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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?

#391

Post by SpeedilyDamage »

Johnny555 wrote: post #372
SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you know? The very nature of that communication is that it’s private. Maybe nobody talks to you in person, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

How would you know? The very nature of that communication is that it’s private. How would I know that these conversations happen over Slack? Because I've participated in them, either in DM's or small private channels. And this was commonplace well before the pandemic and WFH started. Maybe nobody talks to you in person, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. It's hard to have a private in-person conversation outsid…

It’s really not hard to have private convos in an open office setup, I did it for years and years. Nobody cares about you or what you’re saying.

I would find it highly suspicious if someone tried to have a backroom convo with me on a digital platform.

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

#392

Post by Johnny555 »

DangerousPie wrote: post #371
Johnny555 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am a lot more open in honest in person than I am on Slack, because I know everything I say on Slack is logged and can bite me in the ass years down the line.

We have a very strict Slack retention policy, both DM's and messages in user created private channels self destruct in 7 days with no possibility of retrieval. Public channels and designated private channels can have a longer lifetime. And they really are gone, a VP tried to retrieve some 2 week old messages and was unable to.

So the only fear is someone in IT snooping your private channel during the week that the messages are alive -- probably less than the chance of the person you're talking about standing around the corner.

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

#393

Post by alluro2 »

downrightmike wrote: post #221
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…

You need to get a life and actual friends. Coworkers are NOT friends.

I spend 8-10 hours with them every work day. More than with anyone else - my partner, kids or "actual friends". I've known them for years - I know how their kids are doing, how they feel on a wide variety of topics, we joke, discuss, brainstorm, even fight. We've solved so many challenges together, I've helped them move, and they helped me fix my garage. We have breakfast and lunch together. We go to each other's birthday parties. We've celebrated childbirths and consoled after deaths of loved ones. Our goals in work, and often in life, are shared.

Why on Earth would I not want any of that, and spend all that time out of my life with people who are not also my friends? What a sad way to look at life.

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

#394

Post by Gigachad »

krippe wrote: post #383
65 wrote: post #342

I'm in my 20s. I live alone in a city where I don't know anyone. Remote work destroyed my mental health. All I wanted was to be able to go into an office and talk to a real life person. I would go weeks at a time not talking to a single person in real life. I don't think people understand the plight of the young office worker until they've experienced the torture of solitary confinement. Day in, day out. All alone. I…

So I'm supposed to deal with the hassle of commuting, losing hours of my day, because YOU are starved for human connections? Get out of here...

Gen Z and A are going to have serious problems. Work and School are biggest sources of friends. The two things they missed out on. I doubt many friends were made in the chat box of an online class.

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

#395

Post by astura »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #15
cloudwalking wrote: post #4

People need social connections with their peers to work together successfully. It's much easier to build these connections in the office than virtually. Seeing each other a couple times per quarter for an extended period could also work, but it's easier--if you already have an office space--to bring people together in the office once or twice a week.

Why not just get rid of the office space and use the money saved to get people together twice per quarter for an extended period? I bet in almost every case it would be a significant cost savings for the employer. Unless, of course, there is some other reasoning than what you state in your comment, like for example, middle management feeling irrelevant or sunk cost fallacy on office space?

Most people don't want to be on travel every six weeks. You'd have to pay me a LOT for me to agree to that.

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

#397

Post by Gigachad »

cal85 wrote: post #388
Volundr wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you and doubt nothing about your plight, but frankly that feels like a you problem. I can sympathize while also rejecting the idea that I should have to come into the office so your not lonely. Have you considered a co-working space? It seems like that could get you what your looking for. Beyond that I'd look to get creative around finding ways to get social outside work. A martial arts or social dance class f…

> frankly that feels like a you problem It's also a me problem, so there's at least two of us.

I’ve asked around my friend and coworkers group all 20s and everyone feels this way. Remote work is terrible for young people.

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

#398

Post by onethought »

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…

I agree with this. The natural conclusion of “I want to work remote” is the equalisation of global wages. This is great for developing countries with highly skilled English speaking people and terrible for entitled software developers earning 2-10x their remote counterparts.

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

#399

Post by nostromo »

Gigachad wrote: post #386
nostromo wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working in person isn't the issue here -- not having friends is the issue. People do make friends at work, and that's a good thing. But it should never be your primary place of making friends. (Friends and family won't lay you off like a job might. Having a network outside of work is critical if that ever happens.) Asking your coworkers to come into the office just so you can get some needed face time with other peop…

I’ve got friends but you can’t fill 100% of your social interactions with meeting friends. Unless you have a very large number of them, you won’t be able to see them daily, and even if you do, you end up consuming all of your free time with socialising and having no personal time left. Remote work left me choosing between fulfilling social interaction or personal time after work, either option leaving me unsatisfied.…

Sure, friends are part of it -- family is the other part of it.

If you don't have either -- filling that void by spending all day in an office sounds even more depressing. I'd focus more on making friends and finding a committed relationship.

There are lots of solutions here outside of working in-person: Find roommates. Start playing sports. Date more. Find an in-person hobby. Volunteer.

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

#400

Post by arcturus17 »

alexfoo wrote: post #277
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.

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…

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

I work remotely, but I walk to an office. I also like to have a separation of work and home.

Also I'm very physically active, I do crossfit 4x a week right next to my house.

I find it easier to commit by not being tied to any other location other than my home.

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