Employees are returning to the office to sit on zoom calls • Hacker News Board

Re: Employees are returning to the office to sit on zoom calls

#71

Post by zarzavat » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:25 AM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #65

ByteJockey wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two camps that want something mutually exclusive (work from home vs work in office). Additionally, in order to get what they want, they need the other group to comply.* The struggle is spilling over into the comment threads. * If everyone works in the office, and the work from home people are still remote, they get passed over for promotions and basically have a good chance of tanking their career. If every…

I still find the replies to my personal experience very baffling. I didn't say what anybody else should be doing; I didn't present it as a universal truth. It seems very clear to me that there is room for a variety of workplace types. Strictly in-office, hybrid, and strictly remote. I said I enjoyed getting together with my coworkers; I also said my ideal situation would involve spending a majority of time remote.

It’s loss aversion. Many people perceive office environment to be unpleasant for various reasons (long commute, psychopathic coworkers, noisy, lack of privacy) and so now they have tasted freedom they have a strong negative reaction to losing it.

Re: Employees are returning to the office to sit on zoom calls

#72

Post by Moto7451 » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:25 AM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #25

I recently spent a week in the office with my team. First time I'd had office time with any team since mid-2018. It was really, really, really nice. I've been a diehard work-from-home guy for ages. Why spend perhaps 10+ hours per week commuting? It's a productivity and environmental nightmare. But... sometimes? Yeah. It's nice to be in the room with other smart people, solving hard problems. I didn't realize I missed…

I get where you’re coming from. I’ve been half time remote since 2017 (I.e. on one coast half the time and back near the office the other half) and full time since 2019. It is very nice to visit and have a really good in person session occasionally.

My work has moved the office to a general hoteling model where the dozen people that need the office every day are always welcome to use it. It’s mostly a ghost town but everyone is happy with how this worked out.

The most common use case is a team coming into the office to see each other for the first time in two years or the first time ever depending on when they started.

We have a rule that all calls are done over Zoom or Meet, so we will have the eventual insane looking situation of the majority of the participants in the same conference room speaking into a laptop.

The company owns several Owl cameras which did a good job pre-pandemic of bridging the gap of seeing who is speaking in a conference room. I’m not sure if all laptops open is a good policy for remotes like myself but I’m sure we’ll figure that out in a few months time.

Re: Employees are returning to the office to sit on zoom calls

#73

Post by ByteJockey » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:27 AM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #65

ByteJockey wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two camps that want something mutually exclusive (work from home vs work in office). Additionally, in order to get what they want, they need the other group to comply.* The struggle is spilling over into the comment threads. * If everyone works in the office, and the work from home people are still remote, they get passed over for promotions and basically have a good chance of tanking their career. If every…

I still find the replies to my personal experience very baffling. I didn't say what anybody else should be doing; I didn't present it as a universal truth. It seems very clear to me that there is room for a variety of workplace types. Strictly in-office, hybrid, and strictly remote. I said I enjoyed getting together with my coworkers; I also said my ideal situation would involve spending a majority of time remote.

At this point, the mere existence of the other group is a danger to what the first group sees as their interests. The human instinct is to minimize the other group, making their group appear larger, and strengthening the argument that their interests should prevail.

Someone who wants to be completely untethered from the office is threatened by someone who wants to work in the office a couple days a week. It means they will have to choose between moving and having job prospects within a much smaller area.

Re: Employees are returning to the office to sit on zoom calls

#74

Post by postalrat » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:27 AM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #30

"Employees Are Returning to the Office, Just to Sit on Zoom Calls" Yep my team is split between 2 sites and works with teams in various other sites. We may have some meeting rooms set up, but we will still be using video calls predominantly.

Maybe it's time to create new teams.

Re: Employees are returning to the office to sit on zoom calls

#75

Post by ByteJockey » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:31 AM UTC

poink wrote: post #69

ByteJockey wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two camps that want something mutually exclusive (work from home vs work in office). Additionally, in order to get what they want, they need the other group to comply.* The struggle is spilling over into the comment threads. * If everyone works in the office, and the work from home people are still remote, they get passed over for promotions and basically have a good chance of tanking their career. If every…

I think there’s a lot of WFH folk who are worried less about promotions than they are the availability of WFH jobs in general. People who favor that style of working viewed COVID as a transformational event, and are going to push back hard on anything/anyone suggesting a return to the previous status quo, where WFH was something you had to be a relatively special snowflake to be afforded by many/most companies.

