Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It • Hacker News Board

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#221

Post by throwaway5959 » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:21 PM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #166

strict9 wrote: post #26

>If I had to give only one bit of advice to anyone ever faced with an ultimatum from someone with power over them (be it an employer or abusive romantic partner), it would be: >Ultimately, never choose the one giving you an ultimatum. This is such great advice. When you are given an ultimatum it is very revealing. Pretend to comply as the author advises, then find something else. Your sense of self-worth is more valu…

That's just...weird advice. "Honey, playing WoW 12 hours a day is a dealbreaker for me." "You must enter your information into our new HR system."

It just reads like someone who hasn’t really had to compromise much in their lives.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#222

Post by JSavageOne » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:21 PM UTC

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…

> an office is superior for productivity.

If I'm forced to commute to and work in an office 8 hours/day, 5 days/week, then I will be more miserable, lament my job, and thus be less productive towards my day job. I will feel more like a wage slave worker bee who has little autonomy over their work, having to regress to the humiliating dynamic of having to ask my boss for "permission" to work from home. As a night owl, I'll be forced to conform my sleep schedule to the CEO's, and still show up bright and early on days where I didn't get enough sleep, and look busy until 5:30pm+ - maybe stretching out work that could've been done in a few hours to an entire work day because when you're stuck in an office there's little incentive to work faster since you're trapped their all day regardless. When I'm finally sick of it all I'll accept the offer for that remote-friendly company that doesn't care what time I wake up, what hours I work, or where I work, just that the work I produce is high quality.

If I have the flexibility to WFH, not waste hours/day commuting, and live wherever makes me happiest (as opposed to the city my company happens to have an office in, which is probably a city like NYC or SF which may not be my preference), then I will be happier with my employment arrangement, more productive, and more loyal. Also I personally find it easier to accomplish deep work when working under my own conditions, as opposed to some open office with no privacy, constant chatter, and the drudgery of wage slaves who clearly don't want to be there but have no choice.

There are far too many variables at play to be able to make that kind of blanket statement with such confidence.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#223

Post by graublau » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:21 PM UTC

bwestergard wrote: post #37

I'm a union software engineer at NPR, and we just won guaranteed remote work for three years (pending a ratification vote by the membership). Glad I don't have to worry about shifting fashions among executives on this subject. https://nitter.net/WeBuildNPR/status/1707916820928241801

Let's be real — NPR executives are more concerned maintaining their agitprop operation than employee productivity

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#224

Post by hotnfresh » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:21 PM UTC

kjkjadksj wrote: post #134

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

Turns out you can do that in an office too

… and nearly everyone does.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#225

Post by shortcake27 » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:21 PM UTC

ckbishop wrote: post #100

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…

Yeah, as soon as I see that 2 days a month thing, I'm not applying for the position. That's my only critique.

Why is this getting downvoted? The parent asked for critique and they got critique.

I worked for a company that did something similar to this, most of the day was spent “team building” and it was painful. The fun bit was going to the pub after.

I’d say the best thing to do is to not organise any activities and just make time and space for people to hang out. The people who want to come will come, and for the people who don’t, you aren’t gaining much by forcing them to attend, so why bother.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#226

Post by mertd » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:21 PM UTC

mgraczyk wrote: post #102

mertd wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone have a workplace where it is really seamless, high resolution, and just works? Google. It was good even before the pandemic. We used to video call each other between buildings 100 feet apart instead of walking over.

I worked at Google for 4.5 years. If you are video calling into a meeting from MTV where other people in MTV are in person, you are probably not doing real work. It's not seamless and it's orders of magnitude less productive. Meetings take longer and rarely produce useful follow-ups if you're remote.

> you are probably not doing real work

A bit uncalled for but ok...

Mind you, I didn't say it was the same as in person. Just many common frictions of video conferencing -back then- were already eliminated. The room knew which video conference to join, noise cancellation was good, screen sharing was trivial...

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#227

Post by push-to-prod » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:22 PM UTC

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…

My entire team is remote and we use Zoom calls regularly throughout the day. Our collaboration and morale is really good.

We meet in person once or twice a year, but the in-person experience is not significantly different.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#228

Post by travisjungroth » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:22 PM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #166

strict9 wrote: post #26

>If I had to give only one bit of advice to anyone ever faced with an ultimatum from someone with power over them (be it an employer or abusive romantic partner), it would be: >Ultimately, never choose the one giving you an ultimatum. This is such great advice. When you are given an ultimatum it is very revealing. Pretend to comply as the author advises, then find something else. Your sense of self-worth is more valu…

That's just...weird advice. "Honey, playing WoW 12 hours a day is a dealbreaker for me." "You must enter your information into our new HR system."

When you say it, it’s an ultimatum. When I say it, it’s a boundary.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#229

Post by ghaff » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:22 PM UTC

fullshark wrote: post #105

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…

> 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 office all the time. Nah employers paying out of pocket makes so much more sense for this arrangement, just pay the remote worker less and make it clear they need to come in for one week a month. It's basically the same thing.

One week per month in-person is probably too much. Either have short monthlies or longer for a couple times a year.

It doesn't really make sense to have the employee pay because some who are fairly close by will come in and cut the day short and those who have to pay for a flight/hotel will either shrug it off as essentially a commuting cost or will deeply resent it.

Some people make enough and are mostly fine with the mental accounting to pay for certain business expenses out of pocket but a lot of people absolutely are not--especially if it's required.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#230

Post by TerrifiedMouse » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:22 PM UTC

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.

It's not a matter of being spoiled or not. I'm talking about what is necessary to get the job done and the elimination of redundant rules that serve no purpose.