23
Google: RECORD PROFITS
Also Google: We can't afford to give you a raise this year. Inflation...Costs...Stock Prices...blah blah blah
→ More replies148
u/katoandlucky27 Feb 23 '23
Records profits but we need you to share seats with your coworkers 🥹
→ More replies59
110
u/ObsidianSoup Feb 23 '23
They should really fire that CEO. He's a bit of a fuck up, and that's really insulting to fuck ups that don't actually fuck up all the time.
→ More replies
428
u/Pocket_Monster_Fan Feb 23 '23
If only they had a solution of working remotely. I wish we had a couple years to test it to prove how much more efficient and affordable it is.
They could cut costs and improve employee satisfaction. It's insane how stubborn they are with this policy.
→ More replies
644
u/Tim_Allosaurus Feb 23 '23
The first place any company cuts cost is with its employees and that will never cease to amaze me. Why the fuck would you screw over the people making your profits possible in the first place.
123
u/RandyOfTheRedwoods Feb 23 '23
The main reason is because any cost savings per employee multiplies by the number of employees. Companies that have hundreds of thousands of employees save a lot of money just by reducing costs by $10 per employee.
In this google case, saving half of their real estate costs should be millions of dollars saved. They could save more by being fully remote, but then you get into competing goals - maximizing every second the employee works (easier when you can watch over them) vs saving costs.
(I am not trying to justify the practice, just explaining it)
→ More replies114
u/somefoobar Feb 23 '23 edited Feb 23 '23
I think it shows a company in decline.
When they gave the employees their perks, what they were saying was that we want to attract the best people and keep them happy. Because our business plan demands it. And with our business plan, we can extract more value from them than the perks.
What they are saying now is nah... we can't do that anymore. Our business plan is petering out. We need to cut back. We can't give you that free bagel because we don't know how to make that bagel money back.
→ More replies23
u/justsitonmyfacealrdy Feb 24 '23
I once worked at a company they put out a memo they were taking away candy dishes in the meeting rooms to save a whopping…wait for it $1200 per year. I hated that job
→ More replies174
u/dallyan Feb 23 '23
Because it’s the only source of capital that can continue to create more value. As long as capitalists can squeeze surplus value out of workers, they will continue to find ways to do so, including firing some workers and making others work more.
→ More replies
277
u/CuzImBatmaann Feb 23 '23
The worst part about capitalism? Endless quarterly growth is demanded by these corporations. Infinite growth is impossible.
→ More replies114
u/buell1 Feb 23 '23
I really don't understand how this isn't discussed more. Every high level decision is bee based on margins and profits, and if you're not growing profits, it's considered a failure.
→ More replies38
u/GradientDescenting Feb 23 '23
Ironically this is why companies end up collapsing, hollow out the interior and the structure collapses.
125
u/TomSelleckPI Feb 23 '23
"Everybody, leave your home and get back to this office or you will be fired!"
"Ok, now everyone share critical and scarce resources, as we didnt purchase enough for everyone!"
Every big corporation in the US right now
→ More replies
354
u/HorrorReject Feb 23 '23
Could Sundar run Google any worse?
146
→ More replies160
u/megamanxoxo Feb 23 '23
Honestly not sure how he's still CEO. No fixes for Android's image problem or competitive solution to iMessage/FaceTime. Runs every product they make into the ground, creates a culture where employees feel the need to create a new product rather than champion an existing product to get ahead at the company.
→ More replies39
u/_SGP_ Feb 23 '23 edited Feb 24 '23
Google ads is becoming/has become extremely hostile to the advertisers.
519
u/awitod
Feb 23 '23
•
We will get everyone back to the office by insisting and making it as unpleasant as possible!
Google is a badly run company that only exists because the founders struck oil.
→ More replies
129
193
u/wowsers808 Feb 23 '23
Revenue margins are not allowed to ever go down. No matter the circumstances, if investors are not continually profiting higher and higher, then it is everyone else who has to make up the difference.
I don't know how this ride ends, but not well for most of us in society.
→ More replies96
u/Nanoo_1972 Feb 23 '23
I don't know how this ride ends, but not well for most of us in society.
"Alexa, tell me about France in the late 1700s."
→ More replies
1.2k
u/Kurotan Feb 23 '23
This is what businesses are doing when people work from home. If you aren't in the office you don't need a desk and they can get by with shared spaces. This does mean you may not sit in the same space every time you do go in to the office. But why have a desk for people who aren't showing up more than once a week or less.
279
u/ImSuperHelpful Feb 23 '23
And that would make sense if they weren’t mandating RTO several days a week with the stated purpose of improving collaboration… if anything, they should be bringing everyone in at the same time and have space for that. Unless that isn’t actually why they want to bring people back into their offices… 🤔
→ More replies236
u/seamustheseagull Feb 23 '23
Traditional leadership, extroverts in particular are still desperately struggling with this whole concept, despite the best part of two years proving that it works exceptionally well.
It didn't work for them as the CEO/Department Lead, therefore they feel like it didn't work at all.
Shortly before Covid, I had brought up the remote working discussion a few times. I was in charge of the corporate infrastructure, so delivering the ability to WFH was entirely within my power, which I did anyway. So I made it completely possible, but when I brought it up I was told it was a straight no. CEO & CTO both said it wasn't happening. An exceptional day here & there, fine. But on a regular basis, nope. It;s not how we work.
