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

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

#411

Post by FirmwareBurner »

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.

>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.

Let's not get carried away. Back then you were paying for your own transportation costs and your commute time. Which is more valuable? Commuting to work every day to enjoy free office supplies and coffee, or WFH but paying for your own chair and desk?

I'd take the latter any day of the week as the chair & desk is a one time cost anyway and lasts 10+ years.

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

#412

Post by cowmix »

steveBK123 wrote: post #69
mytailorisrich wrote: post #30

People 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…

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 wife works for a big university and when the first "return to the office" pitch was happening, the head of HR for the whole org was on a Zoom and basically said, "If you are not back at work, you should be already. I love coming into campus and mingling with the students..." etc, etc. RIGHT at the moment, you could hear FedEX ringing his doorbell at his home. Insane.

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

#413

Post by jefftk »

rqtwteye wrote: post #295
Roark66 wrote: post #244

Earlier 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. 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'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. .

"you'd have to double my pay to get me to commute everyday?"

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

#414

Post by skissane »

FredPret wrote: post #318
flandish wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This example is a stark reminder that the complaints are most often not about details but about class . The CEO was upset others were allowed to perform as if they were of the same class. It’s always class when one boils it down, imho.

Not everything is a class dynamic. “Analyst at GS hanging out in the Hamptons” doesn’t scream working class. The CEO and analyst are both upper class, just different levels of power and seniority. That CEO is just a power-tripping asshole.

> The CEO and analyst are both upper class

Class can be more fine-grained than just lower/working-middle-upper

People commonly talk about “upper middle class” vs “lower middle class”, and then I suppose there are even some people in between the two (middle middle class?)

Well, in the same way there is surely lower upper class and upper upper class, and maybe even more levels than that. A person on an annual salary of US$25 million is undeniably upper class but still far beneath the centibillionaire class.

There’s also no clear boundary between upper middle and lower upper. You may think someone on US$250K is “upper class” but they probably only think of themselves as “upper middle class”, and personally I would think the same. In my own head, to really be upper class, your annual income has to be (consistently) measured in millions, not hundreds of thousands.

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

#415

Post by FormerBandmate »

FredPret wrote: post #318
flandish wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This example is a stark reminder that the complaints are most often not about details but about class . The CEO was upset others were allowed to perform as if they were of the same class. It’s always class when one boils it down, imho.

Not everything is a class dynamic. “Analyst at GS hanging out in the Hamptons” doesn’t scream working class. The CEO and analyst are both upper class, just different levels of power and seniority. That CEO is just a power-tripping asshole.

The different levels of power and seniority is a class within a class. Different levels of money, power, and prestige (which seniority is a proxy for here) is all class is really

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

#416

Post by ibejoeb »

lampshades wrote: post #378
CoastalCoder wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My home isn't huge, just a raised ranch. But I was able to build a soundproofed office in a corner of my basement and it's worked like a charm.

How were you able to soundproof it? I have an office (upstairs) that I would love to soundproof so that I don't have to wear my headphones all day.

Apparently bath towels can perform even better than bespoke acoustic paneling. I haven't tried it, but there are tons of tutorials. Here someone testing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eKwb58vvFI

This is the original one I saw when I considering doing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pABvTWSxOes

One more DIY with fabric and rock wool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPEouyiEt3Q

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

#417

Post by FredPret »

flandish wrote: post #370
FredPret wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything is a class dynamic. “Analyst at GS hanging out in the Hamptons” doesn’t scream working class. The CEO and analyst are both upper class, just different levels of power and seniority. That CEO is just a power-tripping asshole.

Class is in no way related to salary.

I didn't mention salary. I mentioned other indicators; being an analyst for GS (probably went to an Ivy League school) who hangs out in the same restaurant as the CEO in the Hamptons

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

#418

Post by captainbland »

philwelch wrote: post #314
captainbland wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest I think with hybrid, open offices make a lot of sense. Realistically you want to be able to hot desk because that's where the cost savings are made in a hybrid situation. You sort of fractional-reserve your office space. Of course it works only so long as nobody calls an in-person all hands. The in-office days are social collaboration days so it doesn't make sense to keep people in separate boxes for the…

> To be honest I think with hybrid, open offices make a lot of sense. Realistically you want to be able to hot desk because that's where the cost savings are made in a hybrid situation. This doesn’t sound like a stable equilibrium to me; more like a transition to full remote that you do when you’re waiting for your lease to run out. Not even having your own permanent desk sounds like utter hell.

I seriously doubt anyone's going to maintain hybrid working and give everyone permanent desks in any situation, though.

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

#419

Post by steveBK123 »

bko wrote: post #374
steveBK123 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite story on this thread is that during the hybrid period, GS CEO threw a fit when out in the Hamptons because some analyst (fairly junior role almost at the bottom) had the balls to go introduce themselves during a workday lunch at a restaurant. He couldn't articulate a specific, valid complaint like "I was out at a client lunch and they were goofing off" or "I was on a vacation day while they were supposed…

Why are you pretending this analyst is the same or even should have the same affordances as the CEO? You might be shocked to find out the CEO even gets paid more! Most people come up through the ranks and you can bet the CEO was one time an analyst with a demanding boss. After decades of work he made it to boss. You see this everywhere where you move up the ranks and things get better. That's the apprentice deal for…

Hey who let David Sacks enter our chat ^

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

#420

Post by gochi »

FredPret wrote: post #318
flandish wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This example is a stark reminder that the complaints are most often not about details but about class . The CEO was upset others were allowed to perform as if they were of the same class. It’s always class when one boils it down, imho.

Not everything is a class dynamic. “Analyst at GS hanging out in the Hamptons” doesn’t scream working class. The CEO and analyst are both upper class, just different levels of power and seniority. That CEO is just a power-tripping asshole.

Have you heard of phrases like "old money" and "new money"? Or "upper middle" and "lower upper"?

The reason they're used more is because there is a very clear distinction between groups even at high levels of wealth due to the need to socially signal. This is what causes CEOs to flip out that an analyst is trying to casually talk to them at a non-work event as if they are equals.

This is class dynamics in action, it's not all about the working class vs upper class, but how these different classes interact internally and externally.

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