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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?

#351

Post by phillip_cypher »

dathinab wrote: post #309
jstanley wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you're WFH, you don't need to live in central Tokyo, you can live anywhere. You'd probably save money by gaining an extra bedroom and moving out of central Tokyo, no?

Anywhere where you: - Have reasonable fast internet. - (Affordable) Hospitals/Police/Firewatch in reasonable distance - Are not to far away from the companies office as you likely still have to go to the office from time to time. EDIT: Most people don't live in Tokyo or cities with similar expensive housings. The cost of moving away from cities is often much bigger then "just" longer transit times from home to work.

In addition, you're being forced to adjust your personal lifestyle because of the office space your employer is choosing not to provide. Perhaps it would be cheaper to live in a farm house in the middle of nowhere, but what if you want to live in central Tokyo? Perhaps it's the American in me, but doesn't everyone deserve the right to pursue happiness, even if it's in the form of the city in which you live?

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

#352

Post by mgh2 »

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…

Not everyone employed had these benefits to start with. What pains me is seeing tech employees complain about lost perks while the rest of the population is really suffering. How comfortable do we need to be to lose the sense of reality?

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

#353

Post by phillip_cypher »

michaelt wrote: post #336
Nursie wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's barely the cost of a couple of cups of take-out coffee a week for the cold months, which I'd be far more likely to buy when at work.

£100 is trivial if you're getting paid £100,000 If you're making £12,000 a year though? That £100 might be your entire budget for Christmas presents.

That £100 might be your entire budget for groceries. There's a real economic class difference that I think a lot of people aren't seeing here.

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

#354

Post by lotsofpulp »

ck425 wrote: post #334
briandear wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a zero cost: it’s 40 minutes of time.

I run there, which is time I still spend at home. And I enjoy the walk home as I live in a beautiful city. I normally go walking throughout the day for longer than that anyway.

Yes, I love being able to walk/bike to work, but that’s not life for 95%+ of people in the US (nor England from what I know).

Walking/biking gives you agency that public transit/cars don’t. It feels much freer.

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

#355

Post by michaelt »

01100011 wrote: post #231
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…

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 b…

> What I was trying to say is that if you haven't offshored your team already, then you have a good reason for doing so.

What if, pre-covid, the reason was "we believe having everyone in one office, regularly meeting face-to-face, is more productive than anything involving videoconferencing" ?

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

#356

Post by [deleted] »

mgh2 wrote: post #352
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…

Not everyone employed had these benefits to start with. What pains me is seeing tech employees complain about lost perks while the rest of the population is really suffering. How comfortable do we need to be to lose the sense of reality?

[deleted]

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

#357

Post by tlear »

So how do you hire and on-board junior people?

Every remote contract I done I found that when client hires another junior(fresh out of college) person productivity plummets for everyone. When you have one in the office I find that mentoring them and getting them to be useful is much easier.

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

#358

Post by buzzerbetrayed »

mgh2 wrote: post #352
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…

Not everyone employed had these benefits to start with. What pains me is seeing tech employees complain about lost perks while the rest of the population is really suffering. How comfortable do we need to be to lose the sense of reality?

It’s part of the entire package of compensation for working at a company. If my employer cuts my pay by $30,000 and says, “you’re still making more than most the population”, I’m going to leave and go somewhere that pays me more?

Is this privilege? Of course. A lot of people don’t have the luxury to go get a better job if their pay gets cut. But how does me foregoing that privilege help them?

I have no idea what the point of your comment is. Are you just wanting people to feel bad because they don’t like that WFH made their life a little worse?

Edit: The parent comment was edited after I started writing my comment. Said something about GP’s comment being a privileged one, amongst other things. Just for some context about where I’m coming from with my comment.

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

#359

Post by etxm »

Bosses want you back so they can efficiently micromanage you and treats lush some sense of the control they’ve lost.

If you want/need to go to the office, great, go for it.

Requiring people that have a desk job to be in a specific building to do their work is absurd.

Edit: I’ve been working remote for almost 12 years.

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

#360

Post by roenxi »

tester756 wrote: post #344
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…

What do you mean >There is very strong pressure for ambitious people who know how the world works to get back into the office.

People who want to succeed in management need to play the social game of making friends, showing support, taking an interest in what is going on and getting a feel for what the unofficial power structures in a company are doing.

It is possible to do all that remotely. But people in physical proximity have a massive advantage. If two roughly equal people are trying for a promotion, the one with more face time in the office is quite likely to get it. That is how human social activity works.

Now if literally everyone is at home then it doesn't matter. But as soon as anyone is in the office, everyone who wants a promotion will end up in the office.

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