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tigerCELL t1_ja6374u wrote

They fired 12,000 people and 100 robots. But this is my favorite part:

>Meanwhile, in a bid to further cut costs, Google has even asked employees who return to work to share their work desks with a "partner" to maximise office space.

Instead of just letting people work from home.

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DerekB52 t1_ja6qfmx wrote

Google has employees that are completely remote, and their hybrid model has them in-office 2 days a week on average. I interviewed with them this month and a recruiter told me this around the start of the year.

I am confused by the idea of them needing to maximize office space though. With 12,000 layoffs, and remote/hybrid workers, they have to have less workers in the office than they've had in years.

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Infallible_Ibex t1_ja6tox4 wrote

If you are a manager who doesn't give a shit about the employees then saving thousands on utilities a year by closing sections and floors and crowding the workers into the remaining space is a brilliant move.

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ClassicCodes t1_ja7jue1 wrote

It's probably not about needing to save on costs, it's more likely about artificially inflating profit for the short term. Some higher management probably looking for a good ROI for investors to justify massive bonuses for executives at the end of the quarter. Icing on the cake if they jump ship after the bonus and move on to another company where they do the same shit.

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ScrotumFlavoredTaint t1_ja8s430 wrote

It's not class treason if you do it for lots of money ^and ^switch ^to ^a ^higher ^class ^in ^the ^process, ^besides ^every ^other ^CEO ^is ^doing ^it ^so ^¯\_ ^(ツ) ^_/¯.

/s

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small_toe t1_ja72my4 wrote

They've closed a number of offices apparently.

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Zeduca t1_ja7q0xf wrote

May be google is trying to free up office spaces to terminate the leases on them. With a only two days a week schedule, offices will be 60% under utilized. IBM did this in the 80’s.

And there must be a huge number of cleaning robots they no longer need with reduced space.

Google is just harvesting the benefits of WFH.

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IMovedYourCheese t1_ja9aw1o wrote

Google hired 50K+ new employees during the pandemic, and obviously didn't add equivalent office space to make up for it. Now those extra ~32K employees (after the layoffs) need desks.

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lewdwiththefood t1_ja6q6h1 wrote

Great so now that we are forcing everyone back we are also going to make the experience of working at the office the equivalent of working from a coffee shop.

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caananball t1_ja6w6wv wrote

They do let people work from home. The desk “partners” are a pair of people who come to the office on different days using the same desk. Not two people sitting at the same desk at the same time.

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yohoob t1_ja6xuq9 wrote

I only come in one day a week now. People use my desk the other days. Because we actually don't have enough office space for everybody.

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Arronax50 t1_ja7ea64 wrote

It's called "hot desking" and almost every big company in France uses it. I thought it was common in the USA as well.

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JejuneEsculenta t1_ja9tzhh wrote

My company had set up hot desks, while working to transition our office around some RIFs and incoming tenants.

Eventually, they just let us all WFH and closed the office (which we had only built, like, 18 years ago).

Hot desks are brilliant for those who are in the office part time. No need to keep 150 desks for 150 employees, and have them each only used a day or two per week.

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Nopengnogain t1_jaaflfj wrote

It is common, at least where I work, it’s actually less crowded. I used to share an office with someone else, but now that most of us are teleworking, on the days I do go in, I reserve a desk and get the whole office all by myself.

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BurntRussianBBQ t1_ja6ypq7 wrote

Sounds like one the most efficient ways to spread germs I've ever heard. I've also worked with some gross motherfuckers. Used to sani my keyboard if one guy even used it and I'm not a germaphobe, and then to think of sharing a desk with someone like that?

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Arronax50 t1_ja7eesl wrote

I arrive early so I can have one of the desks without the pizza crumbs and leftover soda can. It's a plot to make me work more!

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StarGaurdianBard t1_ja7j322 wrote

I love how on reddit things are always taken to the extreme on things like this lol. In the hospital we don't have assigned seats or anything, literally dozens of people could use the same computer over the course of a 24-hour period. It's completely normal for me to share a computer so it's wild to hear redditors act like it's a huge issue.

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StaMike t1_jabfn5y wrote

You think these posts are extreme? And you think extremism is a characteristic of Redditors? Are there crumbs and soda cans and sticky keyboards left at your sanitary hospital computer stations? Do you think hospital working environments and requirements represent the typical working environments and requirements? You think Redditors are merely acting like this is an issue ('huge' is extremely ott). Could it be that in some working environments, it actually does present problems? Have you read any of the other posts citing the benefits of sharing work stations, or just this post/thread?

It's funny, in a ridiculous kind of way, how some people 'always' use a relatively little bit of something to determine that the little bit represents the extreme all of something.

