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Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

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Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#231

Post by m463 »

rossdavidh wrote: post #50

"One or two hybrid days per week capture nearly all the fertility upside." That is an interesting point, and not obvious why it would be so. In fact, it kind of calls into question whether the whole relationship is causal. The people who were able to WFH longer were more often in high-income jobs (service workers never got to do it in the first place, it was almost entirely an office worker thing). They were thus mor…

I think it's simpler.

two working people, trapped in the same house together during working hours.

if there are kids, they might be at school.

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#232

Post by apercu »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #105
cosmic_quanta wrote: post #52

I will die on this hill: tech firms that mandated 5 days in the office was about soft layoffs, rather than a principled stance on individual performance under WFH. My "evidence" is that trading firms that kept raking in the money, and that benefit from maximum productivity of their employees, still generally have a hybrid work culture.

My guess is that it was a reaction to the pandemic-era trend of "over employment" where a small number of remote workers bragged about clocking in simultaneously to multiple jobs. Employers may have decided that their employees' physical body was the only unique identifier that couldn't be duplicated.

How is this any different from loafers who don't do anything? If you can do two jobs at the same time, you weren't really doing anything at first job to begin with.

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#233

Post by hknceykbx »

rennokki wrote: post #165
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that it was a reaction to the pandemic-era trend of "over employment" where a small number of remote workers bragged about clocking in simultaneously to multiple jobs. Employers may have decided that their employees' physical body was the only unique identifier that couldn't be duplicated.

As long as someone finished the assigned tasks for the day, idc if they want office or remote.

Not working from home is easier than from office. But in general why keep employees you can’t trust? At least on the scope of startups it shouldn’t be a problem. When you know each person face to face, everyone in the team knows if someone is slacking. Doesn’t matter if it’s wfh or from office.

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#234

Post by apercu »

scruple wrote: post #173
cosmic_quanta wrote: post #52

I will die on this hill: tech firms that mandated 5 days in the office was about soft layoffs, rather than a principled stance on individual performance under WFH. My "evidence" is that trading firms that kept raking in the money, and that benefit from maximum productivity of their employees, still generally have a hybrid work culture.

My employer very successfully shipped a lot of brand new stuff during COVID when everyone was full-time remote. We made a lot of money off of those products. Then they sort of bragged about it. Then they instituted RTO. Now (I'm told, I'm at a megacorp so I'm far removed from these discussions) the executive team is bitching that we're not in office 5 days per week.

I think that's the question - did RTO increase productivity? I haven't seen any audited economic evidence that actually happened. Same as AI - I've seen a lot of PR and hype, but no audited company financials indicators.

Historically though, the data suggests that mass layoffs have a huge impact (negatively) on productivity after a short term "boost" by the survivors.

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#235

Post by rennokki »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #184
rennokki wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as someone finished the assigned tasks for the day, idc if they want office or remote.

Thing is, who decides how many tasks someone can do in a day? What if they get paid for 8 but only work for one, but the manager doesn't know they do, and they never communicate their workload is too low?

This is a management issue. They should be keeping an eye on the progress and see if the pace is enough for the deadline. Estimates are a thing too, I know. But you can see if someone is slacking and falls behind. If the workload is low, why would it matter as long as the things are done?

Companies should stop penalizing people for being work efficient, and increase their salary if the workload increases.

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#236

Post by rennokki »

section_me wrote: post #188
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, who decides how many tasks someone can do in a day? What if they get paid for 8 but only work for one, but the manager doesn't know they do, and they never communicate their workload is too low?

Same can be said for people using LLM agents to complete jobs faster than humans ever possibly can. It's not like they just fluked it. They've learned how to harness the capabilities of the tech. Now companies are introducing this stuff as a normal workflow but they are clueless as to how it actually works and expecting 10x output from people.

It will all crash when they will see that people can't do 10x, even with AI. It requires too much expertise and knowledge in the field to actually make it work as a hired professional. Look at the AWS outages... and they are professionals, right? RIGHT?

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#237

Post by apercu »

malfist wrote: post #108
cosmic_quanta wrote: post #52

I will die on this hill: tech firms that mandated 5 days in the office was about soft layoffs, rather than a principled stance on individual performance under WFH. My "evidence" is that trading firms that kept raking in the money, and that benefit from maximum productivity of their employees, still generally have a hybrid work culture.

I don't think it was a soft layoff, I'm sure that might have been part of it, but I think the majority of it was about telling the working class that the owning class is back in power and they want you to know it. After all, not a single CEO cited published metrics for the productivity reasons for ending WFH, and almost all went about other power grab type moves later to show the working class the power they were abl…

> I don't think it was a soft layoff, I'm sure that might have been part of it, but I think the majority of it was about telling the working class that the owning class is back in power and they want you to know it.

Or both.

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#238

Post by graemep »

ben_w wrote: post #207
graemep wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am suggesting that a definition of "Christian" that includes Richard Dawkins is flawed.

You're the one who chose to combine Musk and Dawkins in the same group here with "cultural christian", that's absolutely a straw man if this is what you're doing. I mean, your own link up there has a sub-heading of "Everyone has their own definition". Especially when you're replying to "he seems to clear favor white Christian people and himself especially" rather than "is a Christian". Queen Victoria wasn't a feminis…

You are saying they are Christian in the same sense of being "cultural Christians" rather than actual Christians. if you say one is a Christian it follows that the other is a Christian.

The point is that given Musk is clearly not an actual Christian he cannot favour Christians "himself included".

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#239

Post by davidw »

Swizec wrote: post #164
cosmic_quanta wrote: post #52

I will die on this hill: tech firms that mandated 5 days in the office was about soft layoffs, rather than a principled stance on individual performance under WFH. My "evidence" is that trading firms that kept raking in the money, and that benefit from maximum productivity of their employees, still generally have a hybrid work culture.

> I will die on this hill: tech firms that mandated 5 days in the office was about soft layoffs, rather than a principled stance on individual performance under WFH “True work only happens in person with human collaboration! Everyone must come back” 2 years pass “Oh wow we can replace everyone with a chatbot this is amazing” narrator: It was the interest rates all along. Many of these tech businesses are fundamentall…

Tech has never been perfect, but there was a time when it felt more hopeful and optimistic and about building cool stuff. There's always been give and take with the money side of things that's necessary to keep fueling the building, but it feels like it all kind of went off the rails somewhere.

I'd be fine with earning less (we're pretty frugal) to work in that kind of environment with good people.

Re: Silicon Valley's "Pronatalists" Killed WFH. The Strait of Hormuz Brought It Back

#240

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

Tade0 wrote: post #210
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that it was a reaction to the pandemic-era trend of "over employment" where a small number of remote workers bragged about clocking in simultaneously to multiple jobs. Employers may have decided that their employees' physical body was the only unique identifier that couldn't be duplicated.

I may or may not know a guy who bought a laptop identical to his work machine from place A to do projects for B while still physically being at A.

That trick only works until place B demands RTO as well!

(And this might be why the CEOs all seem to have coordinated changing back to RTO at the same time).

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