Google CEO Tells Employees Productivity and Focus Must Improve (cnbc.com) 167
Google is launching a new effort called "Simplicity Sprint" in an effort to improve efficiency and improve employee focus during an uncertain economic environment. From a report: The Alphabet company had its regular all-hands meeting last Wednesday, and the tone was somewhat urgent as employees expressed concern over layoffs and CEO Sundar Pichai asked employees for input, according to attendees and related internal documentation viewed by CNBC. Google's productivity as a company isn't where it needs to be even with the head count it has, Pichai told employees in the meeting. "I wanted to give some additional context following our earnings results, and ask for your help as well," Pichai opened, referring to the company's second-quarter earnings report Tuesday. "It's clear we are facing a challenging macro environment with more uncertainty ahead." He added, "There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the head count we have." He asked employees to help "create a culture that is more mission-focused, more focused on our products, more customer focused. We should think about how we can minimize distractions and really raise the bar on both product excellence and productivity."
Morale (Score:5, Insightful)
What I'm seeing across the industry is a lot of super low morale. In that sort of environment, expecting people to carry water and death march seems unrealistic at best, and a set up to blame workers when it all falls apart at worst. What's even going on, here?
Re:Morale (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Morale (Score:5, Insightful)
It also sounds like they're going to use this as an excuse to cut back on work-from-home hours and get more people back in the office for those infamous catered 12-hour office shifts that Google was infamous for. Fire up the nap pods, boys and girls, because people are going to be coming back in droves and living in the office whether they want to or not!
Threatening layoffs if "productivity" doesn't improve is probably a good way to do this, as hiring is starting to slow down and they don't have to worry about people jumping ship to a fully work-from-home tech startup as much.
Re: (Score:3)
those infamous catered 12-hour office shifts that Google was infamous for.
It's been a long time since people were generally willing to do that at Google. There hasn't been an incentive to.
Re: Morale (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Then they panicked and instituted a "flexible working arrangement" which is nothing of the sort, so more people left.
I told my boss that I would like to work from home Mondays and Fridays and he told me that those rules don't apply to our department. (They totally do, he just doesn't want to have to try to replace me).
Re: (Score:3)
I told my boss that I would like to work from home Mondays and Fridays
Well there's your mistake- you should have said "Mondays through Fridays".
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately I have the sort of job that means I have to be on site. I only have a 15 minute commute, so it's not too bad and my colleagues are pretty good on the whole.
Re: Morale (Score:3)
Re:Morale (Score:5, Insightful)
The entire economy is down. Tech companies are not only not immune, but probably seeing the worst end of it even if hardware woes in the supply chain aren't directly impacting their bottom line.
When that happens, CEOs, often completely disconnected from the people in the trenches, will assume that the one main reason is that their underlings aren't working as hard anymore. Or, at the very least, they'll act like this is the case even if they know it isn't. Why? Because they can't do or say anything to change the overall economy, the supply chain, the state of inflation, the worth of the dollar, or any of that other nonsense. But? They can DEFINITELY make their people feel worse. And nothing makes a CEO happier than beating the emotional shit out of people that are already dragging ass because they're tired of being blamed every time the higher ups lose a penny on the dollar of their net worth. A net worth that's likely ten to several hundred times bigger than the people they are scolding.
See, all perfectly logical.
Re:Morale (Score:4, Insightful)
Google has coddled their employees for years. There's likely the suspicion among the leadership there that some of their employees might not be doing very much each day. Who knows, maybe the CEO is right? When the going gets tough the tough get going, and all that.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Morale (Score:5, Informative)
The entire economy is down. Tech companies are not only not immune
Google, as a company, has never really seen hard times. When money gets leaner, that's when leadership cracks down on the un-essentials. Look for Google's famously dorm-like atmosphere become much more conventional as the budget screws are tightened.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, yes. Also a sign of a company in decay. Because giving employees crap like this will make the good ones look elsewhere and then the dross is what is left.
Re: (Score:2)
The "good ones" are already treated like special unicorns, they don't care what policies will apply to the rank and file. A close friend of mine has worked from home as a developer for Google for more than a decade. 100% from home and lives in the high desert several hours from the closest google office.
