24 ms·

Silicon Valley firms in no hurry to open up offices despite easing of virus ban

218 points by mikesabbagh 6y ago

ketamine__ 6y ago
Does Reed Hastings work remote a lot?
macspoofing 6y ago
Is that surprising? There is little value in taking on the risk of infection (and resulting bad PR and work disruption) given that you can maintain your operations with remote workers ... especially given the fact that if you wait just a few more months, your staff will be vaccinated. > Box Inc said its reopening is still scheduled for September. That's probably the most reasonable timeline for tech workers. And even then, we'll probably see tepid support for that. Things aren't going to go back to normal in 2021.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  Why do we need offices again? Best time ever to make full switch to remote
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - brianwawok 6y ago
    Because humans are social animals, and many of us enjoy interacting with IRL coworkers. It also allows much creativity and has various other benefits, both with your work - and with your mental well being.
    - kristiandupont 6y ago
      As someone who was suffering from serious cabin fever last April, I can now say that I would find it quite annoying to be asked to go to an office full time again. The option to go as I please (which would probably average one or two days a week) would be excellent, though!
      - CobsterLock 6y ago
        we, small enterprise software company, have opened the office under that model. What is happening is that some people have refused to return, myself included, some are doing the official 2 days a week, and others are going back full time. The office actually opened up last year, right after the first NYC fizzled out. There have been a few week long shutdowns of the entire office as some are found to have COVID-19. My general thoughts are that there are a few people that got strong armed into returning, but most that are back in the office are happy to be there.
    - solosoyokaze 6y ago
      All the same can be said for wfh. I can socialize with people I want to socialize with, not those I have to socialize with. I have freedom, no commute, no open office, no manager dropping in on me... I have extensive experience managing and working remote and non-remote and I've never seen any benefit to non-remote work. Productivity and creativity are higher with wfh and stress and burnout are way lower.
    - ekianjo 6y ago
      Thats what you want to believe. In reality after 6 months plus of full remote work most people dont want to step in the office again at least nowhere near full time. We see this in every 1:1 conversation.
      - oblio 6y ago
        For software developers...
    - supernovae 6y ago
      I guess I've learned since the pandemic and finding a new job during pandemic that being at the office wasn't as fulfilling as I once thought it was and that those social interactions were rather fake/short lived and the bursts of creativity I did enjoy were destroyed by upper management deciding everything we did would be thrown out for something new. What I want is not another day sitting in a god forsaken office after sitting in crappy traffic but rather the ability to go have a coffee, grab some lunch or just hang out and "Talk shop" with people regardless of being direct co-workers, friends, peers and whatnot. Those are the kinds of people who called me, messaged me and asked me how I was doing. THe only other former co-workers who keep up with me are ones who quit and found new jobs too - it's like since we're not still suffering we're no longer friends and all too often we see that as fulfilling social interactions without question. I guess with hindsight I actually see the "office" as anti-social - it creates bad/poor behaviors, people find solace in common suffering and 9 times out of 10 all of my co-workers were actually dicks who only showed up to work to avoid their unhealthy home life and again, with hindsight, I see they tried making me ancillary to their unhealth work life too. hard to explain it in a small text box, but I guess i just see the office environment as extremely fake, demoralizing and depressing - even though i've had some great memories through it - i'd rather not be captive to sitting in a cubicle chair and actually develop much more rewarding, enriching and valuable experiences that translate to more productivity and creativity in the end. Often times i don't even get to choose my co-workers and if I did, those teams are often short lived and i think that corporate disruption to things that matter on a human to human level is something we're refusing to challenge/change because "it is the way it is". I get thrown on a new team, and its not new friends, it's now colleagues to suffer with and build empty relationships.
      - npsimons 6y ago
        I second your whole post. To try and empathize with a lot of the people bemoaning WFH, I believe they are just suffering from quarantines in general. I truly believe many of them would do fine if they could WFH 100%, but be able to go out with friends on weeknights and weekends. You are absolutely right that the office is a pisspoor substitute for real comraderie, and I wish people would stop conflating the two.
    - whateveracct 6y ago
      Offices make me spend 4+ extra hours a day on work with 0 benefit. That's 20 hours/week I could be spending with my wife & cats, caring for my home, developing skills and software that makes me money instead of some corporation. That's an entire mini-lifetime I'd be giving my employer. And I don't think I ever will have to - I can force myself to be remote the rest of my working life. And that mini-lifetime is mine..and that's priceless. I've had 1 or 2 coworkers out of hundreds I became any level of "friends" with, and the closest of whom I didn't even work directly with. Actually, one of the coworkers I'm friends with, I met in a remote team with us living across the country from each other.
      - brianwawok 6y ago
        I am glad that is your experience.There is no single answer for all people. I think you as an employee are making a wise choice. If you can get paid a full salary for 20 hours of work, it is in your best interest to keep that alive! As a business owner, I am not sure you would hire on the same axis. I would personally not hire someone that can only work for 20 hours a week, there is too much to do.
        whateveracct 6y ago
        I've worked at many remote companies by now. None have asked how many hours they're getting out of me. And they all got more or less the amount of time mentioned. And they were all plenty happy with my output! Why would they care if the output was the result of fewer hours? If they wanted to pay me by the hour, they could have negotiated that. At-will salaried employment cuts both ways :) and in this case, everyone is happy. Anyone wanting more hours out of me is just trying to exploit my labor. I'm already getting paid fair value for what I'm producing.
        nemothekid 6y ago
        >As a business owner, I am not sure you would hire on the same axis If you are hiring salaried individuals on the basis on how many hours they put in a week, then you might be focusing on the wrong metrics. There were plenty of people in tech doing 20 hours of work a week, and spending the remaining 20 hours on hacker news. I bemoan WFH, but not because of work output.
    - ryandrake 6y ago
      I think people who "enjoy interacting with IRL coworkers" should absolutely be allowed to return to their offices, but don't force people who work better from home or have four hour commutes (like me) to come back too. Some people have been really struggling with WFH and just can't make it work well for them, and they understandably want to get back to the office. That's great, and they should do it! But why not also let people who have been thriving under WFH continue to do it?
    - caddemon 6y ago
      I'd probably prefer full-time WFH over full-time office 9-5, but I agree there is definitely a benefit to spending 1-2 days per week in the office. I'm hoping some more jobs with that sort of format will come out of this too.
  - btmcnellis 6y ago
    Human beings didn’t evolve to spend 100% of their time staring into a webcam, only interacting over Zoom. Remote is great and should be part of the solution, but sometimes, you just can’t beat face-to-face.
    - shock 6y ago
      Human beings didn't evolve to sit in a chair at a desk for 6+ hours daily. What's your point?
      - BruiseLee 6y ago
        Well we did evolve big buttocks (bigger than other primates) that are apparently useful for sitting for extended periods of time.
        yladiz 6y ago
        It's likely more to support walking (and running) on two legs for extended periods of time.
        shock 6y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean. In people who sit for long periods of time the gluteus mucles (buttocks) become atrophied. Do you mean the ass fat is useful for sitting? Maybe you're just making a joke and I'm not getting it.
    - matz1 6y ago
      Guess what, human as like any other organism can adapt to their changing environment. Basic evolution biology.
    - ekianjo 6y ago
      When we work we dont spend all our time in zoom meetings. Do you?
  - jayd16 6y ago
    Whiteboards, space, and low ping communication.
    - marcind 6y ago
      sharetheboard.com -- here's an excuse to scratch whiteboards off your list. or... to use them more :)
      - jayd16 6y ago
        Alright well how do I hand the marker to a coworker so they can append to my image? Do I need to set up a projector or something? Forget the fact that I don't have the space for a whiteboard in my home to begin with...
        marcind 6y ago
        Excellent questions and astute predictions of what's in store on the roadmap. :) Very soon we will be adding viewer annotations (ability for remote viewers to add content/comments on your board). As you're facing your laptop during your remote presentation anyway, we've found that this works reasonably well. The augmented reality approach (via smart glasses or synchronized projectors) is also on the map but getting the timing right is much trickier. The UX of it is nothing short of magic but the market for people with glasses or synchronized projectors is fragmented. As for your last note: you don't need a whiteboard! Flipcharts or electrostatic sheets are cost/space-effective alternatives. Also, you can simply point your camera at your notebook and scribble away. Indeed, many of us do this, it's very natural (though, admittedly, we're still getting some kinks out).
