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80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

cnbc.com

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Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#361

Post by Tomte »

prmoustache wrote: post #358
Tomte wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you don't use the room for anything except work. You've got a computer in there that you're also using for private stuff? Not tax-deductible anymore. Private books on the bookshelf? Not tax-deductible anymore. You've got a wardrobe with some clothes you're only accessing once per season (to store off-season clothes)? Not tax-deductible anymore.

Like you will declare those...

Sure, many don't. And many people have found that the tax office does inspections from time to time. That's not a pandemic issue, the laws and the jurisprudence have been in place for decades.

But you just have to love how HN endorses tax fraud.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#362

Post by generic92034 »

Tomte wrote: post #311
azmodeus wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany you can tax deduct your rent for an office room with a door and a proportion of your utilities for the office

Only if you don't use the room for anything except work. You've got a computer in there that you're also using for private stuff? Not tax-deductible anymore. Private books on the bookshelf? Not tax-deductible anymore. You've got a wardrobe with some clothes you're only accessing once per season (to store off-season clothes)? Not tax-deductible anymore.

It is not nearly handled so strictly anymore, in my experience. Of course, it could vary by tax office.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#363

Post by synecdoche »

ornornor wrote: post #243
deaddodo wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open offices are the literal reason (after commuting/traffic) that I no longer want to go into the office. My work doesn't require a ton of person:person engagement and it's much easier for me to just zone out in my own headspace to do it. When I was required in the office, I would just wear headphones to avoid distractions, but I would have to deal with 2-3hrs of driving/day on top of it. This meant that my employer…

> When I was required in the office, I would just wear headphones to avoid distractions Sometimes I just want silence. Not music, not $color noise. I also get itchy ears after wearing headphones for hours on end, and noise canceling headphones give me a headache… or, you know, I could work wherever I prefer, with little to no commute, and an office arranged how I like it.

I see it as a fairness and reasonableness issue. It’s unfair and unreasonable that the ones polluting the space with noise are the ones that get to enjoy the freedom to use the space without restrictions, while the victims of the noise are the ones that suffer the restriction of the full use of the same space. The same with smoking, which fortunately has been recognised to some extent in recent years.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#364

Post by generic92034 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #133
generic92034 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus, while the overall employment situation is strong, the tech downsizing wave may not be over and if you can get people to self-select out, you can maybe avoid having to officially have layoffs. Are you sure announcing layoffs hurts share prices? I mean, companies only recently were doing it while still being highly profitable.

> Are you sure announcing layoffs hurts share prices? I'm relatively sure losing people without severance and without WARN Act and similar notice issues, is easier on the financials for the same number of positions cut than the alternative.

So why did SV companies fire a lot of employees recently, if the severance and WARN act outweigh the positive impact on the share prices?

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#365

Post by ethanbond »

lumost wrote: post #216
Alupis wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of nuance that isn't discussed in the WFH circles. I don't believe the cynical claims some offer of VC's losing out on real estate deals, or mid-level managers needing to boost their butts-in-seats numbers or whatever. For some, perhaps, but on average? What percentage of long-distance relationships work out long-term? Do you become more or less close with friends after they move out of town? Do you sti…

Different skills dominate in WFH vs. in-office cultures. It should ultimately be unsurprising that people prefer to work in an environment conducive to their strengths. Some folks focus on deep work, and benefit from working remote - others focus on collaboration. There are cons of remote work, there are also cons of in-office work. Remote workers who work best with deep stretches of focus are unlikely to be as produ…

I think framing as deep work vs collaborative is a bit too assertive. It’s people who prefer working solo versus working socially, and there are different types of work that naturally lend themselves to one personality or the other, but the preference is “lower level” than that.

For example, brainstorming we pretty much know to be ~ineffective at this point, but people who love socializing continue to do it. Inversely there’s definitely work that’s ridiculously hard to accomplish solo/async, but people with a strong preference for solo work want to muscle their way through it solo anyway.

