
Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are asking staff to work from home - halamadrid
https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/5/21166686/coronavirus-amazon-google-facebook-microsoft-twitter-seattle-staff-remote-work
======
strstr
This is a massive accidental experiment on the effectiveness of fully remote
teams. Most of these companies are fairly reticent to have even a few workers
remote, let alone entire teams/orgs.

It'll be interesting to see if teams push for something closer to full remote
wherever it worked well (or if some employees will want it, having not
realized what it was like).

Plausibly teams that it works well for will have greater ammunition to push
for it, since they have the past experience with it.

~~~
freepor
If this works well I will eat my hat. This represents: companies with no
remote-work culture (thus systems that are not fully documented, etc.),
forcing employees into this suddenly (so they will not have a proper space at
home set up for this... some of them will be in the same room as a crying
baby), while their spouse may also be working from home due to the virus,
while everyone is also thinking about getting a deadly virus every time they
leave the house. I really don't expect much "work" to get done at all.

~~~
BigBubbleButt
> while everyone is also thinking about getting a deadly virus every time they
> leave the house

Am I the only person who isn't worried about the coronavirus? I'm not
exaggerating when I say it hasn't effected my life at all, except for the
effort it took me to write this comment. I live in San Francisco, if it
matters.

~~~
inferiorhuman
_I 'm not exaggerating when I say it hasn't effected my life at all, except
for the effort it took me to write this comment. I live in San Francisco, if
it matters. _

San Francisco just reported its first cases today, but there's definitely been
panic shopping. The city closed down Lowell today as a precautionary measure
(but that leaves nearly 200 campuses open).

Even if you don't suffer any health or financial effects (unlikely) you'll
still be effected if:

\- More schools close, even more if parents have to take time off from work en
masse

\- Public transit becomes a big vector and BART or Muni try to shut down or
reduce service

\- People continue to panic shop. NPR had a photo from a Marin Target with
shelves bare of disinfectant wipes. Rainbow in the city was almost completely
out of canned tomatoes on Monday.

\- On a federal level, if our idiot president succeeds in closing the Mexican
border you'll definitely feel some pain

~~~
rsynnott
> if our idiot president succeeds in closing the Mexican border

Wait, is he trying to do that? Why is that his solution to everything?

~~~
mcv
He just got given a new excuse to close some borders. It would surprise me if
he didn't make use of that.

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guessmyname
My employer dislikes remote work, many will disagree, but I’ll explain why…

The company makes video games and as you can probably guess being creative is
very important. Working from home reduces the creativity of every employee not
just because the existing tools for telecommute are insufficient to create a
good work environment but also because it prevents people from socializing
with spontaneity. Add to this the fact that many of the game developers and
designers need special hardware _(different game consoles, VPN routers, high
speed Internet, interactive pen displays, additional software licenses, etc)_
that the company would have to buy for every single person to maintain the
quality and development speed they have from working on-site.

The founders were forced, due to CORVID-19, to implement an emergency protocol
in case we have to move all operations off-site. The IT department was already
tasked to setup VPN access for all employees, to buy a bunch of expensive
equipment, to spend countless of hours training senior programmers and artists
in the arts of online meetings, network troubleshooting, activation of
software licenses and who knows what else.

I worked for a remote-first company for roughly five years and it was great,
but the business was completely different. My team was responsible for the
provisioning and management of different cloud services, in fact all our
products were Software as a Service (SaaS) so having a reliable Internet
connection and a good enough computer was enough to do our job including
leadership, management, marketing, engineering, sales, support, etc.

I cannot see this happening in a game studio, it just doesn’t work. I may be
wrong but I think there is not a single game studio in the industry with a
fully remote work policy. If there are, I bet their success cannot compare
with studios of the same size working all on-site.

~~~
chronofar
> many of the game developers and designers need special hardware (different
> game consoles, VPN routers, high speed Internet, interactive pen displays,
> additional software licenses, etc) that the company would have to buy for
> every single person to maintain the quality and development speed they have
> from working on-site.

Buying individuals what they need is likely still cheaper than maintaining a
large office space. Likely much cheaper.

> Working from home reduces the creativity of every employee not just because
> the existing tools for telecommute are insufficient to create a good work
> environment but also because it prevents people from socializing with
> spontaneity.

The tools are not insufficient, people's use of them are. The tools will allow
you to do most anything you could in an office, management must facilitate
processes to produce to desired output. If team creativity is the aim you can
organize situations that maximize spontaneity and interaction.

I've not worked for a game studio so I certainly can't speak to the nuances
therein, however the reasons you've given here for not working remote aren't
compelling. People always give a host of reasons that ultimately boil down to
a lack of proper process and management, which is needed in office just as
much as out of office.

~~~
Debogue
I'm not sure the stimulation of creativity can be improved much with process
and management. Just like bouncing off ideas, brainstorms etc. works best in-
person. Physical contact is something that is hard to replicate or work around
with technology. Everyone has experienced the difference between
webconferencing and real person meeting and can tell that one has more weight
than the other. Maybe VR could be of use here since it helps lift that
imaginary barrier that gives weight to conversations.

