You can tell that this author knows their shit because the blog post is entirely illustrated with furry memes.
Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
691–700 of 913 posts
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#692Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's just...weird advice. "Honey, playing WoW 12 hours a day is a dealbreaker for me." "You must enter your information into our new HR system."
It's only weird if you assume any choice or dichotomy is also an ultimatum. An ultimatum is a my way or the highway choice. "Submit or suffer". Negotiating how much time you invest into the relationship isn't an ultimatum. "Quit WoW entirely or I'm getting a divorce" is.
> Negotiating how much time you invest into the relationship isn't an ultimatum
It can be.
Whether something is an ultimatum is determined by the consequence not the condition.
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#693Earlier quoted context omitted.
People are allowed to have different preferences and lifestyles than the majority. I’m not a CEO so it’s not my place to decide what a company does or doesn’t do.
Right, I think it’s fine for people to have differences and differing preferences. My point is that if 5/100 people want to work in the office and 95/100 don’t, that’s fine. If 5/100 want to work in an office with 100 people, and force the others to return against their wishes that’s * not* fine. They can have their preference, but it seems wrong to me for their preference to override the preference of others. > I’m…
Hypothetically, would you still feel this way of it turned out that everyone being in the office (remember this is a magical hypothetical) has a significant and demonstrable improvement in productivity?
This is more of a level-setting question than any sort of disagreement.
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#694Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's because they are actually struggling to admit deeper problems with the company culture and processes that they don't know how to solve, and so they're trying RTO to see if it fixes things.
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.
Let's not forget
4. Politicians
You have several from major cities (NYC, SF, etc.) saying on the record that they are going to speak to CEO's and push for RTO so that downtowns, local businesses, and neighborhoods can go back to "normal."
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#695Companies seem to be under the delusion that return-to-office mandates will increase productivity, and I think this is absolute nonsense. Return-to-office mandates will demoralize your workers and make them seek greener pastures. Workers will become less happy and loyal, and top talent will leave for employers that provide greater flexibility. Executives that mandate return-to-office are crippling their workforces in…
My company RTO'd and productivity is way up. WFH works if you're very selective about employees and work hard to maintain culture but most companies don't do either of those things.
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#696Earlier quoted context omitted.
remote-first means hiring the best-fit people for your company at the time and them working precisely when they're ready to be productive, zero commute, zero overhead. good luck competing with that. source: 25 years and 8+ companies working remotely, and obliterating competitors stuck in the old ways.
Interesting that over those 25 years I can think of 1, maybe 2 start-ups that really succeeded being remote-first.
most companies didn't allow themselves to run the experiment.
there's many examples where new projects ("startups") succeeded, including 1000s of FOSS projects that were remote-first.
also, large companies often have products that get to market via cross-functional teams in lots of locations - they're remote-first by definition.
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#697Its 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.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to work in an office. The issue is trying to force everyone to work in an office.
The whole point of wanting to work in an office is being surrounded by colleagues. That means everyone on the team needs to be in the office on the same days.
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#698Companies seem to be under the delusion that return-to-office mandates will increase productivity, and I think this is absolute nonsense. Return-to-office mandates will demoralize your workers and make them seek greener pastures. Workers will become less happy and loyal, and top talent will leave for employers that provide greater flexibility. Executives that mandate return-to-office are crippling their workforces in…
They aren't deluded, they know it won't increase productivity. Maximizing productivity isn't the goal, it is just the excuse they use.
A CEO at a major tech company makes more in a year than he will spend in a lifetime. The company becoming more or less productive won't affect their personal situation much. But forcing everyone into work does increase their power which is what they truly crave.
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#699I 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.
They are authoritarians.
Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It
#700Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "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…
I remember a vocal group predicting the economic bubbles would burst while pointing to them growing for a while. The only real disagreement was on when not if. While no one has a crystal ball it was known pre pandemic that bubbles were there and unsustainable and not far from being at bursting levels. I know many in my circle were talking about when the dominoes would fall and which ones would topple which others in…
It’s always when not if though. If you predict a bubble invariably you will eventually be right — in fact the more wrong you are (calling it too early) the more prescient you will appear!