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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

#151

Post by dheera »

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…

Another aspect of the RTO discussion that's missed: People in long-distance relationships.

I don't mind going to the office a fair share of the time but I don't want rules that require N days per week because that prevents me from visiting my partner. I generally work from my partner's place about 1-2 out of every 8 weeks. Going to the office as little or as much on other weeks isn't a huge issue (though admittedly I do work more efficiently from home, and have way better snacks and drinks at home than the office) but I want those 1-2 weeks to be respected.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#153

Post by idkyall »

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…

This is somewhat similar to the model we do at my current employer: ~4-5 days in office every 4 months. I would say it's definitely way preferable for me vs having been fully remote without yearly gatherings.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#154

Post by push-to-prod »

scottLobster wrote: post #76
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 h…

Walking over and talking? You can just jump on Zoom for a quick chat with a coworker. Text messages are low bandwidth, but Zoom calls are not.

Everyone on my team is available for a Zoom call when they're at their laptops, which is for the majority of the working day.

Just because your workplace didn't result in an ideal result doesn't mean that it's the norm.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#155

Post by jdlyga »

The RTO push for 3, 4, or 5 days a week for devs is simply unreasonable. The company I work for encourages (but doesn't mandate) 1 day per week, which works great for us. You can then spend more time helping junior coworkers, having in person discussions, and happy hours for that day. It's a good minimum to feel connected. Obviously, it all depends on what type of role you have.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#156

Post by hcks »

> Every company that issued forced relocation ultimatums to their pre-pandemic remote workers will not only lose most (if not all) their top talent in the next year, but they will struggle to hire for at least the coming decade

People have been saying that over here on HN too.

It’s what they WANT to happen, but not at all what will happen.

It’s a feel good narrative based on the fact that engineers want to believe they are “top talent”, that their skills alone will be enough for them to do well economically, that in the end the people that don’t respect the tech will suffer consequences.

Sorry, “top talent” isn’t that scarce or NEEDED at all in software engineering. Even FAANG is more than happy to churn on 20 something college grads with no deep expertise. In fact, engineers with deep expertise who wants to work on challenging technical problems often have to take pay CUTS to be able to do so.

With no unions and no solidarity between workers, the future is clear: come back to the office or take a pay cut.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#157

Post by DiggyJohnson »

afavour wrote: post #129
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed the flexibility of WFH but I still prefer working with local teams in the office. There are pros and cons to both, but it's silly to assume everyone has the same preference as you just because your preference is strongly held. This is my response to both your comment and TFA. There is less consensus on this topic than the very-vocal WFH crowd would have you believe. I know plenty of other talented engineers…

> silly to assume everyone has the same preference I don't see the OP assuming that. Not everyone enjoyed it but for those of use who did going back is not desirable.

> Once people enjoyed the flexibility they aren't going back.

This was the line I was directly responding to.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#158

Post by ta1243 »

hypeit wrote: post #140
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed the flexibility of WFH but I still prefer working with local teams in the office. There are pros and cons to both, but it's silly to assume everyone has the same preference as you just because your preference is strongly held. This is my response to both your comment and TFA. There is less consensus on this topic than the very-vocal WFH crowd would have you believe. I know plenty of other talented engineers…

It's the "Return" part of RTO that people have a problem with. Have an office if you like, but don't expect me to go there. I work from home.

Most people who claim to like an office specifically like other people being at an office

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#159

Post by shortcake27 »

tschellenbach wrote: post #87

The discussion here tends to ignore the posts about people working multiple jobs or not working 40 hours a week remotely. Can't have your cake and eat it too

If you’re more concerned with how long a software engineer sits in front of a computer, opposed to the work they actually get done, you’ve already lost.

Edit: if you’re going to downvote me that’s fine, but please explain why “number of hours spent at computer” is at all a useful metric. It’s a genuine question; I’m not being facetious. I’ll get nothing done all day then wake up in the middle of the night with the solution to a problem. The amount of time I spend coding doesn’t really correlate with business value.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#160

Post by martindbp »

There are things I love about remote, but there are also advantages of an office. Before we see the next Google or OpenAI being founded as fully remote we'll never know of it actually works. My instinct tells me it's hard to build new great company with the current remote tech we have even if it's possible to sustain mature companies that way for some time. With VR/AR that will change.
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