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Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

businessinsider.com

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Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#161

Post by nikanj »

boringg wrote: post #146
boringg wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of commentary is more appropriate for Reddit but in this case I approve.

Also -- why is Teams such trash? It can barely fulfill its core responsibility.

It's from the modern "rewrite it in Electron every 6 months" arm of Microsoft, not the "With a clever manipulation of the registers, we can eke out another 4 bytes of saved memory" arm of Microsoft. The former has been winning for years, but the latter also exists inside the company. See Raymond Chen for a classic example of the deep technical skill inside MS

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#162

Post by mystraline »

boringg wrote: post #146
boringg wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of commentary is more appropriate for Reddit but in this case I approve.

Also -- why is Teams such trash? It can barely fulfill its core responsibility.

Thats because Teams is just a frontend to SharePoint Online.

SPOL is even worse a tirefire than, say, even Lotus Notes. And it's in Electron on top of that, so its 10x slower than a real non-browser application.

Ive only rarely seen Microsoft put out actual good software. The last time was Windows 2000. Now, that was some quality software.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#163

Post by rimunroe »

Philadelphia wrote: post #122
tokai wrote: post #66

Commute time should be salaried time. Then the whole office/home work discussion could be taken with the true costs involved.

And workers should be paid to have space to work from home and internet service and food and office supplies and electricity.

Agreed. I'm glad that I at least get reimbursed for a portion of my home internet connection and for office equipment.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#164

Post by at-fates-hands »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #155
at-fates-hands wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotal evidence to counter this argument. Work at a fortune 200 company. We spent COVID all 100% remote WFH. After several quarters of their entire workforce working remotely, they were gushing about how productivity increased, satisfaction scores went through the roof and the company recorded several record breaking quarters in revenue during a time they expected the exact opposite to happen. This inevitably lead…

1. Will you name? Sounds like some sane management; those looking for jobs might find that a useful datapoint. 2. I think making it proportional to the length of the commute is an interesting idea. And even for those who don't like the office... two days a week with a short commute isn't terrible .

1. I can't name them, but they're in the health care industry.

2. Yeah, and all they're doing is taking badge reports. Going in for a Town Hall meeting or a team meeting meets these requirements. You're not required to be in the office a set number of hours - just be there. I've been told its a kind of reverse psychology trick. The more time you spend around your coworkers, grabbing lunch, collabing on little stuff, it will morph into a desire to want to be there more often and thus, the decision will then be yours that you want to be there - not some mandate coming from on high.

I think in a lot of ways its working. Last year, I'd go in for some tech support thing and the building was a ghost town. Barely anybody. This year? Totally different. The ramp is full, people are bustlin about, the cafeteria is packed. Its being around that atmosphere I think is what they want people to be more involved in. I've already had several team lunches on campus and instead of going home, we unpack our laptops and hammer out a few things, then head out. None of us are really there for more than a few hours, but it just feels like really productive face-time with your team.

I just think its cool how the company is just letting the employees figure out without a heavy handed approach and from what I can see, its working.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#165

Post by hardwaregeek »

jghn wrote: post #68
hardwaregeek wrote: post #55

I have mixed feelings cause on one hand moving from a remote first company to a primarily in person one has made a material difference in my general satisfaction and engagement. But also I wouldn’t want it to be forced. I like having the choice to work remote. And I like having coworkers who can work remote if they wish. I know many great engineers who live outside of the standard tech hubs and realistically won’t mo…

I don't think this is what you're saying but when I've seen debates over choice the pattern I've sen is: 1) The people who feel more engaged at home can stay home, those who feel more engaged at work can go there 2) The latter group fails to feel engaged at work due to everyone being home. They complain. In other words, they weren't missing being in the office. They were missing being in the office *with others*. Whi…

Yeah it’s tricky because there’s often a senior/junior dynamic here. Junior people really do benefit from structure and in person mentorship. They also tend to have worse home office setups and more free time. Whereas senior people tend to have families and nicer home offices, so understandably they don’t want to commute in. I’m sympathetic to both and realistically I don’t think management is acting in good faith. But I do think remote work benefits seniors at the cost of juniors

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#166

Post by pragma_x »

mystraline wrote: post #162
boringg wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also -- why is Teams such trash? It can barely fulfill its core responsibility.