Re: (Score:2)
That does not surprise me.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't really know where you're seeing this, certainly dev salaries are at an all time high, as are vacancies, even with companies like Facebook and Google cutting back on hiring. Morale in general is good because it's so easy to just pack up and leave if you're not happy. I appreciate there's a whole world other than developers out there, but in general if you have low morale as a developer right now, you're doing it wrong. There's thousands of companies out there begging for you, willing to pay you more
Re: (Score:2)
What I don't understand is why Google's board is persevering with Pichai, he couldn't manage his way out of a plant pot, and he's delivered no successful new products in his entire time as CEO. His greedy world view that puts profit above even human lives has also ravaged Google's previously largely positive image amongst the general public.
Most likely this also describes the board of directors (except for Sergey and Larry, who may also be described as "checked out").
Re: (Score:2)
No idea. At the same time many companies are apparently unable to fill IT positions.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe because IT work is difficult and stressful and demands long hours. People smart enough to do it are smart enough to do other work that is less stressful and/or less demanding, at equivalent or higher pay.
If we want more people in IT, we are going to need to treat them better. It's that simple.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Morale (Score:3)
From my limited experience, it looks like there's been so much churn in the knowledge industry that the institutional knowledge of operating effectively at these places in disappearing. The remnants of the corporate structure can't match the efficiency of the old guard. Then they hire new people to replace those lost which exacerbates the problem in some ways.
Re: Morale (Score:3)
Bro Covid-19 upended everyone everywhere. Daycares and schools closed. What you should work for your company over ensuring your child isnt damaged for life? You should work for your company instead of making sure your baby is getting nurturing attention? Schools were closed. Nannys not available. How could you work in that environment?
A lot of people got deathly sick. What are you going to let your family suffer because you need to work for the big boss? You watched one too many Scrooge movies as a child if
Excuses, excuses (Score:5, Insightful)
Call me crazy, but I think this is just a cunning scheme to use low productivity as an excuse to bring everyone back into the office at a later stage.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Launching a new product at Google is the easiest way to get promoted -- instead of maintaining and improving existing products. Pichai's "hands-off" management style means that don't have a long-term plan, with no top-down leadership laying out a path for their products.. So Google ends up prioritizing off
Re: (Score:2)
Call me crazy, but I think this is just a cunning scheme to use low productivity as an excuse to bring everyone back into the office at a later stage.
It's probably more than that. No more nappy chairs. I'd bet Google is going to look a lot like most offices going forward. This looks like a shot across the bow to employees: prepare to buckle down at your desks and show real productivity progress, or get shitcanned in a purge as the economy tightens.
Re: (Score:2)
That won't happen because the managers have no way to measure productivity. They have gut instincts that are kind of right ("a single page of HTML shouldn't take all quarter to right"), but they know their instinct is often wrong.
Re: (Score:3)
How about stop creating new programming languages and promoting them instead of seeing they make it on their own merit?
Bring back the "don't be evil" thing and follow it? Can't see one being as motivated when the difference you make is not a positive one..
Re:Excuses, excuses (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably this, probably also that Google has lost a lot of its luster as an employer since the Alphabetizing. The current direction is not the visionary, awe inspiring head-trip of decades past, they have instead used their license to print money to be jackasses, and employees aren't feeling the motivation to put in the extra hours, be they at work or at home. They are asking themselves if being part of a vast intelligence agency is doing more good than evil, and probably not liking the balance.
Tech companies live and die by the employees, not the shareholders, and Google is feeling it.
Re: (Score:3)
You got it. Plus, the "don't be evil has left the building" is real.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry Layoffs,
Sorry again, Reduction in Force
Or whatever bullshit cooperate speak is being used today for the same end result.
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, everyone's excuse for remaining work-from-home is that productivity hasn't been impacted. So wouldn't the logical response from the company be "lookie here, productivity has in fact been impacted"?
Re: (Score:2)
Google's productivity problem is not caused by people working from home.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Google's productivity problem is not caused by people working from home.
Correct. Productivity in tech generally *increased* overall when people started working from home. Bringing everybody back into the office has, of course, had the opposite effect.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of my company has gone 100% full remote -over 90% of the entire company- and our productivity is higher than it's ever been.
The fact is, people like working from home. Managers hate to hear that but it's the truth.
Or to put it another way, people don't like going into an office.
I think back to when I was commuting daily, and it seems utterly INSANE to me now. I would never, EVER do that again. It's just nuts.
Plagiarizing Dilbert's PHB? (Score:2)
"Gee, we're supposed to be mission and customer focused? I thought we were making cupcakes for ourselves. Thanks for clarifying, boss! You're a genius!"
