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

paulitaylor.com

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

#251

Post by maigret »

woodson wrote: post #196
aspaceman wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Staying at AirBnBs in the listed cities and working from there is quite likely cheaper than renting office space in Boston (probably even including airfare). So it’s not about “resources” as in money, it’s about being able to be productive working from all these places, especially when taking into account the time zone difference to other members of the team.

Yes, and... I’d be curious to see which digital nomads follow the local taxes regulations. It’s easy to get in trouble with working abroad.

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

#252

Post by m-ee »

m0zg wrote: post #250
faster wrote: post #223

When I was building back end software, I could and did work from anywhere. I enjoyed working in the same space with my team, but not all day and not every day. And it wasn't necessary except maybe once or twice per quarter. Now I work on firmware, and I have about $6000 of test equipment that is required to do my job, as well as multiple fragile circuit boards, some that I'm afraid to touch because some of the rework…

You could do what we did in some distributed teams at Google: just have a permanent "call" going with everyone normally muted. When someone would like to receive attention, they unmute and speak. It's not as good as walking up to someone's desk, but it's not as bad as having to schedule a call in advance.

With hardware there's really no substitute for having a stocked lab and good technician in the building. A broken blue wire or fried chip could mean me losing an hour to a day of productivity depending on whether I have parts on hand and how difficult the rework is. In the office it could be fixed before I had time to grab coffee.

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

#253

Post by mmcnl »

sjy wrote: post #208
danielrhodes wrote: post #177

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 y…

Companies don’t compensate employees for the cost of their commute either. I don’t see the big deal here; the marginal cost of working from home is often pretty close to zero.

They do actually. Maybe not where you live, but where I live it's normal (and expected) that employers compensate for commute.

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

#254

Post by detaro »

x87678r wrote: post #124

My commute is 20 minutes on an uncrowded ferry, and my home office is a tiny desk in my daughter's bedroom while she works on the other side on school stuff. My colleague has a massive house with a pool tennis court and so much space he has literally 3 never-used bedrooms. His wife looks after kids who are at school most of the day again. His commute is 2 hours each way. People are talking home vs office people are c…

In some places there clearly is a push towards "back to the office" for everyone. Which is quite different from "you can come back to the office if that works better for you". E.g. our offices are pretty empty (and thus safer to be in), but available to those that want them, whereas I see customers where there is clear pressure to be in the office if at all possible.

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

#255

Post by gerdesj »

ConcernedCoder wrote: post #193
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. >…

Yeah, I don't know about working from "anywhere in the world"... I'm sure there's places without good internet, etc... that would make that difficult or impossible. I can say one thing about it after being 100% WFH for 2+ years now, I can set my alarm clock, to wake me up exactly 1 hour before my morning video conference "standup" meeting, and still have time to wash-up, make coffee, watch the markets open, be proper…

I'm an MD of a very small firm in the UK and I have had my mindset changed by events. A huge social experiment on homeworking has been done (and ongoing) and results are in.

I will make my commuters into remote workers by default unless they either want to come in or have to. One of my guys is Polish in Poland and can do whatever the hell he wants! Most of my staff are a bit stressed over SARS-COV-2, as am I but we will crack on.

I'm glad to hear you are thriving. You are one of the folks keeping your economy going (wherever that is) - take some pride in that.

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

#256

Post by dkdk8283 »

m0zg wrote: post #250
faster wrote: post #223

When I was building back end software, I could and did work from anywhere. I enjoyed working in the same space with my team, but not all day and not every day. And it wasn't necessary except maybe once or twice per quarter. Now I work on firmware, and I have about $6000 of test equipment that is required to do my job, as well as multiple fragile circuit boards, some that I'm afraid to touch because some of the rework…

You could do what we did in some distributed teams at Google: just have a permanent "call" going with everyone normally muted. When someone would like to receive attention, they unmute and speak. It's not as good as walking up to someone's desk, but it's not as bad as having to schedule a call in advance.

This sounds miserable. What did you do for periods of deep work?

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

#257

Post by VectorLock »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #189
x87678r wrote: post #124

My commute is 20 minutes on an uncrowded ferry, and my home office is a tiny desk in my daughter's bedroom while she works on the other side on school stuff. My colleague has a massive house with a pool tennis court and so much space he has literally 3 never-used bedrooms. His wife looks after kids who are at school most of the day again. His commute is 2 hours each way. People are talking home vs office people are c…

Commute time is a big thing here. People who have a 2 hour (one way) commute from hell from their massive house are super happy about this situation (shocking, I know). People who live in a small studio apartment 10 minutes from the office see it differently. What I expect this to result in is employers increasingly forcing people to WFH (either outright, or by making the offices horribly unattractive through hot-des…

I think both big house 2 hours away and small studio 10 minutes away would both be happy about WFH. This means small studio 10 minutes away can move out of his small studio that he lives in only because its 10 minutes away.

EDIT: Not to say that studio 10 minutes from work might enjoy other aspects of his living situation but if his main constraint of "must be 10 minutes from work" is lifted, that gives him much more flexibility.

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

#258

Post by rlt »

danans wrote: post #236
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…

I’ve worked at companies where this was done right and wrong.

From my experience, if most employees are in an office and only a minority are remote, the remote employees are at a big disadvantage, unless the company (or remote employees) actively work to make sure they’re included in as much as possible.

If it’s in the company’s culture to have lots of ad-hoc in-person conversations where remote employees are unlikely to be included, they’re going to have a bad time. If those conversations mostly happen in chat or scheduled meetings with video chat, then it might work.

I think it’s probably better to just have whole teams be entirely (or at least majority) remote, or entirely onsite.

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

#259

Post by Retric »

ghaff wrote: post #209
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commute time is a big thing here. People who have a 2 hour (one way) commute from hell from their massive house are super happy about this situation (shocking, I know). People who live in a small studio apartment 10 minutes from the office see it differently. What I expect this to result in is employers increasingly forcing people to WFH (either outright, or by making the offices horribly unattractive through hot-des…

Really, there are only 2 costs that matter. On the one side you have the commute--both in time and money. On the other side is whether the place you'd be living in otherwise is suitable for long-term WFH or if you have to spend more money for another bedroom or whatever. So, if you already have a dedicated office in an exurban house (as I do), not commuting--which I rarely did anyway--is a cost savings. As someone wh…

Those minor costs can still add up. Depending on your setup and location you could easily be spending 30+c/h on electricity when working from home. Extra cooling, lighting, possibly multiple PC’s etc. At ~2,000 hours a year you’re talking an extra ~600$/per year after tax.

On the other hand it’s also much cheaper to cook at home.

PS: My preference is to live close enough to walk to the office, but that doesn’t really scale well.

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

#260

Post by airstrike »

strawberrypuree wrote: post #216
tima11234 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need to adapt. Just because you can't seem to figure out how to read a book now or listen to pod casts because you only did those things when forced to commute, isn't a good argument against WFH.

This is an uncharitable, mean spirited take on the comment you’re responding to and you should feel bad for having submitted it. Please take a moment to draw upon empathy before posting in the future.

This is incorrectly being downvoted. The parent absolutely has a point, given GP's choice of words ("you can't seem to figure out how to read a book now...")
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