Google tells employees to share desks as it looks to cut costs

[rsmith222]

Why is this moronic? This concept has been used for quite a while now. When people aren't in the office 100% of the time there's no need to have all that floor space going unused. Real estate is expensive, especially in places where Google et al have offices.

Take a look at the 'precision' euphemism that's used in the rail industry in the US.

'Efficiency' can be a quest that goes awry.

Yes, it's stupid to be wantonly wasteful. Yes, it's also stupid to go to extremes to save money, when those extremes demoralize and dehumanize workers.

The current situation with the rail industry is a perfect example. One one hand there are big juicy profits and stock buybacks. On the other hand you have people who can't take sick time and who have 90 seconds to inspect 100 feet of train car, only to know that they're not supposed to report the problems anyway.

 

[Hodor]

Well, if a coworker looks like Helena Mattsson I'm even prepared to share my chair with her. Pairing is a lot fun anyway. One can often solve problems that he otherwise wouldn't solve alone.

 

[yannus]

It reminds me of the great reset narrative where you don't own your house and you have to share the place with a company. Google employee now can't have personal items at their desk, so their desk isn't really theirs anymore.

 

[rsmith222]

It reminds me of the great reset narrative where you don't own your house and you have to share the place with a company. Google employee now can't have personal items at their desk, so their desk isn't really theirs anymore.

Post-tsar Russian culture did this around the late 1910s and 20s. The idea was to have plebians (peasants) live with the intelligentsia (such as famous writers), at least in city apartments.

There was a also a brief flirt with bisexuality, as if everyone is bisexual and simply needs to try it to realize they like it.

As problematic as both of those experiments were, what Russians got after that was vastly worse (Stalinism).

Interestingly enough, an influential Chinese economist recently suggested normalizing/affirming bisexuality in China as a solution to its birthrate imbalance. The current leadership there were not in favor.

 

[amghwk]

Since the Google CEOs themselves are not usually in office - maybe cruising, or playing golf somewhere or flying in their private jets, they should be sharing their desks too.

 

[Xausejo]

Reduce the high paying bosses, managers, not the things or workers down the line that makes your company works..

 

[Avro Arrow]

Take a look at the 'precision' euphemism that's used in the rail industry in the US.

'Efficiency' can be a quest that goes awry.

Yes, it's stupid to be wantonly wasteful. Yes, it's also stupid to go to extremes to save money, when those extremes demoralize and dehumanize workers.

The current situation with the rail industry is a perfect example. One one hand there are big juicy profits and stock buybacks. On the other hand you have people who can't take sick time and who have 90 seconds to inspect 100 feet of train car, only to know that they're not supposed to report the problems anyway.

Yep. Efficiency is only efficiency if it has a positive result, otherwise, it's malpractice.

 

[yannus]

Post-tsar Russian culture did this around the late 1910s and 20s. The idea was to have plebians (peasants) live with the intelligentsia (such as famous writers), at least in city apartments.

There was a also a brief flirt with bisexuality, as if everyone is bisexual and simply needs to try it to realize they like it.

As problematic as both of those experiments were, what Russians got after that was vastly worse (Stalinism).

Interestingly enough, an influential Chinese economist recently suggested normalizing/affirming bisexuality in China as a solution to its birthrate imbalance. The current leadership there were not in favor.

All this is social engineering done by the same people in different places and time, they're isolating us and destroying our moral and political thinking (not the one of voting for one party or another but the one of understanding the real needs and threats for society) to have absolute control.

 

[Avro Arrow]

All this is social engineering done by the same people in different places and time, they're isolating us and destroying our moral and political thinking (not the one of voting for one party or another but the one of understanding the real needs and threats for society) to have absolute control.

Yup. The rich have the poor treating politics like a team sport. They care more about Red vs. Blue than the actual threats to their well-being.

"Never underestimate the stupidity of the average human."
- Me, 2002

 

[rsmith222]

All this is social engineering done by the same people in different places and time, they're isolating us and destroying our moral and political thinking (not the one of voting for one party or another but the one of understanding the real needs and threats for society) to have absolute control.

The pre-Stalinism post-revolution period in Russian culture had some big upsides, especially in the arts. While the US was busy making lowbrow films — where the goal was to make money more than to make art, innovation was mainly coming from the Russian film industry. Believe it or not, chasing dollars isn't always the path toward better-quality products. That was a pretty shocking thing to realize as someone who had been indoctrinated from birth to believe that chasing dollars is the key to most everything.

In terms of the classical music avant garde, some Russian and Ukrainian composers were light years ahead of America and most of the world. That started even prior to the revolution, with Scriabin. Sadly, one of the most innovative was a Ukrainian (Roslavets) who was destroyed by Stalinism. Have a listen to Marc-André Hamelin play his 5th sonata or etudes.

The bisexuality experiment wasn't designed to undermine the plebs. It was actually aimed at the intelligentsia and was devised by them. So, it's not the same thing as some of the experimentation that was done merely to grab power and exploit people (like the 'Cultural Revolution' in China). It wasn't very popular and successful so was quickly abandoned but what it mostly represented was the sense of freedom and innovation that that brief period in Russian culture had. It was a combination of the industrial revolution/scientific progress as well as the revolution (leaving behind Tsarism). It made many people feel that there were a lot of things to learn about life and the world. The 'family values' rhetoric of Stalinism is where the real threat was.

 

[mailpup]

Back on topic please. Thank you.

 

[waclark]

Take a look at the 'precision' euphemism that's used in the rail industry in the US.

'Efficiency' can be a quest that goes awry.

Yes, it's stupid to be wantonly wasteful. Yes, it's also stupid to go to extremes to save money, when those extremes demoralize and dehumanize workers.

The current situation with the rail industry is a perfect example. One one hand there are big juicy profits and stock buybacks. On the other hand you have people who can't take sick time and who have 90 seconds to inspect 100 feet of train car, only to know that they're not supposed to report the problems anyway.

I'm pretty sure hoteling isn't demoralizing or dehumanizing people. As I said, some companies have been doing this for decades. There are even companies that specialize in rental office space. My current company had a space like that until Covid. A desk is a place to sit and work. For most of the companies I have worked for in the past 3 decades this was more than sufficient. We had phone systems that could be programmed to your phone number, network connections to plug your laptop into and all the accoutrements needed in an office space (printers, fax machines, copiers and so on). I never felt dehumanized at all.