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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

#441

Post by gingerrr »

scottLobster wrote: post #322
throwaway9191aa wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Walking over and talking to someone is still far superior to any online communication. The reason it isn't, for me, is that I'm usually answering questions about Why we do something, or How something is supposed to work. I'm usually giving a quick response, with a link to a design, or a code snippet, or a git commit, or a Code Review link, or something online. So I have to provide an online response whether you ask…

Yeah I guess the difference is that at my workplace there's a lot of tribal knowledge. Even when there is a design document it often hasn't been updated or requires nuance to interpret that's only really in one or two peoples' heads. Often the question/discussions is about engineering priorities, some discovery was made during coding that would alter the design, and half the time simply bringing up the topic with the…

That again sounds like a problem with your company's knowledge sharing culture, not with the industry at large. Silos exist even when every butt is in an office seat, that's a well-known issue that far pre-dates pandemic remote work moves. The answer isn't "make everyone defenseless to random interrupts from other people" but "learn how to actually document things so you're not a company full of points of failure".

It seems like what you really want is for others to treat your emergencies as theirs. They're not, they're yours. If you can't wait 15 minutes for a ping back without being completely stuck, you aren't planning your work correctly. That's nobody else's fault.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#442

Post by npsimons »

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…

My brother was 100% remote for 13 years before the pandemic. I was 100% remote way back in 2001. It took the pandemic and WFH to remind me how much better it is, from every conceivable angle.

I'm never going back, and have shut down plenty of recruiters and headhunters with one simple phrase: "100% remote."

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#443

Post by labria »

zoogeny wrote: post #301

> Conversely, if you let these assholes exert their power over you, you dehumanize yourself in submission. I normally like strong opinions even when I disagree with them. It is usually refreshing to hear people share their true feelings in an unfiltered way. This, on the other hand, feels bitter. It seems to be coming from a place of hate. By all means, stand up for yourself and your ideals. Sometimes you have to mak…

I think you missed the point here. They were not talking about _making the choice_ to return to the office, but rather about _accepting the ultimatum_. There’s nothing wrong with deciding you want to work from the office, it’s the ultimatum part that’s important IMO.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#444

Post by Terr_ »

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.

> productive [...] ways of measuring

I always point out that most "productivity" numbers assume the costs of commuting hours/fuel are $0, because it measures from the perspective of employer costs, and it assumes the employer has used their bargaining-position to force all those variable-costs entirely onto the employees.

So we've got (A) a misleading "productivity boost" sometimes being used to rationalize (B) one-sided policies which are (C) probably not sustainable in the long-term anyway.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#445

Post by falcolas »

mc32 wrote: post #356
falcolas wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> also many are not and are more productive in an office environment I see this assertion every time the WFH/RTO topic is brought up, but there's never any data to back it up. Mind changing that?

Ultimately only people's immediate managers have insight into this either from managing them or from their co-workers. People eventually will let you know who isn't pulling their weight (obviously people will forgive others if they know they have a temporary issue in their life --but not if its unwarranted).

Simply saying "people will know" is a deflection that doesn't really help this point.

If you (royal you - anybody who wants to make this claim) really want to claim that many people are measurably more productive at the office, we'll need studies to counter those done which show WFH is more productive than working from the office.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#446

Post by grumblingdev »

diogenes4 wrote: post #79
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…

> The people on the assembly line would look at you like the most spoilt people in the world. I'm guessing the most spoiled people in the world wouldn't be working at all. This sort of contempt is a very specific and odd attitude to have.

Imagine being an Amazon delivery driver. Monitoring to the extreme. Constant boring shit all day. Running up apartment stairs.

Then imagine an office worker...

It's a world of difference and puts things in perspective.

People take things for granted too easily.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#448

Post by Tainnor »

kortex wrote: post #360
Tainnor wrote: post #300

I understand the sentiment (I also now enjoy doing WFH, even though it took me a while to get used to it), but this post comes off as whiny and entitled. A C-level executive making some sort of change without any good reason always sucks, but one should really know better than to call the CEO of one's previous company an asshole in public. It's unprofessional and will reflect badly on you. Plus, the advice about neve…

Going from hybrid - pre-covid, and hiring as such - to 100% onsite is an asshole move and should be called out as such. > apparent contradiction I don't understand what you mean. Where's the contradiction? OP saying "never take an ultimatum" isn't absolute - there's an implied "in your best interest" there. If a cop tells you "freeze or I'll shoot!" do you ignore that ultimatum? Of course not, context matters. Obviou…

No, changing a work policy isn't an "asshole move", no matter how much you like it or not. If you want to prevent that sort of thing, unionise. But usually, tech workers have an easy enough time finding a different job.

There's enough other things that tech companies do that are morally wrong, such as exploiting all our data or manipulate us through dark patterns. This is not one of them.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#449

Post by grumblingdev »

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…

I find FaceTime terrible. Takes 10 seconds or more to connect.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#450

Post by vsareto »

MenhirMike wrote: post #271
SpaceNoodled wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially in February.

If you put your employees on an airplane flying westwards, you can have people work up to 36 hours per day.

We just need to slow Earth’s rotation or migrate to Venus for more hours in a day! Think of the profits!
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