> I think there’s a lot of WFH folk who are worried less about promotions than they are the availability of WFH jobs in general.

I feel like this was covered in the "tanking their career" part of my statement, but fair. It's rather important, I guess it deserves an explicit call out.

Re: Employees are returning to the office to sit on zoom calls

#76

Post by codebje » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:31 AM UTC

nwallin wrote: post #33

Apocryphon wrote: post #3

Have any of the pro-RTO folks on HN experienced this phenomenon? There's definitely a contingent here who do not prefer remote work, curious to read what they think of going back into the office only to have to continue to call in order to collaborate with coworkers.

Even before COVID all my collaboration with teammates was done online. (We use Teams now) I'm at the main site for my company; my boss and all my close collaborators are at a satellite location that's not within driving distance; my boss's boss is down the hall from me. For me, the act of leaving the office at the end of the day is an effective "off switch" that I don't have while my work station and my gaming statio…

I have a laptop exclusively for work and one exclusively not for work, and at the end of the day the work one gets closed and put away until the next working day.

Junk like HN serves well enough for endless procrastination in or out of the office. Having my toys near me has been no worse - if anything my personal projects have suffered because they largely got attention during the commute.

Re: Employees are returning to the office to sit on zoom calls

#77

Post by poink » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:36 AM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #66

walls wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resentment from people who have been held mentally hostage by their socialite coworkers who wander around interrupting others for a significant portion of their day.

I enjoyed one single week of office work after four years of being fully remote, and plainly expressed my preference to continue being remote a majority of the time. I also don't interrupt others in the office, thanks very much. I've worked with those sorts of people (who hasn't?) and I resent them as well. You enjoy being remote 100% of the time? Cool. I think there is clearly room for a variety of employment arrang…

That’s not how this works. There’s an extreme bias toward butts-in-seats. “Everyone should do what’s best for them” is a nice sentiment, but not how the world works at all.

There are a lot of people currently enjoying remote work who are rightfully worried about being forced back to the office for what they perceive as zero benefit. I’m not one of them, but I get where they’re coming from.

Re: Employees are returning to the office to sit on zoom calls

#78

Post by JohnBooty » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:38 AM UTC

cjmb wrote: post #70

JohnBooty wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked on a number of crap, toxic teams over 20+ years. This one's good. I'm absolutely dumbfounded at the replies here. I make an offhand remark about my current team being a pleasure to work with, and I have multiple replies suggesting that there is something fishy afoot? "The Lake Wobegon effect, a natural human tendency to overestimate one's capabilities" Oh, cool. Because I say my coworkers are good and I e…

Don't let it bother you man. It's just an example of cross-cultural confusion crossed with some blunt HN mannerisms (to put it politely). The tell is the callout that this is an "American thing" -- which, well, it is. America has a culture, and especially SF has a culture, that's pretty distinct from elsewhere. Talking up the raw intellect of one's coworkers is a very SF thing, and a very-non-European thing (not to s…

Interesting perspective, thanks.

It's hard to wrap my mind around somebody thinking a stranger is "bragging" or "uncouth" or "sycophantic" because they think their team is smart and fun to work with.

But, I understand that it's a thing.

Re: Employees are returning to the office to sit on zoom calls

#79

Post by seattle_spring » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:39 AM UTC

irrational wrote: post #52

chihuahua wrote: post #5

This reminds me of the time about 7 years ago when my team (in Redmond, WA) wanted to send me to Beijing for a year. I didn't agree so they sent someone else instead. He spent most of the year living in Beijing and working with a team in Bellevue, WA.

Frankly that sounds awesome. Company paid opportunity to experience another culture in depth? Yes please!

My thoughts exactly. I had a similar opportunity about 10 years back and I turned it down. I still think about what my life would have been like had I chosen otherwise.

Re: Employees are returning to the office to sit on zoom calls

#80

Post by thirdwhrldPzz » Sun, Apr 03, 2022, 4:42 AM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #49

fartcannon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the same and it was as unbelievably worthless as I recalled from before the pandemic. You know what really stands out in the office? How sad it all is. The frowns on the subway, the fake smiles in the office, the pretending, the posturing. Bleh. I'm resigning.

Quoted post unavailable.

Disliking contemporary office life is not equivalent to not liking working with people.