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Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

businessinsider.com

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Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#91

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #22

The only thing I hated worse than going into the office was our remote employees, who never seemed to be available when you needed them, had their status set to Away (or wouldn't respond for hours if they were green). It was a privilege, people abused it, and now it's over. And managers were the worst offenders.

> It was a privilege, people abused it, and now it's over. And managers were the worst offenders.

IME, managers do this in the office just as much as remote.

Look at the typical manager's schedule. It's completely full of meetings - most of which are bullshit "busy" meetings, and they never respond to anything timely.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#92

Post by tempfile »

basisword wrote: post #58
kokanee wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I've been remote for 5 years across three different companies, and if anything I've had the opposite experience: my remote coworkers are far more responsive than my on-site coworkers, who are always in meetings, in transit, having in-person chit chat, or taking a break.

>> my remote coworkers are far more responsive than my on-site coworkers, who are always in meetings, in transit, having in-person chit chat, or taking a break. 1. In meetings - working 2. In transit - before and after working hours 3. Having in person chit-chat - working 4. Taking a break - remote workers should also take these >> I've had the opposite experience I think it depends on the type of people you're worki…

Unfortunately this is a strawman. They said remote workers were more available than in-office workers. Not that in-office workers weren't working when they were unavailable.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#94

Post by mlnj »

sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #70
adabyron wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 3. Having in person chit-chat - working Having done years in both settings, random non-work related discussions were always more prevalent in office type atmospheres. Only semi-related but in office at a cubicle is the least productive environment I've ever seen for companies. I cannot personally take a leadership team serious if they care about productivity & fiscal responsibility when they have cubicle farms of m…

> Having done years in both settings, random non-work related discussions were always more prevalent in office type atmospheres. Whether you realize it or not, these are team-building exercises. It brings people closer, sometimes too close (I slept with one of them lol), but overall this is a net plus for team dynamics. It's really hard to bond with people exclusively through chat. Especially if you hide behind an an…

>It's really hard to bond with people exclusively through chat. Especially if you hide behind an anime avatar or refuse to switch on your video.

If they are not bonding virtually, I don't see how much better that relation is going to be when I force these people to be in a corporate space.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#95

Post by mxuribe »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #43

Well, they picked the right time - soft job market, AI takeovers, slumping economy … they could probably demand to mulch employees and people would just put up with it.

Oh, no, no...its not "mulching"...we don't dare mulch our employees! We simply streamline their corporeal shell in an effort to improve their ways of working. Its actually part of our new health care offering. In the past these would be called "diets"...but, no, no, we like to call it bodily optimization! And, hey, we hope that all employees participate in the mulching, er, um, i meant bodily optimization...Because, hey, someone needs to be fed to the AI...er, i meant someone needs to provide inputs to the ever-godly AI. ;-) /s

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#96

Post by lobf »

titanomachy wrote: post #54
SilverElfin wrote: post #27

Terrible. Especially given that the Seattle area has terrible traffic and also issues with safety on public transportation (like many other cities in America). What is the point exactly of getting workers into an office just so they can be on Zoom calls (or Teams, in this case)? This seems a lot like what Amazon was accused of - a way to shake out some workers and get them to quit when they cannot rearrange their lif…

> issues with safety on public transportation Do you know the stats on what percentage of transit rides result in some sort of assault or theft? It’s always felt pretty safe to me, although you certainly do end up sharing space with some very disadvantaged people. My issue with US transit is mostly speed and convenience. Even with the traffic it usually takes 3x as long to get somewhere by transit, unless my destinat…

I know the stats and they're absolutely damning.

https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics...

You're orders of magnitude more likely to die in a car vs on a bus.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#97

Post by ghaff »

adabyron wrote: post #67

AKA - Microsoft is trying to layoff employees without getting more bad layoff press while they make record earnings. A company where most employees work digitally with people across the world is requiring people to sit at a desk in a physical location. The irony is blinding & shows an utter lack of transparency by leadership.

I certainly saw engagement, collaboration, etc. going down once things switched heavily to video calls (even before COVID) rather than meeting in-person in various ways--especially among people you didn't already know.

Of course, in many situations, it's unavoidable. I'm probably not going to hop on an international trip at the drop of a hat--though I certainly attended events.

But there's some subset of people that just don't want to travel or go into an office at all and IMO they're mostly mis-guided.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#98

Post by OptionOfT »

50 miles is a lot. That can easily be 2h in most big cities.

To do what exactly? Sit in an open office in Redmond, jump on Teams to call with someone in Fort Lauderdale?

Funny thing, I had multiple interviews with them on explicit remote roles (which are different from roles that went remote during COVID). I wonder if the policy changes there.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#99

Post by OptionOfT »

sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #22

The only thing I hated worse than going into the office was our remote employees, who never seemed to be available when you needed them, had their status set to Away (or wouldn't respond for hours if they were green). It was a privilege, people abused it, and now it's over. And managers were the worst offenders.

I will forever fight this with saying that chat is an async medium. If you need a response right now, pick up the phone.

Worst offenders are people who say things like: Hey, how are you doing?

And then ... nothing.

Or maybe people are actually working on something. And your 2 minute question might cause them to lose 30 minutes.

This is why it is important to have multiple work-streams going when doing remote work, so that you don't sit around and wait until you have your answer.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#100

Post by Magmalgebra »

pm90 wrote: post #83
milesvp wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a common thing here on HN to believe that remote is superior for productivity, and I’m always reminded of Richard Hammond’s observations about open door vs closed door coworkers. He noticed over time that the closed door workers were more productive. He also noticed that the closed door workers were less impactful in their fields years later. His were observations in R&D settings, but I suspect they can be extra…

Richard Hamming . And the essay is here: https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html . As you point out, Its important to note that Hamming makes this observation specifically in the domain of research which requires a lot of collaboration between people, and is enhanced by interaction with other people doing research . Most standard software engineering jobs don’t require that kind of research activi…

> Most standard software engineering jobs don’t require that kind of research activity (although it does require some; product development is a creative process)

This seems to describe what good engineers above the senior level do. Certainly everyone with a PhD I work with who rose through the ranks said that being very senior was a lot like being a good researcher - albeit with much more pressure on execution.

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