3 ms·

Cynical but in a dumb way. A moment of thought will tell you that lost productivity by being all remote outweighs the benefits money that the FAANGs are saving

Cynical but in a dumb way. A moment of thought will tell you that lost productivity by being all remote outweighs the benefits money that the FAANGs are saving. If they could just shovel that money they're saving to the employees to get that productivity back, they would. A smarter cynical take would be that it's more likely that 1) they know their employees don't want to risk COVID-19, 2) they don't want to risk their employees getting COVID-19, but not for the reason he states but instead because that people worried about getting sick at the office are less productive, and 3) they want their precious little cash cow employees back producing milk at full speed as soon as they can.

paulryanrogers 6y ago
> A moment of thought will tell you that lost productivity by being all remote outweighs the benefits money that the FAANGs are saving. Really? Three years working remote and I'm still more productive.
- voisin 6y ago
  N = 1. The fact is no one knows how it shakes out across teams and organizations and whether it heightens the learning curve for new employees who do not benefit from the informal chatter around them, or whether it increases employee turnover in the long run. Seems irresponsible to make organization wide bets like this without proper testing. “Move fast and break things” applies to culture too I suppose.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    Even if it makes some people more productive, it also doesn't necessarily apply to everyone, and wasn't a core complaint of remote workers that remote work policy was too one-size-fits-all? I would imagine you would see more flexibility afforded by employers but full remote is probably a fantasy.
    - voisin 6y ago
      Individual flexibility can have detrimental impacts to team performance. So then shouldn’t the flexibility be awarded to whomever’s P&L is hit by a decrease to productivity? How else do you internalize the negative externalities? How would this differ from the pre-Covid status quo?
      - bobthepanda 6y ago
        Personally I don't know how much of a problem this is. Where I work, the preexisting policy was "feel free to work whenever so long as you are still available during work hours and doing what you're expected to do". So for me flexibility was already the status quo.
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  There are some who are adapting well to remote work, like yourself, there are some who would be adapting well to work but other disruptions from COVID-19 reduce their effectiveness when remote, and there are quite a few who are just not effective when remote. At my employer, for example, effectiveness reduction estimates by department range from -20% to over -50% for particularly hardware dependent teams.
  - erik_seaberg 6y ago
    I think we hoped for "work from anywhere", but many got "try to work while minding your kids at home, also webcams and stuff are out of stock".
- pzh 6y ago
  It’s also a matter of culture. For remote employees to be fully productive, the company’s culture needs to be heavily geared towards remote. You can’t have 50% of the employees in the office having impromptu hallway conversations and whiteboard discussions while the rest of the team that is remote is half-isolated, separated from the in-office idea generation, and only gets to hear about what was decided by email. You’ll effectively end up creating two classes of employees: the in-office superstars and leaders who are highly paid, and the cheaper remote workers who have a glass ceiling on their career progression and are mostly relegated to the execution of the in-office team’s vision.
  - hiram112 6y ago
    > the in-office superstars and leaders who are highly paid, and the cheaper remote workers who have a glass ceiling on their career progression and are mostly relegated to the execution of the in-office team’s vision. I went remote a few years ago, and last year, without even asking permission, I dropped the lease on my overpriced DC tiny condo and moved a few hours away where rent is half the price, and eventually I'll buy a real home for half the cost of DC. While I definitely had more opportunities to network and hobnob with management while in the office, the reality is it didn't matter in the long run. My salary hasn't gone down since moving, and I save money on tolls, lunches, gas, and now especially rent which is pretty significant. As a developer, I've never once been offered any sort of 'path' to anything other than continued code grinding and JIRA tasks. At best, I'm often give pseudo-promotions to 'team-lead' which includes more work on my end for no extra compensation, respect, or authority. There are so many people who CANNOT code, I've never seen any company I worked for helping their developers move towards the business or management teams. In fact, it's almost as if they actively oppose it and gatekeep any knowledge that's related to sales, customers, revenue, etc. After all, what would they be needed for, if we could do their jobs, too? And if we knew what value we provided, we might get a bit more uppity when it came time for raises and bonuses. Furthermore, most jobs of mine last less than 4 years or so, and if you don't move on you're not getting raises, nor are you accumulating more required buzzwords for the resume. I kind of gave up on moving up the corporate ranks into a management or more respected, higher paid position years ago, and now I play for myself. That means I continue to accumulate money in investments, and hopefully, by about 45, I won't depend on any company's promises or continued raises, and instead can opt out of the corporate system, go live on a beach, and start my own small business. The odds that the stock market will continue paying 8% are far more likely than any company I end up working for will provide opportunities for more pay, authority, and respect, especially for engineers, regardless of how good of friends I am with management or happy hours I attend with them.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
0x262d 6y ago
I think there's truth both in the incentives listed in the article and in this explanation, and there is a complex and varied set of cynical reasons that explain any large move across many employers like this. The real lesson is not to be a vulgar cynic.
slavapestov 6y ago
> A moment of thought will tell you that lost productivity by being all remote outweighs the benefits money that the FAANGs are saving. I don’t think any productivity differences between distributed and co-located teams have been conclusively demonstrated one way or another. Besides, even if your claim were true, a company that hired outside of a single metro area (in most cases, the SFBA) stands to gain more from drawing upon a much larger talent pool in the long run.
bitwize 6y ago
Since seven out of ten times the alternative to remote work is a fucking open-plan circle of hell, how does lost productivity due to remote compare to lost productivity due to needless distraction and germs propagating like a crowd wave at a football game through open-plan spaces leading to more sick days? (Forget COVID-19, colds and flu can cause significant reductions in work output.) My guess is remote workers are more productive.

