131–140 of 306 posts
Having your own private bathroom is a really underrated perk of WFH. There are of course many more benefits to WFH, but using your own bathroom is something no office and their disgusting communal bathrooms could ever compete with.
I never want to piss next to a man on a zoom call ever again.
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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?
Imagine referring to good coffee, the substance that built modern America and industrialized the world, as a “distraction” and arguing that it doesn’t improve productivity. Can you imagine?
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> 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.…
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.
There are certainly perceived benefits to management and/or related to real estate interests, including but not limited to: easier observation and suppression of employee organizing, different legal exposure profile as fewer people are casually creating business communication that may later be sifted during legal discovery, propping up commercial real estate investments, etc.
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…
> 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 can see why office culture doesn't appeal to you, you sound like a grump who doesn't enjoy the comraderie you can form with people that you spend 40 hours a week with. If you can enjoy the cognitive dissonance of socializing with blac…
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?
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…
Ireland is crazy for jumping on the real estate ship again. This almost bankrupted the country in 2007 because the economy had become so one-sided. I remember the dreary half-finished shopping malls and whole neighborhoods of concrete slabs falling to pieces. And yes I know some of those bottom feeders in our place too. They're the ones constantly distracting you at work with chitchat. I have several people I try to…
This time though it's more because enough isn't being built to meet demand. A good chunk of property is be gobbled up by AirBNB.
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…
where I used to work, the micro kitchens all had their own foodservice licenses, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d balked at employees bringing their own equipment
small companies don’t give a shit about stuff like that ime
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How does that work? Are institucional investors writing "plz return to office or we are going bust" emails to every company?
I worked under a C-level person who was otherwise a pretty sensible guy, but he had participated in a workshop about this, in a 1000 person company. After the workshop he instituted a RTO policy. The policy was more lenient than the company policy, but still needlessly strict. In personal discussions he stated that in the workshop they discussed that all people would slack away from work given the opportunity. He see…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
How dare a human being be granted a small reprieve from the monotony of their day to do something they enjoy for a few minutes, huh?