Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#911

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 8:22 PM UTC

steveBK123 wrote: post #875

thinkharderdev wrote: post #831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think at some point, it's just inevitable that C-level management takes decisions based on the assumption that people are replaceable and that the difference between a great performer and a poor performer is essentially irrelevant. Maybe, but I find it hard to believe that someone who has spent their entire career in the tech industry actually believes this. The "backdoor layoffs" theory seems suspect to me more…

I mean we still have headlines coming like this https://fortune.com/2025/09/05/paramount-skydance-ceo-david-... A 10 day notice requiring agreement to full 5 day RTO or take a voluntary package. This from a CEO talking bout 'efficiency' and cost cutting, where I know people who have been 100% remote for 5 years. What are the odds those voluntary packages are worse than whatever contract & law specific in the case of…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#912

Post by IshKebab » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 8:29 PM UTC

simoncion wrote: post #715

IshKebab wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would be hard to argue that working all together in an office - like before covid - isn't more productive. In-person meetings are easier. Whiteboarding and brainstorming is way easier. Spontaneous conversations are easier. Helping junior people is easier. People actually pay attention in meetings. You get to know colleagues better. Have you ever had to "now click on the left... no, up a bit. No go back you…

> Have you ever had to "now click on the left... no, up a bit. No go back you were just there. It's the third one from th... I'll just paste the link in chat" when you were standing next to someone's desk? Yes. I resolve it the same way in person as I do remotely, either by pointing at the screen, asking for (and receiving) control of the mouse and keyboard, or both. If you don't know how to use the features of your…

> I resolve it the same way in person as I do remotely, either by pointing at the screen, asking for (and receiving) control of the mouse and keyboard, or both. If you don't know how to use the features of your screen-sharing software that permit this, you need to learn them.

We used Google Meet, and recently switched to Teams (on Linux). Neither support either feature. I think it's impossible to do it on the web because there's no screen sharing web API (due to security fears) and no overlay drawing API either (again presumably due to security fears).

You need a native app, and Google don't make one, and Teams doesn't support Linux.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#913

Post by gahikr » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 8:35 PM UTC

freddie_mercury wrote: post #528

dragonwriter wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RTO mandates are about many things, but actual business value of being in the office to the business doing the mandate is low on the list. Among the things it is about: (1) Executives with emotional attachment to certain leadership styles that are enabled by physical presence, (2) Interest in the investor class for the commercial real estate market. The business impacted may not be invested in it, but the businesses’…

It is hilarious that people think the second largest company on the planet, with a market cap over $5 trillion, spends even one second worry about the profit margins of commercial real estate companies, makes any decisions based on that, or is somehow cowed by their alleged political power despite being much, much, much smaller than Microsoft.

Microsoft owns a lot of commercial real estate. The people who manage the commercial real estate within Microsoft certainly care about the value of those investments.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#914

Post by ThrowawayR2 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 8:38 PM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #667

aurareturn wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(4) In person teams outperform remote/hybrid teams. I'm surprised this was not mentioned as a possibility.

It’s not mentioned as a possibility because nobody has ever been able to substantiate that claim.

Nobody has been able to substantiate any of the other claims either but that hasn't stopped posters from endlessly repeating them.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#915

Post by insane_dreamer » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 8:44 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #688

bilekas wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Backdoor layoffs. It's always backdoor layoffs. If they really appreciated and needed you at the company, they would cater for your needs when you're delivering your work.

If it's layoffs aren't there a very real risk that the most talented people, who enjoy working from home will simply leave, while the less talented returns to the office because they'll have a harder time finding new jobs? So you're doing backdoor layoffs, but you're laying off the people you'd most likely want to keep, leaving the company with the less experienced/talented people.

> aren't there a very real risk that the most talented people, who enjoy working from home will simply leave

company will probably write exceptions for those people into their contracts; my neighbor, a talented senior dev lead at BigTechCo, has it in his contract that he can WFH regardless of RTO calls

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#916

Post by yepitwas » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 8:50 PM UTC

yepitwas wrote: post #772

chii wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cameras on 100% i hate the idea of camera on 100% of the time. I am not presentable when WFH. That's the point. I might also be on the toilet - which otherwise is dead time!

Screw presentability, having a camera pointed at you and on all the time is creepy and awful. It’s not the same as being in a room with actual people, it’s way worse. Just meetings with 100% camera-on, even, are awkward and draining in ways that meeting in person or just having a call are not. Having a camera on you is like having a person making hard eye contact without blinking or looking somewhere else, ever . It’…

I can't edit this more but to temper this: I don't mind camera-on for 1-on-1 conversations, I don't mind camera-on while actively participating in larger meetings, that kind of thing, that's fine.

Camera on all the time so someone could just pop in and start watching at any moment, even not during a call? Terrible, absolutely terrible. Camera on for larger meetings the entire time, even when I'm not participating? Tolerable for very short meetings, but brutal and distracting for even a half-hour meeting.