  - dyingkneepad 6y ago
    I asked this very question in my 1st year of fully remote working. By the 7th year the answer was very clear in my head, so I went back to the office. Two years later COVID happened and now I'm stuck at home again. It took me a few years to realize the effects of loneliness and the lack of social interaction. But I do have one extra point: if work is fully remote (i.e., every employee is remote) things work much much better than when only part of the team is remote. You need to at least make sure your manager is also fully remote.
- matz1 6y ago
  Its nothing to do with the risk from covid because its minuscule, its more of does it actually make sense to work in the office? For many tech worker, there is little benefit of actual office space.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >Its nothing to do with the risk from covid Huh? The reason why offices of big tech companies are closed is SOLELY due to covid.
    - matz1 6y ago
      if it because of covid then it doesn't make sense because the risk are so small.
      - kevstev 6y ago
        You don't believe the risk of spreading covid is small in an enclosed space? Especially when so many of us now work in open floor plans? My first job in an open floor plan (really a trading floor setup), we would literally watch colds and other ailments work their way up and down the rows each winter.
        matz1 6y ago
        The risk of spreading itself its not small. The risk of one actually die from covid is really small. I would be fine in the office in closed space with other people if it make sense for my work, regardless of covid.
        kevstev 6y ago
        Its not just about death with Covid- one of my coworkers- who on the brief times he came to the office since this started last March- wore a mask at all times, even at his desk- caught covid in early November. He is a long hauler and now has what appears to be chronic leg pains that he goes to doctors weekly for to get properly diagnosed. This is a guy in his 20s. If a "really small risk" is 545k people dead in a year in the US, even with all the precautions we have taken, I think we fundamentally disagree on what a really small risk is. There are now more dead from Covid in a year than the entire durations of both World Wars combined and in about a month or so, we can lump in Vietnam in there as well.
- rconti 6y ago
  Especially because they gave us long timeframes (my Silicon Valley company announced "no return to office requirement until September 2021" last summer sometime) in order to give us all the ability to make longer-term plans, rather than always wondering "Will it be this month?
ABeeSea 6y ago
I know of a couple SV startups that went from <100 employees to a couple hundred during the pandemic. Which means that these companies are now essentially distributed across the country and the employees have mostly never met each other in person. I can’t imagine these companies forcing their new workforce to move to SV so they are almost forced to be fully remote going forward. As an aside, I kind of really like working in central time for a company operating in pacific time. Works well for my sleep schedule and gives me a couple hours of pure productivity in the morning before the rest of the company “wakes up.”
- NeverFade 6y ago
  > I can’t imagine these companies forcing their new workforce to move to SV so they are almost forced to be fully remote going forward. Yes, that's not going to happen. Employees who were hired remotely during the pandemic, or even those who moved away during the pandemic, are not just going to move back once the pandemic is over. It's especially clear for those who never lived in SV. These folks were happy to live and work locally in remote locations for their entire career so far. They chose to stay in their location for years, over moving to SV. If you try to force them to move to SV, they'll just quit and continue working locally as they've done before.
- ArtWomb 6y ago
  Yeah, it's great to watch the sunrise, check overnight markets in Euro and Asia, and get ahead of the day. I like the East Coast time zone. And find colleagues on West Coast generally like to hack late into the night their time. "While the rest of the world sleeps". Many don't even saunter into work until past noon. There can be a bit of a disconnect when trying to synchronize. But EST also aligns with Brazil as its same latitude. And Tokyo is exactly 12 hours diff so 8am in Japan is 8pm in New York which makes late night chats fun as well ;)
solosoyokaze 6y ago
I would never work in an office again. The one good thing about covid is that it definitely transitioned us away from and industrial revolution model to the Information Age.
- brink 6y ago
  I hate to break it to you, but people working together in the same building has been around long before the industrial revolution.
  - slt2021 6y ago
    not in the same density though.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    The 20th century work model of offices and managers was very much an industrial revolution by-product. People were working together on farms, the battlefield... before that. I don't think there was any consideration to worker health or safety. I'm saying now that we're in the info age, we can do away with that and for the first time work from home or the environment of our choosing.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    Not really anything like in the metropolis we have where millions of people used to commute in and out. This was never a thing in History for pretty obvious reasons.
colmvp 6y ago
> A survey late last year of 9,000 knowledge workers commissioned by workplace chat software company Slack found 20% want to work remotely, 17% in the office and 63% a mix of the two. That's pretty much where I'm at. I like the idea of hopping into the office maybe once or twice a week to interact with my co-workers, but otherwise I'm extremely productive at home especially without having to endure the 1-2 hours commute. I joined a company last last year and they moved to this hybrid model once they found there was practically no efficiency loss with respect to moving everyone to remote. But some people still missed going into the office so they re-opened their physical offices albeit at limited capacity.
- dominotw 6y ago
  > once they found there was practically no efficiency loss how did they measure this?
  - chanc3e 6y ago
    From my perspective we measured by deadlines missed/hit. We hit all, so no measurable loss on productivity.
    - tomrod 6y ago
      There was certainly a productivity per hour worked hit, as people replaced their commutes or more with screen time. Folks are overall more productive, yes, but at a cost of more hours worked. The marginal productivity and its rate of improvement is not as high. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/research/the-global-productivity-slump-what-policies-to-rekindle/%3famp?espv=1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/research/the-...
      - boring_twenties 6y ago
        Even if that's true, I'd certainly rather spend N hours a day programming than N-2 hours programming plus 2 hours commuting.
blacktriangle 6y ago
As much as I love remote work, part of me wonders how much of this is a temporary effect. Yes, we can take a functional in-person organization and transition it to remote. But now as time marches on and that organization needs to change and grow and learn, will that be as effective remote as it is in-person?
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  It should be more effective because it forces you to write which institutionalises your knowledge and processes.
  - blacktriangle 6y ago
    That is a big win for existing knowledge and process. How about creating new knowledge and process?
    - rorykoehler 6y ago
      Doesn’t that happen naturally as circumstances change and therefore needs too? I’ve never had an issue with this. In fact I’ve helped transform my company from my home. It’s barely recognisable to the company I joined (in a good way). People are happy and employee churn is way down, we’re still shipping new features, sometimes even with new technologies, sales are up, revenues are up even breaking records during the pandemic, stock price is up etc etc If creating new knowledge and processes is important to you you just have to invest time and money into it. I’m not sure what worker proximity has to do with this? To clarify (a simplified version of) my management approach is to find the current organisational bottleneck and remove it ad nauseam. This can drive immense amounts of new knowledge and processes creation.
      - blacktriangle 6y ago
        That sounds like you've had an awesome experience and if you're into blogging I think it's a topic many people would be interested to hear about. I do think you write off the value of worker proximity too quickly though. Particularly many other comments in this thread are talking about the real struggles junior devs and interns are facing getting up to speed without in-person mentorship. Those are the long-term impacts I'm worried about. By moving to full WFH has an organization just broken their hiring pipeline and thus is now doomed to fail as people retire and they can't grow?
Robotbeat 6y ago
