Google Invites Employees to Sleep 'On Campus' for a Fee

https://gizmodo.com/google-invites-employees-to-sleep-on-campus-for-a-fee-1850709102

by ourmandave • 3 years ago

47 81 3 years ago

gizmodo.com

mdwalters• 3 years ago

Reminds me of that time X had beds in thier offices

eappleby• 3 years ago

First time I've seen someone refer to Twitter as X in the wild. Looks like a variable that will be entered later.

waithuh2• 3 years ago

Yeah maybe people should stick to calling it Twitter. X sounds dystopian.

CaliforniaKarl7• 3 years ago

This article is making a bad comparison.

From the CNBC article (https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/04/google-offers-on-campus-hote...):

The Google-owned hotel is situated on a newer campus in Mountain View, California, that it opened last year.

The Gizmodo article is comparing this to what Twitter did. Having a space that is actually run as a hotel is not the same as setting up bedrooms in an existing part of a building.

Based on the description in the article, I am reminded of the Stanford Guest House (https://rde.stanford.edu/stanford-guest-house), which is owned and run by Stanford, for the benefit of faculty, staff, students, and visitors. It is also run as a proper hotel.

wpietri• 3 years ago

It's not a bad comparison for their purposes, which is to look at two major tech companies who are trying to get their employees to sleep at work. I agree it's not identical, but it's valid in terms of common themes being discussed in tech, like lack of work-life balance and worker exploitation.

wenc3• 3 years ago

who are trying to get their employees to sleep at work

I don't see it. It's optional. Google employees don't have to take up on the offer. The knee-jerk on this forum is always "worker exploitation" (not saying you're saying it's that, but speaking more generally to the sentiment here) but nothing about this says you can't exercise your own free will to choose your own hours. Just because you live close to the office doesn't mean you have to stay there. I currently live 15 mins from my office but I keep normal hours. Proximity to work has no bearing on anything except my own convenience.

If anything, I used to live a consultant life where I gave more of my life to my employer -- it was the name of the game. I was away many weeks from Mon-Thurs. I lived in Chicago but was working in a different city every month and had to be a plane several times a month -- that's more soul sucking (I practically lived out of ORD). That I didn't have a choice over. And when I landed, I didn't always get to stay near the office -- I always needed a rental car.

But this -- it sounds like a convenience. If I were a Google employee and moved away during COVID (say to San Luis Obispo) but had to RTO to Mountain View Tues-Thurs, I would appreciate having a place close to the office.

Back in the old days, prior to remote work, many people used to live this kind of life. They would live in a different city but commute in 3 days a week and stay at at rented apartment (they even have a name for it -- a "pied a terre"). This way folks got to work with a company in a less preferred geography but still get to live in a city they can enjoy on weekends.

happytoexplain• 3 years ago

It's in slightly better taste, and it's even arguably beneficial as an option if any employees actually want to do this, but I think ultimately it's the exact same sin: Normalizing the idea of sleeping at work. It's insidious.

rcme• 3 years ago

What about people visiting from out of town?

seanmcdirmid5• 3 years ago

It isn't oriented at local employees, probably. More like...hey some Googler from Seattle needs to visit Mountain View for a few days, and doesn't want to drive, where will they sleep?

bombcar• 3 years ago

How’s the song go?

Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime.

That’s why I sleep on company time.

CaliforniaKarl7• 3 years ago

It may be the exact same sin, but that's not the point I'm making.

Though TBH, as others note, I doubt this is normally meant for local employees. At some scale, it makes sense for a large company to have their own hotel (either run by them, or contracted out) to host employees traveling in.

And if you've got a hotel like that, you have a certain occupancy rate that separates profit and loss. Advertisements to local employees make sense, in such a situation.

orra• 3 years ago

It's deeply insidious. From the advert, they recognise that time is valuable:

Just imagine no commute to the office in the morning and instead, you could have an extra hour of sleep and less friction

Cool, you mean by working from home?

No? Oh, you want me to home at work. Gross. People deserve a life away from work.

seanmcdirmid5• 3 years ago

A lot of universities in China have or used to have hotels on their campuses. It wasn't weird at all staying at a campus hotel at Peking University 20 or so years ago. It is seen as kind of old fashioned however (like hotels at similar company towns), so it is a bit surprising to see Google doing this (disclaimer: I work for Google, but not in Mountain View).

syntaxing• 3 years ago

I went to a state university and we had/have a Hilton hotel on campus.

duskwuff• 3 years ago

Based on the description in the article, I am reminded of the Stanford Guest House (https://rde.stanford.edu/stanford-guest-house), which is owned and run by Stanford, for the benefit of faculty, staff, students, and visitors. It is also run as a proper hotel.

