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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

#851

Post by strogonoff »

ryandrake wrote: post #459
grogenaut wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in a remote office from the main one before and about 30% of the time people would forget to dial in, and another 20% of the time the AV setup would be broken. They ironically got that all fixed during the pandemic, and it's great now. At the minimum the default is you will be on VC now and so it makes it much better for everyone, and everyone has the hardware all figured out. We had a large onsite last week an…

It definitely takes discipline and a little culture change. I work for a company where teams are spread across many offices, so the company culture is: there's a video conference for every meeting. Period. End of story. When you walk into the conference room, you press one button and the VC starts. Everybody does this, and it's engrained. So, thanks to this discipline, remote workers are never left out. Same goes for…

In-person, same-air is objectively different experience from a video or audio call—higher bandwidth, unmediated, spontaneous, visceral… not something one can “get out of” as if it was just a habit.

Perhaps some find IRL distracting, so they suffer less and have easier time compensating for the difference between in-person and remote. Meanwhile, some others are good communicators who thrive with and make the most out in-person, and for them it’s more of a challenge to WFH. I personally suspect many of those who want to WFH are naturally not that great at remote communication without realizing so.

I personally had insightful office conversations that started as tangents from semi-idle chance chats and would be impossible remotely, since in an online meeting you must be mindful of others’ time because you don’t know how busy they are (IRL you can sense if a person would rather be doing something else, but you know it can be perfectly faked remotely—so you will never have a chance convo; meetings must have agendas—culture!—and once the agenda is over, everyone gets to be free). Such random conversations can easily alter the course of whole projects.

I don’t see WFH vs. RTO as a black-and-white, high culture vs. lack of culture, good vs. evil sort of battle; more like people have different natural tendencies, life circumstances, desires, and everyone wants it to work best for them.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#852

Post by froggit »

bshacklett wrote: post #816
lazide wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was always a risk at every company due to re-orgs, buyouts, or the whim of executives. Are employees right to be angry? Yeah. Do companies have the right to demand it? Yeah. Severance, etc. is always nice. In some cases it may even be required by contract or law, but that is rare. It seems like the knives are coming out now, and we’ll see who is left standing.

Companies can do a lot of things that are morally reprehensible without fear of legal consequences. It doesn’t make it OK, and it certainly doesn’t mean that they have “a right” to behave that way.

Companies are gonna fuck over their employees either way but I totally agree that's not the kind of thing they have a right to. The world isn't dystopian enough yet.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#853

Post by sdfghswe »

CPLX wrote: post #825
Tainnor wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were giving general examples of things where giving an ultimatum in the workplace makes sense and not explicitly addressing OP's workplace behaviour. I feel like you're the only person here bringing up that OP is a furry (you, and some other comment that is thankfully dead).

When I wrote that comment I had no idea the blog writer was a furry. Now that I do however I am even more sure that his reasoning for not wanting to be in a public setting is even less worthy of generalization than I had originally thought.

I knew it. And that's entirely reasonable.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#854

Post by bshacklett »

intended wrote: post #845
lazide wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, I wasn’t defending. I was noting market dynamics and likely counter-forces. How you decide to position yourself (and plan), and how they decide to position themselves (and plan) is of course up to each participant.

This argument is also flawed. “Market Dynamics” is discussed as if it is a physics problem. Markets are social creations - they are a human way to effectively allocate resources. They are also constantly being manipulated and shaped to better achieve certain outcomes over others. When these outcomes are bent to serve the benefits of the few, or to serve the benefits of a principle that isn’t human wellness, its is a…

Just a data point: When I was living in LA, it would have been nearly 2 hours a day for a good while. My boss, at the time, commuted nearly four hours a day on the worst days.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#855

Post by danaris »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #693
ncallaway wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No.

I will prioritize my own needs, my own life, my own comfort, over the "productivity" or profit of a company every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

And frankly, so should we all. This obsessive focus on enabling companies to make more money, regardless of what it means for us regular workers as human beings, is utterly ruinous and needs to stop.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#856

Post by unnouinceput »

myroon5 wrote: post #819
unnouinceput wrote: post #817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erm, which subordinate was the one Bezos married?

