Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty • Hacker News Board

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#181

Post by nightski » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 7:37 PM UTC

tomtheelder wrote: post #167

lamontcg wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't just discount the psychological impact of having to force yourself to do the activity instead of it being an integral part of your daily life. You're talking about your own subjective preferences and motivations like they're universal constants of the human condition that apply to everyone.

That's an incredibly uncharitable interpretation of what I said. I'm just saying that that the impact something being part of your routine can be a real thing as it is for me, and that the comment I replied to might have missed some of the reason that the commenter they replied to misses their bike commute.

No, that's not really what you said at all. Anything can be made a part of your routine whether working from home or not.

What you said is that you can't handle the freedom of choice and need a manager to force those decisions upon you.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#182

Post by ReflectedImage » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 9:22 PM UTC

timr wrote: post #47

MrPatan wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"being in the office will be how you get noticed and advance in your career. " In every job I had working from the office I didn't have to get noticed before quitting for a better job and advancing my career.

The exception makes the rule. If you're truly working a job where you only advance by leaving , then you likely aren't in a position where you can advance at all. Or you are in such a job, but you've neglected the value of visibility to your career growth (PSA: this is far too common amongst programmers). It certainly happens, but it's not a counterargument to what I'm saying.

Programmers advance by job hopping. There is more budget for attracting new talent than retaining old talent. It's sad but true.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#183

Post by tomtheelder » Thu, Jun 02, 2022, 11:30 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #181

tomtheelder wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an incredibly uncharitable interpretation of what I said. I'm just saying that that the impact something being part of your routine can be a real thing as it is for me, and that the comment I replied to might have missed some of the reason that the commenter they replied to misses their bike commute.

No, that's not really what you said at all. Anything can be made a part of your routine whether working from home or not. What you said is that you can't handle the freedom of choice and need a manager to force those decisions upon you.

Jeez ok now we are going with a personal attack I see. I don’t think that standard of discourse belongs on this site.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#184

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 03, 2022, 5:33 PM UTC

tomtheelder wrote: post #183

nightski wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's not really what you said at all. Anything can be made a part of your routine whether working from home or not. What you said is that you can't handle the freedom of choice and need a manager to force those decisions upon you.

Jeez ok now we are going with a personal attack I see. I don’t think that standard of discourse belongs on this site.

[deleted]

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#185

Post by switch007 » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 11:06 AM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #150

switch007 wrote: post #13

EU perspective: Gas is high and cars are expensive. Cities are full of drug addicts, homeless people, and empty shops. And crime. I don’t even like going downtown for leisure. House prices and rents have rocketed so people who moved the last 2 years to upsize have done so even further from the office. Not to mention presenteeism spreading viruses. Not to mention awful noisy offices designed by sadists. It’s far more…

> Cities are full of drug addicts, homeless people, and empty shops. And crime. I don’t even like going downtown for leisure. That doesn't at all describe the cities I've seen post-pandemic. Cities are full of restaurants, arts, people, and energy. I don't see many empty shops, though more than usual (I assume businesses went bankrupt at higher rate during the pandemic). It does describe the beliefs of people who lis…

> It does describe the beliefs of people who listen to reactionary commentary but don't go to cities, or believe the talk shows rather than simply looking around them.

Anyone with a different experience or opinion is ignorant. Got ya.

I’ve done plenty of travel recently to plenty of cities, in various countries.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#186

Post by RestlessMind » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 11:55 PM UTC

skirmish wrote: post #130

RestlessMind wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because "we as a species" evolved to work in groups. Humans are not loners. We eat, work, recreate and live in groups. To ship any complex groundbreaking product, you have to collaborate closely with a big group. Only in the last few decades, and only a minority of Human population in that period, has there been so much emphasis on "privacy".

Are you saying that collaborating closely online is not collaborating? Meanwhile family and pets provide social companionship. Why do you consider that inferior?

Family and pets are some of the greatest form of companionship.

Online collaboration is pretty lame. It is very transactional, builds very shallow relationships and takes immense effort to agree on complex decisions. I have been doing fully remote since March 2020 (duh) and have met almost all the new colleagues since then in person for work offsites. Most common sentiment is that no one misses commute but otherwise, in-person is so much better to work with each other.

Funnily enough, my company toots the horn of fully-remote. But execs have started meeting in person regularly. It’s just not advertised broadly, but bumping into one of them occasionally and being friends with their assistants reveal so much about “remote for proles but in-person for execs” setup.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#187

Post by RestlessMind » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 11:59 PM UTC

csnover wrote: post #131

RestlessMind wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because "we as a species" evolved to work in groups. Humans are not loners. We eat, work, recreate and live in groups. To ship any complex groundbreaking product, you have to collaborate closely with a big group. Only in the last few decades, and only a minority of Human population in that period, has there been so much emphasis on "privacy".

I think you’re right that humans work best in groups, but there is a difference between collaborating with a group and being physically proximal to a group. You can collaborate with dozens of people over the internet, or you can be the only programmer in an open office with dozens of co-workers who can’t help you. Many of the most complex (software) products in the world are open source: web browser engines like Blin…

For the open source work I am familiar with, the initial work to get the project off the ground is done by a small group of people who are physically collocated. Same with startups - I am seeing a lot of founding teams these days where founders are physically near each other and eventually plan to scale up with remote teams once the product has some traction.

Happy to bookmark this comment and check back in 2025 if startups are getting created in person or are fully remote right from the genesis.