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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?

#331

Post by alexfoo »

kelnos wrote: post #316
alexfoo wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the sake of balance I'd just like to say that I agree with the GP on this. I miss my ~30 minute commute (by bike) from my old job. It provided good delineation between home and work, and 1h of good cardio a day meant I didn't need to do any of that at the gym. I didn't have a need for that time to myself to choose what to do because I liked that choice being taken away for these relatively short periods and me be…

The problem here is that you've decided that because you liked your commute, and that it had benefits for you, everyone else should be forced to do the same, and inevitably it will often be in much less comfortable and useful ways than you've been able to do it. Allowing remote work increases possibilities, and you've presented a false dichotomy. There's nothing that says an employer can't still maintain a (smaller)…

Wow, you've completely misread/misunderstood my post. Little point in saying any more.

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

#332

Post by lolinder »

listenallyall wrote: post #168
snozolli wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every element you mention as being part of an in-office experience has been completely absent from my career. Never made a connection that proved valuable later on. Never received any mentorship or even any guidance, I was always simply given a task and expected to complete it. Company culture doesn't even feel like a real thing outside of HR blurbs. Spontaneous collaboration was outweighed by interruptions and meddl…

> Never made a connection that proved valuable later on. Sorry buddy but that's on you. You make valuable connections by being generous and helpful to others. Then at some point down the road when they need to hire someone, they remember, hey 'snozolli' was a great coworker, let me see if they're available.

What about remote work prevents "being generous and helpful to others"? Or, put differently, what about being in an office makes it easier to be generous and helpful?

And before you reply: how sure are you that whatever you come up with applies to everyone and not just to you and people like you? Keep in mind that a lot of people in tech (myself included) are literally digital natives who learned to socialize on the internet before adapting to doing it in person.

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

#333

Post by kelnos »

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #164
arcturus17 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can make a commute a quite pleasant part of your day and create a healthy separation between your work and your life Everyone is picking on the rest of your arguments, and I can sympathize with some of them, but not this one. Never had, nor can I envision, a commute with a healthy separation of work and life or that wasn't orders of magnitude worse than, you know, reclaiming that time for whatever I want.

> nor can I envision Actually I implemented this. When I worked in the office, I used to bike to and from work every day. Every week I tried to choose a (slightly) different route. An it was really, really good for my mental health. For the first 10 minutes or so of the ride I still had some thoughts from work, then gradually they started to disappear, I got intrigued by new shops being opened, some random folks doin…

> Now, when I work remotely, I do the same, I just ride whenever I want instead to the office.

Thank you! I've seen far too many posts where someone is saying "I biked/walked to work and it was great; everyone else should be forced to go to an office so I can keep my nice commute".

How are so many people blind to the idea that, if they are working from home, they can still take a bike ride or go for a walk before and after work? Hell, they might even now have the flexibility to take that ride/walk during lunch, or at other times when they need it.

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

#334

Post by pxue »

Because going remote first is hard.

Because "you", as an established worker in your industry don't need hand holding guidance.

Remote first will never replace the way impromptu mentor sessions happen in person or after hours. I am extremely glad I had the opportunity for this, and I want to replicate it for the juniors just entering work.

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

#335

Post by joxel »

jpeterson wrote: post #102
n8cpdx wrote: post #67

There’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…

"There’s a lot of collaboration and spontaneous connection that happens in hallways and kitchenettes." I've seen this idea repeated many times, but in over 20 years in the tech industry, I've never once seen a meaningful collaboration spring up in a kitchenette or hallway. It's invariably "how was your weekend?" fare. Don't get me wrong, there's value in connecting that way, but it's never the sort of thing that dire…

You must work in a boring ass place. We are always talking about ideas to each other. Though I do research so maybe that’s why.

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

#336

Post by voisin »

A lot of the comments here are binary. Why not advocate for hybrid, 3 days in, 2 days out, or vice versa, giving junior people opportunities for exposure and mentorship and giving everyone time to build culture together, but allowing people time away for deeper work? And then why not invest in your office space so people aren’t treated like animals at a trough and be in actually good locations with walkable amenities?

