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Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

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Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#821

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

Gigachad wrote: post #815
MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The housing issue I will give you. The Covid related ones are not dismantling the places young people meet, that was a public health emergency that will not continue forever. If people are choosing not to meet in person now, that is also not dismantling the places people meet. That is a choice. I know that the isolation of Covid has had a terrible effect on young people's mental health and I do not want to diminish t…

>If people are choosing not to meet in person now, that is also not dismantling the places people meet. That is a choice. We are seeing a whole generation miss out on social connections, reporting mass loneliness and depression. You can't just hand wave that away "they made a choice". If an individual does something, its a choice, if an entire generation does something, its the environment that changed.

Ok, something has changed then. But it does not appear to me to be the result of dismantling the places where people could meet in person. I'm not trying to handwave it away.

Maybe the internet and social media is encouraging people to forge remote connections rather than physical ones?

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#822

Post by jtode »

mustini wrote: post #572
givemeethekeys wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Making friends as an adult is hard. Pick a social hobby. Pick up sports, hiking / running / reading / trivia / sports groups. Take a class. Take up a cause - volunteer your time at the local farm, shelter, political office.. Kids don't go to school with the goal of making friends. The friends are a byproduct.

This is very easy advice to give and oft repeated, but I’m deeply skeptical that this is something that works for most people (unless we substitute friends with acquaintances).

My best friends are people I met on Kijiji - we joined bands together. Bonds form from mutual struggle.

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#823

Post by prepend »

pxue wrote: post #381
nostromo wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working in person isn't the issue here -- not having friends is the issue. People do make friends at work, and that's a good thing. But it should never be your primary place of making friends. (Friends and family won't lay you off like a job might. Having a network outside of work is critical if that ever happens.) Asking your coworkers to come into the office just so you can get some needed face time with other peop…

C'mon that's just bullshit. Once working, you spend 8h a day with a group of people. It's by far the easiest way to make friends since the needed repetition of making contact (a minimum requirement for friendship) is already solved by going to work together. Making friends as an adult is hard. Work is the easiest shortcut in establishing meaningful relationships with strangers. Edit: addressing some of the comments b…

> It's by far the easiest way to make friends since the needed repetition of making contact (a minimum requirement for friendship) is already solved by going to work together.

I disagree as the workplace isn’t a good locus of interest for personal relationships. I’m not interested in my coworkers hobbies. I have developed friendships with co-workers but they are rare.

Some of my happiest times at work are when I worked with friends. But they were friends before work and I worked with them because they are friends, I didn’t become friends because of work.

I also think it’s valuable to have checks and balances in life and having my personal life wrapped up with work, although great for my employer, puts too much risk in losing my job.

Add to this, that my workplace was distributed and I switched from driving into work to get in video calls with people in different locations to doing that from my home office.

If someone doesn’t see humans for days when working from home, that is an individual problem to solve and there are many options to solve that. Work is not efficient for solving that problem.

Join a gym, get a dog and walk it, join a grocery/csa co-op, use meetup, join a church, volunteer, visit seniors in your area, tutor kids, join a book club, do yoga/tai chi. The list going on and on and all those are more likely to result in human connection and friendships than going into work.

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#824

Post by StanislavPetrov »

mustini wrote: post #572
givemeethekeys wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Making friends as an adult is hard. Pick a social hobby. Pick up sports, hiking / running / reading / trivia / sports groups. Take a class. Take up a cause - volunteer your time at the local farm, shelter, political office.. Kids don't go to school with the goal of making friends. The friends are a byproduct.

This is very easy advice to give and oft repeated, but I’m deeply skeptical that this is something that works for most people (unless we substitute friends with acquaintances).

Have you tried it? In my experience you are much more likely to make friends who voluntarily get together for a shared recreational experience than at a workplace where you are required to be. Try joining a bowling team. You'd be amazed at how much hanging out with the same group of people for four hours a week, every week, and having a few beers and laughs with them while you bowl can be to striking up a friendship (or three).

