Waterloo Region Connected
ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Printable Version

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RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - taylortbb - 05-22-2022

(05-22-2022, 10:59 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: It's also possible that "tech HQ" is not an official thing, but just a branding exercise, and none of this matters 😂

Yep, the entire concept of a country HQ is pretty outdated. It's from an era of non-instant communication when other countries were run as separate operations and needed their own leadership. These days even within a team it's not uncommon to have half the people in California and half the people in KW, operating as a single integrated team.

Google HQ is in Mountain View, and beyond that offices are offices. Google has senior leaders spread across various offices, including some here in KW. The Toronto office's status as "Canada HQ" just means that's the official mailing address, KW is a much more significant office than Toronto internally at Google.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - midriser - 05-22-2022

(05-20-2022, 01:21 PM)ac3r Wrote: Ah well that's news to me haha. I thought they only had offices here, but it looks like they lease a few floors at the Richmond-Adelaide Centre. I guess they handle more of the business side of things there (since it's Toronto) whereas we do more of the actual product engineering here.

They've also leased all 18 floors of the new office tower at 65 King Street East. That's 36,000 square metres, which is almost as much as the second and third phases of the Breithaupt Block combined - seems like they're growing their presence in both cities. 

A Montreal office expansion (with space for up to 1,000 employees) was also announced at the same time as the new Toronto and KW office expansions.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - tomh009 - 05-23-2022

(05-22-2022, 11:32 AM)taylortbb Wrote: Yep, the entire concept of a country HQ is pretty outdated. It's from an era of non-instant communication when other countries were run as separate operations and needed their own leadership. These days even within a team it's not uncommon to have half the people in California and half the people in KW, operating as a single integrated team.

Google HQ is in Mountain View, and beyond that offices are offices. Google has senior leaders spread across various offices, including some here in KW. The Toronto office's status as "Canada HQ" just means that's the official mailing address, KW is a much more significant office than Toronto internally at Google.

It's not really a new thing. For example, GM Canada's HQ was long separated from their primary nexus of operations. HQ usually identifies the location of (that country's) top management. Other departments may be there or elsewhere. And it has been so for decades, nay, centuries.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - taylortbb - 05-23-2022

(05-23-2022, 01:41 PM)tomh009 Wrote: It's not really a new thing. For example, GM Canada's HQ was long separated from their primary nexus of operations. HQ usually identifies the location of (that country's) top management. Other departments may be there or elsewhere. And it has been so for decades, nay, centuries.

That's my point though, what does it mean to have a country's "top management" ? Google isn't run as a regionalized operation. KW Googlers don't have a reporting chain that runs through Toronto. I don't think there is such a thing as Canadian top management at Google.

I work for Cisco, and most people would consider our Toronto office the Canadian HQ. But the only top management there is the "Canada Lead" , which is a sales division position. For those of us not part of sales there effectively isn't any top management in Toronto, or anywhere else in Canada. It's not uncommon at my work for someone in Canada to report to someone in France, who reports to someone in the UK, who reports to someone in the US, who... you get the idea. It's one globally integrated operation, with the only meaningful cluster of top management being the global HQ in San Jose, California.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Bob_McBob - 05-24-2022

Apparently a driver did a hit and run on 515 earlier this morning.

https://www.reddit.com/r/kitchener/comments/uws1dx/lrt_crash_are_we_still_counting/

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - tomh009 - 05-24-2022

(05-23-2022, 05:37 PM)taylortbb Wrote: I work for Cisco, and most people would consider our Toronto office the Canadian HQ. But the only top management there is the "Canada Lead" , which is a sales division position. For those of us not part of sales there effectively isn't any top management in Toronto, or anywhere else in Canada. It's not uncommon at my work for someone in Canada to report to someone in France, who reports to someone in the UK, who reports to someone in the US, who... you get the idea. It's one globally integrated operation, with the only meaningful cluster of top management being the global HQ in San Jose, California.

Sure, and my manager is in the US as well.

But there is still a Cisco Canada, and a Google Canada etc. They do need to handle some things locally, such as finance, HR -- and sales. (You are likely paid by Cisco Canada rather than the US corporate entity, for example.) So, there still is a Cisco Canada CEO, and a management team. It currently appears to be Shannon Leininger.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonleininger/

Maybe she's not meaningful to you, but she is still responsible for the Canadian operation, and will likely work at the Canadian HQ.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - danbrotherston - 05-25-2022

(05-24-2022, 10:25 PM)tomh009 Wrote:
(05-23-2022, 05:37 PM)taylortbb Wrote: I work for Cisco, and most people would consider our Toronto office the Canadian HQ. But the only top management there is the "Canada Lead" , which is a sales division position. For those of us not part of sales there effectively isn't any top management in Toronto, or anywhere else in Canada. It's not uncommon at my work for someone in Canada to report to someone in France, who reports to someone in the UK, who reports to someone in the US, who... you get the idea. It's one globally integrated operation, with the only meaningful cluster of top management being the global HQ in San Jose, California.

Sure, and my manager is in the US as well.

