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34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

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Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#251

Post by alchemism »

currymj wrote: post #71
decafninja wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this. My office (investment bank) is dull, dreary, depressing, dystopian, Dilbertesque. Everyone must wear at least business casual (dress shirt, dress pants, dress shoes). We have none of the perks mentioned above. The commute is miserable. Very little sunlight. Even our coffee is an atrocity. This is probably standard fare for most old school non-tech companies. I've visited the offices of quite a few Silic…

this raises the question, what are the companies where going into the office is like checking in to the Four Seasons?

The hospitality industry, obviously. (sorry)

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#252

Post by brewdad »

jedberg wrote: post #75

This headline is clickbait. Read the actual survey. The actual survey says that 1/3 said they would start looking for a new job if they were no longer allowed to work remotely. But then 49% said they would be happy with a hybrid environment, where they only had to come in some of the time.

I have no doubt many managers will screw up the hybrid environment by making it something like in-person on non-consecutive days.

My ideal would be 3 consecutive days in the office and 4 days away. Remote work days plus a "weekend" that may or may not include Sat and Sun.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#253

Post by abduhl »

mulmen wrote: post #219
Closi wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "As my coworker you have no right to my time, at all. Certainly not on-demand. You are in no position to prioritize my time, especially in the context of you finishing your task. You are blocked by whatever you are blocked by. Solving your problems is your problem. Not mine." What part of this statement says 'team player' to you? The whole part about working as a team-player is that solving their problems is your p…

> What part of this statement says 'team player' to you? The part where each member of the team is trusted with their own time management. I will also not interrupt you when you are working, because I respect you and your time. > The whole part about working as a team-player is that solving their problems is your problem, because it is the teams problem. Yeah, no. The team has problems so we divide the work. Each of…

You say that you "respect [me] and [my] time" but also that you're only interested in helping me on your own terms and at your leisure, even if I'm completely blocked. And you say that if I'm completely blocked then I'm not contributing anything. Sorry, but it sounds like you don't respect anybody or their time if it doesn't help you.

You must be very good at your specific tasks because it sounds like you are not very good at your job (which includes "teamwork," "mentoring," and "problem solving"), at least if you behave the way you're saying you behave.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#254

Post by decafninja »

alchemism wrote: post #251
currymj wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this raises the question, what are the companies where going into the office is like checking in to the Four Seasons?

The hospitality industry, obviously. (sorry)

I've actually interviewed at Hilton for a SWE role. The office was pretty depressing haha.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#255

Post by mulmen »

Closi wrote: post #172
mulmen wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When she was in the office she was covering the southwest US from Seattle. Visiting a customer site for a sales meeting is not the same as "working remotely". She does not need to go into the corporate HQ every day to do software sales. Yes, she did and will in the future visit customer sites. > Only one example, but I think for most jobs something is often lost by having no physical presence and no in-person collabo…

> Sure but this ignores benefits. The question is if remote work is a net negative, in terms of utility. And the obvious answer is that for some jobs it is, and for some jobs it isn't. There isn't a hard and fast rule here, and like I say it depends on the software you are selling. You probably aren't going to sell and implement a $20m ERP job entirely remotely, but on the other hand you aren't going to be driving ar…

> And the obvious answer is that for some jobs it is, and for some jobs it isn't.

The net utility is an effective metric for deciding to work remotely in any context. Clearly this decision is not made at the level of humanity and will have to be evaluated in narrower contexts.

> But in the absence of any hard-data, my gut strongly tells me that working from home is a net negative for most jobs and most people. My team has gone back to the office now and our ability to get stuff done is just rocketing.

But as you say, this is a gut feeling. My gut says my team is more effective remote.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#256

Post by duckfang »

imiric wrote: post #246
duckfang wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't go to work to socialize. I go to work to make money. And if I had enough money, I wouldn't work for someone else at all. I socialize by going to conventions, events, clubs, parties; with people I want to be around.

While I agree with you, I think it's a mistake to reject all social aspects of working. It doesn't have to be about making friends, and certain type of work definitely benefits from direct social contact. Even with programming being mostly a solitary activity, discussing a piece of code, brainstorming design, pair programming, etc., are all much easier and interactive in person. The online tooling is just not there y…

Then I didn't quite get my point across.