I worry that MBAs of other companies will take the lessons learned from Silicon Valley WFH and misapply them. Silicon Valley has high salaries and very long commute times. But how does this apply to medium sized cities with low commute times and lower salaries? How much more productive will employees be if they don’t have a dedicated office and if their commute time was like 15 minutes instead of the 2 hours someone from Silicon Valley may spend? How productive is it for workers who have to work from home in their bedroom? I’ve noticed this split in opinion from higher ups who have higher pay and thus have large, finished home offices versus others lower on the totem pole who don’t. Also, I think WFH tends to isolate and stovepipe employees even more than they already were, which is a problem especially in larger organizations. And the odds of fortuitous interactions drops dramatically while the latency for some red tape processes increases as well, since you have to fight an email chain with people with more and more disparate work schedules (and less tacit knowledge transfer and trust-building). I think the narrative of WFH success is in many ways driven by the people for which WFH is a godsend due to really long commute times or having poor office workplaces (like open plan) and who either function well with very little guidance or who don’t but dislike the guidance. But it’s potentially a lot cheaper up front not to have offices, just like open plan offices were cheaper, so I fear MBAs may discount these drawbacks and make WFH the default in many, many places where it’s a bad idea. (Still a huge fan of having the option of WFH, but there have been massive productivity losses in my workplace from strict WFH requirements... in part because we do a mix of fundamentally physical lab work, not just sitting in front of a computer.)
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  >Also, I think WFH tends to isolate and stovepipe employees even more than they already were, which is a problem especially in larger organizations. The large organization I am consulting at right now had a larger than average number of employees (also higher level employees) quit over the lockdown which has given management the idea that WFH frays the social ties and makes it easier for people to consider leaving.
  - Guest42 6y ago
    We had a rather average amount of turnover which might be high considering the concerns about the economy. I think one possible contributor is that more remote roles are available.
mabbo 6y ago
Tech workers seem to agree: permanent work from office isn't what most of us want. Fair enough. But here's a fun question: If you aren't permanently in the office, do you need a personal, permanent desk in the office? Because that is going to be the first cut that comes when we all "go back, some of the time". And half the people I pose this question to get upset about it. My own prediction is that teams are going to book sets of desks together the same way we book meeting rooms. They're shared and you'd better have a reservation. But "your" desk with your photo of the spouse and kids, your knick-knacks, your notebooks and "your" monitor? I doubt you'll ever have that again.
- zzbzq 6y ago
  If I'm part-time in the office I expect nothing from the company and some "shared space" type tables or desks where I can plug in.
  - ipaddr 6y ago
    The benefits of coming in quickly fade away with shared spacing. It often makes sense to work in the coffee shop below your office.
    - bluefirebrand 6y ago
      But I'm told that the benefits of coming in is the face to face, networking opportunities! It's actually amazing how everyone in favor of offices only ever talks about how it's better for socializing!
      - ipaddr 6y ago
        When your team is elsewhere the networking opportunities are more with whoever else came in from other departments. Which can be informative but rarely does it directly relate.
- raldi 6y ago
  Why wouldn't you have notebooks? It worked be easy for the Facilities team to have your box of stuff (or rolling set of drawers) waiting at your assigned desk when you arrive.
Mountain_Skies 6y ago
Would the mixed/hybrid model include hoteling? If not, what's the advantage to the company if they still have to provide a reserved office/cubicle/workstation space for each employee? One of the big arguments in favor of allowing remote work is that is saves the employer on facilities. While there are other benefits, mostly in terms of morale, the bean counters who have a lot of control over this aren't going to be happy if they have to both provide office facilities and support for remote work to the same person.
nikanj 6y ago
I'd be happy to work in a hub-coworking-office close to home. A joint kitchen area so I can socialize with people, and a small sound-proofed room for everyone to work on their own stuff. No point in everyone travelling to the same large building to work.
- davidw 6y ago
  I like this idea. I miss being in a separate environment from home, and prefer being around other people. I don't want to give up the options remote work gives you, living in a smaller town, so I could see co-working spaces and hub offices and the like being popular in the future.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    Yea, I'm pretty outspoken here about keeping a WFH option but thinking more about it, I don't actually care as much about specifically working from home as I care about "moving out of the Bay Area". If my company let me work from some co-working space or a remote office in SmallTown, USA, I'd jump at that, too.
nonameiguess 6y ago
Comments here seem to be missing the point. "Reopening" just means allowing people to come back to the office if they want to, but the cat is out of the bag and there is never going to be a practical way to force everyone to come back to the office. The biggest upshot of the pandemic for me personally is I was able to go work for a Silicon Valley company, except I live in Texas. And I'm not moving. I made it clear to anyone who ever tried to hire me that relocation is not an option. These companies took advantage to open up their nets to the entire country if not the world. They can't make their actual remote workers move, so there is no fair way to force the people who live nearby to come back. If some people get to work from home, you have to give everyone the option or they're going to revolt. If they want to put an office near me, I'm glad to show up every now and again. But I'm sure as shit not moving to San Francisco. Companies have to weigh the tradeoffs between whatever benefit you get from people being physically together when they're working versus the benefit you get from being able to hire anyone and not just people who either live within X miles or who are under 25 with no house and no family and will gladly move across the country for you without you needing to pay them seven figures for it.
- 01100011 6y ago
  I hope you're right, but all it takes is one economic downturn and we're all back to begging for whatever job we can get, willing to jump through nearly any hoop. Things can change a lot over the years. I hope you're right though. 20 years ago I had to wear a tie and slacks to work(embedded s/w engineer for Casio).
- 1-more 6y ago
  > These companies took advantage to open up their nets to the entire country if not the world. They can't make their actual remote workers move Weirdly, when I interviewed somewhere pretty cool last fall they made it clear that this was an in person NYC role and I have to be OK with working in NYC (where I live, so it's not a real problem). It was a little odd to hear that from a tech company, tbqh. I ended up taking a different offer before we got to the end of that process, so I have no idea how that continues to shake out there.
low_tech_love 6y ago
Almost everyone I know has been working 20-30% more than usual in the last year, are available basically at any/all times (and weekends), and getting the same salary. Plus, we're paying for the electricity of our work laptops now, and fridge, microwave oven, etc. Plus, no more paying for expensive company trips and meetings in expensive hotels. The fact that you can hire basically anyone, anywhere, means more competition and more pressure on the employee to work more and expect less from the employer. Why the hell would they open up again?
- jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 6y ago
  Why would someone choose to work more? I close my laptop at 4pm on the dot and don't think about work until the next morning.
- kaesar14 6y ago
  This is one of the only comments I've seen that so perfectly captures the raw deal WFH will actually end up being for most people. Also, salaries will go down, not up, as employers pressure employees to move to lower cost of areas or emphasize hiring in those areas. In a lot of ways I dream of a job I could well and truly leave at the office.
- johncessna 6y ago
  This. I'm sure more than one of these companies saw a productivity increase when they went to 100% remote. Why? More hours worked. I'm curious how it'll play out in the long run.
aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 6y ago
My company’s campus very large, and the RTW plan involves a slow, phased rollout. My assumption is that one important driver has been the company’s legal team. Imagine the potential workers comp claims if there are covid flareups directly traceable to your jobsite.
d3ntb3ev1l 6y ago
Given adequate and safe public transportation I’d love going into an office. Yet imho that exists nowhere in the US. Companies might as well provide a car to commute in
rossdavidh 6y ago
Huh, the companies in one of the highest cost-of-living (and thus highest cost-of-labor) places in the country, want to keep with the remote-only thing a while longer? Interesting. I'm sure this is nothing to do with "maybe we could take advantage of this to relocate a lot of our jobs to cheaper places". It's probably just "being safe". Because that's what motivates top executive thinking at large corporations.
bookmarkable 6y ago
Are they still "Silicon Valley firms" when the employees are spread out around the country, and world, or can we finally retire this tedious, self-perpetuating myth of the elite workers of the golden coasts of California and New York, doing incredible and smart things the rest of the world can scarcely understand? Good riddance to the Valley. Maybe having everyone go home will create an actual diversity of opinions, not the myopic progressive echo chambers that give rise to one Facebook after another - keep up the stock value, society be damned, but make sure no one gets offended in the process.
- Der_Einzige 6y ago
  Wait, I thought that California was good because it keeps all those progressive near each other and away from the other states. Do you want all that California money flooding into your cities property market? Are you ready for legal marijuana? Gasp! They might pass strong environmental regulations! Oh no!
spockz 6y ago
One of the benefits of wfh is that we now do not work on the corporate network anymore. Since we have discovered code together features pairing is so amazing. You get to work together on the same problem. Not needing to sync over git, one person can work on the large line and instead of calling out small things to fix the other can just in place fix them. It is amazing.