(I'm a little proud of the fact that when covid did hit, the entire company was able to just take their computers and go home, and keep working. I was on leave at the time and it required precisely zero input from me to transition to WFH overnight.)
So when it all eased, off our company implemented a "soft" mandate about working in the office. Everyone had to go in at least once a month. Make an appearance. But it came from the CEO this time. CTO had changed his tune, he told everyone they could just stay at home. At the CEO's insistence, we moved our offices to a nice new location, enough capacity for about half the company, all the nice bells and whistles we didn't have at the old crappy office.
Only 10% of the desks are occupied at any given time, and it's usually all the same people who don't want to/can't WFH.
CEO is still perplexed, but at least he's listening to the department leads who've told him nobody wants to come in.
60
u/MrPenguins1 Feb 23 '23
See my CEO increased the days we have to be in office a week by an extra day and is making all previously virtual teams also come in! But hey we’re going to stimulate the local economy around us! Even though the building I go to is nowhere near downtown or restaurants (we only get 30 min lunch anyways)
→ More replies→ More replies15
u/Crown_Writes Feb 23 '23
When a large amount of people move to WFH what infrastructure changes are needed? I'm assuming something having to do with VPN networking or load balancing but have no clue.
31
u/SeaweedSorcerer Feb 23 '23
Pre-COVID my employer’s VPN would fall over to the point of being useless on a snow day. I don’t exactly know what they did to it but they massively increased capacity.
→ More replies13
u/zzzpoohzzz Feb 23 '23
depends.
depends on what you already have in place, how many employees you have, what kind of work the company does, end user hardware, etc.
you may need to add a second internet circuit for redundancy, your edge firewall may need upgraded and/or buy licenses for a large amount of remote access vpn clients (or setting up an always-on vpn). if your clients are working with an on premise file server, you need to make sure you have sufficient internet speed, since it won't be running over you LAN, but over the internet. if your users were typically using desktops since they didn't need to have mobility, you need (well, not necessarily need, but will probably want) to switch them over to laptops to make it convenient for everyone. there are way more things to come up with, but this is just off the top of my head.
→ More replies15
u/timelessblur Feb 23 '23
Yep this is how my former employer did it. Desk became more free use and we were warned ahead of time. It was local offices would have people come in from out of town and yeah during that time our desk were at risk of being used. General rule was if my group was coming into town I would go i and I got "MY DESK" but if it was another group coming in my desk would be at risk of being used and honestly I was pretty cool with it because I sure as hell was not going go in if my team was not local.
→ More replies341
u/thieh Feb 23 '23
I'm totally ok if half of the people work from home and the other half works on site, and rotate so to get some on site-stuff done from time to time.
I also don't mind sharing spaces as long as I am not sharing with them while I am on site sharing with other on-site people. COVID distancing, you know.
→ More replies
368
u/Dess_Rosa_King Feb 23 '23
Or better yet, just a thought, let people be 100% remote. No required hybrid bullshit.
But who am I kidding. This is Google, they dragged their feet long as possible before allowing any remote work. They "pride" themselves on office culture.
→ More replies110
u/kevz_1 Feb 23 '23
They simply have a bunch of physical office space that is a waste of money if it isn’t filled. Covid showed everyone that physical workspace simply isn’t as necessary as companies pretended it was prior to Covid. What do you do with all that physical space now? Not as many companies willing to buy it. So, you make up your collaboration BS to get people into the office to justify the spend.
86
u/the_boner_owner Feb 23 '23
is a waste of space if it isn't filled
Technically it's a sunk cost. It's being paid for regardless of whether there are people in it
→ More replies40
u/Pitiful_Computer6586 Feb 23 '23
It's worse it's even more expensive having people in
→ More replies→ More replies24
u/StillAWildOne1949 Feb 23 '23
These people will sell their own brother up the river if it means saving five beans a quarter. The amount of money they can save by not leasing office space is huge, practically guarantees their bonuses. This is all about power, not money.
→ More replies
36
u/marsajib Feb 23 '23
Blame Jaime Dimon for starting the “let’s go back to work folks enough is enough”
→ More replies
68
u/orbital Feb 23 '23
Is it just me or is the CEO from Google the worst of all the MAANG CEOs? Dude seems like doesn’t give a shit and hasn’t got a clue how to lead.
→ More replies41
u/Neverending_Rain Feb 23 '23
Zuck might have him beat. He seems pretty clueless now that Facebook has started to decline. His metaverse push has been a complete joke so far.
→ More replies
304
u/Warlornn Feb 23 '23
I'd move my stuff into the CEO's office and tell him I'm just following orders.
→ More replies
65
63
u/warren_stupidity Feb 23 '23
Ruling Class: get back in the office right fucking now. Also Ruling Class: you thought open offices sucked? now try open offices with hoteling!
→ More replies
7.4k
u/LaughingOwl4 Feb 23 '23
“After hearing Googles shared-desk announcement, META immediately implemented a share-seat policy for all support level employees. Two employees per chair. Lap sitting is encouraged but for legal reasons, not a requirement.”