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I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

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Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#411

Post by KingMachiavelli »

joelbluminator wrote: post #381
KingMachiavelli wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but I think that's a good thing. I would rather we slowly lift millions of people out of literal poverty than sacrifice ~5% of our day (1/16 awake hours) in commute just to gatekeep our jobs. Plus there are other barriers. WFH can be every day except a monthly lunch or social event with the team. Or it's WFH save for on-prem things like hardware upgrades. WFH doesn't have to mean fully remote... just not an offi…

Lots of people took monetary obligations (mortgages mostly) thinking they'll make 6 figures for the next 20-30 years...what happens if that's no longer true?

Currently, mortgage debt evaporates faster from inflation/wage growth faster than outsourcing can realistically occur. In any case I don't see why software engineering should be exempt when the manufacturing and textile industries hit hard by outsourcing and automation. It sucks but that's just how capitalism works. SE's would probably have an easier time adapting than people in those industries anyway.

There's a lot of factors slowing down the outsourcing of CS jobs. The most talented pretty much always immigrate to the US because of higher wages and higher standards of living. Security concerns mean a lot can't be outsourced at all. Language & cultural differences give the US & western countries a huge hold on CS education. Etc. Plus a lot of jobs could be WFH 99% of the time but the last 1% is very important.

Even in the most extreme push of WFH or remote work, outsourcing would just be jobs moving from high COL areas like SF to lower COL areas of the US. Same culture/language, minimal timezone differences, etc. The pendulum is still very far on the side of favoring in-office work giving a few select areas a huge advantage & driving COL in those areas. The US is a huge country; even a 2x increase in WFH jobs wouldn't exhaust the number of low COL areas in the US.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#412

Post by ASalazarMX »

IvanAchlaqullah wrote: post #170
CephalopodMD wrote: post #119

I just want my own office. That's all. I'd be pretty okay with going in if I had my own office with 4 walls. First job of my career, they told me I would have an office of my own. First day I come back do for full time (I had interned there too with my own office), they tell me they're switching buildings to go open office in about a month's time. I got a precious few weeks with a personal office, and then it was all…

Yes, working from home is much better than working at open office. However there is some scenario where middle manager can make WFH as hellish as working at open office: by mandating everyone to install invasive spyware so they can "manage" you remotely. Bonus point if the company didn't want to give/loan company devices, so you have to install it on your own personal devices.

Eh. I use Linux at home, and the work stuff happily lives in a Windows VM; but installing work software on my personal mobile devices? too much liability, just no.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#413

Post by ASalazarMX »

bariswheel wrote: post #213
CephalopodMD wrote: post #119

I just want my own office. That's all. I'd be pretty okay with going in if I had my own office with 4 walls. First job of my career, they told me I would have an office of my own. First day I come back do for full time (I had interned there too with my own office), they tell me they're switching buildings to go open office in about a month's time. I got a precious few weeks with a personal office, and then it was all…

An open office is cheaper to manage for the company. It's all about the bottom line. That's most likely the biggest reason it exists.

And much more friendly to CCTV

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#414

Post by sam0x17 »

mathverse wrote: post #289
sam0x17 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate that people keep framing it as a "preference" issue. There are HUGE economic and environmental costs that go along with working in and (often) commuting to an office. Not to mention the consistent 20-30% productivity drain working in an office seems to have across the board at most tech orgs. We don't need to destroy our planet, dramatically increase costs, and dramatically lower productivity just to appease t…

In my opinion this is an argument fallacy.Almost any economic activity causes pollution and spike in environmental and economic costs. Moving to WFH will not do anything to reduce emissions and it could actually lead to an opposite outcome due to increased consumption as people would have more time to travel longer distances.

At face value:

There won't be increased consumption at 7 AM and at 5 PM on a weekday if less people commute. I just don't see it happening. Additionally the tech industry isn't exactly a groundswell of people either -- if all tech workers stop commuting, that isn't going to have enough of an impact to change traffic conditions except literally in silicon valley. There just aren't that many workers in tech.

But let's examine the flipside... The average commute distance in the U.S. is 16 miles. The average tech company is located in a densely populated metropolitan area, and the average passenger vehicle in the U.S. emits 411 grams of CO2 per mile. Commuting two ways that's 32 miles * 411g = 13.152 kg (~29 lbs) of carbon emissions for your daily commute. The average American household in total has around 39.8 kg/day (~88 lbs) of C02 emissions. Reducing that by 29 on weekdays is a 1/3 reduction in emissions. That's huge. Also consider that the average person in the U.S. drives 36.9 miles per day. For working people cutting this by 32 miles on weekdays is an enormous change.

