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‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

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Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#261

Post by slumdev »

cableshaft wrote: post #78
mdorazio wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak from personal experience, but fwiw I'm currently consulting with 2 non-tech Fortune 500 companies. Both have implemented "hybrid" return to office policies where employees have to live within 100 miles of the office and be able to come in 1 day a week or 1 day a month depending on team. I've talked with executives in charge of large teams at both companies about this issue and so far it looks like th…

Job hunting right now. I know if I get two job offers and one is any form of WFH Hybrid (or a "you can probably work it out with your manager") and the other is 100% Remote, I'm taking the 100% remote position, unless the hybrid is like 2x the pay. Right now there's a lot of recruiters trying to sell me on various nebulous hybrid positions (sounds like the companies don't really know or have committed to anything jus…

> Right now there's a lot of recruiters trying to sell me on various nebulous hybrid positions (sounds like the companies don't really know or have committed to anything just yet, or are afraid to let potential hires know what they're really planning), but there's equally as many recruiters contacting me for 100% remote (and plans to stay that way) as well.

A recruiter (household name tech but not FAANG) pitched me on a position that was "1 day a week" in an office 300 miles from my home.

I knew my conditions* wouldn't be met, so I turned him down.

*The company covers my airfare and meals. I fly out and back same day. The morning outbound never departs before 8AM. The return never arrives after 6PM.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#262

Post by awsthro00945 »

sanderjd wrote: post #245
awsthro00945 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Relying on your employer for these items seems unwise. Why? Work is where you spend one third (or more) of your time during your adult life. Why the hell would I not want such a significant portion of my life to not also provide great benefits like opportunities to make friends, meet people, eat great food, and have fun? If you scoff at people who want to make their workplaces more welcoming and happier, no shit th…

Because you might get fired or laid off or burnt out and leave and only then discover that you have invested too much of yourself into this faceless entity that does not care a whit about you. This is one of those things where peoples' warnings to the young come from hard won experience, but where it doesn't sound right to people who have not themselves yet gained the experience. So we fail to impart the lessons and…

>This is one of those things where peoples' warnings to the young come from hard won experience, but where it doesn't sound right to people who have not themselves yet gained the experience.

Speak for yourself. I am very experienced. I have worked at many companies, some of which I left abruptly, and others where my close friends were fired/laid off.

But guess what? None of that matters. Just because a friendship starts at a workplace doesn't mean it ends when the employment ends. Some of my best, life-long friends are people I met at work. My current SO, who I will marry, is someone I met at at a past employer. My wedding party is going to be half-filled with people who I met at work, even though I no longer work with them. I currently mentor (and am mentored by) people from past jobs, one of which was actually fired.

This is also a self-fulfilling prophecy that I see in these conversations. People begrudgingly make nice with people at work, and restrict those relationships to only happen at work... and then are surprised when those relationships end when employment ends. If you only interact with your "friends" at your employer, then no shit those interactions will stop when your employment ends. But they don't have to, and for many people, they don't.

It's not any different than any other part of life. I'm no longer in college, but I'm still close friends with people I met in college, and I don't regret at all the fun activities I did during college. I no longer go to my old gym (I switched to a new gym), but I still keep in touch with someone I met at the old gym and I still benefit from the exercises I did there. I no longer live in my old apartment, but I still keep in touch with my friend who lived across the hall from me. Why should my workplace be any different?

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#263

Post by eigenhombre »

I have started to go back (my choice) to the office roughly 1x/week, to a downtown Chicago hi-rise, still mostly empty.

It's been pretty nice -- 9 mile bike ride, then squatting in a small office or conference room with a view over the Lake, maybe 1-2 colleagues to have lunch with or a "water-cooler" discussion, all on a floor that was laid out to support hundreds of people.

I fully expect this to change once more people are there. The layout is mostly open floor plan, with anonymous desks in rows. Noise always was a problem before we all started staying home. I'm lucky enough that I can choose how often to go in, but a reading of this thread shows that many aren't as lucky.

What it highlights for me is that how quality of the workspace really does matter (especially acoustics), and that companies must compete along this axis, along with many others (location, WFH fraction, compensation, etc.).

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#264

Post by awsthro00945 »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #241
awsthro00945 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Relying on your employer for these items seems unwise. Why? Work is where you spend one third (or more) of your time during your adult life. Why the hell would I not want such a significant portion of my life to not also provide great benefits like opportunities to make friends, meet people, eat great food, and have fun? If you scoff at people who want to make their workplaces more welcoming and happier, no shit th…

Why? Because if you live in a great place, all those things are available to you without discontinuity regardless of WHO you work for. The reason that there's such a disconnect between 20-somethings and everyone else on this issue is because everyone else has been through it already. Sure, there's a possibility that you will remain friends with people at your former place of work after you leave. There's also a VERY…

>Because if you live in a great place, all those things are available to you without discontinuity regardless of WHO you work for.

And how is this an argument for not also getting those things through work?

