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Tragedy of return to hostile offices

benjiweber.co.uk

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Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#91

Post by mchanson »

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…

If a restaurant line cook could work from home they very well might want to. Software work can, most of the time, be done from home. So the question of if it should be done from home is valuable and worthy of discussion.

All workers deserve to have a say in their working conditions.

How one talks about it can be entitled or spoiled sounding, but the desire to influence and change one's working conditions is noble and in common with great majority of workers.

When my children were small I started working remotely while my partner worked in an office still. I looked for a remote job so that rather than being in a office and going to get some coffee I was excited to instead get to see my 8 month of doing some baby biz on my coffee break.

What a wonderful privilege it was during that age of growth. How great it would be for more people to have that experience (which was very common before industrialization).

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#92

Post by Galanwe »

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…

I 100% agree with you.

Early in my career, a senior colleague used to reply to complaints with the simple statement "you only get the company/boss that you deserve".

By that, he meant that if you complained, you were always free to leave and find a better fit elsewhere. I learnt to appreciate that saying as I grew older.

If you think you deserve a better office space / coworkers / manager / CEO, then go look for it elsewhere. If you don't find it, then you are probably in the place you deserve, like it or not.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#93

Post by ghaff »

oneoff777 wrote: post #57
ghaff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. I do think there are a fair number of people who recognize there are downsides to never seeing coworkers in person. But, given the option, it's a tradeoff they'll make so they don't need to commute.

I don't understand why it is always either working in the office or "never seeing coworkers in person". I work remotely full time, and every three months, we gather with my team for a couple of days. Those gatherings are great. Working with my team remotely is also great.

The team is very distributed at this point and budgets pretty much preclude traveling for team get-togethers. (Which I agree can be a fairly satisfying alternative to coming into an office 2 or 3 days a week.) But as it is, probably most of the people I work with I have never met in person.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#94

Post by borkt »

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…

OP forgets ‘institutional investors’ is code for the pooled retirement funds of the vast majority of residents, as well as the institutions who hold much of the sovereign debt, which is generated to pay for social services, war, etc. It all comes down to those who are presently working supporting those who presently don’t.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#95

Post by conductr »

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…

IDK, I don’t think real estate part is entirely true. It’s often quoted but most companies have very little RE as a percentage of revenue or whatever metric you think makes most sense. Many more are just leasing RE and could easily have exited that position by now. Even a one time write off could be spun as a positive thing. These properties can be repurposed and have continued value without their corporate tenants.

There’s no grand conspiracy where executives are helping boost the holdings of REITs and institutional investors. Executives as a “class” and a “job” just like the traditional butts in chairs approach to work. They have to think about the entire company and it’s easier to have a singular approach. Instead of bespoke approaches by team/department/title where some people are RTO and some WFH as that quickly reverts to everyone is on zoom/teams for every meeting because of the remote people.

WFH has also provided a whole host of new and unusual problems for HR. I’m sure most executives are just tired of hearing about it. In my own experience/approximation only about 1 in 3 people are can actually self manage in a way that’s needed for remote work to be effective. I think software development is a very specific job that is very well suited to WFH but most other jobs within a company are not.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#96

Post by oneoff777 »

x86x87 wrote: post #48
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…

Sorry, this does not compute. Your whole argument is that since we cannot do all jobs remotely we shouldn't do any jobs remotely?

[flagged]

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#98

Post by _moof »

twh270 wrote: post #76
sircastor wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Notice how shi*y companies always seem to find that "unfairness" needs to be "fixed" by removing the benefit?

Similar to how the solution to work/life imbalance is never less work.

Re: Tragedy of return to hostile offices

#99

Post by Pet_Ant »

ericbarrett wrote: post #59
AlexandrB wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is correct. It's why, before the pandemic normalized remote work, offices were popular. What's disheartening is that a lot of "return to office" plans I've heard of from friends involve conditions even worse than what was there before. For example, hot-desking replacing the previous (also terrible) open office. I'm too young to have lived through the golden age of engineers actually having an office to w…

I keep saying—if you want me to return to the office, give me an office . Or even a cubicle. Why even enforce a hot-desking setup when the space is 20% full? It makes no sense at all!

For all the memes about cubicles the one time I had it was actually pleasant. You could have a small meeting in the cubicle. The walls were tall enough to hang up reference diagrams. Those same walls meant that sound didn't travel when your PM was on yet another call. Not being able to see a window was a downside. As was there oppressive grey-beige monotony, but I imagine with the Google colour palette they'd be much more bearable.

Here, however, I can make more working remotely than I can in office for one of the few local companies. I mean it's an obvious choice.

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