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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

#881

Post by slumpt_ »

gonehome wrote: post #642
slumpt_ wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'll concede this point - it is primarily about communication. In theory you can resolve this (I'm at a remote company now and think gathertown is a great tool for this), but the lift is high and I suspect the majority of remote companies are operating at a net negative vs. colocation because of this. Even with these tools, some natural amount of human communication/interaction is lost. It mostly hurts spontaneous co…

The competitive disadvantage RTO companies have is trying to hire locally.

We have the pick of the best engineers from around the country (in some cases, world) because we pay bay area (startup adjusted) salaries regardless of where you live. The team is top notch - probably the best I’ve ever worked with.

So yeah - a cost to maintaining comms culture, but the payoff can be pretty nonlinear.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#882

Post by fennecfoxy »

I have a "who's flying this thing?!" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3oYnlPfBvI) theory.

That a large number of CEOs/Executives/management etc are actually useless and achieve nothing; the impact that they have on the business is incredibly minimal and sometimes they are even a detriment to overall function.

Look at your typical CEO of a large-ish company: what do they actually do? The business has presumably hired many clever employees with various skills and they already know how to do their jobs well. The CEO is only there to solve fabricated problems, such as one business only doing deals with another if the two CEOs went to a private boarding school together so they can shake hands after a three martini lunch.

Of course because people are people I have to include "of course this doesn't mean _all_ CEOs & management" (duh), but certainly a very large number of them.

Eyyyy, article author is a furry, too! :3

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#883

Post by anticensor »

lazide wrote: post #860
bshacklett wrote: post #816

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Courts are a last resort venue though. They have to work with that standard.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#884

Post by fennecfoxy »

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.

But you read the article before you wrote your comment, right? And if anybody looks at the content of that article, they can quite clearly tell the author is a furry...so how did you not realise this, given you read the article before you wrote you comment? Hmmm.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#885

Post by TrapLord_Rhodo »

myroon5 wrote: post #812
J_Shelby_J wrote: post #407

Something I never see mentioned is that business leadership is rarely just in it for the money. For some people, power over others isn't a responsibility. For some people, the power they feel from managing people is THE goal of work. So yeah, of course corporate politicians want RTO. Exercising power in a WFH company, even when they still hold power over someones life, is an abstract, intellectual thing. But the peop…

Honestly surprised I haven't heard that reasoning before now that you mention it: Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, Bill Gates, and Steve Ballmer all married subordinates, and Elon Musk had children with an employee

Elon donated sperm to an executive at one of his companies. It's a bit different than "Elon Musk had children with an employee"

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#886

Post by Kye »

fennecfoxy wrote: post #882

I have a "who's flying this thing?!" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3oYnlPfBvI ) theory. That a large number of CEOs/Executives/management etc are actually useless and achieve nothing; the impact that they have on the business is incredibly minimal and sometimes they are even a detriment to overall function. Look at your typical CEO of a large-ish company: what do they actually do? The business has presumably hir…

>> "Eyyyy, article author is a furry, too! :3 "

He's not a fennec fox, unfortunately. Can't all be perfect.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#887

Post by TrapLord_Rhodo »

asah wrote: post #306
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.

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.

8+ companies in 25 years? Seems like being remote first makes it very easy for your employees to jump ship, be taking interviews on the job, or even working multiple jobs.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#888

Post by sdfghswe »

fennecfoxy wrote: post #884
CPLX wrote: post #825

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But you read the article before you wrote your comment, right? And if anybody looks at the content of that article, they can quite clearly tell the author is a furry...so how did you not realise this, given you read the article before you wrote you comment? Hmmm.

Do you dress up as a furry around the office?

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#889

Post by jrsj »

dang wrote: post #828
jrsj wrote: post #613

[flagged]

" Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead. " " Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sorry I was being an asshole for no good reason

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#890

Post by jrsj »

Kye wrote: post #808
jrsj wrote: post #613

[flagged]

>> "it's going to be really difficult for a lot of people to take it seriously with all this." Putting off people with an aversion to furry art is a great way to filter out the most tedious sort of people. Try to please everyone and you end up pleasing no one.

[flagged]
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