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The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

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Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#71

Post by weego »

brentm wrote: post #32

Bad take. There are plenty of dumb reasons people are wanted back at the office but the most predominant one is probably that it just "feels like" it will make your company better. I'd think people would be happy that at least some remote work will never go away at this point. To argue that you should never ever even have to consider going back into an office for any amount of time is just silly. But to also argue yo…

It is a bad take.

Most managers were people doing stuff who got promoted into 'managing' stuff with no obvious output or direct value. It's not really surprising that a chain of these people would knee-jerk react weirdly in a situation they felt exposed as not being that useful / have their limited people a management skills tested in a situation they themselves likely didn't experience.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#72

Post by oblio »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #55
sundaeofshock wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions.

>Unions. From my recent experience, unions can't help you keep remote work they way they work here today. I work(ed) at a unionized German company and when management call everyone back to the office after the Covid vaccination was done, it wasn't protested by the unions and everyone sowed up at the office without protest, and remote work was kept as "in case of emergency" perk you can get every now and then if you g…

Is it only a perk if it basically improves family life, social life, mental health for many, reduces expenses but it also reduces pollution, combats climate change, relieves pressure on infrastructure, etc?

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#73

Post by camdenreslink »

TrackerFF wrote: post #5

Re-zoning commercial buildings to residential use should be a realistic option, no?

My understanding is converting huge office buildings into apartments/condos isn't cost effective or even possible a lot of the time. So they could re-zone, but possibly need to demolish/rebuild.

Maybe this will spur innovation in building for buildings that can easily be converted between the two.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#74

Post by SubiculumCode »

brentm wrote: post #32

Bad take. There are plenty of dumb reasons people are wanted back at the office but the most predominant one is probably that it just "feels like" it will make your company better. I'd think people would be happy that at least some remote work will never go away at this point. To argue that you should never ever even have to consider going back into an office for any amount of time is just silly. But to also argue yo…

our lab just got dinged by an employee who was trying to hold got another full time job on the down low....something that would have been caught if the work was in person.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#75

Post by jaynate »

brentm wrote: post #32

Bad take. There are plenty of dumb reasons people are wanted back at the office but the most predominant one is probably that it just "feels like" it will make your company better. I'd think people would be happy that at least some remote work will never go away at this point. To argue that you should never ever even have to consider going back into an office for any amount of time is just silly. But to also argue yo…

Agree. Occam’s razor: The explanation that requires the fewest assumptions is usually correct.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#76

Post by kolbe »

skwirl wrote: post #24

How are "the elite" forcing companies that do not own real estate and who rent their office space to mandate RTO? How are they forcing these companies to renew their leases when they expire?

This question should have made the author delete this essay, and is why it has no business being promoted on a supposedly legitimate aggregator like hacker news.

The author is either a straight up liar working to subvert what little is left of American capitalism. Or they're a conspiracy theory whacko who doesn't know the slightest thing about "the elite," or any of the people/factions that comprise it.

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#77

Post by gautamdivgi »

skwirl wrote: post #24

How are "the elite" forcing companies that do not own real estate and who rent their office space to mandate RTO? How are they forcing these companies to renew their leases when they expire?

It’s basically the government “strongly nudging” companies to start their RTO. I don’t think every company suddenly discovered they were unproductive

Re: The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#80

Post by FirmwareBurner »

oblio wrote: post #72
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unions. From my recent experience, unions can't help you keep remote work they way they work here today. I work(ed) at a unionized German company and when management call everyone back to the office after the Covid vaccination was done, it wasn't protested by the unions and everyone sowed up at the office without protest, and remote work was kept as "in case of emergency" perk you can get every now and then if you g…

Is it only a perk if it basically improves family life, social life, mental health for many, reduces expenses but it also reduces pollution, combats climate change, relieves pressure on infrastructure, etc?

It is, but German companies and management don't see it that way. Decisions are made top-down without consulting with what the workers actually want because the priority is the company's profits.

Plus, the wellbeing of workers in Germany is already considered (at least on paper) to be top notch that mandating remote work for everyone is not considered necessary as "German workers already have it so good".

And with German labor loosing competitiveness, unions are relatively toothless when demanding remote work as there's no government mandate to offer that like it is with working hours, parental leave, etc. and the companies often threaten with relocation/off-shoring when they get demands they don't like so the German government is in no rush to pressure them for new social perks.

So it's up to you to search for a company that's fully WFH, not wait for your union to solve it for you. Unions can work only when they have teeth.

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