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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?

#671

Post by mettamage »

calsy wrote: post #632
mettamage wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digital nomad here. I like being one. For me making friends, the best places are: Tinder (it took a lot of effort) and just giving compliments to people on the street (it took some effort to learn). Regarding complimenting people on the street and potentially turning it into a conversation, it takes some practice. 10 years ago when I did some solo traveling (before uni even) for the first time, I had the choice to st…

What bizarro world is this?

I'd prefer more thought and more empathy (note: not sympathy) in your statement. I'm presenting a different way to look at things.

From the HN guidelines [1]:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.

Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#673

Post by AussieWog93 »

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'm self-employed in eCommerce but what you said was 100% true. Best thing for my mental health over the past year was getting a dedicated office space and a couple of staff members. Just no longer feel alone when doing my job.

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

#674

Post by iknowstuff »

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…

The problem, of course, being the city's discretionary approvals

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

#675

Post by guitarbill »

dgoodell wrote: post #655

I work as an engineer at NASA in Cleveland, Ohio. We went from 100% in person work to completely remote work for a year and half due to the pandemic, and now the work environment is mainly in-person but remote work is much more common. I often work in a lab with physical hardware which obviously requires me to be present. Additionally, we don't produce anything per se, we do tech development. I'm not cranking out wid…

Certainly regions which have been neglecting internet infrastructure directly or indirectly will be at a disadvantage, including economically. This is hardly news. The pandemic also made it more obvious to many people that fiber build-out is a must, since latency and upload also matter for remote conferencing, not just download speeds.

As for adversaries or natural disasters, internet rarely works without electricity. In the small scale, my guess would be internet barely increases the weak spot that is already present via electricity. In the large scale, it doesn't matter if someone is in the office or an hour away.

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

#676

Post by AussieWog93 »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #574
Gigachad wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are dismantling every place people form new friendships and then wonder why young people are becoming more lonely.

No, we're really not. People still live together, people still go to school together, people still have interests out of work, people still go to bars and clubs. The office may have been a good place to make friends for some young people, but certainly not all. I was quite lonely in my early twenties. I had moved away from home and university and all the people I knew. It's quite normal. And nobody worked remotely.

>People still live together

More and more people are staying with their parents because they can't afford to move out.

>people still go to school together

More and more people are doing online/remote learning. During the pandemic, all learning went remote and it ruined childrens' social skills.

>people still have interests out of work

Less and less of these out-of-work interests involve regular, face-to-face social interaction and community building.

>people still go to bars and clubs

People are definitely going to pubs less - this is an issue that has been in the media for a decade and a half. When people do go to pubs, clubs and bars they're less likely to talk to people they don't know. People are certainly less likely to chat up a member of the opposite sex at a bar in 2023 compared to even 2013.

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

#677

Post by Volundr »

jltsiren wrote: post #668
Volundr wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no default. There never was. This is exactly the idea I am saying we need to combat. Building lasting relationships takes time and reciprocated effort. The people who want to WFH aren't going to become "friend candidates" because they are forced into the office. The are either already "friend candidates" prepared to reciprocate advances, or they aren't interested. Remote isn't the barrier here. Physical prox…

Defaults matter, because people take the easy default choice most of the time. If people don't meet other people by default, they will have fewer casual acquaintances and they are less likely to meet the ones who will become good friends. Then there will be fewer friends overall. > Once someone realizes this and learns to put effort into their social connections, they are far less likely to end up isolated than just…

> People on the average don't do that.

This is part of the idea I'm contesting. Remember, "65" has an office they can go to, their problem is no one else wants to. Unless you are asserting that you are a better judge of what is good for 65's co-workers then they themselves are, presumably "on average" they have found sufficient social interaction to satisfy themselves outside of the office. And if you are asserting that you know better than them and they should be forced into the office for their own good, I soundly reject that notion.

Just "going with the default" of spending time with co-workers and is exactly how people end up isolated late in life or after losing their jobs. People who are struggling with isolation now should introspect on why they are struggling to make friends and address that instead of attempting to force others into being around them. That's not how friends treat friends.

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

#678

Post by temprose »

ipaddr wrote: post #536
kccqzy wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are confusing between friends at work and the employer itself. Layoffs are irrelevant: your friends (including those at work) will support you if you are laid off, unlike your employer. Also, once you make a friend at work you can meet outside the workplace, or communicate with non-work communication channels.

But you won't because the reason why you spent time together was someone paid you to. How many people are you still hanging out with the company you worked 10 or 5 years ago? Very few if any..

Depends on the person. I still text a guy that I worked with 5 years ago and we still play games together online from time to time. I don't keep in touch with my old boomer manager though because we don't have any mutual interests.

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

#679

Post by i_r7al »

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...

same to your argument, why is it my problem that you live far away from work, that you need to hassle and lose hours of your day commuting? live right next to work. It's not our problem that it's a hassle to you. Same if you have kids .. etc. It's not our problem. It's comfortable for YOU to work remotely but it's more comfortable to ME to work from office. Comfort here is always subjective to the choice you prefer.

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

#680

Post by shepherdjerred »

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...

You might be underestimating the impact this has.

I don't know you; maybe you don't desire interaction as much, or maybe you just didn't take the time to really digest what the parent said.

For many people, it is really hard to be new in a city. Some people have _no idea_ how to make friends out of college. With remote work this becomes so much harder.

This doesn't necessarily mean that _you_ should be forced to go to the office as a solution. I'm just saying that this can be a really big problem, especially if your team is full of people in a new city.

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