Is going to the office a broken way of working? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#61

Post by fernandotakai » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 8:20 PM UTC

mrtranscendence wrote: post #47

jedberg wrote: post #11

My friend runs a company that is remote first in the way described here. They have employees all over the world, but they all get together at some random place on the planet (pre-covid) about once every two months. The employees love it because of all the free trips around the world (and often tie their vacation to the beginning or end of a meeting so they can explore that place on their own) and it's great for the c…

Interesting idea. Every two months seems like it could be prohibitively expensive, though, depending on the org. My company has a yearly event that's mandatory for every employee throughout the country, and a common complaint is just how much it costs to put on. Granted, you could make it cheaper by getting rid of the c-list celebrity MC and free drinks, but renting a space for 1500 people, paying for travel, getting…

i worked at company that is remote first and they did a company retreat every year (as well as team-focused retreats, like engineering, support, C-level).

it was a blast -- you got a week of "free" travel w/ your SO (because it was just once a year, they paid for your SO to come with you).

i loved it, because it was a time to get together, have some drinks, chitchat and do some super productive work.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#62

Post by noir_lord » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 8:20 PM UTC

taurath wrote: post #46

Ancalagon wrote: post #8

I’m gonna go against the HN grain here and, despite having been fully for remote work for the first year or so of the pandemic, come out and say that life has really gotten a lot more repetitive and frankly disappointing since covid and the death of the office. I kind of miss meeting people in the office. I was in the unfortunate position of having moved to a new city for a new tech job where I knew nobody just seven…

I think you're correct, but one thing that is really missing nowadays, especially with phones and the internet, is active communities that exist in real life outside of work. Stuff like the elks lodge, rotary, bowling leagues, etc are just not as common anymore as I believe they used to be. Certainly there are many things that exist, but in a way societally it seems like they don't have very much cache, even as far a…

I have a bunch of friends on IRC, we generally hang out in a single channel (it spun out of a topic specific channel but we sorta moved to been adjacent years ago).

That acts as my digital water cooler since I'm remote forever.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#63

Post by pineconebutt » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 8:20 PM UTC

Ancalagon wrote: post #8

I’m gonna go against the HN grain here and, despite having been fully for remote work for the first year or so of the pandemic, come out and say that life has really gotten a lot more repetitive and frankly disappointing since covid and the death of the office. I kind of miss meeting people in the office. I was in the unfortunate position of having moved to a new city for a new tech job where I knew nobody just seven…

I agree with you. I worked remotely for two years pre-pandemic. Never again.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#64

Post by mrtranscendence » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

Grimm1 wrote: post #25

Not going back to the office seems pretty split around age lines to me. Most people in their mid thirties and up want to keep WFH full time. Early thirties is a mix, and then all the ways down from there seems like they want to be back in the office. Of course this isn’t a hard rule but continues to be my observation across a few workplaces and from friends and acquaintances.

I'm forty, and for what it's worth I'd be more than happy going back to the office if I had a short commute. But the drive home can take as much as 1.5hrs depending on traffic, and it was a little soul crushing. I've had so much more time since going remote.

Maybe younger folks are more likely to live closer to their work? Haven't looked into it at all, though.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#65

Post by closeparen » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

nappy-doo wrote: post #12

Ancalagon wrote: post #8

I’m gonna go against the HN grain here and, despite having been fully for remote work for the first year or so of the pandemic, come out and say that life has really gotten a lot more repetitive and frankly disappointing since covid and the death of the office. I kind of miss meeting people in the office. I was in the unfortunate position of having moved to a new city for a new tech job where I knew nobody just seven…

How much of this is fixable though if you could have a normal social calendar? I don't think current circumstances offer a fair comparison.

