Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

JPMorgan Workers Ponder Union in Wake of Return-to-Office Mandate

barrons.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 216 posts

Re: JPMorgan Workers Ponder Union in Wake of Return-to-Office Mandate

#161

Post by jmspring »

EncomLab wrote: post #11

The key to me is the flexibility - I have the option of WFH 2 days per week, but most weeks I'm in the office 5 days (sometimes a half day on Saturday) because I am fortunate to have a "real office" with a door, a nice view, a stocked break area - and no home distractions. If I was still in a cube farm with a barely stocked vending machine (where I spent the vast majority of my career) I'd be using every WFH moment I…

RTO is more than “why do they hate the office they are expected to return to”.

I’ve not had to do this. I’ve been fully remote for over a decade.

If I am hired as remote and then the company changes its policy later requiring me to go in, that is a change of the employment contract. AWS was particularly insidious as people are required to go to the office where the work/team they are part of are assigned to.

Re: JPMorgan Workers Ponder Union in Wake of Return-to-Office Mandate

#162

Post by compiler-guy »

nine_zeros wrote: post #10

My unioned wife lives a life I can only dream of. The respect, the dignity of her job makes me feel like I made the wrong choice by getting into tech. Unionization is the answer. For a long time, tech workers were gaslighted into thinking that unions will not let them get paid high salaries. Guess what, without unions, tech workers don't even have job stability. Forget high salaries. Vote for unions.

Tech workers may not have job stability (but compare to say, farm workers), but it’s a pretty tough argument to say that they don’t have high salaries. Even for the highly educated like civil engineers and librarians, tech workers out earn most of them.

Unionizing tech workers may or may not be a good idea, but finances would be comparatively down the list.

Re: JPMorgan Workers Ponder Union in Wake of Return-to-Office Mandate

#163

Post by t-writescode »

verteu wrote: post #48
bko wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why do companies insist? If it has no meaningful impact on productivity, and workers don't like it (including a lot of managers), why push it? That's why I believe that companies have some evidence (or belief) that work from home employees are not as productive, enough so to wage this political battle and pay loads in office expenses.

I've found that RTO is mainly useful for new employees. They have lots of novice questions, false assumptions, and sub-optimal workflows that are most easily corrected in person (where the barrier to talking or noticing issues is lower). For ICs with good experience/independence, I haven't noticed any benefit.

All of that can be solved by a healthy mentorship environment; and you can create a healthy mentorship environment remotely.

Arguably, for example, pair programming is far easier, remotely, with screen sharing.

Re: JPMorgan Workers Ponder Union in Wake of Return-to-Office Mandate

#164

Post by philipov »

gruez wrote: post #151
lenerdenator wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not expected to have predicted the next pandemic; rather, they're expected to come up with novel ideas of how to do business. That's the point, or, rather, the justification for why just one year of one job can have them set for life. You get paid an insane amount of money - many multiples of the median lifetime income of Americans - because you make the right bets that either save the company massive sums of…

>They're not expected to have predicted the next pandemic; rather, they're expected to come up with novel ideas of how to do business. That's the point, or, rather, the justification for why just one year of one job can have them set for life. You get paid an insane amount of money - many multiples of the median lifetime income of Americans - because you make the right bets that either save the company massive sums o…

Someone being payed 100 million dollars is expected to have 20/20 foresight. Ludicrous sums of money come with ludicrous expectations.

The presumption that we're all rational actors with access to reliable information is not borne out by history. Anxiety and ego trump reason every time, and those at the top are often trapped in misinformation bubbles that make them think a fire is nothing but smoke.

Re: JPMorgan Workers Ponder Union in Wake of Return-to-Office Mandate

#165

Post by gruez »

philipov wrote: post #164
gruez wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They're not expected to have predicted the next pandemic; rather, they're expected to come up with novel ideas of how to do business. That's the point, or, rather, the justification for why just one year of one job can have them set for life. You get paid an insane amount of money - many multiples of the median lifetime income of Americans - because you make the right bets that either save the company massive sums o…

Someone being payed 100 million dollars is expected to have 20/20 foresight . Ludicrous sums of money come with ludicrous expectations. The presumption that we're all rational actors with access to reliable information is not borne out by history. Anxiety and ego trump reason every time, and those at the top are often trapped in misinformation bubbles that make them think a fire is nothing but smoke.

>Someone being payed 100 million dollars is expected to have 20/20 foresight. Ludicrous sums of money come with ludicrous expectations.

Sounds like you're more upset about CEO compensation than anything else.