The Guest House is also explicitly for visiting guests of the university, like a visiting professor, a student's family, or a patient of the medical center. While the FAQ doesn't explicitly say that the university's own on-site staff are forbidden from staying, it's fairly clear from context that they aren't welcome.

https://rde.stanford.edu/stanford-guest-house/faq#Eligibilit...

CaliforniaKarl7• 3 years ago

True, but that can change depending on circumstances. For example, I believe that during the early days of Covid, a number of Hospital folks stayed at the Guest House, presumably to avoid passing an infection on to family.

My point is: There is often a difference between the stated policy on a website, and what is actually being implemented.

colordrops2• 3 years ago

Seems strange to be picky about comparing the quality of the sleeping arrangement but then be loosey-goosey by comparing Google with a university.

Google is not a university and their intentions are completely different. The fact that the dorms are nicer and look like a hotel doesn't change this.

JimtheCoder• 3 years ago

You would think they would let the employees use the hotel for free? Am I that out of touch?

wallaBBB• 3 years ago

My guess is simply to deter people from using it as their more permanent option. Nevertheless, the phrase "I owe my soul to the company store" starts ringing in the back of my head.

millzlane3• 3 years ago

$99 is steep. I found <$75 ABNB rentals in Moutain View.

rich_sasha• 3 years ago

It's kind of dystopian. Then, I wouldn't mind working 12-14 hrs for 4 days and be done with the week, even if it means staying at a workplace "hotel".

I'm not sure that would be the intention here...

alephnerd• 3 years ago

Seems to be for business travel. All the adjacent hotels in that area can reach $200-300/night with business travel. If you're Google size, that cost can be quite high.

OkayPhysicist3• 3 years ago

You mean 10 hours a day, right? People fought and died for the 40 hour work week, don't give it up for free.

gumballindie2• 3 years ago

Some of them working at google are not giving it up for free. They are paying for it!

jauntywundrkind2• 3 years ago

Google's expecting employees to be in 3 days a week. So if you need 2 nights at a hotel, thats $200/week * 52 weeks = $10k (minus some vacation time away). Not cheap but could really be much worse.

What a weird new attempt. The implication that some people just live at a hotel for the in-office part of their life is - still, I feel - like 20x better a quality of life than where we were pre-pandemic with commuting. But it's still bloody weird.

Maybe eventually some actual carrots arrive with this stick the companies are using. But unclear when or how that will happen, still.

CaliforniaKarl7• 3 years ago

The implication that some people just live at a hotel for part of their life is still, I feel, like 20x better a quality of life than where we were pre-pandemic with commuting. But it's still bloody weird.

For a long time now, it's been not-weird for a lot of people.

Within the realm of tech jobs, it's not-weird at some large companies to have folks travel, so everyone crunching on one project can be together to work on it.

For certain types of IT equipment (mainframes, supercomputers, big tape libraries, and more), it's not weird for support and installing engineers to travel from location to location, working on service calls or new installs.

For electricians with high-voltage experience, it's not weird to travel to where a new data center is being built, or other facility that needs major electrical work done under time constraints.

And then your have pilots, railroaders, long-distance truckers, etc..

darth_avocado2• 3 years ago

Well then pay for it. Requiring to travel but not paying for it is the part that’s problematic, not the travel part.

jauntywundrkind2• 3 years ago

I'm upvoting because I see your point generally & it's good to keep in mind in general.

The main constrast is that those are all events. They're for a reason. This is a steady state situation: every week you'll come back to the Bay area, work a normal in office week, then leave. Not because there's any real reason, but just because those are the arbitrary rules.

amelius• 3 years ago

Would you sleep in a hotel who's owner turned voyeurism into a business?

akomtu• 3 years ago

There must be hidden mics at least: how else are they going to monitor adherence to the company speech standards?

MisterBastahrd• 3 years ago

The last time a company tried to get me to pay for my own room and travel expenses during "unapproved business travel" at their home office when it came time to expense it, I found a new job within a week.

My CEO called me, highly upset that I was leaving. I asked him what did he thing would happen when he's the one who requested my presence there in the first place. He wouldn't budge on the expenses, so I wouldn't budge on getting the fuck out of there.

OkayPhysicist3• 3 years ago

Wait, your employer requested you travel, then claimed it was unapproved? What?

m463• 3 years ago

I suspect this is paid for by employees to stay on one side of the "line".

If google provided bedrooms for employees, they would be seen as a sweatshop.

Additionally, what if someone did "something" in their bedroom? Google might be responsible.