throwaway1777 6y ago
Been doing a few interviews recently and the narrative I’m hearing is different. Most companies want to go back to the office because of “company culture”, and are very happy I’m still in the Bay Area. Personally I miss going to the office and seeing my coworkers and friends in person. If WFH works for you that’s fine, but it’s not for everyone.
- kodah 6y ago
  I think this attitude will be okay as long as: - people get equal access to important projects - businesses do not try to cut the pay of remote workers - in office folks work to be inclusive of their remote counterparts I now have a multi-office hybrid team and these are the things I'm focusing on.
  - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
    > businesses do not try to cut the pay of remote workers This sounds great in theory, but in practice I feel like it actually encourages and even rewards those that choose not to come in to the office. Which might not be inherently bad, but I don't think companies should be expected to do that if those aren't the things they want to reward.
  - bradlys 6y ago
    Pay will be cut. It’s definitely the norm for any companies that are allowing WFH for new hires. I have yet to interview with a company that offers a truly competitive SV TC while allowing the employee to be remote forever. Most every says, “you need to choose where you will be based as your pay is dictated on that, remote pays less than in-person in our SV office”. If you think you’re gonna get $400k+ tc in BFE, you’re mistaken. There are much cheaper people in Romania available to do that. Honestly, I’d prefer full remote and full in person teams. I hate dealing with remote workers when the majority is in office and I hate being remote when the majority are in office. I’ve had to deal with both before and it’s always bad. I’d be cool with remote teams but I pray we don’t have to mix. It’s such a huge drain to accommodate both styles in one team.
varispeed 6y ago
Companies that require employees to work from home, should pay them extra compensation for use of their property as their office. Probably they should be paying a comparable market rate to what would be the cost of renting an office space for that employee on the market. I get that many employees find it very cool that they can WFH and just that fact makes them happy, but they forgetting that this way companies exploit them. You are essentially sacrificing part of your home for the company you work for and you don't ask to be compensated for that?
- Arrath 6y ago
  If I could offload a portion of my utility bills, property taxes and so on onto my employer, proportionate to how much time I spend WFH I would be a very happy camper.
- midhhhthrow 6y ago
  That’s ridiculous. WFH is huge benefit to employees. Are you also going to charge employers for the time it takes you to cash a bonus check? Let’s not get overly greedy.
  - webdood90 6y ago
    companies are not people, so why are you advocating for them? we should extract as much money from our employers as possible.
    - fossuser 6y ago
      If you have equity as part of your comp for the company you work for you may disagree with this. There's also a reasonableness part to any business relationship. The extreme entitlement of demanding work pay for your home because you're able to WFH during a pandemic just comes across as obnoxious. It's like the employee that complains, "sushi again?!" in the free lunch cafeteria. Not everything is a zero sum game, your relationship with your employer doesn't need to be adversarial.
      - 6y ago
fossuser 6y ago
I won't go back without a vaccine. The easing of bans without a vaccine is dumb. Once you have the vaccine, then you're free to go back to normal. Without it, nothing has really changed. Government policy around restrictions has been stupid since the beginning. It makes sense for companies to protect employees and wait for the vaccine - especially now that it's so close. In California the vaccine is still restricted, but hopefully we'll get wide availability by the end of April. I've see lots of people on Twitter get it with nebulous pre-existing conditions. I wonder how many people are just lying.
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  > Once you have the vaccine, then you're free to go back to normal. Only after a critical mass of people are vaccinated, otherwise vaccinated people can still spread the virus to those who are unvaccinated.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    This is still uncertain, but accumulating evidence suggests that vaccinated people are unlikely to spread the virus. That said, masks will still likely be common for a while due to unknowns around variants and just the logistical hurdle of not knowing who has had the vaccine and who is lying about having it so they don't have to wear a mask.
  - SigmundA 6y ago
    If vaccinated people can still spread the virus why would a "critical mass" of vaccinations change anything? Herd immunity relies on the fact that either having been vaccinated or recovered from the disease prevents you from spreading the disease to those that have not yet been vaccinated or can't get vaccinated.
    - arrosenberg 6y ago
      A virus spreading to a pandemic level is a stochastic process. If you have enough people vaccinated, then there aren't enough carriers to push r over 1 even if unvaccinated people are catching and actively transmitting the disease. Doesn't matter at an individual level, but the restrictions are a societal issue due to lack of capacity for care and treatment.
heavyset_go 6y ago
Probably because their employees can afford to bring lawsuits against their employers should they catch preventable COVID infections at work, or spread it to loved ones.
tazjin 6y ago
And they will lose people over this.
pbuzbee 6y ago
I'm really curious to see how this plays out, especially for larger Bay Area companies. Every worker has their own preference about where they work best. If you don't allow remote work, how do you weigh the risk of losing good employees who don't want to return to the office? If you go remote-first, what about employees who really value the office? If you try to do a mix, how do you do it well? And there are other effects to think about, like on costs, company culture, and productivity. As time passes after COVID is no longer a large risk (which isn't guaranteed), I think we'll see tolerance for remote work decay at large companies. As fewer other companies offer flexibility for remote, the office will return across the board as the default. I think the lasting change will be an increase in flexibility, though, like allowing WFH N days/week and more frequent exemptions for some employees to work fully remote. A few companies will recommit 100% to the office and a few will allow greater remote work, but the majority of employees at medium/large companies will again spend the majority of their time at the office.
herewhere 6y ago
I started the current job during pandemic. I had never been to office of current. Zoom interview and WFH until now. Kids are also schooling from home. Hence, I now have three office set ups in home. One for me and two for kids in 3700 sqft home. At least for me, I don't want to spend 2 hours commuting. Since, the job pays well, I will go to office if asked for it.
skocznymroczny 6y ago
I am in no hurry to go back to the office either. I am not interested in going back to the office if I have to wear a mask while at work.
throwitaway1235 6y ago
The longer you tech guys stay out of the office, the sooner tech corps hire remote workers from overseas at x/x the cost.
chadcmulligan 6y ago
I like working from home because I don't have to pretend I'm working all day. Like most of my work is thinking I can do that anywhere so working from home means I can have a little walk, sit on the balcony and not have anal retentive managers looking over my shoulder demanding I look busy. Likewise when I'm waiting for work/someone to decide I can turn on Netflix and relax, most of my work I can do in 2 or 3 hours a day, its seldom I have enough to be fully engaged for a day. Work from home is attractive because the alternative is so awful, I watch old movies from the 50's and everyone had an office sat back with their feet on the desk while thinking, also long commutes weren't a huge thing - everyone caught the bus, long lunches were a thing, granted hours were long then but things haven't improved. The modern workplace is a toxic environment, working from home is a little better but really its pretty awful to - no socialising, no energy etc.
sologoub 6y ago
I fear that while COVID lockdowns have proven that we can wfh just fine, the trauma of experiencing wfh during a pandemic has poisoned the well and the popular meme (at least in the US) is not all about socializing and “culture”. Working from in the pandemic is simply not the same as doing so voluntarily with a good setup and proper social circle. Hell, even remote first companies get together in person periodically. The framing of WFH as all or nothing forever is toxic and not true. I personally want flexibility. There is little point for me to spend days in the office running from one conf room to another in 30 min increments, often taking up space that could be used for 5-6 people just by myself because I’m coordinating with another office a lot. On days like that my home standing desk is fine and more efficient. When we need to brainstorm and whiteboard, sure office is fine.
jdlyga 6y ago
How do they expect us to have 8 hours of back to back Zoom meetings in an office on top of getting actual work done? There's no way people are doing that on top of commuting.
samstave 6y ago
My biggest question is WRT to the tax subsidies that were given to companies like Twitter in SF, as well as Google (likely all over, but was thinking about the NYC building) So - they were given subsidies to build/occupy there such that the claim was that it would stimulate and heighten the surround area and businesses... So if Twitter is 100% WFH option, then why give them massive subsidies when their well paid employee population is no longer present on-site? However, they may have already expired? https://time.com/14335/twitter-tax-break-san-francisco/ https://time.com/14335/twitter-tax-break-san-francisco/

