Workers quitting over return-to-office policies • Hacker News Board

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#121

Post by legulere » Sun, May 29, 2022, 6:26 PM UTC

hellisothers wrote: post #46

ryanSrich wrote: post #3

Of course this is happening. I’m coming up on year 10 of working remotely, and year 2 of completely async. The only forced-commute job I ever had was for 6 months right out of college. I’ve been preaching remote work for almost the entire time I’ve been doing it. I thought it would catch on much sooner, but it’s here now. I think async is the next thing that will happen. If you’re building software there’s really no…

Maybe this works as an IC that has no collaborative aspect to their day-to-day but as an IC leader async adds material pauses and latency into projects. If everybody is ok with everything taking longer at the start and end of projects then cool (the middle implementation phase is less impacted) but taking a day to answer a question that could have taken minutes is not a bonus.

You recognize yourself that async working means more latency. Latency and throughput are often sitting on the opposite ends of a spectrum. With async you can have less interruptions for ICs and increase their throughput.

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#122

Post by ipaddr » Sun, May 29, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

ChicagoDave wrote: post #54

This will evolve. I think 100% remote is great for some people (small children, busy schedules, health issues) but many people would also benefit from being with their teams. The change I'd like to see is some sort of geographically centric pod office where it's not mandatory, but a team lead could say, "We need two days at Pod X to run through A, B, C initiatives." No one is required to arbitrarily attend a physical…

Any in-person gatherings are red flags. For a party, to hear the ceo speak or for a team building meeting.

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#123

Post by tshaddox » Sun, May 29, 2022, 6:28 PM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #114

tshaddox wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like there are two very different modes of development being mentioned here. You seem to be describing a mode where you just need to concentrate and bang out your lines of code for the day. The previous comment seems to be referring to creative, collaborative development. The industry probably needs both, but I’m much more personally interested in the latter, and I’m worried that async/remote is disastrous for…

Your not the bass player you are the record label worrying about if a single exists. If you interrupt the songwriter every 20 minutes because you have a question around lighting you end up without a song. Many rock bands create their parts separately or one person creates it all and everyone else learns the material.

Surely it would be managers or executives that would be analogous to the record label executives. We’re talking about ICs on a collaborative team.

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#124

Post by kelseyfrog » Sun, May 29, 2022, 6:30 PM UTC

vermooten wrote: post #45

I'm still genuinely uncertain why companies are so desperate to get staff into the office. 'Business people' like HR, sales, marketing LOVE being together in person; Engineers somewhat less so. Given that companies tend to be run by 'business people' then yeah I think I just answered my own question.

I genuinely believe MGMT-types enjoy face-to-face interaction, but would not discount the theatrical power of it all.

A manager with a Hobbesian conceptualization of power in a raw physical sense sees their own power as the accumulation of the accumulated ceded power[1] of their direct reports. That is to say, the more of their workers in their physical presence, the more powerful they are and the more workers I have over you, the more power I have relative to you.

Social relations too become spatial relations. In this conceptualization, a manager seeks to display their own status(via power) in the dramatic interactions they have with other managers. Whole areas, floors, or even buildings comprise the managerial territory under control, complete with the material wealth of physical assets, both inanimate and human.

Finally, we have Hobbes instrumentall power or the corporate ladder climbing we all know - power for power's sake. Beyond the creation of wealth, good, and value lies the drive for power itself.

1. http://changingminds.org/explanations/power/hobbes_power.htm

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#125

Post by xyzzy4747 » Sun, May 29, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #120

lupire wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also true for competent engineers. No one knows everything.

Wouldn't you go to experts outside of your companies? I may go to the company who makes the product for support or to a popular forum and ask a question.. none of this needs to be sync vs async

Exactly - what I mean by incompetent engineers is they will get “blocked” and then wait for someone else on the team to eventually find out and rescue them. Synchronous communication helps for these types of people. For engineers who can more independently work, and figure things out on their own (such as reaching out to experts if needed), asynchronous works fine in most situations.

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#126

Post by kkfx » Sun, May 29, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

The curious part is that the Green New Deal invest in WFH, at least in advertisement, and IT giants have formally done the same to sell services...

Anyway any change is hard in general, any social change happen only in long timeframe, but it's clear to anybody that jobs eligible from remote work should be done as much as possible remotely. Surely we benefit from being together, so for certain activities, like schooling we must keep physical proximity, but for many others the trade off is far on the side of remote.

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#127

Post by Viliam1234 » Sun, May 29, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

elric wrote: post #11

dijit wrote: post #2

I’ll be honest: I feel somewhat vindicated due my own personal struggles with the open office[0] and people arguing for the status quo on hacker news[1]. I am extremely sad at the extreme loss of life and horrible conditions caused by the pandemic. So I feel exceedingly guilty for feeling glad that an upside of it is that we can finally do away with this horrible practice of crushing everyone together so the managers…

I'm growing more and more frustrated with open offices, and with $management's unwillingness any concerns. Quitting isn't really an option: I haven't seen a single Belgian company that has an acceptable office layout for software engineers. Even desk sizes seem to be getting smaller and smaller. Remote options are few and far between (and I don't want to WFH anymore).

> Even desk sizes seem to be getting smaller and smaller.

Heh, I didn't realize this, but during covid my company mandated every other desk to stay empty, and suddenly it felt like I had as much space again as I used to have 20 years ago.

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#128

Post by ipaddr » Sun, May 29, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

themitigating wrote: post #10

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #6

Quitting for that is only possible as a solution if you have remote friendly alternative to go to after you quit, but if, like in Austria, all the employers in the country went back to the office then you pretty much have no other options than to go to the office as your employer demands, since you quitting won't fix this issues :( A solution to force the employers hand to allowing remote work might be mass resignati…

If you can't find another job quitting might not be an option. Imagine if you have a family or someone that depends on you.

Many will leave the field.. or form new companies.

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#129

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL » Sun, May 29, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

ryanSrich wrote: post #3

Of course this is happening. I’m coming up on year 10 of working remotely, and year 2 of completely async. The only forced-commute job I ever had was for 6 months right out of college. I’ve been preaching remote work for almost the entire time I’ve been doing it. I thought it would catch on much sooner, but it’s here now. I think async is the next thing that will happen. If you’re building software there’s really no…

How do you handle brainstorming sessions or design sessions where things are hard to solve, so there is no direct answer?

I love the idea of async, but there are just some sessions that are incredibly valuable and develop on others thoughts, evolving in a final solution.

At the company I work at, we compromise with a specific 4 hours overlap so that meetings can be scheduled only during those times

Re: Workers quitting over return-to-office policies

#130

Post by seanp2k2 » Sun, May 29, 2022, 6:43 PM UTC

It’s just so ridiculous to me that all these companies were forced to experience how remote work can work, yet they are choosing to pursue hard-line RTO policies, talent be damned.