I have many hobbies outside work. I live in a great place where I am able to spend my free time meeting people and doing things outside work. I still want those things from my workplace, too.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#265

Post by francisofascii »

cableshaft wrote: post #78
mdorazio wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak from personal experience, but fwiw I'm currently consulting with 2 non-tech Fortune 500 companies. Both have implemented "hybrid" return to office policies where employees have to live within 100 miles of the office and be able to come in 1 day a week or 1 day a month depending on team. I've talked with executives in charge of large teams at both companies about this issue and so far it looks like th…

Job hunting right now. I know if I get two job offers and one is any form of WFH Hybrid (or a "you can probably work it out with your manager") and the other is 100% Remote, I'm taking the 100% remote position, unless the hybrid is like 2x the pay. Right now there's a lot of recruiters trying to sell me on various nebulous hybrid positions (sounds like the companies don't really know or have committed to anything jus…

> companies don't really know or have committed to anything just yet

That is a good point. My company doesn't know or has not set a return policy. So I imagine it is hard for recruiters and hiring managers to give an honest answer. And I wonder if it is better to wait until more companies have set a firm policy.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#266

Post by stouset »

wil421 wrote: post #193
achow wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a single, young: I miss the office for.. - Free and convenient food. - Social chatter & engagement. - Making friends with employees who I don't know and connecting with new employees. - Work life separation (balance). - Proper workstation, climate controlled environment. - Sense of belonging - team outing, after hours beers.. - Intra and inter company sports and games. - Meeting potential dates. [Not me. Just em…

Sounds like you need some hobbies. Most of the things you state I get from my hobbies. Do you not live in a place with climate control? At home I make the temperature decisions not the facility folk.

100%.

Work is a decent place to meet people, but I don’t think it’s particularly healthy as your only or even primary opportunity for social connection. That might not be the case here but it sure sounds like it could be.

My own life improved immeasurably when I finally started having interests outside of pushing buttons into a glowing rectangle of light.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#267

Post by sgtnoodle »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #154
tolbish wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vets with 5+ years of specific subdomain experience within the company's ecosystem (along with experienced engineers who have experience from elsewhere) are much harder to replace.

A big part of the rather documentation and process-heavy development model at FAANGs and other large corporations is to ensure that other people can take over a project if any individual leaves. Much as people will hate this analogy, "cattle, not pets" is a concept managers and HR knew long before the software industry stumbled on it. The people at FAANGs are highly-talented but, even at that level, only a handful ar…

As an individual engineer, I think it's inherently valuable to make my projects easy to hand off (in addition to as maintenance free as possible). The company is less impacted if I leave, sure, and it also means I can take a vacation without constantly getting messaged. Long term, it means that I end up working on more bleeding edge "cool" projects, since I'm not bogged down with years of making myself irreplaceable, and folk want new work to benefit from the same level of redundancy and maintainability.

I believe that I have a perception of being irreplaceable, but it's because of my future value rather than past value.

I've never felt like I was being treated like cattle at work, though, so maybe I've just been lucky enough to work at good companies.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#268

Post by acid__ »

frumper wrote: post #257
toast42 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my productivity is easily 5-10x what it was before How are you measuring this? Those numbers seem incredulous.

well he gets done by 11am(8am-11am?) so 8 hours into 3 hours, 8/3 != 5x let alone 10x, sounds like maybe an exaggeration

Wait, who in tech is starting work at 8am? My average day starts around 10. 10x is an exaggeration to be sure, but I will happily defend 5x.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#269

Post by Finnucane »

totalgeek wrote: post #113
klipklop wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody wants to give up a something once it becomes a part of their life that they enjoy. The FANG workers got a taste of not having a daily long commute and don't want to give this small life improvement back. Getting back several hours of your life is pretty big. FANG companies however have gotten a taste of nearly unlimited power and have not heard "no" in years. They too don't want to give this up. This is why th…

Let's not also forget the ability to take your pay from say a major metropolitan area like San Francisco, and work remote where you get more bang for your buck like Wyoming. When I was working in the bay area I would've happily taken a 10-20% pay cut in order to work remote from anywhere. I would've been happy with a mandate of 'come into the office for a week (on the company dime of course) once a quarter, bi-annual…

Of course, a lot of people taking their big tech paychecks to some lower-cost place will just be exporting the problem to another place. A sudden big inflow of cash into a low-cost area is going to raise prices.

Re: ‘Great Resignation’ gains steam as return-to-work plans take effect

#270

Post by okareaman »

nrmitchi wrote: post #196
okareaman wrote: post #161

I was extremely lucky to WFH during the first 12 years of my software career. When I finally got a job in an office I was shocked at how awful it was. The 2 hours commuting every workday, the flickering fluorescent lights, the noise of coworkers, the smell of burnt coffee or popcorn, the boss that drops by to see how you're doing and causes you to lose a hour of concentration so I might as browse the web until quitti…

> the flickering fluorescent lights, the noise of coworkers, the smell of burnt coffee or popcorn, the boss that drops by to see how you're doing and causes you to lose a hour of concentration so I might as browse the web until quitting time. Was this at a "tech" company of any kind, or a non-tech company with a small number of software engineers? This sounds more like an archetype based on Office Space rather than a…

These were all software companies in or near Silicon Valley. Cube farms, not open office. Maybe you are one of the lucky ones to get your own office (with a door)
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