218 points by mikesabbagh 6y ago

Does Reed Hastings work remote a lot?

Is that surprising? There is little value in taking on the risk of infection (and resulting bad PR and work disruption) given that you can maintain your operations with remote workers ... especially given the fact that if you wait just a few more months, your staff will be vaccinated. > Box Inc said its reopening is still scheduled for September. That's probably the most reasonable timeline for tech workers. And even then, we'll probably see tepid support for that. Things aren't going to go back to normal in 2021.

ekianjo 6y ago
Why do we need offices again? Best time ever to make full switch to remote
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- brianwawok 6y ago
  Because humans are social animals, and many of us enjoy interacting with IRL coworkers. It also allows much creativity and has various other benefits, both with your work - and with your mental well being.
  - kristiandupont 6y ago
    As someone who was suffering from serious cabin fever last April, I can now say that I would find it quite annoying to be asked to go to an office full time again. The option to go as I please (which would probably average one or two days a week) would be excellent, though!
    - CobsterLock 6y ago
      we, small enterprise software company, have opened the office under that model. What is happening is that some people have refused to return, myself included, some are doing the official 2 days a week, and others are going back full time. The office actually opened up last year, right after the first NYC fizzled out. There have been a few week long shutdowns of the entire office as some are found to have COVID-19. My general thoughts are that there are a few people that got strong armed into returning, but most that are back in the office are happy to be there.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    All the same can be said for wfh. I can socialize with people I want to socialize with, not those I have to socialize with. I have freedom, no commute, no open office, no manager dropping in on me... I have extensive experience managing and working remote and non-remote and I've never seen any benefit to non-remote work. Productivity and creativity are higher with wfh and stress and burnout are way lower.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    Thats what you want to believe. In reality after 6 months plus of full remote work most people dont want to step in the office again at least nowhere near full time. We see this in every 1:1 conversation.
    - oblio 6y ago
      For software developers...
  - supernovae 6y ago
    I guess I've learned since the pandemic and finding a new job during pandemic that being at the office wasn't as fulfilling as I once thought it was and that those social interactions were rather fake/short lived and the bursts of creativity I did enjoy were destroyed by upper management deciding everything we did would be thrown out for something new. What I want is not another day sitting in a god forsaken office after sitting in crappy traffic but rather the ability to go have a coffee, grab some lunch or just hang out and "Talk shop" with people regardless of being direct co-workers, friends, peers and whatnot. Those are the kinds of people who called me, messaged me and asked me how I was doing. THe only other former co-workers who keep up with me are ones who quit and found new jobs too - it's like since we're not still suffering we're no longer friends and all too often we see that as fulfilling social interactions without question. I guess with hindsight I actually see the "office" as anti-social - it creates bad/poor behaviors, people find solace in common suffering and 9 times out of 10 all of my co-workers were actually dicks who only showed up to work to avoid their unhealthy home life and again, with hindsight, I see they tried making me ancillary to their unhealth work life too. hard to explain it in a small text box, but I guess i just see the office environment as extremely fake, demoralizing and depressing - even though i've had some great memories through it - i'd rather not be captive to sitting in a cubicle chair and actually develop much more rewarding, enriching and valuable experiences that translate to more productivity and creativity in the end. Often times i don't even get to choose my co-workers and if I did, those teams are often short lived and i think that corporate disruption to things that matter on a human to human level is something we're refusing to challenge/change because "it is the way it is". I get thrown on a new team, and its not new friends, it's now colleagues to suffer with and build empty relationships.
    - npsimons 6y ago
      I second your whole post. To try and empathize with a lot of the people bemoaning WFH, I believe they are just suffering from quarantines in general. I truly believe many of them would do fine if they could WFH 100%, but be able to go out with friends on weeknights and weekends. You are absolutely right that the office is a pisspoor substitute for real comraderie, and I wish people would stop conflating the two.
  - whateveracct 6y ago
    Offices make me spend 4+ extra hours a day on work with 0 benefit. That's 20 hours/week I could be spending with my wife & cats, caring for my home, developing skills and software that makes me money instead of some corporation. That's an entire mini-lifetime I'd be giving my employer. And I don't think I ever will have to - I can force myself to be remote the rest of my working life. And that mini-lifetime is mine..and that's priceless. I've had 1 or 2 coworkers out of hundreds I became any level of "friends" with, and the closest of whom I didn't even work directly with. Actually, one of the coworkers I'm friends with, I met in a remote team with us living across the country from each other.
    - brianwawok 6y ago
      I am glad that is your experience.There is no single answer for all people. I think you as an employee are making a wise choice. If you can get paid a full salary for 20 hours of work, it is in your best interest to keep that alive! As a business owner, I am not sure you would hire on the same axis. I would personally not hire someone that can only work for 20 hours a week, there is too much to do.
      - whateveracct 6y ago
        I've worked at many remote companies by now. None have asked how many hours they're getting out of me. And they all got more or less the amount of time mentioned. And they were all plenty happy with my output! Why would they care if the output was the result of fewer hours? If they wanted to pay me by the hour, they could have negotiated that. At-will salaried employment cuts both ways :) and in this case, everyone is happy. Anyone wanting more hours out of me is just trying to exploit my labor. I'm already getting paid fair value for what I'm producing.
      - nemothekid 6y ago
        >As a business owner, I am not sure you would hire on the same axis If you are hiring salaried individuals on the basis on how many hours they put in a week, then you might be focusing on the wrong metrics. There were plenty of people in tech doing 20 hours of work a week, and spending the remaining 20 hours on hacker news. I bemoan WFH, but not because of work output.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    I think people who "enjoy interacting with IRL coworkers" should absolutely be allowed to return to their offices, but don't force people who work better from home or have four hour commutes (like me) to come back too. Some people have been really struggling with WFH and just can't make it work well for them, and they understandably want to get back to the office. That's great, and they should do it! But why not also let people who have been thriving under WFH continue to do it?
  - caddemon 6y ago
    I'd probably prefer full-time WFH over full-time office 9-5, but I agree there is definitely a benefit to spending 1-2 days per week in the office. I'm hoping some more jobs with that sort of format will come out of this too.
- btmcnellis 6y ago
  Human beings didn’t evolve to spend 100% of their time staring into a webcam, only interacting over Zoom. Remote is great and should be part of the solution, but sometimes, you just can’t beat face-to-face.
  - shock 6y ago
    Human beings didn't evolve to sit in a chair at a desk for 6+ hours daily. What's your point?
    - BruiseLee 6y ago
      Well we did evolve big buttocks (bigger than other primates) that are apparently useful for sitting for extended periods of time.
      - yladiz 6y ago
        It's likely more to support walking (and running) on two legs for extended periods of time.
      - shock 6y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean. In people who sit for long periods of time the gluteus mucles (buttocks) become atrophied. Do you mean the ass fat is useful for sitting? Maybe you're just making a joke and I'm not getting it.
  - matz1 6y ago
    Guess what, human as like any other organism can adapt to their changing environment. Basic evolution biology.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    When we work we dont spend all our time in zoom meetings. Do you?
- jayd16 6y ago
  Whiteboards, space, and low ping communication.
  - marcind 6y ago
    sharetheboard.com -- here's an excuse to scratch whiteboards off your list. or... to use them more :)
    - jayd16 6y ago
      Alright well how do I hand the marker to a coworker so they can append to my image? Do I need to set up a projector or something? Forget the fact that I don't have the space for a whiteboard in my home to begin with...
      - marcind 6y ago
        Excellent questions and astute predictions of what's in store on the roadmap. :) Very soon we will be adding viewer annotations (ability for remote viewers to add content/comments on your board). As you're facing your laptop during your remote presentation anyway, we've found that this works reasonably well. The augmented reality approach (via smart glasses or synchronized projectors) is also on the map but getting the timing right is much trickier. The UX of it is nothing short of magic but the market for people with glasses or synchronized projectors is fragmented. As for your last note: you don't need a whiteboard! Flipcharts or electrostatic sheets are cost/space-effective alternatives. Also, you can simply point your camera at your notebook and scribble away. Indeed, many of us do this, it's very natural (though, admittedly, we're still getting some kinks out).
- dyingkneepad 6y ago
  I asked this very question in my 1st year of fully remote working. By the 7th year the answer was very clear in my head, so I went back to the office. Two years later COVID happened and now I'm stuck at home again. It took me a few years to realize the effects of loneliness and the lack of social interaction. But I do have one extra point: if work is fully remote (i.e., every employee is remote) things work much much better than when only part of the team is remote. You need to at least make sure your manager is also fully remote.
matz1 6y ago
Its nothing to do with the risk from covid because its minuscule, its more of does it actually make sense to work in the office? For many tech worker, there is little benefit of actual office space.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >Its nothing to do with the risk from covid Huh? The reason why offices of big tech companies are closed is SOLELY due to covid.
  - matz1 6y ago
    if it because of covid then it doesn't make sense because the risk are so small.
    - kevstev 6y ago
      You don't believe the risk of spreading covid is small in an enclosed space? Especially when so many of us now work in open floor plans? My first job in an open floor plan (really a trading floor setup), we would literally watch colds and other ailments work their way up and down the rows each winter.
      - matz1 6y ago
        The risk of spreading itself its not small. The risk of one actually die from covid is really small. I would be fine in the office in closed space with other people if it make sense for my work, regardless of covid.
        kevstev 6y ago
        Its not just about death with Covid- one of my coworkers- who on the brief times he came to the office since this started last March- wore a mask at all times, even at his desk- caught covid in early November. He is a long hauler and now has what appears to be chronic leg pains that he goes to doctors weekly for to get properly diagnosed. This is a guy in his 20s. If a "really small risk" is 545k people dead in a year in the US, even with all the precautions we have taken, I think we fundamentally disagree on what a really small risk is. There are now more dead from Covid in a year than the entire durations of both World Wars combined and in about a month or so, we can lump in Vietnam in there as well.
rconti 6y ago
Especially because they gave us long timeframes (my Silicon Valley company announced "no return to office requirement until September 2021" last summer sometime) in order to give us all the ability to make longer-term plans, rather than always wondering "Will it be this month?

