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The Google Employee Who Opted For a Truck Over Bay Area Rents (dice.com)
Nerval's Lobster writes: A little over a year ago, Google employees on a Quora thread announced they'd discovered an interesting way to live in the ultra-expensive Bay Area: Rather than pay for conventional housing, they resided in trucks and RVs parked near (or on) the company's campus, and took advantage of corporate perks—including free food, gym facilities, and dry cleaning—to get by on a day-by-day basis. Now one Googler, Brandon S., has taken to his blog to describe how he engaged in a little off-grid living within sight of Google's high-tech headquarters. First he spent $10,000 of his Google signing bonus on a 2006 Ford truck with 128 square feet of room in the back, which he filled with a bed, dresser, and coat rack. Google pays for his phone, and he uses the company's gym and cafeterias to eat and shower. For those Bay Area tech pros who think Brandon's lifestyle sounds appealing, his list of drawbacks includes "social suicide," the inconvenience of not having a bathroom or fridge in close proximity, stress, insect infestations, and the upfront costs of purchasing a large-enough vehicle. On the other hand, he's also using the cash savings to rapidly pay down his student loans.
or, you know, google could pay a living wage.
Time to unionize, boys!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
"... He uses the company's gym and cafeterias to eat and shower."
Hopefully not in that order.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
It would at least be respectably configured for living in (bathroom, sink, heat/ac, fridge, etc). Solar on the roof would keep the batteries up with minimal need for generator run time.
If you wanted to go minimalist, you could probably get a pickup camper.
Don't Be This Guy! is the takeaway. He isn't living, he's merely existing, and worse, he's existing only to do his corporate masters' bidding.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Only a recent college grad will put himself through this kind of pointless crap, likely working long hours. The primary reason older people aren't hired in tech is because they finally realized what being taken advantage of feels like. They no longer put up with those kind of "working conditions" for that kind of pay and so they aren't hired.
TLDR: only the young can be treated like a commodity for any real length of time. Thanks HR.
for $10K, he could have bought a 20 year old motorhome and had a bathroom + kitchen... and windows. Sure, his operating expenses may have been higher due to maintenance, but it seems that it'd still be worth it for the comfort and convenience.
At the very least, he ought to glue up some rigid foam insulation to make the truck more comfortable - the truck must feel like an oven after a warm sunny day, even if he doesn't go to bed until after dark.
I'd be worried about emergency egress from the truck, if a fuel leak causes a fire at the rear of the truck, his only escape will be through the flames.
Hmm....I"m assuming getting laid is not very high on his priority list.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I think OP may be used to renting, where these things are taken care of for you. Buf just FYI, that's hardly unique. Having ants sounds a lot like like my house.
>> 90% of my after-tax income, and throwing that in student loans...$22,434 worth of student loans, and has paid it down to $16,449...four months
That's only $1,500 paid down on student loans per month. If that's 90% of his after-tax income (even in California), he's making maybe $22K/year, and spending just $150 month on other stuff.
...A box truck is it's own special kind of sad. You can get a serviceable RV for under the $10,000 he spent.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
In the early days an employee lived in an RV in the parking lot. His RV was nicknamed the "Weaverplex". It wasn't really secret either.
So, if you can use a "Maxi-van," how about parking a trailer on the spot instead? A 24x8' trailer would give >160sqft of living space and could be double-decked. That's enough room for a composting toilet, and a solar powered mini-fridge.
He mentions this and points out that it was his Mom who brought up this issue. That must have been a fun conversation ;-)
Isn't sleeping under your desk while your code is compiling allowed or even encouraged at Google?
The place where I work has a river running thru it. And there is a parking lot near the river. How sweet it would be to live in a van down by the river. I wonder if Google has a river on their campus?
If Google employees can't afford rent, how can teachers, nurses, and janitors?
Why not invest and build apartment buildings. That is most likely cheaper than a flipping truck.
And with little help from Google that house might be close to the workplace. For Google it might be clever to build such house themselves and rent and sell it to their employees. At least it would require less space than everyone having a truck consuming the parking space.
"until you are married"???? bwhahaha, that's what women are looking for, "I live in the back of my pickup truck", could that possibly be worse than "mom's basement"?
"For those Bay Area tech pros who think Brandon's lifestyle sounds appealing"
Not even a little.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The Who described this method in 1971, in the song "Goin' mobile", although this patent filing may have a fancier description of getting the police and tax man to miss you.
Sounds some like the rental RVs.
