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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

#441

Post by incomingpain »

lampshades wrote: post #427
incomingpain wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's unlikely. For a start, many people like living in the city. It's fun and their friends and family are all there. Then there's everyone with children at school so they're not going to mess with the kids' education and friendship group Down on my imaginary future ranch, I have a 10kw solar array charging my cybertruck and it drives me to the concerts, friends/family, and all that for free. Children playing at t…

> Children playing at the park? Is that even a thing anymore? Have you been to a park in a child-raising area lately? They are absolutely packed all the time with kids. Sure, you don't see them downtown, but you head out to the suburbs and you absolutely do.

>Have you been to a park in a child-raising area lately? They are absolutely packed all the time with kids. Sure, you don't see them downtown, but you head out to the suburbs and you absolutely do.

Oh for sure. If the kid is not quite old enough for the xbox/ps# age. They are totally out at the park. You never see kids out above whatever that age is.

I did see some older kids out tobaganning this winter. maybe in the age 8 range, which is unusually old compared to the playground soccer field age kids.

My comment stands for sure.

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

#442

Post by greedo »

I think many of the problems come down to the different world executives live in. Different people in many ways. Most executives have little experience at the core operations of a business in a technical manner. They tend to climb from Sales and Marketing teams, or Accounting. So they may understand who they sell to, and what the markets/competition are like, but they rarely are good at understanding the fundamentals of managing and motivating people.

And when they hire managers to take care of these details, they hire people they can identify with. People who are like them, but lower in status and experience. Yet people with the same goals towards climbing the corporate ladder. These managers (I lump anyone below C-Level Officer in this group) also lack hands on experience in the current environment, but they know how to play the game. They quickly find out who the decision makers are, what they want, and their vulnerabilities. This allows them to advance.

Then these executives higher and promote people who do have current experience. They expect them to manage the workers/ICs. They base their hiring decisions on the same fallacious ideas that they believe in. And when a manager presents them with differing opinions, that challenge their world view, they both resent and dismiss these opinions. One because they don't understand the technical side of business, and two because they are threatened. So they try to exert control.

For them, it's all about status and schmoozing; cronyism, nepotism, corrupting vendor relations, all cloaked in talk of "culture, collaboration, cooperation." When they reach out to employees with a satisfaction survey, bad results (less than high approval ratings) means that the lower status managers failed to impart the company line effectively. The parallels to the Soviet Union are unmistakable.

When you view it in terms of Managers are from Mars, Workers are from Venus, you'll start to understand how status, power and privilege play a huge role in how workplaces are designed and managed.

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

#443

Post by vmception »

Are there any companies doing it right?

I see all the articles about people quitting, and all the articles like this one about ridiculous patches to work life that aren't working, and I have to wonder, is there someone doing it right that is also paying well?

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

#444

Post by nobleach »

otoburb wrote: post #364
nobleach wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been my observation over the last 20 years. I truly enjoy socializing and collaborating in person. I usually worked from home once or twice a week before the pandemic. It was a fantastic convenience as I lived an hour from my office. Once the pandemic hit we were fully remote. At first I thought, "see? we're more productive, this is truly better". As time wore on, I can see why a hybrid approach might be a b…

>> I feel our product suffers due to lack of collaboration. Is there a way to measure the loss in productivity or product quality? >> I have never seen a more disengaged engineering staff. How does the perceived lack of engagement by your team members (by choice, for the most part) impact the mystical, (un)measurable "collaboration" factor? It might help managers and/or senior leadership to better argue points for hy…

This was entirely a commentary on the social aspects of developers. We had an initial surge in productivity and then a lull. Product quality suffered a bit due to mis/non-communication. Not everyone made the transition to WFH in an effective way.

The engagement factor is realized with a very terse "yesterday I worked on recommendations, today I'll do the same". At that point the developer disappears for a few hours, never participates in any chat where less senior developers are asking questions. It's very siloed. The hardest part for leaders is to see how this translates into metrics they can understand. I'm absolutely ecstatic our org has adopted a "forever" WFH policy. I'm just cautious in how it'll all play out.

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

#445

Post by ryandrake »

boringg wrote: post #280
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 would say the benefit of schmoozing (which i dont like) is information sharing about the organization. One thing thats particularly hard in large remote companies if information sharing outside of rigid structure (ie 1 on 1, meetings). Much needed even if some of it isnt great info. And yeah i would say your take is pretty cynical and pretty ageist -> diminutive to someone for their ability to contribute is reduced…

I don't think "schmoozing" is necessarily information sharing. It can be, but more often than not it's simply "socializing, but with the goal of career benefit rather than friendship". Hanging out at the water cooler, golfing with other execs, having an extended lunch at the bar, doing "one on ones" where you don't talk that much about work, walking the hallways for the simple purpose of looking busy to everyone else. These are all schmoozing.

Having a hallway conversation with one person where you pass on critical business information isn't really schmoozing, but it is harmful to the overall organization.

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

#446

Post by greedo »

wokwokwok wrote: post #392
greedo wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two years into the pandemic, we still have executives who can't be bothered to learn something as simple as how to mute their microphones during a Teams meeting. I think it's a subconscious reaction to the idea of them being muted. In a normal meeting, no one would ever think to mute them since they're so high on the food chain.

I think there's a deeper, wider systemic issue here. People think they'll get better at remote working by a) being bad at it, b) putting no effort into getting better at it and c) doing it a lot. ...and in some ways it makes sense. Surely, if you do something for long enough, you'll get better at it right? The reality is, though, I guess, that in most domains, if you don't make an effort to get better , then the ceil…

At least in my org, our CIO has an admin assistant who handles his videoconferencing. Because he's unwilling to put in a few minutes to learn an essential tool.

I also find it hilarious when fellow IT associates demonstrate the same level of incompetence in Teams/Webex. Leaving mics live, taking their cellphones into the restroom. It really shows how the intelligence of any org is a Bell curve.

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

#447

Post by nobleach »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #373
nobleach wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been my observation over the last 20 years. I truly enjoy socializing and collaborating in person. I usually worked from home once or twice a week before the pandemic. It was a fantastic convenience as I lived an hour from my office. Once the pandemic hit we were fully remote. At first I thought, "see? we're more productive, this is truly better". As time wore on, I can see why a hybrid approach might be a b…

> I've tried to rile my team up to go into the office once in awhile for whiteboarding sessions/collaboration but they're simply not interested. If your team is shipping and hitting deadlines then they realize that all this extra socialization stuff is useless cruft and rightly are rejecting it.

If shipping is the only thing that matters, then we're in great shape. If shipping the right things matters, we're probably going to need to collaborate a bit. Over the past year, we could have killed a few features just by pushing back as a group. Instead we've waited until they've lost an A/B test.

But your sentiment is exactly the point I was trying to make. Many (if not most) developers really aren't interested in any social benefit/experience. Your use of the word "rightly" puts you (and forgive me for broadly categorizing, I don't know you at all) in the "I come here to do my work and get the heck out so I can live my real life" group. For others, it's not so binary. It's not Work vs Life. Life bleeds into work, and work bleeds into life (with obvious healthy boundaries). For example, my lunch times with other developers was a high point of my day. I looked forward to talking to those folks. We tried it via Zoom. It was just awkward. My current team seems to fit with your sentiment. I'm the oddball and I'm okay with that.

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

#450

Post by tapoxi »

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 not dumb, but it's dumb with what offices have become. Nobody likes the open plan office, but if I had my own office (with a door!!!) then I'd certainly go in every day. Maybe it's time to re-imagine what the office is?
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