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The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

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Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#151

Post by yurishimo »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #146
klodolph wrote: post #10

I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t buy it. By that, I mean it may be true (that people want to prop up real estate prices), but I don’t think that this is enough of an explanation. If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in A…

There is no conspiracy theory here. Most people will work 4 hour work days when working remotely. (And if they're working an 8 hour work day it's because they're working two remote jobs at the same time.) "No loss of productivity" is a flat out lie.

How much of your 8 hours at the office is productive work? In my experience, half the day is spent on coffee breaks and lunch anyway.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#152

Post by DragonStrength »

cyclonereef wrote: post #38

The idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy real-estate owners who have globally conspired to control people to go back to the office holds about as much weight in my mind as the idea that there's a global cabal of ultra-wealthy who have globally conspired to create a virus to control the population. Covid was an outlier event, and the outcomes that occurred as a result of it will revert to the mean over ti…

It’s more there’s a bunch of people who put their life savings into cheap structures on expensive land in SF and Seattle. If the next generation of high income professionals doesn’t have to buy their shitty 100 year old money pit, they’ve now taken a loss on the single biggest purchase they’ve ever made while the schools they bought for get worse. Many of these folks work at places like Amazon.

No conspiracy needed for a bunch of people to act in their own perceived best interest and work backwards to a justification.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#153

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

mjbale116 wrote: post #36

Here's the thing: The reasoning behind the work from office mandate does not concern me; nor I will attempt to rationalize it. I will not return to office, and I will organize with colleagues to make sure our interests are protected. See you in the strike.

Won't work, because those who work remotely are already striking every day, by slacking off. From management's perspective your strike changes nothing.

(Yes, yes, I know you personally are a conscientious worker with a stellar work ethic and would never slack off on the company's dime, but let's be real here and recognize the population averages.)

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#154

Post by swiftcoder »

mgh95 wrote: post #99
bjornsing wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talked to an acquaintance who ran a startup that went remote during the pandemic. His view was that the self-motivated conscientious employees were just as productive remote as they were in the office, if not more. The problem was that when they left the office the people in the office became less productive. To me that makes a lot of sense and aligns well with my experience of office life. Some people depend on se…

I think a lot of this comes down to perception of ROI for management. If the employment market is giving you qualified candidates at the price you seek in-office, why would you expose yourself to risk? I'm in this situation now where I'm hiring early employees and looking to grow, and about 90% of the decisions is how well can I derisk this hire . I don't need elite developers; I need competent, conscientious "75%" d…

> If the employment market is giving you qualified candidates at the price you seek in-office

Is the employment market actually giving you that?

Anecdotally, I knew a handful of FAANG engineers with 10+ years experience who had gone full remote before the pandemic, and dozens more during/since. Those are the creme-de-la-creme of the employment market, and they are all hanging out at startups who are willing to play ball on full remote, to get access to talent they otherwise couldn't remotely afford...

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#155

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

amjnsx wrote: post #150
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no conspiracy theory here. Most people will work 4 hour work days when working remotely. (And if they're working an 8 hour work day it's because they're working two remote jobs at the same time.) "No loss of productivity" is a flat out lie.

Maybe most people can get all their work done in 4 hours so sitting in an office for 8 is pointless

Maybe, maybe not.

However, management bought 8 hours of your time and not 4 when they hired you.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#156

Post by close04 »

slg wrote: post #74
kitsune_ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory, which is kind of informed by what I saw it play out in my company: The reason is a psychological one. Most leaders derive their power from in-person interactions. Remote and video calls severely impact that. Those leaders also love having an audience that needs to listen to them whenever they are in the room and the lack of that kind of feedback and adulation shellshocked a lot of them.

It feels a lot worse to deliver a lame joke at the start of an all hands meeting to a bunch of muted zoom windows with their cameras off. How much of the return to office is leaders wanting that polite chuckle from that captured audience back? I'm barely being facetious. "That polite chuckle" is really a stand in for all the soft power they wield in person that evaporates with WFH. They have lost a degree of control…

I think we're looking for the unified theory of RTO. Soft power is definitely one of them. But every company and group of people have their own mix of reasons.

I bet Amazon's exercise is a hidden layoff process. Other companies probably want to get their money's worth from the office buildings. The management of others wants to see the army of smiling minions that report to them. Others want to see people in the office for control (make sure they're not enjoying too long breaks, or working from the beach, or working double jobs in parallel, etc.). And some believe that people will interact better, easier if they're in physical proximity. Or a mix of this even between managers from the same company.

And sometimes I think some cities push employers to get people back in office because they have no better idea how to keep those centers of activity vibrant, alive, and contributing financially. I remember reading some city authorities complaining that RTO means the death of the city center and the businesses tied to it.

I don't see why there would be one reason to rule them all.