The rental companies (for example cruiseamerica ) sell them off after a couple of years (and and few 100.000 miles).
They cost more (around 25.000$), but come complete with furniture and bathroom and are probably still a lot cheaper than an appartment in the long run
Makes me wonder, how long until the bay is full of house boats?
horror vacui
I make $50,000 per year doing I.T. support work in Palo Alto, rent a studio apartment near downtown San Jose for $1,400 per month, and take the express bus to work. Been doing that for 10 years now. Lot more comfortable than a truck camper and bumming food from work.
Recent grads tend to not have any scope on where they should be socially.
The idea of having their basic needs met, seems appealing, that they are making it. Then after some time, when they see their friends, getting nicer homes, or getting married and having a family, they realize that they are missing important aspects in life.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
http://vancouver.craigslist.ca...
http://seattle.craigslist.org/...
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
... where everyone is a "consultant" (temp) and company provides a trailer park and hookups for employees' winnebagos. when your project wraps, you drive it to your next "job."
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
replace old with US worker and grad with h1b.
The idea of company housing in days tech landscape is a bad idea. They can have there company stone 2.0 where they can hold both the company stone debt and the if you fired / let go you need to go home right away over there heads so they put in long hours / don't complain.
Facebook also has vending machines for computer accessories so they can even change workers for the tools needed to do there jobs as well.
I've consider the RV as my work has the same amenities as well as a large shopping center across the street. But my old lady said "no". It's also impracticable if you happen to play the Hammond Organ for fun.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
This can also be ascribed to Uber drivers, Amazon packers, the entirety of the fast (and even slow) food industry...
student loans kill home ownership
No, living in San Francisco and being stupid kills home ownership.
First, he's living in one of the highest cost of living places in the world. At least in the US.
Second, he's actually paying off his student loans instead of waiting long enough for enough people to be in default that the government just grants amnesty to everyone and the taxpayer foots the full bill. You know it is going to happen sometime, you just have to wait it out.
That certainly puts the episode "You only Move Twice" in a new light.
Homer, you monster!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Funny how things come full circle. In the far past men used to leave home to make their fortune and once they were established financially they would THEN look for a wife. Seems like that may be the way to go as most men today aren't really mature until they reach around 30 years of age or so.
... and I'll never understand the lure of Silicon Valley. I live a couple of miles outside Nashville in the country, in a very nice house I managed to pay off in 10 years. I make a decent living doing high-end computer work (academic HPC) which is pretty fun. Ambitious but realistic 40-hour week schedules, with co-workers as smart as any I've met at the Supercomputing conferences. I can eat out, go to the gym, go on a date, or just go home and watch a movie with my cat in my lap any time I want. I'll probably be able to retire in my 50's should I choose to do so.
Why, other than the hope of becoming an overnight millionaire, do people choose to work in Silicon Valley, with the insane hours, cost-of-living, commutes from hell, and a lack of any social life? Because if money is all they wanted, they can buy Powerball tickets in most states.
There's a post talking about him getting his Class B driving license and an image of it redacted. While I know most Californians get a lot of sun, I am pretty sure that guy is not a 20-something. He might have photoshopped someone else's photo on it, though.
http://frominsidethebox.com/vi...
I think it's time for companies (and tech companies especially) to start to encourage more remote workers.
Companies with stacked ranking don't do "remote".
This is because stacked ranking is basically a high school popularity contest which pits employees against each other to stay above the bottom part of the bell curve so that they don't end up on a PIP ("Performance Improvement Program") or just plain fired/asked to lead/offered severance.
When Marissa Mayer came into Yahoo from Google, she instituted stacked ranking. It's the main reason she disallowed remote workers, since they were going to be the lowest ranked anyway, and if you are going to be ranked low, you might as well pack your bags before it's an issue.
So... between a remote worker, who you hardly ever have any personal interactions with, and a local worker who you eat lunch with daily, and consider a good work friend/buddy... who are you going to shove under the bus?
Exactly.
So remote workers are strongly discouraged at most companies that originated in the Amazon/Google/Facebook cultures, or hired HR or management out of those cultures, which is to say "Company X is successful; let's act just like company X, and we will be successful, too".
I am not from Google and not in the US but I did something similar : living in a used RV for 5 years. It's impressive how fast you are saving money this way.
In the end I managed to buy a nice apartment downtown. Most of it paid upfront.
SF has Earthquakes, a toxic employment and living environment.. drains your resources and pretty much leads to an early death.
