Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are building a remote-first company why would you restrict your talent pool to a single metropolitan area?
Reasons: language, culture, legal, accounting, taxes...
...timezones
Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
261–270 of 913 posts
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#262The 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
The reason I've asked you all here today is because my boss told me to do it. So here we are.
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#263>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."
Merriam Webster helpfully defines "ultimatum" as:
> a final proposition, condition, or demand especially : one whose rejection will end negotiations and cause a resort to force or other direct action
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#264Video 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 issue with every piece of commercial software I’ve used is the lag. Slack, Google Meet, Zoom… All have noticeable delay which make conversation unnatural and painful. I’ve been using FaceTime Audio to communicate with family on the other side of the world and it’s incredible. Zero latency and great audio quality. It’s an extremely underrated piece of tech. Not sure about FaceTime video as I’ve never used it, but I…
Are you using a VPN for work? It's possible that the network bandwidth is not decent enough to allow for lag free video conferencing.
When Zoom has issues system-wide, we get lag, but I'd say 98% of the time, there's no perceptible latency or bad audio quality.
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#265Its 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.
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Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#266Spare me. If someone is willing to pay someone $500k per year as I’m sure someone like the author is able to get, if the CEO wants them in the office three days a week, so be it. It’s stupid, everyone knows it’s stupid, I agree with the author on that, but tech workers sound _incredibly_ entitled when they write pieces like this. There are people making 1/5th what the author is making and somehow surviving in VHCOL a…
Or they can find another CEO that'll pay them $500k per year and not ask them to be in the office three days a week
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#267>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…
A lot of people are in a position that they don't deserve. The max value is coming from the company that gave them the ultimatum.
If you are quitting your job as coach of the New England Patriots during your losing season don't expect to get $20/million year at your next job after you did your worth searching.
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chat’s my favorite. Leaves a record so you don’t have to take notes or immediately record whatever you talked about so you don’t forget. Screen sharing or pairing are better remote than in person. In person’s good for a subset of types of meetings that some folks may find themselves in a lot. Brainstorming, product ideation, that kind of thing. > In the office I just walk over to their desk. This is from the perspect…
You seem to have missed my point that all of those options require someone to actually be at their workstation and available. With WFH, half the time people aren't. In the office they are. If WFH is going to be the future, then there should be uptime requirements with associated penalties so that someone is as available as they would be in the office. Software development is a team sport, you don't get to walk off th…
Seems like you're associating characteristics found with specifically bad employees as universally true for all WFH employees.
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
Prior to COVID, everyone understood that remote work was supported by some companies and not others. It was also a type of work that was preferred by some employees and not others. 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…
> 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. Remote work availability and pay were often much lower. Further, if you were in my company, you had HR and C-Levels saying "Remote work is here to stay and will never go away" early on and often. It wasn't until about a year in that they starte…
That's because they are actually struggling to admit deeper problems with the company culture and processes that they don't know how to solve, and so they're trying RTO to see if it fixes things.
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#270Earlier 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…
I don't know anyone that is advocating for forcing everyone to work from home but instead "office available for anyone who wants it." There's a mile wide difference between "my preference is to be vegetarian" where people will get out the stops to provide accommodations and "my preference is everyone must keep vegetarian."
There are definitely companies (and individuals) who are making the decision that "the benefits of RTO emerge from/rely upon our entire workforce being mostly in the office".
I don't personally hold that view, but I know people (including individual contributors) who do and, depending on why you think in-office work is good, it's an entirely reasonable view for some people and some companies to take.