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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

#591

Post by throwaway5959 »

andersa wrote: post #500
throwaway5959 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they’ll have people willing to commute 30 minutes a day to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to talk to. Ask service workers what their commute is like and how many days they have to be “in the office” for. Edit: found the people that have never worked retail or restaurant

Just because some jobs can only be done in a specific place, does not mean that people whose job can be done from anywhere should be forced to do the same in solidarity or some nonsense like that.

I’m talking more about the sense of entitlement. Clearly different jobs have different work requirements, etc.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#592

Post by denton-scratch »

codelikeawolf wrote: post #348
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…

As a remote worker before the pandemic, I think the worst thing we could do is return to the status quo. I remember trying to find a new remote job before I moved across the country to Portland (pre-pandemic). I interviewed for a job in downtown Chicago, which would have required a 35-minute train ride to and from the city each day. I wasn't moving for a few months and I offered to work in the office before switching…

> The status quo was "people that work from home aren't actually doing work", or "people that work from home aren't as productive", etc.

In my last position (exclusively work-from-office), I had two co-workers (out of nine) that were seriously counterproductive: the rest of us had to work around them. I don't know why the bosses hired them, and I don't know why they kept them on - perhaps they thought they were somehow rescuing them.

At any rate, these guys weren't just less productive; they were seriously counterproductive. And this was a strictly office job; we were more-or-less forbidden to work after 5:30PM.

The bosses had some kind of "company culture" fantasy, that they could weld us together into a bean-bags-and-table-football crew of clones, who would both work and play together. Interestingly, neither of these bosses had ever done an office job in someone else's office...

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#593

Post by hemloc_io »

yanderekko wrote: post #171

I mean, yes it's bullshit to try to apply RTO policies on remote workers that were hired as remote workers. It's not even a "return" in that scenario, properly understood. And IANAL but I wonder if that could be considered a constructive dismissal that mandates severance rather than a "soft" one. That said, this article flirts with the often-made argument that RTO is some sort of way of boosting commercial property p…

I think a better argument could be made for tax incentives.

Large employers, think Amazon in Seattle, often have special agreements with the city for taxes.

Without the employees coming in and supporting local businesses there's a decline in tax revenue and local govt threaten to take them away. (As well as play less ball with the larger employer on other things like permitting etc.)

For these large companies they want political power as well, and maybe want it more than a marginal boost in productivity from remote work.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#594

Post by kcatskcolbdi »

cdchn wrote: post #319
reaperman wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the company has no obligation to keep an employee working in a remote context that the company doesn't favor anymore. Some people who were hired in as permanent remote, now are being demanded to sell their homes and move to cities they’ve never been to before. Companies have no obligation to keep any USA-based employee working (other countries may have different laws), but some reasonable severance payouts would be…

Who is doing this precisely? I've heard a lot of people bemoan that they moved during the pandemic and now are being required to return to the office but I haven't heard of any instances where previously remote employees-- remote from BEFORE the pandemic-- are being required to move to central office locations.

It is quite literally the subject of the article you are commenting on.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#595

Post by listenallyall »

ta1243 wrote: post #158
hypeit wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the "Return" part of RTO that people have a problem with. Have an office if you like, but don't expect me to go there. I work from home.

Most people who claim to like an office specifically like other people being at an office

Most people who claim to like work-from-home specifically rely on other people showing up at their workplaces -- restaurants, delivery drivers, grocery workers, cleaners, healthcare, dog walkers, etc.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#596

Post by lazide »

_puk wrote: post #585
lazide wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they actually put in writing ‘Remote is forever’, then later try to fire you for refusing to return to the office - what judge in the world is going to rule in their favor? If course, they rarely actually say that. But some folks have definitely been dumb enough to do so. The issue with contract law is that most folks never put things in writing, so it’s a pain to litigate many claims, which makes it uneconomic to…

Granted. If you want something set in stone, add it to your contract. If it's a general policy that "we are remote", but your contract wasn't updated to reflect that, then don't be surprised if it changes.

If the general policy is updated to ‘remote is forever’, save a copy - that’s part of your contract too!

If it gets changed in a way that causes you injury, guess what - you can be and should be compensated. If you can prove these things, then it should even be relatively easy to do so.

Contract law is not just things that say ‘contract’ on them. It is about agreements between parties.

Also, talk to a lawyer so they can look over the fine print and applicable statutes. They matter.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#597

Post by mullingitover »

thegrim33 wrote: post #531

Isn't it interesting that the millions and millions of people with the opposite opinion never get their thoughts shared via articles like this? If there was legitimate, rational, discussion on the topic, wouldn't you expect to see people with differing opinions on the topic get their thoughts promoted in a similar way?

Perhaps there actually aren't millions and millions of members of the commuting enthusiasts community?

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#598

Post by thinkharderdev »

renewiltord wrote: post #246
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don’t understand this. If the company isn’t getting the productivity they expect, they should deal with that. If they can’t tell, what difference does it make?

It appears they are dealing with it by asking people to come in to the office.

How is that dealing with it exactly? Are they able to somehow assess productivity better when people are in the office? How?

Some are arguing that people are just naturally more productive in office than at home. I don't necessarily but that argument but it at least makes sense. If what you're worried about is people slacking off at home then I don't quite see how RTO is a solution to that. I've worked with people in that past who showed up to the office every day and played poker online, browsed reddit and watched videos on YouTube.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#599

Post by hotnfresh »

euniceee3 wrote: post #368
push-to-prod wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder how typing ability corresponds to wfh vs rto preference.

I can type at about conversion speed without trying too hard, so “typing a novel”, as you put it, isn’t a big deal to me.

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