I really don't see the advantages.
The SF of 1978 or even 1998 is long gone.. and its a financial disaster area.
Its totally unsustainable, so why even consider moving there?
Smart that it's urban camouflage, nobody questions a big white truck parked for a long time.
Dumb that the same money would have bought him a very nice RV that would be a lot more comfortable and would have been useable for a very long term compared to living in a box truck where someone can slap a padlock on the outside and trap you in it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This. Ditto.
What about all the cities where they've put in Google Fiber? What about the temporary Google Kansas?
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Hmm....I"m assuming getting laid is not very high on his priority list.
I don't know. I can see where not having a place could be limiting to relationships in the short term, but I can see where the lack of debt and a high disposable income level might be advantageous to a young man's appeal in some circles in the long run. After all, this "arrangement" lasted only 3 years after which he had apparently retired his student loan debt and owned a home, which would greatly enhance his appeal.
Sometimes a bit of patience is rewarding...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
More like 40% per year. Most financial experts recommend not spending more than 33% of yearly income on housing. I'm just a few percentage points off the norm.
You sound like you have been brainwashed to believe all you should do is work at your job all your life.
Having room to host friends and family and have them feel welcomed is an important part of life, as well starting a family.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I work remotely, for Google, and get good performance reviews. I suppose one counterexample doesn't necessarily destroy your claim, but it does call it into question.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I did tech support for AMD back in the 90's, and stumbled upon this idea back then. A friend had an old camper-van that I could buy cheap; AMD was a 24-hour campus with cafeteria, gym and other amenities. A cell phone and PO Box was all that was needed to complete the picture.
If I wasn't married, I might have tried it. Things were not nearly as expensive back then as they are now, but AMD paid their tech support folks crap; I would have been hard pressed to afford a one-bedroom apartment in the area on my salary. If you're willing to live simply, it's definitely a viable option.
... but damn, if nothing else his blog reminds me of how incredibly un-handy some people are. A van can be made extremely comfortable and practical for a pittance if you've got some decent skills and a handful of basic tools.
Log in or piss off.
You've got to be the only woman like this. Most women refuse to date a guy who lives with his parents. After all, it makes it pretty hard to shack up at his place on the weekends...
I work remotely, for Google, and get good performance reviews. I suppose one counterexample doesn't necessarily destroy your claim, but it does call it into question.
It greatly depends on the group, but the group I was involved with was rather large, and has since gotten rid of many of the remote employees.
The most successful remote employees were those who were well thought of because of their existing reputation in the field, or because they would periodically fly in and stay for at least a week to build a rapport, before flying out again, or because they were critical path, and most everyone knew it, and they did their job.
The least successful were those who were *not* critical path, and most everyone knew it, or they would fly in rarely (e.g. every 3 months), and tended to stay for only a couple of days, or who were relatively unknown players in CS.
A lot of the review intermediation is also done by your manager, meaning that if your manager likes you and your work, they can buffer bad reviews, and pick other people to place at the bottom of the bell curve instead of you.
Stacked ranking is somewhat of a malaise on the entire industry at this point, and you don't have to look very far to find articles about the negative effects it has had on organization (predominantly, it causes forced churn of employees). Here are a couple of them:
http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://qz.com/320532/marissa-m...
http://www.nbcnews.com/busines...
http://www.halogensoftware.com...
A number of companies in Silicon Valley just give severance to the bottom 30% (yes, 30%!) in the rankings.
Just got laid off from a place like that. For the last several years, the mantra had been "We want to be just like Zynga!" nevermind how THAT company was rotting from the inside out. And then management decided to adopt Google's OKR process. A key problem is that management talked big about doing these things but rarely ever actually does them, so you end up with some teams and groups doing OKRs and others who have none, for years. So when the annual reviews come around, you cannot say you have met any OKRs because you and your manager and their manager and in fact the entire department never had any OKRs.
But of course the REAL secret of the OKRs we did was to set ridiculous goals you could never meet. For example, the team I was in was kind of a helpdesk/front line firefighter team, doing things like on-call support at 3:00AM. Client support stuff. We eventually got an OKR of "increase sales turnovers by 20%" but of course we weren't IN sales and had no training or tools to do that, and if we'd actually tried, the real sales side would have had a fit. So nobody ever met that OKR. It was impossible and stupid. By attaching OKRs like that to most of the teams and pinning bonuses on results, what they did was rig it so very few people qualified for bonuses any more. Now they SAID "we're setting sky-high impossible OKRs so you will reach for the sky and achieve the amazing" but they meant "we've set a goal not even God can meet, good luck to you hahahaha!"