>The presumption that we're all rational actors with access to reliable information is not borne out by history. Anxiety and ego trump reason every time, and those at the top are often trapped in misinformation bubbles that make them think a fire is nothing but smoke.

Except in this case, you don't even have to invoke "Anxiety and ego trump reason every time", because even someone who was perfectly rational couldn't have predicted covid 19 and the wfh revolution.

Re: JPMorgan Workers Ponder Union in Wake of Return-to-Office Mandate

#166

Post by tharne »

999900000999 wrote: post #21

I dislike RTO for one simple reason . I'm not at work to make friends, I'm not at work to chit chat. I'm not at work so we can talk about who won the last football game . I go to work in exchange for currency, which is required to acquire goods and services. All this other crap, all these holiday parties, all of this let's dance in diversity videos, no that's not what I'm here for . Most of the time coming to the off…

> If I had to think, I imagine the entire point of RTO mandates is to keep cities sustainable.

Bingo

Re: JPMorgan Workers Ponder Union in Wake of Return-to-Office Mandate

#167

Post by tharne »

screye wrote: post #141
999900000999 wrote: post #21

I dislike RTO for one simple reason . I'm not at work to make friends, I'm not at work to chit chat. I'm not at work so we can talk about who won the last football game . I go to work in exchange for currency, which is required to acquire goods and services. All this other crap, all these holiday parties, all of this let's dance in diversity videos, no that's not what I'm here for . Most of the time coming to the off…

I dislike RTO because none of that happens anymore. The economic landscape is too paranoid (despite positive macro indicators) for employees to enjoy work. People don't want to chit chat, just clock in clock out. Layoffs threat is ever present. Remote & odd-time zone meetings are still here. Can't turn off my computer after 5pm. In office benefits are limited. Mentoring, learning-seminars and after-work activities ar…

> But, if you could work from anywhere, why wouldn't you want to be in the coolest city in the world?

Large cities are like black licorice. The people who like them, really like them, but most of us think they're kind of gross.

Re: JPMorgan Workers Ponder Union in Wake of Return-to-Office Mandate

#168

Post by stinkbutt »

nielsbot wrote: post #52
stinkbutt wrote: post #8

extroverts are not going to win this war

Can you explain this? I don't understand the point you're making.

WFH debuffs/nerfs an extrovert's primary weapon attribute (soft skills). this gives an implicit visibility bonus to introverts.

Re: JPMorgan Workers Ponder Union in Wake of Return-to-Office Mandate

#169

Post by bko »

linkjuice4all wrote: post #150
bko wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so what's the point? Just to piss of employees and waste money on real-estate and snacks?

Organizations consist of many individuals with different motivations, so it's hard to ascribe a single reason to an individual or group. Here are some of the real and assumed reasons that companies are pushing for this: - They have accepted tax breaks or other financial benefits from cities tied to specific headcounts or jobs created - They are locked into longer term leases or own the building outright and want to m…

> They have accepted tax breaks or other financial benefits from cities tied to specific headcounts or jobs created

I don't think that's how tax cuts work. No matter the incentives, it's cheaper to not have office space than to have office space and get some write off. I doubt some city is saying "For every $100 of office expenses, we'll give you $200 of tax credits". If anything, companies track days worked from home so they don't have to pay as much city taxes

> They are locked into longer term leases or own the building outright and want to make use of their sunk costs

You can always sublease and many do. There are also variable expenses (insurance, maintenance, etc)

> They found that (on average?) remote employees are less productive

This is my belief

> They want to encourage employees to find another employer

Maybe, as a filtering mechanism. Kind of like soft layoffs, but its very risky.

> It's a control/showing-off thing

Also very risky because you just piss people off and pay to do it.

Re: JPMorgan Workers Ponder Union in Wake of Return-to-Office Mandate

#170

Post by JumpCrisscross »

lenerdenator wrote: post #143
gruez wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you're a CEO that signed a lease or construction contract on any piece of property since, idk, 2015, you have, in some way, burned a lot of money on a piece of ground that could have, in many cases, been replaced with a far cheaper internet connection and suite of remote work applications. >1) explain this bonfire of cash to the board and possibly to shareholders, which is a pretty good way to see yourself shown…

They're not expected to have predicted the next pandemic; rather, they're expected to come up with novel ideas of how to do business. That's the point, or, rather, the justification for why just one year of one job can have them set for life. You get paid an insane amount of money - many multiples of the median lifetime income of Americans - because you make the right bets that either save the company massive sums of…

> They're not expected to have predicted the next pandemic; rather, they're expected to come up with novel ideas of how to do business

Do you have a single example of a CEO being fired or even chastised for this?

Post reply on HN