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Tragedy of return to hostile offices

benjiweber.co.uk

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Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#101

Post by metabagel »

_uhtu wrote: post #38
rossdavidh wrote: post #13

So, I have often worked remotely, think it's fine, and makes sense in some cases. But, honestly, this is a professional-class issue, and every article about it seems written from a viewpoint that has forgotten about most of the population. The waitress and cook never had the option of working remotely, nor did the factory worker, the construction worker, the taxicab driver, the truck driver, etc. etc. Most of the pop…

This is a very bad take in multiple ways. Firstly, problems in the professional workplace need to be discussed too. And that's not just for the benefit of the "professional class" if these people work more efficiently at home it's better for both them and everyone else, the company, the people who pay for the services of that company, the world thanks to fewer driving emissions. Secondly, you most be very out of touc…

Executive assistants can work from home? Our admins mostly can’t.

Customer support folks working from home predated the pandemic. In fact, they often work from outside the country.

Marketing is a profession like engineering. They don’t get paid by the hour.

Most hourly workers have to work onsite.

I feel like your comment is less logical argument and more emotional reaction.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#102

Post by freedomben »

foooorsyth wrote: post #71
AlexandrB wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is correct. It's why, before the pandemic normalized remote work, offices were popular. What's disheartening is that a lot of "return to office" plans I've heard of from friends involve conditions even worse than what was there before. For example, hot-desking replacing the previous (also terrible) open office. I'm too young to have lived through the golden age of engineers actually having an office to w…

I loved my cube at my first job. We even had a biometric door that separated engineering from the rest of the company. Only engineers behind the door. Juniors and mid levels working in cubes. A few tenured engineers, the primary engineering manager, VP of engineering, and CTO working in offices. Only two meetings per week — all other time was head down programming and ad hoc discussions. The median volume of the room…

Indeed, I loved my cube too. Many people complained about the sea of cubicles, but they don't realize how much worse it could get lol.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#103

Post by x86x87 »

oneoff777 wrote: post #96
x86x87 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, this does not compute. Your whole argument is that since we cannot do all jobs remotely we shouldn't do any jobs remotely?

[flagged]

After Jesus did the job he's been working remotely for thousands of years. Most have not seen his face, not even on a Zoom call.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#105

Post by Galanwe »

2023throwawayy wrote: post #83
Galanwe wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> remote work [...] allows employees to tailor their environment to their needs, rather than be forced into a hostile office space Some office spaces being bad doesn't imply we should get rid of office spaces overall. If the company you're working for is so crazy on its office requirements, it could be as crazy with its remote work requirements. Seems like this is a company specific issue, not an office vs remote iss…

If you are in a positive office space, you need to understand that you are incredibly lucky and part of a tiny minority.

> you are incredibly lucky

Says who?

There's no more reason for an office space to be bad rather than good. And there's no reason to think that having a good one is based on luck.

If office space dynamics and setup are important to you, then put it in your job search mental list and find a job that matches that.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#106

Post by medvezhenok »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #63
kfk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your answer basically proves his point that we are becoming a highly entitled group of people. We struggle to empathize with other workers and, I would say, companies and managers. We tell ourselves this very simplistic stories like "all managers are bad", "all office work is a waste of time", "I should just get tasks on my async proj manager tool". I am telling you, with this level of entitlement, just hope…

But what is the point? If we can all agree that going to the office sucks, how is the "professional class" being forced back in the office make the other workers' day suck less? I'd argue it's quite the opposite! If I stay at home, I'm one less person compressing them in the metro, or helping gridlock the highways or taking up parking spaces (I live in the city where parking is scarce for pretty much everyone). If I…

We are also in the class that's driving housing prices up (via geographic arbitrage) and pricing out a lot of forced in-person workers (who actually live "far away" as you said, and not in the city center). And that does breed a lot of resentment.

So in some ways (i.e. housing prices), you working from home does directly make these people lives worse, as you are now their competition for real-estate.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#107

Post by skulk »

chasd00 wrote: post #74
Zigurd wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pair programming isn't widely practiced for obvious reasons: It looks like you just made your code twice as expensive. There are studies justifying the cost by showing it can be recovered with less testing, code review, and bug hunting. But that evidently hasn't been persuasive. Also, anyone familiar with statistical quality control (SQC or SQA) would look at pair programming and see 100% inspection. Very suboptimal…

have you ever done pair programming? like actually sit there and be forced to do it? It's absolutely infuriating to anyone who values anything. I spent 20min trying to convince my "pair" that it was ok for a comment to be a sentence fragment and not a complete sentence. Every keystroke is the same conversation over and over. After that experience, i pulled rank and said i will never pair program again and haven't sin…

> It's absolutely infuriating to anyone who values anything

It's not really your place to say what's infuriating to others when your pair programming experience with a _single_ (somewhat neurotic) programmer was irritating. In my experience, pair programming has been a delightful two-way share of ideas that was both refreshing and productive (but I'm not going to claim universality or such an experience).

Pair programming probably does suck when one side is extremely impatient and overbearing.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#108

Post by watters »

If RTO drove actual, material benefits to results, companies would be explaining RTO policies by connecting those dots.

At this point, I haven't seen a single attempt from any company to offer such a rationale.

We can reasonably infer that such policies are not rooted in any evidence-oriented analysis.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#109

Post by someone7x »

rossdavidh wrote: post #13

So, I have often worked remotely, think it's fine, and makes sense in some cases. But, honestly, this is a professional-class issue, and every article about it seems written from a viewpoint that has forgotten about most of the population. The waitress and cook never had the option of working remotely, nor did the factory worker, the construction worker, the taxicab driver, the truck driver, etc. etc. Most of the pop…

This reads like some crab mentality; since heroic nurses and factory workers can’t work remotely then we should bemoan those who can and do work remotely.

Should we also cancel telehealth programs so those nurses that actually do work remotely don’t become spoiled and entitled?

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#110

Post by ghaff »

conductr wrote: post #95
chasd00 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The RTO is being entirely driven from the top by institutional investors wanting to avoid losses on property investments and from the bottom by those who have yet to grapple with the fact they dont have friends or hobbies and need you in the office so that they dont feel like such embarrassing losers. I know i'm supposed to "contribute to the conversation" but it's important to recognize that the above point is exa…

IDK, I don’t think real estate part is entirely true. It’s often quoted but most companies have very little RE as a percentage of revenue or whatever metric you think makes most sense. Many more are just leasing RE and could easily have exited that position by now. Even a one time write off could be spun as a positive thing. These properties can be repurposed and have continued value without their corporate tenants.…

One of the larger companies I'm most familiar with is definitely not renewing leases on a fairly widespread basis. I'm sure some companies feel they're locked in for some reason but it's just not universal.
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