To paraphrase, I found your post irksome.

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SpaceDoctorWOBorders t1_ja7slbo wrote

And you don't think that's gross and has a potential for getting people sick more often?

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BurntRussianBBQ t1_ja8cmso wrote

Hey man they work in the HOSPITAL. They are immune to germ theory.

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StarGaurdianBard t1_ja9j8yg wrote

At some point you either accept that hand hygiene and disinfectant wipes work or you deny the science behind it and you have bigger problems.

Only on reddit can you find people activity like it's a war crime that their employers require then to share equipment and need to wipe it down every so often.

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BurntRussianBBQ t1_ja9krop wrote

Most people can't even use sanitizing wipes correctly. Sharing a desk is a very personal thing and people are fucking gross. Also implies you have to share the chair. I only want to sit on my own history of darts thank you very much.

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StarGaurdianBard t1_ja9lhc4 wrote

Then...learn how to use them correctly? It's all on you to use the sanitizing wipe before using the stuff. If you don't know how to clean things then you have much bigger issues in your life than sharing a mouse and keyboard with someone else.

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BurntRussianBBQ t1_jaa0wn6 wrote

It's gross, and the fact we are discussing sanitizing wipes everyday as normal thing bc you have to share a desk is such a pain. So glad I work from home.

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StarGaurdianBard t1_ja9k22b wrote

Do you not practice hand hygiene? Do you not wipe down your work station before you use it? You can get yourself sick if you don't use a disinfectant wipe at the start of your shift even if it's your own stuff so that's more telling on you than anything.

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SpaceDoctorWOBorders t1_ja9nvf5 wrote

No I've never washed my hands in my life and I wouldn't share a workstation with anyone. I'm not going to get randomly sick from touching the same keyboard I used yesterday compared to if a sick person used it before. Don't pretend like you don't see the increased risk.

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StarGaurdianBard t1_ja9zwh6 wrote

Literally the whole point of hand hygiene and disinfectant is to kill germs. To deny the effectiveness of having the ability to I'll 99.9% of germs means you should live in a bubble since the chances of you getting sick from a disinfected keyboard is astronomically lower than literally touching a doorknob, being around other people, etc. A disinfected keyboard, mouse, etc will have much less germs on them than literally anything else in your life.

It's literally how germ theory and cleanliness works.

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SpaceDoctorWOBorders t1_jaa27a6 wrote

You think a keyboard is the only thing being shared in the cubicle? The whole cube/desk can carry bacteria.

Also, isn't there a whole thing about the overuse of disinfectant and breeding more harmful bacteria/viruses?

https://vitalacy.com/super-germs-are-we-making-bacteria-more-resistant/

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StarGaurdianBard t1_jaa2tw7 wrote

Super germs are being created primarily as a response to overuse of antibiotics, not because of disinfectant wipes.

If you are worried about the whole cube/desk having germs ill once again point out that you shouldn't go out in public then. Where you eat at a restaurant will have more germs than a cubicle. Public transportation will have easily 1000x more. Being In a crowd will have more. Literally any doorknob/doorhandle in public. And if you don't believe in disinfectant I hope you only ever use the bathroom at home.

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SpaceDoctorWOBorders t1_jaa4bbh wrote

You still do all those things though when traveling to work to share a cube, you're just adding extra risk. Where are you getting your info about shared cubicles not being health risks. Just because it's 10,000x less dangerous then eating out of a toilet bowl doesn't mean there isn't any risk.

I've never seen someone defend having a shared working space so hard.

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StarGaurdianBard t1_jaao7vh wrote

Because it may be hard for some people to understand but the vast majority of jobs require shared work spaces and aren't in cubicles lmao. It would apparently shock you to learn that nurses and doctors in hospitals don't have cubicles and that we share the same computers.

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[deleted] t1_ja8wnol wrote

[deleted]

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BurntRussianBBQ t1_ja8xqts wrote

Not wanting to share a desk with greasy crumb ridden workmates is being a germaphobe? One guy I worked with never cleaned his desk after lunch. Literally just all crumbs.

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probably_art t1_ja92yuc wrote

Yeah I bring my own mouse and dongles to work and sanitize the shared workstation before setting up

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ContentThug t1_ja6wqy1 wrote

They do let people work from home which is why they can share desks 🤦

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kinglittlenc t1_ja90741 wrote

I'm pretty sure this is just speak for doing open concept without having enough seats if everyone shows up. Someone at my company was making fun of Google but I'm positive we wouldn't have enough seating or parking if everyone showed up the same day. We do hybrid 3 days a week so it's never an issue

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