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The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

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Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#291

Post by mprovost »

sylens wrote: post #145

The other thing this article does not mention is that with many open office floor plans, the amount of conference rooms was never enough to satisfy meeting demand. So even though I might have coworkers on my team with me in my same location that needed to meet with others in another location, we could never just grab a conference room at the last minute and all sit together there. Instead, we would all have to dial i…

We noticed a lot of "meeting fatigue" with teams early in the pandemic and after a lot of feedback realised that it was because the limited number of conference rooms was constraining the overall number of meetings. Once that constraint was lifted and everyone could meet online, the number of meetings shot way up. It's come down a bit since then but is probably still much higher than it was when everyone was in the office. It will take some adjusting to go back to that, and honestly I doubt we ever will.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#292

Post by Mc91 »

Aicy wrote: post #141
Mc91 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing for me. I go to another city and pay a visit for a week, but say I need to be available on Teams from 9 to 5 and attend some meetings, and get some work done. Usually it slows me down a little, so I do some extra prep work before the visit and catch up when I return home. It's like a little vacation without taking time off.

What do you do on your city visits? I would like to do that but everything I like to do is only open during the day, and where I live by 5pm when I finish work it's dark and cold

Usually I go back to my hometown and work during the day, and visit friends at night. I go out during the day on the weekend.

I go out during lunchtime during the week (or message on Teams that I will be out for a little while), but usually that is for appointments or errands - on my last visit to my hometown I visited my accountant to do my taxes.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#293

Post by phlalexsh »

slategruen wrote: post #60

A lot of the sentiments seem to resent commuting a lot? Perhaps most of them works in the US and primarily use cars as a mode of transportation?

I live in Philadelphia, commute was still 45min-1hr. Would either have to walk 15 min to the El, stay on its for about 25-30min, then walk another 15ish min to my office. Or take a trolley to 30th street then transfer to the El then walk.

When I moved to a different neighborhood, I'd take Regional Rail, which was about 40 mins door to door. Only advantage is there aren't people shooting up or getting raped on RR.

Driving actually would only take ~15min door to door if I left after rush hour. But then parking was very variable. It could be instant (finding spot right when I get there) or I'd have to drive around for 10 minutes.

Honestly, I liked commuting either of those ways (outside of finding needles on the El) since I'd just listen to music or a podcast.

However, I much prefer working from home.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#294

Post by dljsjr »

dreen wrote: post #272
osigurdson wrote: post #258

I don't think there is anything else more illogical in modern society than waking up in building A, hopping in a car and fighting traffic for an hour to get to building B just to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours (perhaps with a few minimally productive meetings here and there), then commute back to building A 8 hours later. Building B sits empty for 16 hours a day while Building A sits empty for 10 with both be…

Please tell me you don't heat/cool your house 24/7. Other than that I can't agree with you more.

Some people don't have a choice, in Florida during the summer time if you aren't running your AC full-time the humidity and heat will ruin your home. It stays in the 80's even overnight (both temp. Fº and Relative Humidity %).

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#295

Post by elldoubleyew »

motoboi wrote: post #234
Dave3of5 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The head of HR at my last job actually took a paid course (I think it's free now) by gitlab based upon a convo I had with her. The company ignored it all and said "back in the office". I suspect that it was because of the CEO who was saying throughout the pandemic that he wasn't a fan of remote work. That's how the decision was made, based on one old guys feelings. They don't care about you as an employee, remember t…

> That's how the decision was made, based on one old guys feelings. Isn't this how all decisions get made on a company?

Its not just any "old guy".

Its an "old guy" thats either appointed by stakeholders or personally heavily invested in the success of the company.

Like it or not his "feelings" are formed from decades of experience in making a business profitable.

I understand its not every case but lets not be overly-dismissive of his opinions, especially on HN where we are so concerned with ageism.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#296

Post by fluoridation »

incomingpain wrote: post #186

A ton of businesses are dealing with a bad hand right now. They know they cant successfully force everyone back to the office. If news goes out about X entity is going back to the office. Recruiters go to linkedin and reach out to all of those people and offer them work from home and a raise. Flipside, if you dont go back to the office. What are going doing holding so much $ and costs for nothing? Everyone who realiz…

>How long until climate change or expensive gasoline forces people to just stay home?

You're looking at it wrong. Plenty of jobs simply can't be done remotely. If it gets to the point that people can't afford to move around much, they'll either permanently move closer to their workplace or find a job closer to their home.

