Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

psychnewsdaily.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 341 posts

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

#291

Post by maxharris »

foobiekr wrote: post #212
maxharris wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warehouse workers were never working remotely, they got laid off. That's not what this report by the BBC says https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54431056

Four warehouses on a test basis and that’s the positive spin from the startup making the claim. Please apply some well-earned skepticism.

There is a company in Mountain View that is hiring remote forklift operators: https://lensa.com/remote-forklift-operator-jobs/mountain-vie...

From the link (pasting here for posterity):

Founded in 2017, Phantom Auto is the only company capable of remotely monitoring, guiding, and driving any type of vehicle from thousands of miles away.

We are an energetic and passionate team on a mission to build the future of vehicle operation.

At Phantom, every day is a unique adventure as we work to solve critical transportation issues. Because we work with companies around the world, we have the unique opportunity to work with many incredible vehicles and use cases.

As a member of the sales team, you will be instrumental in driving the business success of our company.

If you are determined to take on the world's most complex challenges and help build an industry-defining company, this is the opportunity for you.

As a Remote Forklift Operator you will be a pioneer in a job of the future and help to accelerate the rapid and safe deployment of driverless forklifts and industrial vehicles.

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

#292

Post by foobiekr »

greedo wrote: post #271
foobiekr wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not alone. Senior engineers in general - all of the leads I’ve talked to - feel like the current situation is completely broken. I can imagine it works for relatively low-technology low-complexity teams or very very small teams, but it is disastrous for complex and medium/large teams and projects. It’s just very challenging to impossible to keep an appropriate level of awareness.

I don't understand how being in the office helps you keep an appropriate level of awareness. Because you can walk up to someone and determine how far along they are with a project? Isn't that what Jira etc are for?

because hallway and whiteboard conversations are visible beyond the narrow participants.

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

#293

Post by MisterBastahrd »

benbristow wrote: post #57
MattGaiser wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What used to be swivel in your chair and ask a colleague or going to whoever you need to speak to is now But your need for an instant answer often derails my work flow. I can get a lot more done now that I am not being interrupted as frequently and can address questions once I have wrapped up what I am doing or at least have time to write down where specifically I stopped.

Just asking this as a talking point. Does a quick interruption that unblocks me and allows me to continue working outweigh allowing you to finish your thing first? Because maybe you're unblocked but I'm blocked by you now, and the thing that's actually blocking me. So only 1 person is able to work.

If I'm working on something central to our business model and you're working on some widget that won't be released for two months?

Absolutely.

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

#294

Post by narism »

Teknoman117 wrote: post #213
tezzer wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several do, the few times I've gone into the office and done a little problem solving with the folks who were there, we accomplished like a week of work in an hour. There's something about putting heads together that's hard to replace. Some of our folks have always been ~90% remote and that's fine, but I think they're missing out on one of the joys of engineering.

The main thing I miss is all the ad-hoc technical discussions about work or (usually) random topics over lunch. We went out nearly every day for an hour or more and had fun conversations. I miss it dearly. With everyone using their normal lunch times for running errands or just working more, we've had very few social meetings since WFH started. It's just so damn lonely.

Gitlab has some good stuff about this in their handbook. You have to be really intentional about this kind of informal meeting that otherwise happens naturally in an in-person situation.

https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/informal...

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

#295

Post by Viliam1234 »

AltruisticGapHN wrote: post #224

The worst part for me about working in the office is that my view is completely open. Zero privacy, distractions all day. Cubicles look like the caricature of boring office work, I don’t know but for me it would be awesome. Have a little corner I can personalize, not to have to see my colleagues eyes staring right into my face all da6 because they happen to sit right in front of me and have a better posture. Can I ge…

Yeah, I always wondered why people complain about cubicles. To me, they seem much preferable to open spaces. For introverted people, this is torture.

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

#296

Post by dragonwriter »

Alupis wrote: post #13
User23 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely, if an employer isn't willing to let employees do a job remotely after having had a year to see that they're perfectly capable of doing so, they clearly have no attachment to their employees.

Or, perhaps they had a year to clearly see they're perfectly incapable of doing so. Not every office job is software engineering folks... Imagine trying to manage a warehouse remotely... or bounce ideas off each other in real time at a marketing agency... or any of the other normal jobs that thrive with in-person interaction. Not to mention, 34% is a minority... we can't force the other 66% to work remotely just beca…

> Not every office job is software engineering folks... Imagine trying to manage a warehouse remotely..

