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

Tragedy of return to hostile offices

benjiweber.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 306 posts

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#291

Post by paulcole »

jdbernard wrote: post #290
paulcole wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can you not see the difference here? Each of the 2 groups wants to inconvenience the other group. You’re free to argue “positive action” (whatever that means) or make one group out as worse than the other though. I just happen to think that both are equally right/wrong (which is to say not at all). > I can't help but see this as an extremely entitled position that is requiring other people to go out of their wa…

What I mean by positive action is, you are requiring me to actively do something. I agree that we all have preferences, and often we cannot satisfy everyone's preferences, particularly when they are at odds as you have pointed out. Fair. However, I see a very big difference between a preference that requires other people to take specific action to satisfy, and one that does not, and that's exactly the dynamic I see h…

> All I am doing is pointing out that your position is coercive in a way that the opposite is not.

Mission accomplished I guess?

My point is that it doesn’t matter which is more coercive because each party doesn’t care about inconveniencing and upsetting the other as long as they get what they want.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#292

Post by jdbernard »

paulcole wrote: post #291
jdbernard wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I mean by positive action is, you are requiring me to actively do something. I agree that we all have preferences, and often we cannot satisfy everyone's preferences, particularly when they are at odds as you have pointed out. Fair. However, I see a very big difference between a preference that requires other people to take specific action to satisfy, and one that does not, and that's exactly the dynamic I see h…

> All I am doing is pointing out that your position is coercive in a way that the opposite is not. Mission accomplished I guess? My point is that it doesn’t matter which is more coercive because each party doesn’t care about inconveniencing and upsetting the other as long as they get what they want.

It matters because I think that this coercive aspect does has moral implications. It is a core moral position for me to be as minimally coercive as possible in all actions. Or put differently, I believe all people are equal in value and should have equal access to self-determination and freedom of choice. At some level cooperation at the level of civilization and society requires that we surrender our individual freedom to some degree, but I believe one of the strongest lessons of history is that, as a general rule, nobody is a better judge of what is "right" for a person then that person themselves.

With that as a principle, coercive choices require, morally, a higher bar of justification.

If we truly throw concern for others our the window, I believe we ultimately lose the foundation for cooperation and polite society and eventually degenerate into some form of "might makes right," and I would argue we're already there to some degree.

As you can probably guess, I am doubtful that the value of RTO justifies the coercion required, at least as currently envisioned and with offices as they are currently designed. And the proof of this, to me, is the exodus of workers from companies making this mandate.

I recognize that company ownership has the ability to require this, but they have to recognize that this kind of coercive action is counter to a spirit of cooperation and "ownership."

From the employee POV, even if I was a RTO supporter, I would not be in favor of mandatory RTO because of this coercive aspect. I prefer not to force my preferences on others in any aspect of my life.

I recognize that this may be a point where we disagree, but that is why I was so passionate to point out that the two positions are not the same. They differ on a point that is critical from my point of view.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#293

Post by bronsonkhmai »

conductr wrote: post #260
tsunamifury wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 can maybe make the argument that regional banks want people back in the office because they have self interest in commercial real estate as a whole but outside that the argument is brain dead stupid IMO.

To me, it is all so simple. Does the micro manager to a fault know they are a micro manager? Of course they do but they can't help it. It is strategic and a trade off. It is the same exact thought process but just applied at the company level.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#294

Post by globular-toast »

kfk wrote: post #37
bcrosby95 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife works customer service remotely. > The longer we bemoan being forced to go to work in order to get paid, the more the rest of the population becomes convinced that the professional class is entitled and a bit spoiled. I stopped caring about what random strangers think when I was in high school. The correct answer to this is to tell these random people who have no skin in the game to fuck off.

I think your answer basically proves his point that we are becoming a highly entitled group of people. We struggle to empathize with other workers and, I would say, companies and managers. We tell ourselves this very simplistic stories like "all managers are bad", "all office work is a waste of time", "I should just get tasks on my async proj manager tool". I am telling you, with this level of entitlement, just hope…

Yesterday morning I woke up and it was raining. I could hear that sloshing sound as cars streamed past outside carrying people to work and school. It's a sound I've hated for as long as I can remember because it means a miserable wet and grey morning with everyone seeming slightly depressed.

I didn't have to go outside that day, but I'll never forget how lucky I am and that other people still have to.

