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I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

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Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#101

Post by watwut »

tshaddox wrote: post #82
RHSeeger wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the end of the day, like it or not, the majority of people working for a company of beyond a small size are going to be in some level of a collaborative environment. Logistically, it's easier to accomplish that in person. You say this like it's a foregone conclusion, a fact. I disagree with it completely. It's far easier to collaborate remotely. You don't need find a meeting room, you don't need to worry about m…

> You don't need find a meeting room You have to pay for your own. > you don't need to worry about making too much noise Unless other people live in your home. > you don't need to worry about adding one person from another location suddenly changing the entire dynamic. That’s comparing all-remote to some-remote, which is a different comparison than all-remote to all-in-office.

> You have to pay for your own.

You have to do it anyway. The rent did not went up due you being at home during day.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#102

Post by serial_dev »

vallavaraiyan wrote: post #46

Unfortunately, there is a drop in empathy and trust (to varying degrees) when interacting with those who one hasn't met in person. Being in office, talking to your teammates face-to-face is super valuable when the team members are new to each other. Once the rapport is established, let each person do what works the best for them.

I started at a company in February and was basically remote-only until June.

A drop in empathy, trust, relationships for me was very small. It's there, but for work related stuff, I believe it didn't actually matter. Everyone was nice with me and we got things done. Whenever I had questions, they would help me out.

We were since then a couple of times in the office and talking to them in person was nice, I felt I could ask more questions, I got to listen to their unfiltered opinions as we could have spontaneous 1-1 conversations in the office. It was also because we didn't make time to "just chat" online, except for online watercooler team calls, but with 3-4 people in the call, we pay more attention to what we are allowed to say.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#104

Post by askonomm »

It is my opinion that if you are against remote work being the norm, you're a dinosaur and best get out of the way of progress. The amount of time people would win back to spend their life however they want by not commuting is astronomical, the environmental impact of not having so many transportation devices on the roads as a result would also be massive. If you somehow think that your need for water-cooler talk is as important as that, well, it isn't.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#105

Post by jwilber »

mastrsushi wrote: post #24

“ The company kept saying we will be more productive at the office. That's the opposite of what I am seeing. My team is now taking longer for cards, and the amount of time wasted in the office is ridiculous. The number of people, mindless walking around, chit-chatting in cubicles, going out for lunch/ coffee breaks just to fill in the time is a joke” You mean congregating like actual people. Not making snacks in your…

Hopefully congregating is more for you than just gathering for work.

I prefer wfh for the very reason that it allows me to congregate more - early morning surfing with friends, midday gym with friends, afternoon training with friends, evening dinner with friends. All far easier to do when you’re not tied to a particular location all day. Doubly so when factoring in commute.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#106

Post by Kosirich »

To be fair, it seems like he works in a really shitty place. I guess lot's of us have better conditions at work. Also "having to wait to reheat your prepared lunch in the canteen" sounds idiotic. If people have to bring their lunch, at least have enough microwaves in the office....they are like 100$.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#107

Post by 01100011 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #4

> If you like/prefer going to the office that is fine. I am not trying to say we should all be remote. Companies should offer FLEXIBILITY to let employees choose where to work from. That doesn’t work. I prefer working in the office, but only if the rest of my team is actually there with me. If some people are remote, then we have to do Zoom meetings, so I may as well be remote too.

Are you in SW? Over the last 20ish years of being a SWE, most of the time I had the option to work 40-100% from home. That's as an embedded SWE, which often means I'm dealing with HW. I just setup remote controls and measurement devices and WFH. I keep hearing people talk like they're going to be forced to sit at a desk 100% of the time. Is that really the case?

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#108

Post by bilog »

vallavaraiyan wrote: post #46

Unfortunately, there is a drop in empathy and trust (to varying degrees) when interacting with those who one hasn't met in person. Being in office, talking to your teammates face-to-face is super valuable when the team members are new to each other. Once the rapport is established, let each person do what works the best for them.

IME it's also a good idea to organize periodic get-togethers to "coalesce" some collaboration aspects that are harder to manage remotely.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#109

Post by colechristensen »

prox wrote: post #97
pcthrowaway wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally feel the draw to both. Personally, I really like the freedom of WFH and it wins out against the benefits of being in office for me. But I can see the appeal to being in office too; there's something really nice about working with your teammates, especially if you get along with them and learn from each other. The thing with your attitude though, is that you're saying it only works for you if everyone is in…

My main employer is always very flexible, even before the pandemic, I just met one day in the office (everyone else had to be there too) and the rest I was free to chose. Perfect combination of seeing eachother and WFH. We had small rooms so distraction was not a point. Commute was 25minutes. I do believe we should get more flexibility where possible.

I wonder how everyone would feel about WFH vs. office if highly paid, highly valued employees weren't forced into literally the smallest possible space for a third of their day. If we all had our own real offices and a work space not architected to be as abusive and "efficient" as possible, would we think differently about how nice it is not to go to the office any more?

Likewise for city design where commercial space is highly concentrated and disproportional to residential... if workspaces were spread out and there weren't hubs with way more jobs than housing... maybe commuting wouldn't be so long and so unpleasant and the thought of working from the spare bedroom or the couch would seem ridiculous.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#110

Post by aba_cz »

foxes wrote: post #99

Seems like their life would be dramatically better if they didn’t have some horrible car hellscape based commute. Pity cities are designed and spread out so because of cars. Then making the office more comfortable and flexible without people micromanaging would be the next thing.

This is U.S. thing, right? People in Europe are using public transportation to get to work from the edge of the city with no problems. Come visit Prague to see how it's done :D
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