Tragedy of return to hostile offices • Hacker News Board

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#211

Post by kjkjadksj » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 4:32 PM UTC

wiseowise wrote: post #151

manuelabeledo wrote: post #17

In some ways, OP’s suggestions are a recipe for building hostile teams! Why would I be entitled to interrupt someone to review my code, just because they are sitting next to me? Always on zoom? No, thanks. It invariably devolves into micromanaging. Constant KPI awareness? Most companies cannot even agree on how a valuable KPI looks like. Remote pair programming? Honest question here, is pair programming still a thing…

> Why would I be entitled to interrupt someone to review my code, just because they are sitting next to me? Yes, and because your work depends on them.

When you have to mail a package do you barge ahead of the line of people too?

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#212

Post by tsunamifury » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 4:33 PM UTC

_huayra_ wrote: post #190

tsunamifury wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea I can’t help but realize after my career in offices then seeing mass wfh, the sociopath layer depended deeply on a perceived panopticon of working in the office. The panopticon was a negative motivator for workers, but also a common experience that standardized the culture and expectations. WFH was like setting rats in a maze to free range and noticing they can be more productive but at the expense of common purp…

> Even Google, a company that purported to be about worker freedom to harvest productivity if top workers, has retreated to this position. If you take the approach of "watch what they do, not what they say", Google is one of the clearest examples of pro-RTO: they invest in so many perks because they want to make the panopticon feel comfy. There are other companies that don't give you a darn thing and just dangle the…

Amazon has always been the “by idiots for idiots” of tech companies.

Sorry this is patently elitist but I think it’s true.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#213

Post by gosub100 » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 4:34 PM UTC

ericbarrett wrote: post #59

AlexandrB wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is correct. It's why, before the pandemic normalized remote work, offices were popular. What's disheartening is that a lot of "return to office" plans I've heard of from friends involve conditions even worse than what was there before. For example, hot-desking replacing the previous (also terrible) open office. I'm too young to have lived through the golden age of engineers actually having an office to w…

I keep saying—if you want me to return to the office, give me an office . Or even a cubicle. Why even enforce a hot-desking setup when the space is 20% full? It makes no sense at all!

It makes sense if your employer views your position as commodity, like a warehouse worker. "Here is your labor area we carved out for you to do your commoditized work units, one size fits all". The same reason JIRA is popular with management. Gives them visibility and "metrics" to improve. A less-charitable interpretation of hot-desking is that it's a constant reminder that your job is not secure, and that new people can come and replace you instantly, vs your own personal place in a cubicle or private office signals some amount of commitment that you have "your spot" at the company.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#214

Post by kjkjadksj » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 4:34 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #14

mdgrech23 wrote: post #6

I think at the team level most individuals do want to make change and work in the most efficient way possible it's just at big multinational corporations what you can modify about your environment can be extremely limited.

Maybe. I do think there are a fair number of people who recognize there are downsides to never seeing coworkers in person. But, given the option, it's a tradeoff they'll make so they don't need to commute.

Imo if you have video conference thats good enough, not like you get more information out of conversation in person vs on the phone or zoom.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#215

Post by voisin » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 4:35 PM UTC

edgyquant wrote: post #208

voisin wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this pressure look like, in practice? Sternly written letters? Phone calls? What power does a city have over a private employer when it comes to employment decisions like this? If remote is everything people say it is, the cities should have no power to overcome improved performance and lower (in the long run) costs (due to lower or nonexistent rent)

I am not sure why you, and others in this thread, keep stating a performance boost. Workers claim a performance boost while actual performance suffers pretty greatly https://fortune.com/2023/07/06/remote-workers-less-productiv...

I don’t personally believe there is an actual performance boost. I think I is the opposite, and even where it might exist at the individual level I think it is certainly (to my eye) incorrect at the team and company level.

But I won’t make that argument because it is the third rail of HN comments. So I make all my arguments assuming WFH improves productivity.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#216

Post by davidw » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 4:37 PM UTC

lobsterslive wrote: post #16

Having your own private bathroom is a really underrated perk of WFH. There are of course many more benefits to WFH, but using your own bathroom is something no office and their disgusting communal bathrooms could ever compete with.

Having your own bathroom is the best, but one thing I liked when I worked in Italy is that they had real bathrooms in most offices. It's very normal to have a little room with a door that fully closes, rather than those stalls where you can see people's feet, as well as smell and hear everything.