Re: (Score:2)
Since before its IPO in 2004 the founders of Google have encouraged the 20% project system. Within Google, this initiative became known as the "20% Project." Employees were encouraged to spend up to twenty-percent of their paid work time pursuing personal projects.
Sounds to me like they let people spend up to 20% of their time making themselves cupcakes if they wish.
customers matter (Score:5, Insightful)
> more customer focused
Hey Sundar, Google has blocked all paths for customers to give feedback or get support of any kind. You've intentionally neutered your relationship with customers. If you want better customer feedback then you are going to need mechanisms for that to happen. So unless you are making some big changes I say that you are full of shit and could care less what your customers think.
Do you even have customers or just users?
Re:customers matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you even have customers or just users?
The "customers" aren't us. It's the companies that buy ads, etc. on their platforms.
Re:customers matter (Score:5, Interesting)
Google sells services beyond Ads, some people buy them - those people don't get much attention or support. I'm not sure anyone cares what those customers think.
How do you think Stadia users feel? It shutting down, its not shutting down, Google could and might dump them at any time.
Google will happily drop your service on the floor and stomp on it while giving you no recourse at all. Super customer friendly, Google obviously cares a lot about 'customers'.
Re:customers matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Google sells services to recoup costs of operating other services to keep people using their platform(s) to sell ads. Google used to be awesome when their employees felt like they had ownership of the products. Most everything that hasn't been an abject failure has been in maintenance mode for years if not decades at this point. They're running out of new products to provide. They had big hits with gmail, google maps, and to some extent google news but it's been a long time since anything interesting came out of their company. The last time I heard someone say "I want to work for google because they're an innovative company" was probably in 2010 when that statement may have still been true.
Re: (Score:2)
That is what happens when you ignore your customers.
Motivation (Score:2)
Workers: Yes, sir, Mr. Simpson.
Homer: Could you, um, work any harder than this?
Re: (Score:2)
The solution is obviously to give all their employees hammocks!
Re: (Score:2)
They're trying to get out of paying workers comp (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
FYI, in America unemployment insurance is just that: insurance. You pay an insurance premium and it's based on how many of your employees draw unemployment. So businesses are incentivized to make it difficult to draw unemployment. Often with the help of the government.
In Florida during the lead up to COVID they'd made it basically impossible to get unemployment payouts until the federal gov't started paying for it. Politicians i
Re: (Score:2)
In Florida during the lead up to COVID they'd made it basically impossible to get unemployment payouts until the federal gov't started paying for it.
What made it difficult to get unemployment payments in Florida was that they're using antiquated software to run the Department of Economic Opportunity (and boy, that name doesn't sound Orwellian at all) and the site would literally kick you off while you were trying to claim your weeks. The workaround they came up with for the server being overloaded was a virtual waiting room, where it would sometimes take hours before you'd be allowed to log in. Then, as you might imagine, the server was still prone to
Re: (Score:2)
A solution to this would of course be to have private unemployment insurance that you carry yourself. If you lose or leave your job, you get to use the insurance based on some agreed upon terms you signed off on. Obviously it would have a max number of payout weeks, etc.
The employer or the government should not get to block me on this. For instance, if you are in a really toxic work environment, quitting should be perfect acceptable and you can then draw unemployment for X weeks while you find your next job
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
A solution to this would of course be to have private unemployment insurance that you carry yourself.
The solution would be to have government provided healthcare.
But it's so hard to do that only 31 of the 32 most industrialized nations have managed to make it work.
Re: (Score:2)
We're talking about unemployment, not healthcare. I can get by much longer without healthcare then I can without an income. It would also be nice if healthcare was removed from both government and employer. It's another insurance I should carry on my own so I don't have to deal with extra parties dictating my life style choices.
The beatings.... (Score:3)
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Of course I fully expect if Google and many other companies don't already use "Stack and Yank" ratings they are going to soon.
It's not all roses... (Score:2)
Desire - perpetual profit machine. Reality - markets go up and down, especially as they mature and you see other players enter the market with innovations.
Your company doesn't innovate as fast as they do because you've gotten so big, your projects languish in bureaucratic red tape and your best tech workers don't innovate because of the chains you've put on them. The really good developers got out after they made their $$$ and found something less soul-crushing to do. Dangling the carrot won't work, eithe
Re: (Score:2)
Why are programmers non-productive? Because their time is wasted in meetings.
