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The damaging results of mandated return to office

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Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#341

Post by runamok »

jaclaz wrote: post #333
runamok wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue they trade receiving the full fruit of their labor for increased safety/stability. I know I do at least. The owner of a business still needs to make payroll even when the business is doing well with legal consequences iiuc if they don't. If you are a sole proprietor your billable rate goes up but now you are marketing, IT, accounts receivable, janitor, etc. etc. Additionally different company's have differe…

Still this is a different kind of contract. A bonus (or other forms of incentives) are additional to the base salary. Until you are fired (or if the company does not pay your wage anymore) your salary/wage is fixed, and you get it no matter how the company is going. In sharecropping the year you (as a tenant) got a bad crop, you wouldn't have anything to eat, and would have basic survival problems.

I'd assume unless it was REALLY bad you'd get food but no money (due to no extra crops for sale) but a fair point. Some professions like sales are very much feast or famine but agree most employees are insulated to a degree from company performance.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#342

Post by throwawaylinux »

n4r9 wrote: post #335
throwawaylinux wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the point I'm making and I have to say it's pretty outlandish if it seems that way to you. The point I'm making is that it's not because an organization is "not ready" that remote work is not permitted. Implying there is some set of steps or purchases they need to make and then they are ready. It's because the people who can make the decision don't want to. I thought that I repeatedly made it clear that I…

You've consistently asserted that most companies would find it easy to switch to remote work. I absolutely disagree with this. At least I disagree that most companies can do so and be confident of maintaining productivity. I believe it requires a big shift in organisational and operational processes and attitudes within the company.

No I haven't, and "easy" is not a well defined term here. What I said is that it's not a matter of being ready or not, it's a matter of choosing to or not. And lots of companies can and actually did choose to do that at very short order when covid was causing shutdowns, so if you want to make extraordinary claims to the contrary then you'll need to bring a lot of evidence.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#343

Post by enigma20 »

jupp0r wrote: post #57

Companies who mandate return to the office should pay employees for the additional commute time at their hourly rate. If this becomes too expensive then productivity gains from being in the office are apparently not worth it.

Someone asked that in my company. Answer was: you signed the contract in the past, before the covid, and you were coming to the office, and the commute time was included in the compensation. So there will be no increases. I guess you could use this card when applying for new job. But honestly, I would rather stay home and earn lesser than agree to coming to the office for additional hourly pay, covering commute time.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#344

Post by gullevek »

querez wrote: post #196
NKosmatos wrote: post #103

Once you’ve tasted the fruits of WFH and you like the taste, you’ll never go back. It’s like going from a black and white TV to a color one, from a dummy phone to a smartphone, from dialup internet to fiber to the home. You never go the other way round, unless there is a very strong reason and personal decision. People like to improve their lives in whatever way is best for them and will strongly object to a “downgra…

To each their own. I find that WFH makes me incredibly unproductive, I'm glad I'm able to return to to the office. I think there are a lot of factors that affect this (e.g. I have a family with small children at home, and my commute is <15 minutes by bike).

I also have small children and I prefer WFH simply because I can be a proper dad and not "that person that is there on weekends".

I prefer my small kid make a ruckus and than 50 phones ringing and shit talking and crap going on in the super open office place.

Glad my company saw the tide of times and switched to full WFH with office just a meeting space.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#345

Post by fmajid »

dougmwne wrote: post #215
fmajid wrote: post #189

I recently changed jobs and had the choice between a senior IC role at a FAANG and an engineering director position at an open-source company that is fully remote. While working in fully remote culture would be intellectually interesting, I opted for the FAANG and enjoying going back to the (incredibly cushy) office, after 3 years of WFH that I found isolating and depressing, even though I am an introvert and possibl…

I can tell you that the comfort of your home is a huge factor. I would not dismiss it. I think that it accounts for a lot of the difference between European attitudes to WFH and American. My best WFH situation was a beach house where I had a dedicated room for work, a large back garden and could take 3 walks a day down the beach between calls.

Well, I am a US expat in Europe, I lived in a house in San Francisco with a very nice home office slash man-cave, then moved to London where it's a 9'x6' (3x2m) fish bowl with eaves and no air conditioning. But it's really the isolation that got to me, most of my colleagues were remote in Tel Aviv.

It also helps that my commute is 30 minutes by bus + Tube vs 45 to 90 minutes in SF due to Muni's abysmal unreliability.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#346

Post by fmajid »

m_rpn wrote: post #194
fmajid wrote: post #189

I recently changed jobs and had the choice between a senior IC role at a FAANG and an engineering director position at an open-source company that is fully remote. While working in fully remote culture would be intellectually interesting, I opted for the FAANG and enjoying going back to the (incredibly cushy) office, after 3 years of WFH that I found isolating and depressing, even though I am an introvert and possibl…

Just moved to London some months ago... nobody told me that the housing situation was so bad to the point to even push us introverts back into the offices XD (couple days a week personally).

Yes, somehow Brits have been brainwashed by their feudal masters into thinking 80m2 is an adequate size for a 3BR apartment. British homes are some of the smallest and lowest-quality amongst Europe's richer countries, e.g. compared to France.

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#347

Post by sanderjd »

GFischer wrote: post #339
sanderjd wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with a daily sync with video and then async like Slack, it doesn't matter that much who's in the office Unfortunately I think this is kind of a cope the remote people on the team use to feel ok about it (I've been that person quite a bit). But the people having coffee and lunch together more regularly just do form closer bonds and that matters. I don't think it matters as much as a lot of executives want everyone t…

I personally believe some sort of bonding period is great for remote people. I've worked in a kind of "worst of both worlds" setup where I went to an office 8-5 but I worked with a completely remote team (the office was basically a place for me to put on a headset and ignore everyone else). But we met on a planned company trip (with the excuse of a Vegas trade show, we went and met one week early) and that helped imm…

Yep, this sort of bonding is very important IMO. But it's also a giant trade-off. I can bond with people I work locally with at lunch, I have to leave my children for a few days to bond with people I work remotely with. It's a much heavier burden. I think it is often worth it! The town I live in doesn't have offices for every interesting company in the world, so I have to compromise on who I can work for if I'm not willing to work remote, which I currently feel is an even heavier burden. But if my perfect job also had a local office, I would be very pleased!

Re: The damaging results of mandated return to office

#348

Post by readerbaza »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #337

I'm going through this. Was hired at 1/month in-office, and now they're saying 4x/month. My feel about this is that this is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, the solution doesn't work, and I'm having to pay for it. We had an all-hands meeting recently. The message was essentially, "We have heard your feedback that most of you don't like this, but WE like it, so it's staying."

should have not showed up when asked 1/month.

...and they say the slippery slope is a fallacy

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