Solo workers are willing to give up some collaboration and social workers are willing to give up some focus.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#366

Post by Zigurd »

wonderwonder wrote: post #225
deaddodo wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open offices are the literal reason (after commuting/traffic) that I no longer want to go into the office. My work doesn't require a ton of person:person engagement and it's much easier for me to just zone out in my own headspace to do it. When I was required in the office, I would just wear headphones to avoid distractions, but I would have to deal with 2-3hrs of driving/day on top of it. This meant that my employer…

Open offices are terrible. Management knows they are as well because Sr. leadership almost always have their own offices. The peons sit in the pit. Until the CEO is sitting next to everyone else they are all speaking lies when preaching the benefits of an open office. The only benefit is that its cheaper and they can keep an eye on you.

There is an exception to this observation about senior management: Andy Grove used to sit in a cubicle. It was a big cubicle in a labyrinth of his assistants' cubicles.

It didn't make cubicle farms any better though.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#367

Post by o1y32 »

floucky wrote: post #320
throwaway892238 wrote: post #60

I decided I will never again work in an office, for the rest of my life. It's a lifestyle choice. I refuse to put up with the B.S. anymore. I'm lucky that I've had a long career and my skills are very much in demand, so I will always be able to find a remote job somewhere. People doing jobs with more qualified candidates in the pool will probably have a harder time, and that sucks. For them, I hope they can band toge…

Don't you think full remote is kind of selfish? I mean, I also love it, but what about new hires and junior? How are they going to learn and improve if each time they have a question, they need to post it on slack and just wait...

Did it occur to you that there are people who were hired during the pandemic, who had full virtual onboarding experience? How did they survive?

Actually I myself joined my current company after March 2020. I can't imagine a 5-day, in-person experience would be any more effective or productive. If anything, I was able to completely pay no attention the mandatory training of "corporate value" nonsense -- it felt great to be "in" the meeting but spend the time doing actual development or doing some household chores.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#368

Post by Waterluvian »

sandworm101 wrote: post #356
Waterluvian wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t it be more biased to include data from those who don’t have a choice? Breathing air is overrated, says all fish. Amphibians bias the data and should be omitted.

More like dont make statements such as "all workers should be allowed standing desks" or "nobody should work saturdays" when clearly such things do not apply to enormous blocks of the population. We all need to remember that most people do not work similar jobs to ourselves, that our own experience is rarely ever applicable to the larger workforce.

Fair. I think as a non-American I’m just already used to re-qualifying most of what people say on here when they speak for “all” of us.

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#369

Post by rco8786 »

floucky wrote: post #320
throwaway892238 wrote: post #60

I decided I will never again work in an office, for the rest of my life. It's a lifestyle choice. I refuse to put up with the B.S. anymore. I'm lucky that I've had a long career and my skills are very much in demand, so I will always be able to find a remote job somewhere. People doing jobs with more qualified candidates in the pool will probably have a harder time, and that sucks. For them, I hope they can band toge…

Don't you think full remote is kind of selfish? I mean, I also love it, but what about new hires and junior? How are they going to learn and improve if each time they have a question, they need to post it on slack and just wait...

I see this argument all the time, but I've onboarded like a dozen new hires and juniors since going fully remote in 2020. It's fine. The tools and processes are different, but fundamentally it's still just about communicating and working together. You genuinely do not have to be in the same physical room to do that.

That said, the problem I do see is that the folks hired into a fully remote environment have a significantly lower "attachment" to the company. Working together in an office fosters a sense of belonging to the group (over time) in a way that remote work cannot. This is the thing that isn't getting attention, IMO - but maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe we were all overly attached to our jobs anyway :)

Re: 80% of bosses say they regret earlier return-to-office plans

#370

Post by rco8786 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #39

I had lunch, not too long ago, with a senior executive of a silicon valley tech company that was moaning about how much of a pain it was to get people to come into the office and how it felt like things would never return to the way they were. And I told them I actually knew of a way to get 100% of their employees to return to the office happily. When they asked what this magic bullet was I said, "Go back to offices,…

Negative. Offices with doors are nice. But the reason people don't want to go into an office is the commute. You're asking people to just erase 30-120 minutes of their day (or worse, spend that time in a stressful uncomfortable environment), 5 days a week, in perpetuity.
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