Why are programmers rebellious? Because the management interferes too much.
Why are the programmers resigning one by one? Because they are burnt out.
Having worked for poor management, they no longer value their jobs.
Re: (Score:2)
Thus spake the Master Programmer:
"Time for you to leave."
Re: (Score:2)
Iduno, in the grand scheme of things what's a bigger waste of time: going to a meeting or writing unit tests that never fail for code that gets thrown away in 12 months
That's easy, going to a meeting. That's true, and I don't really like unit tests.
Simplicity Sprint summary (Score:2)
I was interested to see what a "simplicity sprint" really was, since it wasn't defined in the summary... from the article a few points about that:
"a new effort called âoeSimplicity Sprint,â which will solicit ideas from its more than 174,000 employees on where to focus and improve efficiency."
(I have to say polling 174,000 people on ideas for simplicity sounds like the setup for a joke).
"Questions in the survey include âoeWhat would help you work with greater clarity and efficiency to serve o
Re: (Score:2)
They hired 174,000 people to run a search engine and an ad server?
Maybe they actually *do* need to reduce their headcount.
Re: (Score:2)
Here it is in Hollywood form [youtube.com].
Re: (Score:2)
I was interested to see what a "simplicity sprint" really was, since it wasn't defined in the summary...
I just assumed it meant they plan to run the company into the ground and then be bought out by T-Mobile.
Re: Simplicity Sprint summary (Score:2)
Summarized: (Score:2)
So, despite productivity massively up ... (Score:4, Informative)
what's the saying ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Go woke....then how does that end again?
Hey Sundar (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey Sundar, go FUCK yourself.
Take your $100M salary and just go fuck off someplace where we don't have to listen to you shitting on the people that make you your money.
Management controls morale (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Employees will give you what you incentivize.
The question Google needs to ask themselves is, "What have we been incentivizing?"
Re: (Score:2)
Based on what I've heard of their interview process (this may be dated) the ability to solve puzzles. To the extent that puzzle-solving is applicable to the world of work, their very best employees are probably not the least bit worried now. They're probably not even real Google employees any more, just numbers that legally receive checks and Google can't do anything about it because they're *that good* at solving puzzles.
Re: (Score:2)
Based on what I've heard of their interview process (this may be dated) the ability to solve puzzles.
That's definitely the interview process.
Re: (Score:3)
Incentivize synergy, all is solved!
I like it. Soon we'll be buzzing like bees! Together in Brownian motion!
Re: (Score:2)
4A. Free gascards / transit passes as well.
Re: (Score:2)
4. Free coffee. It works, trust me.
It doesn't work for me. And it's not really free, is it? You have to get in a vehicle and drive to the office to get that "free" coffee.
Between gas, oil, wear and tear, and the commute time itself, that's a pretty expensive cup of coffee. (For *you*, not for them!)
So, I'll pass. Plus, I have better coffee at home than anything served in any office I've ever been in.
In short, no cup of coffee will get me back into the office. :)
And as for the things they do think will bring me back, I actually view those thi
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Work from home fail. (Score:4, Insightful)
Working from home is MUCH safer than working in the office, in many ways that matter:
1. The risk of automobile accident during the commute/
2. The risk of being exposed to communicable diseases from co-workers.
3. The risk of losing one's career due to a false accusation
Working from home dramatically reduces all of these risks. It's a total win, and it has become a foundation of he new culture for jobs that befit the practice.
In my experience, teams are very quick to rat-out a member who is not being productive, since that just puts more work on them, so I see the problem of productivity maintenance naturally sorting itself out along those lines.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. You can also stare out the window at the office all day. Or play games on your phone.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll go out on a limb and say everyone on this site must be at the top of their game and does a great job working from home. Probably more efficient in fact.
With that said, I'm quite certain you all know people in your company that goof off, do the minimal amount of work, etc. While we may be better off just firing them, possibly bringing them back under direct supervision may result in some more work out of the average worker, as oppose to the super stars.
I know in my work place, half the workers are defin
Re:Work from home fail. (Score:4, Insightful)
Err, and exactly what part of any of that is necessary for you getting your job done correctly and on time?
If your sitting around jabbering with "the group", you're not getting work done.
Well, that's all a job IS....a paycheck.