Mackenzie worked for Jeff at D.E. Shaw

Mackenzie did NOT worked for him. She worked in same floor for different department. She fell in love with his laugh, because she would heard him laugh in the meetings in the meeting room taking place near her office. That's when she noticed him. Do watch her interviews, they are free on youtube. She's the one that pursued him, if you want to talk about a strong woman and showing initiative. The idiot downgraded, showing having brain to get money != than having brain to get women.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#857

Post by lazide »

soco wrote: post #841
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or to check if that original all-hands teams call was recorded.

Then what? Okay you can prove them liars, but that won't surprise anybody and won't change anything in the course of the company. I don't even mention the likely personal repercussions from speaking truth to power: "not being a team player" and and and.

If one is already being fired or forced out due to broken promises, depending on their personal circumstances and how well documented such broken promises are it could be worthwhile suing them for it.

You are quite correct that continuing on with the company (or in that corner of the industry) may - well, likely will be - impossible afterwards. Few things say 'burnt bridges' like a lawsuit. That said, being fired because of a promise they broke is them starting the bridge on fire anyway.

Either way, the CYA handbook is - document, document, document. And keep it where no one but you has control over it. You have no power if you can't prove anything. And documents 'go missing' or get 'automatically removed' from company equipment all the time in situations like this.

knowing if you even have a case or complaint is also important - which is only going to be possible if you can see what was actually said (not what you remember being said) or written. Sometimes we hear what we want to hear, not what was said. Knowing that BEFORE you show up in court is rather important.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#858

Post by red-iron-pine »

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…

Aye, been remote since 2015. Small but niche market for remote folks, mostly who you know and specialized gigs, but could make it work reasonably well.

now the market is packed with applicants and the backlash is making it harder.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#859

Post by lazide »

intended wrote: post #845
lazide wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, I wasn’t defending. I was noting market dynamics and likely counter-forces. How you decide to position yourself (and plan), and how they decide to position themselves (and plan) is of course up to each participant.

This argument is also flawed. “Market Dynamics” is discussed as if it is a physics problem. Markets are social creations - they are a human way to effectively allocate resources. They are also constantly being manipulated and shaped to better achieve certain outcomes over others. When these outcomes are bent to serve the benefits of the few, or to serve the benefits of a principle that isn’t human wellness, its is a…

What argument am I making exactly?

Your statement seems to be one of 'should' due to social factors largely outside of the various actors control and/or self-interest.

Which in my experience tends to mean 'I wish was', not 'will be', let alone 'is'. Unfortunately. But pressure applied to various regulators, PR campaigns, etc. could change that! I wish whoever wants to spend the time and effort doing so the best of luck. When that happens, the factors will change.

In the end, labor markets only care about the wellbeing of participants as much as they have to - because labor will either actually not participate, or regulators will actually intervene, etc.

If someone is willing (and able) to commute 12 hrs a day to fill a job, and an employer is willing to employ that person at the rate they want, that will often happen barring better deals. Stochastically of course.

One can think of it in relation to energy states (when markets get above a certain size) if one was in the mood.

As always though, just as in said physics or chemistry problems, individual 'atoms' can and will end up in wildly different states from the median.

But that a single atom may be a movement/vibration rate equivalent to 100C doesn't mean the temperature of the solution isn't 25C (for example). Or that it won't average out over time for that atom as it collides/interacts with others.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#860

Post by lazide »

bshacklett wrote: post #816
lazide wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was always a risk at every company due to re-orgs, buyouts, or the whim of executives. Are employees right to be angry? Yeah. Do companies have the right to demand it? Yeah. Severance, etc. is always nice. In some cases it may even be required by contract or law, but that is rare. It seems like the knives are coming out now, and we’ll see who is left standing.

Companies can do a lot of things that are morally reprehensible without fear of legal consequences. It doesn’t make it OK, and it certainly doesn’t mean that they have “a right” to behave that way.

I think you have a very different definition of a 'right' than the court system?

Folks on both sides are allowed to make decisions others disagree with (within bounds), and suffer or enjoy the consequences appropriately.

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