smarmgoblin

Totally agree that these are issues worth thinking about and mitigating.

One thing I’ve started doing at work is documenting workflows in various ways: not just docs but talks and screencasts where a new engineer could see my workflow. (I also give new engineers advice to keep a digital notebook! I still learn tons by doing this.)

For the isolation bit I just wonder what we will see replacing that. It’s possible we never see anything and everyone just deals with it but I hope shared office spaces or something similar picks up. I get plenty of socialization elsewhere but little breaks in the workday to not focus on productivity and just chitchat were nice and maybe important some days.

Just another way to do layoffs without calling it that.

It’s interesting because he originally said he was buying Twitter because of the bots, and then later tried to nuke the deal claiming the proliferation of bots had created a material change in the business.. either way you’d expect that to be a priority for him to fix.

I think he believed it would be an easy project and a funny meme to own it, and it will soon be repossessed by Morgan Stanley.

In addition the roles are all RTO-enforced (implying his current one is not), so it may be impossible for him to take those roles.

Yeah the hungry young workers are the meat in the grinder! Do we think they don’t notice that role?

It sounds to me like they need to flush out incompetent management.

They didn’t get immunity, they just haven’t been sentenced yet.

I was gonna make a comment saying “yeah but those MBAs aren’t dictating minutiae about how they complete their tasks (in the way software CEOs are assured we work better in an open-office shared desk hours from our homes)”

But actually there’s a ton of micromanagement in medicine too. It’s equally insane there though and transparently driven by profit motives over patient wellbeing.

Real estate portfolios must really be in trouble.

That’s correct. I have the smallest offering from the manufacturer you linked and it’s super portable (30lbs) but the ride is bumpy even on relatively smooth road.

You do get used to it but never feels quite as safe as a bike.

> The reality is they need office attendance to meet tax agreements with the cities they’re located in.

I don’t disagree, but that doesn’t explain these actions right? Amazon would be free to have a policy which was not enforced by badge tracking — leaving things up to managers and establishing a culture norm of in-office work with flexibility was pretty much standard pre-COVID. Surely the city isn’t asking for attendance records.

I guess it’s likely a confluence of factors (tax breaks, monetary incentives, old-guard management, real-estate portfolio losses, resentment toward engineers they perceive to be lazy) pointing in the same direction.

My theory is that they need attrition, and they need managers to be managing out employees at a higher rate than they’ve historically been comfortable. So they won’t typically fire someone directly for attendance (yet) but they will give the managers permission to do so. That’s what these memos are meant to convey.

Maybe we’ll see something similar from other big tech cos in the near future, since they all use the same consulting firms for these decisions.

albendazole will

Honestly the commute trumps all of this for me. Sure open office is a pain but whatever I’ll make it work. Can pack a lunch if necessary, and shit at home.

Two hours one way? I’m not sure I can do it. Could I at least be located in the office closest to my house? No, that won’t be possible, how could you possibly communicate with your team. Just a giant middle finger.

I think you’re right, and there are multiple reasons executives don’t see office space as a “sunk cost.”

A small part may even be that they value work done in-office more than work done remotely. But just pointing out it’s not the most plausible objection to remote work.

TFA suggests these companies hold large amounts of commercial real estate as long-term investments, so “let the lease expire” is likely not an option.

I believe this is a significant and understated direct cause of tech’s current push for returning to offices.

Which is not to say that it’s a bad idea necessarily for the stated goal.

Whenever you hear someone trot out facts about “human nature” you know they’ve run out of reasonable avenues of thought on the issue.

Why, for instance, didn’t any of this apply pre-COVID when distributed teams were already common? Are humans beings not social creatures when the same conglomerate owns the office real estate containing all meeting participants?

Maybe. But if I’ve learned anything from the layoffs I’ve been a part of or adjacent to, it’s that executives don’t share an engineer’s understanding of who might be a valuable engineer.

At the size of these companies they couldn’t possibly hold that understanding in their head. So they’re thinking more about budgets and strategies, assured by their peers that we’re all replaceable in the end. They’re not entirely wrong.

Of course, later (once the economy recovers and hiring resumes) they’ll cry that new employees aren’t picking up context or contributing fast enough, things seem to be moving slower, coordination is lacking etc.

I’ve seen this, quite common for federal contracting. Although it’s also common to hammer-click 8 at the end of the month..

That said even if you’re not clocking in it’s common to want to work a full 8 hours or close to it.

I think they realize the truth which is that productive people can be productive anywhere. Do they care about the toll a 2-hour commute takes on the workers or how that translates into deliverables and timelines? Ask yourself if this sounds likely.

Also they understand that most of these companies are 100% losses anyway, but real estate investments are much less likely to go to zero. (Plus rent is just cold hard cash.)

Okay so in this case, companies are complaining that they’re noticing “lower productivity.” What are they noticing exactly?

One accusation is that they’ve noticed nothing and are demanding changes on entirely false pretenses.

At least in software engineering, this is a great opportunity to start understanding how to cooperate and work with a team in this field. There should be a little bit of friction involved in tapping someone on the shoulder, and if you can only code within arms reach of a senior engineer you won’t make it very long.

Sometimes I think the college mindset of “if my code doesn’t compile, the TA must have made a mistake giving it to me like this, I’ll ask him what’s wrong” persists into a first job. And there are jobs (and senior engineers) who encourage this pattern too, so it can be a while before anyone encounters a different atmosphere unfortunately.

Device sync

As a googler I understand. Leadership is capricious and petty, chasing trends and seems to be flailing. They have nothing left to offer stockholders than cost-saving measures.

Tbh I love the project I work on and I’m still learning tons. But I wish we could have more confidence in our leadership instead of hoping to be insulated from whatever their whims are this month.

This is where I get hung up every time. As a software engineer, “I cannot collaborate with someone unless I am physically next to their body” is just not a tenable position.

We collaborate through reviews on PRs, virtual documents, links, search queries, and yes, conversations. But this has all happened in virtual settings for a long long time, and almost can’t work any other way.

I dropped out of an MD/PhD program after I passed Step 1, it’s hard to articulate exactly how it felt staring down the barrel of a career in medicine but this is sort of what I feared.

Since I’ve been in tech I’ve been laid off several times, and it’s not clear that compensation or demand will always be as hot as it is right now. I’m not complaining but if you take any satisfaction in actually helping people, there’s a real possibility you won’t find that anymore.

That said, you have options. If you’re willing to work at a junior or mid-level role, companies probably won’t care much what you did before. Maybe wait til the next boom in hiring happens, jump on the hype train. With your technical skills there’s probably some very unique research roles you could fill if you’re interested in that lifestyle — although the compensation is not super appealing. If it doesn’t work out, I feel like you could go back to surgery right?

TFA doesn’t mention any hints about layoffs, but I suppose the timing is about right relative to an earnings call that it makes sense to predict it soon. Nobody will remember if they’re wrong. (Personally I think they’re right.)

At this point it’s clear big tech is outsourcing these decisions to the same set of outside consultants with the short-term goal of stock price bumps (and long-term goal of driving engineer comp down of course).

The only thing software engineers like more than being tracked is having their attendance tallied. Maybe they can use a punch card system to ensure nobody drinks more than their fair share of the coffee or spends too long in the bathroom etc.

I believe it might be predicated on some mythical junior engineer who would excel in-person but finds themselves completely helpless outside of the earshot of a senior engineer.

Those who want to figure stuff out will do it. That’s largely what this job is

I believe that. Others may have had a different experience to mine. I was always searching for a class that would give me the “real” Linux experience but nothing really exists like that, I think you just have to live with the tools for a bit.