At the same time, they began hiring H1Bs, kids fresh from college, and co-ops and interns, all working for half the wages and sometimes actually buying the "We're just like Google!" bullshit.
Anyway, they'd been gunning for me for a while. Had a decent review and scored well. They went back and changed it and decided no, I needed to be on a PIP. Because somebody had to be. Gave me stupid goals and priorities and then while I was on approved vacation, my manager told HR I'd quit.
Raised a stink about that but they laid me off two weeks later anyway. More than a decade at that place. Absolutely thrilled to be gone.
Sig for hire.
As the AC says, you should click on Modifications under the image. The picture is from an advertisement.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I'd thought of doing exactly this, just a few years working among the hipsters while camping out of a vehicle for a near-zero housing cost could leave you with a quarter or maybe half a million in the bank.. Just daydreaming though, since I'm not a US citizen.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This is because stacked ranking is basically a high school popularity contest which pits employees against each other to stay above the bottom part of the bell curve so that they don't end up on a PIP ("Performance Improvement Program") or just plain fired/asked to lead/offered severance.
So that's how you become a manager at Google!
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
As a living thing, the most important thing in life is to reproduce. It isn't to worship a deity, or to eat, or to work, or to sleep. More politely, the most important thing for a heterosexual man to do is to meet women. (Substitute all of the pronouns you want for women and for people in the LGBT community.)
For years I tried to convince myself that working on technical projects was the most interesting thing that I could possibly be doing, and I denied my basic biology. By your 30's the defects in our society's social structure become readily apparent. The social norm for nerd behavior does not favor us in any way whatsoever. It distances us from the requirements of our biology. Is it self-imposed? In part, I suppose. For the most part, though, we're brainwashed. Programming is not preferable to having sex. Programming should be something you do after you're exhausted from sex. The value that companies get from the software that we write means that we should be getting paid 10 times what we do at the very least, or work one day a week and spend the rest of our lives doing what we should be doing.
This individual has it completely backwards. His job at Google and money are his god. He is a brainwashed automaton, exactly who Google wants to work for them.
and they manage to have one or two tall buildings there.
I think there's a widespread misconception that San Fran is this big mingling party of 'hot shots.' That talent pool is filled with clueless millennials as much as geniuses. Both groups of recruits think they are geniuses and will attempt to leverage unrealistic salaries.
As easy as it is to recruit from that genius pool next to the Bay, so too, is it easy to lose your genius back into the pool. Might make more sense to get them stranded out in Biloxi...
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Housing prices are higher than "the cost to build" in major metropolitan areas all over the world (London, Paris, Rome, Moscow, etc., etc.).
Your definition of 'normal' is abnormal.
Absolutely lived out of my car in Mountain View because 1) I was never not at work for more than 9 hours at a time 2) could shower at the gym and 3) didn't feel like forking over 2500 a month for a 1 bdm.
Problems arising include *it's illegal* and enforced, having to find somewhere else to park each night, having to pee ( pooping was on schedule, at work) staying organized in a smaller car. Hiding what you're doing from everyone.
So been there done that and I'm not the only one.
Later was at an interview in Palo Alto. Went to lunch with team. Manager remarks on a certain truck / car thing he's seen parked around town and comments that someone is living out of that, and wasn't that something? Oh the irony.
First - Air:
You don't necessarily need a heater or A/C all the time, but I would seriously consider getting a camper/RV crank open/closed air vent with screens and putting a couple in the ceiling. He mentioned he left it slightly open for air control and it invited bugs.
Second - Bed:
Just build up a wooden frame at the very front to hold a mattress - I think a queen size - would fit. Put the dresser underneath. You could also build in a short closet/locker under there. That could be the general storage area for everything. Since the bed will be quite long get a rolling clothes rack - like the stores use - and park it under the bed. Put a door in front so you can slide it in and out and it will contain the thing when you drive it. Get creative. I personally would make a parking space for -----
Third - Bicycle:
You call the truck social suicide. Obviously you don't want to drive that thing everywhere, get a bike. I know Google has them on campus you can use, but get your own and park it under your bed. I would build a lifting staircase with hinges as a garage door.. You're young and socializing on a bike isn't that hard, especially in more left-wing type metros where it's popular.
