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The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

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Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#71

Post by lapcat »

flappyeagle wrote: post #60
lapcat wrote: post #28

You can speculate about various external reasons, but I suspect the real explanation is less rational and more psychological, instinctive, primal: managers enjoy the physicality and immediacy of management. They love to survey their domain, as if a lord, to be able to watch their underlings, to stand over their shoulders or get in their face, force them to acknowledge and respond to you. With WFH, a lot of that is lo…

armchair psychiatry at its finest. you've never managed anything significant clearly. Here I'll do one: "software developers like to choose their own tools because they don't care about using the most efficient best in class tool available, they like to think of themselves as artists as if they were all little da vincis who have yet to be recognized for their brilliance" See how condescending and dumb this is?

> armchair psychiatry at its finest.

I don't deny it. I literally said "I suspect".

> you've never managed anything significant clearly.

Also armchair psychiatry.

> See how condescending and dumb this is?

I think your wording was a bit exaggerated but has a grain of truth in that many software developers do think of themselves as artists, and they're not wrong about that in essence. I do think it's wrong to claim that there's a unique "most efficient best in class tool available". Different people naturally find different tools more efficient for their personal workflows.

I actually think that the majority of human behavior, including my own, can be explained in animalistic terms. It's not condescending, because we are undeniably animals. In fact, it makes no rational sense for me to waste time commenting on HN, but I do it anyway!

Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#72

Post by antod »

MaxHoppersGhost wrote: post #20
linkjuice4all wrote: post #5

"My advice to the many CEOs tasked with this decision? Just own it." It would be nice if we could get this level of honesty from CEOs - but let's not pretend that firing people is the only driver for RTO. Some other motivations include: - We took a tax break that specifies some level of in-office time per employee and we already spent the money - We're getting pressured from local governments to bring customers into…

Is it crazy to think that working from an office is just more productive? Especially if you’re a big company and have a lot of new grads/inexperienced hires that are harder to train up remotely?

It can be, provided your colleagues are all there, your team has its own dedicated space, meeting rooms are alway available, connectivity is good etc etc.

If not, and you're still having to work remotely just in the office with crowded hotdesking, shit wifi and no rooms available, worse coffee, worse monitors and keyboards etc, then no - being at home is way better.

Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#73

Post by lapcat »

enumjorge wrote: post #49
lapcat wrote: post #28

You can speculate about various external reasons, but I suspect the real explanation is less rational and more psychological, instinctive, primal: managers enjoy the physicality and immediacy of management. They love to survey their domain, as if a lord, to be able to watch their underlings, to stand over their shoulders or get in their face, force them to acknowledge and respond to you. With WFH, a lot of that is lo…

I've seen this attribution of RTO to "managers" before but it doesn't ring true in my experience. Managers is too broad of a group of people. Every manager I've had since the beginning of the pandemic has loved working from home and said they don't want to go back. If this [1] story from a few weeks ago is to be believed these directives are coming from the people at the top: executives, high level management, and in…

> Managers is too broad of a group of people.

It should go without saying that I was talking about the people making the decisions about RTO.

Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#74

Post by Kon-Peki »

taylodl wrote: post #33
Kon-Peki wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. We were supposed to go back after 1 month, then 3 months, than 1 year, than 18 months, and then it was "we give up, work wherever you want - but for taxes and insurance purposes you MUST stay inside the state". And now our office lease is up; CEO recently announced where the new office will be. It will be extremely close to his new house and will have desks for even more people than we have now. You'd have t…

Nobody likes an ass-kisser. That's the best career advice I can give you.

The best career advice I can give anyone is to know what's going to happen before the boss does. It has gotten a lot easier in the last decade or so since most managers think that Agile means "don't have to do any planning"

To paraphrase Wayne Gretzky a bit: "An ass-kisser plays where the manager is now; a great employee plays where the manager is going to be."

Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#75

Post by DueDilligence »

linkjuice4all wrote: post #5

"My advice to the many CEOs tasked with this decision? Just own it." It would be nice if we could get this level of honesty from CEOs - but let's not pretend that firing people is the only driver for RTO. Some other motivations include: - We took a tax break that specifies some level of in-office time per employee and we already spent the money - We're getting pressured from local governments to bring customers into…

[dead]

Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#76

Post by [deleted] »

rfwhyte wrote: post #12

The real reason CEOs want people back in office is 100% because they are broadly part of the same socio-economic class that owns the vast majority of commercial real estate around the world. They and their friends and family own all the commercial real estate, and high vacancy rates are are hurting their bottom lines and reducing the rate at which their property values increase, so they want people back in the office…

[deleted]

Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#77

Post by throwaway9274 »

t0mas88 wrote: post #29
throwaway9274 wrote: post #10

The problem with this idea is that the highest performers are the group most likely to quit.

Well... Those that are best at interviewing and selling themselves are the most likely to quit after finding a new position. That doesn't necessarily correlate with the highest performers. Might actually correlate more with those that also spend a lot of time on internal politics, which are good for their performance reviews but not for the companies actual performance. Especially in the more technical roles most of…

The really talented technical people I know have what I call “eff you skills.”

They literally walk away over minor inconveniences like “you can’t use your own mouse here” or “you have to use VS Code and not your Vim setup.” Don’t like something management does? “Eff you.”

Last place I was at did one day in the office, and they all left without new jobs.

All are now employed again, most a level up.

Re: The reason CEOs want workers to RTO is because they want you to quit

#78

Post by dgunay »

linkjuice4all wrote: post #5

"My advice to the many CEOs tasked with this decision? Just own it." It would be nice if we could get this level of honesty from CEOs - but let's not pretend that firing people is the only driver for RTO. Some other motivations include: - We took a tax break that specifies some level of in-office time per employee and we already spent the money - We're getting pressured from local governments to bring customers into…

Really frustrating that instead of moving towards making city centers cheaper to live in and attract more local customers that way, municipal govts and corporations want to just force working-class people to waste time and money commuting on infrastructure already well past its carrying capacity.

More and more working professionals I know are essentially forced to live dozens of miles away from where they work in a heavily urbanized area, or give up the dream of ever owning a house.

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