I'm having a hard time understanding the justification for returning to the office. My only answer is "power play" and to justify existing capital investments in office space. If Salesforce, a 49,000 employee company can go remote-first, most other companies can as well.
34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work
151–160 of 341 posts
Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
So much this. My office (investment bank) is dull, dreary, depressing, dystopian, Dilbertesque. Everyone must wear at least business casual (dress shirt, dress pants, dress shoes). We have none of the perks mentioned above. The commute is miserable. Very little sunlight. Even our coffee is an atrocity. This is probably standard fare for most old school non-tech companies. I've visited the offices of quite a few Silic…
this raises the question, what are the companies where going into the office is like checking in to the Four Seasons?
Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work
#153I personally would rather quit than stay remote indefinitely, I can tell you that.
I'm losing my mind. I can't believe I actually used to think it would be preferable.
Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok so I'll share my personal anecdote. I was of the opinion that I wanted to go back to work. I was tired of the remote work, feeling trapped in my apartment. My office wasn't calling us back till at least July, so I had to figure out a solution -- this was affecting my mental health! So I signed up for wework. Initially it was great, the change in scenery and socializing was a welcome change. However I quickly got v…
Can you elaborate on what was so exhausting? This is a super interesting anecdote to hear!
Yes I think it was a cumulation of these things. (I am adding more points as I become aware of it. I never really considered why I stopped going, but I knew that I would never go back to wework).
1) Having to wear a mask for 8 hours a day. I couldn't breathe properly. Also, generally poorer ventilation compared to my apartment -- I sit beside a window.
2) Couldn't freely engage in meetings -- especially the technical ones. I was the only engineer there and I could feel how flabbergasted people were of what I was saying.
3) Constant dread of hunger; at home I always had snacks, fridge nearby, but at wework I had to either responsibly pack the lunch/snacks or routinely go out the convenience store.
4) Exhaustion from the environment stimulus. What I mean is, my mind is always subconsciously scanning the room (cleaning lady, elevators, telephone ring, coworker A-Z). At the end of each day I was mentally tired which led me to skip my gym workouts. Now that I'm back home, I have been back to regularly hitting the gym.
5) No large screen monitor; context switching for screen real estate is also exhausting.
Overall I think my experience at my employer could be different since point 2, 3, 5 would be mute.
Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Conversely, if an employer isn't willing to let employees do a job remotely after having had a year to see that they're perfectly capable of doing so, they clearly have no attachment to their employees.
Or, perhaps they had a year to clearly see they're perfectly incapable of doing so. Not every office job is software engineering folks... Imagine trying to manage a warehouse remotely... or bounce ideas off each other in real time at a marketing agency... or any of the other normal jobs that thrive with in-person interaction. Not to mention, 34% is a minority... we can't force the other 66% to work remotely just beca…
This. And I think a lot of software people would be shocked at how negative this year has been for quality and delivery at many companies.
There is a set of SW jobs that maps well to remote - in fact, there’s huge overlap with jobs that can be successfully offshored or pushed out of house and jobs that are well suited to full-time remote. That’s been going on for two decades. The jobs that are left are not as “I can work from anywhere” as people want. Sure, you’re writing internal tools and every thing you do involves yourself and maybe one other person? Yeah.
Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just asking this as a talking point. Does a quick interruption that unblocks me and allows me to continue working outweigh allowing you to finish your thing first? Because maybe you're unblocked but I'm blocked by you now, and the thing that's actually blocking me. So only 1 person is able to work.
> Does a quick interruption that unblocks me and allows me to continue working outweigh allowing you to finish your thing first? No, absolutely not. As my coworker you have no right to my time, at all. Certainly not on-demand. You are in no position to prioritize my time, especially in the context of you finishing your task. > Because maybe you're unblocked but I'm blocked by you now, and the thing that's actually bl…
This seems to be a pretty black and white comment when in reality a lot of these points are very grey.
Just because I ask you in person for help from time to time does not equate to me not contributing anything.
Just because someone asks you for help in person does not mean you can't say 'no, can you try me at this time or send me an email detailing the issue'.
Solving problems can be a siloed experience, but depending on the organization or team, most problems in today's businesses are team efforts, and require team collaboration. Having blinders with comments like 'solving your problems is your problem' is a great way to overlook when a problem someone is having is actually YOUR problem because you overlooked a bit of code or configuration or documentation.
Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just asking this as a talking point. Does a quick interruption that unblocks me and allows me to continue working outweigh allowing you to finish your thing first? Because maybe you're unblocked but I'm blocked by you now, and the thing that's actually blocking me. So only 1 person is able to work.
> Does a quick interruption that unblocks me and allows me to continue working outweigh allowing you to finish your thing first? No, absolutely not. As my coworker you have no right to my time, at all. Certainly not on-demand. You are in no position to prioritize my time, especially in the context of you finishing your task. > Because maybe you're unblocked but I'm blocked by you now, and the thing that's actually bl…
> Solving your problems is your problem. Not mine.
No, solving the company's problems is both our problems. You have a tremendously adversarial attitude toward your coworkers. Why don't you trust them to know the cost of interrupting you and decide whether or not it's a net gain?
Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work
#158I personally would rather quit than stay remote indefinitely, I can tell you that.
Talking with various friends and people among my network I can say that it varies so much. Some people would prefer to never go in, some people (like myself) would prefer an office presence but no requirement to attend and others would prefer to eliminate remote work. I find this interesting because we tend to extrapolate our own thoughts and preferences to the general public. And this is kind of why working together…
Ideally I'd have days in office to take meetings (maybe 2x a week) with the other days being purely remote but that isn't practical for various reasons. I think having an office with lots of conference rooms and a hot desk available for people to use would be optimal for me and my role.
Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work
#159I personally would rather quit than stay remote indefinitely, I can tell you that.
Talking with various friends and people among my network I can say that it varies so much. Some people would prefer to never go in, some people (like myself) would prefer an office presence but no requirement to attend and others would prefer to eliminate remote work. I find this interesting because we tend to extrapolate our own thoughts and preferences to the general public. And this is kind of why working together…
Not having to commute would save me a couple hundred thousand on buying a house.
If the majority of tech companies had gone fully remote, or even "1 day a week in office" the housing market would look very different right now.
I am kind of sad that didn't come to pass.
Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a software engineer. I can do my job 100% remotely. I can't wait to get back to the office. I like in-person collaboration, and I really like having separation between my work life and my home life. This year has been torture.
Do your colleagues feel the same way? Would you inflict office work on them if they don't?
Several do, the few times I've gone into the office and done a little problem solving with the folks who were there, we accomplished like a week of work in an hour. There's something about putting heads together that's hard to replace. Some of our folks have always been ~90% remote and that's fine, but I think they're missing out on one of the joys of engineering.