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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

#401

Post by soapboxrocket »

xtracto wrote: post #273
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…

In my previous job, my boss (CEO) did not "believe" in remote work. He pushed so hard for everyone to be in the office during 2020 that there were several covid outbreaks in the office. The punchline is that we had offices both in California and Mexico... and I was specially hired to open and maintain the office in Mexico. I flew several times a year to Cali (thankful) but I just couldn't make him see that covid or n…

When COVID broke out I was working with a manufacturing company, helping to fix their PMO. One of the big issues they had was that the only way to get parts through the factory was for the PMs to go down to the shop floor and constantly babysit and move them; the primary directive from management was "the PMs should not be going to the shop floor." Perfect! So COVID hits and I suggest we send the PMs home to work since they are only at their desks working on their computers and talking with customers. Corporate VP: "But if we send them home how will we know if they are working?" Me: "How do you know they are working now?" Of course the most ironic part was that VP was on the phone calling in from home because he lived in a different state that had no business operations in his area. Not surprising to me, that company has since shut down.

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

#402

Post by GoodJokes »

prepend wrote: post #220
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…

> Having these people in the office WOULD result in more work being done. I disagree as I think those people did no work while in the office and kept doing no work outside the office. I worked in a building where one person had a personal laptop open, daytrading all day. Instead of working. Of course they should have worked, but they didn’t. People will shirk work in the office and outside. I think it’s silly to assu…

No post body was provided.

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

#403

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

krageon wrote: post #340
rockyj wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not so easy. Changing jobs cannot be always the answer. In Europe there are not many "remote friendly" companies and also it's not that you will get a 20% pay rise every time you switch. On top, it is extremely hard to find software development jobs that pay around or above 100K. Most jobs are around 60-80K. A job change can also mean - inheriting someone else's problematic code base, new office politics and co…

> In Europe there are not many "remote friendly" companies This is not true. There are many such opportunities if you ask, especially now. > it's not that you will get a 20% pay rise every time you switch If you work in IT (generous, but it is HN...), this should be your experience unless you switch more than once every two years. Then everyone will mistrust you, but you can still do it as a contractor. > On top, it…

>This is not true. There are many such opportunities if you ask, especially now.

Your statement definitely does not apply where I currently live (Austria). No tech company I've interviewed here is 100% remote as of now. They always expect more or less around 30-50% in office presence for new hires. They almost always have some staff at near 100% remote but those are usually tenured employees that management does not want to lose, so they get extra privileges as a bonus.

>Of course, such numbers mostly make sense in the US because it is (socially, in terms of security) a desert hellscape.

That's also not true. American tech workers don't have higher salaries because they get less social safety, but they have higher salaries because a lot more investment money, by orders of magnitude, gets poured into their tech sector compared to Europe where most goes into real estate instead, while the US also has a smaller supply of devs due to their expensive higher education and tougher immigration laws than Europe, meaning that the high demand of devs in the US can't be met by their low supply of workers, so their salaries naturally rise accordingly. It's that simple, basic supply and demand, nothing to do with the presence or lack of social safety from the government, as US taxes aren't that much lower than in Europe.

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

#404

Post by osigurdson »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #386
adamsmith143 wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

"- 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."

Wait, what? That literally is the purpose of the job for the employee. If you don't agree, try setting total compensation to zero and see who continues to show up.

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

#405

Post by greedo »

elldoubleyew wrote: post #295
motoboi wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'm an old guy, and I have to disregard 99% of what our C-level officers say about technology. Most of what they understand is out of date with technology from the early Oughts, much less the 2020's. They make purchasing decisions based on what they read in airline flight magazines, or what their vendor buddies recommend while they're golfing.

Their feelings are formed by cronyism, nepotism and ignorance. When it comes to embracing change, they're fine when it something motivated by these three factors, but when it means a perceived loss of control, or a loss of prestige, then they resist.

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

#406

Post by greedo »

afiori wrote: post #312
helen___keller wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would even say this is the beginning of the end for cities as we know them. Alternate POV: this could save cities as we know them. All top American cities have been struggling for about 20 years now to handle urban growth, as cost of living goes through the roof and small businesses disappear when their renewed lease comes at twice the rent. As always, the survivors are those who can afford the change: homeowners…

To add a reference: Suburbia is Subsidized: Here's the Math -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI Essentially urban sprawl/suburbia/single family homes cost more for the city (road upkeep, water/gas pipes, etc.) than what they contribute in taxes, so many cities are in a positive feedback loop of building more houses to get quick money to do maintenance on the previous rounds of growth.

Simple solution, raise taxes.

Same with highway/Interstate maintenance. Raise the Federal gas tax (which hasn't tracked inflation for ages).

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

#407

Post by taylodl »

brandmeyer wrote: post #395
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't say anything about preference, they merely said output. Does people preferring to work from the office mean they are so much more productive so as to make up that cost? That's the question that we're faced with, and if the last few years are any indication, the answer seems to be "No".

This is definitely not universal. Our team switched to a soft hybrid model whereby we almost always work from the office, but use WFH for deliveries, snow days, kid sick days, etc. We did that as soon as the vaccine became widely available and it completely turbocharged our productivity. We delivered more in the first three months after coming back than the preceding year of fully-remote work.

That's interesting - and quite the opposite of what I've personally experienced and heard. Are you saying then that when the lockdown happened and your team was sent home your productivity tanked? What happened? What wasn't it addressed? What's caused your team's productivity to soar now?

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

#408

Post by BoxOfRain »

int0x2e wrote: post #345
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…

WFH is also doing an amazing job to help people who would otherwise be marginalized. In particular, I've seen how remote interviews help people that are wheelchair bound or have subtle issues with their eye-sight (that are only noticeable up close) get through some of the hidden (or even unconscious) biases that still exist in all of us and end up screening-out some otherwise great candidates.

On the subject of disabilities in tech, one of the best things for me about WFH is that I have a disorder which casues (among other things) light sensitivity issues and most offices have horrible lighting for triggering that. Being able to WFH where I have things set up to be comfortable as possible in this respect is an absolute godsend and I honestly wouldn't go back to the office even on a hybrid basis if my salary was tripled. I quit my last job over a mandatory return to the office, it's an absolute red line for me now when considering a role.

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

#410

Post by greedo »

incomingpain wrote: post #383
fluoridation wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 W…

OP is talking about office jobs, your 2/3 stat is for all jobs.

I think he's wrong though. Most office jobs should be capable of being remote, unless the mgmt is unwilling to make changes to the modern world.

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