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Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

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Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#171

Post by abricq »

I understand your point, I also enjoy a lot interactions with my colleagues ! I am quite surprised to hear that in the Berlin startup scene, home office is becoming the norm. I have been working (and still am) in startups in Lausanne (Switzerland) and home office has been very much reduced since the 'end' of Covid restrictions.

Most companies would allow for a day or 2 per week, but not much more. And I did not hear many complaints about it: my colleagues are also all happy to be here together. It was the same in my previous company.

Maybe it's heavily dependent on your company and I just got lucky (to our terms) where I was.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#172

Post by stingraycharles »

bodge5000 wrote: post #118

With all due respect, this is mostly my problem with the "work-from-office" (WFO for ease) crowd. Generally, the stance of the WFH crowd is that each individual should get a choice of what makes that individual happy. Very few, if any, of the WFH crowd want mandatated WFH, it would make no sense. But then the WFO crowd often says no, I don't care what makes you happy, because you being in makes me happy. That doesn't…

I think there are many “subcultures” (for lack of better description) within WFH and WFO. You’re describing two of them, but there’s also a group of WFH’ers that believes the whole organization should be remote as to standardize the processes to be asynchronous, and there are WFO’ers that still like to work from home one or two days a week.

There’s also WFH but within the same country, WFH globally across all timezones, etc etc etc.

As such, I personally consider it more of a company culture thing rather than WFO vs WFH. Where does the company fit in these philosophies.

There’s definitely no such thing as the WFO’er that wants to force their preferences upon others any more than there are WFH’ers doing the same thing.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#173

Post by throwaway294566 »

Georgelemental wrote: post #166
atribecalledqst wrote: post #154

At least for me, my primary hangup for going back to the office is that COVID -isn't over-! Since I can do my job just as well from home as from the office, I'd far prefer to stay in an environment where I have control over my level of risk. (I realize not everybody has this at home, but I live alone) For this reason, when I hear corporate taking advantage of the between-wave lull to trumpet going back to the office,…

At this point COVID is about as over as it will ever be. So do you plan to continue living as you are for the rest of your life?

Depends on where on the covid-panic-scale your local government is. In Germany there is still talk about waves, mask mandates and possible restrictions.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#174

Post by robg »

The company “office” is a left over concept from the factory - industrialized labor in a shared space. The work-from-home benefits to individuals and society far outweigh the work-from-office benefits to individuals and companies. If you need companions to work, then companies could readily support work groups with shared desires.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#175

Post by [deleted] »

danwee wrote: post #31

> And finally, I feel no one else is realizing that they are happily hacking away at the amazingly well-paid branch they're sitting on. As soon as a company's IT department is practically fully remote, why should they page a German wage for someone who is a face on a screen, when they can pay a fraction for that same face broadcasted from a few hundred kilometers further east or south? German is hardly used in busine…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#177

Post by bart_spoon »

fny wrote: post #7

First, they'll send your work home, then, they'll send your work abroad. People are too drunk on work from home having experienced it for the first time. I have done it for years. It has its pros and cons. I agree a huge reckoning is coming for white collar work writ large. (1) It can be more easily outsourced. (2) It's easier to fire someone you don't see every working day.

As if it hasn’t been the norm for companies to outsource white collar jobs and fire people at the drop of the hat for decades now. I don’t see WFH as enabling anything that wasn’t already enabled from that perspective.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#178

Post by benhurmarcel »

adamhp wrote: post #87
munchausen42 wrote: post #73

If you wonder why an argument might be controversial, it can helpful to imagine how it would sound like in mirror world: Assume for a moment that working remotly and a flexible workday would have been always the default. And now some companies decide: Hey let's contractually enforce a 9 hour continuous workday where all our workers will be locked in a big ugly building that we build just for that purpose (Btw. at lea…

Disclaimer: I support fully remote work and will likely never be returning to office in my lifetime if I can help it. Here I play devil's advocate. Even though it is a hypothetical world you've constructed, you still framed it from the perspective of this world. I can do the same thing you did with a different bias. Imagine a world where everyone is socially isolated, forced to work 8 hours a day from their living sp…

If the office was so amazing you wouldn't need to force people to come in.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#179

Post by snarf21 »

shafyy wrote: post #23

There's nothing wrong with that, and I have many friends that like the social upsides of having an office. But I think it will become increasingly common to divide social life and work in the future. Imagine the following: You have a few good friends in Berlin and each of you work for different companies. But you all work remotely. You could rent a small office space with your friends everyone could work from there,…

Every time that this topic comes up it goes the same way. I wish that we could all collectively agree that this is a PREFERENCE. One way is not objectively better than the other. They both have trade-offs. We could actually make some progress if we focusing on having WFO and WFH people better able to collaborate together.

One anecdote: I've been working fully remote for the last year. I prefer WFO but such is the world today. It is been going okay for the most part. Everyone is pretty good on Zoom and Slack.

Recently we all came in to the remote office to meet each other for the first time and do some planning for future features. It was an absolute disaster. Everyone has forgotten how to have a meeting outside of Zoom. 5 conversations at once, constant interruptions, etc. We also had some people calling in to a Zoom that the in-person people were on. This is also usually a complete disaster. The remote people have almost no ability to break into the in-person conversation.

IMO, this is the thing that needs to get solved. What process/tools can we add to a hybrid Zoom call to make it productive? What process/tools can we use to help WFH people adjust to in-person meetings? What process/tools can we change/use writ large, so that the WFO vs WFH choice can truly be an employee preference and not a mandate BUT still be a productive endeavour?

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#180

Post by BaseballPhysics »

bodge5000 wrote: post #118

With all due respect, this is mostly my problem with the "work-from-office" (WFO for ease) crowd. Generally, the stance of the WFH crowd is that each individual should get a choice of what makes that individual happy. Very few, if any, of the WFH crowd want mandatated WFH, it would make no sense. But then the WFO crowd often says no, I don't care what makes you happy, because you being in makes me happy. That doesn't…

I'd also add that comments like this:

> Now, I am fully aware that there's a low of people for whom the horror of commute doesn't make up for the gains of socializing and others that just abhor having to talk to real-life people. Then there are people who work mainly to get paid and do not care to invest themselves beyond what is necessary.

Are remarkably condescending.

Folks opting for a better work-life balance, who might not like to commute, or who prefer to socialize in other settings, "do not care to invest themselves"?

Maybe it's not the OP's opinions that are controversial, but rather the implicit judgment that comes along with it.

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