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Tragedy of return to hostile offices

benjiweber.co.uk

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Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#251

Post by voisin »

ghaff wrote: post #238
voisin wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can also stipulate that short-term productivity didn't take a major hit for the most part while having concerns about onboarding junior people, reduced level of engagement on teams, weakened company culture, etc. It's hard to separate out other factors but it sure feels like that to me.

I agree with you on this as well, but this is HN and WFH is a shibboleth that you’ll get downvoted for questioning.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#252

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

walthamstow wrote: post #162

The majority in my company have forgotten what used to be quite standard office manners before covid. Hot food in the desk area of the office used to be a real no-no, likewise having notification sounds coming out of your laptop constantly.

> Hot food in the desk area of the office used to be a real no-no

I've never encountered this perspective before. Why was/is this disliked?

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#253

Post by itishappy »

Hackbraten wrote: post #242
itishappy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we need more tech workers to save the world from all the cooks, nurses, and truck drivers out here literally killing people with their emissions.

Not sure what your point is.

Skepticism about the environmental impact and motivations of the tech sector - an industry that consumes vast amounts of energy for largely intangible ends. I suspect you've got your story flipped on it's head and the people with the largest impact are not cooks, nurses, and truck drivers, but software engineers.

The comment you replied to asked us to consider the views of the rest of the population. Well, my point is that framing the WFH/RTO debate as a duty to the environment while selling ads for a living does indeed look entitled and a bit spoiled.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#254

Post by paulcole »

jdbernard wrote: post #246
paulcole wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a pretty standard mistake often made by people who are pro-WFH. Many people who prefer working in an office prefer to work with other people who are also in an office. They do not want to interact with people who are working remotely. Just to be clear, this is a 100% fine preference to have. In this case, a company saying, "Yeah get a coworking space or whatever and meet with the remote people on Zoom"…

I'm sorry, but you are the one making the "standard mistake," logically. It's the incel argument. You're trying to say this is a two-way street, that the dynamics are the same in both directions. That's obviously false. It is a one-way street here. The people who are wanting to RTO are trying to exert active control over the lives of others. "You must change your habits of life to accommodate my desires." This is not…

>The WFH position isn't trying to force the RTO people to do anything.

Yes, they are. They are trying to get people to work with them who don't want to work with them. This is exactly the same thing as RTO does to WFH people.

And it's fine! It's just a preference and it's fine for a company to make a decision that makes some people upset.

Those people can deal with it or they can get a new job.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#255

Post by dogman144 »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #160
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…

WFH is existentially painful for those that have coupled their identity too strongly to their jobs. They're confronted daily with the fact that their coworkers just aren't that into them (e.g. the job, and by extension, them) as they'd like. The likelihood this has happened goes up significantly as you move up the ladder, because the volcano gods demand sacrifice for that. There's also a segment of the population tha…

I think this and the slightly less gracious way that OP explained it is the most significant driver of RTO from the employee side.

It is also why I am shamelessly pro-WFH. The banality of this mindset as the possibly main major contributing cause from labor for RTO and all the many, many issues that office work causes is too much for me to handle.

Get some non-work friends and hobbies. Understand career mobility and productivity, if that’s what you really want to prioritize, is equally there via WFH. Leave the rest of us out of it.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#256

Post by sirspidermonkey »

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.

The company I work for took the opportunity to switch things up at the office during the pandemic. One was switching to what can only be described as 1/2-ply toilet paper with perforated designs. They bragged about how much it saved while mandating back to the office. They also swamped out the food at the cafe, good luck getting anything fresh.

No thanks, I'll take my 2 ply, my own toilet, and actual nutritious lunches.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#257

Post by tristor »

turtlebits wrote: post #222
tristor wrote: post #10

One of the primary reasons that remote work improves productivity is that it allows employees to tailor their environment to their needs, rather than be forced into a hostile office space that requires kafkaesque bureaucratic bullshit to make even minor changes. I once had a former employer force me to take an espresso machine home that I had brought to work because it created a situation where a different shift was…

Why can't you store it at your desk? My biggest pet peeve in the office was the people storing personal items in the kitchen. I don't need to see your machine with (don't use) stickies on it or the random assortment of blender bases. I also don't need to see your dirty tupperware in the sink.

To be clear, it was not just for my personal use. I brought it in at the request of my team and it was available for anyone to use. The team had a collection jar and we all pitched in for maintenance and supplies, just like we did with our team’s foosball table (also later removed by management for poorly specified reasons).

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#258

Post by jstarfish »

alistairSH wrote: post #204
graywh wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cubicle walls or not, windows are often blocked by office walls

My previous office was like that. The individual offices were around the exterior wall. The cubes were in the interior. Only managers got to see daylight. It was fucking depressing. Wife's previous office was better. Offices were around the interior, so cubes go light from the windows. Those offices had windows, so they too could get some natural light during the day. Current office is open plan, which is kinda dumb.…

Heh. My previous workplace had a similar setup-- executives got perimeter offices with windows, everyone else got the bullpen.

Thankfully, the executives were rarely there and their doors were left open, so sunlight still got through.

Nothing is as bleak as security offices and SCIFs. Even the Soviets painted bunker interiors. Americans are too cheap.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#259

Post by dogman144 »

wbobeirne wrote: post #77
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…

> 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…

The big secret is 1-2 people of 10 actually enjoy that camaraderie vs being home with their families and dogs, all else equal. You sound like the 1.

Doesn’t make you a loser, but it does make you very lacking in empathy for the real life consequences of the missed band recitals, lunches with a spouse and many many opportunities to build the life-long links of family via wfh for in exchange for a 2-3 year relationship with colleagues

Those colleagues won’t remember your name in another 2-3 years. But as this version of the argument goes, your short term social needs get prioritized?

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#260

Post by conductr »

tsunamifury wrote: post #169
conductr wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK, I don’t think real estate part is entirely true. It’s often quoted but most companies have very little RE as a percentage of revenue or whatever metric you think makes most sense. Many more are just leasing RE and could easily have exited that position by now. Even a one time write off could be spun as a positive thing. These properties can be repurposed and have continued value without their corporate tenants.…

I disagree. When you calculate the total spend of a company on Google on real estate then multiply it by their PE ratio and now that spend now has 0 return instead of 30x or so you get a pretty large double digit percentage of their market cap in delta value. I think you are trivializing a pretty huge risk on the global markets.

Google is chump change to the global commercial RE market.

I’ve worked with/on dozen or so executive teams, public and private, bought sold RE and leased/renewed RE at most of them. Nobody cares about the landlords or the shareholders of those companies. It’s actually an adversarial relationship just like most tenant/landlord relationships. Each party is looking out for themself.

The math makes no difference when all you care about is yourself. The executives are wanting RTO because they feel like that’s what’s in their company’s best interest. I’m not buying into the grand conspiracy theory that’s floating around.

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