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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?

#721

Post by capitanazo77 »

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…

Office friends aren’t necessarily great friends. Great people is found while doing great things

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

#722

Post by juve1996 »

Gigachad wrote: post #394
krippe wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Feels like a major overreaction.

> I doubt many friends were made in the chat box of an online class.

Many people became friends online. We have apps, for meeting people, online, and THEN dating them.

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

#723

Post by juve1996 »

i_r7al wrote: post #679
krippe wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not the same 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?

It's not. Work from homers aren't forcing office people to do anything. On the other hand, office people want other office people back.

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

#724

Post by edmundsauto »

lolinder wrote: post #573
dsugarman wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put yourself in the executives shoes for a second, they're not stupid people, they know how large the risk of blowback is and how many employees they might disenfranchise or lose. They're that confident that remote work is a bigger threat to their long-term performance and they don't want to get lapped by the companies with an in-office culture

This argument is an appeal to authority that I just can't buy. You don't have to be a stupid person to succumb to your own biases, you just have to be human, and plenty of executives make irrational decisions based on their subjective feelings.

As do the people being asked to commute. It’s the same base rate.

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

#725

Post by juve1996 »

MrScruff wrote: post #496
jpeterson wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Completely disagree. I probably have 3 or 4 of these spontaneous conversations that wouldn’t otherwise happen a day when I’m in the office. It might start with ‘what are you working on’ and branch off from there, it’s not just small talk.

Or it could be another negative coworker that wastes your time to complain, gossip, or talk about other employees, or criticize other people.

It will be impossible to quantify these "water cooler chats." For as much work gets done, just as much probably doesn't.

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

#726

Post by tsbischof »

I want people to be around each other enough that they are comfortable interacting. Some of my most painful experiences in management come from having to mediate a low-level dispute between people who work together but never interact on anything other than work. They are quite often on the same page but have different ways of expressing themselves that can cause friction. This often happens as part of having a highly interdisciplinary and international team. It is incredible how much a few shared lunches or coffee breaks can relax people and help them cohere.

I see in-person work as one of the only opportunities for scheduled casual interaction. Mandatory fun time is not a real solution, but the fact that exists often speaks to the perception that casual interaction is an essential part of building a team.

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

#727

Post by TechnicolorByte »

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…

Just wanted to say I relate completely. Moved a year before pandemic to a completely new place straight out of school and struggled making friends. COVID ruined what little social circle I had started to form.

If you (or anyone else reading this) are in the SF Bay Area in a similar situation and are looking for potential friends, hit me up at my profile email

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

#728

Post by SecurityMinded »

They want you in the office because

a) they are thinking that you are slacking off when you are working remotely. This might be true or not.

b) they are unable to quantify your work and decide if you are successful or not, which is an indication of unfit management. By forcing you to go the office, they can justify their own existence, claiming they are managing "their" people.

In my 25+ years working at US companies, I encounter the latter case with managers, who came straight out of the army, doing noting but but barking orders at their subordinates all day long. They were under the impression that corporate America was managed the same way. I personally put a couple of them in their places, in those days.

CEO of the company I worked for, straight out of college, one day, gathered up all 120 or so of us, new hires straight from the school and and gave a speech. One thing he said still sits with me: Good managers want to work with people who are smarter than themselves. Others want to work with mediocre or worse people, because they do not want their decisions to be questioned by their subordinates.

The people who want you back in the office are not good managers. They are "the others"

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

#729

Post by tsbischof »

antisthenes wrote: post #595
nprateem wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it helps people bond and so work better as a team. Plus probably not all your colleagues are complete introverts and may actually enjoy the company of others.

In my experience the only thing helping people work better as a team is just working better as a team. Be patient, kind, and spend an extra minute writing a more detailed email that is helpful to your colleagues. If you're a manager, give them the right tools and empower them. But this is completely orthogonal to whether the work is in an office or remote.

Part of the in-person experience is the opportunity for people to correct mistakes in communication. Many people are not effective writers, and so pushing for async or writing-heavy communication is difficult at best. Having one-on-ones by voice or video often helps cut down misunderstandings, and in-person is a way to help reduce the barrier to entry for such interactions.

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

#730

Post by thebigfilter »

0xB31B1B wrote: post #704
thebigfilter wrote: post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a very effective playbook, but it’s taking the easy path. More interesting and challenging is building a high perf company that has a better relationship with it’s labor. A cutthroat model will always work, but I think humans are intelligent enough to build high performing groups that succeed while taking care of others. Even the mafia took care of family, in their own perverse way (If you off Tony for talking t…

This is exactly wrong. The people you want to take care of are the top 25% of your team. When you let someone go, it’s often because someone in the top 25% is complaining that they do not trust the low performer and the low performer increases the workload of the high performer. When you have a team of high performers, new high performing candidates recognize that and see that as a huge plus for recruitment. No great…

Never suggested that you can’t lay people off! Often times it’s not a good fit and it’s best for both to part ways. The goal is doing this with respect and treating them well upon exit, and more generally to my original point, creating a workplace that improves the human condition.

You might laugh, but for some being a builder of a place that treats people well while also being financially successful is important. In any event, it’s a interesting challenge that it seems few care to undertake.

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