But there is still a Cisco Canada, and a Google Canada etc. They do need to handle some things locally, such as finance, HR -- and sales. (You are likely paid by Cisco Canada rather than the US corporate entity, for example.) So, there still is a Cisco Canada CEO, and a management team. It currently appears to be Shannon Leininger.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonleininger/

Maybe she's not meaningful to you, but she is still responsible for the Canadian operation, and will likely work at the Canadian HQ.

Yes, I mean, all companies with a division operating in any country need a legal corporate entity with a local address for the purposes of taxes, and complying with various laws, to say nothing of logistics of "this is the address to send us stuff".

But from a perspective *in* that company, that "HQ" can literally be a fake office in Deleware (in the US obviously, there are equivalents in other countries), where all the actual important stuff takes place somewhere else and is managed through the other country.

HQ is just a public facing thing.

FWIW...TD used to have an HQ in Amsterdam Zuid, I am kind of ticked off they moved it to Hungary and then decided they wouldn't employ me here because they had no legal entity in the Netherlands.

(Yes, one could be employed as an independent contractor in a country without an HQ. It doesn't work for situations where you have a lot of employees, but it would definitely have worked for a one off like me. I am a little ticked off they wouldn't do this.)

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - taylortbb - 05-25-2022

(05-24-2022, 10:25 PM)tomh009 Wrote: But there is still a Cisco Canada, and a Google Canada etc. They do need to handle some things locally, such as finance, HR -- and sales. (You are likely paid by Cisco Canada rather than the US corporate entity, for example.) So, there still is a Cisco Canada CEO, and a management team. It currently appears to be Shannon Leininger.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonleininger/

Maybe she's not meaningful to you, but she is still responsible for the Canadian operation, and will likely work at the Canadian HQ.

Yes, I am paid by Cisco Canada, and we do have HR in Canada,. But finance, HR, etc are just business functions, not top leadership, and in the case of Cisco spread throughout the country.

I do know who Shannon Leininger is, as I get the Canada-wide emails, but as you can see from her LinkedIn history she's always managed sections of the sales operation. That hasn't changed, just now her sales region is all of Canada. For those of us outside of sales her influence is minimal, and consists mostly of feel-good emails.

Which is my point. On paper Cisco has a Canada HQ, as legally Cisco Canada has to be registered somewhere. But the influence that HQ exerts is approximately zero outside of sales (which is the exception in still being regionalized).

When people in this thread talk about Google moving their HQ to Toronto, I don't think they're asking about the corporate mailing address. They're asking about where decisions get made. I'm asserting that more decisions of significance get made at Google KW than Google Toronto, even if the corporate mailing address is Toronto. But that neither is really a centre a major corporate decision making, the real centre is Mountain View.

That's my point, a "Country HQ" is basically just a mailing address these days. So let's call it that, calling it an HQ greatly inflates its importance.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - tomh009 - 05-25-2022

Most people (including likely Cisco corporate) will still call it the Canadian HQ. Of course, everyone is entitled to call it anything they want, be it the Canadian HQ, a mailing address or just Fred.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - taylortbb - 05-25-2022

(05-25-2022, 11:37 AM)tomh009 Wrote: Most people (including likely Cisco corporate) will still call it the Canadian HQ. Of course, everyone is entitled to call it anything they want, be it the Canadian HQ, a mailing address or just Fred.

I've never heard the term Canadian HQ internally at Cisco. There's corporate HQ in San Jose, some business units have separate HQs (my business unit has a SF HQ as we're an acquisition), and we do have designated major centres (which Toronto is not, but Ottawa (Kanata) is).

Our Canadian offices page doesn't suggest any office is above others. The closest Toronto gets to special attention is being listed as the "Customer Briefing Centre".

As far as I know, from friends that work there, Google is similar. There's no internal designation of country HQ, or status associated with it.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - dtkvictim - 05-30-2022

Man arrested for indecent act on ION train


Quote:The Waterloo Regional Police Service has charged a 35-year-old man who allegedly committed an indecent act on the LRT.

Around 7:45 p.m. Saturday, officers were called to the area of Charles Street East and Gaukel Street after receiving calls about a man on the ION train.

They said he was also seen committing an indecent act in front a nearby business.

Police arrested the man, who has only been identified as a 35-year-old from Kitchener, and charged him with two counts of an indecent act in a public place and two counts of an indecent act – exposure to a person under 16.

Anyone who may have witnessed these incidents are asked to call police at 519-570-9777 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.


RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - ac3r - 05-31-2022

Lol. That's some New York City kind of stuff except there nobody really cares, they just don't look.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - Bob_McBob - 06-12-2022

There was a full system closure today due to a "track issue". I didn't realize the disruptions were numbered, which is nice since they disappear into the ether on the weekends when their social media accounts aren't active.

https://www.grt.ca/en/schedules-maps/ion-disruption-conestoga-fairway.aspx

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - ac3r - 06-12-2022

I wonder when service resumed. I was waiting to catch the LRT about an hour and a half ago and noticed the LED displays said suspended, so I cross the street to get the 7...but then a northbound train went by and followed by a southbound so I was able to run back across the street and get it anyway. I guess they didn't update the LED displays. Very confusing but the LRT sucks so I'm hardly surprised.

RE: ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit - ac3r - 06-21-2022

Happy birthday to the LRT!