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

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#551

Post by flkiwi » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

scottLobster wrote: post #192

hotnfresh wrote: post #127

Earlier 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…

I am hearing a ton of issues with your company’s culture that have nothing to do with WFH. I genuinely hear your concerns as sincere, but, from the outside, all I see are warning lights. Anecdata, but I don’t know where my people, my boss, and any of my thousands of coworkers are, but I rarely wait long for a thoughtful reply, unless it’s “hey I am tied up but will get back to you EOD. Does that work?”

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#552

Post by ricardobayes » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

The most interesting thing to me is a new kind of jealousy towards fully remote workers. I feel quite a good number of people turned a bit sour after tasting WFH then needing to go into the office.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#553

Post by kstrauser » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #36

> definitely don’t accept any relocation assistance (since you’ll have to return it when you split) Is this true? I've never heard of conditional assistance like this.

That sounds like bad financial advice, and that you’d be be better to accept it and put it in savings for however many months. If you don’t stay the required amount of time, return the money. If you do, ta-da, it’s yours.

Ask your tax person first, of course.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#554

Post by panzagl » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

sys_64738 wrote: post #327

bradly wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a remote worker at Apple pre-pandemic and had no problems. After COVID I was told that moving states where I live would have to get some approval and is not guaranteed. I left Apple shortly after and have been contracting since. When I was in an office full time, I had to work my life around my work. When I have forty hours to fill out over a seven day period, I'm working my work around my life.

Why didn't you just move states and ask "forgiveness" later? Companies cannot tell you where and when to live and if they try it see who blinks first. I would certainly have ignored them and let them fire me or RIF me.

There are a lot of differences between state labor laws and taxes, remote doesn't mean you can just change residences willy-nilly.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#555

Post by Blaiz0r » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 5:23 PM UTC

samatman wrote: post #373

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 m…

This is a refreshingly level headed response to read on the internet, I might quit while I'm ahead

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#556

Post by simbolit » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 5:24 PM UTC

graublau wrote: post #223

bwestergard wrote: post #37

I'm a union software engineer at NPR, and we just won guaranteed remote work for three years (pending a ratification vote by the membership). Glad I don't have to worry about shifting fashions among executives on this subject. https://nitter.net/WeBuildNPR/status/1707916820928241801

Let's be real — NPR executives are more concerned maintaining their agitprop operation than employee productivity

What is the value of your comment?

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#557

Post by ricardobayes » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 5:24 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…

Before the pandemic it was almost unimaginable to be employed fully remotely, at least in Europe. Top achievers got a day per week, working from home as a perk or as a "hiring condition". In my 10 year career before the pandemic I basically never had a coworker who had been working from home on a regular basis. That said I love remote work, and I think it's one of our biggest workplace inventions in this century.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#558

Post by ajmurmann » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 5:24 PM UTC

colmmacc wrote: post #440

jedberg wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before COVID there were a ton of people who wanted to work remotely but couldn't because remote jobs were few and far between. COVID finally gave them what they always wanted, but now it's being taken away, and remote jobs are getting harder to find again. That's why there is resentment. There was resentment before too, but it was more below the radar because it was always shot down with "we work better in person" an…

I'm ready to believe that remote work can be more productive overall, and definitely more cost effective, but I always have a really hard time with the "I'm just as productive, if not more productive remotely" data and argument. It's really easy to believe that folks with an existing network of colleagues and relationship, as well as a decent amount of company of industry know how can be more productive remotely. Few…

As a leader I did weekly department emails, weekly "office hours", fun video interviews with new hires to introduce them to the team and more. It worked pretty well, especially since the majority of the team had been working together for years. The piece I wasn't able to implement was getting the entire team in the same physical place every 3-6 months. However, I think even with all that, if I was a new hire, especially a junior, I'd still have a easier time learning the ropes in person. However, is that worth the massive constraint on hiring and impact on everyone else? I don't know. It's not a clear tradeoff.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#559

Post by Tainnor » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 5:24 PM UTC

sdfghswe wrote: post #540

Tainnor wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was nothing in GP's post that indicated they thought this (and for me personally, that doesn't even compute, as I see no connection).

There's nothing to suggest that they would have no social skills, or send creepy messages to their female co-workers either.

And the comment you replied to didn't say that they'd send inappropriate messages to female coworkers.

It was about giving examples for reasonable ultimatums that contradict the point of the blog post.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#560

Post by jzb » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 5:25 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…

Most of my career has been remote, excepting a stint with a hosting company (being on location was logical, no complaints there), and a brief dalliance with being in-office while I was with a company that was fine with me being remote.

Tried the cube life, didn't like it, company happily re-allocated my veal fattening pen to another drone during the heady pre-COVID days when such real estate was scarce.

There are too many social, economic, and ecological reasons to put a stake in the heart of requiring people to be in a specific location unless there's an honest to goodness requirement.