~~~
chronofar
> Just like bouncing off ideas, brainstorms etc. works best in-person.

You seem set on this notion, but I very much disagree. Bouncing ideas and
brainstorming can be just as productive remotely. In fact creativity can be
stronger when your can more freely choose when to isolate yourself from other
noise and when to socialize.

> Everyone has experienced the difference between webconferencing and real
> person meeting and can tell that one has more weight than the other.

You sure about everyone? I can tell you I personally think most in person
meetings are unnecessary and distracting, and would've been better conferenced
or even better not had at all. Even meetings that need to take place, I
actually value in person less than conference, as it comes with various
baggage of posturing and appearances.

This sounds like you just have a preference for in person, likely because it's
just more comfortable for you from an interpersonal standpoint. And that's
fine, but don't mistake that preference for blanket effectiveness measures for
the rest of your team, company, or industry.

------
daniel_iversen
Dropbox is too[1] and what I like about this is that their main motive (I
think, based on the kind of person I’ve seen Drew being) isn’t just not their
employees getting sick, or it spreading inside Dropbox, but also to make their
tiny contribution to it spreading less in the world in general. And in the
article it mentions it’s only in Seattle that these other companies are
instituting work from home, and it seems like it’s only because some of their
employees are already infected! If everyone in the world that could would just
work from home for a while and limit physical contact, then the trajectory of
the spread would be much different and maybe we could nip it in the bud.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/drewhouston/status/1235747829307437056?s...](https://twitter.com/drewhouston/status/1235747829307437056?s=21)

~~~
rurounijones
I work in a Japanese office of one of these companies and we have been able to
work from home since January due to COVID-19 based on our own risk assessment,
with advisories being sent via internal email.

So this article is wrong/misleading at least in that respect, probably because
if is focused on the US.

------
gnrlst
As an Italian Milan-based employee of one these corporations, I have been
working from home for the last 2 weeks with personal plans to work from home
at least until the end of March. I really appreciate the flexibility and feel
extremely privileged to be able to do this. Unfortunately not everyone can or
has the company infrastructure (e.g. laptops) to be able to work from home. I
hope this shock snaps low-tech Italian SMEs into being more remote-friendly,
and slowly indirectly improve the flexibility and work-life balance of
employees. And of course, most hands-on jobs can't be done remotely, but most
office jobs can.

------
tristanj
The article is a bit out of date, it's not only Seattle. Facebook and Google
announced tonight that all employees in the Bay Area can work from home.
Microsoft/Linkedin announced all employees on the west coast can work from
home.

~~~
laumars
Plenty of London tech companies have too

~~~
swarnie_
Can confirm, haven't been to the London office in 2 weeks and have no
intention to go for the next month or so.

The idea of getting a tube at 8:30am isn't a pleasant one.

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mcv
> _" at least 70 confirmed cases and 10 deaths."_

This low number of confirmed cases combined with the high number of deaths,
suggests there are hundreds of undiscovered cases still out there. Most
countries seem to have a death rate closer to 2%, but in the US it appears to
be a lot higher, which suggests many cases are not represented in these
numbers. That, or it's become a lot more deadly. Neither is good.

~~~
feistypharit
The us is totally unprepared for this. Similar to our all out other public
infrastructure, we've been neglecting it for years.

~~~
ailideex
Which country was totally prepared for this?

~~~
zzzcpan
Probably none of the countries that push "don't use masks" propaganda.

~~~
ailideex
Well that rules out Norway then... thanks Trump!

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WalterGR
Microsoft is going further for employees who literally can't work from home.

Title: Microsoft will pay hourly workers regularly even if they spend less
time on the clock because of coronavirus

[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/05/microsoft-will-pay-hourly-
wo...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/05/microsoft-will-pay-hourly-workers-
regularly-as-it-faces-coronavirus.html)

"The policy applies to people who work for other companies but provide
services like bus rides or food service to Microsoft."

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goombastic
I've worked remote very often and ive always felt that the current open plan
offices are way too much of a distraction to get work done. This is the right
change and remote working needs this change to happen despite the whining by
the usual suspects of people sitting in office until late for no other reason
than pleasing their bosses.

Hopefully, the focus will no move to tangible results being delivered than
what dress you wear and how much time you spend at office.

------
znpy
This is a massive accidental experiment on the effectiveness of remote work in
general.

A lot of entities (here in .it, besides companies: public administration
workers and education workers) are turning to remote working, either willingly
or unwillingly.

I really hope we'll all do a good retrospective after this emergency is solved
and can finally challenge our own assumptions.