ABeeSea 6y ago

I know of a couple SV startups that went from <100 employees to a couple hundred during the pandemic. Which means that these companies are now essentially distributed across the country and the employees have mostly never met each other in person. I can’t imagine these companies forcing their new workforce to move to SV so they are almost forced to be fully remote going forward. As an aside, I kind of really like working in central time for a company operating in pacific time. Works well for my sleep schedule and gives me a couple hours of pure productivity in the morning before the rest of the company “wakes up.”

NeverFade 6y ago
> I can’t imagine these companies forcing their new workforce to move to SV so they are almost forced to be fully remote going forward. Yes, that's not going to happen. Employees who were hired remotely during the pandemic, or even those who moved away during the pandemic, are not just going to move back once the pandemic is over. It's especially clear for those who never lived in SV. These folks were happy to live and work locally in remote locations for their entire career so far. They chose to stay in their location for years, over moving to SV. If you try to force them to move to SV, they'll just quit and continue working locally as they've done before.
ArtWomb 6y ago
Yeah, it's great to watch the sunrise, check overnight markets in Euro and Asia, and get ahead of the day. I like the East Coast time zone. And find colleagues on West Coast generally like to hack late into the night their time. "While the rest of the world sleeps". Many don't even saunter into work until past noon. There can be a bit of a disconnect when trying to synchronize. But EST also aligns with Brazil as its same latitude. And Tokyo is exactly 12 hours diff so 8am in Japan is 8pm in New York which makes late night chats fun as well ;)

solosoyokaze 6y ago

I would never work in an office again. The one good thing about covid is that it definitely transitioned us away from and industrial revolution model to the Information Age.

brink 6y ago
I hate to break it to you, but people working together in the same building has been around long before the industrial revolution.
- slt2021 6y ago
  not in the same density though.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  The 20th century work model of offices and managers was very much an industrial revolution by-product. People were working together on farms, the battlefield... before that. I don't think there was any consideration to worker health or safety. I'm saying now that we're in the info age, we can do away with that and for the first time work from home or the environment of our choosing.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  Not really anything like in the metropolis we have where millions of people used to commute in and out. This was never a thing in History for pretty obvious reasons.

colmvp 6y ago

> A survey late last year of 9,000 knowledge workers commissioned by workplace chat software company Slack found 20% want to work remotely, 17% in the office and 63% a mix of the two. That's pretty much where I'm at. I like the idea of hopping into the office maybe once or twice a week to interact with my co-workers, but otherwise I'm extremely productive at home especially without having to endure the 1-2 hours commute. I joined a company last last year and they moved to this hybrid model once they found there was practically no efficiency loss with respect to moving everyone to remote. But some people still missed going into the office so they re-opened their physical offices albeit at limited capacity.

dominotw 6y ago
> once they found there was practically no efficiency loss how did they measure this?
- chanc3e 6y ago
  From my perspective we measured by deadlines missed/hit. We hit all, so no measurable loss on productivity.
  - tomrod 6y ago
    There was certainly a productivity per hour worked hit, as people replaced their commutes or more with screen time. Folks are overall more productive, yes, but at a cost of more hours worked. The marginal productivity and its rate of improvement is not as high. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/research/the-global-productivity-slump-what-policies-to-rekindle/%3famp?espv=1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brookings.edu/research/the-...
    - boring_twenties 6y ago
      Even if that's true, I'd certainly rather spend N hours a day programming than N-2 hours programming plus 2 hours commuting.

blacktriangle 6y ago

As much as I love remote work, part of me wonders how much of this is a temporary effect. Yes, we can take a functional in-person organization and transition it to remote. But now as time marches on and that organization needs to change and grow and learn, will that be as effective remote as it is in-person?

rorykoehler 6y ago
It should be more effective because it forces you to write which institutionalises your knowledge and processes.
- blacktriangle 6y ago
  That is a big win for existing knowledge and process. How about creating new knowledge and process?
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    Doesn’t that happen naturally as circumstances change and therefore needs too? I’ve never had an issue with this. In fact I’ve helped transform my company from my home. It’s barely recognisable to the company I joined (in a good way). People are happy and employee churn is way down, we’re still shipping new features, sometimes even with new technologies, sales are up, revenues are up even breaking records during the pandemic, stock price is up etc etc If creating new knowledge and processes is important to you you just have to invest time and money into it. I’m not sure what worker proximity has to do with this? To clarify (a simplified version of) my management approach is to find the current organisational bottleneck and remove it ad nauseam. This can drive immense amounts of new knowledge and processes creation.
    - blacktriangle 6y ago
      That sounds like you've had an awesome experience and if you're into blogging I think it's a topic many people would be interested to hear about. I do think you write off the value of worker proximity too quickly though. Particularly many other comments in this thread are talking about the real struggles junior devs and interns are facing getting up to speed without in-person mentorship. Those are the long-term impacts I'm worried about. By moving to full WFH has an organization just broken their hiring pipeline and thus is now doomed to fail as people retire and they can't grow?