I'm not at all saying "Be antisocial at work". That just makes for a shitty time for everyone. What I was trying to get to was "dont use work as a way to make friends as well", since many of those relationships are predicated upon working said job. It's all too easy to lose a job and be simultaneously be isolated by having all your 'friend network' in a group that no longer talks or relates to you.

By having people who are your friends outside work, how you change jobs doesn't matter. It's a discussion with your friends about that place. And talking ill about that workplace can be done, and not alienating or as sour-grapes.

Now, for the few people that do cross over to non-work, it's awesome. Welcome them as a friend, and not a "work-friend". But I find that I've only had a very small handful of people whom that happened with.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#257

Post by citizenkeen »

mulmen wrote: post #247
citizenkeen wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone says "Hey, you got a minute?" and you can't handle that five second interruption and you aren't comfortable saying "How about in half an hour?", that speaks more to you than others.

There's no such thing as a five second interruption. Once my concentration has been broken that is a ~15 minute process to get back into a flow state. This is human psychology. There's nothing wrong with me being distracted by distractions. Asking "hey you got a minute?" is a waste of everyone's time because either the answer is "yes" and you could have asked your question already or the answer is "no" and you just d…

If I had a coworker who reacted to interruptions the way you describe, I just wouldn't involve them. I'd grab other people and make decisions without them. I'm sure you react to interruptions the way you describe, but I wouldn't treat it as a universal.

Like I said, everything you're writing speaks to you.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#258

Post by [deleted] »

musingsole wrote: post #45
nkozyra wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking with various friends and people among my network I can say that it varies so much. Some people would prefer to never go in, some people (like myself) would prefer an office presence but no requirement to attend and others would prefer to eliminate remote work. I find this interesting because we tend to extrapolate our own thoughts and preferences to the general public. And this is kind of why working together…

I wish employers would take this opportunity to scrutinize what it is that is valuable about working together in-person versus what it is that actually worked remotely. There are plenty of articles about better documentation protocols and this or that workflow to support remote work, but the reality is employees often feel pain on those fronts because of unspoken power hierarchies that gatekeep changes only from a se…

[deleted]

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#259

Post by decafninja »

ghaff wrote: post #72
anthropodie wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably people just figured out that they don't need big cities to live. Personally I think cities are overrated anyway and this is why: - heavy traffic hence heavy pollution - huge commute times to work - need to pay lot more for home (both buy/rent, may even have to take loan) - everything is expensive. My current expenses are 1/3 of that of city and I already have a home. I live in a town since pandemic

Most of the relatively recent net inflow into certain cities is from a fairly specific young college-educated demographic. And the reality in places like Manhattan is even though a lot of those sorts of folks moved to the "big city" for jobs after graduation, in practice, many of them moved to the suburbs when they got married, had kids, etc. After graduation I probably knew dozens of people who moved to Manhattan or…

I notice that very few people that work in Manhattan actually live in Manhattan. Unless you're very young and happy to live with roommates, or are already loaded, or are making big bucks from a, say, high finance or FAANG SWE job, most people seem to be commuting in from NJ or the outer boroughs (Brooklyn and LIC are probably priced out too).

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#260

Post by ozim »

Teknoman117 wrote: post #205
tezzer wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I want to pay for a bigger house; I already pay to be close to work. I've never had more than a 15 minute commute, and that has occasionally been an expensive policy! I don't like co-opting my living space for work. It clutters things physically and mentally.

I'm in the same boat, and I pay a bit extra to live walking distance from my office. I detest working from home full time. It used to be a clear mental distinction between "this is my safe space where I don't worry about work" and "this is where I'm putting all of this time slice into work". I've done little personal development and I'm stressed all of the time because I don't feel comfortable at home anymore. I'm gl…

Isn't your company allowing limited amount of people to work in the office especially if someone is living in a walking distance?

I understand it would be off limits if someone would need to use public transport but I can see allowing people to work from the office at least some days if they can walk/drive and it is not like too many at the same time.

You can always explain that you have important stuff to be done and it can be only done on company network because of "reasons".

I am definitely in "WFH forever" camp and I would like to buy bigger house far from the office. But I don't see why people who spend their money to live close to the office should be treated unfair.

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