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Comment by avipars | Hacker News Reader

It would be interesting to see how productive Google's employees are remotely vs. in-office.

It would be counter-productive to draw any conclusions from the current situation without taking in account family situations. I keep seeing studies that highlight "X% would like to go back to the office because they are not as productive WFH" -- followed by comments indicating that those folks should change and adapt.

I have 3 kids at home 24/7 that need regular attention, feeding, homework, etc. My productivity is down -- not because I am WFH, but because my entire family is as well. This is not a regular WFH situation and should not be analyzed as such.

There's an expectation that productivity will be lower while WFH and higher-ups have said that's okay and expected. That being said... the people around me at least seem to have adapted fully to the new working conditions despite the rough start. I suspect this trend is similar across the company (and other companies).

Honesy question. How many of those peoe have kids? On my team/in my interactions with my company, the people with kids seem to struggle however the people without kids are thriving.

Yes, people around me with young kids are struggling. Those with older kids are mostly able to have them self-entertain for long enough stretches that it works for them, though it seems to depend on the kids.

I've also seen a couple of people without kids really struggling due to the lack of social interaction. For most this isn't an issue, or if it is, it's not a big deal, but for some, it's really hard to replace the in-office dynamic with video calls.

I find this to be a revealing time for people with children - as in, it's made clear to them that their children are an incredibly annoying burden which they only survived previously due to the system of offloading them to professionals.

Haha. I probably share your viewpoint about 90% of the time (I do not have kids), but people do not like to hear harsh statements like this.

Exactly, which is why it's so amazing that finally people don't have the option of merely protesting and attacking others over such observations. They're being forced to deal with the reality of their children, themselves.

My wife is a SAHM. Usually during summer vacation she does just fine handling the kids without their being offloaded to professionals.

The current situation is a lot tougher, though, since a lot of the things she'd normally do with the kids during the day are denied right now: the zoo is closed, museums are closed, playgrounds and parks are closed, gymnasiums are closed, no play dates with friends, no visits from family, etc.

I think it's unfair to try to draw your conclusion from the present situation.

That's a good point that we are experiencing exceptional circumstances. Many people can't handle being home this long on their own, children aside. However the zoo, playgrounds, museums, play dates and family are all systems for offloading the burden of one's children onto something external.

Or perhaps it's hard to both have a full time job and to watch children who need full time care? Similarly for elderly parents, or family members who are sick.

That's essentially the point I'm trying to make. People have only survived in prior times because they pay people to handle their children, in some form.

About half on my immediate team, though some lucky enough to have private space if needed.

I would guess goog doesn’t suffer that much. They have beyondcorp, and all meetings often have folks video chatting in anyway. Granted even a small reduction for a giant workforce is a lot of $ in absolute sense.

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