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Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

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Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#321

Post by Smaug123 »

treis wrote: post #256
cweagans wrote: post #197

Earlier 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.

Is that… something that ever happens in a meeting in person?

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#322

Post by robertlagrant »

kelnos wrote: post #297
The_Colonel wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> So what? Just because something is different, it doesn't mean you can't get useful benefits from it.

You've missed the point. It's wasn't that there are no benefits from it. It's that there are specific benefits from conversations that won't happen on a wiki.

This is a great example of how people can miss the point if you don't go round the houses with conversation and say something in multiple ways, so they can't misunderstand.

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#323

Post by Johnny555 »

ineptech wrote: post #264
gemstones wrote: post #158

Earlier 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'…

An example might be, "You know, I didn't want to say anything in the meeting, but doesn't Greg's data lake proposal sound exactly like the project that failed two years ago?"

A lot of that seems to happen over Slack already - whether you're in the meeting or at home.

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#324

Post by bsuvc »

phil21 wrote: post #223
junofan wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who think like that want RTO, which is part of what GP is saying. The disposable resource people champion remote work.

Yep. This. I can't believe HN zeitgeist cannot understand this. Why would I hire a US employee for twice the cost when I can hire someone 95% as good remotely in a low cost area of the world and actually get an employee that sticks around for a decade vs. a year? It's honestly not even really a decision at this point if you have the management infrastructure in place.

> when I can hire someone 95% as good remotely in a low cost area of the world and actually get an employee that sticks around for a decade vs. a year

This is fantasy.

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#325

Post by ineptech »

Smaug123 wrote: post #301
ineptech wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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'…

My team kept a Webex room open at the start of every morning for just turning up and chatting in; it would generally stay open in the background until everyone had left for meetings. It certainly worked well for us. Sometimes people just worked silently through it, but usually there was lots of chat.

We don't have something like this (except for the bullshitting that usually occurs in the last few minutes of standup) but I'm thinking we should try it.

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#326

Post by junofan »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #212
listenallyall wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the vibe I get in my peer group You acknowledge you are a cofounder of your company, therefore you and your cofounder named you as CTO (as opposed to an existing company where somebody was promoted or hired into the position by someone else). I'm just curious who your "peer group" is, the ones you believe "don't know how to manage remote teams" and have "loneliness issues" -- other self-proclaimed CTOs? Or a wider…

Peer group: CEOs, VP eng, CTO, directors at seed-series B companies where leadership team is Bay Area based. I think you’re seeing this wrong. Every other locale is a discount to SFBA/NYC. Many companies can and should pay top of market in cheaper locales. That is the winning remote playbook. Maybe the locale is Canada, maybe the locale is Argentina, maybe it’s Portugal. Pick your choice, they’re all 1/2 cost or less…

Yep, people are starting to look elsewhere.

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#327

Post by phoronixrly »

Kharvok wrote: post #140

Some 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

Do you really think it's good, and that people should be separated from their children for 8-10 hours (or more if commuting) each day? I don't.

Also, since you don't want your employees to get distracted by childcare, does your office offer daycare for their children?

Edit: And yes, they daycare question is also met with awkward silence from the management on each all-hands I've heard it asked before.

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#328

Post by throw248989 »

treis wrote: post #23

I think a lot of people are abusing WFH. Some make it obvious like doing meal prep during refinement but others are just kind of ghosts during the day. Even as a fellow team member reviewing code it's hard to tell how much my coworkers are working. Assume my EM has less of an idea than I do and anyone above them is totally in the dark.

I know someone who basically only actually works 3-4 hours a day. The rest of the time they do other personal things but are still available online. They get told they're doing a great job and hit all the important targets.

This person also routinely ignores/mutes as many meetings as possible and frequently multi-tasks in the gym, house chores, etc. Had that person been in the office they'd have had their time wasted on useless all-hands meetings, etc., so now everybody's happy (because that person hasn't had to quit, because life's too short).

Working based on hours doesn't work remote. It should be based on deliverables.

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#329

Post by factsarelolz »

koala_man wrote: post #209

I heard from one large tech company that was pressured by the city to bring people back in order to prop up the city's downtown service sector. The company caved because they depended on city approval for some licenses. The person who told me this was an analyst tasked with cherry picking data to justify the decision that had already been made on political grounds. (This was after a few drinks and has not been indepe…

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#330

Post by doggerland »

tonnydourado wrote: post #270

There aren't that many actual employers responding, but I read several of these comments, and kinda starting to see a pattern: clichês, anecdotes, no nuance, no acknowledgement that the world has changed, or that teams, jobs, and people, can be different then your own experiences Y'all are not looking good, bosses.

I had the same experience of finding loads of cliches, but mostly on the other side: from the pro-WFH people it's all some variation of "you're just bad at managing", "I don't care about your office lease", "I don't go to work to make friends" and "you can do that just as well online".

To be fair, I think both sides make decent points.

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