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Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

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Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#61

Post by morsecodist »

ramraj07 wrote: post #34

If I start a company tomorrow, this is what I would want to do: 1. Hire within a general metropolitan area (2 hour commute max). 2. WFH for 28 days a month. 3. 2 days a month the entire org convenes in a ballroom or something and works together, have some progress reports, happy hours and hackathons. In this model, everyone’s remote most of the time. Yet everyone gets FaceTime with each other IrL. Seed ideas and brai…

To me this gives you the disadvantages of remote work without the key advantage: ability to hire from a bigger pool.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#62

Post by busterarm »

deemster wrote: post #32
mattlondon wrote: post #10

Its only bullshit if you want to work remote. I want to be in the office. Working remote is the most stressful thing I've ever done.

If you're willing to share, why was working remote the most stressful thing you've ever done?

Usually it's either living with people who don't respect that you're at work even though you're at home or a company culture that doesn't know how to engage with remote workers.

Usually both.

A lot of people forget the importance of having a door to their home office, preferably one you can lock.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#63

Post by freedomben »

dinkblam wrote: post #33
grumblingdev wrote: post #20

Video conf still sucks. It's literally the same as 10 years ago. Does anyone have a workplace where it is really seamless, high resolution, and just works? Or is using any of these new technologies? Maybe VR will help... But not being in-person for collaboration/morale is miles apart. I wonder if employees would personally cover the cost of a one week meetup once per month if their other option was move city and offi…

> Video conf still sucks Audio calls also still suck. Commercials in the 90s advertised "crystal clear audio quality" - they stopped talking about it but it never materialised.

They did get crystal clear on landline. Then we moved to cell phones where quality is still abysmal and the phone app barely works... It's aggravating to me

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#64

Post by convolvatron »

rwmj wrote: post #36

> definitely don’t accept any relocation assistance (since you’ll have to return it when you split) Is this true? I've never heard of conditional assistance like this.

its not uncommon to put a time bound on it - like 6mo or a year. never heard of it being indefinite

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#65

Post by jacobr1 »

throwaway290 wrote: post #13
Two9A wrote: post #3

This is one aspect of the RTO discussion that's sometimes missed: there are plenty of people in the tech sphere (myself included) who've been comfortably remote for much longer than those who were pushed into remote work by lockdowns and pandemic response. We're not about to give up a whole lifestyle we've built over (in some cases) decades, on the whim of whichever executive we happen to be serving under at the pres…

Been remote for 15 years, recently started full time job, love going to office. No strict work hours but I come anyway, nice to chat with colleagues (and much more productive than those tedious calls or text chats). Also I was already making myself leave home at least daily for physical activity, so if I'm out why not travel to the office? There's a nice coffeeshop near there. Also the chair is comfy enough, desk is…

I've enjoyed both environments. Having an in-person, highly engaged, collaborative environment is fantastic. Having a remote first, well-considered remote team is great.

But having a mostly in-person, and some-people remote setup, where the remote folks are left out of the hallway conversations sucks. Having an "in-person" setup, where your team is distributed between building locations and remote sites, and you can't ever schedule conferences rooms and you are working in a cube-farms/open-office sucks.

The key is finding a way to be engaged with your colleagues remote or local, and figuring out how to scale that.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#66

Post by lukefreiler »

mysterydip wrote: post #28
mattlondon wrote: post #10

Its only bullshit if you want to work remote. I want to be in the office. Working remote is the most stressful thing I've ever done.

What makes it stressful? I haven't seen this take before so I'm really curious about this perspective.

I can't speak for myself (I mostly enjoy remote), but I've had team members who had 3 kids of varying ages, on a single income, and simply didn't have the space/opportunity to focus.

They were VERY stressed out, and while they voiced a strong preference to work in an office (no longer an option for us), they ultimately choose to move out of our state (Cali) for much more affordable space to solve the problem.

From my experience remote vs. office is a very individual preference based on tons of factors many of us simply don't need to consider.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#67

Post by lizardking »

ericfrazier wrote: post #8
x86x87 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not only about before pandemic remote workers. Once people enjoyed the flexibility they aren't going back.

And why should they?

Unfortunately many people are being strong armed into it. People coming out of lay offs are finding less wfh opportunities than existed just a year ago, as a percentage of the available jobs.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#68

Post by freedomben »

virtuous_sloth wrote: post #56
ramraj07 wrote: post #34

If I start a company tomorrow, this is what I would want to do: 1. Hire within a general metropolitan area (2 hour commute max). 2. WFH for 28 days a month. 3. 2 days a month the entire org convenes in a ballroom or something and works together, have some progress reports, happy hours and hackathons. In this model, everyone’s remote most of the time. Yet everyone gets FaceTime with each other IrL. Seed ideas and brai…

You'd require people to work 30 days per month?

Even in February

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#69

Post by ballenf »

thrtythreeforty wrote: post #35
dsm4ck wrote: post #23

I am beginning to think, somewhat uncomfortably, that due to industry consolidation most big corps don't have to worry about having great talent anymore. They are squeezing more money out of an established business model in a market that no longer has real customer choice, as long as they have good enough people to keep things going it's not a problem.

That's fine, they will eventually have their lunch eaten by companies that can execute with all the talent they refuse to hire. It takes time, but the wheel turns.

These wheels often take a generation or more to fully rotate. And I have no idea whether any collective or group action can materially accelerate the timeline.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#70

Post by j-a-a-p »

tock wrote: post #17
mattlondon wrote: post #10

Its only bullshit if you want to work remote. I want to be in the office. Working remote is the most stressful thing I've ever done.

It's BS because its unilaterally telling everyone to come back to office without data supporting the move.

Was the remote working 'movement' then based on data? Or was it covid?
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