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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

#81

Post by jonathankoren »

CPLX wrote: post #15

This article makes no sense. I mean I'm all for a little elite run the world consipiracy theory but really, I'm supposed to think that a diffuse group of corporate leaders are upending companies so they can spend more on real estate going forward, for class solidarity reasons? The reason people running companies want to end or curtail remote work is because it's very fucking challenging to run a group of people remot…

The challenging part is over. Everyone has had literally years of experience doing exactly that. We adapted. If you couldn’t adapt as a manager, you’re obsolete. Find a different job, because you now suck at the one you have. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way world works.

Is corporate real estate price the primary driving force? Perhaps not, but it’s certainly a driving force. There’s no shortage of articles and opinion pieces expressly lamenting the state of corporate real estate and businesses that catered to 9-5 office worker.

I’d say the main thing that’s driving RTO is ego. THE FAANGs built multibillion dollar vanity offices right before the pandemic. It’s a personal insult to these CEOs that the monuments to their greatness are empty. This plays out at a smaller scale down the ladder. Many people want to see their “human resources” as an ego trip.

I heard of one tech exec say about RTO, it’s just easier to collaborate when you can grab someone after a meeting for a quick chat. “What am I supposed to do on a video call? Get on another video call?”

Yeah dude. That’s literally what everyone did if you couldn’t just wait for everyone to hang up on the current one.

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

#82

Post by CamperBob2 »

ponderings wrote: post #22
8b16380d wrote: post #2

What recourse do we as workers have? We can soft boycott and quit/stop applying to onsite positions, but there are hundreds of thousands willing and able to take these positions.

compete with them

No, no, I have it on good authority that the optimal strategy is to gang up on the employer and force them to meet the workers' demands.

This will somehow make the employer more competitive, rather than less, and will not in any way incentivize outsourcing and automation at the cost of the domestic jobs in question.

I read it on HN, so it must be true.

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

#83

Post by nologic01 »

EliRivers wrote: post #21
jpollock wrote: post #7

If your job can be done remote, it can be done offshore for 1/10 the cost.

So why isn't it? Genuine question. A enormous number of jobs can be done remote. Certainly mine (I've been full remote for over three years - one day during Covid the boss just told everyone to go home and we literally never went back to the physical office, which no longer exists). I can see entire companies, maybe entire industries, where vast amounts of the work can be done remotely. So why aren't all these compan…

There are massive barriers evenif we assume that the work can be done 100% remotely, which in many cases is not true. Barriers include things like linguistic/cultural, legal/regulatory (domicile, contracts), financial (paying in a different currency).

But for sure the pandemic has shown that there is also a lot of inertia.

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

#84

Post by _8j50 »

I am ok with the general sentiment here.

But the author thinks making 200k, taking selfies, paid internships and a bunch of other normal stuff for some reason is things only rich people do?

Reads very us vs them classist bullshit. The people that own enough office real estate to care make 8+ figures a year not six. WFH was a thing in certain jobs long before the pandemic and even today a lot of jobs can't be done from home.

I feel like the author doesn't get why the bullshit at office jobs exist. It's almost as if they were very used to hourly low paying jobs (same here) and recently started doing salaried office jobs. When you are paid salary (like the $200k bosses mentioned), you don't get paid by the hour, you don't even get paid for working the hours you have to be in the office, you get paid for results. You show up in the office to be available and visible for "bullshit" your manager or coworkers need in addition to results on assigned tasks. Furthermore, no one, doing any job at all in the world gets paid for the value of their work or their hard work, everyone (including salaried people) get paid for the perceived cost and difficulty of replacing them and to keep them happy enough to not look for other jobs. That's why unions are effective, because they change the variable and now replacing everyone us what the company is facing instead of individuals.

The reality for me is, I get to deal with less in-person bullshit but also I get to be more productive when doing WFH, but the again you have slack/teams/zoom bullshit and interruptions. Whereas before you could at least look busy, now you have to do enough things that show result where bosses won't think you are a slacker.

The main reason you have to look busy in the office is not because managers don't know you are not actually being busy, it is because others who see you slacking will think you never do anything and they stop being productive. But when you are a manager or even working in very small teams, nobody cares about slacking off so long as you are showing results.

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

#85

Post by kubb »

lagniappe wrote: post #44
kubb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds about right, my manager enjoys tennis, frequent coffee breaks, one or two light meetings, and he activates with out of touch "ideas" in the last hour of the day. It's ridiculous.

I thought this type of stuff only existed in movies. Just curious, can you elaborate at all? I'm wondering if I'm just blind to this stuff assuming everyone else is nose-to-the-grindstone all day too.

He got hired into a successful team with capable developers, all his "ideas" were failures or detrimental, he presented the outcome as success to the upper mgmt and they believed him. No soft skills, no technical skills, just presenting the overachievements of his reports as success and easy life for years. And lots of coffee.

He frequently completely bombards initiatives from within the team with bad faith arguments only to present them as his personal achievements a couple of months later.

When it comes to the areas where the manager is supposed to be useful, like cross team communication, all the work is done by the devs.

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

#86

Post by lowbloodsugar »

praptak wrote: post #60
ikekkdcjkfke wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no proof but i would think share holder power?

Google has full control by Brin and Page and still has RTO. This theory doesn't hold water.

You don’t think those two would have diversified into real estate?

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

#87

Post by bperki8 »

adamnemecek wrote: post #37
bperki8 wrote: post #29

The "elites"? That's a funny term for people who own commercial real estate.

I think it goes beyond that. Your average pointy haired boss loves asses in seats.

Not sure how your comment makes it any less strange to call these people "elite".

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

#88

Post by [deleted] »

user8501 wrote: post #48
lagniappe wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought this type of stuff only existed in movies. Just curious, can you elaborate at all? I'm wondering if I'm just blind to this stuff assuming everyone else is nose-to-the-grindstone all day too.

Yeah my manager is the busiest human being in North America.

[deleted]

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

#89

Post by ghaff »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #65

the real war against remote work is coming from middle management who can no longer hide under the 'I keep them in line' mantra. Corps have become bloated by too little competition (e.g. from mergers) or collusion, toxic departmental politics, etc. We could lose half of middle management and pay the lowest tier more AND be more producive and profitable in many corps.

My experience feels a lot like middle management has had to work harder to connect and coordinate people with remote because a lot of the sort of organic in-person connections that happened among people at a company isn't happening to the same degree any longer.

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

#90

Post by wredue »

kristjansson wrote: post #58

This seems needlessly class-war-monegring. People slack off at home, people slack off in the office. Everyone’s situation is not your situation. Everyone’s work does not look like your work. Some people like/want/need office space to work, some people don’t. Some people find themselves in different camps on different days. In any case, companies driving RTO are acting in their own perceived best interests, not their…

The elites are actively engaging in class war with you. I don’t understand why so many people are so quick to be little foot soldiers for the people that despise their existence.
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