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Tragedy of return to hostile offices

benjiweber.co.uk

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Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#111

Post by lawlessone »

AlexandrB wrote: post #40
tristor wrote: post #10

One of the primary reasons that remote work improves productivity is that it allows employees to tailor their environment to their needs, rather than be forced into a hostile office space that requires kafkaesque bureaucratic bullshit to make even minor changes. I once had a former employer force me to take an espresso machine home that I had brought to work because it created a situation where a different shift was…

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…

Another issue I think is that pre-covid there were people that had been working from home for years.. a decade even.

Now I think those people are getting the same back to office spiel.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#112

Post by Zigurd »

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 can be terrible in practice. Same with test driven development, also annoying if instituted by proclamation. A lot of code doesn't need these formalisms. By that I mean: Do it very carefully in circumstances where there is clear justification, and with an adequate budget for tooling and support. These techniques were invented before there was good tooling to support them, which makes bad outcomes a lot more likely.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#113

Post by lawlessone »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #99
ericbarrett wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep saying—if you want me to return to the office, give me an office . Or even a cubicle. Why even enforce a hot-desking setup when the space is 20% full? It makes no sense at all!

For all the memes about cubicles the one time I had it was actually pleasant. You could have a small meeting in the cubicle. The walls were tall enough to hang up reference diagrams. Those same walls meant that sound didn't travel when your PM was on yet another call. Not being able to see a window was a downside. As was there oppressive grey-beige monotony, but I imagine with the Google colour palette they'd be much…

Compared to open plan, cubicles are pleasant.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#114

Post by x86x87 »

watters wrote: post #108

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.

RTO has benefits, just not for employees. Commercial real estate, businesses downtown, municipalities, they all benefit from this slow moving trainwreck.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#115

Post by nonameiguess »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #68
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…

Is it though? Most companies prioritise their own self interest over nebulous “institutional investment” bogeymen.

In theory, if there is such a thing as a "self" to have an interest in. The idea breaks down when the same 30 people sit on the board of directors of every publicly-traded company in a particular sector and also own all the property.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#116

Post by hotnfresh »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #17

In some ways, OP’s suggestions are a recipe for building hostile teams! Why would I be entitled to interrupt someone to review my code, just because they are sitting next to me? Always on zoom? No, thanks. It invariably devolves into micromanaging. Constant KPI awareness? Most companies cannot even agree on how a valuable KPI looks like. Remote pair programming? Honest question here, is pair programming still a thing…

> Remote pair programming? Honest question here, is pair programming still a thing?

I’ve just encountered it at my newest job.

A little of it actually seems good, but more as a “show and tell” of how some part of the system you know operates, that may include writing a little code in service of better learning.

Otherwise it seems to be a great way to get two developers to have the output of half a developer.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#117

Post by starcraft2wol »

tristor wrote: post #10

One of the primary reasons that remote work improves productivity is that it allows employees to tailor their environment to their needs, rather than be forced into a hostile office space that requires kafkaesque bureaucratic bullshit to make even minor changes. I once had a former employer force me to take an espresso machine home that I had brought to work because it created a situation where a different shift was…

That's certainly an argument but it's just one bullet point in a supportive 5 paragraph essay. How many employees actually have better equipment and spaces at home? Is your espresso machine improving your productivity, or is it a hobby to fiddle with throughout the day? What other distractions are at home that aren't at the office?

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#118

Post by tristor »

Galanwe wrote: post #105
2023throwawayy wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>> you are incredibly lucky

> Says who?

Says anyone who has spent more than a decade in the workforce.

> 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.

By “no reason”, you mean no logical reason. That might be true. Unfortunately a crafted reality controlled by sociopaths isn’t required to be logically consistent at every layer. Hence our current reality, where this is very much a case of 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.

Thanks for the advice. That’s /exactly/ what all the folks working remotely have done. That’s also why we are agitated by shitty management trying to take it away.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#119

Post by x86x87 »

bilsbie wrote: post #97

I still remember the time we had no space for an intern to sit so we had to put him in an empty VP office. But only senior people could have windows so they covered his windows in cardboard …

Hahaha. If I didn't know exactly how this happens I would say this is made up.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#120

Post by Devasta »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #80
Devasta wrote: post #19

I work in Cork, Ireland. My boss is in Dublin, his boss Singapore, my staff in Nova Scotia, Devs in Manila, clients in London and New York. I'm always working remotely, no matter where I am, as is anyone who works in any multi office company. 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 wit…

> the fact they dont have friends or hobbies and need you in the office so that they dont feel like such embarrassing losers You must be a great person to work with if this is whats going on with your internal monologue about the people you interact closely with.

Why would this be the internal monologue about people I interact closely with? They aren't the ones forcing everyone in.
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