Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 623 posts

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#531

Post by nonameiguess »

helmholtz wrote: post #192
tudorconstantin wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm totally not an introvert: I love being around nice people, I love playing table tennis and having lunch with my colleagues. But wasting 1h-2h daily on commuting to/from work is in absolutely no way worthy of this. It's our duty as human beings to resist going back to the office as much as possible. To gain back some of the life we otherwise would spend on commute. Work is for work, not for socializing, or having…

I never understand why long commutes aren't "Pants On Fire" emergencies for people. If you're driving two hours every day , and not spending all your free time wondering how you can either change jobs or change housing, well, it's a finite life that you're pissing away. I'm certain that there will be an outpouring of hundreds of reasons why people cannot move, and I'm sure all of those reasons have merit. But it does…

Unless there are an equal number of housing units to office seats in a particular region of a city, by the pigeonhole principle, it's not possible for everyone to just live where they work. Also working spouses and other cohabitants can't always just work in exactly the same place.

Your suggestion works for exactly one type of person, who has enough resources to outbid others for housing and either lives alone or has a non-working spouse.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#532

Post by swat535 »

austinjp wrote: post #288
wg0 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely - in knowledge economy, insisting on physical presence is darn damn stupid. And I don't want to hang "with friends at work" I go to "work" that has to be specified clearly and that I expect to deliver with purely professional merit driven collaboration and not friendships and gangs. I have friends or would love to have friends out of the place where I work. I want strict compartmentalisation between work a…

What about those who _do_ want a friendly workplace with some element of social interaction?

There is a difference between being friendly and becoming friends. The latter is dangerous and you will be fooled in thinking your coworkers actually care about you and you need to drink the corporate kool-aid, work overtime and be a true best friend to everyone.

If you are going out binge drinking with your co-workers, you're doing it wrong because it blurries the lines between professional and personal life in my humble opinion.

Very few deep friendships develop at work, at best they will be acquaintances you see once in a while.

So by all means, be nice and cooperative but keep your distance.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#533

Post by jjkaczor »

heymijo wrote: post #369
gfxgirl wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree completely. All metrics at my company, gamedev, show throughput is down ~66% since WFH Me, I want to go back to the office. Like hanging out with my work friends.

This past year wasn't WFH. This was WFH during a pandemic. Thinking they are the same is a mistake.

Exactly. People with school-aged kids had to deal with them being home - and then many kids were doing distance learning and one or more parents had to become teaching-assistants - or at the very least, "tech support" for the myriad of cobbled-together distance learning solutions/issues/gear (many kids may have even had to share limited computer resources/bandwidth).

Their spouses who may have worked outside the home, were home.

If they had not worked from home previously, chances are - they didn't have a dedicated office space - or even equipment.

Add to that the constant low-level stress of being in a pandemic with constant media impressions, massive social change events/activities (at least for those in North America with BLM and the moronic exit of the Orange-moron), and it isn't a stretch to think that productivity has been down somewhat.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#534

Post by andrewzah »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #336
caskstrength wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that 3 hours per day be better spent on meditating/yoga/woodcarving (or any other relaxing activity) instead? I mean driving doesn't appear to me like most relaxing activity, but maybe it is just my perspective.

I'd suspect the results would be different, the fact a commute is forced puts your brain into the mode where you solve creative problems in the background without thinking about them. There are good reasons ideas come out of nowhere to you in the shower or on a bus. That said I'd never ever have a 1+ hour commutes, 30 minutes is plenty but I have noticed a difference in inspiration this year and I put it down to this…

"a commute is forced puts your brain into the mode where you solve creative problems in the background without thinking about them"

I don't think about work outside of work, which includes commuting. I may have an epiphany while showering or talking a walk, but in the car I listen to music or podcasts. That is Me Time, not Employer Time.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#535

Post by bluefirebrand »

blaser-waffle wrote: post #487
varispeed wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be friendly without having to socialise. Not sure why those things would have to go together? Doing socials after work is such a waste of time - sure it may be fun, but this way you are using up time that otherwise you could use to maintain friendships outside of work. Socialising at work is when you develop unconscious and conscious biases and it is a breeding ground for a toxic atmosphere and disruption of…

