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Forget going back to the office – people are just quitting instead

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Re: Forget going back to the office – people are just quitting instead

#211

Post by techsupporter »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #187
chillel wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because people have families, and parents can't just bounce on their children?

The parents I know have their lives greatly complicated by commutes and having to ensure childcare while they're in transit to or from the office.

As a parent, a five-day-per-week commute has many more opportunities for something to go wrong than an off-site I know about a month in advance that lasts for three nights.

Every single day, lots of things have to go right: dropping off has to be at a defined time (whether school or daycare, most activities have a predetermined start time unless the kid is very young, which mine isn't any more), then I have to get to work from the daycare, then I have to hope that nothing blows up during the day requiring me to stay longer, then I have to hope nothing blows up on the trip to daycare, and so on. I'm very fortunate that daycare is on a transit path for me because my family doesn't drive and transit around here is usually more reliable than driving.

Working from home for the last 15 months has been a godsend. I don't have to deal with any of those oddities. My spouse and I have traded off who takes a few days off every few weeks or so to be "on vacation" with the kid, or we sync up and take days off together to just veg at home as a family.

If you tell me I can skip the bullshit commute and only have to plan child care around a retreat that is booked a month, or even a couple of weeks!, in advance, I will gladly take that trade. Even if it's a "bring your spouse" kind of thing, I can get a set of grandparents to train or fly in for that time (or even go to them).

Re: Forget going back to the office – people are just quitting instead

#212

Post by foobiekr »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #175
foobiekr wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will not because remote only will continue to be rare. There’s a bit of a Harrison Bergeron thinking there.

Take a look at Dice, Indeed, LinkedIn Jobs, Github Jobs, etc. Look at the amount of remote positions there are now. Objectively, your comment is false.

Let’s see where things are in 18 months.

As someone who hires, remote at least does have its pluses - one can reasonably expect comp (costs) to decline and perks are gone. Not sure why I wouldn’t just hire a team in Eastern Europe though once remote is the way.

Re: Forget going back to the office – people are just quitting instead

#213

Post by tick_tock_tick »

jhawk28 wrote: post #92
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wages haven't kept pace with productivity since the 70's, and income and wealth inequality has reached astronomical proportions. IMO its time for a bit of inflation and improved employee leverage.

Inflation isn't a good thing. It is probably going to exasperate the wealth inequality and I don't see how it will improve employee leverage. It is an invisible tax caused by government artificially increasing the money supply.

Labor shortage plus inflation is the best thing possible for the people at the bottom of the economy.

Re: Forget going back to the office – people are just quitting instead

#214

Post by iaw »

symlinkk wrote: post #72
dhruvrrp wrote: post #43

I don't think people quitting directly correlates to WFH. A bunch of people I know who wanted to quit during the pandemic are quitting now instead. No one wanted to risk being unemployed during the pandemic.

Ironically with the increase in unemployment pay and stimulus packages, it probably would have been better to be unemployed during the pandemic

> Ironically with the increase in unemployment pay and stimulus packages, it probably would have been better to be unemployed during the pandemic

Not for a large chunk of the HN audience. The stimulus and unemployment don't come close to covering the six-figure salaries many on here get paid.

Re: Forget going back to the office – people are just quitting instead

#215

Post by FpUser »

>"management is insistent on disallowing WFH."

Color me surprised. For some managers it may become a time where they'd have to look for a new job and likely not because that was what they wanted.

Yes there are very good managers that help great deal in facilitating development. I am sure those would be just fine.

But I suspect there are more managers who are busy with nothing but convincing the rest of the company that they are needed and irreplaceable while doing useless work.

Re: Forget going back to the office – people are just quitting instead

#216

Post by lazide »

kwyjobojoe wrote: post #161
rocqua wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hybrid model makes sense, because some people (like me) enjoy being at the office with colleagues. I don't want a situation where I am forced to always be in the office. But I also don't want to have colleagues I never see. That doesn't mean "mandate exactly X days at work". But it does mean "be at the office sometimes".

Your only justification for forcing people to come to your office is to suit your needs. If a role can be done successfully 100%, people like you need to think about others before you start supporting upsetting someone else's lifestyle to make yourself happier.

Sounds like you aren’t listening to youself?