Consumption isn't going to increase proportionally because everyone is still going to be too busy working. The people who were already "consuming" during the day are going to continue to do so, but that population isn't going to increase. It's fixed. Maybe some will drive more, but it's not going to have the same effect that the people no longer driving 32 miles / weekday no longer having to do so will have.

I'm also ignoring the significant environmental and monetary costs of keeping an office running, and the increased work that needs to be done because of the (being charitable) at least 15% production drain of working in an office.

No one (save school trips) wants to pack into the bronx zoo at 8 AM on a tuesday. At best this would have diminishing returns -- the benefit of the roads being less crowded vanishes once the same number of people start driving for consumption reasons. There's no way it would exceed the original footprint of people commuting, because the motivation wouldn't exist once you approach commute levels of congestion. And this is ignoring the fact that there is an essentially fixed population of people who are able to consume during the workday.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#415

Post by sam0x17 »

gregoriol wrote: post #354
dragonsky67 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work from home... but I'm not alone.. I've got as much, if not more access to co-workers whilst at home as I do in the office. We use teams extensively so if you are needing to concentrate, simply flip your status to busy. We've got a group set up for the developers where we chat, swap stories, ask technical questions or just complain about the poor management. No different than if we were in the office.. In fact p…

Text, voice, even video is not the same as a live human being: even-though it is communication in all cases, and I do agree we can have great tools, the tools can't replace the interactions you can have with a real human.

That's true. In person you also have to worry about COVID and other communicable diseases. Can't beat that!

But no in all seriousness, some of the most in-depth conversations I've had in my life have been in video call 1:1s. The intentionality of sitting in a call with someone for 30 mins is enormous. It's equivalent to going to someone's office and sitting right in front of them and talking for 30 mins. That almost never happens in office environments -- instead you have lots of fleeting encounters, passing people in hallways, etc. With remote you get this extremely intentional person to person experience every time.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#416

Post by sam0x17 »

gregoriol wrote: post #124
sam0x17 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate that people keep framing it as a "preference" issue. There are HUGE economic and environmental costs that go along with working in and (often) commuting to an office. Not to mention the consistent 20-30% productivity drain working in an office seems to have across the board at most tech orgs. We don't need to destroy our planet, dramatically increase costs, and dramatically lower productivity just to appease t…

Well, there are also huge human costs that go along with working alone all day, and in the same environment as the rest of your life. For example, commuting, while not nice most of the time, has one great impact on life: it allows you to break from work, which is not happening when you have sleep/work/hobbies/life at the same place. I'm not saying you should spend 1h in traffic or subway, but 20min and walking would…

> For example, commuting, while not nice most of the time, has one great impact on life: it allows you to break from work

Is that worth 29 lbs of carbon emissions and 20% productivity drain? What kind of home do you have where you can't go for a walk and take a break?

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#417

Post by sam0x17 »

gregoriol wrote: post #210
amarant wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you can have a 20 minute walk after working from home.. I do 40 minutes, personally. It's great!

It might work, but it is difficult to walk just for walking: I know people who walk their dog, which works, but just going out around doesn't seem like a good motivation

If you don't find that sufficiently motivating, then you don't care about it enough to use it as an argument for why we should all have to commute.

Before I had a dog, I would intentionally go for walks to think over an algorithm or endpoint I'm writing. People who work in an office do the same thing, often intentionally.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#418

Post by etripe »

MrScruff wrote: post #182
colechristensen wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And that's a perfectly reasonable approach to hiring for a new company. And likely discriminatory. I prefer working from home because I (am caring for an ailing parent|just had a baby|am not neurotypical|have a disability|etc.) WFH is going to start being seen as a "reasonable accommodation" because the last 18 months have proven that lots of jobs can be done just fine without a physical office and denying that to e…

For arranged meetings including the remote workers won't be a problem but there are many 'meetings' that happen in a work context where important information is exchanged that are informal that remote workers will miss out on.

That only really happens if the on-site people neglect to provide the remote workers with a summary. Even when everyone still came in to the office, this happened to sick workers, people on different shifts, locations, teams, etc. In other words: it's about emotional intelligence and seeing yourself as part of a team, not working in an office.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#420

Post by nicolashahn »

code_biologist wrote: post #153
jasondclinton wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is obvious: structured training and mentoring. When the pandemic hit, I was hiring a team of 5 new engineers. What was I going to do? Throw up my hands? I implemented a weekly technical training program that morphed into the 250 person org official onboarding. Weekly, I literally just get someone on a VC for 30 minutes and record having a conversation about a technical topic at a noobie level. 16 months…

What remote whiteboarding tools do you like? I do a lot less whiteboarding these days and it kills me.

Excalidraw is killer. We use it extensively at work
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