Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, also the typical career cycle in HCOL areas is you are 22 and live in a dumpy apartment with roommates but close to work. You maybe couple up with someone by 30 and get a nicer place a bit further, but still within a 20-40min transit commute. Finally you maybe decide to start a family by 40, and move out to somewhere 40-60min commute, if not further. Each step is just a small increment worse. But when you go fro…
In what way is transit worse in NYC and DC? Are trains and buses running on a sparser schedule today in these two cities than they were before COVID?
Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
281–290 of 838 posts
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#282People who like WFH will never want to return to the office unless perhaps the office is a 5 minute walk from home (they may be forced to, but they won't want to). For many people the time and cost savings of avoiding a daily commute cannot be offset by a nicer office. Those who are happy to return to the office in general are those who do not like WFH and prefer more contacts and a change of scenery. A nicer office…
Basically this.
If companies want people back in the office when they could WFH instead, they're going to have to compensate them, time and costs, for the commute.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
See if I lived five minutes walk from work, I’d want to be in the office even less. Why sit there between meetings if I am five minutes from my home? Why bag a lunch when my kitchen is down the block? I’d probably show face at the obligate meetings then just go home for the day if I could.
I'd do it because I think it's better to have separate work / life areas; right now my WFH spot is also my PC gaming spot and the bedroom and the place where laundry dries, and I wouldn't mind more distance between work, leisure and private life. That said, five minutes means one could come home for lunch. But anyway, five minute walk to work is highly unlikely; a lot of people (most? citation needed?) have a commute…
>I'd do it because I think it's better to have separate work / life areas; right now my WFH spot is also my PC gaming spot and the bedroom and the place where laundry dries, and I wouldn't mind more distance between work, leisure and private life.
Long time ago I used to rent a room in a shared house 5 min walk from work. My housemates were all cool people, but working on a laptop sitting next to the bed I slept in every night would e far worse for me than just going to the office. But this was decades ago. I can understand why someone in such position would prefer an office.
But if you can have a house, and you're mid/senior in your role there is nothing better than wfh.
Also I've recently noticed a disturbing trend. Companies advertising 100% remote work, then you go through the whole recruitment process and at the very end they tell you. BTW, it's not 100% wfh. You gotta come to the office 1 day per month (sometimes even 1 per week). Anyone looking for real wfh job should be aware of such tricks to nip them in the bud early on.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
My vaguely populist take is that the pandemic, WFH/remote and hybrid gave the mass white collar class a taste of what the C-suite has had for years.. flexibility. Sure, these guys might go into the office but they do so from their pied-a-terre / 3rd home / whatever within a 5 minute chauffeured drive. They do this while maintaining a nearby suburban/exurban estate and maybe a lake/beach/ski houses where they spend th…
>My vaguely populist take is that the pandemic, WFH/remote and hybrid gave the mass white collar class a taste of what the C-suite has had for years.. flexibility. Exactly. I've been working 100% from home since 2017 (3 years before covid). I'd rather take a 50% paycut than go back to the office. Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy my life when I lived 15 min walk /5 min on a bike, from my job in a city. Before I got tha…
I know I could get paid ~10-20% more somewhere else, but I stay where I am. I still make good money, I like my job and the people well enough, it's fully remote, and the quality of life of being able to take care of my 5yo son after/before school, and being present to see my expecting baby as he grows up in between meetings, instead of through messaging and photo share, is IMHO well worth the pay cut.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh boy, I'm excited for the massive wealth creation of this exponential growth to trickle down to workers.
No need to wait, the future is now. I've already seen huge gains in income and work-life balance by spending time automating my workflow. I hope that by "trickle down to the workers" you aren't talking about technically illiterate workers who are not actively contributing to the automation effort. Unfortunately, they will receive some benefits as well, which is completely undeserved.
> I've already seen huge gains in income and work-life balance by spending time automating my workflow.
Sure, most of us have used copilot or other AI tools and seen some benefit. But there's a point of no return where suddenly those tools are able to do the other things we think only we can.
What happens then?
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#286I don’t mind if people can see me working, but it makes me crazy to feel like people can look at my screen.
Not that there is anything scandalous on my screen. It is just that my screen feels very intimate, private. I rarely share more than a window at a time when on calls.
I just don’t want people to be able to read my screen. I can’t explain why, and I know no one is even interested in it. I don’t want people looking at it anyway.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#287Joel Spolesky has made this very point many times in the past: "Private offices with doors that close were absolutely required and not open to negotiation." I work on a Data Sci team that moved to an open floor plan in 2018. What happened? Anyone who needed to work intensively on a project would work from home instead of in the office.
I believe this concept came from the PeopleWare book by Demarco/Lister.
Its common sense that for work requiring deep periods of concentration, eliminating distractions is key. Easiest way to eliminate distractions in an office environment is being in a room behind a closed door. Cheapest way to do that these days is WFH, assuming people have that space where they live.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#288People need to stop trying to make things return to the original office model. Employees have realised we are equally as effective working from home and simply do not want to waste 2+ UNPAID hours of every day travelling to a corporate building for the sake of it. Nor do people want to spend £10+ a day on food and drinks which they have in their fridge, at home. Then there is also the social pressure of having to go…
I suspect the lines are typically drawn between introverts and extroverts, so it's unfair to generalize here.
I work remote and we don't have an office near me, but I'd love to go back. My job is where I spend the majority of my life. I like to get to know the people I work with by socializing over lunch, after work social events, etc. It's how I meet people.
Collaborating remotely also sucks. You miss out on a lot of non-verbal communication vs in person.
It's fine if it's not your jam and all of the above sounds like hell to you - it just means I don't want to work with you.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
The idea that employers need to give you everything you want is strange. They give you the least they can possibly get away with. Sure - some small subset of employers competing for the best employees will do this. But the average employer? I'm skeptical.
> The idea that employers need to give you everything you want is strange. The working class, low class, and middle class are all tax cattle. We have to take ostensibly dangerous commutes on highways with people too tired/too rushed/too busy to care. We have to eat inside of a certain timeframe, respond chipper no matter the circumstances, and when they're done with us they just let us go in a "right-sizing". We are…
> This was simply the cattle waking up and realizing that they are the ones with the actual power. Any power a CEO claims to have is simply voodoo. The issue is employees still don't see this. Even without a union having enough people just walk out because the company doesnt respect them will crush the company. Rightly so.
This. While unionisation and labor organisation in general are a good thing for the workers, just people deciding they have had enough and finding a better employer (and maybe pulling out a couple of colleagues via referrals) is going to hurt companies.
Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office
#290Lots of people in this thread complain about offices. I have worked for many years as a financial "desk quant". Often I find things to work on chatting with investment staff or overhearing what they are talking about. They will be comfortable asking me a question if they have spent time with me in person. Employees working together can build bonds. Having catered breakfasts and lunches a few times a week is pleasant, as is a monthly happy hour.
I know offices can be noisy and distracting. So can a home when you have children (and dirty dishes in the sink, unopened mail, etc.) Sometimes I look forward to having more time to code uninterrupted on Friday, when fewer people are in the office and there are no meetings.
Consider that if you can do your job fully remote, so can an engineer in a country where the pay is 1/10 that of the U.S.