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Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

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Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#531

Post by fundad »

robg wrote: post #174

The company “office” is a left over concept from the factory - industrialized labor in a shared space. The work-from-home benefits to individuals and society far outweigh the work-from-office benefits to individuals and companies. If you need companions to work, then companies could readily support work groups with shared desires.

Let’s also not forget that making everyone work from home was a choice by our employers. It was the pro-business alternative to giving paid time off to people who had family to take care of. It wasn’t easy and we shouldn’t forget it didn’t have to be like that.

After enduring that, if we managed to keep the business alive, we now invite the rest of you to play office wherever you want.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#532

Post by scrumbledober »

jalk wrote: post #425
throw827474737 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that also struck bad here.. > work mainly to get paid and do not care to invest themselves beyond what is necessary Dude, I am heavily invested into my work, but that doesn't mean I need to care for your social deficits - it can, but these should be mostly orthogonal things. Social investment is what I realized I really need to decrease at work, lol I still do it too much even virtually ( what is possible ). To…

I read "not care to invest themselves beyond what is necessary" as in meaning invest themselves into the job - not a general statement about the person. I have friends who are like that - they work their expected hours, but don't do anything extra - they don't expect to get raises nor promotions and they are perfectly fine with that. They put their energy into other things (which they can't live off), but they are by…

but where is the connection between investing yourself into your job and going in to the office? That assumes that you can't work hard from home, which I don't believe to be true.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#533

Post by jmull »

> ...Then there are people who work mainly to get paid and do not care to invest themselves beyond what is necessary...

Certainly... but why are you conflating that with WFH?

Actually, you're conflating a bunch of things with WFH for some reason. If you sort some of that out you might not be so against it after all.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#534

Post by closewith »

foobarian wrote: post #113
wincy wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know when the Fortune 500 US company I worked for opened their European office they 1) chose Dublin 2) Flew over multiple well paid engineers and paid for them to live there to train the new Dublin team. So I think because of some of the tax strategies mentioned by others US companies choose Dublin which strongly influences the salaries paid there.

Taxes and access. I believe Dublin is one of the closest EU airports to the eastern seaboard. There is even an Irish airport (not Dublin, Sh... something) with a USA passport check on Irish soil, so once you step on the plane you're officially in the US and once you land it's like taking a Boston-NYC shuttle.

Dublin also has-preclearance. A live-saver when I was doing a weekly DUB-SFO commute.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#535

Post by KerrAvon »

colinmhayes wrote: post #362
bogota wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came exactly here to say this. Because of WFH im able to have a awesome job and see my family living in other countries and also my parents at home much more frequently now. If you want to work in an office you can do that it’s your choice. Many people also have young kids and two working parents making the WFH flexibility ideal. Lots of reasons for WFH exist but they don’t matter. If you do your job and the company…

The issue is that I don't just want to work from the office, I want to work from the office along with my coworkers. Sitting there alone is only marginally better than work from home. In the end we just need to self select into companies that follow our desired "work from" policies, it's just tough now since the pandemic made every company temporarily WFH so some workers need to swap as companies change back.

So that's fine and all, but the problem is that large corporations impose top-down one-size-fits-all policies -- a lot of us work for large corporations. If the Dems lose the next election, corporations will probably continue to consolidate down to an ever-smaller set with more employees each. A large corporation mandating only one policy for the entire bazillion-employee set doesn't make sense. We need per-team flexibility, and most of the billionaire CEO's don't seem to want to allow that.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#536

Post by bogota »

KerrAvon wrote: post #535
colinmhayes wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that I don't just want to work from the office, I want to work from the office along with my coworkers. Sitting there alone is only marginally better than work from home. In the end we just need to self select into companies that follow our desired "work from" policies, it's just tough now since the pandemic made every company temporarily WFH so some workers need to swap as companies change back.

So that's fine and all, but the problem is that large corporations impose top-down one-size-fits-all policies -- a lot of us work for large corporations. If the Dems lose the next election, corporations will probably continue to consolidate down to an ever-smaller set with more employees each. A large corporation mandating only one policy for the entire bazillion-employee set doesn't make sense. We need per-team flex…

It’s crazy that they pay managers so much and don’t give them this autonomy at most companies

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#537

Post by dalyons »

i lived and worked in berlin, and then the bay for ~7 years.

If i still lived in berlin, i'd probably be going into the office. Transit is good, the city is cool/fun, and although its gotten a lot more expensive you can still afford to live in a decent place close to work on an engineers salary.

In SFO bay the equation is different - unless you're already rich (or young and want to share small apartments), you cant afford to live close to work, so commutes are long and terrible. The city isnt as fun after dark. I LIKE the bay, like being in person ,and commuted for years, but the tradeoff isnt worth the commute/lifestyle hit for me now. Upper management/exec are pushing RTO, because guess what, they're already rich enough to avoid the commute/lifestyle issues, so they are a bit blind to the reasons for RTO resistance.

We have offices in other cheaper cities - they have a higher % of voluntary WFO for similar reasons. The SFO office is lowest.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#538

Post by patrick451 »

bodge5000 wrote: post #118

With all due respect, this is mostly my problem with the "work-from-office" (WFO for ease) crowd. Generally, the stance of the WFH crowd is that each individual should get a choice of what makes that individual happy. Very few, if any, of the WFH crowd want mandatated WFH, it would make no sense. But then the WFO crowd often says no, I don't care what makes you happy, because you being in makes me happy. That doesn't…

I want to communicate with people in person. If I'm going to pair with someone, I want that to be at their desk. If I'm going to brainstorm with somebody or go over some complex math, I want to do that at a real physical whiteboard. I have yet to meet anybody who communicates better over slack or zoom than they do in person. So either I want you to be in the office for the greater communication bandwidth, or you want me to waste time trying to exchange ideas over sub-optimal channels. Either way, we're at an impasse.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#539

Post by dmitrygr »

ianbutler wrote: post #317
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The closest work-related argument I've heard is that some people work better when they're free of distractions at the office. That takes us back to companies being collaborative human endeavors. One may feel they work better in isolation, but part of ones job is to interact with others, even if that's not fun. Have you worked in an open office or cubical farm? My hearing the sales guys isn't 'collaboration', it's d…

So without hopefully coming off too flippant, noise canceling headphones can solve all of that, they did for me in an open office space at least.

I rarely wish pain on others, but for you, I wish migraines caused by pressure on the sides of your head, like some people have. Maybe a lesson will be learned.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#540

Post by aaronvg »

lolinder wrote: post #528
aaronvg wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier to be creative when you can bounce-off an idea with a coworker immediately, rather than wait for the Zoom meeting or wait for them to answer your Slack message. We're actually building a virtual office to make having these quick chats easier (gloo.chat). If you would want to try it out, or even just provide some feedback, that would be amazing given we just got started. Totally shameless plug.

For me, it's easiest to be creative when I can enter a flow state, and that's best achieved by muting Slack notifications and blocking out all external stimulus. Coworkers bouncing ideas off me "immediately" whenever they see fit is a recipe for decreasing my productivity.

Yep we encourage people to turn off our app (Gloo) a few days a week similarly to having "no meeting days". In the end, people can always decide how often they want to be reachable for.
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