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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

#421

Post by scottLobster »

TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #258
scottLobster wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> require someone to actually be at their workstation and available. No guarantee people will be at their office desk either to be frank. They could be hiding in the toilet, loitering at the water cooler, out on smoke break, getting coffee, ... etc.

Sure, but those activities typically won't last for hours. I've had to put tasks on hold because the SME wasn't available for several hours, without explanation or any communication whatsoever, to make a fundamental design decision in their area of expertise. And it wasn't a one-off or just one SME. People, at least my team, were getting constantly distracted. They essentially imposed their irregular and unpredictable schedules on the rest of us, despite being in positions of relative authority. I had to work nights I didn't plan to work because someone decided to respond at 8pm to a question asked at 1pm. That kind of delay would never happen at the office even if someone was slacking off.

Which goes back to the principle that WFH is more beneficial for senior devs than juniors. If you lack the knowledge or authority to work independently for extended periods, then instead of everyone being on the same objective schedule the junior people are forced onto whenever the senior people want to work, and more specifically when they want to be available to answer questions that only they can answer. It's like only being able to do homework during a professor's office hours.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#422

Post by kortex »

rednerrus wrote: post #275
jedberg wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You could probably have people travel for what an office in a major metro area costs.

My friend did the math for a high-falutin position at a San Fran tech company requiring 3 days a week in office, and flying from New York to Cali every week was cost competitive.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#423

Post by Exoristos »

mysterydip wrote: post #28
mattlondon wrote: post #10

Its 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.

What makes it stressful? I haven't seen this take before so I'm really curious about this perspective.

I think this only applies to those who would like to be productive.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#424

Post by RIMR »

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…

>We should just return to the status quo before COVID

Why? People at my org had been begging for WFH before the pandemic, and the pandemic helped us win that battle.

Why should we cede ground back to our bosses when we are happier and more productive now?

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#425

Post by cj »

cogman10 wrote: post #196
andrewmutz wrote: post #149

Earlier 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…

> "Hey, this is only temporary" I'd be far less disappointed

Ironically, during peak covid lockdowns, "this is only temporary" may have actually been seen as reckless and irresponsible. "There's a pandemic! We need to be remote for the foreseeable future, not just temporarily!1!1" (etc...)

During peak covid, a lot of people made decisions that they reneged or reversed later. I'll get downvoted if I empathize with the executives making these decisions, but all I'll say is that no one had a crystal ball in 2020/2021. I give a lot of people the benefit of the doubt that they believed what they were saying at the time they said it (even if they have since reversed their opinion).

I don't think anyone was expecting the tech bubble to burst until it did. I don't think anyone was expecting the degree of inflation which led to interest rates which led to big tech downsizing, etc. A lot of people made a lot of mistakes. One of the top mistakes a lot of companies made was hiring people outside of their HQ cities and they're trying to correct that now.

Edit: To be clear I'm a proponent of remote work. Our company has been remote since before covid. Pro tip for anyone in the job market: look for companies that were remote pre-Covid and be skeptical about WFH promises if the company was forced to go remote after 2020.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#426

Post by grumblingdev »

DennisP wrote: post #83
grumblingdev wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If management can tell which way gets more work done, then they don't have to rely on workers being honest about it. If they can't tell the difference, seems to me they should let people have nicer lives.

White collar work is not very measurable.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#427

Post by KMag »

peterleiser wrote: post #232
SpaceNoodled wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially in February.

We work, on average, 365.25 days per year. But we're not heartless, leap seconds are always PTO.

Tell me you use the Julian calendar, without telling me you use the Julian calendar.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#428

Post by [deleted] »

mc32 wrote: post #75
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.

Some or many people are just as productive working from home, but also many are not and are more productive in an office environment. There need to be better more reliable ways of measuring this and affording those who are able to be productive while remote the option. Those who aren’t as productive WFH don’t get the choice.

[deleted]

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#429

Post by ajmurmann »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #375
garciasn wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 full…

Also, what's the point of going into the office if nobody else is there? My department had a hybrid model for a bit with a fabulous, newly built-out office. I liked seeing people in person a couple times a week. However, if I go in and nobody from my team is there or we need to still call in to meetings as if we were at home, what's the point?

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#430

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

gonehome wrote: post #72

This is a classic HN post that will get a lot of positive attention here playing into the HN cognitive bias zeitgeist, but I think is mostly bullshit. The market will settle it in the end, but at least for startups being colocated is a competitive advantage.

> The market will settle it in the end

like "The market" is some rational, logical all-knowing, all-wise higher force.

"The market" is a bunch of rich assholes that act in their own self interests.

They don't give a sh-t about you and they definitely don't give a sh-t about me.

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