A normal social calendar provides a few hours of interaction per week. That's important and healthy, but it's still a lot less than 40 hours of ambient presence. I think only sharing a household can substitute for that.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#66

Post by IggleSniggle » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

taurath wrote: post #46

Ancalagon wrote: post #8

I’m gonna go against the HN grain here and, despite having been fully for remote work for the first year or so of the pandemic, come out and say that life has really gotten a lot more repetitive and frankly disappointing since covid and the death of the office. I kind of miss meeting people in the office. I was in the unfortunate position of having moved to a new city for a new tech job where I knew nobody just seven…

I think you're correct, but one thing that is really missing nowadays, especially with phones and the internet, is active communities that exist in real life outside of work. Stuff like the elks lodge, rotary, bowling leagues, etc are just not as common anymore as I believe they used to be. Certainly there are many things that exist, but in a way societally it seems like they don't have very much cache, even as far a…

Relatedly, I think this is part of what fuels more extreme social groups. If you don't have rotary/bowling/church/golf whatever group that you hang out with in real life, and you've got nothing else, then when you finally find a group they will be more likely to be a group that by its very nature has a stronger set of convictions; enough so that it overcomes the social norms and inertia and gathers in-person.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#67

Post by ravenstine » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

Ancalagon wrote: post #8

I’m gonna go against the HN grain here and, despite having been fully for remote work for the first year or so of the pandemic, come out and say that life has really gotten a lot more repetitive and frankly disappointing since covid and the death of the office. I kind of miss meeting people in the office. I was in the unfortunate position of having moved to a new city for a new tech job where I knew nobody just seven…

Have you wondered why your life on its own is repetitive and disappointing? Would you be making the same positive statement about working in an office if you didn't have the option of working remote?

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#68

Post by samjbobb » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #40

Ancalagon wrote: post #8

I’m gonna go against the HN grain here and, despite having been fully for remote work for the first year or so of the pandemic, come out and say that life has really gotten a lot more repetitive and frankly disappointing since covid and the death of the office. I kind of miss meeting people in the office. I was in the unfortunate position of having moved to a new city for a new tech job where I knew nobody just seven…

I think people like you need a new app, something like Tinder for lunch. I personally have no will to move to a high cost of life area and spend 1+ hour on commune just because my coworkers can’t find friends.

I’ve been thinking about exactly this!

I really miss the ‘low effort’ social interactions that in-office work provides. “Want to get lunch?” is one of those.

Question: does this app already exist? Can I facilitate this in my life without building the app (easy part) and building a significant user base (hard part)?

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#69

Post by dave78 » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

jstx1 wrote: post #34

My impression from previous discussions is that people like what they like whether it's remote or in office and there isn't a lot of convincing that we can do to each other. Given the above, how do companies move forward? Make some % of your employees unhappy because they're either dragged back into the office or forced to work without one? Hybrid models? They seem like the worst of everything and they don't look lik…

What's so wrong with letting every employee make their own choice? Then, after 6 months or a year or whatever (to get everyone a chance to get used to it and be confident in their selection), survey everyone to find out who wants to keep working from home. Those that don't - allocate them a desk in an office. Add some additional hoteling desks for travelers or normal WFHers who need to visit, and then adjust the size of your office space to match.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#70

Post by ilaksh » Mon, Oct 11, 2021, 8:22 PM UTC

My take is that the lack of interaction and socializing is not actually dependant on being in the same physical location day-in-and-day-out.

There are a lot of ways that people socialize online. They just aren't built into the remote work culture.

There are many startups looking to address this with more social virtual work environments. But really it's a matter of what people do rather than not having tools.

For example if there was an always-on video-chat on its own monitor, people could just unmute that. Or something similar but with different locations such as water-cooler A and water-cooler B.

For me, having been remote for about ten years or more depending on how you count it, they have mostly been very small startups. And the other people involved actually generally have had other jobs to do. So they just didn't have much time available during the week for socializing. But part of it I feel is a lack of interest in socializing. Which you can say that forcing people to do it by being in the same space is an advantage but maybe another idea is to adopt traditions/culture and software that make it more fun or easier to socialize online.

I just wish people would log into the Discord more. But I think the fact they don't do that every day means they are a bit checked out of the project realistically.