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RTO: WTAF

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Re: RTO: WTAF

#141

Post by gaws »

badgersnake wrote: post #40
interpol_p wrote: post #8

We have some sort of hybrid policy. Every single time I have showed up at the office, I either end up socialising far too much and get nothing done (I find it extremely hard to work next to people without talking to them). Or nobody is there and I end up having driven (40 minutes each way) to the office to have Teams meetings with a wonderful view of the car park, under fluorescent lights, using a cheap low-resolutio…

> socialising far too much and get nothing done Alternatively, you networked, built useful relationships and shared knowledge.

"Hey, Bob."

"Hey, Chip."

"Catch the game last night?"

"Yeah. What a snoozer."

"Are you ready for that quarterly meeting? Heard Tracy will connect from the conference in Toledo. Hopefully I don't get a crappy seat in the conference room."

"I'll take the meeting from the desk."

"Nice. Lunch later?"

"Yeah. Talk then."

Wow. Another day of building relationships and sharing knowledge.

Re: RTO: WTAF

#142

Post by thedevilslawyer »

zappb wrote: post #122
bonoboTP wrote: post #26

It bears repeating that if you're a tech worker in the US, your greatest asset is your physical location. You might think you like remote jobs, but you will have competition from South America, Western and Eastern Europe, etc. as well as people in the US living in flyover states in the middle of nowhere with cheap rent. If the focus also shifts more to raw input-output task accomplishmentbas opposed to in person soci…

First of all, companies have already outsourced all that they could a couple decades ago. Then when it comes to hiring in different countries, this gets extremely complicated due to taxes and regulations. While some remote-first companies can navigate this complexity (usually through some sort of HR as a service type company), most companies are not structured in such a way to feasibly hire people outside their incor…

>companies have already outsourced all that they could a couple decades ago

Amateur armchair stuff. 9% YoY growth for decades.

https://truelist.co/blog/outsourcing-statistics/ (Graph 20)

Re: RTO: WTAF

#143

Post by SR2Z »

thefz wrote: post #131
SR2Z wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I speak Italian, English and French. I speak English to you because it's the only language you know. We are not the same. I have worked with overseas coworkers who spoke English. You're right, it's not always the same as having native fluency. > We work to live, not the opposite. Again, we are not the same. You're making my point for me - offshoring work fails for cultural reasons, not because overseas workers are…

> Also a very funny take because if you have ever visited the Bay Area, you can't throw a rock without hitting someone who struck it rich and retired at 30. What does it have to do with companies looking for "motivated" americans? Also > if you have ever visited the Bay Area Nah, thanks.

Congrats! You like where you live.

Re: RTO: WTAF

#144

Post by swiftcoder »

mft_ wrote: post #130
schmookeeg wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From coveting the corner office, to coveting the corner 200x200px zoom square. What a time to be alive. :D

Huh, it might be interesting if the size of each participant's image could be controlled programmatically, e.g. * The more you speak, the smaller your square gets * The square varies in size based on the emotion in your voice * Your square gets larger the longer you've had your hand up without being asked to speak * The squares change size to equalize the size of everyone's face on the screen, eliminating the effect…

Google meet recently started auto-cropping to faces, which I guess is an attempt to solve your last point. It’s not without its challenges (have to hit the recrop button if you move your head), but it is an improvement

Re: RTO: WTAF

#145

Post by surgical_fire »

gaws wrote: post #137
surgical_fire wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point I cared about the reason. I have since stopped caring. Even if a bunch of companies adopt RTO, many others just embraced remote work as a competitive advantage. I can just choose to work for those. So, RTO all you want. I am not joining.

> many others just embraced remote work as a competitive advantage. I can just choose to work for those. Are you sure it's that easy?

Easy or not, It's what I have been doing so far.

Re: RTO: WTAF

#146

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

SR2Z wrote: post #128
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that folks overseas aren't as capable of communicating with Americans as other Americans are. This is sortof absurd on the face of it. For context, I'm a European who's been working for US based companies for well over a decade now, and rarely do I have communications issues (and they're generally with non-native English speakers, mostly Europeans living in the US). > I think that American tech companies wo…

> This is sortof absurd on the face of it. For context, I'm a European who's been working for US based companies for well over a decade now, and rarely do I have communications issues (and they're generally with non-native English speakers, mostly Europeans living in the US). You might have excellent fluency, but my experience is that it varies a lot depending on the person. > Granted, you can't fire them for not lau…

I'm a native English speaker, for what it's worth. There are about 80mn or so of us in Europe.

I think the issue around employment protection is that the US laws are crazy bad, so any level of employment protection seems weird. Ireland and the UK (weirdly the places where you have lots of native English speakers) have pretty employer friendly laws for Europe.

Western Europe generally has a bunch more protections for permanent employees so maybe that's what you mean? Note that employment laws are almost entirely national, but the EU sets a floor.

Timezones definitely make a big difference, but again the cultural differences between Ireland and the UK and the typical coastal US tech companies are wildly oversold.

Re: RTO: WTAF

#147

Post by badgersnake »

gaws wrote: post #141
badgersnake wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> socialising far too much and get nothing done Alternatively, you networked, built useful relationships and shared knowledge.

"Hey, Bob." "Hey, Chip." "Catch the game last night?" "Yeah. What a snoozer." "Are you ready for that quarterly meeting? Heard Tracy will connect from the conference in Toledo. Hopefully I don't get a crappy seat in the conference room." "I'll take the meeting from the desk." "Nice. Lunch later?" "Yeah. Talk then." Wow. Another day of building relationships and sharing knowledge.

It depresses me how some engineers don’t realise how important this stuff is.

Re: RTO: WTAF

#148

Post by gaws »

surgical_fire wrote: post #145
gaws wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many others just embraced remote work as a competitive advantage. I can just choose to work for those. Are you sure it's that easy?

Easy or not, It's what I have been doing so far.

What's your profession?

Re: RTO: WTAF

#150

Post by eska »

oblio wrote: post #98
eska wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In order to fire a German employee outside of their multiple month trial period they have to commit a crime or willfully ignore instructions, or the company must be in financial trouble due to outside circumstances. Underperforming is not a legal reason to fire somebody.

My guess is, the employer just needs to do the legwork of documenting the performance issues.

No, the employer would have to provide training and show that the employee is willfully not participating. That’s legally challenging for non-trivial stuff.
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