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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

#391

Post by imtringued »

Finnucane wrote: post #269
totalgeek wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're assuming that every city refuses to build housing. That is true in California but not in the US as a whole.

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

#392

Post by apozem »

fartcannon wrote: post #146

They sent around a form at my work asking everyone what their preference would be. The first guy replied to everyone with his preference: 100% wfh. Since he replied-all, so did everyone else. We got through about 20 employees, all stating their preference as WFH before a manager shut down the reply-all. A week later we got an email saying people wanted 2-3 days in office.

This reminds me of a saying I read on Stratechery: Workers tweet, managers email.

Public discussions are good for, you know, the public. Keeping things private just means the manager is the only one who knows the whole picture.

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

#393

Post by jackson1442 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #42

In my experience at least talking to some younger people there is a clear dichotomy: despite all the talk about Gen Z being "digital natives", people new in their career are much hungrier to get back into the office because they don't yet have good career networks built up and they're eager for mentorship. It is older, or at least more established workers who are less keen on that. I don't think FAANGs will have any…

Agreed. I'm a college student and have a remote job at a company out of DC, and I don't think I'll be staying there, at least in a remote capacity, after I graduate.

While I'm in school, remote work is actually super useful because I can work wherever, whenever, and working around my coursework is incredibly easy. When I'm not in the middle of a term though, it becomes more of a chore. Working 40hrs out of my bedroom isn't ideal by any means (I go out and work at a coffee shop for a few hours each day to combat this), but the work-life separation has been really hard for me to form.

I just got swapped from 1099 to W2 so now I'll at least have a work machine that I can keep separate from all my personal stuff, but I feel like it'll still have more of a blurred line than it should have.

I might feel differently about this when I eventually have a house with a dedicated office, etc. but living out of an apartment with no formal workspace is really difficult, at least for me. Definition of spaces is incredibly important to how I work.

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

#394

Post by swiley »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #293
swiley wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Introspection is very hard for anyone running the world. That's why revolutions happen and there isn't a single dynasty stretching back to ancient times.

Pretty sure if revolution breaks out in the western world... it won't be started by overcompensated engineers upset that they have to go back to attending an office with free snacks/food and on-site massages.

I now see the irony of my comment.

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

#395

Post by jackson1442 »

nklop wrote: post #328
gowld wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is WFH layoff-proof somehow?

Why would you ask that? I didn't imply that. No guarantees with WFH either. Inserted edit: I notice you didn't comment on bullying. That's awkward over a zoom. At least one boss of someone I know has found out the hard way. Especially on playback. The mind set changes when you start self organising because you're alone in a room. It's a different dynamic. The gig economy has a lot of twists and turns. Less old guaran…

The inverse is also true- I've found it significantly harder to get to know my coworkers over Zoom at my current shop than I have in the past. Granted, this is my first "office job," but at the jobs I've worked in the past it's been super easy to meet other people and get to know each other.

I get that some people want to put their head down and grind for 8 hours a day then move on with their lives, but I tend to prefer at least knowing who I work with. I work at a small company, well under 100 people, and haven't met half of them.

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

#396

Post by acid__ »

dougmwne wrote: post #332
acid__ wrote: post #141

Eh, I love my company and I love my coworkers and I’m unbelievably excited to see them in person. In fact, I’ve already started going back into the office (since April) and 1) my productivity is easily 5-10x what it was before 2) I’ve had amazing so many conversations that never happened over zoom — both productive and personal - and as more of our company’s employees return over the coming months I’m even excited fo…

Glad it's working well for you. I'm the polar opposite and I hope we both will continue to have a plentiful choice of workplaces where we can work in the style that's best for each of us.

>I hope we both will continue to have a plentiful choice of workplaces where we can work in the style that's best for each of us.

100% agreed! The sudden industry-wide acceptance of WFH is very welcome, and I'm glad that you and people like you are gaining many more options for WFH-friendly employers.

There's a good chance I'll develop a strong WFH preference over the years as my life priorities change, too. Always nice to have options.

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

#397

Post by ikerdanzel »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #42

In my experience at least talking to some younger people there is a clear dichotomy: despite all the talk about Gen Z being "digital natives", people new in their career are much hungrier to get back into the office because they don't yet have good career networks built up and they're eager for mentorship. It is older, or at least more established workers who are less keen on that. I don't think FAANGs will have any…

Most young one doesn't have experience. Once a good experienced senior tech guy left, there usually a lost of know-how. I've seen this happened where the product development stalled for years because a couple of good one left. It took numerous year to get back to track from mass hiring. And even that was largely helped by 2nd or 3rd best tech persons still left in companies in the first place to mentor the new hires. If a huge chunks of good experience persons gone, development will stall even for Apple. There is a reason why FAANG are competitive even when their pays are insane compare to the lower ranks companies. And nowadays the East actively seek out know-how. None of FAANG IP is enforceable there. Any experienced tech guy can just start a new life over there happily. Give it 2-3 more years and Huawei will be back like pre-Covid.

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

#398

Post by curmudgeon22 »

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…

I think a lot of the benefits you (can) get from this you can take with you after you leave the company. I have good friends I still hang out with from my previous work places 1 and 6 years ago. If it would have been all/mostly virtual interactions, I'm sure things would have been OK, but I don't think it would have resulted in the same level of connection with some of my coworkers. YMMV, different people form connections differently.

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

#399

Post by jandrese »

dcolkitt wrote: post #15

I’m honestly perplexed what the FANGs are even thinking in being so aggressive about pushing an end to WFH. Sure it could all work out fine for them. Maybe employees will grumble for a bit, then settle back into office life. But maybe it wont’t . There’s a very real possibility that you lose a non-negligible percent of your staff (disproportionately the most talented who have other options), handicap your ability to…

One dynamic that has become apparent to me recently is that at my company everybody has to justify their building space. If too much sits idle we can be penalized for inefficiency. If half of the employees switch to mostly wfh then the corporation would need to sell off/rent out half of the buildings to avoid this.

As a result they announced that everybody has to be in the office at least 3 days a week, and also most people would be losing their permanent offices and only have access to hotel office space. I've heard rumors that employee retention is becoming something of a concern.

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

#400

Post by steelframe »

I'm now working at my 4th Big Tech company and am about 20 years into my career. At this point I have absolutely zero interest in socializing with any of my co-workers outside of official capacity.

Maybe it's because I'm in an "return to IC" phase of my career, but I'm finding that 90% of the other ICs are at least 10 years younger than I am. Then there are the managers, who are primarily people who have been with the company for 15+ years and all seem to be at least 10 years older than I am.

I'm thinking this "everybody back to the office" push is going to be the thing that gets me to finally leave the Big Tech scene. That, and the fact that I can probably get a comp bump of at least 10% by going with a smaller company that has a desperate need for my skillset. (As it turns out, no Big Tech company seems to ever have a "desperate need" for anything.)

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