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

#337

Post by atsuzaki »

kelnos wrote: post #288
atsuzaki wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I scored most (if not all) of my career-defining opportunities from hallway convos after a meeting, or chatting while waiting for coffee to brew, so YMMV.

So we should require that everyone be in an office, so that people like you can get their career-defining opportunities? Maybe many of us would be fine making that trade-off: fewer opportunities for career-defining opportunities in exchange for the elimination of a commute, more-comfortable working arrangements, and a much more flexible work schedule. Not everything in life is about career advancement.

...No?

I think people who wants to work from home should be able to. I'm doing hybrid personally as well now, it's great for keeping my chronic pain under control. And I enjoy coming in couple days a week to a quieter office (as lots are doing hybrid/mixed wfh as well).

Internet has conditioned us to think that people can only have extreme beliefs, and any disagreement means their opinion must be the polar extreme opposite of mine. I can simultaneously appreciate opportunities I've got from socializing with people in a fully-WFO setting while also appreciating benefits of WFH ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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

#338

Post by snozolli »

phphphphp wrote: post #185
snozolli wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What senior or principal engineers? I graduated college with significant, real-world programming skills. I immediately went to work writing software. The only thing my first manager contributed was showing me where to find documentation, and even then, books that I found on my own were far more valuable overall. It was no different the first year from the tenth: here's what we want made, go make it. No mentorship, no…

I don’t mean this as a slight against you because there’s a place in the world for every type of developer, but your description of work and collaboration is very cynical. You could be the most unlucky person in the world and thus you’ve never met anyone worth collaborating with, or, more likely, you’ve not attracted those people in your workplaces. I’ve worked at great companies and awful companies, and no matter wh…

your description of work and collaboration is very cynical.

One man's cynic is another man's realist.

In my opinion, OP's description of office life is idealistic, like a teacher describing the theme of Dead Poets Society or Mr. Holland's Opus.

I’ve been able to build meaningful professional relationships with.

I don't know what you mean when you say meaningful professional relationships, but despite having made many work friends, as stated previously none of them have led to career development (OP's mention of networking).

Even in the most toxic hell-holes, there’s people worth learning collaborating with

I STRONGLY disagree with this universal claim.

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

#339

Post by SpeedilyDamage »

garciasn wrote: post #208
skhameneh wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the environment. If your team is open to casual conversations and comfortable going off topics, then this likely isn't an issue. But, if your team is very metrics focused, you may not see levels of casual conversation that build rapport and build on ideas that come up on conversation. Sometimes a casual conversation is all it needs to hook a random thought into successful action. I like having casual talks…

I’m a Sr. Director. There is nothing but non sense in any claims that say random shout outs as people are breezing between one unnecessary meeting and another are useful. It just doesn’t happen. The only useful conversations are thoughtful, planned, and collaborative. Almost never what happens in a hallway nor in most meetings, frankly. Let’s dispel with any of this outdated thinking. Remote work is here to say and i…

Sorry but what??? “The only useful conversations are thoughtful, planned, and collaborative”???

That’s so wildly untrue and obviously so, I’m blown away that you could declare something so obviously false so confidently.

Where do you work? I’d love to short that company’s stock.

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

#340

Post by kelnos »

paulcole wrote: post #207
arcturus17 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can make a commute a quite pleasant part of your day and create a healthy separation between your work and your life Everyone is picking on the rest of your arguments, and I can sympathize with some of them, but not this one. Never had, nor can I envision, a commute with a healthy separation of work and life or that wasn't orders of magnitude worse than, you know, reclaiming that time for whatever I want.

Get yourself a short bike commute. I did pre-pandemic and it was amazing. I’ve never had a commute longer than 30 minutes by bike in my professional life. I always much preferred living in the smallest cheapest apartment I could find near a place with a lot of jobs. Pandemic royally fucked over that lifestyle.

Or you can, y'know, just go for a bike ride before and after work. Just the starting and ending points will be your home, rather than an office.
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