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#825

Post by StanislavPetrov »

9530jh9054ven wrote: post #747
givemeethekeys wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Making friends as an adult is hard. Pick a social hobby. Pick up sports, hiking / running / reading / trivia / sports groups. Take a class. Take up a cause - volunteer your time at the local farm, shelter, political office.. Kids don't go to school with the goal of making friends. The friends are a byproduct.

So what happens when you have no interests, no hobbies, no cause? And for those that do, but lack the time or financial resources to persue them? What then?

If you lack the time, then your problem is one of not having proper work/life balance. If you lack the financial resources to come up with enough money to go bowling once a week then your problems are deeper then not having friends.

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#826

Post by eerikkivistik »

amf12 wrote: post #32
eerikkivistik wrote: post #6

Some problems are solved faster by multiple people getting together in front of a whiteboard and drawing. For those kinds of problems it’s useful to have people in the same room until we have AR solutions that can fill that need. Also for some people, not leaving their home caused significant issues in their performance. People aren’t solitary creatures, so for some - the office fills that role. For others, home offi…

> Some problems are solved faster by multiple people getting together in front of a whiteboard and drawing. I hear this often, and it makes sense, but I am not sure how frequently do people solve problems with whiteboarding? Is it such a frequent problem that we need to be in the office every day?

Well, I do this every other day. The days where I need to focus on deep work and just grind things out, I stay home. The days where I need to be creative, I go to the office and get in front of a whiteboard.

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#827

Post by llamajams »

Not an employer and I'm not a fan of RTO personally, and I've figured out how to remote work.i do help with interviews and I do have to say our success rate of good hires kind of went off a cliff with WFH, hires that we would have expected to excel absolutely flopped. Now it may be that we as a company or group are not geared with our processes to properly bring up ppl in this environment,becaus we expect a basic amount of integrity and work ethic from people, which is starting to look like a bit much. We actually have a very relaxed culture, no unpaid OT generally and unchecked flex hours...all on an honor system, I see a lot of abuse from the COVID hires and I worry. So I see why management isosing faith. Even I'm starting to pitch office days to get people moshing.

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#828

Post by brutus1213 »

mixedCase wrote: post #804
RestlessMind wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not like you are providing any cogent argument. Execs sure have their own biases but they do have a lot of data to make important decisions like RTO policy. If you disagree with them, maybe it says more about your ignorance, blind spots and biases?

Sure, I'll bite. What's the data on remote work?

I was talking to a CTO at a mid-sized startup (200 people or so; private company; I think ex-YC but not 100%); been there for a decade type concern.

Person flatly said no one works in WFH. I am also a manager and responded my team busted their balls the whole time, and delivered results. My personal opinion is my team did 120% of their productivity. I also acknowledge that some people are not built for it and their productivity may fall. I believe a manager can deal with this (either creating the right task-incentive structure, or getting the person off the bus). After my impassioned argument, the person said ..nope .. people just don't work during WFH. This was a social event, just the two of us talking, so I am quite sure this guy was being honest.

I also ran into a different person in a leadership position (just not very high; more like technical leadership; ex-professor; stints at Google). He was convinced the real reason FAANG hired so crazily was because productivity per employee had dropped dramatically. His belief was no one worked during WFH. Again, my impassioned arguments and personal anecdotes did not really move this person.

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#829

Post by mprovost »

sbmthakur wrote: post #163
n8cpdx wrote: post #67

There’s a lot of collaboration and spontaneous connection that happens in hallways and kitchenettes. That’s the sort of thing that isn’t immediately obvious, but becomes more noticeable as time goes on. The first months of the pandemic people were able to coast on their existing connections, but it becomes harder years on, especially if half your team has _never_ met in person or come to company HQ. In the before tim…

What was the 70s-era trend?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight#Association_with_...

Re: Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?

#830

Post by lezojeda »

treis wrote: post #136
klyrs wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your words. > I think a lot of people are abusing WFH. Some make it obvious like doing meal prep during refinement... What does "it" refer to in that sentence, if not the immediately preceding "abusing WFH?"

Which of the things you mentioned are equivalent to doing a distracting task during a meeting you're supposed to be paying attention to?

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