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Employees are returning to the office to sit on zoom calls

bloomberg.com

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

#191

Post by throwaway4good »

snakey wrote: post #163

Forgive me for this digression and for sounding selfish, but as a junior, I’ve really struggled for the last 2+ years to fully adapt to remote / hybrid working. I’m wondering if anyone has advice on how I can continue to grow and become a top-class engineer within a remote environment? Based on my experience so far, it’s very difficult to both onboard and mentor a junior from a remote setting. It’s not impossible, ho…

Remote work is not good for neither personal nor professional growth. In other words avoid it if those things are you main concern.

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

#192

Post by refurb »

snakey wrote: post #163

Forgive me for this digression and for sounding selfish, but as a junior, I’ve really struggled for the last 2+ years to fully adapt to remote / hybrid working. I’m wondering if anyone has advice on how I can continue to grow and become a top-class engineer within a remote environment? Based on my experience so far, it’s very difficult to both onboard and mentor a junior from a remote setting. It’s not impossible, ho…

Unless you are working for a 100% full time remote company, my suggestion is to go into the office.

You'll get more exposure to people, more chances for one-off conversations, your boss will know what you look like and you'll be closer to the action - all important things early in your career.

Once you're an old hat at things, it doesn't matter nearly as much. You know who to reach out to, know how to navigate politics, know what the resources are.

My prediction is we'll see people slowly return unless their company strongly enacts 100% remote (or the role fits remote well - little to no team interaction).

Once a few ambitious people start finding out the project they really wanted to work on went to someone else who has been having lunch with the boss 3 days a week, they'll get in the office too or find another job.

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

#193

Post by asdff »

snakey wrote: post #163

Forgive me for this digression and for sounding selfish, but as a junior, I’ve really struggled for the last 2+ years to fully adapt to remote / hybrid working. I’m wondering if anyone has advice on how I can continue to grow and become a top-class engineer within a remote environment? Based on my experience so far, it’s very difficult to both onboard and mentor a junior from a remote setting. It’s not impossible, ho…

IMO what works best is to get 1 or a very very small few people and hop on a zoom and share screens and ask questions.

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

#194

Post by ClumsyPilot »

snakey wrote: post #163

Forgive me for this digression and for sounding selfish, but as a junior, I’ve really struggled for the last 2+ years to fully adapt to remote / hybrid working. I’m wondering if anyone has advice on how I can continue to grow and become a top-class engineer within a remote environment? Based on my experience so far, it’s very difficult to both onboard and mentor a junior from a remote setting. It’s not impossible, ho…

If you can get a few juniors together to as for a pair programming session, that could help

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

#195

Post by [deleted] »

wallfacer120 wrote: post #113
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…

Regarding why this post is so inflammatory, it's just tedious "i hate people" misanthropic posturing from people who still haven't figured out that their problem is them.

[deleted]

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

#196

Post by asdff »

throwaway5371 wrote: post #186

Half my friends say they work less than 1 hour a day remote. Literally attend standup, complain they are somewhat blocked or investigating something and then just work on personal projects or just game. The rest are doing chores because their spouses are not considering them working because they are "home". All kinds of chores from pick up the kids to take the dog to the vet. Whoever says overall productivity increas…

Imo if people can get away with doing that now you gotta wonder about these sleepy managers of yours who aren't checking if the team has a pulse. Chances are they were probably only good for 1 hour of actual work when they were in the office too if that's the state of affairs.

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

#197

Post by asdff »

throwaway5371 wrote: post #190
vladvasiliu wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be the case, but if you're prone to dicking around and generally not working, there are plenty of ways to not work while your butt is sitting on the company's chair. If I had a dollar for every person I've seen randomly browsing Facebook or similar at the office, I wouldn't need to work anymore. Now I understand that not all people are the same towards work and motivation, and I particularly sympathize with…

of course you can waste time in the office as well, from people joining every meeting and asking "but does it scale" to people playing table tennis, but in general its harder to do than remote

It's pretty easy for people to come into work and get nothing done.

Roll in at 9:30 and complain about traffic. Spend until 10 easy getting settled in for the day: making coffee, slowly sifting email, recollecting the weekend with others, bathroom break, etc. Now its the first meeting, totally irrelevant to anything you do so you zone out. Suddenly its lunch time. Another hour goes by. It's 1pm now. Check email. Another meeting. Check instagram. 3:30pm. Let me fire off that one email. Wow look, 4:35pm, better leave now to beat traffic.

I've seen people make respectable careers out of this.

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

#198

Post by asdff »

darinf wrote: post #81

I love having lunch with co-workers. It’s a great way to connect. Even though at my office only about 30% of folks are back, it’s roughly the same group each day. So I’m happy being back even if all meetings involve Zoom. At least getting a conference room for all the zoom calls is not too hard :)

We just have cookouts like once a month and burn a friday. Pretty good times and turnout plus we schedule it around rush hour.

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

#199

Post by jiggawatts »

ryanSrich wrote: post #133

As someone who has worked on startups, side gigs, and only around 6 months at a “real” company. I’m always blown away at how many meetings there are in corporate America. What are you even meeting about? Why aren’t you doing hands on keyboard work? Why does a decision need to be made in a room, with everyone pretending to listen? Why are you presenting something to me when I’ll comprehend it far better if I read it,…

Wait till you see government organisations. There are meetings to decide who needs to turn up to a meeting. I thought that was a sick joke until I attended such a thing myself.

On one project we had dozens(!) of meetings involving 5-10 people to decide what to call an API endpoint that no human being will ever see again after the initial implementation. A nearly cried. I told them that they could literally mash the keyboard and use that, it's fine, just make a decision already. Nope. Got to run it past marketing. Branding (a separate team). Networks. BAU support. Domain hosting team. Architecture team. SecOps. Etc, etc...

The same org then had daily meetings involving 10+ people to decide how to purchase $500 worth of USB security fobs. At one point a project manager broke down in tears and pulled his credit card out out, and offered to just buy it himself if it would make the madness stop. There was a stunned silence, and then somebody raised the point that yes, fine, sure, but then how would warranty returns be handled if he becomes the "supplier"? With a straight face that same guy suggested another meeting to discuss the warranty return issue.

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

#200

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

Scarblac wrote: post #148
mike_d wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people have hallway conversations? Sure. Are they conversations that a company would consider help further the bottom line? Not at all.

Those conversations are actually the most important reason our directors want us back in the office. It's how company culture spreads to new people.

It's funny, I once had a manager who was outraged I hadn't done something she asked for. I said I wasn't aware of the requirement.

She hadnt actually made any formal announcement. She just liked informal chats with colleagues and assumed all important decisions she made would just spread to everyone through some kind of office osmosis.

She then got annoyed with me that I didn't have enough casual conversations with the team. She wasn't a good manager. But it remains the only time I've been reprimanded for focusing on getting my job done and not chatting enough!

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