Google employees are receiving regular notifications from the management of Covid-19 infections, causing some to question the company’s return-to-office mandates.
The employees, who spoke with CNBC on the condition of anonymity, said since they have been asked to return to offices, infections notifications pop up in their email inboxes regularly. Employees are reacting with frustration and memes.
The company began requiring most employees to return to physical offices at least three days a week in April. Since then, staffers have pushed back on the mandate after they worked efficiently for so long at home while the company enjoyed some of its fastest revenue growth in 15 years. Google has offered full-time employees the option to request permanent remote work, but it’s unclear how many workers have been approved.
Google’s Covid-19 outbreak in Los Angeles is currently the largest of any employer in LA., according to the city’s public health dashboard. Deadline.com first reported that the tech giant’s trendy Silicon Beach campus in Venice, Calif., recorded 145 infections while 135 cases were recorded at the company’s large Playa Vista campus.
A spokesperson for Google told CNBC, “There has not been a significant increase of onsite COVID-19 transmission on our campuses. The numbers that have been reported in Playa Vista and Venice reflect total cases over the last few months, not current or active cases.”
Staffers have been filling Memegen, an internal company image-sharing site, with memes about the increased number of exposure notifications they’re receiving. One meme, which was upvoted 2,840 times, showed a photo of an inbox with the email subject from a San Francisco-based facilities manager stating “We’re so excited to see you back in the office!” and a subsequent email subject line stating “Notification of Confirmed COVID-19 Case.”
Another meme with hundreds of upvotes said “How it started” with an image of a rainbow arch followed by “How it’s going” and a wall of text saying “Notification of confirmed Covid-19 case.” Another featured an illustration of a happy Pokemon touring a Bay Area campus next to another photo of a worried Pokemon after getting a Covid-19 notification followed by an alarmed Pokemon with 29 exposure notifications. Another meme shows a picture of Star Wars character Rey, whose caption says “I didn’t know there was this much ‘Notification of Confirmed COVID-19 Cases’ in the whole galaxy.”
Some employees said they received a spike in notifications from the Mountain View, Calif. headquarters and in San Francisco offices after the company held a return-to-office celebration, where Grammy award-winning artist Lizzo performed for thousands of employees at the Shoreline Amphitheater, near Google’s main campus.
The spokesperson for Google also noted that the company follows methodology laid out by state and local laws in determining the definition of a Covid outbreak, and when to send exposure emails.
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