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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

#71

Post by tayo42 »

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.

I don't understand why audio quality is so bad on every device.

Phone calls are hit or miss whether it'll be clear or not. This happens alot with places like call centers, the whole point of its existence is to be on the phone communicating with voice and the quality is to the point where it's hard to understand.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#73

Post by ledauphin »

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…

critique: (almost) no one wants to work 30 days a month. ;)

more seriously: I assume you plan to pay for hotel rooms?

also: why 2 hours max? If you're paying for one night in a hotel, then surely you could pay for 2 nights, making 3 or more hours feasible.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#74

Post by hedora »

We’re hiring for an extremely specialized position, remote-only.

I can confirm that big tech companies are operating like wile-e-coyote after he has run off the cliff, but hasn’t looked down yet.

Some are even de-resourcing non-HQ offices (full of impossible to replace specialists, especially if you limit the search to the HQ city).

So, some teams were forced to return to office, but will never receive additional headcount or backfills.

Rest assured I’m keeping track of which companies are doing this (I live in an HQ city), and won’t consider interviewing at them in the future.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#75

Post by mc32 »

x86x87 wrote: post #4
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…

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

Some or many people are just as productive working from home, but also many are not and are more productive in an office environment.

There need to be better more reliable ways of measuring this and affording those who are able to be productive while remote the option. Those who aren’t as productive WFH don’t get the choice.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#76

Post by scottLobster »

TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #11

There are so many “habits” left over from industrial work. On an assembly line everyone needed to be in sync but this generally isn’t true for most office work. You need to be present at the factory to do the work, hasn’t been true for office work for awhile now. Yet we still operate synchronously. Everyone commutes through traffic/crowded public transport and risk catching the latest novel virus, to arrive at work a…

Walking over and talking to someone is still far superior to any online communication. So unless you have a job that requires minimal communication on a day-to-day basis, an office is superior for productivity.

Perhaps if everyone working from home were constantly available to screen-share/video chat it wouldn't be as bad, but my experience with WFH is people get distracted by kids/pets/etc and half the time I wait hours for a response required for me to continue my work. At one point during the pandemic I had 6 cascading tasks going in parallel based solely on needing something to do while I twiddled my thumbs waiting for the required SME to come online (we charge by the hour, so I can't just be idle and charge it). In the office I just walk over to their desk. This is from the perspective of an engineer by the way, I'm not management.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#77

Post by yawgmoth »

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?

Not OP, but it's lonely and it never ends. I live in a college town with a short commute and a neat downtown - a place I wanted to be.

But it's Michigan and salaries here are really low. Hard to work for a local company.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#79

Post by diogenes4 »

grumblingdev wrote: post #31
TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #11

There are so many “habits” left over from industrial work. On an assembly line everyone needed to be in sync but this generally isn’t true for most office work. You need to be present at the factory to do the work, hasn’t been true for office work for awhile now. Yet we still operate synchronously. Everyone commutes through traffic/crowded public transport and risk catching the latest novel virus, to arrive at work a…

> an assembly line Now imagine working on an assembly line on your feet all day versus your office day job. The people on the assembly line would look at you like the most spoilt people in the world. I personally hated going into the office, but the morale effect is real. I think the main thing is people cannot be trusted to honestly tell you if they work better from the office. It's a nicer life working from home bu…

> The people on the assembly line would look at you like the most spoilt people in the world.

I'm guessing the most spoiled people in the world wouldn't be working at all. This sort of contempt is a very specific and odd attitude to have.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#80

Post by r053bud »

andersa wrote: post #24
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.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to work in an office. The issue is trying to force everyone to work in an office.

But then these office lovers have no one fun to talk to!
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