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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

#471

Post by apple4ever »

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…

This.

I actually do enjoy being in the office. I would much rather the hours be a little better - like 6 hours not 8 to take into account the commute.

But being in an open office and not in my own person office is painful. So many distractions.

I had my own office (as a manager) for 2 years, and it was bloody glorious. After I switched jobs and still was a team lead / manager, I no longer did due to those companies cultures and it was so much worse.

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

#472

Post by apple4ever »

thevagrant wrote: post #308
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…

1. An office with four walls, a door that can be closed is helpful but as a _minimum_ I'd also want: 2. Pristine bathrooms 3. Clean kitchen and good supply of tea/coffee (with ample space for those to store or prepare their food hygenically). The amount of places I've worked that can't provide 2 and 3 is saddening. Nothing worse than being stuck in a dirty smelly place, hanging around to get points for presenteeism.…

> Pristine bathrooms

A-FREAKING-MEN.

I would also add individual bathrooms, not one with stalls. That way I can be in peace a little bit and take care of my business.

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

#473

Post by inter_netuser »

MattGaiser wrote: post #61
inter_netuser wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wonder how companies survived until now with all kinds of outsourcing, outstaffing, contractors in 5 different timezones, vendors in 12 different timezones, regulators in 3 different time zones, separate divisions for APAC, EMEA, US and so on...? ...but just can't handle remote employees that they have so much more control over? Sounds like complete nonsense to me. If they can handle vendors located on a different…

A former colleague of mine quit a job over this. They wanted him back into the office. He mostly worked with their Toptal devs from Nigeria and and Hungary.

what does he do now? Toptal?

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

#474

Post by galdosdi »

jldugger wrote: post #186
galdosdi wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but the real root cause (of that awful "I am wasting my time and life right now" feeling) is that modern office work often involves getting M hrs (M IMHO it can actually be more frustrating because one feels more on the hook for keeping an eye on notifications. At least at the office I can zone out or focus on something personal or work related, safely assured if a boss really needs me I can be found in person,…

> involves getting M hrs (M Our team has a backlog of approximately 500 tickets / bugs / work ideas. Nobody has to stretch anything, the backlog will outlive us all.

Yeah, everyone has a backlog like that. A lot of them have very little or negative business value in retrospect, but we can't know that now, so we prioritize, and it's a good thing, because if we ever actually got most of that backlog done we'd have seriously diminishing returns to the point where we would not even be covering our wages by the end.

If you don't believe me, and your system allows this to be reconstructed, find out what your full backlog looked like about 10 years ago, find everything on there that still hasn't been done, and find out what percentage of them actually would have significant business value today.

I know this is a gross generalization but we are dealing in generalities. This is what I have found across many projects. We are not always great at predicting what we will need, and the backlog is BY DEFINITION prioritized. By the time we get down to the lowest priority stuff the statistical expected value gets low enough that we are not even covering our own wages.

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

#475

Post by jldugger »

galdosdi wrote: post #474
jldugger wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> involves getting M hrs (M Our team has a backlog of approximately 500 tickets / bugs / work ideas. Nobody has to stretch anything, the backlog will outlive us all.

Yeah, everyone has a backlog like that. A lot of them have very little or negative business value in retrospect, but we can't know that now, so we prioritize, and it's a good thing, because if we ever actually got most of that backlog done we'd have seriously diminishing returns to the point where we would not even be covering our wages by the end. If you don't believe me, and your system allows this to be reconstruc…

And yet, pretending to work an extra 2 hours every day has even less value. BY DEFINITION.

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

#476

Post by gideon_b »

I went fully remote about 8 years ago.

About 3 years ago I realized I turn into a hermit. Being home alone all day is bad for me. The problem is that I live in a small mountain town now and my company is fully remote as well.

I rented an office that I share with a really close friend who does the same kind of work. We set up a sweet little kitchen with our ridiculous coffee stuff. It's less than 5 mins from my house. I get to see my friend every day, and we can go for walks and talk about work stuff. Our dogs hang out while we work. It's in a commercial space but I honestly think renting a residential apartment would have worked just as well.

I think this going to become common.

There's real value in being around people who care about the same things, but it doesn't actually matter if you all work for the same company. There's value in separating home from work, but I still want to share my work life with friends and former coworkers that I really enjoy being around.

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

#477

Post by monocularvision »

benrbray wrote: post #136
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…

You are correct about the problem, but your solution is backwards. The solution is not for us to retreat to the suburbs and WFH forever. The solution is to build dense, walkable cities with good public transit, allowing for sustainable in-person work and strengthening local communities.

Yes, just rebuild society instead. Simple.

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

#478

Post by allarm »

esolyt wrote: post #91
allarm wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does work. Before the pandemics I worked many years with the majority of my team being overseas, in multiple companies. There's nothing wrong with the hybrid approach and never was. For many companies it's always been the default approach, for global companies specifically. I am also not sure why you put "that doesn't work" and "I prefer" together - your preferences are not really relevant to this case.

What do you mean their preference is not relevant? They're providing an example using their personal experience.

Then they should’ve used “this doesn’t work for me”.

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

#479

Post by dsyrk »

sam0x17 wrote: post #94
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #4

> If you like/prefer going to the office that is fine. I am not trying to say we should all be remote. Companies should offer FLEXIBILITY to let employees choose where to work from. That doesn’t work. I prefer working in the office, but only if the rest of my team is actually there with me. If some people are remote, then we have to do Zoom meetings, so I may as well be remote too.

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…

As I told you before. It’s much better you WFH because I can monitor you completely without your knowledge.

Where is the FBI asshead? I’m still waiting …

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