Tragedy of return to hostile offices • Hacker News Board

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#61

Post by calamari4065 » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 2:48 PM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #13

So, I have often worked remotely, think it's fine, and makes sense in some cases. But, honestly, this is a professional-class issue, and every article about it seems written from a viewpoint that has forgotten about most of the population. The waitress and cook never had the option of working remotely, nor did the factory worker, the construction worker, the taxicab driver, the truck driver, etc. etc. Most of the pop…

This reads like "you better clean your plate, there are starving kids in Africa!"

Yes, some people don't have the option of remote work, but if you have that option, how does that affect those that don't? Cleaning my plate won't feed starving kids in Africa, and taking shit over working from home doesn't help people whose jobs require physical presence.

Some people can work from home, and entire fields can't. So what? How is that relevant? Some jobs just don't require physical presence and business owners don't like that for a variety of unfair reasons. People who can work from home are being treated unfairly. How does that affect kids in Africa? Does it hurt them? Help them? Or are they utterly irrelevant to the problem at hand?

The existence of farmers doesn't really have a single thing to do with call center workers taking calls at home. Of course farmers can't farm remotely, but that's utterly irrelevant. No one is trying to force farmers and nurses to dramatically change their work environment on the whim of some middle manager who read a really good thinkpiece from WSJ.

Discussion about this problem doesn't mention doctors and farmers because the conversation is not about them in the same way that it's not about starving kids in Africa

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#62

Post by oytis » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 2:48 PM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #13

So, I have often worked remotely, think it's fine, and makes sense in some cases. But, honestly, this is a professional-class issue, and every article about it seems written from a viewpoint that has forgotten about most of the population. The waitress and cook never had the option of working remotely, nor did the factory worker, the construction worker, the taxicab driver, the truck driver, etc. etc. Most of the pop…

People in every profession would be offended by meaningless requirements coming from the top without any plausible justification. Construction workers, truck drivers etc. understand full well why the need to show up. So do software engineers who need to work on physical devices that they can't have at home.

I actually think professional class is more prone to tolerate this attitude from the management, because it's what corporate environment teaches to do.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#63

Post by vladvasiliu » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 2:48 PM UTC

kfk wrote: post #37

bcrosby95 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife works customer service remotely. > The longer we bemoan being forced to go to work in order to get paid, the more the rest of the population becomes convinced that the professional class is entitled and a bit spoiled. I stopped caring about what random strangers think when I was in high school. The correct answer to this is to tell these random people who have no skin in the game to fuck off.

I think your answer basically proves his point that we are becoming a highly entitled group of people. We struggle to empathize with other workers and, I would say, companies and managers. We tell ourselves this very simplistic stories like "all managers are bad", "all office work is a waste of time", "I should just get tasks on my async proj manager tool". I am telling you, with this level of entitlement, just hope…

But what is the point? If we can all agree that going to the office sucks, how is the "professional class" being forced back in the office make the other workers' day suck less?

I'd argue it's quite the opposite!

If I stay at home, I'm one less person compressing them in the metro, or helping gridlock the highways or taking up parking spaces (I live in the city where parking is scarce for pretty much everyone). If I can work remotely every day, I'm likely to leave my apartment in the city center and go live somewhere far away. That's one less person competing for housing.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#64

Post by varispeed » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

pid-1 wrote: post #35

Devasta wrote: post #19

I work in Cork, Ireland. My boss is in Dublin, his boss Singapore, my staff in Nova Scotia, Devs in Manila, clients in London and New York. I'm always working remotely, no matter where I am, as is anyone who works in any multi office company. The RTO is being entirely driven from the top by institutional investors wanting to avoid losses on property investments and from the bottom by those who have yet to grapple wit…

How does that work? Are institucional investors writing "plz return to office or we are going bust" emails to every company?

Companies have investors / shareholders who are also invested in commercial property. They use their power as shareholders to mandate RTO so that their investments won't lose value. It's going from the top.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#65

Post by wkat4242 » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

Devasta wrote: post #19

I work in Cork, Ireland. My boss is in Dublin, his boss Singapore, my staff in Nova Scotia, Devs in Manila, clients in London and New York. I'm always working remotely, no matter where I am, as is anyone who works in any multi office company. The RTO is being entirely driven from the top by institutional investors wanting to avoid losses on property investments and from the bottom by those who have yet to grapple wit…

Ireland is crazy for jumping on the real estate ship again. This almost bankrupted the country in 2007 because the economy had become so one-sided. I remember the dreary half-finished shopping malls and whole neighborhoods of concrete slabs falling to pieces.

