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Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

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Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simplest reason is lack of effective communication, team bonding, and morale. People behave differently behind a screen even if incentivised by money. This becomes a problem at the scale of big companies. Eg - without body language, tone and context - everyone needs to be extra charitable to avoid miscommunication or distrust. This might cause people to be overly defensive in their approach to communicate.

How those cross-geo projects manage to do it then? or OSS like Linux?

Lots of email, chat, and video calls. Also conferences in the case of major projects like Linux.

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YMMV. I prefer hybrid with two days a week in the office. You can dedicate those days to meetings and conversations and keep the remote days for more heads down work. And if you can’t make it to the office due to snow or travel, you’re prepared for remote work.

I think one and a half days is the best. One of those days is the Friday so you get the half day automatically while being sociable.

And I think that's a good thing because you want your team to have sociable relationships it helps with the overall synergy and longevity of the team.

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#113

If just one of them had improved ventilation, maybe some of us might have felt safe enough to give a shit.

it’s been 4 years, it’s time to move on

> We've tried nothing, and it didn't work. Time to move on.

Uh, yeah, no.

Offices are havens of particulates, volatile organics, carbon dioxide, etc.

How long does it take that burnt popcorn smell to disappear from your office? That gives you an idea of how bad your office is.

HVAC systems can have HEPA filters, UV lights, good air exchange, etc. But the cheap ones don't. And, without pressure, nobody is going to install good ones.

Welcome to the pressure.

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it’s been 4 years, it’s time to move on

it's time to move on from what, exactly? from the global realization that maybe the idea of forcing people to come to work or school when they have any sort of contagious respiratory disease isn't the best idea?

Hybrid for two years and fully remote for another two haven't gotten me sick any less often or any less severely.

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#115

I agree that there is a real difference between being at work vs working from home. You build a connection to the workplace. Your brain shifts into "work mode" by default. People talk to each other, culture develops, etc. These are obviously all good things. The problem is, most jobs people do have an element of mindlessness and aren't cutting edge, innovating spaces. Most white-collar jobs people work in are satelli…

I found a lot of people treat being in the office as the job. They can walk around, socialize, and not really do anything useful, but they are “at work”, so it’s ok.

Meanwhile, people at home feel like they need to prove their worth and make sure their impact is being felt, so they work harder.

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it’s been 4 years, it’s time to move on

it's time to move on from what, exactly? from the global realization that maybe the idea of forcing people to come to work or school when they have any sort of contagious respiratory disease isn't the best idea?

When everyone was coming to work sick during flu season, I worked from home for a month or two. If they weren’t going to be responsible, I wasn’t going to subject myself to it.

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#117

So many CEOs will lay people off (or implement mandatory attrition policies) at any time. Employees have learned to look out for themselves and themselves alone. CEOs and productivity can go die.

> productivity can go die. If someone on my team had that attitude I would hate to work with them. They would hold me and my projects back. So I’m glad you’re not my colleague.

[deleted]

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#118
post #105

My boss (middle management) is very staunchly opposed to more than 1 day per week of WFH. She spends about 90% of her time on video calls, so I was always confused by that until she was telling me that when she does WFH she's always distracted by other things which doesn't happen in the office. Maybe a lot of the WFH opposition is really just managers projecting their own work ethic onto others?

> she's always distracted by other things which doesn't happen in the office Ah yes, some people will use any excuse to get away from their family/kids. Before WFH these people were traveling to any meeting or conference they could find.

Working 90 minutes from home, each way…

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#119

My boss (middle management) is very staunchly opposed to more than 1 day per week of WFH. She spends about 90% of her time on video calls, so I was always confused by that until she was telling me that when she does WFH she's always distracted by other things which doesn't happen in the office. Maybe a lot of the WFH opposition is really just managers projecting their own work ethic onto others?

> Maybe a lot of the WFH opposition is really just managers projecting their own work ethic onto others?

That might be. But it more likely they are traditional managers or leaders and don't want to learn how to navigate WFH team members (i.e., work in the 21st Century). It's not as simple as just-add Zoom or just-add Slack.

Thinking WFH is going away is like saying "The Internet... It's just a fad." We've been to this rodeo before. Managers and leaders who are in denial - and unwilling to learn new teicks - aren't worthy of their current role.

Re: Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay

#120
post #41

"Hybrid" is such a scam. What does it even mean? You come in to work 3-4 days a week? Cool, that's called "working from the office". If I still have to live in the same city/region as the office building and still have to commute most days of the week then what have they changed exactly? Most tech workers I know would do random WFH days when they needed to without a problem pre-Covid, and now that is just branded as…

My wife has one day a week team office day that they try to keep free from meetings so they can touch base, spend time with the team, and, often, plan a happy-hour event afterwards. It's not quite as flexible as full on remote working, since, yes, we have to be in the same region, but it saves a lot of commute time, gives more flexibility for things like doctors/dentists appointments, would theoretically let her do laundry/dishes relatively easily (I mostly do them), and we could reasonably live a fair amount further away since the commute is only one day a week.

That seems like a noticeable benefit to me.

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