Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is going to the office a broken way of working?

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 468 posts

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

#221

Post by iKidA »

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.

lol was the company 84.51/dunnhumby

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

#222

Post by cbtacy »

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…

It's clearly very hard for folks who have come to rely upon their workplace as their venue for social interaction, and their co-worker pool as their source for social relationships. But to be clear, once upon a time (back in the long long ago), it was seen as unhealthy to mix your work relationships and your personal friendships. So it's possible for all of us to learn how to develop relationships and friendships that don't rely upon the forced proximity of an office. Things like shared activities, social organizations, etc are a good starting point.

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

#223

Post by ipaddr »

idiotsecant wrote: post #199
IggleSniggle wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are certainly exceptions but the vast majority of the largest churches in the US are very homogeneous, more so than the communities they are a part of. There are some groups, for example the Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah's witnesses that seem to buck this trend but your average Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Jewish, Mormon, etc congregations tend to be very homogeneous.

If you live in a big city this isn't true for big tent religions. Catholic churches have a variety of different people from South American, East Asian, Italian, French, Irish.

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

#224

Post by knappe »

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…

This is not a failure of remote work. :)

When you work remotely you have to be very deliberate with socialization as well, since you don't get that for free when you're not in the office.

I've been remote for 10+ years and I can assure you that this side of things is harder and you have to take deliberate steps to build socialization into your schedule. I do this with tech meetups, board games and cycling specifically using Meetup to attend events.

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

#225

Post by magicalist »

ipaddr wrote: post #206
smt88 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And no excess deaths. False[1][2][3][4][5]. Sweden had 7.7% higher mortality in 2020 than it averaged from 2016-2019. By comparison, Sweden's closest neighbors (geographically, demographically, and socioeconomically) had far, far lower mortality because of lockdowns, mask mandates, and closing restaurants[3][4]. > "Sweden, with a COVID-19 attributed death rate of 0.54 per 1000 population as of July 5, has a higher…

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/08/05/8993658... This is what it looked like after the first wave. Belgium was the leader worldwide by large numbers. Sweden was 5th. Fast forward to today: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_death_rate... Sweden is now ranked at 45. Better than Italy, UK, Spain, France which are better countries to compare Sweden against. Sweden is the hub of Northern Eur…

Notably Sweden introduced a number of restrictions after that first wave. For instance, GGP is right that restaurants weren't closed down...but they couldn't be full, your party had to be small, and you wouldn't be there at night.

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

#226

Post by smt88 »

kaczordon wrote: post #175
smt88 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And no excess deaths. False[1][2][3][4][5]. Sweden had 7.7% higher mortality in 2020 than it averaged from 2016-2019. By comparison, Sweden's closest neighbors (geographically, demographically, and socioeconomically) had far, far lower mortality because of lockdowns, mask mandates, and closing restaurants[3][4]. > "Sweden, with a COVID-19 attributed death rate of 0.54 per 1000 population as of July 5, has a higher…

Meanwhile Belgium had around 20% excess deaths and much much stricter lockdowns. Most of Sweden’s excess deaths occurred in nursing homes, which weren’t protected enough; it had nothing to do with regular people eating at restaurants and everything to do with the protocol at those specific places. It’s quite obvious that lockdowns have dubious effects(if any) while the harms and detriment to society never seem to be…

If your theory about the deaths being in nursing homes were true, we wouldn't have seen excess deaths in 2020 in age groups under 75.

That was not the case[1]. Even 50-year-olds in Sweden had a spike of deaths in 2020.

Norwegians were locked down and seem to be fine. They're not dead, at least.

1. https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/31/1/17/5968985

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

#228

Post by tikhonj »

gaoshan wrote: post #190
zmmmmm wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get a lot of what you say but this one drives me bonkers: > able to tap people on the shoulder for quick questions rather than having to ping them over chat My work requires so much focus, having people randomly tap me on the shoulder to ask a question they could just drop in chat is debilitating. I'm curious you phrase "having to ping them over chat" negatively? I would say the same sentence almost totally in reve…

Our work is very collaborative and being able to get quick feedback on some issue is nice. Having to ping them over chat is annoying because while it may result in a quick answer it may also just disappear into the ether (or the chat app fails to deliver, the person steps away but you don't know this, etc.). Again, our work is collaborative and if someone wants to be left alone they throw on headphones in which case…

It sounds like you're saying that work can't be collaborative without people interrupting each other with no warning, but that isn't my experience at all—my experience has been that the most collaborative work happens when people are intentional about how and when they communicate, which seems easier to encourage in a remote setting.

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

#229

Post by snek_case »

renewiltord wrote: post #197
Ancalagon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the other point I wanted to make (but frankly I was too scared that maybe it’s just because I suck at meeting people now that I haven’t socialized like a normal person in a year). It just seems harder to meet people _in general_ than it did even two years ago. Like where is everybody? Does everyone stay home literally all the time now?

No. People are more eager than ever to meet. I have made more friends than ever before. However, I definitely give new people who are übermaskers a bit of a wide berth mostly out of respect for them.

Can I ask which country you live in and what type of place you go to meet people these days?

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

#230

Post by cgrealy »

willismichael wrote: post #50
codetrotter wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is broken.

My son, nine years old at the time, said "If you think the whole world is messed up, then you are messed up."

Nothing against your son, but at 9, you don't know much about the world.

If you're an adult and you don't think the world is messed up, you need to learn more about the world.

Post reply on HN