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

#381

Post by forinti » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 2:40 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…

I have observed that work is kind of a social event for senior managers. Some don't even plan much, so they like/need to have their teams at arm's length so that they can request a report or dispatch a task as soon as it is required.

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

#382

Post by iso1210 » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 2:40 PM UTC

tokai wrote: post #168

iso1210 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My office is between my kitchen and the bathroom so the commute isn't exactly onerous However when the sun is shining I'll take a 20 minute walk a few times a day through the country, or I'll take an 40 minute long walk to a nice cafe for lunch. If it's pissing it down then I won't. Working from home doesn't stop me from choosing to go for a walk, or run, or bike ride, or horse ride, before starting work.

Is it not possible for you to go for a walk from the office?

I don't have an "office", but in my experience, and when I do visit various offices around the world, offices tend to be surrounded by buildings and traffic and shops, and tend not to be surrounded by fields, mountains and lakes

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

#383

Post by incomingpain » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 2:43 PM UTC

fluoridation wrote: post #296

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 ca…

>You're looking at it wrong. Plenty of jobs simply can't be done remotely.

This data is now in. It's roughly 2/3s of jobs cant 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.

That transition happened during the financial crisis in 2009.

>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.

That's a debate I'm sure many management are about to have and flipside going to make lots of recruiters pretty busy.

Frankly for me it's 1 thing that really puts me off going back to the office. When I need to hit the shitter. I walk 2 seconds from my office to my toilet. I have nice soft toilet paper.

At work, I have to go through like 2 security zones and then hope that nobody is using the stalls already. If they are, and that's common. I have to walk to the other side of the building and then hope those shitters arent in use.

Then there's a good chance the one that's empty is going to be atrocious. Then I have to wipe with 1 ply sandpaper. It's just better to be at home.

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

#384

Post by geodel » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 2:45 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…

Good points. If anything, it is underestimating situation for large part of the world. At one point I was spending 5 hours in commute (NOT USA) per day. I moved after few years but I am sure 100s of thousands people are still doing it.

The psychological toll it took on me while travelling through crushingly crowded trains and buses still terrifies me.

If large number of paper/computer workers do not have to commute, space is left for people who have to travel for more serious reasons and have their commute less unpleasant.

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

#385

Post by mekal » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 2:46 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…

"they can't guarantee that our screen setup at home is safe and we haven't completed a "Data Display Device Setup and Handling" course" - I work for a small company so pardon my ignorance here but...ergonomically safe?? Please god tell me it's something more than that. Like some sort of security measure. What's so hard about flipping open a laptop and using a VPN?

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

#386

Post by peoplefromibiza » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 2:46 PM UTC

adamsmith143 wrote: post #368

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

>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. If the only purpose you have in a job is to put on uncomfortable clothes and socialize I think we can go ahead and eliminate that job.

> If the only purpose you have in a job is to put on uncomfortable clothes and socialize I think we can go ahead and eliminate that job.

if you remove the human aspect and insist on framing the issue like that, can't we say the same thing for almost any job?

- If the only purpose you have in a job is to boost your ego and brag I think we can go ahead and eliminate that job.

- If the only purpose you have in a job is to chose the colors in an excel spreadsheet cells I think we can go ahead and eliminate that job.

- If the only purpose you have in a job is to do something a machine can do better I think we can go ahead and eliminate that job.

- If the only purpose you have in a job is to farm kind animals to later cruelly kill them I think we can go ahead and eliminate that job.

- If the only purpose you have in a job is to make money for yourself I think we can go ahead and eliminate that job.

...

not a great analysis if you ask me.

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

#387

Post by theknocker » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 2:47 PM UTC

No post body was provided.

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

#388

Post by marcus_holmes » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 2:48 PM UTC

I think the long-term consequences of the shift to remote and WFH are going to be fascinating.

- we need to redesign our homes, because every working adult needs a study/workspace that is quiet (and preferably not their bedroom)

- we need less office space, and probably don't need an office at all. Commercial real estate is going to hurt

- we need less transport infrastructure. If the Rush Hour stops being a thing, that has huge implications for transport planning (and business models)

- we can hire from different regions/countries/cultures. This has been happening over the last 20 years or so, but it steps up a notch with remote teams.

- we don't need to live near a city any more. Rural villages with decent wifi are viable again.

- "management by walking around" stops working. We actually have to measure employee output, rather than how long they moisten the chair for.

Any more?

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

#389

Post by v-erne » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 2:49 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #297

v-erne wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 develope…

I'm not surprised - I really do understand all of this and know how the game works and kinda even know how to play it, just .. I'm really reluctant to do it. If I did it would be a bit like in the famous quote from Groucho Marx : "I Don’t Want to Belong to Any Club That Will Accept Me as a Member"

The thing is that I was just really trying only to point out what a shitty system we have all developed together (we as a society) through this kind of tactics. I suspect that You are looking at this only through the point of view of individual that is optimizing their own outcomes (the individual being yourself probably). But I try to look at this from a bit more systemic point of view. And what I see from up there isn't pretty.

Of course for me this isn't only purely theoretical thing - what really buggers me are the logical consequences of this system. For example I really do not want to work for someone that becomes by boss only because he can play social game (and maintain proper relationships with key persons in company). But the thing is, that in this system, almost always this kind of person wins.

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

#390

Post by incomingpain » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 2:50 PM UTC

afiori wrote: post #325

incomingpain wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Cities existed before oil. A city without cars can actually be a massive improvement True but cities required domestication of the horse. There were literally horse shit all over the roads and the occasional dead horse that was abandoned. The answer isn't subways or monorails neither. The answer may be robotaxis. I am very optimistic that this could solve a large degree of the issues.

If you were to replace all inbound/outbound subway connection of Manhattan with bridges and car traffic you would need 49 bridges the size of Manhattan bridge as a replacement. Cars are very useful to go wherever you want, but are literally the worst for volume. Similarly to how trucks are necessary to move stuff around but they cannot replace train freight/air planes/container ships.

>If you were to replace all inbound/outbound subway connection of Manhattan with bridges and car traffic you would need 49 bridges the size of Manhattan bridge as a replacement.

dont take me as attacking nyc and/or their subway. I'm certain at some grand time in the future all cities have a subway with rapid transport.