Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office • Hacker News Board

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#401

Post by ghaff » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 3:58 PM UTC

lmkg wrote: post #369

rqtwteye wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" I'd rather take a 50% paycut than go back to the office." People should stop saying this. Otherwise it will soon be the standard to take a serious paycut for WFH. .

Your employer should actually pay you more to WFH. Aside from saving them rent on the office space, you should be able to expense several office-supply things that they would have provided previously. Office chair and desk, internet bill (pro-rated by usage), maybe printer ink.

Which aside from office space if you feel you need to rent/buy a bigger place in an expensive area are utterly trivial for any decent white collar job and are almost certainly counterbalanced by commuting costs for the vast bulk of people who can't just walk/cycle to their jobs.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#402

Post by PartiallyTyped » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 3:59 PM UTC

makingstuffs wrote: post #66

People 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…

Re colab: I am in a team that is split across 4 cities, 2 countries, and an ocean. It literally makes no sense to demand that we are in the office.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#403

Post by bfeynman » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 3:59 PM UTC

steveBK123 wrote: post #198

pc86 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the boiled frog is a perfect analogy. I grew up always assuming there would be a long commute. I couldn't afford to move out of my parents house for almost a year out of school in my first job (2008 making less than $30k/yr) so I spent 7 or 8 months driving an hour each way. I'm too young to remember but my dad spent the first few years of my life and several before that commuting 2 hours one way. Spending at…

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…

the brevity with which you describe the life trajectory for millions if not tens of millions of people is ... sigh.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#404

Post by marcosdumay » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 3:59 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #155

steveBK123 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open floorplans are especially problematic if your team handles any mix of development & operational tasks. Wall Street tech it's pretty typical to do your own SRE/L3 and honestly even L2/L1. Everything from business user "hey how do I.." customer service questions down to "the server is on fire, alerts are coming in .. ". Open floorplans mean even if you have an agreed PagerDuty type rotation, everyone gets sucked i…

Is that a bad thing? Since we started WFH, I’ve heard a lot of stories of oncalls spending an hour on things that could have been handled in 5 seconds if the right person had gotten sucked in on the way back from coffee. “Oh, I recognize this bug from two years ago, here’s what you gotta do.” “That customer’s symptoms are impossible, ask for more details on how they’re doing suchandsuch because they must be leaving s…

Personally, my experience is the exact opposite.

It's very easy to say "hey, can you share your screen" on a remote conversation. While in person that will require moving at minimum 2 people (often more) into a compressed setting with bad visibility at some random place of the building.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#405

Post by duxup » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 4:00 PM UTC

Everyone just does their thing and it sorts itself out.

The debate about all this is endless and companies are going to do what they feel they need to do and so will everyone else. Right now employment is pretty fluid and that's good.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#406

Post by cafard » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 4:00 PM UTC

I was inside the old Post building on 15th St. NW twice: once for an interview for a job that I didn't really remember applying for; once to buy copies of the election-night edition in 2008. But I think I recall still pictures from "All the President's Men" showing a newsroom that everybody at desks in a big open space.

Actually, I'd rather the Post reporters not sit in the same room all day--better that they should be out talking to persons who are not their co-workers most of the time.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#407

Post by PartiallyTyped » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

AlInGaP_Diode wrote: post #237

makingstuffs wrote: post #66

People 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…

> Then you have the whole “oh, but, learning” as if it is simply impossible to part with knowledge via any medium other than a coworker’s breath hitting another’s eardrum. I find it a lot more effective to msg technical questions instead of talking as I can reread a dense statement to help internalize and can also reference it later. WFH is great for learning

Pair programming is also easier.

Today I pair programmed with a junior engineer across the country, he was in his own 21x9 setup, with his colour scheme, and I was on my laptop at the office with my light theme. It was perfect.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#408

Post by ibejoeb » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #341

ibejoeb wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in an airport a few weeks ago and saw a new array of soundproof "phone" booths fitted with laptop stands and high-output lighting, and it occurred to me that I should have started a business building and selling those over the past 3 years. Anyway, I'm thinking more about city dwellers who generally live in apartments.

> Anyway, I'm thinking more about city dwellers who generally live in apartments. That’s a lifestyle that makes significantly less sense for remote workers in the long run though.

I'm with you. But a lot of people still want to live in the city and not go to the office. So, I'm suggesting that, for that cohort, dedicated private offices might be compelling. It means that you probably have a short commute; you can reclaim space in your home that might have been used for work; still live in city and have access to the social offerings there; and that you retain your privacy, and potentially have even more if the case that you're co-habitating.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#409

Post by barbazoo » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

It's not about what the office looks or feels like or what the amenities are for me but about a lifestyle. Once I got a taste of this lifestyle I decided that, for the kind of work I'm doing right now, ordinary software development, I will never go back to the office unless absolutely necessary (recession, war, etc). I'd be happy to go work from my employer's building where the job requires it, where I need equipment I can't reasonably expect to have at home (factory) or where I have to work where the customers are (service), things like that.

The kind of software job I'm in though, it's absolutely possible with the right policies and technology to have the same kind of productivity as in the office, it's up to the employer to fix whatever they think is missing.

Re: Want employees to return to the office? Then give each one an office

#410

Post by ghaff » Wed, Aug 09, 2023, 4:02 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #339

hangonhn wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who like WFH will never want to return to the office unless perhaps the office is a 5 minute walk from home At my current job, there's something ironic about that. The people who never come back to the office despite being allowed to are also the people who live the closest to the office. (We have a big office that allows people to come back but is totally optional. Hotel desks for the entire office basicall…

A lot of people at my workplace use the office as a second "base" where they can settle for the day and is close to a lot of things. Since I live close to it, I never even though about doing this. And of course, the people that live the furthest away get the most value out of it. So, yeah, it's probably a very strong correlation, and not only for negative reasons.

If I could walk to an office I'd probably do it now and then. But at a 30 minute drive (to an office where I wouldn't know anyone at this point) I'm not going to bother.