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Why do so many people want us back in the office?

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Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#171

Post by nemetroid »

rootusrootus wrote: post #129
ckdarby wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you discuss why you want to go back to the office?

Not OP but I will throw in my 2 cents... 1. Work/life separation. Even with a separate computer, getting it shut away and Slack gone is easier said than done. Now everyone knows you're probably around somewhere and will read their e-mail or see their Slack message, even early in the morning or later in the afternoon. 1b. I work better in a dedicated environment. My home office has all kinda of other distractions. Hom…

> Social connections. There are many people I was friendly with but only at the office. Now I only interact with people on my own team or in closely related teams when we are working on some project that overlaps. My 'work world' has shrunk dramatically.

I echo this sentiment. As a junior engineer in a large office, being able to keep track of other projects, who is working on what, what's coming up in a different business area, etc., has been very important for career development. Working from home, I've been "siloed" into my own team to a much larger extent.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#172

Post by de_Selby »

saiya-jin wrote: post #142
tomp wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? Ideally nobody would force you to stay at home, just like nobody would force your colleague to go to the office. Different people have different preferences, why not (try to) satisfy them all?

I was forced to WFH, same as most of my colleagues. Most who keep going to work don't really have much choice (apart from resigning for which ain't the best time now). What are you talking about?

> Ideally

You missed a key word in the parent post.

_Ideally_ people wouldn't be forced into multiple hour long commutes either, but that has been the reality for many before this year.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#173

Post by aspaceman »

maneesh wrote: post #154
01100011 wrote: post #140

I would be in favor of a number of working arrangements, ranging from working in a Bay Area office full-time(least favorite) to working from home most-time in an area that provides me with the chance to buy a home and have a reasonable commute to a satellite office. I am absolutely, 100% against full-time WFH in an expensive, low-quality(no sound/thermal insulation) Bay Area apartment without a dedicated workspace. >…

>> if your job can be done from home, it can be done from anywhere in the world > I will call anyone's bluff who says this. Do it. Good luck. If you haven't successfully done this already, there is a reason and you know it. Welp, I'm the CEO of a smart wearable device company ( https://pavlok.com ). We were based in Boston because everyone told me, and I believed you HAD to be in one place to build a startup, and DEF…

I can’t even with this comment.

Not everyone has the resources to make a working place anywhere viable. You seem to have the resources to make a hotel in Budapest or whatever work. Talking so causally about international travel already puts you beyond most Americans’ income.

So yeah it is very, very easy for folks with a job like yours, and with the resources you’re afforded, to work anywhere. The issue isn’t proximity to resources, but the ability to complete work.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#174

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

rootusrootus wrote: post #129
ckdarby wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you discuss why you want to go back to the office?

Not OP but I will throw in my 2 cents... 1. Work/life separation. Even with a separate computer, getting it shut away and Slack gone is easier said than done. Now everyone knows you're probably around somewhere and will read their e-mail or see their Slack message, even early in the morning or later in the afternoon. 1b. I work better in a dedicated environment. My home office has all kinda of other distractions. Hom…

re: 3, it is completely acceptable to require a plan before joining a zoom meeting. If you put something on my calendar without telling me, it gets declined.

I've been told "You have no instinct of self preservation at this job" but being stuck in meetings and not being able to get things done is not what I was hired to do. Tuesdays and Mondays I concede to meeting hell because those are regular team meetings but your little attempt at showing the marketing department is still doing work by scheduling meetings is not that fun :(

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#175

Post by barrucadu »

rootusrootus wrote: post #129
ckdarby wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you discuss why you want to go back to the office?

Not OP but I will throw in my 2 cents... 1. Work/life separation. Even with a separate computer, getting it shut away and Slack gone is easier said than done. Now everyone knows you're probably around somewhere and will read their e-mail or see their Slack message, even early in the morning or later in the afternoon. 1b. I work better in a dedicated environment. My home office has all kinda of other distractions. Hom…

> Even with a separate computer, getting it shut away and Slack gone is easier said than done. Now everyone knows you're probably around somewhere and will read their e-mail or see their Slack message, even early in the morning or later in the afternoon.

But... why? Just don't look at work messages outside of work hours. Is that so hard?

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#176

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

zimpenfish wrote: post #4
mikece wrote: post #3

Who is demanding this? My company is openly talking about “office optional” when normalcy returns with “office days” being the exception rather than the norm.

UK politicians and business landlords are banging the "back to the office, proles!" drum pretty hard right now. Thankfully people are mostly ignoring them.

If it was only the UK...

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#177

Post by danielrhodes »

Outside of the pandemic, I think a company doing remote/WFH carries with it some implications people don’t seem to talk about - namely that your physical workspace and equipment used is capital, and the company is not compensating employees for the use of that capital. If a company does not need to maintain office space, that is a huge expense they don’t have to pay for - but an employee is paying for it.

Right now you can see this in the real estate markets - people are moving out of their smaller city apartments into bigger places, partially I’m sure, because maintaining an office at home requires extra space. But that cost is on the employee not the employer.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#178

Post by egsmi »

goatinaboat wrote: post #147
mattlondon wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not so sure productivity has definitely improved. I agree there was a good head of steam where people were able to quietly and independently work through their "list" of stuff they wanted to do for ages but never had the chance to etc, or whatever had previously been planned out. Now months later I feel like things are starting to grind a bit and productivity is starting to wane because the "pipe" is starting to…

Now months later I feel like things are starting to grind a bit and productivity is starting to wane because the "pipe" is starting to dry up. My employer mandated a return to the office about 2 weeks ago. Productivity has declined compared to when we were all WFH for 6 months and I have the stats - pull requests, builds pushed to prod, tickets opened, all are down.

This whole thing is so multifaceted I think it’s hard to draw any conclusions from it. In CA, we have COVID and fires so I’m essentially a prisoner in my house. If you locked me in my office, my productivity might go up too. But now that’s school is on and my kids are locked in here too. Productivity goes down. All in all, it’s a bumpy ride.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#179

Post by balfirevic »

refurb wrote: post #132
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #6

I don't care about "us" going back to the office but I definitely want to go back to the office and I am far from alone in this.

Yup. My 10,000 company in the Bay Area did an employee poll and it was overwhelming “I’d like the opportunity to work from the office again”. Keep in mind it wasn’t “I want to be there 8 hours a day, Monday through Friday”. But they definitely wanted the option to work from an office for part of the work week, at a minimum. This doesn’t surprise me in the least.

> I’d like the opportunity to work from the office again

Is that a useful answer? Of course people would like that opportunity, even if they never used it - it's pure bonus.

More useful question would be "how many times a week (or how many hours) do you plan to work from the office given the opportunity to work from both home and the office?"

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#180

Post by yoz-y »

dhimes wrote: post #41
rubyfan wrote: post #32

The expectation from the fortune 500 company I work at is we will eventually go back to normal. Though we are slowly starting to come around to COVID as being potentially a multi-year situation. We’ve got a small number of people in management roles that will return a few days a week in office soon. I’m personally a bit worried this will create an expectation or disadvantage for others not in office. In my observatio…

The best answer I've heard of is a company opening up the offices but mandating that all meetings are over videoconference anyway. Need to get out of the house? There's an office for you. But you don't have an inherent in-person advantage in a meeting.

How many meeting rooms would you need to do that? This would work if most people were in individual or very small offices but that’s rarely the case.
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