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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

#481

Post by parineum »

re-thc wrote: post #196
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…

> For some, perhaps, but on average? > What percentage of long-distance relationships work out long-term? If only you believe you have this "relationship" at work that's even remotely close to things being equal. For some, perhaps, but on average? - Do you get to decide what to do or your boss? Even if you know better ways of doing things or see issues you might not have the politics to pull it off. Does this happen…

Coworkers are much more like family. You don't get to choose them and you don't have to be friends with them but come thanksgiving, you just need to get along.

In that context, wfh makes it a lot easier to just get along.

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

#482

Post by ChuckMcM »

paulmd wrote: post #264
ChuckMcM wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a great comment. > I care about commute - time and money, especially time. I'm assuming you have done the whole draw a circle around where you live that represents your maximum willingness to commute and then apply for jobs in that circle thing? It was very popular in silicon valley during the dot com boom. When the commute circle comes up empty though, what do you do? Not snark, 100% serious. Hired a…

> Some of those employers will say "work at the office or quit, your choice." Haha, god no, that’s constructive dismissal. “Quit or I make your working conditions worse, require relocation to a new area, or reduce your salary” is not something the law or the courts treat as a voluntary choice, they’re not quitting , you’re laying them off not-for-cause due to a shift in organizational strategy. You’ll be paying these…

That's a fair point. Depending on where you work you might have even more power than it seems at first.

A friend at IBM when they said "Okay, come back to work in the office" just nodded and gave positive sounding responses but never really went back to the office. Their manager decided not to push it to a point of separation. I suspect that IBM's understanding of their obligations in that situation were part of the equation.

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

#483

Post by ChuckMcM »

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 always wondered (although never tested) if you could do this unilaterally. Which is to say, assuming you work 8AM to 5PM "nominally" (with an hour for lunch = 8 hours) and each morning got in your car at 8AM and got to the office whenever. Then when your favorite map application said "leave by x PM to arrive by 5PM at your home address" you left. It would certainly create some interesting tension right?

At one time Google was discussing live-in housing on campus so that people could live there. It was a non-starter due to zoning issues but their reasoning was they could create dormitory style housing like Foxcon did and pay people less actual money for more hours of their time. At its heart it was profoundly evil but the pitch was all "they are young, single, they don't want to bother with renting and keeping house they loved their college environment and they will love it here." And through the lens of the founders, for whom the best times of their lives was living in college working through the night on cool technical problems, it no doubt seemed like heaven.

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

#484

Post by losteric »

philipov wrote: post #214
userbinator wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only real reason for open offices is cost saving. Everything else is just an excuse to make it not seem like it is.

And you know what's a bigger cost savings than open office? No office!

Debatable, a full HQ brings sizeable direct and transitive economic influence over city politics that typically cannot be countered by residents.

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

#485

Post by bonestamp2 »

fireflash38 wrote: post #437
ascotan wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's a millennial thing. they grew up working on laptops and their dream office is to make the workplace look like starbucks. Open seating, no cubicles, a barista. It's a knee-jerk reaction to the old office place standard of 'cubes'. Managers hire out to consultants that hype this type of office layout because it will supposedly attract a talent. To be fair, cubes weren't any better. I remember having a guy slerping…

Rigghht... It's the millenials, not like corpos haven't been doing this for decades. As soon as there were cubicles, there were people rejecting them. See SC Johnson HQ for one of the most famous versions of this. ( https://youtu.be/yb-kYt1lpnI )

For sure, and like he says near the beginning of that video, "Most employees have moved to other buildings." I've been in some of those other buildings and guess what, they're almost entirely private offices... no open office plan.

They learned their lesson from the Frank Lloyd Wright building. It's a wonderful piece of architectural history, but it's not wonderful for productivity.

He doesn't mention one of the most interesting things about that building -- the building has no square corners, everything is round (even the elevator).

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

#486

Post by bombolo »

alpaca128 wrote: post #360
bombolo wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get pain from the hears not being in their natural position.

That problem went away for me once I found headphones that are actually over-ear and not only marketed as such. I can wear them all day every day because they're large enough to not even touch my ears, very light because of a plastic case and open headphones so they don't feel as "pressurized". Bad for noisy environments, though.

My hears are perpendicular from my head

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

#487

Post by closeparen »

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…

Obviously capital would prefer to pay lower wages, all else being equal, and in this case the Fed backs them up on that to prevent a wage-price spiral. What’s less obvious is how to keep even very-highly-paid employees from deciding they’ve made enough and checking out.

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

#488

Post by closeparen »

hagbarth wrote: post #458
mfDjB wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting this. I always found it odd that the transition from labour to capital seemed to be so hard, even with mid-figure 6 income TC's it always seemed like you can't quite escape the rat race, you can definitely live more comfortably, or maybe as comfortably as you can as one of the rats in the race but never escape. Of course with very disciplined saving and LCOL arbitrage you stand a chance, however it…

Seems to me that it’s central to the economic system we live in. If advancing from labour class to capital class was not very very hard, there would be far fewer workers, which is untenable in our society.

Labor demand was sluggish for a decade after 2008, it’s only now that the economy wants a lot of workers.

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

#489

Post by paradox460 »

landswipe wrote: post #397
isaacremuant wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Vscode live share beats the snot out of traditional pair programming. I can view where my colleagues are on the side while looking up something else, and vice versa. If a colleague is writing a function or something and needs to know how some system works, I can go and look it up while they're working, and not break their flow. Traditional pair programming, with a single terminal, makes this impossible

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

#490

Post by gdilla »

troupe wrote: post #48
atleastoptimal wrote: post #15

I understand the merits of WFH and in-person work. One thing that is however funny is the guilt tripping used by employers who have this straw-man version of a lazy WFH employee, and more so, employers who have a delusion that their workplace is important enough that people need to sacrifice a large portion of their lives just for the opportunity to be there in person. 90% of jobs aren't people's "passions" and have…

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…

Maybe that's what they said but they were also on the hook for rents or big real estate assets collecting dust.
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