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.

Comments

alternately:

[Thud457]

or, you know, google could pay a living wage.
Time to unionize, boys!

Re:alternately:

[ArmoredDragon]

Google pays what's considered well more than a living wage in most parts of the country. However San Francisco real estate costs some 18 times what you'll find in most parts of the country. This isn't because somebody decided that one day, rather collectively a lot of people decided that they just wanted to live there, but San Franciscans are about twice as smug as New Yorkers, so they don't let anybody build up, making the housing availability permanently low, making housing costs more than what NY costs.

The median price for a home there is $1.35 million, and the houses you get at that price are crap compared to what you'll get elsewhere for about $200,000.

Re:alternately:

[CastrTroy]

I think it's time for companies (and tech companies especially) to start to encourage more remote workers. The only reason this is a problem is because it's a requirement for the employees to live in the Bay area, where housing prices are out of control. If they could live in Kansas, North Dakota, or Detroit, than they wouldn't have any problems with getting a nice place for a reasonable amount of money.

Re:alternately:

[PRMan]

My wife's cousin got a house in Palo Alto near Stanford. 3 bedrooms, 900 sq ft. Over $1,000,000.

He joked, "I always wanted to live in a million dollar home. I just thought it would be better than this."

Re:alternately:

[plopez]

Cleveland, Pittsburg, Detroit, and Upstate NY are all good locations with easy access to urban centers such as Chicago, Boston, and NYC; and a host of good tech schools to recruit from such as MIT, Rochester, Rensselaer, and CMU. I've investigated moving east and have found some cities who are tech friendly, no longer are smokestack cities, have amenities and social life, no droughts, no earthquakes, no wildfires, and a cost of housing 50% less than where I currently live. And salaries are basically the same as I am currently making. I am really considering it. I would have no qualms moving if a decent job offer came along.

Re:alternately:

[spiritplumber]

It's less smugness and more earthquake protection. Building anything taller than 2 floors in San Francisco is a regulatory nightmare AND a civil engineering nightmare, because it has to be able to withstand the last big quake as we're all waiting for the next one. I live 30 miles north, enjoy a very safe neighborhood (I don't even lock my door - a lot of my neighbors don't, which is why one evening I found an old guy in my kitchen primly inform me that I was out of orange juice before he realized he got to the wrong home) and show up in person once a week.

Re:alternately:

[dristoph]

This. I migrated from Wichita to the Bay Area in 2008 and lived there until last summer when I moved back. I had already been an independent contractor for 3 years before the move, so finding work was only slightly more difficult after the move. The advantages are clear:

1. For less than half the monthly price of my rent controlled 1-bedroom apartment in SF, I now own a 3-bedroom house with a yard and everything.
2. There aren't really any jobs in Wichita for me, so all my work is remote. I hate commuting. While in SF, I could sometimes find gigs which allowed some remote work, but most expected you to commute to the office if you were in the area.
3. The lower cost of living means I can be more selective about what work I take on. I have more free time to spend with my girlfriend and on hobbies, not to mention the space. I've taken up woodworking since I moved back, and it's easily one of the most pleasurable activities I've ever taken up.

I miss SF sometimes, but the trade-offs are quite clear. And now that I'm not throwing away so much of my earnings on living expenses, I can afford to visit SF if I want, not to mention other possible destinations.

One last thing: a good friend of mine back in SF, also in the tech industry, recently purchased a school bus which he will be living in, rather than finding a new apartment. In part I think it's kind of cool in a radical, fuck the norm sort of way. But on the other hand, it really shows the heights of ever escalating absurdity the Bay Area has reached in terms of housing.

Re:alternately:

[tlambert]

Maybe Google could add Google Condos/Flats/Apartments to their campus? Hmm, well that would require Government approval too.

They tried. The city council shot them down. Facebook also tried to do this, and were also shot down.

Re:alternately:

[ArmoredDragon]

Really? Japan has worse earthquakes (higher magnitude, more frequent) and MASSIVE skyscrapers. It's all about engineering.

Re:alternately:

[ShanghaiBill]

It's less smugness and more earthquake protection.

Not true at all. Modern skyscrapers can ride out even the biggest quakes. San Francisco has tall buildings, it just doesn't have many of them. Last year, more than 95% of building permits in SF were rejected. One and two story buildings were rejected right along with the tall buildings. This is not about safety. It is about incumbent property owners protecting their interests.

Re:alternately:

[NotDrWho]

or, you know, google could pay a living wage.

If I were Google (or any other tech company), I would be more inclined to relocate to a city where my employees didn't have to live to live in their cars because the Smugville hippies and greedy homeowners have decided it would be a good idea to basically prohibit all new housing construction.

Seriously, do you really NEED to be in SF that badly? Is it really that ESSENTIAL? If you need to kiss-ass in Silicon Valley that badly just to keep up your tech cred, just locate an Office of Bunghole-Tonguing branch office there and locate your main campus somewhere with available affordable housing.

Re:alternately:

[tlambert]

Because barracks were not considered "housing"?

Because it would detract from the income of small apartment complexes who wanted to rent to Google and Facebook employees, and charge them huge rents.

Re:alternately:

[Fire_Wraith]

Yes - it's not about the earthquakes, it's about the fact that San Francisco and its residents don't want to change the "character" of their city. They don't want the kind of development and density that would be appropriate for the city given the cost of housing.

Re:alternately:

[RubberDogBone]

Something is worth what someone is willing to pay.

Re:alternately:

[techno-vampire]

Take a look at Downtown Los Angeles. Same type of earthquake hazards as San Francisco, very strict building code and lots of high-rise buildings.

Living arrangements

[MagickalMyst]

"... He uses the company's gym and cafeterias to eat and shower."

Hopefully not in that order.

Cautionary tale

[kheldan]

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.

Re:Cautionary tale

[twotacocombo]

He's living with the conscious decision of enduring mild, planned hardship now with the goal of greatly improving his situation in life later. He is taking advantage of the environment and resources available to him to meet his needs, instead of blindly blowing the majority of his income on what others feel should be an acceptable quality of life for him. Why would you consider forward thinking and aggressive budgeting a 'cautionary tale'? He's got a plan and motivation, which a lot more than I can say about most of the people I work with.

Math

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> 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.

Re:Why not a motorhome?

[Chalex]

Most of the towns in the South Bay have ordinances with prohibitions against motorhomes. You can't live in them, you can't park them on their streets or in driveways. And they certainly don't allow businesses to allow motorhomes to live in their parking lots. So it all has to be on the downlow, it has to look like a regular van and no one has to notice you.

I'm a pretty nerdy computer guy ...

[MetricT]

... 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.

Companies with stacked ranking don't do "remote".

[tlambert]

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".

Re:For 10K he could have bought a RV

[Lumpy]

Buddy did this in an RV. he bought one that was fiberglass sides and spent a weekend peeling off the graphics and roller painting on white paint. he then slapped "AT&T" logo stickers around it.

it looks like an AT&T fiber maintenance vehicle. he put mirror tint on all the windows and spent 5 years in works parking lot without problems. put out a couple of orange cones and nobody even questions it.