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The damaging results of mandated return to office

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Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m hard core work from home but that actually sounds awesome now that we have a toddler.

Hey man you do the crime you gotta do the time hehehe

Don't want to be bothered by coworkers then work from home.

Don't want to be bothered by a baby then go back to the office.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#242

Once you’ve tasted the fruits of WFH and you like the taste, you’ll never go back. It’s like going from a black and white TV to a color one, from a dummy phone to a smartphone, from dialup internet to fiber to the home. You never go the other way round, unless there is a very strong reason and personal decision. People like to improve their lives in whatever way is best for them and will strongly object to a “downgra…

> Once you’ve tasted the fruits of WFH and you like the taste, you’ll never go back.

Let me guess, you are in a low cost of living area (at least relative to your income) and have a big house?

I live in NYC. Residential floor space is very expensive here. My wife and I on two tech salaries can afford a fairly large place by the standards of our area, but it's definitely not large enough for 2 adults to comfortably work from home with a toddler also running around.

For us, the optimal solution is hybrid with a schedule where on any given day one of us is wfh and one in the office.

When both of us were forced to work from home full time, we managed, but it was suboptimal and a drag on productivity. The "fruits of WFH" turned out somewhat bitter.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#243

Once you’ve tasted the fruits of WFH and you like the taste, you’ll never go back. It’s like going from a black and white TV to a color one, from a dummy phone to a smartphone, from dialup internet to fiber to the home. You never go the other way round, unless there is a very strong reason and personal decision. People like to improve their lives in whatever way is best for them and will strongly object to a “downgra…

We will most likely see that jobs that cannot be done by working from home will see an increase in salary and WFH jobs will see a decrease. I'm thinking about jobs like nurses, electricians, factory workers, teachers etc.

Depends on the region. The big advantage of WFH is the global job market. I live pretty rural in Germany and salaries are quite a bit lower than in the city. And they are far lower than remote US-jobs. So I easily eclipse all my friends and neighbors with my salary, it's pretty much impossible for them to catch up. They would need to straight-up double or triple their salary, which is unlikely when salary has been pretty stagnant the past decades.

I can see WFH jobs decreasing your salary if you lived in a big city with high wages before, but for anyone else the advantages of global competition pay a massive premium right now. Maybe that changes at some point, but looking at the massive shortage of software experts my country is facing right now, this point is still decades away.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#244
I think the reason companies insist on return to office is that many employees took advantage of remote work to start a second job on the side. Some people even do more than 2 jobs at once. Getting people back to the office, full time, or at least 1-2 days a week, is going to force employees to choose one job and stick with it.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#245

I think the reason companies insist on return to office is that many employees took advantage of remote work to start a second job on the side. Some people even do more than 2 jobs at once. Getting people back to the office, full time, or at least 1-2 days a week, is going to force employees to choose one job and stick with it.

Sounds like a really wild assertion. If I were to guess, the number of employees doing this would be well under 1%. If you have evidence to the contrary, please share it.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once worked some place where my manager loved to tell this allegedly true story (happened before my tour) as a hilarious joke to onboard new devs on how to fill the timesheet: There was this IC who was working on cross departmental stuff. Things like pipelines, UI component libraries, build tools, etc. He would frequently go on walks to think, either during the work day and return to the office or to go back home a…

> employers still think that butt not in seat = not working This is a huge red flag for companies. Currently I can just go for a 15-30 minute walk with my dog if I get stuck and still count it as work time. If I'm at the office I can go grab some snacks and go sit on the break area sofas and watch some crap on my phone - still working. It's actually been scientifically proven that a change of environment brings more…

>It's actually been scientifically proven that a change of environment brings more creativity and makes problem-solving easier.

If you need a citation for this, "Learning How to Learn" and its sequel "Mindshift", MOOCs created by an engineering professor and a neuroscientist. The former is the most popular MOOC in the world.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#247

Once you’ve tasted the fruits of WFH and you like the taste, you’ll never go back. It’s like going from a black and white TV to a color one, from a dummy phone to a smartphone, from dialup internet to fiber to the home. You never go the other way round, unless there is a very strong reason and personal decision. People like to improve their lives in whatever way is best for them and will strongly object to a “downgra…

> and you like the taste Orthogonal to the productivity argument, have there been any studies trying to find the motivation for people preferring/hating WFH? My guess is you tend to prefer it if you have a social circle that's not your co workers and hate it if you don't.

Well... what would be interesting isn't how people justify WFH to themselves but some provable correlations.

I could list my reasons too but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be it for real. We're good at making up reasons for ourselves.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#248

The mandated return to office is a bailout of commercial real estate financing. Paid for via reduced quality of life of the contracting masses and higher environmental impact.

It's also the tax breaks https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-02-21/another-t...

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#249
post #57

Companies who mandate return to the office should pay employees for the additional commute time at their hourly rate. If this becomes too expensive then productivity gains from being in the office are apparently not worth it.

Logistically, how does this work? Do employees need to install trackers on their phones to catalog hours? Not saying it wouldn’t be ideal to have that segment of the day paid for, but I’m just trying to get my head around how the tightwad money folk deal with such a nebulous target.

Leave home at the start time, such as 9am. The rest is the outside world and not up to you. Maybe one day traffic will be bad or trains will be late or whatever the commute variability is. That's the employer's risk to incur by forcing office attendance. Leave at the most reasonable time you are likely to arrive home by finish time, such as 5pm.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#250
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I’m one who likes the office. Not every day. But frequently. And I think I could build a culture with in-office time that would out-compete a remote-only competitor, domestic only or offshore hybrid.

What part of this culture would make it more competitive than any remote-only equivalent? And how would you build it?

> What part of this culture would make it more competitive than any remote-only equivalent?

Hiring, the same way RO outfits can access unique talent, and information transfer, particularly to newer team members. Also, in industries where over-documentation is an unnecessary liability.

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