Thats because Teams is just a frontend to SharePoint Online. SPOL is even worse a tirefire than, say, even Lotus Notes. And it's in Electron on top of that, so its 10x slower than a real non-browser application. Ive only rarely seen Microsoft put out actual good software. The last time was Windows 2000. Now, that was some quality software.

> a frontend to SharePoint

No wonder they just tossed Skype in the trash. This explains so much.

> SPOL is even worse a tirefire than, say, even Lotus Notes.

To be fair, Lotus Notes is what we had back in the mid 90's. There really wasn't much else like it. But comparing that today... (checks notes) ...oh. It's still a thing?!

So, neither Lotus Notes (now "HCL Notes" apparently?) or SharePoint have any excuse being as bad as they are. There are a dozen other far more capable examples of this kind of technology. I'm routinely amazed at how bad MS' user experience continues to be, even with all the money and engineers at their disposal.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#167

Post by adenner »

mystraline wrote: post #162
boringg wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also -- why is Teams such trash? It can barely fulfill its core responsibility.

Thats because Teams is just a frontend to SharePoint Online. SPOL is even worse a tirefire than, say, even Lotus Notes. And it's in Electron on top of that, so its 10x slower than a real non-browser application. Ive only rarely seen Microsoft put out actual good software. The last time was Windows 2000. Now, that was some quality software.

Yeah in the end teams is an electron based view of SharePoint in a trench coat pretending to be a chat program and so much more

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#168

Post by chollida1 »

PUSH_AX wrote: post #150
boringg wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also -- why is Teams such trash? It can barely fulfill its core responsibility.

Has Microsoft built anything in the last decade that isn’t of questionable quality/user experience?

most people like vs code and lots of companies have built on top of it so there must be some quality there that people like.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#169

Post by wongarsu »

tokai wrote: post #66

Commute time should be salaried time. Then the whole office/home work discussion could be taken with the true costs involved.

Nobody's stopping you from moving closer to the office, and incentivizing people to move further away is the last thing we should do

Yes, rent 5 minutes from the office is likely very high, and it's much cheaper two hours away, and that's why most people live far away. But that is already a factor in salaries. If the office is in a high-cost-of-living area they have to offer higher salaries to get an equal caliber of workers.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#170

Post by neilv »

scarface_74 wrote: post #152
neilv wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For better or worse, neither of us is a lawyer, but I'm comfortable in saying that the affected people should: Talk. To. A. Lawyer. Isn't that better than us random Internet people telling them -- although we think something shitty is going on -- they definitely don't have a case, and they definitely shouldn't talk to a lawyer? (For all we know, an actual lawyer might tell them that they actually do have a case.)

It really doesn’t take a lawyer to know what “at will employment” means. A case for what unless it’s discriminatory. Your employer doesn’t have to justify letting you go - at all. Even looking at your citation, it shows that constructive dismissal is only actionable if you can show that they made working conditions harder and they were targeting you under a law meant to protect you against discrimination Companies ha…

Also, in combination with possible constructive dismissal, the company is possibly defaming the employees in a way that predictably adversely affects their ability to gain new employment. And there may be other potential problems that aren't apparent to me, since I'm not a lawyer.

Talking to a lawyer about this is low-effort, low-risk. You get a lawyer's name from friend/family or another kind of lawyer you know, or you call the local bar association referral service (or, if poor, maybe go first to a law school free clinic near you, to see what resources they can point you at). Then you get a free initial consultation with an actual lawyer, who can tell you whether they think you might have a case.

That's all I have to say on this topic.

(Side Note: You might have been discussing this from a standpoint of Someone Is Wrong On The Internet, and you want to help more people understand At-Will, for example. I can understand that. But I was discussing this from a standpoint of Don't Screw Over Vulnerable People By Discouraging Them From Talking To A Lawyer When I Think They Should.)

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