The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by tablespoon » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:20 PM UTC

pmlnr wrote: post #101

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…

> That is easier face to face Written down communication makes things impossible to wiggle out of later on, meaning the writing needs to happen anyway, why waste time on the face to face?

> Written down communication makes things impossible to wiggle out of later on, meaning the writing needs to happen anyway, why waste time on the face to face?

Written communication often takes orders of magnitude more effort, since it lacks the immediate feedback loop.

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

#302

Post by helen___keller » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:20 PM UTC

incomingpain wrote: post #229

lukebuehler wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How long until climate change or expensive gasoline forces people to just stay home?? Yes, this is just the beginning of the end. I would even say this is the beginning of the end for cities as we know them. I think 80-90% of all white collar jobs will leave cities and suburbia. This will really change the dynamics.

>Yes, this is just the beginning of the end. I would even say this is the beginning of the end for cities as we know them. I think 80-90% of all white collar jobs will leave cities and suburbia. This will really change the dynamics. This is actually a super interesting subject I haven't considered. What is the tenability of cities without fossil fuels? I think we do know, it's really the cities that collapse. Farmers…

I’m not sure I follow. Americans tend to have high emissions regardless of location. This makes sense if you consider that society almost everywhere except ultra dense cities is built around personal automobiles; and dense cities obviously have lots of other needs for energy as you’ve noted

I also wouldn’t say cities are particularly less capable of electrification than anywhere else. Bus systems can be electric. Subway systems are already electric. There are some diesel train systems that would be expensive to electrify (eg Boston regional commuter rail), but even this isn’t impossible (frankly it should have been done years ago, and a study in the 2010s had recommended it because it gives other benefits like improving reliability and reducing maintenance)

As you’ve noted, there’s a big question mark on how cities will adapt central business districts around a non-office world. It’s also worth noting cities have handled such a transition before: during the industrial revolution, cities were full of factories, and over time these shuttered and were replaced or turned into housing.

Not everyone wants 10 acres or cares about the threat of nuclear war. Cities will be for those people.

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

#303

Post by peoplefromibiza » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:21 PM UTC

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…

it's also a cultural thing.

US commute is particularly bad, I work from home and been doing it on and off for the past 20 years.

My commute has never been longer than 20 minutes total.

I now live 5 minutes walk away from my office, I'm not going, but if I had to I would walk there and have a very nice breakfast in some bar on the road there.

One thing that's always overlooked is how much WFH is selecting people who already have a tendency to stay home and not socialize much at work.

The majority of people are not like that, most people don't have the means (spare rooms, gear, technical abilities) to do it _and_ are marginalized for not being able to socialize in person, because they tend to lean towards depression by staying home all day.

Also WFH tends to discriminate people doing "less important" jobs, like for example in a couple if one of the two has a highly paid job or a responsibility job, the other one will tend to be the one doing chores (cooking, cleaning, taking care of the kids) while if both go out to work there's less pressure to compensate because both can't physically be home to do what need to be done anyway.

There are studies showing that WFH makes gender inequalities worse.

Basically the point is that many people find meaning and purpose in their jobs, if you remove the "purpose" (getting dressed, going out, meeting other people, sharing work experiences with them) it simply becomes a tedious activity to them that fulfills none of their needs.

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

#304

Post by progmetaldev » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:21 PM UTC

fcatalan wrote: post #112

rkangel wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love working from home, and I have a very enlightened employer but I do have some sympathy with the companies that have a chunk of employees who just don't work when they're at home. The situation in my company is simple to manage - we hire good people who are very capable and then trust them to get on and do the job. That works with the sort of people we hire and the sort of work we ask them to do. If they're at h…

It's the same here as in your partner's place. Even the proportions. This is government work: hiring practices are bad by design and "firing practices" unexistant. No one is ever fired. This means that the place is perennially understaffed in practice and depends fully on the goodwill, personal/professional ethics and patience of those that will do the work. But since they can't fire and we all have to live together…

I've been at the same company since 2007, and although this isn't government work, it sure works that way. For anyone to be fired, you need solid evidence that the company has lost a good sum of money. That creates an environment where there's little trust among the lower end workers and the higher tier ones. I stay because I make great money for where I'm located, the job is stable, and if I need to just take off for a doctor's appointment, there's no issue as long as I get my work done.

