1y ago

Google employees typically work more than eight hours a day: Internal memo

www.cnbc.com Google employees typically work more than eight hours a day: Internal memo

Employees said they were eager to share the HR representative's response with their relatives.

Google employees typically work more than eight hours a day: Internal memo::Employees said they were eager to share the HR representative's response with their relatives.

You're viewing a single thread.

42 comments

This is true for most technology always-on businesses... Also why they get paid a ton in most cases
- But should it be true? Why should businesses people work for expect or require them to use more than the minimum amount of time required for a full-time job, which should be lower anyway?
  
  As an almost FAANG sized company engineer, I stay because I have work to do.
  They ask me: Hey RedditWanderer, how much money /people and how long will it take to do this? I'm free to say whatever number, but I need to hit it. And when I don't, I often feel personally responsible that I wasn't able to foresee delays. They pay me a lot to get it right so I work a lot to look like I'm right.
  On top of that the studio is like a 4 star hotel. Running late and would like to finish this one thing? That's cool they'll cook me food and pay my cab home. Got this project right? Here's $80,000 worth of stock as bonus. Don't feel like working today? Then just don't come to work. It's all about the social contract that they'll let me do whatever I want because they'll know I'll do as much as I can.
  I'm not saying it's the proper way to do anything, and I definitely don't expect my teams to stay late. Ideally I do my job well and nobody (aside maybe for me) needs to feel like they should work later.
  
  It's definitely not the proper way to do anything if you have a family. You should not have to choose between being a present parent and being paid what you're worth. But a lot of companies, Google included, take a dim view of people who refuse to work as many hours as they can.
  
  I get to choose though. I have unlimited time off/sick days, roll into work at whatever hour I want and can take time that I need to do other things. Nobody is forcing me to stay, and I had the opportunity to tell them how long it would take. I am also free to call it off and extend if I need.
  I work a lot, but the company isn't enforcing bad work life balance. Imagine if you had a job where your boss paid you hundreds of hours of overtime beforehand, and left it to you to decide when and if to take it, would you not sometimes do overtime when you feel it's your responsibility?
  
  You may get to choose. All those people whose bosses tell them they're needed to come in on the weekend again do not. It's not legal to enforce overtime, but it's done in practice all the time.
  
  Yeah thats definitely not ok, but in recent years I find work life balance, or at least the facade, has been a bigger part of company pillars. It's really taboo to ask someone to stay past 4pm no matter what time they started. Nobody on any of my teams, and none of the teams I've ever been on have had mandatory overtime (that's illegal in Canada for the most part unless they're paying double bubble). Given we are salaried they can't pay us overtime, so they pay us "ahead of time".
  I think you're right, the pursuit of profit should not go against how we live as a society, but a lot of these FAANG workers are really cushy. I guess what I'm trying to say is I feel bad for the factory worker who is at risk of losing his job if he doesn't do OT because he is short staffed and they are threatening to move the factory. I don't feel bad for well paid engineers who decide to stay.
  
  I would caveat your comment about FAANG workers being cushy. The majority of their workforce these days are contracted versus permanently hired on with the company proper. Those contractors/subcontractors get treated like disposable shit.
  
  I would say that it is not the proper way even if you have not a family
  
  The sad reality is that a lot of people evade parenting by spending way too much time at their work. To some extent using work as an excuse to spend less time educating and spending times with kids.
  So you either get the social stigma of not willing to have kids, or you do get some kids and actually don't want to spend time with them ?
  Obviously, some parents find the right balance between the two and actually care about the kids enough to keep work in check but I'm starting to think that's more an exception than the norm.
  Sorry if this is rough to read or offensive. As I said, I work 39h a week and most of the higher ups at work do 41/42+ hours a week easy. It's obvious than they choose work before education. There is a point where it's just physically impossible to be there for your kids while spending that much time work. Don't even get me started on these higher ups spending so much time working even when they do get home.
  
  I'm starting to think that's more an exception than the norm.
  This is a really assuming comment, lol. Are there people like that? Absolutely. Is it the norm? Highly doubtful. Without some hard data, can't really say one way or another, I suppose.
  
  Your talk of providing estimates just reminds me of this scene from Star Trek TNG.
  Geordi La Forge: I told the Captain I'd have this analysis done in an hour.
  Scotty: How long will it really take?
  Geordi La Forge: An hour!
  Scotty: Oh, you didn't tell him how long it would 'really' take, did ya?
  Geordi La Forge: Well, of course I did.
  Scotty: Oh, laddie. You've got a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker.
  
  As an almost FAANG sized company engineer, I stay because I have work to do.
  Everyone has work to do.
  If you stay once in a while it's ok, shit happen from time time but if you always (or most of the days) stay, then you and your company have a problem: bad management. And that is not solved with overtime.
  
  I stay more than I need to for sure. And I encourage people to leave. I guess I just feel like my employer isn't forcing me, as this title might imply. I know not everyone lives like me so it should definitely raise alarm bells when most people have that work schedule.
  
  You can argue that it shouldn't be true, but the fact that this is presented as breaking news about Google is ridiculous. This is true about many positions in the US.
  
  The breaking news part seems to me to be the part where they got the memo saying it was basically an understood policy. That is true about many jobs, but it usually isn't spelled out so clearly, certainly not for a company the size of Google. I think it's good for workers to know for a fact that they're being exploited at every possible opportunity.
  
  I don't get it either. I work in IT in France and do 39 hours a week. It's fairly close to that google figure.
  And we have one of the most protective unions and so on here in France.
  This is absolutely not unusual in EU to see people working 40+ hours a week and I'm sure there is much worse.
  I agree that we should all work less than 8 hours a day, no matter the field honestly, but that's just how it is right now.
  Now the main difference is we probably have much more holidays than in the US but that's a different story.
  
  But he said they get paid more. That makes it ok for some reason.
- I work for a large online retailer for 10 years and I can assure I never worked more than 40 hours per week in that time period, and I've been part of the on-call rotation for half of it.
  And besides, overworking software engineers is a stupid waste of money because our productivity starts going to shit even before the 40 hours, let alone on overtime.

42 comments