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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?

#781

Post by dang »

thinking4real wrote: post #309
treis wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're supposed to be actively participating in refinement. Reading the story being talked about, looking up documentation, checking on potential solutions, and other things of that nature. You can't do that with raw chicken on your hands or while walking to the fridge to get veggies. The fact that this has to be explained to people is why there's a push to return to the office.

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

#782

Post by deafpolygon »

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…

As a rule, I don't make "close" friends with people I work with. Falling out with people is a real thing, and getting judged for things that are in my private life (whatever they may be) is not something I want to deal with 40+ hours a week.

With normal friends, I can at least avoid them. Co-workers? Not so much.

I'm nice, I'll socialize, but I won't share or divulge any detail of my private life.

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

#783

Post by jjav »

thrwawy74 wrote: post #770
lolinder wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Like you, I appreciated his comment. It was honest, and I have been there. We are in the shaking-out phase of this change. The bigger problem is management isn't across-the-board good at determining productivity in-person or remote. Good managers are rare, and staring over someone's shoulder to make sure the work is getting done correctly is harder in remote work. The systems to provide this checking and oversight ar…

> I've been at the other end of the spectrum where I don't get work done in the office.

Open offices are what destroyed the experience of going to work.

When I had a private office (the first 17 years of my career) I loved going to the office. I had all the silence and privacy to get work done, but at the same time I could step out of the office 2-3 times a day and hang out with the team, chitchat about work, projects, life, hobbies and have a real human connection. When it was time to get back to work, could go back into the private office.

But open herd rooms these days broke everything. No concentration, no privacy, no in-the-zone ever, just forcefully being distracted all day. So now I just hate all these people around me making noise all day. Thankfully the pandemic put an end to that so I can concentrate on work away from the office. But I miss the human connection we had then everyone had private offices.

I'd go back to an office enthusiastically 5 days a week if I had a private office. But if you force me into an open office, I will never again want to go in person.

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

#784

Post by deafpolygon »

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 the exact opposite way - I want a remote job but I can't find one. I'd be happiest in an office of my own making with the hours of my own choosing, and I'm very good at creating boundaries between work and life at home. I loath having to sit in a cube, with people that might stop by and break my flow of concentration with small talk (What even is small talk? How's the weather? How about them dodgers? What?)

But I don't know anyone who would hire me to do remote work. Nor how to find one reliably. I'm getting depressed at the thought that I might have to go work in a physical box again.

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

#785

Post by djtango »

mustini wrote: post #586
scrollaway wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s often repeated because a lot of people make friends this way. My board game buddies are my closest real life friends, and I met them exactly like this. However people do need to accept that not everyone makes friends the same way.

Maybe the more interesting question is what does it take for this to work? I’m just going anecdotal here from college friends that have dispersed across the US. Warm intros, so to speak, help. If you join a running group attended by a friend of a friend it seems to stick better than joining when you know absolutely no one. Public transit helps. It’s hard to be consistent when going to the activity requires slogging t…

Shared experiences are key. If you've ever been on a tour with randos you'll know. You will form friendships with all kinds of people you never would have expected to back home.

I've made some very good friends since leaving university. The simplest thing to do is to start with something YOU enjoy. Food, sports, music, pottery, knitting, boardgames even coding (gasp but that's our work).

If you have a passion and you want to be there, and so do the other people - the odds are in your favour that you'll get along.

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

#786

Post by itstooreal »

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…

Thanks for your very honest comment. At my office we’re hybrid and people oscillate between the home and in-office for the same reasons as you - sometimes it’s just nice to hang out with people, even if you’re working.

I would hope you wouldn’t have to abandon your career and maybe a little job hopping is in order. I don’t think the world will go full remote, even if that’s personally the way I enjoy it.

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

#787

Post by Cub3 »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #746
Cub3 wrote: post #450

I've worked remote for several years as both a senior engineer and team leader, these are the problems with remote work I haven't yet found good solutions for: 1. I don't know how my employees are doing; many times in my career I've had to tell programmers to "go for a walk" or "time to go home" when they get stuck on a frustrating task or fall in to a flow state far past leaving time. Solutions I've found to this pu…

For 1 why not let them take off extra time the next day? No point interrupting a good flow state!

Honestly it depends on the person, I have used this method with some people but with others I've seen them get so hyper focused they've gotten in at 0900, haven't eaten all day, I've gone to the gym and come back at 1830 to get things before going home and they haven't moved. Which is just a recipe for a fast burnout.

Also sometimes people need a sequence break to realise it's home time

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

#788

Post by 9530jh9054ven »

chii wrote: post #763
9530jh9054ven wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what happens when you have no interests, no hobbies, no cause? And for those that do, but lack the time or financial resources to persue them? What then?

if you lack financial resources, that's the problem to tackle. Making friends and having leisure activities will be secondary until your financials become stable and good. Once you have the financial resources, _then_ you tackle the problem of no interest/hobbies/causes issue - which, i say is relatively easy to tackle as long as you have money; try different things until something sticks!

Slight miscommunication here. I'm talking about someone that genuinely has absolutely no interests whatsoever. Even after trying skiing, bowling, hiking, just about every time sport, reading, music in all forms, performance arts, painting, board games, table top games, video games, travel, etc. And everything is dull, boring, uninteresting, and unejoyable.

That's the kind of person I'm talking about

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

#789

Post by phil21 »

onethought wrote: post #751
bsuvc wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over 20 years of seeing this attempted by large companies and I have have never seen it work out well for them. I'm not saying there aren't some talented developers working for cheap, but most of the time you get what you pay for.

Yes, so if you pay in the top 90% in a country you get top 90% of the talent. The problem with “off shoring” is that’s how it is treated. Remote work, where people become part of your team and work with everyone else is quite different and avoids the failure cases you have likely seen. It’s hardly controversial to say that a huge chunk of Silicon Valley talent is from migrants. So clearly the training overseas is up…

> Remote work, where people become part of your team and work with everyone else is quite different and avoids the failure cases you have likely seen.

Thank you. I believe this is the point everyone is missing.

And this is new. Giant companies never did this sort of thing really. It was always the low effort outsourcing approaches I was seeing in these markets.

Today I'm now competing with IBM and the ilk in these markets for direct employees. The tides are shifting extremely rapidly and I don't think many in the US even understand what has happened underneath them in the past few years.

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

#790

Post by Cub3 »

tyroh wrote: post #778
Cub3 wrote: post #450

I've worked remote for several years as both a senior engineer and team leader, these are the problems with remote work I haven't yet found good solutions for: 1. I don't know how my employees are doing; many times in my career I've had to tell programmers to "go for a walk" or "time to go home" when they get stuck on a frustrating task or fall in to a flow state far past leaving time. Solutions I've found to this pu…

For #1, 1:1 will help a lot but it will take time as you need to build the relationship enough for them to open up to you. But I agree with #3. The problem is getting the seniors to RTO just for this express reason. Though having an always-on call for that day would help with adhoc questions from juniors.

> build the relationship enough for them to open up to you

Completely agree, it's also about building that open and honest culture to enable having that kind of conversation with the entire team. But even with this it still doesn't catch many day-to-day frustrations or things you may pick up on that the person wouldn't offer up regardless.

> having an always-on call

The problem with this is you put the onus on the Junior to ask the question, which is hard for someone who's still learning (especially with imposter syndrome being so rife). Also this doesn't allow for the Senior to spontaneously create learning opportunities relevant to whatever they're currently doing, the barrier cuts down a lot of it.

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