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

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

#391

Post by base698 »

closeparen wrote: post #153

I have a new conspiracy theory on RTO in Big Tech. Much has been said about commercial real estate. But I think getting highly capable people to work hard for you is a difficult problem & something tech executives put a lot of thought into. If you don't pay people enough, someone else will. But if you pay them too much, they'll become financially independent. Mid six figures is an objectively life-changing amount of…

I assume everyone had roughly the same thought around 2012. Mid sized city jobs paying 100k+ and you could still find homes with half an acre for $300k. As salaries got inflated due to FAANG and startup competition it really seemed like an easy out was just keep a lower cost place or rent. The dream of WFH was find a HCOL job and buy LCOL place and a helicopter or maybe just save for retirement at 45.

Now given the cost of living increases, the $300k places push $900k in midsized cities. The HCOL areas have gone up in value and the mortgage due to interest is almost twice as high over 2019. Assuming a $15-$20k net take home the housing will be half of it. Grocery bills seem about twice as high. Even with much higher salaries it seems like everything has been squeezed back to the 2012 math. Not everyone ended up riding the salary train and it's even harder form them. And that's assuming you get to keep your job in the shuffle back to the office/layoffs.

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

#392

Post by mattgreenrocks »

catmanjan wrote: post #338
dougmwne wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think you’ve really got it there. The federal government is absolutely trying to orchestrate this situation for the benefit of companies. They try to keep unemployment at a sweet spot number where not too many people are living on the street, but companies have a pliable and plentiful labor pool. It’s achieved through a careful balance of monetary policy, taxes, immigration, education, and laws limiting reprod…

Is it really possible for an individual to “build wealth” without exploiting the working class

Save 50% of your gross salary, invest in index funds, and be patient. You can speed up the process via geo-arbitrage, climbing the career ladder without lifestyle creep, working at a FAANG, being more frugal, or side hustles. Search for FIRE for more details.

It’s not easy by any stretch.

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

#393

Post by josephd79 »

ascotan wrote: post #390
troupe wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it funny that when people were required to be home, employers talked about what great productivity they were getting with people at home. Then when it isn't required anymore, they want everyone back in the office for...productivity. My guess is that most employers really have no way to measure if an employee is being productive or not so managers are just reporting what makes them look good...and now we are ba…

I think the definition of "productivity" is part of the problem. Managers view "productivity" as the ability to bounce ideas off each other and working collaboratively to get traction on hard problems. This isn't how most engineers write software at the ground level though. Engineers need quiet concentration, free from distraction. Yes, there are hard problems that need collaboration to solve, but that type of intera…

You can't "manage" people who work remotely the same way you manage people in the office. That's the issue.

Also, you shouldn't have to watch newer employees like a hawk if you've given them clear tasks / projects and expectations. No need to micromanage people.

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

#394

Post by nickjj »

tester756 wrote: post #55
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,…

So, you found simple solution for very complicated dynamic and you actually believe you solved this problem? I don't care about offices with doors. Sure, they're better, but still it doesn't solve my issues - I care about commute - time and money, especially time. I've been commuting like 3h / day before WFH and I don't want to go back unless you pay me at least 2.5x

> I've been commuting like 3h / day before WFH and I don't want to go back unless you pay me at least 2.5x

I don't think this is even that crazy either. I do WFH but if I were to goto the office in NYC, here's what that 9-6 work schedule would look like when you're dependent on a train:

    - Wake up at 6am, eat breakfast, get cleaned up, prepare for the day
    - 6:50am, drive to the train station
    - Catch the 7:10am train to NYC which arrives at 8:30am
    - Walk 15 minutes to the office
    - Work until 6pm (no private offices, segments of open floors with desks and monitors to plug in a laptop)
    - Walk 15 minutes back to the train station
    - The next available train back is 6:40pm which arrives at 8pm
    - Drive home from the train station to be home around 8:10pm to 8:15pm
Here's the direct costs associated with that:

   - $268 a month for 20 train trips (a business week) with a discount applied
   - $150 for 10 lunches (I'm trying to average out things like a slice of pizza sometimes or something nicer and maybe you bring lunch half the time)
   - $200 for 10 dinners (half the time you eat near the train station while waiting because the idea of cooking after getting home is too tiring)
   - $15 a month in gas (kind of rounding here based on miles per gallon, etc. but this is close)
That's an extra $633 a month and the food budget is likely way lower than it would realistically be. It also assumes you never once take an Uber or the subway while in the city. Realistically this could easily be $900 a month not even accounting for wanting to do fun and cool things after work since you're already out there.

That's 6:50am to 8:10pm end to end (~13.5 hours) and you still need to handle dinner half the time. You also pretty much have to get up around 6am every day so you can't do too much at night. You're lucky if you manage to get dinner and fall asleep while watching a movie.

Compare that to working from home:

    - Wake up anytime before 8:45am to give you some time to get ready
    - Do whatever you want between 6am to 9pm if you wake up early
    - Work until 6pm (my own private office or anywhere within reason)
    - Do whatever you want until you decide to fall asleep
Your food budget is fully up to you. You can do optimized meal prepping to your heart's desire or eat out every day.

Pants are optional at any point during the work day. I say that as a joke but also kind of serious. Your work environment may require wearing pants even if it's 90f / 32c with 70% humidity.

There's also a huge amount of flexibility in the sense that maybe you have something to do between 2pm and 4pm like a doctor's appointment. You can still work around those hours when doing WFH and maybe eat lunch at your desk and put an extra hour in the evening to make it for it. Or maybe your job is ok with you just taking that 2 hours to do your thing and don't worry about it. That's not really an option when you have a long commute. You have to take the full day off.

