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Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

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Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#101

Post by hospitalJail »

ericzawo wrote: post #15

The manager class is going to go kicking and screaming into the new world where they can no longer call their otherwise totally capable, productive employees into the office for morning snack like schoolchildren. The faster they accept it, the better off their organizations will be.

>manager class

What is the manager class? The people who sacrificed their $/hr in favor of power?

If I want to be a manager, I can hire people with my fat income and manage them on my spare time or when I take a few years off work. Then I can come back as a manager with all my new experience.

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#102

Post by pjc50 »

elvis10ten wrote: post #98

Every time this topic comes up on HN, I see many anecdotes on why WFO is bad. My anecdote: I work from the office everyday (unforced). 20-30 minutes commute. I come in at 6am/7am and leave at 2pm/3pm. I do a 30 minutes calisthenics session and then head home and usually leave my laptop in the office (as a forcing function to disconnect). The result: I have built strong bonds with colleagues outside my team. A few of…

How long is your commute?

I'm in the middle on this: I have a very good office at the moment, and am content to be there and chat with my coworkers, but that doesn't make the commuting any less of a deadweight loss.

It also makes it far easier to organize e.g. work on the house or dental appointments.

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#103

Post by Tarball10 »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #94
farnsworth wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know anyone with a 20 minute commute- I'd be in the office every day if I had that. Actually I think the commute pain is the best single predictor of how people feel about going back to the office.

While people driving cars solo is surely a pitiable waste of time and resources, and my current commute is about 20ft from bedroom to living room, I would say that a happy medium has been my public transit-based commutes. As long as there's at least one leg with a long-haul distance (30+ minutes), I am usually able to enter a calm and meditative state, lower my blood pressure, and set aside the cares of home and work…

You can also sit out on your porch or deck in the morning before work with a cup of coffee and a podcast, and meditate, relax, or whatever you like to do to get ready for work.

I've heard managers try to spin a commute as a good thing, giving you transition time between work and home, but it always comes off to me as corporate BS and nothing you can't also do at home without dealing with traffic or public transit.

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#104

Post by commandlinefan »

wredue wrote: post #50

I reclaim 1.5 hours a day from work from home, so a mandated back to work would actually represent a 6 point pay cut on the day assuming I thought that through properly. I don’t even have an egregious commute compared to others. Never mind that all of a sudden I no longer need before and after daycare. I have a home gym and can acceptably exercise at lunch. I don’t have peer pressures to go out for lunch all the time…

> transparently a middle management “I’m still relevant!”

Which makes one wonder who the people who kept posting on here how much they missed the office and wished we'd go back to the office during the pandemic actually were.

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#105

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

antisthenes wrote: post #89
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #75

Anecdotally my org is on a hiring tear lately and we're completely remote, and the quality of candidates has steeply risen as of late. I mean really good candidates I'd rarely see before are pouring into my inbox. I've never talked to so many folks currently at Google, Meta, Amazon, but also big banks and other F500s. Many candidates are coy about their reasons for leaving, especially given all the layoffs, but, stil…

> I talked to a director last week who spends 1/3 the year in ski country, 1/3 the year in the Midwest and 1/3 the year on the coast. He's not going back, and practically anyone would be lucky to have him. Does he actually spend any time working?

The folks I've known to do this have been hard workers, so I would guess yes.

I used to work with an incredible engineer who went skiing from 6-9am every day and then again at 6pm, weather permitting. Slopes were 5 minutes from his front door.

If you tried to fit this sort of thing in while working in an office, then no you probably wouldn't spend much time working, and that's the whole point.

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#106

Post by Kye »

JackFr wrote: post #90
Kye wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "the author of this article is a PhD who is advertising their services at the end" That's an author bio. Completely ordinary for articles and has been since the print days.

Nonsense -- it's entirely self-promotion: > At that point, they called me to help as a hybrid work expert who The New York Times has called “the office whisperer.” We worked on adapting their return-to-office plan, . . . > In another case, a large financial services company began noticing employee turnover despite offering competitive salaries . . . . After consulting with me, they adjusted their policies to be more…

You missed this:

>> "at the end"

Whether the stuff elsewhere is promotion is a different discussion. I didn't comment on that. The stuff at the end is a bog standard author bio.

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#107

Post by ModernMech »

commandlinefan wrote: post #104
wredue wrote: post #50

I reclaim 1.5 hours a day from work from home, so a mandated back to work would actually represent a 6 point pay cut on the day assuming I thought that through properly. I don’t even have an egregious commute compared to others. Never mind that all of a sudden I no longer need before and after daycare. I have a home gym and can acceptably exercise at lunch. I don’t have peer pressures to go out for lunch all the time…

> transparently a middle management “I’m still relevant!” Which makes one wonder who the people who kept posting on here how much they missed the office and wished we'd go back to the office during the pandemic actually were.

A lot of opinions on here would make more sense if we could look at titles and salary of posters. So much motivated reasoning going on.

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#108

Post by bluefishinit »

Raidion wrote: post #78

My take on remote work as a manager for a company with significant name recognition: I think it's clear some people prefer working remotely (and the online hacker news crowd leans heavily that way). It's also clear that some people feel real benefits from being in the office. I think it's inevitable that the culture of a company mirrors the values of it's leaders. Companies with leaders that value in person communica…

> Companies with leaders that feel like collaboration is less important, are more willing to set metrics and not be as directly as involved, and hire experienced employees with less oversight, lean towards remote work.

I feel like collaboration is very important which is why I only run teams WFH and never in the office. There's no collaboration happening when people are crammed together in a building, just posturing.

Collaboration for remote employees is amazing though. You can even look at large open source projects where people who have never even spoken to each other successfully develop software together.

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#109

Post by ojbyrne »

There's an editorial in the Washington Post today from Michael Bloomberg pushing for RTO in the federal government, and generally, everywhere else. I wonder who is more influential?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/01/michael-b...

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#110

Post by McDyver »

antisthenes wrote: post #89
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #75

Anecdotally my org is on a hiring tear lately and we're completely remote, and the quality of candidates has steeply risen as of late. I mean really good candidates I'd rarely see before are pouring into my inbox. I've never talked to so many folks currently at Google, Meta, Amazon, but also big banks and other F500s. Many candidates are coy about their reasons for leaving, especially given all the layoffs, but, stil…

> I talked to a director last week who spends 1/3 the year in ski country, 1/3 the year in the Midwest and 1/3 the year on the coast. He's not going back, and practically anyone would be lucky to have him. Does he actually spend any time working?

> Does he actually spend any time working?

This seems the exact thought process of management wanting people to RTO.

They forget there's time, and life, after working hours. And the less you need to commute, the more free time you have to actually live and enjoy life.

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