I mean, I kind of get having that kind of thing in, say, an airport or somewhere with security concerns, but being treated like that in an office environment is horrible.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#217

Post by kjkjadksj » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 4:37 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #47

lobsterslive wrote: post #16

Having your own private bathroom is a really underrated perk of WFH. There are of course many more benefits to WFH, but using your own bathroom is something no office and their disgusting communal bathrooms could ever compete with.

We really need a closed-loop video system with AI to inspect bathrooms after use, with an alarm of course. Something like: https://brnskll.com/shares/didnt-wash-hands-alarm/

Its not even that they leave it a mess. Some people sound like artillery fire in there and the smell makes you want to puke.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#218

Post by hirako2000 » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

starcraft2wol wrote: post #140

SteveNuts wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How dare a human being be granted a small reprieve from the monotony of their day to do something they enjoy for a few minutes, huh?

Please respond to a particular point in my comment.

Let me respond fully to your comment. Full disclosure: remote for 8y, on the same and different tz. in office for 5y,

The espresso makes most people more productive. Absolutely.

If not the espresso, some other thing one might enjoy degusting daily.

For the espresso case. Your office is likely too far for one sitting at his desk to suddenly head over 20 mins a few blocks away to appreciate a delicious sip for 5 minutes. What if on Thursday what I really need is a delicous espresso but in total peace with nobody interrupting that moment between me and my cup?

Maybe I'm going too far with what espresso might mean to people but Your office shaping the way I want to live my life without a doubt is going way too far.

It makes me far less productive to have to adapt my life to the office schedule, location, and the many uncontrollable distractions taking place throughout the day.

It's on me to make my work environment most productive and if I'm unable to do that then just fire me.

You will likely object, so let me introduce to you, Bud, the pug. See Bud needs to go out for a walk even more than I do. I love my dog so I take him out 4 times each day.

It makes me less productive to have to run at 5pm everyday to take the dog out the least late I possibly can. I have to stop whatever I'm doing and get back into the zone.

It also makes me less productive to go home at 5 o'clock. See, I don't have much respect for people requiring butts on seats to appease their own insecurities. You can be damn sure that I won't give them a minute of my time unless I have to.

Also, I'm best to do work from morning to midnight in bursts. I gladly do extra hours that way, because: productivity.

I could go on and on, air is to dry as office buildings would not consider people's health unless illegal if they can save a few hundred bucks on the monthly energy bill. Lights are too blue/white/cold they hurt my eyes after a couple of hours.

All that being said, it depends on the job, for most jobs my arguments would stand the productivity tests with everyone once they've adapted to remote settings. Wouldn't apply to members of a music band, circus jugglers working in duo, dolphin trainers, nor salsa dancers. People who do these jobs are more productive on site, and the reason they never complain like me and my kind do is simple: they don't actually work in an office.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#219

Post by layer8 » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 4:43 PM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #189

wbobeirne wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and from the bottom by those who have yet to grapple with the fact they dont have friends or hobbies and need you in the office so that they dont feel like such embarrassing losers. I can see why office culture doesn't appeal to you, you sound like a grump who doesn't enjoy the comraderie you can form with people that you spend 40 hours a week with. If you can enjoy the cognitive dissonance of socializing with blac…

> who doesn't enjoy the comraderie you can form with people that you spend 40 hours a week with. I'd much rather spend that time with people I chose. Some you of you borderline sound like you're suffering from Stockholm syndrome

What I don’t get is why you would want to spend half of your waking hours, even remotely, working with people on a team whose company you don’t enjoy? The conclusion I would draw is that I’m on the wrong team or at the wrong company, and then switch as quickly as possible.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#220

Post by hellisothers » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 4:48 PM UTC

voisin wrote: post #197

Devasta wrote: post #19

I work in Cork, Ireland. My boss is in Dublin, his boss Singapore, my staff in Nova Scotia, Devs in Manila, clients in London and New York. I'm always working remotely, no matter where I am, as is anyone who works in any multi office company. The RTO is being entirely driven from the top by institutional investors wanting to avoid losses on property investments and from the bottom by those who have yet to grapple wit…

> The RTO is being entirely driven from the top by institutional investors wanting to avoid losses on property investments and from the bottom by those who have yet to grapple with the fact they dont have friends or hobbies and need you in the office so that they dont feel like such embarrassing losers. This is argument keeps getting parroted without evidence or skepticism. Where's the evidence? Just because many peo…

I think the problem is, if you want to work remote you don’t care if other people work in the office or not. However, if you want to work in the office you really want others in the office as that is the purported main point of being there so one side is forcing the other into their desired working situation. This is exactly what the OP is describing, people above/below/around compelling RTO.