Fourth - walls and ceiling:
Put carpet, curtains, or if you want to be all function no form kindergarten style sleep mats all over the walls and ceiling. This will block some outside noise, will get rid of the "tin can echo" and insulate against the weather. You can use spray glue, but that could smell the place up and invite bugs. How about magnets? That way you can easily remove everything should you want to use it as a cargo truck again?
Once you do all of this everything is at the front of the truck. This leaves the back half available. Put a couch, or some folding chairs (the comfy "umbrella" style sports chairs, not the crappy old metal ones) around that area for visitors. I know you don't have any now, but think of camping trips on your off time or whatever - this doesn't have to be a "sleep at work only" capsule. Use it! Get camping gear, a folding Coleman stove, a lantern etc.. I personally would put some solar panels on the roof to charge a battery bank so I could have more or less normal lighting, charge all my stuff (yes, even the laptop). In fact I would get a monitor that runs on DC power (some Samsung's for instance), screw a VESA mount onto the wood rail towards the back so I could lounge around for movies. Screw speakers to the rails also. Now not just for sleeping anymore. I would probably get a portable air conditioner for when I'm near a power outlet, but I'm a Texan and I've been in too many triple digit summers to not consider that.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Mired in debt, sleeping on corporate campus, don't even have a toilet of your own. Yup. Taste that American dream! ... tastes a bit nutty.
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Hum... Sorry, I thought my line of reasoning was simple enough to be understood by anyone. Reread as this: If the house costs x, x + 50% is kind of expensive but acceptable. X + 100% already becomes expensive, and X + 200 is ridiculous. Better now?
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
She's not looking at it that way exactly -- he's graduated college and has a good job, so naturally his mom wants him to immediately get married and start having kids.
You articulated it clearer, but you are still wrong. The price of the house includes more than just the simple construction cost. You are also paying for location, which is a huge factor. That is the reason the exact same house can cost different amounts in different locations.
You are close to repeating Adam Smith's "natural price" theory.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
As opposed to being house rich? Absolutely!
My older brother and his wife make $100,000 per year. They bought a house for $800,000 at the peak of the real estate bubble with a down payment borrow from the wife's 401k. They want to retire but they can't sell the house. The mortgage is still under water since the Great Recession. The wife is still paying off the down payment. The bank won't let them refinance the house. Without selling the house, they have no money to retire on. So they're stuck working until they drop dead from working.
I don't think Google places that much emphasis on stack rankings. My managers have always described them as primarily a tie-breaking tool, when, employees are close to some boundary based on their peer feedback.
I suppose it might be a problem if an engineer's work was so isolated that he or she didn't have enough peers to get feedback from. It's hard to see how that could happen in Google's organizational structure, though.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Seriously, buy a decent (preferably used) RV and your standard of living (such as it is) would go up considerably over the bed of a pickup truck.
They have a stove, shower, bed, seating, etc etc. I know people that have lived comfortably in an RV for months while touring the country. (Obviously the meaning of "comfortably" is open to discussion, but still...) Hell, I've lived in crappy rooms that weren't as nice as some low to mid-range RVs.
Is it for me? Probably not, but no doubt it would work fine for some people. The whole "hay baby, lets go back to my place" thing takes a big hit, but that would have been true of some of the places I've lived for that matter.
With that said, this is what happens when rents go out of sight and home prices rise along with them. A "living wage" these days will hardly let you buy a home in most parts of the country without years and years of saving, and this is especially so in most metropolitan areas. I myself probably couldn't afford to buy another home if I sold mine. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of what's happening in America these days. :(
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
And this looks like another reason that it does.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Why buy an old cargo truck? I suppose it would work, especially if you fixed it up a bit more on the inside but you can get an nice new travel trailer for about $10k, less than $5k if you go used. With that kind of signing bonus ($10k) you could get a used SUV/Truck and a used camper to pull it with. Maybe he's afraid he'll get ticketed/"evicted" for camping in a parking lot? If that's the case they're going to eventually catch you in a cargo truck it might simply take a bit longer.
What is OKR?
You are right. But there are some other factors:
In Soviet Union there was a state policy: The university education is free. If your grades are high enough you even obtain some scholarship money. But after you graduate there is a procedure of "distribution": There is a list of employers pretending to employ the graduates, and the graduates choose the employers. The distribution begins from the best students which can choose the best employers, and then the worst students choose the rest. Then, the employer must give the new worker some place to live and spend efforts for his specialization but the worker must work here 3 years as a payment for his education.