Again, it's like being stared at. If the context of how I'm participating wouldn't naturally have people looking at me more or less uninterrupted if this were an in-person conversation, having the camera on is really unpleasant. So, when I'm talking, fine, being directly addressed by someone, sure, camera on is OK, but in a group setting when I'm not the (or a) current center of attention? Bad.

FWIW I did some work with McKinsey way into the Zoom era, though long enough ago that I can't vouch for their still doing this, but: they culturally favored just using group phone calls, complete with the phone number option being a common way to connect (Teams and such have this, too, but it's more of a back-up that IME doesn't get used unless absolutely necessary—they'd actually dial-a-phone-number call in as a routine way of operating). Even when everyone involved could have used video, they usually just did the call-in audio only thing. I was like "that's weird and old-fashioned" at first, but what I found it to actually be once I got used to it was flexible, robust, and entirely sufficient most of the time. I think people really overrate the importance of (everyone having) a camera for most calls.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#917

Post by mulmen » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 9:02 PM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #914

mulmen wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not mentioned as a possibility because nobody has ever been able to substantiate that claim.

Nobody has been able to substantiate any of the other claims either but that hasn't stopped posters from endlessly repeating them.

False. RTO press releases have explicitly mentioned the benefit to nearby businesses.

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#918

Post by freddie_mercury » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 9:03 PM UTC

alchemism wrote: post #723

freddie_mercury wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No CEO cares about commercial real estate profits. It isn't a factor in any major company decision. Why not extend the baseless paranoia and say it is because they want to see auto company profits go up? And also support petroleum companies? Or is it just real estate that is boogeyman secretly running the country behind the scenes?

The City of Philadelphia sent all of its workers back to the office with an explicit statement from the Mayor about struggling commercial office real estate in the city center. They may not be "running the country" but they are definitely heavyweight players in the market.

There was no such explicit statement from the mayor that it was because of real estate.

https://www.phila.gov/2024-05-20-statement-from-mayor-cherel...

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#919

Post by simoncion » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 9:11 PM UTC

IshKebab wrote: post #912

simoncion wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you ever had to "now click on the left... no, up a bit. No go back you were just there. It's the third one from th... I'll just paste the link in chat" when you were standing next to someone's desk? Yes. I resolve it the same way in person as I do remotely, either by pointing at the screen, asking for (and receiving) control of the mouse and keyboard, or both. If you don't know how to use the features of your…

> I resolve it the same way in person as I do remotely, either by pointing at the screen, asking for (and receiving) control of the mouse and keyboard, or both. If you don't know how to use the features of your screen-sharing software that permit this, you need to learn them. We used Google Meet, and recently switched to Teams (on Linux). Neither support either feature. I think it's impossible to do it on the web bec…

Well, as I said:

> If your screen-sharing software does not have these features, urge your company to switch to one that does (or just switch to one that does, if your company policies permit).

Should you choose to embark on it, I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your quest to get collaboration software that's not crippled by platform limitations.

Having said that...

> I think it's impossible to do it on the web because there's no screen sharing web API...

Weirdly, this isn't true. Discord claims to be able to share your screen even in the web browser version. From the "How To Stream In A Discord Channel" section of [0]:

> Info: Currently audio can only be captured by the Windows desktop, MacOS desktop, Chrome browser, and mobile clients. Unfortunately, audio sharing is unavailable on Linux.

I notice a conspicuous absence of "this doesn't work in a web browser" caveats for any of the other screen-sharing things that Discord does. The only caveats I notice are for audio capture on Firefox and on Linux in general.

And yes, while the Info box at the top of the article says that it covers how to do this in the Desktop Client, I tested screen sharing a moment ago in the latest version of Firefox on Linux. It works just fine. When I choose to share my screen in Discord, the web browser pops up a dialog asking me if I'd like to share my screen, and -if so- would I select which window (or the entire screen) to share?

> ...and no overlay drawing API either...

I don't know how one would handle the "permit others to draw on top of the shared window" mechanism, but there's little doubt in my mind that something can be cooked up that's clever and not too offputting to use... assuming that there's not something already available to be used that neither of us are aware of.

[0] https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040816151-G...>

Re: Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office

#920

Post by tracker1 » Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 9:11 PM UTC

lupusreal wrote: post #878

_heimdall wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It surprises me when I see people call Trump senile given how far Biden got before most people were willing to acknowledge it at all. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things you can justifiably call Trump. He just doesn't seem senile in any way similar to those in my life I've watched go down that road.

He's plainly senile, you can tell every time he talks. That Biden was even worse doesn't negate Trump's senility.

I don't think it's really senility. I'm sure you've probably read an article by a news author about a technical subject that you know very well that just gets a lot of basic details/pov wrong as a whole. I'm pretty sure it's that, but with someone who has to take in 10x the amount of information on a daily basis. Combine that with an outsized, fragile ego and you get what you get from Trump. A vague understanding of things observed/read/viewed in passing combined with everything else.