Robotbeat 6y ago

I worry that MBAs of other companies will take the lessons learned from Silicon Valley WFH and misapply them. Silicon Valley has high salaries and very long commute times. But how does this apply to medium sized cities with low commute times and lower salaries? How much more productive will employees be if they don’t have a dedicated office and if their commute time was like 15 minutes instead of the 2 hours someone from Silicon Valley may spend? How productive is it for workers who have to work from home in their bedroom? I’ve noticed this split in opinion from higher ups who have higher pay and thus have large, finished home offices versus others lower on the totem pole who don’t. Also, I think WFH tends to isolate and stovepipe employees even more than they already were, which is a problem especially in larger organizations. And the odds of fortuitous interactions drops dramatically while the latency for some red tape processes increases as well, since you have to fight an email chain with people with more and more disparate work schedules (and less tacit knowledge transfer and trust-building). I think the narrative of WFH success is in many ways driven by the people for which WFH is a godsend due to really long commute times or having poor office workplaces (like open plan) and who either function well with very little guidance or who don’t but dislike the guidance. But it’s potentially a lot cheaper up front not to have offices, just like open plan offices were cheaper, so I fear MBAs may discount these drawbacks and make WFH the default in many, many places where it’s a bad idea. (Still a huge fan of having the option of WFH, but there have been massive productivity losses in my workplace from strict WFH requirements... in part because we do a mix of fundamentally physical lab work, not just sitting in front of a computer.)

bryanrasmussen 6y ago
>Also, I think WFH tends to isolate and stovepipe employees even more than they already were, which is a problem especially in larger organizations. The large organization I am consulting at right now had a larger than average number of employees (also higher level employees) quit over the lockdown which has given management the idea that WFH frays the social ties and makes it easier for people to consider leaving.
- Guest42 6y ago
  We had a rather average amount of turnover which might be high considering the concerns about the economy. I think one possible contributor is that more remote roles are available.

mabbo 6y ago

Tech workers seem to agree: permanent work from office isn't what most of us want. Fair enough. But here's a fun question: If you aren't permanently in the office, do you need a personal, permanent desk in the office? Because that is going to be the first cut that comes when we all "go back, some of the time". And half the people I pose this question to get upset about it. My own prediction is that teams are going to book sets of desks together the same way we book meeting rooms. They're shared and you'd better have a reservation. But "your" desk with your photo of the spouse and kids, your knick-knacks, your notebooks and "your" monitor? I doubt you'll ever have that again.

zzbzq 6y ago
If I'm part-time in the office I expect nothing from the company and some "shared space" type tables or desks where I can plug in.
- ipaddr 6y ago
  The benefits of coming in quickly fade away with shared spacing. It often makes sense to work in the coffee shop below your office.
  - bluefirebrand 6y ago
    But I'm told that the benefits of coming in is the face to face, networking opportunities! It's actually amazing how everyone in favor of offices only ever talks about how it's better for socializing!
    - ipaddr 6y ago
      When your team is elsewhere the networking opportunities are more with whoever else came in from other departments. Which can be informative but rarely does it directly relate.
raldi 6y ago
Why wouldn't you have notebooks? It worked be easy for the Facilities team to have your box of stuff (or rolling set of drawers) waiting at your assigned desk when you arrive.

Mountain_Skies 6y ago

Would the mixed/hybrid model include hoteling? If not, what's the advantage to the company if they still have to provide a reserved office/cubicle/workstation space for each employee? One of the big arguments in favor of allowing remote work is that is saves the employer on facilities. While there are other benefits, mostly in terms of morale, the bean counters who have a lot of control over this aren't going to be happy if they have to both provide office facilities and support for remote work to the same person.

nikanj 6y ago

I'd be happy to work in a hub-coworking-office close to home. A joint kitchen area so I can socialize with people, and a small sound-proofed room for everyone to work on their own stuff. No point in everyone travelling to the same large building to work.

davidw 6y ago
I like this idea. I miss being in a separate environment from home, and prefer being around other people. I don't want to give up the options remote work gives you, living in a smaller town, so I could see co-working spaces and hub offices and the like being popular in the future.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  Yea, I'm pretty outspoken here about keeping a WFH option but thinking more about it, I don't actually care as much about specifically working from home as I care about "moving out of the Bay Area". If my company let me work from some co-working space or a remote office in SmallTown, USA, I'd jump at that, too.

nonameiguess 6y ago

Comments here seem to be missing the point. "Reopening" just means allowing people to come back to the office if they want to, but the cat is out of the bag and there is never going to be a practical way to force everyone to come back to the office. The biggest upshot of the pandemic for me personally is I was able to go work for a Silicon Valley company, except I live in Texas. And I'm not moving. I made it clear to anyone who ever tried to hire me that relocation is not an option. These companies took advantage to open up their nets to the entire country if not the world. They can't make their actual remote workers move, so there is no fair way to force the people who live nearby to come back. If some people get to work from home, you have to give everyone the option or they're going to revolt. If they want to put an office near me, I'm glad to show up every now and again. But I'm sure as shit not moving to San Francisco. Companies have to weigh the tradeoffs between whatever benefit you get from people being physically together when they're working versus the benefit you get from being able to hire anyone and not just people who either live within X miles or who are under 25 with no house and no family and will gladly move across the country for you without you needing to pay them seven figures for it.

01100011 6y ago
I hope you're right, but all it takes is one economic downturn and we're all back to begging for whatever job we can get, willing to jump through nearly any hoop. Things can change a lot over the years. I hope you're right though. 20 years ago I had to wear a tie and slacks to work(embedded s/w engineer for Casio).
1-more 6y ago
> These companies took advantage to open up their nets to the entire country if not the world. They can't make their actual remote workers move Weirdly, when I interviewed somewhere pretty cool last fall they made it clear that this was an in person NYC role and I have to be OK with working in NYC (where I live, so it's not a real problem). It was a little odd to hear that from a tech company, tbqh. I ended up taking a different offer before we got to the end of that process, so I have no idea how that continues to shake out there.

low_tech_love 6y ago

Almost everyone I know has been working 20-30% more than usual in the last year, are available basically at any/all times (and weekends), and getting the same salary. Plus, we're paying for the electricity of our work laptops now, and fridge, microwave oven, etc. Plus, no more paying for expensive company trips and meetings in expensive hotels. The fact that you can hire basically anyone, anywhere, means more competition and more pressure on the employee to work more and expect less from the employer. Why the hell would they open up again?

jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 6y ago
Why would someone choose to work more? I close my laptop at 4pm on the dot and don't think about work until the next morning.
kaesar14 6y ago
This is one of the only comments I've seen that so perfectly captures the raw deal WFH will actually end up being for most people. Also, salaries will go down, not up, as employers pressure employees to move to lower cost of areas or emphasize hiring in those areas. In a lot of ways I dream of a job I could well and truly leave at the office.
johncessna 6y ago
This. I'm sure more than one of these companies saw a productivity increase when they went to 100% remote. Why? More hours worked. I'm curious how it'll play out in the long run.

aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 6y ago

My company’s campus very large, and the RTW plan involves a slow, phased rollout. My assumption is that one important driver has been the company’s legal team. Imagine the potential workers comp claims if there are covid flareups directly traceable to your jobsite.

d3ntb3ev1l 6y ago

Given adequate and safe public transportation I’d love going into an office. Yet imho that exists nowhere in the US. Companies might as well provide a car to commute in

rossdavidh 6y ago

Huh, the companies in one of the highest cost-of-living (and thus highest cost-of-labor) places in the country, want to keep with the remote-only thing a while longer? Interesting. I'm sure this is nothing to do with "maybe we could take advantage of this to relocate a lot of our jobs to cheaper places". It's probably just "being safe". Because that's what motivates top executive thinking at large corporations.

bookmarkable 6y ago

Are they still "Silicon Valley firms" when the employees are spread out around the country, and world, or can we finally retire this tedious, self-perpetuating myth of the elite workers of the golden coasts of California and New York, doing incredible and smart things the rest of the world can scarcely understand? Good riddance to the Valley. Maybe having everyone go home will create an actual diversity of opinions, not the myopic progressive echo chambers that give rise to one Facebook after another - keep up the stock value, society be damned, but make sure no one gets offended in the process.

