Google is charging its employees $99 a night to stay at its on-campus hotel to help "transition to the hybrid workplace."
Google is charging its employees $99 a night to stay at its on-campus hotel to help "transition to the hybrid workplace."
Google is charging its employees $99 a night to stay at its on-campus hotel to help "transition to the hybrid workplace."
Sooooooooooome people say man is made out of mud, the poor man's made out of muscle and blood. Muscle and blood, skin and bone, a mind that's weak and a back thats strong.... You move 16 tons... whadaya get? Another day older and deeper in debt... St. Peter don'tcha call me because I can't go...
I owe my soul.... to the company store.....
133The advertisement entices workers to make the jump, even for a short while, to its on-campus hotel, saying: “Just imagine no commute to the office in the morning and instead, you could have an extra hour of sleep and less friction,” CNBC reported.
Did these stupid motherfuckers read their own ad??
No commute and extra sleep? That sounds great!
No wonder everyone is trying to WFH - the very same reasons you just listed.
102Reminds me of company towns. We're definitely regressing.
52All these comments comparing this to company scrip are profoundly ignorant, and are downright insulting to the victims of robber barons and capitalism in Appalachia. Google pays salaries in USD. They don't pay a worker 10 GoogleBucks per ton. Google doesn't force their workers to live at Google tenements or stay at Google hotels. Hell, they don't even force you to go into a Google office. All they'll do is make a note on your "permanent record" at performance review time if you were in the office less than 60% of the time. In coal country, if you showed up at a picket line instead of the mine, they'd send in Pinkerton goons to murder you, and the mayor too.
Call me a bootlicker, I don't care, but I actually think this is brilliant on Google's part. Median rent in Mountain View for a 1br is $3600/mo. They're renting rooms to their high-paid employees for ~15% less than market rent, right on campus, avoiding them from pricing out another local family if all they need is a place to sleep. Sillycon Valley is a terrible place to live. It's a place to go for a couple years, make a bunch of money, live worse than a broke student, and GTFO as soon as possible. It's like working on an offshore oil rig, with the gender ratio to match...
Unlike the coal towns' usurious pricing to a captive market (another day older and deeper in debt), Google is almost certainly losing money on this hotel. They don't care. They shell out twice as much for a temporary apartment with every corporate relocation package they give to new hires.
Google would like to build more market rate housing to meet demand. Unfortunately, building any new housing is illegal because the real estate cartel runs City Council, so Google takes over an existing hotel and prices it like an apartment. It's the reverse Airbnb. You love to see it. It's not a silver bullet. There are no silver bullets when the cartel cornered the local housing market 15 years ago, but every little bit to undermine their stranglehold on power helps. FDR and Stalin were natural enemies, and yet they both recognized in that moment, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Same goes here. Critical support for Google.
48New product: Google Landlord
Also, just based on the fact that they're a data analytics and AI company, and their public privacy and security track record with their services, I'd genuinely be worried what kind of "guest experience analytics" is going on at that "hotel." Is there a camera in the shower? You don't know.
47Sillicon Valley reinvents Company Scrip.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip#Lumber_company_scrip
39Didn't gage company towns making a comeback on my 2023 Bingo card
34Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
24We've gone from "work from home" back to "live from work" at an astounding pace. That's... good? No, wait, the opposite. Fuck this society and the parasitic husks who direct it in this manner.
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17Jokes on them if they think I would be “to proud” to just sleep in a conference room, at my desk, etc if the only other option is actually paying them for the privilege of staying there.
I wonder what the rules are, like what would happen if you rent a room and just had a booze fueled rager several nights a week, leaving the room trashed.
Or sublet it out to a third party for more than $100/night as a side hustle.
15Gtfo I thought I let my job take advantage of me
1515 million merits, coming soon!
9You move 16 tons and what do you get...
8I owe my soul to the company store...
7Dude this is fuckinf repulsive.
7You know, I used to respect Google. Used to.
5For 99 bucks there better be a great bed, amenities and other hotel like services. What a joke
5you vill eat ze bugs, own nothing, and live in ze pod too
4I owe my soul to the company store
https://odysee.com/@IWantMusic:c/Johnny-Cash---Sixteen-Tons-(Official-Music-Video):d
3Permanently Deleted
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0Seems reasonable enough to me as an option staff can take up, but don’t need to if they have other accomodation or would rather live somewhere not operated by their employer.
Based on the article it seems the cost is reasonable for the area. Having a cost on the accomodation rather than it being free probably helps stop an influx of people with suitable accommodation already cancelling lease or subletting, to come stay at that building and limiting access to those that need it more. That and no doubt people who couldn’t take it up may feel shafted that their colleagues are getting a $700 a week perk if Google made it free.
No doubt one can argue the often polarising merits of office work versus remote, but if they’re going to have people come to the office having accomodation available, paid or not, no doubt would be helpful and something many other employers going through a similar transition may not be able to offer.
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