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#157

Post by jldugger »

> They only care about one thing, forcing warm bodies back into office buildings to stop the commercial real estate apocalypse. If they can’t fill those zombie towers, they have to trim their budgets with stealth layoffs.

The problem with these evil capitalist conspiracy theories is evidence: there should be evidence of this motivation _somewhere_. If you're a captain of industry, your compensation is driven by equity, which is in turn driven by shareholders' forecast of future earnings. So CEOs should be shouting their evil plans from the rooftops --anything you do but don't tell shareholders about might as well not have happened! Yet it doesn't come up in earnings calls, shareholder reports or at industry analyst reports. Probably because commercial real estate has no bearing on most company's valuations, and the ones it does impact are usually lightly staffed anyways, or couldn't really work from home in the first place.

I don't think the "us" vs "elites" framing helps the analysis at all, as it's far too reductive and treats actors as monoliths. Instead it's probably better to use something like "us" versus "small businesses, politicians, tech CEOs, bankers, and real estate investors." (And maybe even split up "us": not every job can work from home!) Tech CEOs generally have no exposure to commercial real estate. But bankers do, and real estate investors definitely do. These firms tend to be local in scope, and more directly connected to local politicians.

In that network of actors, tech companies are the mark. Politicians come after them with taxes and rules while carving out small business exemptions without which they would otherwise be voted out. And unlike the 'Jeff Bezos is worried about the long term viability of REITs' theory, this one has evidence, from politicians telling us their plans[1][2]. They campaign on these in-all-but-name writ-of-attainder taxes. How any individual tech company reacts can vary.

So that's the causal path between commercial RE and tech as I see it and it doesn't look like a strong one. Maybe it's more prevalent in the east coast where the banking and legal sectors are more represented, but here on the west coast only one company is fully 5 days in office They are widely reputed to have the highest employee churn target among big tech, and WFH lowered churn across the board.

[1]: https://www.sanjoseinside.com/opinion/op-ed-cupertino-city-c... [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/technology/san-francisco-...

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#158

Post by clumsysmurf »

slg wrote: post #74
kitsune_ wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory, which is kind of informed by what I saw it play out in my company: The reason is a psychological one. Most leaders derive their power from in-person interactions. Remote and video calls severely impact that. Those leaders also love having an audience that needs to listen to them whenever they are in the room and the lack of that kind of feedback and adulation shellshocked a lot of them.

It feels a lot worse to deliver a lame joke at the start of an all hands meeting to a bunch of muted zoom windows with their cameras off. How much of the return to office is leaders wanting that polite chuckle from that captured audience back? I'm barely being facetious. "That polite chuckle" is really a stand in for all the soft power they wield in person that evaporates with WFH. They have lost a degree of control…

The soft power aspect of jokes, who laughs at what, and when is fascinating. There is even some research on it:

From https://www.thehrobserver.com/indepth/laughing-at-the-bosss-...

>You mentioned that humour and power is intertwined – what is the social impact of this?

>If a boss is trying to be funny, they are automatically trying to get a response, so the use of humour is never neutral or irrelevant. People have a split second to decide whether or not to fake a laugh, or even how much to laugh – trying to figure out if the boss thinks a particular joke is a little funny or a lot funny. At the same time, they are trying to decide what the consequences of not laughing might be.

original paper https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amj.2022.0195

Re: The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

#159

Post by mgh95 »

swiftcoder wrote: post #154
mgh95 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of this comes down to perception of ROI for management. If the employment market is giving you qualified candidates at the price you seek in-office, why would you expose yourself to risk? I'm in this situation now where I'm hiring early employees and looking to grow, and about 90% of the decisions is how well can I derisk this hire . I don't need elite developers; I need competent, conscientious "75%" d…

> If the employment market is giving you qualified candidates at the price you seek in-office Is the employment market actually giving you that? Anecdotally, I knew a handful of FAANG engineers with 10+ years experience who had gone full remote before the pandemic, and dozens more during/since. Those are the creme-de-la-creme of the employment market, and they are all hanging out at startups who are willing to play b…

> Is the employment market actually giving you that?

Yes. Not all applications benefit from FAANG experience. There is a lot of work to be done that pays in the 130-200 range that isn't necessarily cutting edge. I should add, benefits are excellent (major medical) and it's a private office.

> Anecdotally, I knew a handful of FAANG engineers with 10+ years experience who had gone full remote before the pandemic, and dozens more during/since. Those are the creme-de-la-creme of the employment market, and they are all hanging out at startups who are willing to play ball on full remote, to get access to talent they otherwise couldn't remotely afford...

I can believe it. Sometimes, you just need technical excellence to bring a product to market, otherwise you fail. But other times, you can simply apply well understood paradigms to well understood markets and have excellent financial returns.

It's the difference between an excellent business and an excellent product. When you have a choice, choose the excellent business.

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