But if there is a hotel, and the employees pay, then what happens in the hotel room stays in the hotel room, especially legally.

xwdv2• 3 years ago

Can’t they include the hotel fee as part of your salary? Could be part of total comp.

sgarman• 3 years ago

Maybe they could just issue them company tokens employees could use to pay for the hotel and other goods from the company store.

xwdv2• 3 years ago

Pretty good idea, then employees could exchange tokens between themselves for other goods or services if they don’t want company stuff.

skybrian• 3 years ago

It makes sense for it to be available and also for traveling employees to be able to expense it. I wonder what Google's policy is on that?

darth_avocado2• 3 years ago

Google CEO Sundar Pichai took it one step further and is actually requiring employees to pay for the rooms with no reimbursement from the company

It says that in the article

CaliforniaKarl7• 3 years ago

"Google is charging its employees $99 a night to stay at its on-campus hotel to help "transition to the hybrid workplace.""

I don't think this article, or the Google program, is talking about Google employees who are traveling to a different region.

swayvil• 3 years ago

There's a gym, with showers.

A cafeteria of course.

Locker for my stuff.

I think that's all covered.

Is there a laundromat?

waithuh2• 3 years ago

with showers, you say?

bdcravens• 3 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town

goos• 3 years ago

Despite tech jobs being much better than 18th century coal mining, I think it might do us some good to pick up Zola's Germinal and remind ourselves that wholly attaching one's life to a corporation generally doesn't work out in our favor.

danielovichdk• 3 years ago

Corporate just won't give up.

I can't believe a software company is so bad at leaving people at home doing their work.

If they can't work from home something is wrong with how the company approach work. 10 people can often do what 100 is expected to do.

If people don't actually provide value fire them. I imagine Google easily could lay off a lot of people without any productivity change at all.

Same goes for all other corporate software companies. They are a labour intense communication hell.

What's next? A Google village ?

tennisflyi• 3 years ago

I can't believe a software company is so bad at leaving people at home doing their work.

You almost got it. A software company is still a blood sucking company. Y’all get fooled all the time.

pyrale3• 3 years ago

I can't believe a software company is so bad at leaving people at home doing their work.

Apparently, they also suck at leaving people at home while they're off hours...

millzlane3• 3 years ago

LOL, they want me to pay to go hybrid?

0xbadc0de5• 3 years ago

Make Black Mirror fiction again.

heywoodlh• 3 years ago

I'd vote for you

pyrale3• 3 years ago

How dystopic is it that not only Google opens a hotel onsite, but they expect employees to slot in in order to work more?

mavu• 3 years ago

If you are still working at google, it's time to start looking for a different employer.

pcurve• 3 years ago

"“I would’ve totally done it, had it fit a certain profile: $3k rent all-in, fully-furnished, unlimited meals, paid utilities, plus housekeeping/cleaning every day,” another employee wrote."

I think companies offering on-campus housing is a good idea(not hotel). I think there will be many takers at Google.

gumballindie2• 3 years ago

At this stage i actually feel sorry for those people. Working in software is becoming a little bit of a joke let alone working at a company that will dump you in a hotel owned by them so you can work more to pay them for the said hotel. They might just as well put some cables in people’s heads, a food pump at the mouth and bucket opposite end.

mrmiyagi00• 3 years ago

I never understood why US companies do not have company dormitories. We have them all over Japan.

radar1310• 3 years ago

Sounds like working for the company store in the old coal mining days. That didn’t work out so well Google.

7e• 3 years ago

Let me guess: the TV in the room only plays YouTube.

kkfx• 3 years ago

I'm pretty convinced that my own bedroom in my own home is cheaper and more comfy, along the rest of the home and nature around it then an hotel... Oh, yes FTTH connection are good enough and my setup is good enough as well to WFH.

Corporate owned smart-city will be the next? https://global.toyota/en/newsroom/corporate/34827717.html | https://youtu.be/p-9X8Z2kJt8 well... Companies should consider a thing: those who buy their propagandized model are probably not smart enough to be valuable employees. Witch means they'll likely loosing money with their moves, directly and indirectly. Slaves do not work as good as free people.

exhaze• 3 years ago

I'm really confused about responses here, feels like people just didn't read the whole article.

It's literally just a 2-month offer to make it easier for ppl to transition back to RTO (like in case they moved away and now they need to move back and find housing nearby). Google is not asking people to permanently live there.

bluefishinit3• 3 years ago

They're asking people to RTO, that's the problem. This is just their justification for demanding people who have to travel to the office also RTO.

xavor• 3 years ago

Top tech re-brands slavery?

Google Invites Employees to Sleep 'On Campus' for a Fee

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