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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

#371

Post by cm2012 »

jedberg wrote: post #203
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…

You're throwing away the biggest advantage for the company allowing remote work -- hiring talent from anywhere. WFH has a lot of advantages for employees, but also for the employer. The main one being a diverse workforce. What I've seen work, which I think still hits your goals of occasional face time, is to have a quarterly offsite for the whole company. Everyone works remotely, but once a quarter you find a nice lo…

I even think a quarterly off site is too much. Yearly is fine. Organizing flights, pet care, etc every 3 months is such a damn hassle, and I don't even have kids.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#372

Post by Spooky23 »

andrewmutz wrote: post #149
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…

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…

It’s not that simple - it’s a stupid control thing.

When you have these top down mandates with measurements, now you’re introducing new surveillance and metrics that are both disruptive and counter-productive.

I’m not a remote zealot - I probably average two days a week, sometimes half days. I live a 20 minute walk/5 minute drive from work in a central business district. I’m a senior leader with hundreds of employees.

Personally, I’d prefer smaller offices with hotel space and generously equipped collaboration space. Require that people live or be available at regional hubs monthly or quarterly. My aunt had an arrangement like this for a airline in the late 90s - they setup a router and PC in her basement and would have meeting or two a month at the office.

For me, top down dictates that remove business unit autonomy and don’t understand reality are always a net negative. WFH flexibility reduced sick and family sick absences by 60%. People who’d take an hour off to go to the doctor now take a half day.

Now, I have two employees reporting on this stuff instead of doing something productive. So I’m losing thousands of man-hours to absences and spending 3000-4000 more to figure out how many asses are in chairs in dozens of facilties across the world. Managing professionals like fast food employees is dumb. The only winners are the CRE and banking people.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#373

Post by samatman »

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…

Relationships, be they personal, business, or otherwise, include dealbreakers. When a dealbreaker arises, there are two ways to handle it: unilaterally end the relation, or present it to the other party.

The latter is an ultimatum, there's no way around that. Whether or not the ultimatum is reasonable depends entirely on the specifics, especially in the workplace, employers have expectations which they need to have met.

It's especially distasteful to bake in the assumption that a romantic partner setting conditions to stay in a relationship is automatically being abusive. If someone is presented with an ultimatum to quit problem drinking or lose their partner, which is more likely: that the partner is abusive or that the other partner is an alcoholic? It's certainly not automatic that it's the former!

A policy of never meeting an ultimatum is one way to live your life, I prefer to consider whether the demands are reasonable and proceed on that basis. For me it shows a stronger sense of self worth to consider this kind of thing on the merits, rather than pre-committing to stick to my guns, which is in effect a counter-ultimatum. Sometimes that's the right move, sometimes it isn't.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#374

Post by ganner5 »

The fact that this person is so angry shows one thing:

They do not understand that the employer/employee relationship is purely transactional. Employers can fire you at any time, and likewise you can quit at any time.

Only when you accept this, will you understand that employers never owe you anything. Therefore they can’t disappoint you either.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#375

Post by VBprogrammer »

garciasn wrote: post #304
macksd wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You give them entirely too much credit. They were told by others (primarily Wall Street) that they are to do this. It provides them with three things: 1. Real estate holding investment increases. 2. Control. 3. Silent layoffs. There's no reason for RTO. None. They're doing it to save money and regain control of their workforce.

I think one thing which wasn't obvious to me early on is that halving the number of office days doesn't half the requirements for desk space. In my experience people have a strong preference for going in on similar days, particularly Tuesday and Thursday. So if you ask all of your employees to come in 2 days a week you end up needing desks for almost every employee.

The result in my experience is you have either fullish remote or you need just as many desks so very little saving from a company point of view.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#376

Post by spacemadness »

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…

Yep. Management acted like none of us knew how to work remote and we were all learning. Actually folks, no, I’ve been working like this for a while. And now I need to listen to our leaders say we work better in person and remote folks don’t know how to collaborate. What an utter failure in leadership and communication. The author said it best: these people are assholes. I’ve been so frustrated since people started going back to offices with management trying to undo what I worked to put in place prior to covid under some guise I’ve been underachieving all these years.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#377

Post by asynchronous »

ballenf wrote: post #69
thrtythreeforty wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fine, they will eventually have their lunch eaten by companies that can execute with all the talent they refuse to hire. It takes time, but the wheel turns.

These wheels often take a generation or more to fully rotate. And I have no idea whether any collective or group action can materially accelerate the timeline.

Arguments such as this one make accelerationism look attractive in all reality.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#378

Post by Consultant32452 »

andrewmutz wrote: post #149
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…

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…

I think it’s important to remember people had been subjected to literally decades of propaganda that remote work didn’t work.

When everyone was forced to do it, many learned that it is not only possible but results in better overall life satisfaction.

I’m sure some people learned they really hate remote work, but my guess is there were more converts the other direction.

Also, the commercial real estate market is getting fuct. And a lot of big corporations hold commercial real estate in their portfolio.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#379

Post by tganner5 »

The fact that this person is so angry shows one thing:

They do not understand that the employer/employee relationship is purely transactional. Employers can fire you at any time, and likewise you can quit at any time.

Only when you accept this, will you understand that employers never owe you anything. Therefore they can’t disappoint you either.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#380

Post by vel0city »

Racing0461 wrote: post #191
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…

Why pay sf/nyc salaries when you can hire utah/atlanta sde's and have them work in the same timezone +- 3 hrs and speak english?

There are metropolitan areas in Utah and Atlanta literally is a metropolitan area. They didn't say SF/NYC in that comment.
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