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Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

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Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#161

Post by weard_beard »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #146
weard_beard wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are squishy subjects like, "morale" and "onboarding" suddenly weighted so highly when middle managers might be laid off? These topics are often ignored, neglected, de-prioritized, or laughed at 90% of the time when the bottom line of the company is at stake.

Morale and onboarding experience most directly affect individual contributors, not management. I'm not sure I really understand your point.

My point is that they affect individual contributors but they are being held up by middle management as the motivator to return to office. This is self serving and largely disingenuous. The real reasons for RTO involve middle management feeling uncomfortable or unable to micro manage in a way that actually impedes productive work.

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#162

Post by Zhyl »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #80
wredue wrote: post #50

I reclaim 1.5 hours a day from work from home, so a mandated back to work would actually represent a 6 point pay cut on the day assuming I thought that through properly. I don’t even have an egregious commute compared to others. Never mind that all of a sudden I no longer need before and after daycare. I have a home gym and can acceptably exercise at lunch. I don’t have peer pressures to go out for lunch all the time…

Ed Zitron wrote about it a lot in his newsletter a while back and I think had some really excellent insights about it. Especially these three factors: - Executives work in a way that genuinely does probably reward or even require in person interaction. A lot of their job is "intangible" human connection-building stuff with other executives, shareholders, investors, manufacturers, etc. And because of the way executive…

>and prevents them from intercepting it to take credit.

Ah the old "middle manager man in the middle" attack.

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#163

Post by dickersnoodle »

elvis10ten wrote: post #144
bluefishinit wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never work somewhere that required me to be in office a few times a month. You still have to live within driving distance to the office (or take a plane a few times a month which is even worse). I think over time we'll see that the "balance" is actually 100% WFH unless physical presence is absolutely required (like you're making and selling sandwiches). It's just going to take a while for the new fully remote…

> I would never work somewhere that required me to be in office a few times a month. It’s great that we have that option of companies that are full remote. ——— However, your last paragraph seems to not appreciate the fact that there are folks like myself that prefer going to an office often. My prediction is that we might get rid of the office and replace it with the office in another form — most likely better.

>My prediction is that we might get rid of the office and replace it with the office in another form — most likely better.

You'll have to explain what you mean by "most likely better" and then make the case that your "better" is enough to draw workers to an office that a bunch of them don't want to be in for all of the reasons HN has listed.

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#164

Post by FreshStart »

McDyver wrote: post #110
antisthenes wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I talked to a director last week who spends 1/3 the year in ski country, 1/3 the year in the Midwest and 1/3 the year on the coast. He's not going back, and practically anyone would be lucky to have him. Does he actually spend any time working?

> Does he actually spend any time working? This seems the exact thought process of management wanting people to RTO. They forget there's time, and life, after working hours. And the less you need to commute, the more free time you have to actually live and enjoy life.

Protestant work ethic needs constant surveillance from above or else all humans do is sinning and slothing. Completely opposed to the self-employed employee model that gets stuff done out of intrinsic motivation.

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#165

Post by mcmcdtx »

commandlinefan wrote: post #104
wredue wrote: post #50

I reclaim 1.5 hours a day from work from home, so a mandated back to work would actually represent a 6 point pay cut on the day assuming I thought that through properly. I don’t even have an egregious commute compared to others. Never mind that all of a sudden I no longer need before and after daycare. I have a home gym and can acceptably exercise at lunch. I don’t have peer pressures to go out for lunch all the time…

> transparently a middle management “I’m still relevant!” Which makes one wonder who the people who kept posting on here how much they missed the office and wished we'd go back to the office during the pandemic actually were.

I had a hand-full of friends and coworkers who felt this way. Talking to them about it broke them into three broad categories:

Enthusiastic extroverts who needed face to face interaction to stay happy. The pandemic limited their social options and they longed for the amount of in person interactions they had when working from the office.

