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Is going to the office a broken way of working?

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

#121

Post by mmmpop »

pimterry wrote: post #120
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…

Coworking is a really great solution to this. You can have all the human contact and "it's 6pm - want to go for a beer?" easy socializing that you get from being in a busy office, but simultaneously keep almost all the flexibility and the lack-of-constraints of working from home (...almost - there's usually an expectation that you wear clothes). In many ways it's even better than office social contact: it decouples t…

Agreed 100%. My job is 1000 miles away but I have a cohort of folks at the coworking space that keep me sane. This is probably more like the "future of work" especially in my small mountain town.

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

#122

Post by codegeek »

pmontra wrote: post #7

IMHO no even if I've been working from home since 2006 when I became self employed. What's broken is having to go to the office every single day. In my experience before and after starting to work from home there is an absolute need to work face to face either to create some bonds between the team members or with a customer or in those rare phases when you have to create something and you need to go full speed with b…

"What's broken is having to go to the office every single day."

Exactly. The whole remote thing has become kinda like a zero sum game and has 2 sides to it. One that believes it should be remote anywhere for anyone vs the other that is very rigid and wants people in office all the time. The answer is somewhere in the middle and hybrid.

Flexibility to work from home 2-3 days a week would be awesome while you can still come to office if you want to meet/collaborate in person. yes, this rules out people who are not in the same state/country (I have a lot to say about that) but I am ok with that.

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

#123

Post by andrewnicolalde »

mrtranscendence wrote: post #75
fernandotakai wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If it was a week long, in a desirable location, and I could take my fiancee, I'd be all for it. But it's 1.5 days, no SOs, and held in a casino in the ass end of bumfuck Indiana. And forget about working -- it's centered around a team-building exercise with people from other parts of the company you probably don't know and will never talk to again.

These sound like two different sorts of trips, and two very different sorts of companies.

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

#124

Post by Tycho »

m10y wrote: post #115

My theory is that office design and expectations are just broken for tech workers. There's no reason (besides profits) that my office can't be just as comfortable as the spare bedroom I do my work in. There is the broader issue of a commute, but divorcing companies from the worst real-estate markets on the planet would help a lot with that. There are three real game changers: - I get to wear more comfortable clothes,…

If you work alone in a private office, you can’t engage in casual banter, which is half the fun of work. Yeah you get good piece and quiet but you can always just throw on some headphones with white noise to drown out the surrounding chatter.

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

#125

Post by willio58 »

As someone who initially missed the office, went back as soon as they offered that option, then promptly stopped going back to the office, what I realized is that I was relying on the office for social interaction. Living with roommates who are also remote is honestly ideal for this. Remote life has given me flexibility I couldn’t imagine sacrificing now for any job.

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

#126

Post by IggleSniggle »

geofft wrote: post #78
IggleSniggle wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Aren't lodges, churches, and golf clubs kind of the stereotypical examples of race- and class-exclusionary groups? I suppose it's not exactly a strong set of convictions if you're passively going along with broader social pressures to segregate on race and class, but if we're talking about the health of society (which I think we're implicitly doing), I think segregating on worldview is actually a whole lot healthier.

I see your point, but I think it goes the other way.

Churches et al are microcosms of a geographic community, resulting in greater localized diversity of thought. And these groups can either lead or hold back a community along the lines of race- and class-exclusion. The church I grew up with was the very first institution in my life that had an openly homosexual person in a position of power (the rector, in charge of the local church).

Point being, the exclusionary aspect of these institutions is often a reflection of the communities they exist within. Certainly clubs are self-grouping communities, with their own sets of exclusionary rules...and some clubs were and are quite explicit in their exclusions: anything that is pay-to-play is largely going to have an element of class-exclusion, whether you pay at the door or whether you pay with something you can "show" (eg being able to read Latin, being a great classical musician, etc). Certainly many clubs have been race- exclusionary, at times intentionally ("keep those people out!") and other times unintentionally ("wait you don't know about X??").

But just because these groups exhibited these exclusions, I don't think it necessarily follows that segregating by worldview is healthier than segregating by geographic region.

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

#127

Post by sampo »

sim_card_map wrote: post #89
IggleSniggle wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes. If not "everyone," certainly lots and lots of folks are just staying home whenever possible. Because we are in the middle of a global pandemic. I think this has much more to do with "we are in a global pandemic" than "you can't meet people doing remote work." Certainly, there were a number of larger groups that I used to hang out with consistently pre-pandemic, but now have totally abandoned. I'm not inter…

Life has always been normal here in Sweden. No lockdowns, mask mandates, restaurants have always been open. And no excess deaths. So don't speak for everyone.

> And no excess deaths.

Euromomo shows excess mortality for Sweden for both the spring 2020, and the winter 2020-2021:

https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps#z-scores-by-country

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

#128

Post by lotsofpulp »

long_time_gone wrote: post #54
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 fear it's another example of "optimizing" away something that made us more human (in this case, more in-person interaction).

It is optimizing away time and resources wasted commuting. If people wanted to interact in person, they can do things in their community outside of work.

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

#129

Post by dboreham »

foobiekr wrote: post #90
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 went to the office to work the other day for the first time since February 20th, 2020. It was great. So quiet, open, well lit, great and comfortable desk and chair, .. Obviously, I could improve my home office, but in reality my home office is taking space that I otherwise was using before 2/20 and now there's a whole space in my home that is allocated to being a work station instead of what it was before. A few ot…

I can't think of a single job I've had where the lighting, desk and chair were remotely as good as I have at home.

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

#130

Post by pshc »

sim_card_map wrote: post #89
IggleSniggle wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes. If not "everyone," certainly lots and lots of folks are just staying home whenever possible. Because we are in the middle of a global pandemic. I think this has much more to do with "we are in a global pandemic" than "you can't meet people doing remote work." Certainly, there were a number of larger groups that I used to hang out with consistently pre-pandemic, but now have totally abandoned. I'm not inter…

Life has always been normal here in Sweden. No lockdowns, mask mandates, restaurants have always been open. And no excess deaths. So don't speak for everyone.

Sweden had quite a few excess deaths compared to Finland and Norway. What do you mean by this?
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