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

891–900 of 921 posts

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

#891

Post by JohnFen »

Gigachad wrote: post #815
MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The housing issue I will give you. The Covid related ones are not dismantling the places young people meet, that was a public health emergency that will not continue forever. If people are choosing not to meet in person now, that is also not dismantling the places people meet. That is a choice. I know that the isolation of Covid has had a terrible effect on young people's mental health and I do not want to diminish t…

>If people are choosing not to meet in person now, that is also not dismantling the places people meet. That is a choice. We are seeing a whole generation miss out on social connections, reporting mass loneliness and depression. You can't just hand wave that away "they made a choice". If an individual does something, its a choice, if an entire generation does something, its the environment that changed.

I honestly think that what has changed is the dominance of social media.

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

#892

Post by zwayhowder »

nunez wrote: post #839
zwayhowder wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you do but I've solved problems and saved companies millions by overhearing a conversation in the office that would have been a Slack DM remote. At one customer I was able to identify that 3 separate business units were all competing for the same tender, they were all undercutting each other not realising. There were 3 separate private channels in Slack #customer_tender #tender_response_customer and…

I've never worked at a place that disabled DMs in Slack. Is that even possible?

I doubt it. It's the culture of using public channels instead of private DMs that needs to change. The UX of Teams makes channels much higher friction than group messages.

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

#893

Post by JohnFen »

pxue wrote: post #718
TomSwirly wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's by far the easiest way to make friends But I generally have nothing in common with the people I work with. I'm friends with people who share my world outlook, my moral and philosophical and aesthetic views, and there's no correlation between that and working with people. > Friend just means someone you have established a platonic relationship with right here right now. NO, that's not friend, FFS! That's an acq…

OK. i'll give another example. I played WoW for a good 8 years everyday through high school and college, became great friends with some of the people I played the game with. When I finished school, I hung up my WoW character and said good bye to my friends in the game. Although I no longer keep in touch with any of them, those were some of the best 8 years of my life and I am truly fond of the memories I made playing…

> Is that not the same as a work place?

No. In the workplace, you have to accomplish stuff every day of suffer serious consequences. You spend 8 hours a day with your coworkers, sure, but that time is not spent socializing. You're under the gun to produce.

In a game (or other recreational activity), none of that is true. They are inherently social activities. You can get to know each other, you are at play. It's a very, very different thing.

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

#894

Post by JohnFen »

porker wrote: post #564
Gigachad wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I know is that those first few years of my career in office were the best years of my life. I’ve been scrambling around trying everything to fill the gap left by remote work, I go to meetups, I have family and friends, none of it is as significant as working together with people for the majority of your day. I’m going back to the office and I won’t take another job that has most people remote.

> What I know is that those first few years of my career in office In that particular office. Ive had spells of time like that. Mine were at universities working together in labs. Ive worked software jobs in companies and startups where the developers sat in the same room all day and didn't speak. Completely unsociable. I found that much more soul destroying than remote working.

> Mine were at universities working together in labs.

Me too! Research labs were the best. Office workplaces grind my soul to dust.

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

#895

Post by JohnFen »

ravenstine wrote: post #547
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…

> People do make friends at work, and that's a good thing. But it should never be your primary place of making friends. Yeah... good luck with that. Not to say that people don't make friends outside work, but there are many variables involved with that. But just use Meetup.com, right? Sure, if you want to spend a few hours with people of retirement age, not if there's anything wrong with that. Not having friends is j…

> Yeah... good luck with that.

I have had very good luck with that, thank you. That doesn't work for you -- you find friendships in the workplace. That's great, too. Clearly, neither approach is the right one for everybody.

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

#896

Post by JohnFen »

asdadsdad wrote: post #434
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…

This is much more than a one person's problem, but it's a general issue that many older people with well-established lives don't sympathize with unfortunately. As much as others can deny, work is source of most people's friendships, relationships, mentorships, and other social interactions. There's hardly a substitute for that outside.

> As much as others can deny, work is source of most people's friendships, relationships, mentorships, and other social interactions.

And other commenters assert that most people don't get those things at work.

I think it's easy to mistake our own experiences as being similar to "most people". We should probably try to avoid ascribing our own preferences as being the same as the majority's.

Also, in the case of something as personal as friendships, it doesn't actually matter what "most people" do.

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

#897

Post by AussieWog93 »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #821
Gigachad wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If people are choosing not to meet in person now, that is also not dismantling the places people meet. That is a choice. We are seeing a whole generation miss out on social connections, reporting mass loneliness and depression. You can't just hand wave that away "they made a choice". If an individual does something, its a choice, if an entire generation does something, its the environment that changed.

Ok, something has changed then. But it does not appear to me to be the result of dismantling the places where people could meet in person. I'm not trying to handwave it away. Maybe the internet and social media is encouraging people to forge remote connections rather than physical ones?

I agree with you that it's not a deliberate dismantling, but (as much as it pains me to say this) Gigachad's right that there's at least a decay of sorts.

Call it network effects working in reverse, or a change in incentives, but there really are less serendipitous encounters in young peoples' lives.

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

#898

Post by roland35 »

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…

Maybe try switching to another field in engineering - software development is certainly the most remote friendly discipline. Mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, civil engineering, there are lots of great on-site careers and they are a much better use of your existing skills

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

#899

Post by throwawayloco »

avsteele wrote: post #211

I'm an employer, but my opinion would be the same regardless. The script is something like this: Person1: Arg! This thing! Person2: What ya working on? Person1: is giving me trouble. Person1 then figures it out while trying to explain it, or Person2 has a helpful idea. Happens multiple times a week. If you were working at home you wouldn't even know you were missing out on this interaction. Also, WFH is also just too…

[dead]
Post reply on HN