Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

Re:Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other off... by bitcharmer on Thursday March 03, 2022 @01:50AM (#30537942)

> When you are needing to talk to a team mate, working remotely you can just message them and get a response quickly, but this has the effect of interrupting them (or you), which can derail their train of thought. Sure, your still interrupting them when in person, but you can see that they are actively working on something and wait a minute or two for them to notice

You're wrong. When I need to stay focused on something I may ignore messages and be 100% productive. However when I'm at the office most people don't care if I'm working on something with my headphones on, clearly in the zone. They'll just approach me about the most benign matters most of which can wait for days even.

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Re:Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other off... by ljm on Thursday March 03, 2022 @05:22AM (#30539283)

Maybe they're right, for themselves. Most of the comments in this thread are just a remote-vs-onsite flamewar with everyone trading anecdotes about why one option is better than the other.

There are plenty of people who say they don't go to work to make friends, they go to do their job, and any kind of interruption not directly related to the work they're doing is unwelcome. Plenty of others who will go to great lengths to stay out of any conversation and work as independently as possible because "they're just there to write code" or whatever.

If it's not so wrong to say you want to go to work and be completely left alone, why is it wrong to say you actually go because you prefer the dynamics of office life and find it less disruptive than a remote equivalent?

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Re:Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other off... by bitcharmer on Thursday March 03, 2022 @08:37AM (#30540789)

Because this dynamic is heavily asymmetric. I need to stay focused for prolonged periods of time to do my work effectively.

An MBA - not so much.

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Re:Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other off... by paulcole on Thursday March 03, 2022 @10:13AM (#30542060)

No offense, but unless you're an MBA doing MBA work (whatever that is), how can you possibly know?

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Re:Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other off... by bitcharmer on Thursday March 03, 2022 @02:37PM (#30545675)

Sadly I have to work with a bunch of them

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Re:Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other off... by paulcole on Thursday March 03, 2022 @06:28PM (#30548513)

Do you think your attitude has any effect on the people you work with? When you think of their job as easier and taking less focus than your own — despite knowing little about the challenges of their work — do you ever wonder if they’re making the same assumptions about your work?

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Re:Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other off... by bitcharmer on Sunday March 06, 2022 @10:58AM (#30578397)

I know too much about managing teams. Did that for nearly a decade untill it almost broke me.

Then I went back to engineering as there's much more actual value in it and less politics.

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