But what difference does it make? I can feel sorry for people all day but I can't stop the rain.

On the other hand, nobody listened to people like me who were saying open offices were bad for us and we can't concentrate properly in them. So much for empathy.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#295

Post by globular-toast »

Hackbraten wrote: post #18
rossdavidh wrote: post #13

So, I have often worked remotely, think it's fine, and makes sense in some cases. But, honestly, this is a professional-class issue, and every article about it seems written from a viewpoint that has forgotten about most of the population. The waitress and cook never had the option of working remotely, nor did the factory worker, the construction worker, the taxicab driver, the truck driver, etc. etc. Most of the pop…

It's an existential issue. Carbon emissions are literally killing people, and are bound to kill many more millions if we don't change our ways. So if the cooks and nurses and truck drivers have no choice, then I'd say that it's our duty to work remotely in order to do our part in reducing emissions.

A place I used to work you had people transporting their 100kg sack of meat in a 2000kg car over 100 miles every single day just to place said sack of meat at a desk and be on Zoom (well, Skype at the time) calls all day.

And this happened day in day out with nobody ever questioning the sanity of such a practice.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#296

Post by twh270 »

toast0 wrote: post #235
twh270 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notice how shi*y companies always seem to find that "unfairness" needs to be "fixed" by removing the benefit?

It's not just companies. I've seen lots of people say why do they get X? rather than how can we get X? As an example, Pinball and arcade games are often very easy to source. Where I've seen them at my workplace, they were brought in and maintained by employees. Some space needs to be allocated, and maybe needs a bit of electrical work if a high density arcade forms, but otherwise... May be different if there's no col…

Yeah, the "if I can't have X you shouldn't have it either" mentality. These people are a joy to be around, they get a twisted sense of satisfaction when they manage to get X removed. I'm like, go get some therapy for that.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#297

Post by toast0 »

twh270 wrote: post #296
toast0 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just companies. I've seen lots of people say why do they get X? rather than how can we get X? As an example, Pinball and arcade games are often very easy to source. Where I've seen them at my workplace, they were brought in and maintained by employees. Some space needs to be allocated, and maybe needs a bit of electrical work if a high density arcade forms, but otherwise... May be different if there's no col…

Yeah, the "if I can't have X you shouldn't have it either" mentality. These people are a joy to be around, they get a twisted sense of satisfaction when they manage to get X removed. I'm like, go get some therapy for that.

I mean, If I can't have it, you shouldn't have it is kind of ok-ish; but it's when they skip trying to get X and just short circuit to you have X and I don't, let's get rid of your X that bothers me.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#298

Post by JohnFen »

yesdocs wrote: post #225
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 am old enough to remember when cubicles and offices were the norm. Cubicle companies studied and improved the cubicles spaces to make them more efficient using science. Yes they actually studied what would make us happier and more proficient at work. Then came the stupid trend of organic seating. Cubicle’s ? Thing of the past they said, yet our productivity suffered. Great for sprints but quickly diminished due to…

> Yes they actually studied what would make us happier and more proficient at work.

And they utterly failed.

But I'm willing to put up with cubes for the right job. There is no job that would be worth putting up with an open office layout or, worse, hot-desking.

I would think that if companies want people back in the office so badly, they would be willing to do something to make working in the office pleasant and productive. But I guess that's not how they think.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#299

Post by JohnFen »

tivert wrote: post #226
jwells89 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The walls have another benefit: they act like noise canceling headphones for your eyes. That’s one of the issues I have with open floor plan offices: people buzzing around in my peripheral vision can be incredibly distracting and detrimental to productivity depending on the day and my mental state, and there’s almost nothing that can be done to mitigate that.

> That’s one of the issues I have with open floor plan offices: people buzzing around in my peripheral vision can be incredibly distracting and detrimental to productivity depending on the day and my mental state, and there’s almost nothing that can be done to mitigate that. Don't worry, the office-lords have solved that! You can book a focus room for no more than 60 minutes when you need to focus. PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!…

The funny thing is that way back in the beforetimes (about the 1940s, I think), regular office workers were typically in an open office layout. When cubicles were invented, office workers absolutely loved them because they mitigated a lot of the horrors of an open office layout.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#300

Post by wiseowise »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #211
wiseowise wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

If I’m a mailman and this is urgent package - absolutely.
Post reply on HN