paulryanrogers 6y ago

> A moment of thought will tell you that lost productivity by being all remote outweighs the benefits money that the FAANGs are saving. Really? Three years working remote and I'm still more productive.

voisin 6y ago
N = 1. The fact is no one knows how it shakes out across teams and organizations and whether it heightens the learning curve for new employees who do not benefit from the informal chatter around them, or whether it increases employee turnover in the long run. Seems irresponsible to make organization wide bets like this without proper testing. “Move fast and break things” applies to culture too I suppose.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  Even if it makes some people more productive, it also doesn't necessarily apply to everyone, and wasn't a core complaint of remote workers that remote work policy was too one-size-fits-all? I would imagine you would see more flexibility afforded by employers but full remote is probably a fantasy.
  - voisin 6y ago
    Individual flexibility can have detrimental impacts to team performance. So then shouldn’t the flexibility be awarded to whomever’s P&L is hit by a decrease to productivity? How else do you internalize the negative externalities? How would this differ from the pre-Covid status quo?
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      Personally I don't know how much of a problem this is. Where I work, the preexisting policy was "feel free to work whenever so long as you are still available during work hours and doing what you're expected to do". So for me flexibility was already the status quo.
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
There are some who are adapting well to remote work, like yourself, there are some who would be adapting well to work but other disruptions from COVID-19 reduce their effectiveness when remote, and there are quite a few who are just not effective when remote. At my employer, for example, effectiveness reduction estimates by department range from -20% to over -50% for particularly hardware dependent teams.
- erik_seaberg 6y ago
  I think we hoped for "work from anywhere", but many got "try to work while minding your kids at home, also webcams and stuff are out of stock".
pzh 6y ago
It’s also a matter of culture. For remote employees to be fully productive, the company’s culture needs to be heavily geared towards remote. You can’t have 50% of the employees in the office having impromptu hallway conversations and whiteboard discussions while the rest of the team that is remote is half-isolated, separated from the in-office idea generation, and only gets to hear about what was decided by email. You’ll effectively end up creating two classes of employees: the in-office superstars and leaders who are highly paid, and the cheaper remote workers who have a glass ceiling on their career progression and are mostly relegated to the execution of the in-office team’s vision.
- hiram112 6y ago
  > the in-office superstars and leaders who are highly paid, and the cheaper remote workers who have a glass ceiling on their career progression and are mostly relegated to the execution of the in-office team’s vision. I went remote a few years ago, and last year, without even asking permission, I dropped the lease on my overpriced DC tiny condo and moved a few hours away where rent is half the price, and eventually I'll buy a real home for half the cost of DC. While I definitely had more opportunities to network and hobnob with management while in the office, the reality is it didn't matter in the long run. My salary hasn't gone down since moving, and I save money on tolls, lunches, gas, and now especially rent which is pretty significant. As a developer, I've never once been offered any sort of 'path' to anything other than continued code grinding and JIRA tasks. At best, I'm often give pseudo-promotions to 'team-lead' which includes more work on my end for no extra compensation, respect, or authority. There are so many people who CANNOT code, I've never seen any company I worked for helping their developers move towards the business or management teams. In fact, it's almost as if they actively oppose it and gatekeep any knowledge that's related to sales, customers, revenue, etc. After all, what would they be needed for, if we could do their jobs, too? And if we knew what value we provided, we might get a bit more uppity when it came time for raises and bonuses. Furthermore, most jobs of mine last less than 4 years or so, and if you don't move on you're not getting raises, nor are you accumulating more required buzzwords for the resume. I kind of gave up on moving up the corporate ranks into a management or more respected, higher paid position years ago, and now I play for myself. That means I continue to accumulate money in investments, and hopefully, by about 45, I won't depend on any company's promises or continued raises, and instead can opt out of the corporate system, go live on a beach, and start my own small business. The odds that the stock market will continue paying 8% are far more likely than any company I end up working for will provide opportunities for more pay, authority, and respect, especially for engineers, regardless of how good of friends I am with management or happy hours I attend with them.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

0x262d 6y ago

I think there's truth both in the incentives listed in the article and in this explanation, and there is a complex and varied set of cynical reasons that explain any large move across many employers like this. The real lesson is not to be a vulgar cynic.

slavapestov 6y ago

> A moment of thought will tell you that lost productivity by being all remote outweighs the benefits money that the FAANGs are saving. I don’t think any productivity differences between distributed and co-located teams have been conclusively demonstrated one way or another. Besides, even if your claim were true, a company that hired outside of a single metro area (in most cases, the SFBA) stands to gain more from drawing upon a much larger talent pool in the long run.

bitwize 6y ago

Since seven out of ten times the alternative to remote work is a fucking open-plan circle of hell, how does lost productivity due to remote compare to lost productivity due to needless distraction and germs propagating like a crowd wave at a football game through open-plan spaces leading to more sick days? (Forget COVID-19, colds and flu can cause significant reductions in work output.) My guess is remote workers are more productive.