And yes I know some of those bottom feeders in our place too. They're the ones constantly distracting you at work with chitchat. I have several people I try to avoid but unfortunately our pisspoor desk booking system (Planon, never buy that!) doesn't even allow to look up where other people are.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#66

Post by sircastor » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 2:49 PM UTC

tristor wrote: post #10

One of the primary reasons that remote work improves productivity is that it allows employees to tailor their environment to their needs, rather than be forced into a hostile office space that requires kafkaesque bureaucratic bullshit to make even minor changes. I once had a former employer force me to take an espresso machine home that I had brought to work because it created a situation where a different shift was…

My last job had pinball machines in the breakroom. We also had folks coming over from the UK who thought those pinball machines were awesome. The pinball got taken away because it was seen as “unfair” to all the offices that didn’t have something like that.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#67

Post by dvfjsdhgfv » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

pid-1 wrote: post #35

Devasta wrote: post #19

I work in Cork, Ireland. My boss is in Dublin, his boss Singapore, my staff in Nova Scotia, Devs in Manila, clients in London and New York. I'm always working remotely, no matter where I am, as is anyone who works in any multi office company. The RTO is being entirely driven from the top by institutional investors wanting to avoid losses on property investments and from the bottom by those who have yet to grapple wit…

How does that work? Are institucional investors writing "plz return to office or we are going bust" emails to every company?

I don't know how it works exactly but I can show you how it works in practice. The CEO somehow managed the middle management that RTO is a good thing. Their reasoning was that the lease was signed for several years ahead, so it's a waste of resources for this space to rest unused. "Can't they "renegotiate?" "No, it's already been signed and the owners won't budge" "Can't we just wait until the lease is over and then downsize?" "Well, you need to understand what happens to us if we downsize the office, use your imagination!"

These people somehow managed to internally identify the company with the office, and reducing the (open plan) office space with downsizing the company. And they were dead serious. No arguments (we did this during the pandemic and our revenue soared, acting against the wishes of all employees means shooting oneself in the foot) would be accepted. So the best engineers left, end of story.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#68

Post by benjaminwootton » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #39

Devasta wrote: post #19

I work in Cork, Ireland. My boss is in Dublin, his boss Singapore, my staff in Nova Scotia, Devs in Manila, clients in London and New York. I'm always working remotely, no matter where I am, as is anyone who works in any multi office company. The RTO is being entirely driven from the top by institutional investors wanting to avoid losses on property investments and from the bottom by those who have yet to grapple wit…

> The RTO is being entirely driven from the top by institutional investors wanting to avoid losses on property investments and from the bottom by those who have yet to grapple with the fact they dont have friends or hobbies and need you in the office so that they dont feel like such embarrassing losers. I know i'm supposed to "contribute to the conversation" but it's important to recognize that the above point is exa…

Is it though? Most companies prioritise their own self interest over nebulous “institutional investment” bogeymen.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#69

Post by AlexandrB » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

kfk wrote: post #37

bcrosby95 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife works customer service remotely. > The longer we bemoan being forced to go to work in order to get paid, the more the rest of the population becomes convinced that the professional class is entitled and a bit spoiled. I stopped caring about what random strangers think when I was in high school. The correct answer to this is to tell these random people who have no skin in the game to fuck off.

I think your answer basically proves his point that we are becoming a highly entitled group of people. We struggle to empathize with other workers and, I would say, companies and managers. We tell ourselves this very simplistic stories like "all managers are bad", "all office work is a waste of time", "I should just get tasks on my async proj manager tool". I am telling you, with this level of entitlement, just hope…

Why is it when employees expect more it's "entitlement", but when managers do so it's just business as usual? Especially considering it's the employees creating the value.

I think it's fair to expect employees to exert the mental effort to empathize with the companies they work for when the companies show effort to do likewise.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#70

Post by klooney » Mon, Nov 13, 2023, 2:50 PM UTC

lobsterslive wrote: post #16

Having your own private bathroom is a really underrated perk of WFH. There are of course many more benefits to WFH, but using your own bathroom is something no office and their disgusting communal bathrooms could ever compete with.

I never want to piss next to a man on a zoom call ever again.