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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?

#351

Post by RNCTX »

jdavis703 wrote: post #276
jokethrowaway wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there still restrictions where you live? I didn't go anywhere while masks were still required. It's annoying and, sure, I'm sorry for your small business (a nearby business wrote a sign "come and eat here or we'll starve") but I won't bother covering my face just to buy something I can order online, helping my friend Jeff Bezos in the process. Same with holidays, I'm not coming to your country to relax if I have…

Yeah masks are still technically required, but if they’re anything like indoor dining, people are lax about wearing them once inside (I haven’t been to any since the pandemic, so I could be wrong).

Depends. I live in north Dallas. Masks were always just a guideline here, no matter how many "required" signs there were, anywhere from 25% to 50% of the clientele on any given day would just ignore them.

We now are going the other direction, state buildings are prohibited from requiring masks and private businesses do so at their peril because people are generally against them.

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

#352

Post by nuerow »

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).

> I fear it's another example of "optimizing" away something that made us more human (in this case, more in-person interaction).

I disagree. If anything, WFH optimizes away unhealthy work/life imbalances that force people to become mindless company drones whose personal life is eaten away by a corporation.

Our life is not the long commute, the social order imposed by a company hierarchy, the petty office politics, the optional-in-name-only-but-actually-mandatory professional events which maskerade as company social get-togethers, etc etc. That's something people are forced to endure because they are imposed by the circumstances of office life.

If anything, WFH forces a healthy separation and distancing from inane and outright unhealthy aspects of office life, and it's sad to see how the amount of life and personal time and the opportunity to pursuit your own interests that it eats away is somehow being depicted as a negative tradeoff.

You are your own person, not a mindless company drone. Your life is not dictated by the context of your professional life. Mixing both is terribly unhealthy. Much like alcoholism, just because people use it as an excuse to fill in voids in their life that does not make it any healthier or even desirable.

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

#353

Post by abduhl »

Valkhyr wrote: post #302
jimmaswell wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> masking up, or the still more inconvenient precaution of social distancing generally? Or quarantining after travel? Why would I still be doing any of that when I'm vaccinated and no longer required?

The vaccine does not make you fully immune, and the vaccine does not necessarily prevent you carrying and transmitting the virus. It just makes it less likely to happen (and you're certainly much less likely to become a coughing superspreader). I don't know about where you live, but many places in the world have not yet reached levels of vaccination that would make make masking and social distancing redundant.

I had to double check when I read this post to make sure that you were the same person that posted:

> Frankly, fuck people who refuse to get vaccinated - they can rot in their own home for all I care (not talking about people with legitimate health risks, obviously).

How do you reconcile your apparent disdain for unvaccinated people with the fact that you do not believe the vaccine to be effective? Alternatively, you’ve determined that the vaccine is effective enough. What level of “immunity” and what level of “likely to happen” does a person have to cross before you stop saying, “fuck you, rot to death in your home” to someone?

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

#354

Post by maximus-decimus »

screye wrote: post #195
fullshark wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being forced to travel somewhere random on the planet every two months for work and live out of a hotel room sounds terrible frankly. The company would have to spend lavishly and find exotic / fun locations I think otherwise I'd resent it and quit. Ultimately the ideal is not a one size fits all solution but different companies developing different cultures remote/hybrid/in person strategies and employees having opti…

> Being forced to travel somewhere random on the planet every two months for work and live out of a hotel room sounds terrible frankly. The company would have to spend lavishly and find exotic / fun locations I think otherwise I'd resent it and quit. There is always someone huh. Such an arrangement literally sounds like the dream remote arrangement to me. It never even crossed my mind that there would be people who w…

You are unable to empathize with not wanting to be forced to leave the comfort of your home/country and suffer jet lag to attend some stupid arbitrary meeting in a place you didn't even choose? And that's without even talking about how hard it already is to get into good habits like going to the gym, or attending your sport practice. Interrupting your routine every 8 weeks seems like a great way to fail at keeping a routine.