The other state policy was that it was almost impossible to buy an apartment (cooperation and private sector aside). Instead, there was lot of state and employer's place to live rented for the nominal fee - but as a rule with a terribly long waiting list.
And this week I've read somewhere the article stating that the free education and free place to live are necessary to prevent the condition "poor became poorer, rich become richer" and the resulting crash of the society.
Now let's return to the procreation. In Soviet Union there was enough place to family life and enough time for family life. ("In USSR there is no sex" is a famous phrase I personally heard from TV). In USA (and in modern Russia too) you either have no place or no time for procreation since your student loans eat all your free money and correspondingly all your free time which you spend to earn money.
And the second factor is that in USSR your wealth didn't count, you needed something else for girls' attention. Creativity, for instance. Ability to obtain USA jeans. Or CPSU membership :-)
Objectives and Key Results (OKR). (I assume)
That's not how capitalism works--the price of something is based on its scarcity. Housing in San Francisco is scarce and thus expensive. You said this was an American problem and that "normal" countries don't function this way--but you are completely wrong. The same dynamic exists in nearly every major city in the world.
Reread as this: If the house costs x, x + 50% is kind of expensive but acceptable. X + 100% already becomes expensive, and X + 200 is ridiculous. Better now?
Nope. Because the value is mostly in the land, not the house. Back when I bought my first house, I could buy land for $20k and build a humble cottage for $20k. Back then a big TV (27") cost $2k.
Now a block of land cost $1million, and a good house can be built for about $250k. The big TV is now 55" and cost $600. The $250k house will cost you $350k in the crap areas, and over $1.5 million in the good areas. It has zero to do with the actual house.
I worked for google for several years, my boss there was pretty much a 'pointy haired boss'. One of my team members max out his vacation and had a baby and only took a few days of paternity leave. That coworker was the most praised team member for being such a team player, yet his code was horrendous with very dumb designs (xml mounted over NFS as a 'shared' DB for example). That's how I learned the hard way that HR only job is to make problems disappear for the company, not for the employees.
It varies very much from team to team, but my own personal experience from years at Google is that work life balance is not important to some managers, and reputation is much more important than real performance. Google is full of 'long timers' that proved themselves in the past and just barely show up to work in time to have lunch at the free cafeteria then go to the gym. People that keep the boat actually afloat are never recognized (at least during my time).
San Fran may be crazy anti-housing, but a motivated company could skirt the rules and build a "parking lot" for their employees, which just happens to work well for employees with RVs.
It would need convenient proximity to an RV (sewage) dumping station, which doubles as a water supply. Nearby propane refuelling station, or even a full-for-empty tank swapping kiosk would fill-out the picture. That and space is all you strictly need. Nearly all RVs are designed for this off-grid mode of operation.
30A electric hookups would sure be nice, but if you can't get that through, solar panels on the roof would do a good enough job. Very small propane-powered generators can do the job of backup power supply.
Personally, I'd prefer to see some cheap capsule apartments...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I actually wish there was more a tax break on the loans, something more than just getting to knock off the interest on my taxes.
Setting goals you cannot achieve so you cannot get a bonus?
We recently had a similar case in Germany where a woman went to court because her company had promised her a bonus, but didn't want to pay it because the company as a whole had missed its target.
The judge didn't quite agree and pointed out that boni coupled to targets have to be set in such a way that it's possible for the individual to achieve this goal.
As a result, your firing over impossible to meet targets would have cost them quite a bit in severance pay...
In 1999 i had an extended business trip to San Jose to do stuff for Y2K. As usual my company made my travel arrangements but I couldn't understand why they had screwed up this time and put me in a shitty hotel next to a bunch of disgusting-looking shacks. It was several days before I found out these slums were actually insanely expensive homes costing five times as much as a large house back home where I lived.
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
Your experience is completely different from mine.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
but keep in mind that capitalism has outperformed (by pretty much every metric) every other economic system that has ever been tried.
Capitalism worked so far for not being a "pure" capitalism as written in the books, the government has intervened in the worst cases, avoiding more or less well the worst excesses. The problem is that the "economists" (bankers, financiers and other really dangerous criminals) insist on taking this "unwanted intervention," and if this really happen one day ... I hope your favorite God have mercy on us.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
oh come on, he's a neckbeard living in his mom's basement posting AC trying to shill his unreasonable expectations.
but there aren't women like that, so get a job and a pad you fucking hippies. and clean yourselves up, needless to say