Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 921 posts

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

#501

Post by nprateem »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #488
pxue wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C'mon that's just bullshit. Once working, you spend 8h a day with a group of people. It's by far the easiest way to make friends since the needed repetition of making contact (a minimum requirement for friendship) is already solved by going to work together. Making friends as an adult is hard. Work is the easiest shortcut in establishing meaningful relationships with strangers. Edit: addressing some of the comments b…

> Making friends as an adult is hard. Pick a social hobby. Pick up sports, hiking / running / reading / trivia / sports groups. Take a class. Take up a cause - volunteer your time at the local farm, shelter, political office.. Kids don't go to school with the goal of making friends. The friends are a byproduct.

Yes a byproduct of consistently spending time with the same people.

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

#502

Post by thenoblesunfish »

I wonder if there is a bias towards WFH on HN because the type of person most likely to like WFH is also the kind to post a lot on internet message threads. I think most people feel most productive spending at least some time in the office with other people, face to face. Further, I assume many people are like me and feel like some pressure to actually go to the office is good, or I'd too often make the short term easier decision to WFH.

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

#503

Post by monksy »

lolinder wrote: post #486
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…

I think you're the most honest pro-office person here. Everyone else is making justifications that dance around this idea that they need the office for the human connection. What you describe is very real and I understand that it hurts. I think what's happening is that we're in the shaking out phase where companies are deciding whether they'll be remote/hybrid/office. Each company will make that decision based on the…

I agree with your statement about him being the most honest person here. The most I can give him credit for is that you're already out and it keeps you from going back to your house.

Everytime I read that "humans are social creatures" it's a dog whistle for "i want to see people miserable and pressured to do it"

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

#504

Post by nicpottier »

arcturus17 wrote: post #138
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…

> 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.

Live in a city, get a bike, take a job you can bike to.

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

#505

Post by wetpaws »

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…

This should be a problem of your therapist, not your coworkers.

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

#506

Post by wnolens »

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…

Are you me? Jesus I took a regular job in January 2020 because I was over being a contract developer working at home. No luck now..

I agree fully with you. I'm in my 30s though everything else the same. I would definitely feel oppositely if I had a partner and kids (like my brother) but I don't.

People saying it's a "you" problem are missing the big picture. For a lot of people, the workplace is a primary context in their life.

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

#507

Post by l33t233372 »

JohnFen wrote: post #141
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.

> It's much easier to build these connections in the office than virtually. This isn't self-evident to me at all.

It isn’t self evident that humans communicate better in person than from behind cameras and screens?

Do you know how much time people spend on other tabs while in zoom meetings?

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

#508

Post by sircastor »

pxue wrote: post #381
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…

C'mon that's just bullshit. Once working, you spend 8h a day with a group of people. It's by far the easiest way to make friends since the needed repetition of making contact (a minimum requirement for friendship) is already solved by going to work together. Making friends as an adult is hard. Work is the easiest shortcut in establishing meaningful relationships with strangers. Edit: addressing some of the comments b…

We tend to make friends early in life at school or church, but those friendships are because there's a very wide pool of individuals in a single location. Literally everyone in a geographic area who is your age. That inherently tends to include people of similar economic status and cultural background. You have this huge group of people and can pick your preferred subset from them.

Walking into a job, literally the only thing you have in common with these people is an employer. While time spent together is an important component of building relationships, it lacks the other substantially important pieces of relationships: Common interests, similar backgrounds, similar worldviews, etc. (Though it doesn't mean they're inherently absent)

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

#509

Post by joxel »

giantg2 wrote: post #467
joxel wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re not just a code monkey than those chats are great for coming up with new ideas and fleshing them out over time. But hey you can also just be a code monkey that completes projects assigned to them. To each their own I guess.

Yes, and people can be assholes if they want. Maybe what you describe works at some places or for specific people. Many companies will ignore your ideas. Your title is code monkey and that's all you do - shut up and listen to us important people. Some managers are very threatened by their subordinates, or are unimaginative. The business side generally wants what they want. God forbid you suggest some new approach.

Makes sense. I'd just be trying to get out of a job like that, and don't see how that's desirable at all. You seem to think its the better way though.

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

#510

Post by lairv »

virtual_void wrote: post #470
lairv wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least three you can count me in as well It's funny how people (in this thread and in general when the topic comes) find infuriating the idea of making friends or just socialize at work, when most friendships starts because some people happen to spend 8h/day at the same school/university

I don’t see people finding the fact infuriating. People are upset because they feel like people are asking them to come in to the office because someone else wants to socialise. Enforced socialisation doesn’t seem reasonable any more than denying that some people like to socialise at work. Two sets of people, two different needs.

I don't agree with the first sentence but it's just the feeling I have when reading some posts

I agree with the rest though, now that people had a taste of WFH, you can't force them to come to office just for the sake of socialization. My point was to acknowledge the issue that some people used to see work as a place to socialize just like high-school or university, and this way of socializing has been suddenly taken away from them with WFH, and there is nothing weird in that

Post reply on HN