Der_Einzige 6y ago
Wait, I thought that California was good because it keeps all those progressive near each other and away from the other states. Do you want all that California money flooding into your cities property market? Are you ready for legal marijuana? Gasp! They might pass strong environmental regulations! Oh no!

spockz 6y ago

One of the benefits of wfh is that we now do not work on the corporate network anymore. Since we have discovered code together features pairing is so amazing. You get to work together on the same problem. Not needing to sync over git, one person can work on the large line and instead of calling out small things to fix the other can just in place fix them. It is amazing.

throwaway1777 6y ago

Been doing a few interviews recently and the narrative I’m hearing is different. Most companies want to go back to the office because of “company culture”, and are very happy I’m still in the Bay Area. Personally I miss going to the office and seeing my coworkers and friends in person. If WFH works for you that’s fine, but it’s not for everyone.

kodah 6y ago
I think this attitude will be okay as long as: - people get equal access to important projects - businesses do not try to cut the pay of remote workers - in office folks work to be inclusive of their remote counterparts I now have a multi-office hybrid team and these are the things I'm focusing on.
- buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
  > businesses do not try to cut the pay of remote workers This sounds great in theory, but in practice I feel like it actually encourages and even rewards those that choose not to come in to the office. Which might not be inherently bad, but I don't think companies should be expected to do that if those aren't the things they want to reward.
- bradlys 6y ago
  Pay will be cut. It’s definitely the norm for any companies that are allowing WFH for new hires. I have yet to interview with a company that offers a truly competitive SV TC while allowing the employee to be remote forever. Most every says, “you need to choose where you will be based as your pay is dictated on that, remote pays less than in-person in our SV office”. If you think you’re gonna get $400k+ tc in BFE, you’re mistaken. There are much cheaper people in Romania available to do that. Honestly, I’d prefer full remote and full in person teams. I hate dealing with remote workers when the majority is in office and I hate being remote when the majority are in office. I’ve had to deal with both before and it’s always bad. I’d be cool with remote teams but I pray we don’t have to mix. It’s such a huge drain to accommodate both styles in one team.

varispeed 6y ago

Companies that require employees to work from home, should pay them extra compensation for use of their property as their office. Probably they should be paying a comparable market rate to what would be the cost of renting an office space for that employee on the market. I get that many employees find it very cool that they can WFH and just that fact makes them happy, but they forgetting that this way companies exploit them. You are essentially sacrificing part of your home for the company you work for and you don't ask to be compensated for that?

Arrath 6y ago
If I could offload a portion of my utility bills, property taxes and so on onto my employer, proportionate to how much time I spend WFH I would be a very happy camper.
midhhhthrow 6y ago
That’s ridiculous. WFH is huge benefit to employees. Are you also going to charge employers for the time it takes you to cash a bonus check? Let’s not get overly greedy.
- webdood90 6y ago
  companies are not people, so why are you advocating for them? we should extract as much money from our employers as possible.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    If you have equity as part of your comp for the company you work for you may disagree with this. There's also a reasonableness part to any business relationship. The extreme entitlement of demanding work pay for your home because you're able to WFH during a pandemic just comes across as obnoxious. It's like the employee that complains, "sushi again?!" in the free lunch cafeteria. Not everything is a zero sum game, your relationship with your employer doesn't need to be adversarial.
    - 6y ago

fossuser 6y ago

I won't go back without a vaccine. The easing of bans without a vaccine is dumb. Once you have the vaccine, then you're free to go back to normal. Without it, nothing has really changed. Government policy around restrictions has been stupid since the beginning. It makes sense for companies to protect employees and wait for the vaccine - especially now that it's so close. In California the vaccine is still restricted, but hopefully we'll get wide availability by the end of April. I've see lots of people on Twitter get it with nebulous pre-existing conditions. I wonder how many people are just lying.

heavyset_go 6y ago
> Once you have the vaccine, then you're free to go back to normal. Only after a critical mass of people are vaccinated, otherwise vaccinated people can still spread the virus to those who are unvaccinated.
- fossuser 6y ago
  This is still uncertain, but accumulating evidence suggests that vaccinated people are unlikely to spread the virus. That said, masks will still likely be common for a while due to unknowns around variants and just the logistical hurdle of not knowing who has had the vaccine and who is lying about having it so they don't have to wear a mask.
- SigmundA 6y ago
  If vaccinated people can still spread the virus why would a "critical mass" of vaccinations change anything? Herd immunity relies on the fact that either having been vaccinated or recovered from the disease prevents you from spreading the disease to those that have not yet been vaccinated or can't get vaccinated.
  - arrosenberg 6y ago
    A virus spreading to a pandemic level is a stochastic process. If you have enough people vaccinated, then there aren't enough carriers to push r over 1 even if unvaccinated people are catching and actively transmitting the disease. Doesn't matter at an individual level, but the restrictions are a societal issue due to lack of capacity for care and treatment.

heavyset_go 6y ago

Probably because their employees can afford to bring lawsuits against their employers should they catch preventable COVID infections at work, or spread it to loved ones.

tazjin 6y ago

And they will lose people over this.

pbuzbee 6y ago

I'm really curious to see how this plays out, especially for larger Bay Area companies. Every worker has their own preference about where they work best. If you don't allow remote work, how do you weigh the risk of losing good employees who don't want to return to the office? If you go remote-first, what about employees who really value the office? If you try to do a mix, how do you do it well? And there are other effects to think about, like on costs, company culture, and productivity. As time passes after COVID is no longer a large risk (which isn't guaranteed), I think we'll see tolerance for remote work decay at large companies. As fewer other companies offer flexibility for remote, the office will return across the board as the default. I think the lasting change will be an increase in flexibility, though, like allowing WFH N days/week and more frequent exemptions for some employees to work fully remote. A few companies will recommit 100% to the office and a few will allow greater remote work, but the majority of employees at medium/large companies will again spend the majority of their time at the office.

herewhere 6y ago

I started the current job during pandemic. I had never been to office of current. Zoom interview and WFH until now. Kids are also schooling from home. Hence, I now have three office set ups in home. One for me and two for kids in 3700 sqft home. At least for me, I don't want to spend 2 hours commuting. Since, the job pays well, I will go to office if asked for it.

skocznymroczny 6y ago

I am in no hurry to go back to the office either. I am not interested in going back to the office if I have to wear a mask while at work.

throwitaway1235 6y ago

The longer you tech guys stay out of the office, the sooner tech corps hire remote workers from overseas at x/x the cost.

chadcmulligan 6y ago

I like working from home because I don't have to pretend I'm working all day. Like most of my work is thinking I can do that anywhere so working from home means I can have a little walk, sit on the balcony and not have anal retentive managers looking over my shoulder demanding I look busy. Likewise when I'm waiting for work/someone to decide I can turn on Netflix and relax, most of my work I can do in 2 or 3 hours a day, its seldom I have enough to be fully engaged for a day. Work from home is attractive because the alternative is so awful, I watch old movies from the 50's and everyone had an office sat back with their feet on the desk while thinking, also long commutes weren't a huge thing - everyone caught the bus, long lunches were a thing, granted hours were long then but things haven't improved. The modern workplace is a toxic environment, working from home is a little better but really its pretty awful to - no socialising, no energy etc.

sologoub 6y ago

I fear that while COVID lockdowns have proven that we can wfh just fine, the trauma of experiencing wfh during a pandemic has poisoned the well and the popular meme (at least in the US) is not all about socializing and “culture”. Working from in the pandemic is simply not the same as doing so voluntarily with a good setup and proper social circle. Hell, even remote first companies get together in person periodically. The framing of WFH as all or nothing forever is toxic and not true. I personally want flexibility. There is little point for me to spend days in the office running from one conf room to another in 30 min increments, often taking up space that could be used for 5-6 people just by myself because I’m coordinating with another office a lot. On days like that my home standing desk is fine and more efficient. When we need to brainstorm and whiteboard, sure office is fine.

jdlyga 6y ago

How do they expect us to have 8 hours of back to back Zoom meetings in an office on top of getting actual work done? There's no way people are doing that on top of commuting.

samstave 6y ago

My biggest question is WRT to the tax subsidies that were given to companies like Twitter in SF, as well as Google (likely all over, but was thinking about the NYC building) So - they were given subsidies to build/occupy there such that the claim was that it would stimulate and heighten the surround area and businesses... So if Twitter is 100% WFH option, then why give them massive subsidies when their well paid employee population is no longer present on-site? However, they may have already expired? https://time.com/14335/twitter-tax-break-san-francisco/ https://time.com/14335/twitter-tax-break-san-francisco/