So now you go back to the person I'm replying to who says they would need 2.5x to go back. That's not all that crazy. Your work day goes from 9 hours to 13.5 hours which is already 50% more. You can't just add 50% to your salary because you're going to get taxed on that, and all of that will be taxed at the highest bracket you're in. Your life transforms from "work with a decent amount of personal time" to "I can't really do anything except work and commute". That's priceless in value or at least requires a substantial increase to consider it given what you're giving up.

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

#395

Post by lotsofpulp »

dougmwne wrote: post #310
csomar wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a conspiracy theory, it's how the system works. You are taxed on pretty much all of your income either from the state, the landlord, the credit card company or the lifestyle obligations that stems from the area you are living in. > And that's right where they want you. This is the part where we diverge, and I think where people confuse emerging phenomena for conspiracy. There is no one orchestrating this.

This is absolutely being orchestrated, right out in the open. OP’s entire post is fundamentally about the balance of power between labor and capital. The Fed’s stated goal is to cool the labor market so that wage growth will calm down. In other words, the Fed thinks labor is too strong, calls too many of the shots in negotiations and so wants employees to be more desperate so that their employers will have the upper…

Note that this also aligns with incentives of the largest voting bloc, retirees and near retirees.

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

#396

Post by usaar333 »

LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #186
closeparen wrote: post #153

I have a new conspiracy theory on RTO in Big Tech. Much has been said about commercial real estate. But I think getting highly capable people to work hard for you is a difficult problem & something tech executives put a lot of thought into. If you don't pay people enough, someone else will. But if you pay them too much, they'll become financially independent. Mid six figures is an objectively life-changing amount of…

I don’t think it’s really a conspiracy theory, this a fundamental aspect of American capitalism. Health insurance is a perfect example of a carrot that companies want to maintain control over in order to maintain a dedicated workforce. By keeping “affordable” (eye roll) access to healthcare tied to a full time job, they keep butts in seats. This isn’t new or isolated to tech companies. It’s always been about maintain…

Healthcare is just another cost in your life and you should view the benefit as part of your TC. It's only slightly distorted here in that companies can use pretax money but it isn't like it's a small expense to companies either.

I've personally never used Cobra, because it is in fact cheaper to buy individual plans.

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

#397

Post by landswipe »

isaacremuant wrote: post #359
floucky wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Slack is no different than the desk if you're using it like that. You can hop as easily to huddle as you'd do an interruption. Of course, a junior interrupting ALL the time in real life would be a terrible thing so you definitely need to strike a balance. But I see most arguments for office is better from people who just don't know how to communicate effectively through tools and potentially are bad at cross location…

I'd argue remote is way better, if you share screens over google meet or similar it is far far better than physically sitting around a single workstation. Also, by default it encourages respect of people's time rather than tapping people on a shoulder or an interrupting them (don't get me started on open plan offices).

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

#398

Post by wtarreau »

mfitton wrote: post #154
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…

I think you're right about this, but there are companies that are putting distributed teams back into open offices just so that... they can sit in zoom meetings with their team. But now, they're less likely to have ad-hoc collaborations over Zoom because it's a pain in the neck to find a conference room and feels borderline disrespectful to one's neighbors to carry on a long call when they're trying to focus. It's al…

It's not necessarily the case, it happens that most of the people who come are happy to be in the same room for a meeting, but often they still have to endure one single distant coworker that preferred to stay home and selfishly forces all other ones to use the shitty tools.

At work we've bought small PCs for the meeting rooms so that all those present can be in the same room, and have the rare distant ones participate to the call remotely without preventing other ones to discuss in the room. It's obvious the quality of the participation is much reduced for the remote one in this case, which proves how poor such exchanges are when they're all remote. At least here we can preserve a good communication between those who make the effort to meet in person.

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

#399

Post by lotsofpulp »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #228
LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s really a conspiracy theory, this a fundamental aspect of American capitalism. Health insurance is a perfect example of a carrot that companies want to maintain control over in order to maintain a dedicated workforce. By keeping “affordable” (eye roll) access to healthcare tied to a full time job, they keep butts in seats. This isn’t new or isolated to tech companies. It’s always been about maintain…

I’ve always thought this. Having healthcare primarily accessible through your job must be a strangely subservient place to be. You could literally die if you lose or leave your job! Im not one for conspiracy theories, but that’s a great position for governments and big business to find themselves in!

Health insurance equivalent to what an employer subsidizes is pretty accessible without the employer at healthcare.gov, but the tax deductibility is not if you are working for an employer too small or cheap to offer or, or not employed at all.

The premiums just happen to be very expensive (even for the employers’ subsidy portion) to the tune of $10k/$30k+ per individual/family.

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

#400

Post by wtarreau »

ekianjo wrote: post #191
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…

The social animal bullshit is a myth. You can see it around you everyday. People in public places everywhere spending time on their phones rather than talking to people around them

It's true that we can see them everywhere but you'll probably notice that you don't know what jobs such people do and that those who you know and who need to benefit from others' experience typically do not do this. I tend to think there is a class (and a large one) of people who live only for their phone and social networks just because they have no life and they're trying to get one in such superficial stuff. Or maybe they just feel that nobody looks at them because they're not redefining the world and are not interesting, and they're trying to exist through groups of other people like them. It often makes me sad to see how they can be absorbed by these non-sense activities instead of simply being proud of what they are.
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