The days of having a job for life with employer being loyal to employee has been over LONG ago...like back in the 80's gone.
I've been working as a contractor for the last 20+ years.
I've been on VERY long, multi-year contracts, usually as a sub that just changed with the different primes over the years. The past 12 years, working remotely from home.
Everyone on the last project worked remotely, I never met any of the people face to face. So, there was no "group".
These were extremely large, complex systems being developed, maintained, integrated and worked on....and with sufficient pay, very very little turnover.
Over all these years, no problem with communication. Morale never came into question, it's a fucking job, you do it if you want to get paid. I'm not there to have "feel goods" about things, I'm there to get paid. If I were independently wealthy, I'd not be there working, you know?
Emotional bond with a company? Sorry..what are you smoking?
I would hope most people do as I do...and have a LIFE outside of work, resplendent with real friends in meatspace...family, people you genuinely care about and like to hang out and spend time with....
Work is work....life is everything outside of work.
Re:Work from home fail. (Score:4, Insightful)
To be clear, it is foolish to form an emotional bond with your company, since the company will not appreciate it and will fire you as soon as it makes business sense.
Be loyal and affectionate to people, not corporations.
Re:Work from home fail. (Score:4, Insightful)
IDK, I find humanizing my boss (aka good morning, hows the family, etc) goes a long way in being treated like a person. Yes, I'm really good at my job, write my own schedule, etc but those soft people skills can really make things easier.
For instance, if I need random time off I'm much more likely to get it while maintaining good graces with my bosses and coworkers. Of course, other times the we need an extra push and I'll go in on a day off (I get paid) or maybe work a little extra. Rarely does either of these scenarios happen but life happens for everyone.
Numerous of my coworkers often complain management is less interactive with them or sometimes avoidant. I always ask, well, when you see them first thing in the day, do you say good morning or do you just launch into your problem that requires them to fix it NOW?
My bosses aren't worried that I'm constantly bringing them a problem and therefore when I do have one, they tend to listen a bit more about it. Go figure.
Re: (Score:2)
IDK, I find humanizing my boss (aka good morning, hows the family, etc) goes a long way in being treated like a person.
Your boss is a person. Your boss's company is not.
Your boss will appreciate you as a person. Your company will not.
Your boss will fire you, even if he doesn't want to, if it makes business sense for the company.
Re: (Score:2)
^^^^ Words of Wisdom, listen up and take it to heart. This is EXACTLY how it works.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, e.g., when in 2008-2009 the company let go almost half it's work force, after letting me go my boss referred me to the company I work for now and recommended me to them.
Re: (Score:2)
+1
Re: Work from home fail. (Score:2)
1. You are correct.
But also 2: there is no reason you need to feel disconnected from the people you work with, even if they are remote. At my company we all leave our cameras on. We joke and laugh during meetings. The leads are collegial and they interview for people that are similarly collegial. Not everyone participates to the same extent, but nobody has a bad attitude about it.
Communication and connection are things you DO not things that HAPPEN. Whether or not it is necessary to do good work is up for d
Re: (Score:3)
Err, and exactly what part of any of that is necessary for you getting your job done correctly and on time?
If your sitting around jabbering with "the group", you're not getting work done.
And I think there in lies the problem.
It's the difference between being productive and looking productive. A person who leaves on time or early but gets all their assigned tasks done (and a few that weren't assigned) looks terrible to a manager although their KPIs are through the roof. This kind of person looked better during the pandemic because they stopped seeeing when he was leaving and started seeing the work he was doing.
Conversely the type of employee who would wander about all day, schedule po
Re:Work from home fail. (Score:5, Insightful)
Holy shit. Your whole post is horrifying. An emotional bond with the company? What the fuck? I absolutely can not wrap my head around that idea. It's a paycheck. Treating it as anything more is a good way to depress yourself into oblivion, as I can absolutely guarantee you that no matter how good the management or company is today, eventually the dollars will win out, and your value will be seen only as how much you cost the company, regardless of how much revenue you've generated over your time with the company.
Frankly, I don't feel a part of the group even being in the office. I still get my job done, because I do that job, I get paid. Pretty simple recipe. Same thing I did with work from home. Because it was the same recipe. It's all it ever can be so long as I'm working for somebody else. Wrapping any amount of importance in it beyond that seems exceedingly dangerous to my mental well-being.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly.
I don't want to be part of a group of my coworkers. I don't want to "bond" with them.