I suspect that ~0% of people currently working remotely due to the pandemic are managing warehouses.

> or bounce ideas off each other in real time at a marketing agency

I’m...not having trouble imagining that. I imagine it would take a bit of getting used to using online collaboration tools for that, which would — even with the tech being ready — stop any agency from voluntarily making the transition if they weren’t forced to by exigent circumstances, but I don’t have trouble seeing it working well once the initial transition period was cleared.

> Not to mention, 34% is a minority...

But probably not equally distributed across all job types and employers; there’s probably employers where there are entire functions where that’s near 100%.

And, actually, in work we often force the vast majority to work in particular conditions because a minority that has disproportionate influence prefers it. Which is actually why even where there is overwhelming support from employees for remote work and greater productivity, managers addicted to practices incompatible with remote work will bring employees back to work.

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

#297

Post by Alupis »

dragonwriter wrote: post #296
Alupis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, perhaps they had a year to clearly see they're perfectly incapable of doing so. Not every office job is software engineering folks... Imagine trying to manage a warehouse remotely... or bounce ideas off each other in real time at a marketing agency... or any of the other normal jobs that thrive with in-person interaction. Not to mention, 34% is a minority... we can't force the other 66% to work remotely just beca…

> Not every office job is software engineering folks... Imagine trying to manage a warehouse remotely.. I suspect that ~0% of people currently working remotely due to the pandemic are managing warehouses. > or bounce ideas off each other in real time at a marketing agency I’m...not having trouble imagining that. I imagine it would take a bit of getting used to using online collaboration tools for that, which would —…

I think disregarding what a clear majority of workers desire is quite callous, particularly since remote working tools are simply not an adequate replacement for in-person interactions.

There is a bigger world outside "the valley". It's not surprising overpaid software engineers living in major cities, accustomed to forking over $4,000+ a month for tiny studio apartments are enjoying their experiences outside those circumstances.

Perhaps those same folks that refuse to return to the office can find happy employment at a local business in their newfound town instead.

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

#299

Post by tezzer »

politician wrote: post #250
tezzer wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several do, the few times I've gone into the office and done a little problem solving with the folks who were there, we accomplished like a week of work in an hour. There's something about putting heads together that's hard to replace. Some of our folks have always been ~90% remote and that's fine, but I think they're missing out on one of the joys of engineering.

Are you suggesting that if people were in the office for 40 hours a week, that you would expect to get a sustained rate of 280 days worth of work done per week? Or are you saying that given the creative thinking time alone that accumulated slowly over a period of time WFH, that the team was able to make 7 days worth of progress in one hour primarily due to the fact that everyone had plenty of time to understand the i…

No, I'm not confusing anything. I'm stating my team made a great deal of progress when we got together in the office over a sticky problem; and attributing the progress to the random directions the conversation and problem solving effort took when we were in one room bouncing ideas off each other and poking hardware together.

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

#300

Post by shaftway »

greedo wrote: post #271
foobiekr wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not alone. Senior engineers in general - all of the leads I’ve talked to - feel like the current situation is completely broken. I can imagine it works for relatively low-technology low-complexity teams or very very small teams, but it is disastrous for complex and medium/large teams and projects. It’s just very challenging to impossible to keep an appropriate level of awareness.

I don't understand how being in the office helps you keep an appropriate level of awareness. Because you can walk up to someone and determine how far along they are with a project? Isn't that what Jira etc are for?

I can't answer for others, but I'm involved in a large team inside of a large department where it can be difficult to understand who really owns a piece of code, and we're all expected to be able to slice all the way across the codebase.

I can't tell you how many times I'm heard a team mate mention something that they're working on that I have direct knowledge about and I've been able to cut a week of time off their project. And vice-versa, they've helped me.

I usually don't care about exactly what they're doing or how far along they are. If I need that information I join that group's regular sync, or check the bug status, or ping them and ask.

It's more about knowledge that a project actually exists. I have about 5 projects that I'm actively leading and another 10 or so that have been backlogged or deferred. There are about 50 people at my level in the department, so I assume there are at least 200 active projects, and I can't handle that firehose. Actually, I'm positive that there are at least 200 projects of various sizes ongoing, and I may be low by a full order of magnitude.

But when a question comes through my team, the fact that we can overhear what's going on and tune in or tune out can make or a break a project.

Post reply on HN