141–150 of 913 posts
This is a classic HN post that will get a lot of positive attention here playing into the HN cognitive bias zeitgeist, but I think is mostly bullshit. The market will settle it in the end, but at least for startups being colocated is a competitive advantage.
It’s so easy especially for coders (and I imagine other knowledge workers) to get into flame wars debating things when you’re only typing things out. Video calls help a little but not everyone wants to turn on their cameras and it’s easy to eventually get used to seeing people as mere tiles in a screen. People tend to be more careful when there’s a real human in front of them.
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.
Remote "work" is fine (with pros and cons). The problem is lots of people don't "work" remotely. Also, inevitably remote/async work flips the priority such that employee would be much more responsive to interrupts/errands of their own life than to focus their full attention on the employer's concerns.
That’s how I know it’s BS on both sides. No one has ever admitted they exploit it - but we all know it happens.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
But then we added more and more computers to the whole thing, and it got worse.
Usual story, really.
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…
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Also some workers stagger their schedules and share rent on an apartment that is a “crash pad”, so they can live farther from the metro and then just commute for the two day office visit in one trip.
Pretty interesting seeing how people adapt to this.
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…
As a result, everyone peacefully self-selected into their preferred employment relationships. Companies got the type of workforce they wanted and workers chose the type of environment they wanted. It was great.
Today, as some companies are changing their remote work policies to be return-to-office, there seems to be a lot of resentment about this, and I don't really understand why. We should just return to the status quo before COVID: choose the type of company you want to work for that supports the lifestyle you want to have. If your employer wants to transition back to in-office work and you don't want to do it, switch to one of the thousands of companies that will hire you.
You have no obligation to stay at a company that is forcing you back in the office, and the company has no obligation to keep an employee working in a remote context that the company doesn't favor anymore.
I think that many people struggle at home (group A) while others don't (group B). RTO helps those who struggle at home (group A). And is a major inconvenience to those who excelled at home (group B) but it doesn't significantly degrade them. Thus RTO improves group A performance while not affecting group B performance so it looks like a win overall and in a sense it is. But it is penalizing group B, making their live…