They're nice people, but I don't want to party with them, hang out with them, or do shit with them.
I have a life for that stuff.
Far too many people confuse their job with their life; I've never understood that.
Re: (Score:2)
along with common sense
"Common sense?" How does that factor into something like this?
And IMO it'd be dishonest to paint your own experiences as sufficient to dismiss an entire concept (same, to be fair, with those who use their experiences to claim no issues need resolution in doing/continuing WFH).
Re: (Score:2)
"Employees don't form an emotional bond with the company anymore"
Holy fuck, are you serious?
The last thing in the world I want to do is "form a bond" with my company. Or ANY company.
I work to live, NOT the other way around.
"it's just a paycheck and projects to do"
Yes, yes, YES, now you're getting it! It's just a job, dude, don't confuse it with your life.
Re: (Score:3)
My last job had me in meetings 50% of the time. At first I resented the resulting drop in productivity, but then I eventually learned to appreciate getting paid for not working.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, I'd rather do something productive. But if someone is willing to pay me $75 an hour to sit in a meeting, I will somehow endure the pain.
Re: (Score:2)
But if someone is willing to pay me $75 an hour to sit in a meeting, I will somehow endure the pain.
They pay me pretty close to that, so yeah, sign my ass up for as many meetings as you want.
I just sit there and doze in and out while doing other stuff around the house, or I browse the web (on my PC, not theirs) while they natter on about trivia that has nothing to do with me.
My goal is to do 'meetings' all the way to retirement, and I won't lose a minute of sleep over it, either.
Frankly, if meetings solved anything they'd make them illegal.
Re: (Score:3)
A day full of blowhard PHB's, uuuuggg.
The trick is to not actually listen to them, use the audio as white noise.
Most of the meetings I 'attend' are about crap that doesn't touch me, and frankly I couldn't tell you what most of them are about (and I don't care).
But they signed me up for the meeting(s) and they pay me to attend, so that's what I'm gonna do.
The truth is that I really don't care anymore; I'd sort paper clips all day long as long as they pay me.
Re: (Score:3)
Ha ha, too late my brain has already atrophied. I mean, it should be obvious by now, lol.
But seriously, my goal is simple: Get paid the most I can for doing the least amount of work I can. Frankly I think that should be everyone's goal.
I'm not saying don't work hard, I'm saying that you should be paid appropriately for the skills you have and the work you do.
Also, neither of us was born into this world to work like a dog. I know I wasn't, and I don't see my life's goal as to "work hard". If others do, more
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe I'm kidding myself, but I sleep better when I FEEL I did something useful rather than administrative musical chairs.
Not to worry, that will pass and eventually you'll sleep soundly either way.
Just decouple yourself from your job. It's just a job. You want a paycheck, they pay you to do whatever. It's all good.
If you can get some personal satisfaction from it, so much the better.
But remember:
1) it's just a J. O. B. and you'd quit in 5 seconds if they stopped paying you (as you should), and
2) they'll fire you in a heartbeat just to make some number in a spreadsheet bigger or smaller.
In the end, very few of us are doin' it
Re: (Score:2)
You'd rather sit in a fucking meeting than do something productive? That's pretty hardcore slackage.
Fuckin' aye, bro, I'll happily goldbrick my way to retirement dicking around in meetings.
So yes, I surely would rather "sit in a fucking meeting" than doing something productive. It's like getting paid for....doing nothing. And I do not, repeat DO NOT have a problem with that.
I still do plenty of productive work, but honestly, I'd rather be fucking off in a meeting where I don't have to do shit.
Anyway, feel free to work as much as you like and as hard as you like. I'm not stopping you. Burn yourself to a ci
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, same here. Sign me up for as many meetings as you like, I'll attend them ALL.
It's free money- I mean, if they want to pay me to doze off in pointless meetings, who am I to argue?
Re: (Score:2)
Someone needs to document the rise from a garage into the "don't be evil" stage, then financing by the wealthy and powerful, and finally the descent into the long twilight of corporate ineptitude.
People have done that. With his announcement, he's clear he wants what Google was 23 years ago. In the early days it was all about empowering developers at Google.
20 years ago, support from Google was amazing. In-company developers were paid astonishing sums, even relative to the Internet boom that was going on. External developer customers could contact them and get world-class support. They grew rapidly but maintained a startup mentality, everything was lean and mean, everything was about getting stuff