...Is this article plagiarized from this article posted June 26: https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/the-damaging... ? It was even submitted to HN and had a few hundred comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36500448
Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
91–100 of 212 posts
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked remote for a year before the pandemic for health reasons and didn't like it much, was looking forward to going back. The pandemic was a huge rearrangement to so many things though. It forced through a lot of the accommodations that previously I had to beg and fight for. Got everyone used to having to write more, have video option for all meetings, train judgement about what can be async etc. It also normaliz…
A lot of these things seemed normal to me in Bay Area tech companies pre pandemic (large companies, not even startups). I always left the office in the middle of the day to do errands or go to the gym and never felt bad about it. I can’t tell if I somehow had an unusual experience within those companies, or if it’s just that most people on HN work at more restrictive companies.
Bay area tech companies aren't the norm even for programmers. There are like 4 million software devs in the US, most of us are working at companies you've never heard of, and have office norms much closer to that of the rest of office workers. Often somewhat more prestige and flexibility, but not so dramatic.
So yes I think your experience is probably an outlier. And on HN generally I think that sort of environment is overrepresented still.
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not the same thing but... We've had 2 of 3 engineering role candidates we recently made offers to decline citing our 3 days a week in office policy...
Are you not advertising that it's 60% in-office? It seems surprising that multiple people would see that and go the whole way to an offer without self-selecting out.
We are.
I think in both cases people were selecting between us and another job. One said he was taking another job for 10k LESS (GBP) but full remote.
(As always, the stated reasons might not be accurate)
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, this doesn't add up. The typical 2x20 mins daily commute is effectively an 8% unpaid increase in working hours, not counting transportation costs.
I don't know anyone with a 20 minute commute- I'd be in the office every day if I had that. Actually I think the commute pain is the best single predictor of how people feel about going back to the office.
While people driving cars solo is surely a pitiable waste of time and resources, and my current commute is about 20ft from bedroom to living room, I would say that a happy medium has been my public transit-based commutes.
As long as there's at least one leg with a long-haul distance (30+ minutes), I am usually able to enter a calm and meditative state, lower my blood pressure, and set aside the cares of home and work alike. This is not always the case, because there may be stressors from other passengers, but most of the time, my situational awareness does not require rapt attention, and I can soften my gaze, stare out the window, or poke my nose into my phone.
It is often difficult to describe to recruiters how public transit makes my commute different, not just more time. The distance calculations work differently: based on number of transfer points and frequency of service, etc.
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#95Sure, but what is it doing to productivity for those who remain?
What is the opportunity cost of maintaining the extra office space vs using that money for other things such as travel so people can actually meet the people they work with?
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not the same thing but... We've had 2 of 3 engineering role candidates we recently made offers to decline citing our 3 days a week in office policy...
Are you not advertising that it's 60% in-office? It seems surprising that multiple people would see that and go the whole way to an offer without self-selecting out.
It seems likely that candidates are comparing offers, which requires them to get a decent amount of the way through the hiring process.
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#97Commercial real estate value is a bubble that's gonna pop soon. There's just way more office space than anyone needs.
Is there a way to short CRE other than investing in non-commercial RE? I'd think you can probably directly short CRE-focused REITs but I'd be worried about them rebalancing or diversifying even as CRE starts to pop.
> other than investing in non-commercial RE?
Does that help if you believe CRE is on the outs? CRE typically carries a much higher property tax burden, which means that if CRE starts to meaningly go by the wayside: That burden will shift to other property classes, making them much less attractive and/or cuts to services will be made, making the municipality much less attractive overall.
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#98Every time this topic comes up on HN, I see many anecdotes on why WFO is bad.
My anecdote: I work from the office everyday (unforced). 20-30 minutes commute. I come in at 6am/7am and leave at 2pm/3pm. I do a 30 minutes calisthenics session and then head home and usually leave my laptop in the office (as a forcing function to disconnect).
The result: I have built strong bonds with colleagues outside my team. A few of them have become close friends.
I'm also generally as productive and sometimes even more than my colleagues that WFH.
I feel the ideal environment is *contextual* and it’s probably a hybrid work environment where people who want to work remote can but have to touch base in-person a few times every month. I wish both sides on the debate can see this.
Edit: The point of my comment is neither option is bad or good. Certain people benefit from each option and it’s unfair to paint either one as bad.
E.g: As an immigrant, the office has been useful in seeding my social circle and learning useful things about Berlin that I probably wouldn’t have know. Just the other day a colleague outside my team informed me how I can get an extra 10 days off .
Someone in a different situation probably have different priorities.
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#99My take on remote work as a manager for a company with significant name recognition: I think it's clear some people prefer working remotely (and the online hacker news crowd leans heavily that way). It's also clear that some people feel real benefits from being in the office. I think it's inevitable that the culture of a company mirrors the values of it's leaders. Companies with leaders that value in person communica…
> It's also clear that some people feel real benefits from being in the office.
I'm so tired of this equivocation. These aren't two neatly swapable things like some sort of cute little "preference" that each company can decide for itself without receiving any judgement.
The costs behind in-office work are GARGANTUAN, both in terms of the literal cost of renting + heating + cooling a huge office space that is vacant every weekend and every night, and the environmental impact of this flagrant waste, combined with the costs of requiring everyone to commute (and typically do so without compensation), the brain drain of only allowing "local" applicants, etc, etc...
This isn't some cute little preference where you can be like oh well Johnny prefers in-office. Johnny better come up with some really huge world-changing justifications or better yet we can stop renting such spaces and save money and the environment across the board.
Re: Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
#100I reclaim 1.5 hours a day from work from home, so a mandated back to work would actually represent a 6 point pay cut on the day assuming I thought that through properly. I don’t even have an egregious commute compared to others. Never mind that all of a sudden I no longer need before and after daycare. I have a home gym and can acceptably exercise at lunch. I don’t have peer pressures to go out for lunch all the time…
Ed Zitron wrote about it a lot in his newsletter a while back and I think had some really excellent insights about it. Especially these three factors: - Executives work in a way that genuinely does probably reward or even require in person interaction. A lot of their job is "intangible" human connection-building stuff with other executives, shareholders, investors, manufacturers, etc. And because of the way executive…
> a significant amount of the "reward" of the job is prestige, in the form of authority and control over other workers
This is definitely a real phenomenon. "Subordination", the product of having subordinates, is a sort of hidden compensation to some people.
> And then finally my own view on it is exposed in the disgusting euphemism "labor discipline." White collar pay went up during the pandemic. WFH is incredibly better for the quality of life of many workers, with few or no downsides. We are realizing we don't have to live and work the way we have been, things can be better for us at no one's expense. We are getting uppity and need to be reminded who is really in control of our lives.
Amen. There's a certain type of boss who thinks that employee happiness is a sign they're not being whipped enough, and that whipping them will increase productivity; these people also treat it as an axiom, and are immune to evidence about productivity.