Folks have to meet in the middle somewhere if we want a society - some people want full office, some people want full remote, some people want a hybrid. They can’t all be happy.

Saying ‘I want to meet my coworkers face to face at least some of the time’ seems like the compromise position if anything.

Re: Forget going back to the office – people are just quitting instead

#217

Post by iaw »

paulpauper wrote: post #79

Despite a lot people leaving the workforce permanently, the stock market keeps going up, GDP forecasts are very strong, and so are corporate profits. It goes to show the remarkable ability of companies to adapt in the face of adversity, and also the resiliency of the US consumer ,especially the high-end consumer. "If 50% of employees quit, fine, we'll just boost the productivity by 100% of the 50% who remain using cl…

> the stock market keeps going up

It's not because of productivity gains, the Fed has been pumping money into the economy without regard for inflation and we're finally seeing the financial system respond. everything is more expensive, not just stocks.

Re: Forget going back to the office – people are just quitting instead

#218

Post by lazide »

ghaff wrote: post #192
d110af5ccf wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... the extremely rare spark of whiteboard innovation is not worth ... Crazy idea - install a whiteboard at home and point a 4k camera at it. The broke college student version of this involves a pen, paper, and the camera on your cellphone; it works quite well.

Whiteboard area in a conference room has some challenges to recreate. That said, we've found collaborative editing replaces a lot of sloppy handwriting and people capturing with smartphones and recreating after the meeting. To say nothing of the fact, that wealthy SV companies complaining that they have to structure their entire companies arounf in-person because virtual whiteboards are a really hard problem should b…

Having used said virtual whiteboards - they suck. Most of ‘whiteboarding’ is the low lag communication, body language, ease of just ‘doing something’ by hand. In my experience, the connection issues, lack of ability to get good fidelity in communication, random glitches and other issues, just ruins the majority of it.

Not having a terrible commute or paying 10x the national average for a closet to live in are definitely a strong plus in the other column though for sure.

Re: Forget going back to the office – people are just quitting instead

#219

Post by tikhonj »

dheera wrote: post #116
cyberlurker wrote: post #6

I actually don’t mind one way or the other, but I just want a clear rationale for over riding the employees preference. I despise the water cooler theory because I’m perfectly capable of socializing over voip or IM. I do it at work and then shortly afterwards with friends on discord. The real reasons for return to office should be tangible. If you have metrics that people are taking advantage, share them. The only th…

It's also worth noting that there's a huge bias toward pure software engineers on HN. I do software, but I have to work with some large industrial hardware and it's so much easier to just have the hardware in front of you. Especially when you have to from time to time set up hardware that isn't even on the network yet. Telepresence just isn't there yet, and the quality of internet connections and videoconference tool…

I mean, that's a great example of a clear rationale! If my job required interacting with machinery or hardware that had to be centrally located, I wouldn't need to be "required" to come into the office any more than I'm "required" to use Git to manage my code—I'm a professional, and that's just part of what I do.

The issue comes up with roles when that isn't the case. In most programming roles I would not have any clear reason to be in-person, and even if I did have times where I clearly needed to be in the office, I would not appreciate being forced to come in outside those times. Requirements like that are frustrating because they require a real cost on my end (less flexible schedule, less control over my environment, a commute) and simultaneously signal a fundamental lack of flexibility, respect and trust from my employer.

Re: Forget going back to the office – people are just quitting instead

#220

Post by halfmatthalfcat »

foobiekr wrote: post #212
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at Dice, Indeed, LinkedIn Jobs, Github Jobs, etc. Look at the amount of remote positions there are now. Objectively, your comment is false.

Let’s see where things are in 18 months. As someone who hires, remote at least does have its pluses - one can reasonably expect comp (costs) to decline and perks are gone. Not sure why I wouldn’t just hire a team in Eastern Europe though once remote is the way.

You're not going to hire a team in Eastern Europe for the same reasons why, in our current time, most companies don't use that method of hiring: time zone differences, language/culture differences and size of qualified talent pool. American developer salaries are so high not just because they're located in high COL areas, it's because most of the high performing developer talent is in the US. This isn't saying there isn't talent in Europe but per capita, the US has the lion share of the talent.
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