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

#305

Post by civilized » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:21 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #65

There is a big reason to Work from office, apart from the merits of the case like close collaboration, productivity et al. Most important of all is being able to see your manager on a day to day basis, a lot of people don't really understand how important seeing your bosses on a day to day basis can be to their careers. Most people have a problem of neglecting what isn't front of them, it's not malice or anything its…

Not my experience. I find that people who have good ideas and do quality work can be noticed and recognized in a remote environment. It's the mediocre that need face time to move up.

I'm sure my experience is not universal and it varies a lot with team and company.

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

#306

Post by thelittleone » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:22 PM UTC

fcatalan wrote: post #70

"Emergency" WFH at my workplace have been slashed, everyone back in full since the start of the month. No reason publically given, been privately told "not about people like you, but some others have taken a 2 year vacation so management is fed up". I have emails from the CEO personally thanking me for my commitment in going way over what was expected when basically saving the institution during lockdown, so now I al…

I'm similar age. Twice in the last few years I left great jobs due to somewhat similar reasons of misaligned environment and values. I left without having anything new lined up. I also kinda needed the money. But despite my fears I quit. Within days, on both occasions, I got a new higher paying job that aligned better with my preferences and values. But perhaps most valuable was a sense of satisfaction for having integrity.. the old expression "being able to look in the mirror...".

This approach worked well for me, but maybe I was just lucky.

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

#307

Post by praptak » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:24 PM UTC

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.

Where I live if you don't heat your home in the winter it gets mildew. If it goes on for longer then the water pipes will crack because of ice.

Yes, you can go a bit colder if the house is empty.

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

#308

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

horsawlarway wrote: post #298

dreen wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ti…

Turning the AC or heating completely off when you're not at home is never recommended. To save power, you just let them run at temperatures a few degrees outside your comfort zone when your away, and it will still have enough thermal inertia to quickly get back to comfort levels when you're back without the risk of condensation/mold.

Where I live, this is even written in my rental agreement, that when I leave home for long winter vacations, I must leave the heating ON.

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

#309

Post by phaedrus » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:29 PM UTC

m_fayer wrote: post #196

endymi0n wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To say it with the words of my first boss that stuck with me: "Love it, change it or leave it. No amount of complaining will ever do anything else than paint you as a naysayer." Was a hard pill to swallow, but my own experience proved me again and again he was spot on.

I'm starting to doubt this advice. I'm a "change it" sort of personality by nature - a reformer. When faced with these 3 options, I've chosen "change it" many times. And more often than not, I've found myself in a political crossfire, with new unwelcome knowledge of the various forces (typically some combination of self interest, ego, and turf-guarding) that are responsible for the thing I'm trying to change. My curr…

I agree - from experience - but your assertion the easy wins are deceiving also reminds me of the joke about the economist who won't pick up a ten dollar bill in the street because in an efficient market someone else would have already got it.

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

#310

Post by bearjaws » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:29 PM UTC

rickspencer3 wrote: post #243

I have a cynical view about this, but also expect it all to come out in the wash over time. My cynical view is that some older executives are, indeed, not as effective in remote companies and younger ones, because they have no practice running remote companies and haven't adapted. Additionally, many senior and middle managers never figured out how to assess and reward actual productivity on their teams, so relied on…

> My cynical view is that some older executives are, indeed, not as effective in remote companies and younger ones

At the beginning of the pandemic, all our "boomer" leadership couldn't even properly share their screen on zoom. We then switched to Teams, and they couldn't figure that out either.

I actually in a one on one suggested all of senior leadership should take a class on remote work, and Teams, because 90% of the friction was actually self created.

HR loved the idea, but guess what? They never took it.

Meanwhile, software engineers are expected to learn 5 new things every month. It really has created a riff where pretty much everyone in engineering has no respect for our senior leadership. This further undermines the return to the office because its clear as day: Remote work doesn't work for THEM, but it does for the rest of the organization.

I do agree that this will all die out due to market forces, younger companies are going to force the hands of incumbents and slower moving organizations.