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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?

#231

Post by 01100011 »

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…

Sorry I was unclear. What I was trying to say is that if you haven't offshored your team already(i.e. moved part of your engineering operations to E. Europe, Asia, etc.), then you have a good reason for doing so. Offshoring engineering has been going on for decades at this point. Anyone threatening that working from home means your job is a target for offshoring(to someone else, not you in that location) is full of beans. It's an empty threat.

I have no doubt that I could personally move to another country and do my job. I seriously considered it as a way to escape unfair alimony payments, and still might.

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

#232

Post by heavyset_go »

hordeallergy wrote: post #65

I have no interest in being in the office. The commute is horrid and a waste of time. The socialising is insignificant. The water cooler never has more than one visitor at a time, so the idea of it being an idea exchange is myth. Everyone communicates via chat in office, with headphones on. Being able to separate work and private life is a matter of self discipline, the other matters are not. The only thing I want is…

> The commute is horrid and a waste of time.

Not only is it a waste of time, it in an unnecessary danger. Tens of thousands of people are killed in their commutes, and many more are injured in accidents to, from or during work.

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

#234

Post by torvald »

SergeAx wrote: post #221

1. WFH is not for everyone. There are people with kids and no dedicated workplace at home. There are people with low motivation and self-control, and office routine just helps them to keep up. 2. You can't mix WFH with work in office. It's either one or the other. If you have a single employee working remotely - you should transform all the processes to WFH-style. 3. WFH shifts most of the burden onto management. Man…

> You can't mix WFH with work in office.

While I agree, I think there is room for organizations to at least be remote friendly. I'd love to work for an organization that allowed for WFH in the middle of build cycles/sprints and keeping a more strict at-office policy during planing phases of projects.

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

#235

Post by heavyset_go »

roenxi wrote: post #50

There is a certain mindset - turns up all the time in economic discussions too - where if a change is made and doesn't lead to a metric-observable consequence in 6 months then that is the end of the discussion. Working from home is crippling for forming new social connections. Promotions are done based, primarily, on social connections. Hiring too. There is very strong pressure for ambitious people who know how the w…

> Working from home is crippling for forming new social connections.

This is really strange to me as someone who has worked remotely for the past several years, because I've made more social connections outside of work than I ever did while working.

> And the social aspect of a supervisor understanding what their reports are doing is also easy to underestimate. Offices will be back as soon as it is practicable.

Sounds like offices will be back as soon as possible for workplaces where supervisors feel compelled to micromanage.

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

#236

Post by danans »

SergeAx wrote: post #221

1. WFH is not for everyone. There are people with kids and no dedicated workplace at home. There are people with low motivation and self-control, and office routine just helps them to keep up. 2. You can't mix WFH with work in office. It's either one or the other. If you have a single employee working remotely - you should transform all the processes to WFH-style. 3. WFH shifts most of the burden onto management. Man…

> 2. You can't mix WFH with work in office. It's either one or the other. If you have a single employee working remotely - you should transform all the processes to WFH-style.

You don't provide the line of thinking behind this statement. Why do you think this is the case?

Also, even taking your statement at face value, you can still have a setup where there are fewer days in the office and more days working from home for every employee. Basically, have flexible in-office hours, whether that means only certain days, or certain parts of certain days.

This sort of flexibility could be of great benefit to the employee who has kids, or is just tired of sitting in traffic or crowded trains 5 days a week. As a bonus, it could reduce crowding on transit lines during peak hours.

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

#237

Post by maneesh »

aspaceman wrote: post #173
maneesh wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 proximi…

I moved out of Boston because we were spending money too quickly. I dropped non-personnel expenses by 80% by doing so....

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

#238

Post by gerdesj »

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. >…

My company (IT consultancy) is based in the SW of England. One of my employees is Polish and now lives in Poland. Mid 2019 he decided to return to Poland from here (got married, child born, look after ailing parents etc!) and we came to an agreement.

He gets paid UK rates for a UK job and lives in Poland as a sub-contractor. He may do other stuff there as well but I don't care - I get my pound of flesh 8) Poland is an hour ahead of the UK so he generally gets to run the 0800 start which works nicely.

Now this is not the new normal bollocks. It works for us and him. I can't ask him to go to Cardiff and roll out a few dozen new laptops but in general it doesn't matter that he is in a town in Poland that I can't possibly pronounce the name of, instead of Yeovil, when fixing a snag in Sherborne or Hull.

I and my company are very lucky that we can still function effectively, regardless of location. I as MD am now much more disposed towards home working. We were already pretty flexible but now I am far keener on even more flexibility. There are loads of silly and not so silly things to work out eg "I did x but n doesn't seem to be pulling their weight" etc. We need to invent mechanisms to deal with this. We already do a weekly get together on Teams but that is not good enough.

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

#239

Post by commandlinefan »

SergeAx wrote: post #221

1. WFH is not for everyone. There are people with kids and no dedicated workplace at home. There are people with low motivation and self-control, and office routine just helps them to keep up. 2. You can't mix WFH with work in office. It's either one or the other. If you have a single employee working remotely - you should transform all the processes to WFH-style. 3. WFH shifts most of the burden onto management. Man…

> single employee working remotelyl

I can’t disagree with any of your points, but for the past decade, I’ve mostly worked for huge corporations with multiple offices in multiple cities, and have only rarely worked with anybody I’m in the same building (or even the same city) as, including my boss. Until this year, they’ve demanded I physically drive to the office anyway, but there’s never been any reason; I’ve been on zoom calls all day anyway.

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

#240

Post by golemiprague »

SergeAx wrote: post #221

1. WFH is not for everyone. There are people with kids and no dedicated workplace at home. There are people with low motivation and self-control, and office routine just helps them to keep up. 2. You can't mix WFH with work in office. It's either one or the other. If you have a single employee working remotely - you should transform all the processes to WFH-style. 3. WFH shifts most of the burden onto management. Man…

I have been working for years in a company that mixed WFH and office, it depends how you do it. In our case we meet at the office periodically to catch up but not every day not everybody and not in every location. The schedule is built according to teams, their specific work needs and time constraints. It require some level of trust but from my experience comparing to office only or wfh only places I worked for, the combined approach is the best. We are mostly people with families so a bit more responsible and appreciative of having time at home but also wanting to escape home from time to time if you know what i mean. So it works perfect.
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