Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It • Hacker News Board

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#431

Post by AtlasBarfed » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:51 PM UTC

jjtheblunt wrote: post #44

My super noisy family makes me decree the title is not universally applicable

It's definitely a thing: with a young kid that emits distracting screeches at the seemingly perfect timing to disrupt deep concentration, office work is a lot more appealing for productivity.

And a lot of management is older folks with kids. A lot of programmers in the age-discriminatory field of tech is ... younger people.

But at the same time, my old job was a cattle pen of open floor concept. That sucked too. Now, right after COVID restrictions were lifted but no one came to the office, man I loved going to the office. No one was there, I could concentrate really well.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#432

Post by snotrockets » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:51 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #372

andrewmutz wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prior to COVID, everyone understood that remote work was supported by some companies and not others. It was also a type of work that was preferred by some employees and not others. As a result, everyone peacefully self-selected into their preferred employment relationships. Companies got the type of workforce they wanted and workers chose the type of environment they wanted. It was great. Today, as some companies are…

It’s not that simple - it’s a stupid control thing. When you have these top down mandates with measurements, now you’re introducing new surveillance and metrics that are both disruptive and counter-productive. I’m not a remote zealot - I probably average two days a week, sometimes half days. I live a 20 minute walk/5 minute drive from work in a central business district. I’m a senior leader with hundreds of employees…

Fast food employees are professionals as well (have you ever worked a fast food job? It's hard, and requires practice to excel at)

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#433

Post by Aldo_MX » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:51 PM UTC

throwaway5959 wrote: post #210

ncallaway wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but RTO is about… forcing the preference for in person work on everyone.

RTO doesn’t really work if five people are back in the office.

Well, remote really works if five people are back at the office. That's a point for remote.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#434

Post by iwonthecase » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

ScarZy wrote: post #364

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed the flexibility of WFH but I still prefer working with local teams in the office. There are pros and cons to both, but it's silly to assume everyone has the same preference as you just because your preference is strongly held. This is my response to both your comment and TFA. There is less consensus on this topic than the very-vocal WFH crowd would have you believe. I know plenty of other talented engineers…

I echo this sentiment completely. I do 2-3 days a week in my office and I am personally mentally better off for it. That said, personally is the key word. I manage a team. I love seeing employees together and aligning on things in person where possible - but totally understand if this does not suit their schedule that day or week. It often does not work with mine. It's the small human mistakes that are innocent and s…

> I also found myself working longer hours, not having solid disconnected time

To the frustration of my then boss, I noticed that I (and a lot of other coworkers) used RTO as a way to reduce our hours to ~40/week and not spend our nights and weekends with our work laptops open nearby.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#435

Post by grumblingdev » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #230

grumblingdev wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an assembly line Now imagine working on an assembly line on your feet all day versus your office day job. The people on the assembly line would look at you like the most spoilt people in the world. I personally hated going into the office, but the morale effect is real. I think the main thing is people cannot be trusted to honestly tell you if they work better from the office. It's a nicer life working from home bu…

> The people on the assembly line would look at you like the most spoilt people in the world. It's not a matter of being spoiled or not. I'm talking about what is necessary to get the job done and the elimination of redundant rules that serve no purpose.

"get the job done" is usually poorly defined.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#436

Post by spacemadness » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

scottLobster wrote: post #76

TerrifiedMouse wrote: post #11

There are so many “habits” left over from industrial work. On an assembly line everyone needed to be in sync but this generally isn’t true for most office work. You need to be present at the factory to do the work, hasn’t been true for office work for awhile now. Yet we still operate synchronously. Everyone commutes through traffic/crowded public transport and risk catching the latest novel virus, to arrive at work a…

Walking over and talking to someone is still far superior to any online communication. So unless you have a job that requires minimal communication on a day-to-day basis, an office is superior for productivity. Perhaps if everyone working from home were constantly available to screen-share/video chat it wouldn't be as bad, but my experience with WFH is people get distracted by kids/pets/etc and half the time I wait h…

It sure doesn’t stop these same leaders in shipping jobs all over the planet for cheaper wages though where face to face contact isn’t happening without jumping on a plane.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#437

Post by DrScientist » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

There is one element ( elephant ) of remote working that I don't see being much discussed.

If the job can be done remotely and async - it potentially can be done from anywhere. Potentially this means you are competing globally for that job.

And I suspect for most of the people on these boards there are lots of places which have both the talent and much lower costs.

So in a completely free market you might find that choosing where you live is no longer an advantage of remote working - to compete you'll need to move to a country that has lower costs....

So there is an element of being careful what you wish for.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#438

Post by grumblingdev » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

PsylentKnight wrote: post #172

grumblingdev wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an assembly line Now imagine working on an assembly line on your feet all day versus your office day job. The people on the assembly line would look at you like the most spoilt people in the world. I personally hated going into the office, but the morale effect is real. I think the main thing is people cannot be trusted to honestly tell you if they work better from the office. It's a nicer life working from home bu…

> The people on the assembly line would look at you like the most spoilt people in the world. Ok, working standards and life in general have gotten better for people. Why is that a bad thing? > It's a nicer life working from home Again, why is people having a better life a bad thing?

My point is its a minor inconvenience compared to a lot the working environments people operate in.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#439

Post by rdtsc » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:53 PM UTC

It seems as if all these tech companies's CEOs colluded and decided to do this at about the same time. I guess we can't call it conspiracy, if they haven't all flown to some remote island to play golf, and came back with this idea. But they can plausibly just watch and copy without others' behavior without actually coordinating with each other.

Real estate investment and the idea that large corporate share owners also invest in office real estate has been mentioned as the reason. But to me it mostly feels like a “soft layoff” tactic.

There were waves of layoffs already, but it wasn't enough, so they all noticed that RTC can be another kind of a layoff, and they don't have to worry about severance or inventing performance improvement plans and so on.

It's fascinating that they do it and have to lie why they are doing it. Nobody can say it out-loud. Not a single line in the internal chat or emails, especially no comment publicly. But everyone can read very well between the lines.

Re: Return to Office Is Bullshit and Everyone Knows It

#440

Post by colmmacc » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 4:53 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #235

andrewmutz wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prior to COVID, everyone understood that remote work was supported by some companies and not others. It was also a type of work that was preferred by some employees and not others. As a result, everyone peacefully self-selected into their preferred employment relationships. Companies got the type of workforce they wanted and workers chose the type of environment they wanted. It was great. Today, as some companies are…

Before COVID there were a ton of people who wanted to work remotely but couldn't because remote jobs were few and far between. COVID finally gave them what they always wanted, but now it's being taken away, and remote jobs are getting harder to find again. That's why there is resentment. There was resentment before too, but it was more below the radar because it was always shot down with "we work better in person" an…

I'm ready to believe that remote work can be more productive overall, and definitely more cost effective, but I always have a really hard time with the "I'm just as productive, if not more productive remotely" data and argument. It's really easy to believe that folks with an existing network of colleagues and relationship, as well as a decent amount of company of industry know how can be more productive remotely. Fewer distractions, more flexibility, etc. It all makes sense.

But that doesn't solve for the folks behind us on the ladder; how effective are we being at mentoring and growing those people, how easily are they learning the small nuances that we picked up in hallway conversations, serendipitous meetings, and so on. For the company, this is a real concern, but it's harder to measure. To better advocate for remote work, I think we really need to pour more time and energy into this and call out techniques that can be more effective here. For example: having leaders write a weekly newsletter, or getting into the "Why's" much more intentionally when people are remote.