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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

#541

Post by _trackno5 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #193
jurassic wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sweet spot in my experience has been for WFH orgs to get together periodically for extended offsites. A one week gathering twice a year has forged some incredible bonds on my distributed team.

Ugh. Multi-day work offsites are the worst. Along with conferences. You have to make arrangements to be away, (try to) sleep in a hotel room, end up eating and drinking too much, getting a workout in is nearly impossible, they just completely disrupt all your routines and responsibilities.

I know the feeling.

I'm the only person "remote" (work from another office/country) in my team and I am the one that always has to travel to meet the rest of the team.

It's nice meeting people and all, but I generally find these offsites pointless and not work the hassle of traveling for it.

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

#542

Post by dmazzoni »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #149
seneca wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is working from home able to replace daycare? That's a new one to me.

When the Children are basically old enough to be alone, but not old enough to be alone all day. Like 9-13

Yep.

And when they're 4 - 8, they can entertain themselves and just need a little bit of occasional help. So you can have kids that age at home and still get some work done with reduced, but not zero, productivity.

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

#543

Post by namaria »

stodor89 wrote: post #426
PeterStuer wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Empire builders love to see and display their footsodiers. Nothing like sweeping a gaze over a big plateau with a few 100 serves to affirm your confidence.

Yeah, I think people often underestimate the role of ego in this kind of stuff. Hell, it can even be used as a philosophical razor: Never attribute to necessity that which is adequately explained by egomania.

Trouble is, one's superior's egomania is one's necessity. By the time it reaches lowly me, it's a bunch of arbitrary stuff I had to conform to that I can't even understand fully.

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

#544

Post by namaria »

prasoonds wrote: post #402
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.

This is correct and I'm not sure why it's been downvoted. In Germany, you'd better only every use the work-room for work only. As people have pointed out, you're not likely to get audited for this but often, with apartments, it can be quite obvious that you're using the space for non-work stuff too (for eg, if you're living in a 50 sqm apartment, it's pretty easy to say that you can't possibly have a dedicated work o…

This is such a perverse rule. You don't have enough living space? You can't possibly claim compensation for being forced to also use that as a workspace.

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

#545

Post by [deleted] »

petre wrote: post #385
Hendrikto wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another nation that is passionate about their stuff are Italians At least where I am from, Italians have a reputation for shoddy products, laziness, and not caring. As you say: They are happy as long as the facade looks good. Behind the scenes is a mess.

You're probably from Germany, the Nederlands or Denmark then. It's a common Northern European prejudice to consider southerners "lazy".

[deleted]

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

#546

Post by zlg_codes »

wtarreau wrote: post #400
ekianjo wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ma…

What happens when we swap phone with a hobby? I can't blame someone for feeling bad about themselves after putting themself out there and being ignored or hated on. On global networks, that feeling is somewhat amplified because it starts to feel like nobody would find you interesting, out of 9 billion people.

Why should we feel interesting? Well, I personally would not want to socialize with someone who found me boring. The juice should be worth the squeeze.

I am curious about your view on pride. The idea of pride is somewhat alien to me. What is there for an average Joe to be proud of? Most of us are trapped in an oppressive economic situation and are forever distracted from any meaningful goals in our lives by responsibilities and society's selfish expectations.

The loss of third places exacerbates the problem. People don't belong in their own communities, and they feel it.

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

#547

Post by wizofaus »

vitaflo wrote: post #511
mcv wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discussions, yes, but discussions aren't for the standup meeting. Those are for informally updating everybody on what you're working on and whether you're stuck on anything. They lead to 1 on 1 meetings to solve those issues.

Anyone who cares what you’re working on can look at Jira. And if you’re stuck you shouldn’t be waiting for a meeting to tell people this. Standup are a total waste of time.

Many are. But I've been in more than a few that resulted in discussion that ultimately saved many many hours of time that would otherwise have been spent on something that wasn't necessary.

Actually the only thing I dislike about stand-up is struggling to remember everything I did the previous day, then realising I've forgotten to mention one or two key things after the meeting's ended, and wondering what everyone thought about the fact I apparently did so little... (which is silly, I know, but we're all human).

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

#548

Post by wizofaus »

gardenhedge wrote: post #441
HellDunkel wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100%. And don‘t forget about the useless standup meetings which are nothing more than a complete waste of time.

Mine are also useless. Communicating with your team is super important but the mandatory status checkin when team members are working on unrelated things is pointless and draining.

That's a definition of "team" I've never heard before - "people working on unrelated things".

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

#549

Post by smarmgoblin »

vunderba wrote: post #525
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…

"Human beings are social creatures - yes, even we introverts need interaction. A pure voice-only relationship can feel close, but it's not the same thing. Current technology like Zoom and similar is just not a good replacement for in-person interactions." I cant stand it when people put out these blanket statements in the form of objective facts. If I'm in a group team huddle with our cameras on - I'm able to pick up…

Whenever you hear someone trot out facts about “human nature” you know they’ve run out of reasonable avenues of thought on the issue.

Why, for instance, didn’t any of this apply pre-COVID when distributed teams were already common? Are humans beings not social creatures when the same conglomerate owns the office real estate containing all meeting participants?

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

#550

Post by gambiting »

xp84 wrote: post #507
johnnyanmac wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I still worry I'm not productive enough and that I'll get laid off that's the neat part; you get laid off anyway. Layoffs are rarely actually about keeping the most productive people on board. If they want your wing of work to be marked as a redundancy, there's not much you can do from a purely productive standpoint.

And supposedly, layoffs aren’t legally allowed to be performance or merit-based! You’re supposed to lay off only for eliminating a position. When projects are shut down, that’s a natural one, but when it’s a X% cut of all engineering staff, for instance, it’s meant to be almost random, on paper at least. Of course in real life nobody would lay off the absolute most genius 10x developer, but nobody’s supposed to be la…

>>And supposedly, layoffs aren’t legally allowed to be performance or merit-based!

Where is that? Even in the EU where employee protections are very strong you can absolutely let go of someone because of poor performance, you just have to do the whole dance of giving them enough warnings, then a PIP, then you can terminate their employment as they are failing their contractual duties. It's not super simple but it is legal and it does happen.

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