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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?

#471

Post by kelnos »

InertBrake wrote: post #431
iancmceachern wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And further complicated by the fact the the same person may want different things at different stages in their life. Ive evolved, like many in my workplace, to be on site in the office as needed, occasionally (we work in hardware). We've learned to do most everything from home, with a few on site activities as needed.

Many of the comments on discussions such as these give me the impression that people are not considering this when they write, or at the very least omitting it. I'm a college student graduating next year, and I just finished my first substantial internship ever in a remote arrangement. The past twelve weeks were my first real experience in my professional environment of interest, but I'm not even sure if I can call i…

I feel absolutely terrible for all of our interns and new-grad hires this year, as they -- like you -- are getting a bizarre experience that we're not at all prepared to do properly, as we've just never done it this way before.

As someone who's later in his career, I'm totally fine and happy working from home (and was doing that most of the time pre-pandemic anyway), but if I look back to my early-/mid-20s and think about all the in-person mentorship I'd gotten, and how much I learned just by physically being in the presence of other people with more experience than I... I'm really worried about how we're going to effectively mentor a new generation of colleagues if we have to keep up this reduced amount of interaction.

Now, we do need to be careful to not equate the current situation with what "minimum office" might look like outside a pandemic situation. If we were all working from home but didn't have to isolate and socially distance ourselves, we'd still greet our interns and new employees with lunches and other outings, and we'd have plenty of random get-togethers in parks and bars. And I'd expect we'd come up with ways to get more-senior folks in the same room with the newcomers on a regular basis during the work day, whether in a co-working space or just a sparsely-populated office.

So really, it just sucks right now, but won't always. I know that's little consolation for you and those like you, who are entering into this mess before we've figured out how to do it right. I do expect things to be a bit better next summer after you graduate, but I'm sure there will be plenty of rough edges.

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

#472

Post by cik »

ink_13 wrote: post #462
sriku wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these are what one might call "first order effects" - i.e. factors immediately associatable with work location. For prolonged situation, higher order effects are going to become more important. Here are some candidates - 1. Improvement in city air quality due to reduced commute - road and flight. 2. Erosion of "social credits" over time due to lower bandwidth interactions when remote. 3. Cumulative impact of…

> Impact on the body - prolonged unmoderated sitting in bad postures Hey, this is me! I developed tendonitis in the shoulders from sitting in a lounge chair all day, and now I work with a physiotherapist who gave me funny looking exercises I do twice a day to retrain my body to get my hands behind my back (and other forms of shoulder mobility). Ergo is not a joke, friends.

For years, everyone I know has made fun of me for the extreme ergo choices I've made in my workspaces, based on my needs. I've had a standing desk for over a decade, and I never sit down - purely because that works for me. I know someone else with the same setup, because at 4'11, she finally gets a desk she can lower to the proper height. I've been using the right keyboard/pointer combination for me since 2000, and I'll always continue to do so. Much like offices, there's no one size fits all - we really need to drop this idea.

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

#473

Post by JoelTheSuperior »

xapata wrote: post #465

Because my desk is so easy to access, I've found myself working nearly non-stop for ... longer than I care to think about. I have trouble sleeping because I didn't give myself time to wind down. I wake up early thinking about programming. I need a detox. When we get an office again, I'll ask for a desktop and only work from there. When I come home, it's home and not work.

I think it depends on what your living situation is like as well.

Because I live reasonably far out into the suburbs, my home office is a completely separate room, so it's fairly easy to just totally forget it exists when I stop work.

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

#474

Post by mkhpalm »

josephg wrote: post #308
tomp wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? Ideally nobody would force you to stay at home, just like nobody would force your colleague to go to the office. Different people have different preferences, why not (try to) satisfy them all?

One of the problems of remote work is that it’s kind of an all or nothing thing for your team. If some people are in the office and some people work from home, inevitably (in my experience) a lot of small decisions get made in the office without consulting the remote workers. And that creates a divide - the people in the office end up with more power and authority than the remote folks. Some teams fight this with som…

I understand what you're saying but only with respect to global remote hires. I've seen the same attempts to fight it. But with local hires and optional wfh you just let that sort of problem work itself out. If the by-choice wfh person feels like they are left out its on them to do something about it. Its a personal problem not a team problem.

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

#475

Post by kelnos »

hylaride wrote: post #398
Nursie wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real estate is not a cost if you have an office setup at home anyway. As a computer programmer, why would I not? Cleaning and maintenance of that office is just part of what I do. Almost any commute is going to outweigh those factors.

I live in a 2 bedroom 900 square foot condo with a toddler. The kitchen table acted as my “desk” before COVID, usually in a pinch if I really had to. Currently I have half of our bedroom stuffed with a desk so I can work full time during the day. Not everybody’s situation is the same. I really liked my situation before COVID. I had a 10 minute walk to work, a large public park across the street where the city maintai…

> Obviously, COVID has caused a lot of people who love urban living to take a hard look at it. Living in a city loses its appeal when all the amenities are closed/gone

I still don't really understand this attitude. Sure, if you're only living in a particular city to be close to your office, it makes sense to re-evaluate when your office is now your home. But if you like living in a city because of those urban amenities... they're not gone forever. They're already starting to reopen, cautiously, to some extent, and I expect things will be back mostly to normal early/mid next year (minus, unfortunately, businesses that did/will not survive the shutdown). It seems pretty short-sighted to leave a place you otherwise love because of conditions that are temporary.

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

#476

Post by kelnos »

gordaco wrote: post #141
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…

Yeah, I agree. I miss my old routine too. I even have a dedicated office of sorts, and working from home is comfortable and convenient to me. But... I miss the commute. The bus I used to take wasn't particularly uncrowded, but I always managed to get a seat (thanks to having a particularly early schedule) and I used to take the opportunity to read (since each trip took about 40-45 minutes, that's about 1h30m of readi…

A sibling semi-facetiously suggests taking a bus ride out and back, which obviously isn't a great idea during a global pandemic, but... I think it's a pretty good idea otherwise?

Or you could just walk (or bus, when it's safer to do so) to a park, sit on a bench, and read for a half hour? Or maybe even the full hour and a half, so you get some uninterrupted reading in, and you can pick whether you do that in the morning, or in the evening? Or, hell, do half in the morning and half in the evening as you do now, just without the pressure to get somewhere.

I keep hearing how some people (mostly those who don't have to drive themselves) like their commute, and are sad they don't have one anymore, and may not even after COVID restrictions are lifted, but... you've been given that time back to do whatever you want with it. How is that not in every way better than a commute, even one you currently enjoy?

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

#478

Post by [deleted] »

neutronicus wrote: post #299
Balero wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you not get on a bus anyway? or sit in a park?

The locale is not important. The important thing is that it's time that is literally impossible to re-allocate to either housework or work-work. Any makeshift substitute won't have that property, and you'll be pressured to skip it in order to do more housework or more work-work.

[deleted]

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

#480

Post by vonseel »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #435
vonseel wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The delta in utilities, in a place like Texas, during the summer months, is certainly not trivial. Relative to a tech workers salary, sure, a hundred bucks per month isn’t that much, but it’s costing me a lot more to keep my house cool through 100F days all summer long than it would if I let the thermostat go to 80F during the workday.

Does everyone in the living space leave for the day? At my place someone is always home most of everyday anyway.

I live alone, so if I were going to an office, yeah
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