61–70 of 76 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
personally I find 1x1s over Zoom extremely fatiguing. No app will ever help with that, ever. I'd even take an in-person 1x1 in a drab conference room over Zoom.
It's way less fatiguing for me since I switch off my cam or at least the display of my own video image. You should give it a try. :)
Of course not all shared-location work environments are created equal, and too many in management are both lazy and power hungry. They (and their companies) want to blame anything but their own horrific employment practices and lazy, out-of-date policies. So it's not all a bad thing remote-work has become as big as it has. However, like all human activity pendulums, the remote-work vs in-presence work one WILL swing back. I expect many of us will get a great deal of enjoyment in seeing it when it does.
>MYTH # 2: The office promotes connections I just find this bit entirely unconvincing. I don't have data to back up my claim, but IME 1 in-person interaction is worth ~5-10 'virtual coffee' type interactions via Donut or one of the similar apps. Maybe others feel differently, but I haven't found any substitute for live, in-person get togethers for connecting with colleagues on a personal level.
Not all of us seem to connect with colleagues on a personal level, and prefer to instead optimize for what’s necessary to get our work done. These are not friends; they are workers who share a common compensation provider.
Maybe some jobs don't require that, but as a software engineer I've needed to tread those interpersonal waters a lot. Discussions about interfaces, pushing back on requirements, picking up neat tricks, offering tough estimates, it's all much easier if there's already some report there.
>MYTH # 2: The office promotes connections I just find this bit entirely unconvincing. I don't have data to back up my claim, but IME 1 in-person interaction is worth ~5-10 'virtual coffee' type interactions via Donut or one of the similar apps. Maybe others feel differently, but I haven't found any substitute for live, in-person get togethers for connecting with colleagues on a personal level.
"Maybe others feel differently." Come on. How can anyone who grew up during or after the BBS era could have this attitude? You can obviously have deep online interactions with people. We've been doing it for decades. You have to be open to it. It is a different type of interaction. edited to add: People have also fallen in love online for decades. I know several people who met their spouses online. What evidence woul…
Sure. But I'll bet you that sooner or later they've moved their relation from mostly online to mostly offline.
I really wish this debate would move to be more about preference rather than right/wrong. Everyone works better in certain situations. We aren't robots. There are enough companies giving everyone a choice that everyone should just be happy and stop dunking on everyone else.
E.g. - training a junior developer vs. turning a senior "debug commando" loose, - collaborating on an architecture vs. deep thinking about an algorithm, - screen sharing vs. whiteboard doodling, - dealing with an underperformer vs. getting out of the way of an overperformer, - when to check in with a home worker vs. when to let an office worker focus, - etc.
There's just so many people completely focused on One Right Answer to the question. Even if it's a different One Right Answer for different people. As an engineer I'm interested in the trade-offs in every choice, but the discussion is so polluted that you can't really trust anyone to treat the subject with intellectual honesty.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not all of us seem to connect with colleagues on a personal level, and prefer to instead optimize for what’s necessary to get our work done. These are not friends; they are workers who share a common compensation provider.
When the going gets tough, these people are very hard to work with. The lack of connection means it will be hard to understand each other when a solution must be worked out collaboratively. And the lack of a prior emotional connection between two people will make it very easy to escalate from "I disagree with your point" to "you're dumb and an asshole". Maybe some jobs don't require that, but as a software engineer I…
I'm surprised security and confidentiality hasn't been more of an issue point. Especially for Apple.
Anecdata: I’ve noticed that the voices in an organisation who are more keen for a return to the office tend to be the managers, directors, leadership sort of roles. I wonder if being in the office is just simply more enjoyable for those with power and influence, while individual contributors (trying to get their work done) find they like it more at home?
https://2date4love.com/workplace-affairs-statistics/
And one in ten workers admit sleeping with their boss, according to
https://www.studyfinds.org/third-office-romances-involve-mar...
Perhaps managers are missing a very particular type of non-virtual interaction. Surprised this isn’t mentioned more in this era of #MeToo. And I’d imagine that would provide a very strong incentive for many managers to push RTO.
I really wish this debate would move to be more about preference rather than right/wrong. Everyone works better in certain situations. We aren't robots. There are enough companies giving everyone a choice that everyone should just be happy and stop dunking on everyone else.
I would also like to see more discussion of which activities and situations are better handled in person and which are better WFH. I think there's a lot of nuance there that could really improve the debate and work situations. E.g. - training a junior developer vs. turning a senior "debug commando" loose, - collaborating on an architecture vs. deep thinking about an algorithm, - screen sharing vs. whiteboard doodling…
This seems to be a thinly disguised bit of content marketing for the author's consulting practice.