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

#355

Post by raisedbyninjas »

dan-robertson wrote: post #220
raisedbyninjas wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been staying home for well over a year now. Virtually all shopping is delivered and have eaten at a restaraunt once I think. Our work as had one outdoor happy hour that I would have gone to, except for non-pandemic issues. I've been blown away at the recent movie box office ticket sales. Maybe the covid blasé people are going out 50% more often than they did pre-pandemic.

If you’re in the US, I think your attitude is basically just extremely unrepresentative of the general population.

Yes, we're vaccinated in a red state. Just three weeks ago the infection and death rate neared the all time high. We don't feel like hypochondriacs. It's just easy to play it safe for the time being without feeling like we've lost anything substantial.

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

#356

Post by Agingcoder »

techwizard81 wrote: post #244
Agingcoder wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if I'm honest, I do know them. I've been working for several years at the same place, have made friends, had lunch/dinner/beers/coffees, been to weddings, etc. Some of them are not friends, but I am happy to see them, just like I enjoy talking to my butcher or fruit seller. Maybe it's an age/cultural thing, but I'm going to spend quite a bit of time working, so I'd rather do it with people I like. Inevitably,…

Fair enough, I guess it’s just different for everybody. I personally prefer to get my job done as quickly as possible (which is easier without all those interactions) so that I can have the time to go spent it with the people of my choosing and not people that just happens to be next to me.

Agreed - it's personal.

I'll add that I enjoy moving people from 'sitting next to me' to 'known', and given that there are not that many people sitting next to me, and I have a fixed office plan (always the same people next to me), it works for me. I would not enjoy going to the office if I wasn't around the same people/there wasn't at least a bit of stability. We didn't mention this : if your company has a flexible floor plan, indeed, then you won't know your co-workers!

It probably depends on the kind of job you do as well : a significant portion of my job is spent talking to people anyway, and I'd rather make it as pleasant as possible. If it means getting to know people, then I'm quite happy to do so.

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

#357

Post by wisty »

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…

People seem to be completely ignorant of the theory of the firm - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm

It's a bit of a straw man I'm making, but a lot of people seem to say "I do fantastic work, my company doesn't need to control me, just recognise the fantastic work I do! Let me just work from home and keep up my fantastic work!"

It's already well discussed in the "theory of the firm" in economics. Why do firms hire employees, rather than just contractors? Why do workers not want to all be freelancers?

A lot of the arguments about "presenteeism" seem to veer into acting like their company wants to essentially have all the overhead of managing freelancers, and to have employees jump through all the hoops freelancing involves, which is obviously not what (most) people want in the first place.

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

#358

Post by greggman3 »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #324
snek_case wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t think there is any need to defend in person work. There is a need to defend it though. I've already seen several businesses claim that remote work is "the future". Personally, I feel that remote work has been very detrimental to my mental health and I hate it. I don't want that future. It feels very unhealthy.

For me, the isolation of the pandemic was detrimental to mental health but the remote work has been incredibly positive. Is it possible that these two circumstances are overlapping in your case? Do you miss the commute and sitting in an office (on-location work) or do you miss speaking with people (socialization)?

I miss speaking with people about work in the easy way of leaning over and asking a question (hey, do you remember the name of that function to does ___?) etc. Sure I can ask on slack but it's not the same.

I mis-conversations being unscheduled

And I miss socialize "with coworkers". We're working on the same project. That socializing helps know what's going one, what each other is doing, what problems we are running into. It gives up empathy for each other tasks etc. Reading about it in various forms of online databases doesn't come close.

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

#360

Post by irrational »

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #347
felipellrocha wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> France, Germany and Italy have really disappointed with their heavyhanded approach against those that are not vaccinated. Disappointed who? The anti-vaxxer community? Good.

Point of clarification, because you're spreading misinformation: being opposed to one specific vaccine type is NOT the same as being an "anti-vaxxer." It will behoove you to be clear on that point.

That is exactly what everyone means by anti-vaxxer right now. If you are opposed to the covid vaccine, you are an anti-vaxxer.
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