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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

#601

Post by k__ »

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…

"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."

They saw the light. Simple as that.

They also noticed, if more employees in the market demand remote, chances are higher that employers will allow it.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#602

Post by slumpt_ »

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.

I disagree. Colocation isn't the competitive advantage for startups. Strong communication is.

You can get part of this for 'free' if you shove everyone in a room.

You can also get this if you invest in strong remote culture that encourages lots of remote collaboration.

Source: I've been at a remote-first startup that is kicking ass over the last two years. In-office is available but remains entirely optional.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#603

Post by MavropaliasG »

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…

What about the ultimatum we were given 2 years ago on COVID vaccines from our employers?

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#604

Post by ToucanLoucan »

ck425 wrote: post #590
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes much deeper than that though. It isn't just "they wanted it and couldn't have it, then they got it and now they want to keep it:" A lot of people, myself included, did not understand even if we wanted work from home, how life changing it would be. How it's better for us as people, better for us as workers, better for our pocketbooks, better for our planet, better for our lives, just... better. It's ALL better…

There are a lot of us normal workers who dislike WFH and we're not parasites. It's perfectly valid to prefer WFH but it's also valid to prefer the office.

Nobody is talking about workers who prefer work from home.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#605

Post by paulcole »

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…

Remember that for a US-based startup, the "hiring talent from anywhere" is easier said than done.

You've got to register your business in every state you have somebody working, get unemployment insurance and workers comp set up there, make sure you understand the local labor laws, etc., etc., etc. That's not even considering hiring outside the US.

It's a total pain in the butt and may not be worth it for a small company with limited person-power.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#606

Post by thinkharderdev »

kstrauser wrote: post #553
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.

Not sure how it works everywhere, but in many cases it's not just money they give you. They basically reimburse you for particular moving expenses.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#607

Post by eschneider »

sneak wrote: post #529
scottLobster wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walking over and talking to someone is still far superior to any online communication. So unless you have a job that requires minimal communication on a day-to-day basis, an office is superior for productivity. Perhaps if everyone working from home were constantly available to screen-share/video chat it wouldn't be as bad, but my experience with WFH is people get distracted by kids/pets/etc and half the time I wait h…

> Walking over and talking to someone is still far superior to any online communication. So unless you have a job that requires minimal communication on a day-to-day basis, an office is superior for productivity. Nope! All this does is break the concentration of the person you're interrupting. This is precisely the "bullshit" viewpoint called out in the headline. I commonly find these sorts of views espoused by peopl…

When I need to talk to someone, it's easy enough to message them requesting a quick video call and screen share to discuss "X" and if it's inconvenient, we just setup a time for later and it's done. The rest of the time, we've got a nice, quiet environment to work in. Ideal, if you ask me.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#608

Post by jimt1234 »

I was on a Zoom call (~300 employees of a F500 company) a while back, when the "return to office" push began. An executive asked everyone how "return to office" was going. A few brown-nosers commented about how happy they were to return to the office, followed by uncomfortable silence. Then, an employee spoke up, saying that she returned to the office recently, but still doesn't understand the point - "I had to sit in traffic for almost an hour to come to the office and do the exact same thing I've been doing from my house for 2 years." A week-or-so after that meeting I heard that she no longer worked for the company. She'd been an employee for over 10 years.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#609

Post by The_Colonel »

flashback2199 wrote: post #185
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed the flexibility of WFH but I still prefer working with local teams in the office. There are pros and cons to both, but it's silly to assume everyone has the same preference as you just because your preference is strongly held. This is my response to both your comment and TFA. There is less consensus on this topic than the very-vocal WFH crowd would have you believe. I know plenty of other talented engineers…

From what I observed during the pandemic, I sincerely believe that the only reason remote work is worse than working in person is how little effort teams tend to put into making remote work equivalent to in person work. The biggest thing I saw throughout the entire pandemic on multiple teams was zero effort to create a culture of meet on camera for quick ad hoc, hey I have a quick question on this, ah cool thanks bye…

One of the problems associated with remote work is that synchronous communication is not guaranteed. People tend to work varying hours and even during their "work hours", they will make breaks to do various activities like household chores etc. So it tends to be more difficult to catch a co-worker for a quit chat. Then there's a feedback loop where you basically stop trying since it has such a low chance anyway.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#610

Post by paulcole »

fullshark wrote: post #136
SSJPython wrote: post #30

I don't understand why there can't be compromise on this? If you want to go to the office, go. If you want to work from home, then work from home. Why is it that remote workers never insist on everyone working from home, but RTO people want every single person to RTO? Just leave it up to the individual worker.

In office people don't care about just themselves being in an office, they want everyone in an office. Being in an office to take video conferences is pointless, they want that collective environment that they thrived in pre-pandemic.

> they want that collective environment that they thrived in pre-pandemic

Is there an issue with this? The pro-remote people want the environment they thrive in and the pro-office people want the environment they thrive in.

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