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34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

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Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#71

Post by currymj »

decafninja wrote: post #49
toomuchtodo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most workers don't have the perks you mention. It's an edge case for a small cohort of Silicon Valley tech workers out of the entire cohort of those who had to go remote. If your office experience was blah, or you had a long commute, you likely realized a lot of utility and benefit having your employer forced to support remote work.

So much this. My office (investment bank) is dull, dreary, depressing, dystopian, Dilbertesque. Everyone must wear at least business casual (dress shirt, dress pants, dress shoes). We have none of the perks mentioned above. The commute is miserable. Very little sunlight. Even our coffee is an atrocity. This is probably standard fare for most old school non-tech companies. I've visited the offices of quite a few Silic…

this raises the question, what are the companies where going into the office is like checking in to the Four Seasons?

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#72

Post by ghaff »

anthropodie wrote: post #28
rhacker wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why?

Probably people just figured out that they don't need big cities to live. Personally I think cities are overrated anyway and this is why: - heavy traffic hence heavy pollution - huge commute times to work - need to pay lot more for home (both buy/rent, may even have to take loan) - everything is expensive. My current expenses are 1/3 of that of city and I already have a home. I live in a town since pandemic

Most of the relatively recent net inflow into certain cities is from a fairly specific young college-educated demographic. And the reality in places like Manhattan is even though a lot of those sorts of folks moved to the "big city" for jobs after graduation, in practice, many of them moved to the suburbs when they got married, had kids, etc.

After graduation I probably knew dozens of people who moved to Manhattan or nearby. I'm not sure more than one couple I know is still there.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#73

Post by devilduck »

laughingpine wrote: post #8
samr71 wrote: post #4

I personally would rather quit than stay remote indefinitely, I can tell you that.

This is certainly going to vary from person to person, and will not be a _one size fits all_ kind of thing. I am the exact opposite, and the year of remote working has probably been the best and most healthy year of my work life.

This. I will agree to two days in an office if it is 100% crucial that I participate in office culture, but it is not really necessary for me and is much more of a negative than a positive for me.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#74

Post by mulmen »

benbristow wrote: post #57
MattGaiser wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What used to be swivel in your chair and ask a colleague or going to whoever you need to speak to is now But your need for an instant answer often derails my work flow. I can get a lot more done now that I am not being interrupted as frequently and can address questions once I have wrapped up what I am doing or at least have time to write down where specifically I stopped.

Just asking this as a talking point. Does a quick interruption that unblocks me and allows me to continue working outweigh allowing you to finish your thing first? Because maybe you're unblocked but I'm blocked by you now, and the thing that's actually blocking me. So only 1 person is able to work.

> Does a quick interruption that unblocks me and allows me to continue working outweigh allowing you to finish your thing first?

No, absolutely not. As my coworker you have no right to my time, at all. Certainly not on-demand.

You are in no position to prioritize my time, especially in the context of you finishing your task.

> Because maybe you're unblocked but I'm blocked by you now, and the thing that's actually blocking me.

No, you are blocked by whatever you are blocked by. Solving your problems is your problem. Not mine.

> So only 1 person is able to work.

If you can't do your job without also consuming my time in parallel what exactly are you contributing? If you are blocked and need input then go work on something else until you can get the input. This is elementary time management and respect for your coworkers.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#75

Post by jedberg »

This headline is clickbait. Read the actual survey. The actual survey says that 1/3 said they would start looking for a new job if they were no longer allowed to work remotely. But then 49% said they would be happy with a hybrid environment, where they only had to come in some of the time.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#76

Post by benbristow »

jen20 wrote: post #68
benbristow wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard enough in software engineering IMHO. What used to be swivel in your chair and ask a colleague or going to whoever you need to speak to is now * Send a Slack message/email and wait an arbitrary amount of time for a response. * Organise a Skype/Teams/whatever call in a few hours time and feel guilty about it, as it feels rude to just ring someone as they could be occupied or busy. I spend a stupid amount of t…

It’s quite bizarre to me that you feel it’s rude to call someone, but not interrupt them at their desk. Calls may be silenced while doing work, walk-up interruptions are much harder to prevent.

It feels a lot more natural if you're sitting right next to someone or just around the corner. You can peek and make an educated decision of whether they look busy or not.

If it's a call it's a bit out of the blue. Maybe they don't have their headset around/plugged in, maybe they're doing something like eating or doing laundry. You just don't know because all you see is an activity status icon.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#77

Post by decafninja »

currymj wrote: post #71
decafninja wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this. My office (investment bank) is dull, dreary, depressing, dystopian, Dilbertesque. Everyone must wear at least business casual (dress shirt, dress pants, dress shoes). We have none of the perks mentioned above. The commute is miserable. Very little sunlight. Even our coffee is an atrocity. This is probably standard fare for most old school non-tech companies. I've visited the offices of quite a few Silic…

this raises the question, what are the companies where going into the office is like checking in to the Four Seasons?

Lol, if I had to take a guess, I'd wager the C/executive suites at some top hedge funds.

I've heard some stories about Steven Cohen's office suite at SAC for example.

Despite being wealthy, tech company execs don't seem to be at that level of ostentatious old school display of wealth.

Edit: I've been at some hedge funds too - and most of the lower employees, especially in tech (cost center) still get the cheap motel experience.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#78

Post by toomuchtodo »

benbristow wrote: post #65
toomuchtodo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree that sometimes a call or videoconf is necessary (which should be scheduled for only as much time is as absolutely necessary and the output of the meeting well documented), but it's good to flex the remote/async muscle to encourage communications best practices across an org. Communicating is a critical skill. A lot of folks are used to being lazy intra communications in an org, and imho, that shouldn't…

The scheduling is a pain point now though. I'm blocked until I can get a slot in your diary, which could mean I'm blocked for hours. And that's if you even accept my invitation or don't get delayed by something else. Maybe a drop-in thing could work, like Clubhouse. But then that's kinda invading your privacy if you have to stay on that.

Your pain point is valid, I want to make clear that I'm absolutely not minimizing it, but I have worked remote for almost a decade and I want to stress that it can be solved (as long as you're operating in a competent organization) and it pays off to solve it. There are many technological mechanisms by which to solve this, but it's primarily an organizational and cultural challenge.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#79

Post by Spivak »

samr71 wrote: post #4

I personally would rather quit than stay remote indefinitely, I can tell you that.

I'm kinda confused about this. The whole point of this is respecting each employee's preference for how they work best. If you work better in an office, like office culture, and want a separate space away from home then you should be able to have that. And now the office will only have people who feel the same way.

Re: 34% of remote workers would quit rather than return to full-time office work

#80

Post by jen20 »

benbristow wrote: post #44
toomuchtodo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a remote problem, that's a project management and communications problem. Physical proximity is no replacement for clearly communicated requirements/bug reports/product roadmaps as well as tribal knowledge (which should not be tribal but documented somewhere searchable and robustly accessible), but it makes a nice hack when everyone is required to be in the office.

Agreed on it being PM/Communications problems. Definitely easier in the office though. Another thing is that it's often harder to write your question/problem in text as a message, when in verbal communication it's a lot easier (personally, YMMV). But having to organise calls to get that verbal communication is a pain.

Yet by writing a question or problem as text, you are forced to actually think it through, and often no longer need to interrupt someone else. Easier != more efficient.
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