Whiteboards ! None of the online whiteboards equivalent tools work as well a old fashioned white board and markers.
We expensed graphical tablets, it gets you closer but still not quote there yet.
Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?
291–300 of 921 posts
Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
I consider myself 100% a remote guy, but c'mon. Isn't it reasonable for people in an org to be in the same physical space a few times a year.
No, why do you think it’s reasonable that be a requirement to be productive?
Because it helps people bond and so work better as a team. Plus probably not all your colleagues are complete introverts and may actually enjoy the company of others.
Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?
#293I'm not currently an employer.
I think over time remote is going to lose. Once the revolution is over and things mature remote working will become far more invasive and controlling than it is now. Then on-site companies will start out-performing remote, especially very large companies.
I reckon many employers make the same calculation and want to head it off.
Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?
#294There’s a lot of collaboration and spontaneous connection that happens in hallways and kitchenettes. That’s the sort of thing that isn’t immediately obvious, but becomes more noticeable as time goes on. The first months of the pandemic people were able to coast on their existing connections, but it becomes harder years on, especially if half your team has _never_ met in person or come to company HQ. In the before tim…
> if you do a good job arranging your life (as most software engineers absolutely have the means to do) you can make a commute a quite pleasant part of your day and create a healthy separation between your work and your life.
I feel like this isn't really true in the SF Bay Area, it's too expensive even for most software engineers. We're not all making L7 @ Meta money.
Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?
#295Remote work requires a certain culture and skillset. You must be a good writer, type quickly, be self-expressive online even when not prompted by management. You must self-document and self-promote.
Believe it or not, many, many people are not good at that or don't fit that mold. Yet they can still be productive. They just require more supervision and the ability to express themselves in a manner that suits them.
If remote work suits you, and doesn't suit your management or your management's culture, don't try to change your whole company. It won't work. Instead, search for a company that is a better fit for you.
Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There’s a lot of collaboration and spontaneous connection that happens in hallways and kitchenettes. I echo others here - I've not seen a meaningful, revenue-driving conversation happen in these in a decade of work. Do you have specific examples of valuable collaboration in one of these environments? > Edit: full disclosure, I’m not an employer but I sympathize and spent a lot of time thinking about these things as…
> I echo others here - I've not seen a meaningful, revenue-driving conversation happen in these in a decade of work. Do you have specific examples of valuable collaboration in one of these environments? I can think of lots, and am surprised anyone would say otherwise - I guess you must be using a really high bar for "meaningful". An example might be, "You know, I didn't want to say anything in the meeting, but doesn'…
> If you only interact during scheduled meetings with a defind purpose, you never engage in work-related small talk
Whats stopping people from scheduling “shoot the shit” of coffee calls though? That’s what I’ve seen many do since the wfh mandate and it works in exactly the same way you describe: people vent, talk about what happened during meetings, etc.
Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you can connect or collaborate in a hallway, you can also do so in a Discord channel (or whatever tool). There are also several good applications for internet collaboration that simulate a rich shared 2d or 3d or video space. Or things like GitHub issues and Wikis. Networking, mentorship, company culture, etc. can all happen over the internet. You make it part of the company culture to use the remote collaboration…
> If you can connect or collaborate in a hallway, you can also do so in a Discord channel (or whatever tool). I don't believe that, those are very different modes of communications. > There are also several good applications for internet collaboration that simulate a rich shared 2d or 3d or video space. I think, this could potentially help, but we seem to be still very far from it technologically. It's still impossib…
> > If you can connect or collaborate in a hallway, you can also do so in a Discord channel (or whatever tool).
> I don't believe that, those are very different modes of communications.
So what? Just because something is different, it doesn't mean you can't get useful benefits from it.
No, you're not going to have a random hallway meeting and conversation on on a chat platform. But the barrier to just saying hello to someone or asking them a question drops to near-zero when you have those chat platforms. Yes, it does mean you need to be more deliberate about making interactions happen, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that.
The "remote renaissance" is still very new. (And it started during a time that was not ideal for methodically exploring and learning a new paradigm.) It'll take many more years before people adjust and really find out how communication works best.
Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?
#298Some of my teams were fully remote about eight weeks in 2020, while others have been remote the entire time. I don't believe in full RTO, just hybrid. 1. The last few years have demonstrated that projects with teams that are primarily remote require a higher degree of project overhead staffing. I think this is most evident with very small teams. For example, it's fairly easy for a small internal tool team to coordina…
> I'm constantly seeing in meetings where highly compensated employees are providing childcare during working hours.
If you think that's bad, you should've seen what they did at the office during work hours for their kids when they were required to leave the house.
Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right? Funny how C-level employees never think they’ll get outsourced. Ten or twenty years from now there will be great CTO level talent founding companies in Latam if they aren’t already. Then the whole company can operate in a cheaper country with lower taxes and benefits. Good luck competing with that in the US.
Why not have the ceo in latam as well? What’s the US advantage?
Access to capital.
Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
You may be surprised to know that one can do meal prep and pay attention to sprint refinement at the same time. For me, having something to do with my hands while talking helps to keep me focused.
You're supposed to be actively participating in refinement. Reading the story being talked about, looking up documentation, checking on potential solutions, and other things of that nature. You can't do that with raw chicken on your hands or while walking to the fridge to get veggies. The fact that this has to be explained to people is why there's a push to return to the office.
> You're supposed to be actively participating in refinement. Reading the story being talked about, looking up documentation, checking on potential solutions, and other things of that nature.
That's a load of context that wasn't clear from your original comment. The jargon "refinement" is not used where I work.
> The fact that this has to be explained to people is why there's a push to return to the office.
That you then need to backfill assumed context is not going to be solved by returning to office. That it's now been clarified in text, in a work situation, could be turned into a resource to be referenced in a future conversation. In the office, the explanation would be ephemeral, and may need frequent repetition until somebody overcomes the hurdle of committing it to text.