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

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#361

Post by JSavageOne » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:38 PM UTC

Companies seem to be under the delusion that return-to-office mandates will increase productivity, and I think this is absolute nonsense. Return-to-office mandates will demoralize your workers and make them seek greener pastures. Workers will become less happy and loyal, and top talent will leave for employers that provide greater flexibility. Executives that mandate return-to-office are crippling their workforces in the long-term.

If a company wants to increase productivity, then they should provide greater ownership and autonomy to workers, as well as better incentives such as profit sharing. If an engineer knows that they'll get a cut of the cost savings or profits of some project idea they have, then you can bet that many employees will take advantage of that to get valuable work done.

If I were running a company, I'd hire remotely from the global talent pool, and more importantly ensure that my employees are actually incentivized to get things done via ownership and profit sharing.

It's a shame that executives at big tech companies are opting for the authoritarian approach, and I firmly believe that that will be their downfall. There certainly is value to in-person collaboration, but forcing it via threats is absolutely not the right approach. A better way to incentivize workers returning to office would be via positive incentives (eg. more money, subsidized housing, free transportation) as opposed to negative threats (eg. firing people for not obeying the lord's commands)

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#362

Post by jksmith » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:38 PM UTC

Remote work is deprecating the Bill Lumbergs. RTO is driven by a mediocre middle management layer that most orgs can do without.

If Musk tells me to come back to work, well ok. But I've done lots of work for F500s and my response to them is "do you deserve having me in the office for more than just paycheck leverage?" Maybe, but in my experience not really.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#363

Post by chiefalchemist » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:38 PM UTC

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…

> on the whim of whichever executive we happen to be serving under at the present time.

You're being too kind. Whims aren't the problem, lack of imagination is (and in leadership positions that should be unacceptable).

The problem is, few of the RTO office execs have WFH long enough to understand it. They have no clue how to lead WFH. They have no clue how to manage WFT. And they're not interested in learning new tricks. They simply wield their power and reinstate the status quo.

In a word...weak.

The RTO v WFH debate (?) is an opportunity in the market. An opportunity where WFH is the new up and coming opportunity. RTO is all but a fax machine. Who would feel comfortable working at a company where the executives lacked imagination and are all but mandating "Bring back the fax machine"?

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#364

Post by ScarZy » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:39 PM UTC

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #90

x86x87 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 echo this sentiment completely. I do 2-3 days a week in my office and I am personally mentally better off for it.

That said, personally is the key word. I manage a team. I love seeing employees together and aligning on things in person where possible - but totally understand if this does not suit their schedule that day or week. It often does not work with mine.

It's the small human mistakes that are innocent and spontaneous - like inevitably spilling coffee on myself - that keep us humble.

Some fit the remote world entirely never wanting to see the inside of an office again, some thrive off rubbing shoulders with colleagues. I found it difficult to not have social engagements outside of family during the darker periods of the COVID-19 pandemic. I also found myself working longer hours, not having solid disconnected time or neglecting my health physically and mentally.

I believe we still have a lot to learn about how to work best remotely. Businesses should invest in making this as normal as possible - for example enforcing a work-from-desk policy for calls has helped normalise communication. I do worry slightly about those younger graduates coming into the industry now that have never had the experience of working in an office.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#365

Post by mceachen » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:39 PM UTC

icedchai wrote: post #214

dinkblam wrote: post #33

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.

More like it de-materialized. Unless there was a physical line problem, regular old phone calls over copper lines ("POTS") worked well. They were circuit switched, not packet switched. You essentially had a dedicated path provisioned, end to end. Today, POTS is all but gone. Almost nobody has a real landline. Most phone calls are transported over IP. I converted my landline to VOIP almost a decade ago. It's fine.

I feel like people are misremembering POTS voice quality--it's roughly equivalent to AM radio.

POTS truncates to 300–3,300 Hz and downsamples to 8kHz (if it goes through a digital switch, which it has for 50+ years)

The improvement with "HD Voice" on 4G cellular networks 10+ years ago was stark and welcome.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#366

Post by shortcake27 » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:39 PM UTC

push-to-prod wrote: post #264

shortcake27 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’ve used these tools on all sorts of network configurations and there’s always lag.

One thing I will say is that this was all within Australia. Surely the packets aren’t going overseas, but perhaps whatever servers they use in AU just aren’t optimised for ultra low latency.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#367

Post by potta_coffee » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:39 PM UTC

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #53

I’ll know this “counter argument” isn’t bullshit when people finally admit they know full well a large portion of people abuse WFH. Until I see honesty on this, I am uninterested. No one ever admits: - I basically work 20-30 hours a week! - They have no idea when I’m actually working. - I was going to quit but I’m going to let them just keep paying me. - I have at least one side job and I won’t be able to do it if I…

Don't pretend those people are getting work done in the office. The fact is a few of us do the lion's share of the work while most employees, wfh or in the office, are dragging ass.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#368

Post by euniceee3 » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:39 PM UTC

push-to-prod wrote: post #154

scottLobster wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In person I can walk by the person and see if they are available for a quick chat. Typing a novel is a pain when a water cooler chat will work. IF the person is busy then you dont shoulder tap.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#369

Post by Scarblac » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:39 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…

> Walking over and talking to someone is still far superior to any online communication.

Hard disagree. That not only distracts that person, but also the six+ sitting around them. Most questions are fine as a chat message. We found people starting asking more questions to colleagues when Covid wfh started because they were afraid to earlier, communication actually improved.

The office is imo necessary for quite some things (onboarding new people, coaching juniors, people without a good place to work at hone, people who like the social aspect of the office) but walking up to someone for a quick question isn't it.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#370

Post by samcat116 » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:39 PM UTC

shortcake27 wrote: post #112

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 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…

Lag is one of the issues I've never had with any of those services. I think they all have their CDNs built up enough so thats not a real problem for the vast majority of people.