Easily distractable people unable to set up a distraction free environment at home who got stressed because their productivity suffered. I thought I was going to be one of these people because I had a pre-school aged child who was also stuck at home but it didn't end up being that much of a problem for me thanks to my wife being very proactive and able to juggle her school schedule to when I was available to parent. Some of my co-workers privately admitted that they couldn't focus on work when their hobbies and house-chores were so close at hand.

Those who had issues in their home environment that caused them grief and they relied on the office as an escape rather than fixing their problem. These were the people who got divorced or broke leases at the beginning of the pandemic as they were unable to live 24/7 with the people they had been able to deal with as long as they had 40+ hours of break from them every week previously.

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#166

Post by dickersnoodle »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #30
obnauticus wrote: post #9

It is unclear who wants RTO, at least within tech and other leaders whom I know within tech.

I prefer RTO and being in the office with the entire team. That doesn't make me crazy, and I know several others on my team feel the same way.

It does make you selfish, though. You'd force people who don't want to RTO into the office because you prefer it?

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#167

Post by mcmcdtx »

mcmcdtx wrote: post #165
commandlinefan wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> transparently a middle management “I’m still relevant!” Which makes one wonder who the people who kept posting on here how much they missed the office and wished we'd go back to the office during the pandemic actually were.

I had a hand-full of friends and coworkers who felt this way. Talking to them about it broke them into three broad categories: Enthusiastic extroverts who needed face to face interaction to stay happy. The pandemic limited their social options and they longed for the amount of in person interactions they had when working from the office. Easily distractable people unable to set up a distraction free environment at ho…

I forgot to add, I was suspicious at first that people were larping their jobs or it was managers who were trying to psyche everyone up to come back but at least in my experience it didn't go that way. They did make us come back when numbers were dropping (but before the vaccine was available to the general public) although the actual date they picked ended up being a major spike in my state related to a holiday weekend and they didn't back down from it. In the next month 80% of the office got Covid and they sent us back, I've been working from home since then. Like this article suggests, I would look for another job if they mandated return at this point. My math says it would be affectively a 10% pay cut to start commuting again, I'll never consider the commute as outside of work time again, it is either unpaid work or I'm considering it part of the time covered by my salary.

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#168

Post by bluefirebrand »

Lutger wrote: post #125
giraffe_lady wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ed Zitron wrote about it a lot in his newsletter a while back and I think had some really excellent insights about it. Especially these three factors: - Executives work in a way that genuinely does probably reward or even require in person interaction. A lot of their job is "intangible" human connection-building stuff with other executives, shareholders, investors, manufacturers, etc. And because of the way executive…

There are also other jobs which truly benefit from in-person interactions, for example sales people basically are basically fueled by it. And in my experience there is a minority of people, also developers, who really enjoy working at the office, or don't do well at home. Good managers would be busy figuring out what their people actually need to thrive and know that it is not the same for everybody. In this case, I…

> sales people basically are basically fueled by it.

The best sales people I've ever worked with basically never showed up at the office other than to print off contracts and drop off signed ones. Most of their day was spent meeting with people in person. Rarely they were on phone calls.

I guess if you're trying to land clients in other states or other countries, you're probably at the office but you're not socializing with your coworkers..

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#169

Post by bluefirebrand »

thanatropism wrote: post #23
ericzawo wrote: post #15

The manager class is going to go kicking and screaming into the new world where they can no longer call their otherwise totally capable, productive employees into the office for morning snack like schoolchildren. The faster they accept it, the better off their organizations will be.

I empathized a little with my manager during the pandemic. My job got somewhat easier, his got much, much harder. I guess managers took a little longer to be whacked by the wrecking ball of technology.

I don't think managing got that much harder unless you're managing by gut feel where butts in seats factors in a lot.

Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought

#170

Post by campl3r »

dickersnoodle wrote: post #166
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer RTO and being in the office with the entire team. That doesn't make me crazy, and I know several others on my team feel the same way.

It does make you selfish, though. You'd force people who don't want to RTO into the office because you prefer it?

No, it's not selfish. There are enough remote and in office companies, if you're at the wrong kind of company leave.
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