> You can be friendly without having to socialise. Not sure why those things would have to go together? Doing socials after work is such a waste of time - sure it may be fun, but this way you are using up time that otherwise you could use to maintain friendships outside of work. Socialising at work is when you develop unconscious and conscious biases and it is a breeding ground for a toxic atmosphere and disruption o…

> You're going to spend nearly 1/3 of your waking hours with these people. You don't need to be best friends forever, but working somewhere that you don't at least have some friendly interaction and culture sounds utterly miserable.

Why are you assuming remote == unfriendly? That's silly.

What people are pushing back against isn't being friendly or developing a good working relationship with your peers. People are pushing back against "Not mandatory but you will be judged for not attending" after work happy hours, or extra-curricular work events where you are expected to attend during your free time. Things that seek to place your coworkers as your friends, and take away from time you could spend with your family and outside-of-work friends.

This parasitic work culture seeks to make the workplace replace your family and friends and it's all centered around the office.

> There is more to life than team dynamics.

There is more to life than work, period.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#537

Post by andrewzah »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #356
alexgmcm wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have social contact outside of work though. WFH gives people back time to explore hobbies, join clubs, meet people etc. The social contact you have at work often feels forced and artificial - you can choose your friends, your colleagues not so much.

> you can choose your friends, your colleagues not so much I did choose them, luckily I got to audition them from around 300 people I've been forced to interact with through over my career during the past 10 years. Not only do I get to know their characters well because I can decide if I like them or not and find out if they're trustworthy through working together I also get the extra benefit of being recommended for…

There are a plethora of groups for adults. There are groups for tabletop/board games, music, movies, sports, hiking, etc. There's likely groups near you on meetup.com or facebook groups.

For music specifically there are local scenes. If you go to local places consistently, you'll see some of the same faces. Etc.

I like programming, but I would find it very boring to only be friends with people in the same industry as me.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#538

Post by tharne »

koide wrote: post #518
blaser-waffle wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people feel alone because they lack the social skills to make friends outside work, or just lack the initiative, knowledge and internal motivation to work without external pressure and supervision. I've been remote for ~5 years now, and making friends as an adult, esp. in a new city or location, isn't easy. But you're right, when you're remote you have to make an effort to build social bridges yourself. That's…

I believe I've made friends of some of my remote coworkers... That's also a thing.

Kudos to you, I and most people I know haven't cracked that particular nut in a meaningful way.

It may be an unpopular opinion on this site, but I don't think the human mind is especially well-suited to remote work. We're social creatures by nature and our brains evolved to interact in the meatspace, rather than via a zoom call.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#539

Post by tharne »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #421
bumbada wrote: post #334

I have been working remotely for decades. Most people can't work remotely and productively because they are not trained to do so. E.g. You are in your office (inside your home) and your wife, your dog or child enters it demanding you do some kind of non important issue right now, distracting you from your work.You need to be trained to not them let them distract you. The people living in your house need to be trained…

This chestnut 'home has too many distractions' line is getting old. Work has equivalent distractions, and those people actually get paid to distract you. It takes time management wherever you sit your butt.

You clearly do not have small children.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#540

Post by andrewzah »

izacus wrote: post #179
tudorconstantin wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm totally not an introvert: I love being around nice people, I love playing table tennis and having lunch with my colleagues. But wasting 1h-2h daily on commuting to/from work is in absolutely no way worthy of this. It's our duty as human beings to resist going back to the office as much as possible. To gain back some of the life we otherwise would spend on commute. Work is for work, not for socializing, or having…

> It's our duty as human beings to resist going back to the office as much as possible. Please don't talk for all of us. If you're miserable in the office that's fine, but it's noones duty to support your preferences. This is why we have this amazing free market - everyone can work at a company that respects their preferences.

Hmm, and does this free market give us the option of quiet, small offices, with doors? Or do we overwhelmingly get the "option" of open offices?
Post reply on HN