Also, arguably the current discussion around WFH to me is evidence that even most office jobs can't be performed remotely (productively). Even if one person can WFH by themselves, they still need to interact with coworkers who may not be able to do it.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#297

Post by kamaal »

v-erne wrote: post #215
kamaal wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many people don't realise this. You haven't seen your cousin or a friend for a while? What is your perception of them now? I am sure all that Facebook liking and commenting hasn't given you a clue of what they are now, and more importantly even the perception of them from when you last had a chance to see them often has now been long forgotten/hazy. The facts here are anybody you don't see often, you don't know th…

I have heard this argument against WFH many times over. Especially from my relatives that work in bullshit jobs (cough ... investment banking ... cough). I wonder if people that brings up this understand what they are really saying. Because it's not like WFH reduces the amount of promotion that goes around. Its just have the potential of reallocating it differently. And this means that they are afraid that they will…

>>I would argue that this says more about those people than about WFH.

Not sure what your argument is, if a person eats lunch with another person on an everyday basis, or may be goes for a tea break walk, they are also likely to talk things about family, games and other such stuff. You really shouldn't be surprised if this sort of a relationship has a stronger bonding and more meaning, and this just can't be developed by some one calling another person for a 2 minute call. And by the definition when some opportunity comes up they are more likely to remember them due to both proximity and frequency of interactions.

If you have a friend whom you only occasionally ping on Facebook for a 'Happy Birthday!' message, you shouldn't be surprised if you aren't invited to parties after a while. It doesn't mean 'it says more about them', they are just reciprocating your feeling towards them, you don't want to see them in person, now neither do they.

Maintaining good relationship with bosses is just one of those hygienic things you do at work, like dressing well, or using a mouth freshener or showing up everyday etc etc. If you want any influence at all, there are a few set of things you need to do, there's enough literature written about this. Things like talking well, agreeability, consensus building, clarity, having the other person empty their thoughts etc etc. You just have to do this regardless of whatever profession you are in, because this is how humans work.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#298

Post by horsawlarway »

dreen wrote: post #272
osigurdson wrote: post #258

I don't think there is anything else more illogical in modern society than waking up in building A, hopping in a car and fighting traffic for an hour to get to building B just to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours (perhaps with a few minimally productive meetings here and there), then commute back to building A 8 hours later. Building B sits empty for 16 hours a day while Building A sits empty for 10 with both be…

Please tell me you don't heat/cool your house 24/7. Other than that I can't agree with you more.

Many climates require it.

May through August in Atlanta it doesn't really make sense to turn the AC off while out of the house (down a few degrees, sure - but not off). You're going to either pay for the ac to run normal cycles while you're out, or you're going to pay for the ac to run full blast for an hour at 6pm when you get home to bring the temp from 90+ back down to ~78 (which is still in the peak power rate times for GA power - 2pm to 7pm).

The house heats up more and more until it reaches temp equality with the outside. If reaching equilibrium takes longer than you're out of the house... you save basically nothing by turning the system off. It's going to either pump the heat out slowly over the day, or all at once when you get home, and there just isn't much savings to be had.

That's not even talking about the condensation and expansion/contraction issues that will damage your home.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#299

Post by subpixel »

Tade0 wrote: post #253
onion2k wrote: post #75

Employees need to be on site, we’re told, because collaborating with one another has been harder to do when everyone is working from separate locations. I think this is true, but only if the main part of your job is collaborating eg talking to other people to reach a consensus. That is easier face to face. The problem is that only higher up management roles are actually like that. Lower down the tree people are expec…

> When higher ups push for a return to offices to make collaborating easier what they actually mean is to make their jobs easier, at the expense of everyone else. The other day my manager said that he misses coming to the office because back then if he wanted something he could just come over and ask. Meanwhile I've specifically chosen to work remotely so as to not be bothered by anyone when I need to focus.

In my pre-COVID job I had a manager who would come over and tap me on the shoulder, sometimes not to engage me in conversation but just as a sort of primate greeting.

That was about as low on the morale barometer I have ever been, and I hope I never have to anywhere near an environment like that again.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#300

Post by tablespoon »

onion2k wrote: post #75

Employees need to be on site, we’re told, because collaborating with one another has been harder to do when everyone is working from separate locations. I think this is true, but only if the main part of your job is collaborating eg talking to other people to reach a consensus. That is easier face to face. The problem is that only higher up management roles are actually like that. Lower down the tree people are expec…

>> Employees need to be on site, we’re told, because collaborating with one another has been harder to do when everyone is working from separate locations.

> I think this is true, but only if the main part of your job is collaborating eg talking to other people to reach a consensus. That is easier face to face.

That's also undermined by other decisions, like offshoring and distributed teams.

> The problem is that only higher up management roles are actually like that. Lower down the tree people are expected to not spend lots of time talking to each other, and instead actually produce things (code, documents, reports, emails, etc).

That's not true. Maybe only "higher up management roles" are exclusively like that, but there are plenty of other roles that include a significant amount of that, or a significant amount that occurs at irregular/unplanned intervals.

Also remote work is a lot more socially isolating, and I feel it makes work relationships a lot more one-dimensional an tenuous. That might be fine if you're a loner, but that's certainly not true of everyone.

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