<story><title>Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work</title><url>https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/31/google-speeds-partial-office-reopening-and-puts-limits-on-remote-work.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>austinjp</author><text>What about those who _do_ want a friendly workplace with some element of social interaction?</text></item><item><author>wg0</author><text>Absolutely - in knowledge economy, insisting on physical presence is darn damn stupid.&lt;p&gt;And I don&amp;#x27;t want to hang &amp;quot;with friends at work&amp;quot; I go to &amp;quot;work&amp;quot; that has to be specified clearly and that I expect to deliver with purely professional merit driven collaboration and not friendships and gangs.&lt;p&gt;I have friends or would love to have friends out of the place where I work. I want strict compartmentalisation between work and personal life. As the company would not want my personal friends to be hanging around the workplace for confidentiality and what not - by the same token, I don&amp;#x27;t workplace &amp;quot;friends&amp;quot; hanging out with me after office hours.</text></item><item><author>ohthehugemanate</author><text>Just in case you were operating under the illusion that tech giants are run by forward thinking executives who are immune to the usual politics and problems of corporate life. Nope, most of their exec layer is a bunch of people who cut their teeth the industry in the 90&amp;#x27;s, and are operating within a thick fog of local workplace politics. I guarantee that behind this move is an executive who believes that developers need to be physically colocated to be productive, because that&amp;#x27;s how it worked when he was coming up at WordPerfect or whatever. Backing it is also a group of people who have a lot to gain from it politically.&lt;p&gt;At my employer we have some  pockets of embarrassing leadership like this, but thankfully I haven&amp;#x27;t seen it in anyone senior enough to make global policy like this.  My department is letting go of remote teams and only hiring in a handful of cities around the world, while ramping up office space spending. It&amp;#x27;s more expensive, less flexible, and less productive... and everyone knows it. But I guess it makes some people feel important, and it&amp;#x27;s how some others remember developing when they last did it 20 years ago. So it&amp;#x27;s happening anyway, and many of their best engineers are now on the market.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>swat535</author><text>There is a difference between being friendly and becoming friends. The latter is dangerous and you will be fooled in thinking your coworkers actually care about you and you need to drink the corporate kool-aid, work overtime and be a true best friend to everyone.&lt;p&gt;If you are going out binge drinking with your co-workers, you&amp;#x27;re doing it wrong because it blurries the lines between professional and personal life in my humble opinion.&lt;p&gt;Very few deep friendships develop at work, at best they will be acquaintances you see once in a while.&lt;p&gt;So by all means, be nice and cooperative but keep your distance.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work</title><url>https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/31/google-speeds-partial-office-reopening-and-puts-limits-on-remote-work.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>austinjp</author><text>What about those who _do_ want a friendly workplace with some element of social interaction?</text></item><item><author>wg0</author><text>Absolutely - in knowledge economy, insisting on physical presence is darn damn stupid.&lt;p&gt;And I don&amp;#x27;t want to hang &amp;quot;with friends at work&amp;quot; I go to &amp;quot;work&amp;quot; that has to be specified clearly and that I expect to deliver with purely professional merit driven collaboration and not friendships and gangs.&lt;p&gt;I have friends or would love to have friends out of the place where I work. I want strict compartmentalisation between work and personal life. As the company would not want my personal friends to be hanging around the workplace for confidentiality and what not - by the same token, I don&amp;#x27;t workplace &amp;quot;friends&amp;quot; hanging out with me after office hours.</text></item><item><author>ohthehugemanate</author><text>Just in case you were operating under the illusion that tech giants are run by forward thinking executives who are immune to the usual politics and problems of corporate life. Nope, most of their exec layer is a bunch of people who cut their teeth the industry in the 90&amp;#x27;s, and are operating within a thick fog of local workplace politics. I guarantee that behind this move is an executive who believes that developers need to be physically colocated to be productive, because that&amp;#x27;s how it worked when he was coming up at WordPerfect or whatever. Backing it is also a group of people who have a lot to gain from it politically.&lt;p&gt;At my employer we have some  pockets of embarrassing leadership like this, but thankfully I haven&amp;#x27;t seen it in anyone senior enough to make global policy like this.  My department is letting go of remote teams and only hiring in a handful of cities around the world, while ramping up office space spending. It&amp;#x27;s more expensive, less flexible, and less productive... and everyone knows it. But I guess it makes some people feel important, and it&amp;#x27;s how some others remember developing when they last did it 20 years ago. So it&amp;#x27;s happening anyway, and many of their best engineers are now on the market.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>varispeed</author><text>You can be friendly without having to socialise. Not sure why those things would have to go together?
Doing socials after work is such a waste of time - sure it may be fun, but this way you are using up time that otherwise you could use to maintain friendships outside of work. 
Socialising at work is when you develop unconscious and conscious biases and it is a breeding ground for a toxic atmosphere and disruption of team dynamics.</text></comment>