Why do so many people want us back in the office? • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by greggman3 » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 12:51 AM UTC

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…

To me the mental cost matters. For me, I'm mentally better off when I hang out with people physically than when I sit at home isolated chatting on slack. For you that might be different.

So I'd happily pay the commute cost if I have to for my mental well being. If you don't need that that's fine. You can stay home.

I have a gut feeling (so no data) that for many projects a core group of physically together people will out perform a group of remote workers of the same size "All other things being equal" (which they never are).

I come from games, having designers/artists/programmers able to look over each others shoulders and "riff" off each other's ideas is invaluable. But I know there are other kinds of work that don't need as much interaction so YMMV

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

#382

Post by greggman3 » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 12:52 AM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #294

Aeolun wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I do not have an extra office in a dedicated bedroom. I live in central Tokyo. The delta in house price for ‘extra bedroom’ in the place I live is around $250,000. There is just no way my company is going to even consider reimbursing me for that.

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?

I didn't move to Tokyo to live outside of Tokyo.

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

#383

Post by rbg246 » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 12:53 AM UTC

I've read a pile of these articles and it always seems to be one or the other as though they are mutually exclusive.

Why isn't this a hybrid solution?

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

#384

Post by Nginx487 » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 12:57 AM UTC

When I was single, I always rented an apartment in a walking distance from my office, no matter how much it cost, 2-3 hours of my time daily are priceless.

Now when I have a family, remote work is a real money-saving solution, but gosh, how I miss the office and how I'm tired of my home turned into an office. My wife also works here, we have two workspaces, 3 printers, but no space anymore for "switching context" from work to home, and no private time, work may find you at 11 pm, and you can't stop thinking of doing more today to do less tomorrow. I read everything about WFH planning and self-discipline, but this is how it works for us at the moment.

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

#385

Post by smcleod » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 12:57 AM UTC

I miss being in the office so that I can go for coffees with people at morning tea, lunch and beers after work, I miss the human connection that cannot truely occur via via conferencing software, I miss walking around the city at lunch and even the 30-40 minute community to/from work (about half the time). I miss having a lunch room to sit and spitball ideas in that people truly, naturally walk in and out of, I miss meeting rooms not for bad meetings but for good hands on sessions with physical post-it notes, whiteboards, I miss being about to seperate work and home life, I miss the daily change of scenery. I miss having a work life.

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

#386

Post by robryan » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 12:57 AM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #355

01100011 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" ?

These companies certainly can try and great for them if they can make it work. If it was easy though it would have already happened to a greater extent.

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

#387

Post by greggman3 » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 12:58 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #354

ck425 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Biking in Tokyo is less freeing than public transportation because of the added time finding a place to lock up the bike. I bought a bike thinking I'd use it but it turns out it's actually much less free since if I take it I'm stuck with it the entire day where as without it I can easily visit the other side of the city on a whim via public transportation. The same would be true in Singapore, Hong Kong, Paris, Berlin, many other places with good public transportation.

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

#388

Post by zuhayeer » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 1:00 AM UTC

Not being in the office exposes a lot of the workplace theater we participate in, in order to put on a facade that we are working or being productive. Now, you can truly just not work on some days when you aren't feeling it. You can actually embrace the lulls and highs that ebbs and flows through the very nature of work.

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

#389

Post by geerlingguy » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 1:10 AM UTC

Finnucane wrote: post #155

dpcan wrote: post #137

I've worked from home for 17 years, but I love to go work other places like coffee shops, libraries, etc. I would LOVE to not be at home again. I can technically go to these other places and work again, just like I used to, because the area I live in believes this is all a hoax, but I'm just not comfortable, and I don't want to wear a mask all day, and people just aren't the same right now - so I'm a little nervous a…

Yeah, I worked from home for a few years as a a freelancer. That was a very different experience from wfh due to pandemic lockdown. Before I could still see people when I wanted or needed to, go to the cafe or the library, buy lunch at the deli, etc. I didn’t have an office but other kinds of normal interactions were still an option.

Go to meetups and talk shop with other locals in the industry...

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

#390

Post by rootusrootus » Sun, Sep 13, 2020, 1:17 AM UTC

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. >…

> 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.

I tend to agree. At least as it relates to offshoring. My company has been doing a 50/50 split between the US and Hyderabad/Pune for years, and there is no real danger of us moving everything to India. Good developers there aren't really that much cheaper than good developers in the US. The 10-12 hour offset is a huge impediment to success. Some folks there will work really late to make up for it, but there's still a pretty big gap. Not a lot we can do to make it better other than move entire groups over there and minimize communication requirements.

What I can see happening is more competition within the US. Having developers offset a couple hours is no big deal. Same culture, same language, and three hours ahead is just fine. We do that every day. So it may be that remote developers who used to work in expensive locations like SF will find that they can't command that salary when they are indistinguishable from any other remote developer in the continental US.