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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?

#271

Post by dathinab »

Lie he said/quoted the in-between part of meetings and office work is missing and I think it's essential.

IMHO Trying to emulate office work procedures with video conferences isn't helpful.

A move to out-of-office work should go hand in hand with a move to more async leadership and (technical) communication.

> what we gain in work-life balance

Might be nothing or even massive negative depending on the combination of your (home) environment and personality.

Remote work has the uncanny side effect to make it harder for people which have certain kind of problems, like abusive parterns or a otherwise "broken" home, addiction, depression or some other mental problems.

Sure at the same time it can enable some people with mental problems to work, through often under the condition that their problems are already handled well.

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

#272

Post by Nursie »

voisin wrote: post #121
Nursie wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we'll find that not every company does need an office, or the expense of an office. IMHO now is probably a good time to invest in meeting-place providers like Regus.

Regus’ parent company just filed for creditor protection.

Oh, shame, perhaps my thoughts on this are a little premature...

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

#273

Post by refurb »

balfirevic wrote: post #179
refurb wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

It is useful because the company was trying to gauge how many wanted to work from home permanently and wouldn’t care if they never had an office to go to.

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

#274

Post by ingvul »

nottorp wrote: post #195

There are about three problems with the current forced WFH situation: 1. People simply aren’t used to it yet. The self discipline part, knowing when to work... and when to stop too. 2. You do need some sort of dedicated space. I’ve been working from home just fine for 20 years but I have a separate room for that. 3. Especially in tech, management may not have the knowledge to judge productivity. Measuring time the ch…

Well put. It took me around a month to get into the WFH mood (point 1). I have a dedicated room and I don't see (at least for me) WFH feasible without one (point 2). Regarding point 3: unfortunately, I cannot control that.

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

#275

Post by ghaff »

Retric wrote: post #259
ghaff wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Based on not traveling, a $50/month delta between me not being in the house at all vs. being there full-time is actually about right. But then I don't live with someone. But simply not being in the house for 10 hours a day doesn't affect things much. Admittedly I use AC minimally.

That said, I'd be happy to concede that working at home costs me $1K/yr. in costs I wouldn't have were I to go into an office every day. But that has costs like commuting (for most people) too.

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

#276

Post by lotsofpulp »

Retric wrote: post #259
ghaff wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don’t think utilities are expensive enough to compare to the explicit costs of commuting by car (fuel, wear and tear, insurance) and the implicit costs of commuting (increased morbidity/mortality risk from driving, opportunity cost of time needed to be allocated to commuting).

Especially if the house isn’t completely empty when you’re at work.

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

#277

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #269
Retric wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A couple years ago, I had to move bare metal servers to my home to continue my job working at a VR technology startup, who had just decided to forgo their offices. I took on an extra $150-$200 in power expenses per month, and it was absolutely treacherous trying to get reimbursed for this. The company never considered the costs they were funneling into the employees - apparently - until people started to complain. I…

> I took on an extra $150-$200 in power expenses per month, and it was absolutely treacherous trying to get reimbursed for this

Well, fuck that... if it's company hardware and there's no reimbursement, power gets cut to that rack at 5PM local time.

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

#278

Post by an_opabinia »

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…

> His wife looks after kids who are at school most of the day again

This is the real story.

Suppose you're a company that pays someone a really handsome salary. It's a man. Do you want him in the office, where he is guaranteed to spend 0 hours taking care of kids, or at home, where it's not guaranteed?

Don't pin this on the wife. Do you think she'd rather he drive 2 hours a day and not take care of the kids, and get paid $400k/yr, or nothing, because whatever he's doing is actually very competitive and there will always someone else gunning for that job, so this obsequious rehash of the "well just work part time" idea that exclusively programmers engage in does not apply? So there is no actual option, part time take care of the kids?

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

#279

Post by rainyMammoth »

saos wrote: post #14

Yeah I’d like to go back but 2 days a week. Any more and it’s over kill really. 3 other days can be used for deep work at home. I’m tech guy working in marketing...these type of people love to appear at your desk every so often in the office. Now with Slack I can just not sign in or set my status as away and reply when I want. It’s asynchronous communication and really good for “me”. And truth is. Everyone is differe…

please no. That's the worst trade off: I still need to pay extra rent to manage my home office and live in commute distance of my HCOL office.

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

#280

Post by ghaff »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #269
Retric wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

A couple years ago, I had to move bare metal servers to my home to continue my job working at a VR technology startup, who had just decided to forgo their offices. I took on an extra $150-$200 in power expenses per month, and it was absolutely treacherous trying to get reimbursed for this. The company never considered the costs they were funneling into the employees - apparently - until people started to complain. I…

That would double my power expenses per month. Who knows if my circuits would even handle it. ADDED: My internet would also not be reliable enough for servers that other people were depending on.

That's a big difference from my laptop being plugged in at home for 8 hours a day rather than in an office.

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