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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 co

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.
- oblio 6y ago
  > has given management the idea that WFH frays the social ties It does fray social ties. We're social beings, made for face to face interactions. That's how we operate. There's a reason almost every language has a proverb along the lines of "out of sight, out of mind".
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    Many would argue that it’s unhealthy to rely on your work for social bonds. I much prefer keeping my social circle and my work circles completely separate. Wfh means I can spend more time socializing with those I care about.
    - throwaway98797 6y ago
      For some of us that’s all we got. For others they prefer their co-workers over forced social socializion due to family relations.
      - solosoyokaze 6y ago
        Not having social bonds out of work is definitely a problem with our society. It's fixable though, there are lots of groups outside of work you can connect with and start meeting people. The internet made this a lot easier. > For others they prefer their co-workers over forced social socialization due to family relations. Honestly, these are the co-workers I hate being around the most as they treat you like an outlet for not just social contact but often therapy or venting about their family. I literally never want to hear about a co-worker's terrible marriage (for an example I've had to deal with quite a bit).
    - lmm 6y ago
rjzzleep 6y ago
While I mostly agree with you, one of the health institutions in Germany that I know of(and probably plenty others), only had laptops and VPN's available for middle and upper management. So while upper and middle management got to WFH, older folks and plenty of people with preexisting heart and lung conditions got to work in cramped 3-5 people offices. I agree that a lot of people can't afford a full size home office. Nonetheless most of them will probably also only have a small cubicle or less at work. My statement doesn't negate what you said, but do keep this perspective in mind also.
- tartoran 6y ago
  Absolutely this. If a company wants people to come into the office but does not have enough space for them they should be forced to allow those employees to work remotely or pay for adequate space. They can't have both.
ipaddr 6y ago
"who either function well with very little guidance" That's the definition of a senior developer and senior employees. For junior developers I've worked in pre-covid with juniors in wfh environments and success rates are lower. For everyone 1 developer who finds there way you have another who can't setup there environment. If someone held your hand in school or if you relied on working together I could see things falling apart quickly online. I feel like the new grads will have wfh school experience from this year will adapt well.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  Yeah, I definitely think it’s a senior vs junior thing. Experienced folk already know the ropes and keep their head down without interruptions from underlings or junior developers. Junior developers have a harder time with acquiring tacit knowledge and need more handholding, which they don’t get because the experienced folk have their head down. I’ve had a couple interns lately, and the WFH experience with them has been much less successful than past in-person internships have been. They’re able to basically moonlight on a remote project, and there has been actually MORE handholding required as it’s much harder to judge when they’re struggling or if they have things under control. There are a lot more non-work distractions for them and they have developed less camaraderie between each other as lunch times, social activities, and fortuitous interactions have been rarer. The lack of established trust also has significant overhead. So I agree that this is in many ways a senior vs junior and a maturity divide, however these are digital-native students and they’re still struggling, so I’m not sure I agree it’s going to get much better. I think some of the WFH productivity gains are coasting on pre-pandemic trust and implicit knowledge transfer that aren’t happening as much any more. You can see how hard it is for young people in particular by seeing the drops in performance due to school-at-home. (However, WFH is indeed forcing some familiarity with remote work for many institutions that resisted technology and teleworking arrangements, so there definitely has been some improvement in some areas. It has been a godsend for some people, and that will be a lasting benefit of 2020’s forced WFH experiment.)
  - porb121 6y ago
    I interned remotely last summer and it was a disaster. I had very little direction, couldn't stay focused on work, didn't meet anyone, and really learned very little. Not looking forward to doing it again this summer.
rorykoehler 6y ago
I’m CTO in a software company but I don’t have a proper home office. I was using a small coworking space a 2 minute walk around the corner instead. During the pandemic i’m working in the kitchen for 4 hours before the kids get up and then in the afternoon when my wife takes the kids out. We were always partially wfh as a company anyways and tbh I get zero work done in the office when I go. I only go for morale and relationships (though I do need to take a 20 hour flight to get there). I couldn’t imagine this working in lab based companies but for a company like ours offices are bad or neutral for productivity but useful for mental health.
- reader_mode 6y ago
  > I was using a small coworking space a 2 minute walk around the corner instead This was something I wanted to do as well - only to find out that the local coworking doesn't let you do calls in the space - you have to walk out into halls or limited number of "booths". And I found this common in coworking spaces around here. Which is a stark contrast with how open layout offices I worked in worked (you were expected to keep noise down to tolerable levels but if you didn't want to be disturbed by noise you had headphones). The idea sounds excellent - I live 5 walking from a nearby coworking space that's really well equipped - but in practice it's not ideal. + having to leave my equipment around strangers isn't the best either and I don't want to meet randoms in a coworking space before I can feel comfortable leaving a wallet on the desk when going to the toilet. I might end up renting a private office there - but the smallest office they have is 2 people and that's a lot more expensive than a coworking desk. I agree with everything else you said - I love walking out with my wife and son around lunch time and flexible work hours are much better - I tend to be most productive later in the day anyway - which usually meant I spent mornings in the office socialising and procrastinating and then having to work late - I get to spend that time with my family now.
  - rorykoehler 6y ago
    I use afternoons for focused work, no calls, so it works for me. In the morning I usually work from the kitchen taking calls etc as I can make coffee etc and everyone is still asleep anyways. Calls are definitely an issue for coworking. I even considered designing and developing modular call booths for coworking space at one time (when I ran a space).
snarf21 6y ago
Well said. I like how you laid out both sides. For employees, this is a preference. I'm tired of the "best" narrative. Everything has trade-offs that are not calculated in.
ericmay 6y ago
> I worry that MBAs of other companies will take Sorry just want to nitpick - this really has not a whole lot to do with MBAs or any degree specifically. I think it would be a little bit more beneficial to swap MBA with management. Many of the things you're discussing are true of engineering managers, researchers with PHDs, and accountants and not specifically one group of people with one degree - they don't run the whole world and have exclusive ownership of "all the bad decisions".
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  Yes, management generally.
- justapassenger 6y ago
  MBA hate here is ridiculous. Blaming MBAs for how companies behave is like blaming people with software engineering degree for writing buggy code. Not having people with MBA degree won’t magically make your company better, same as employing developers without a diploma won’t magically make your product more stable.
  - tehjoker 6y ago
    People without business degrees tend to consider more variables than simply optimizing the business for profit extraction at any cost. No guarantee, but that's what an MBA trains people to do. For some reason, doing that causes all kinds of social problems that were completely unanticipated by philosophers in the 1800s.
    - ericmay 6y ago
      That might be what some MBA programs do for some graduates but I can at least give you a data point that the MBA program I attended spends a lot of time focusing on how that type of extraction is bad for long-term business. There are some cases where it actually is perfectly ok to extract value from a business before winding it down. But that doesn't mean that all of a sudden anybody with an MBA degree is some sort of ruthless capitalist. I got an MBA because I wanted to learn more about business, network, and hopefully adjust my own personal career path. I can say for Fisher (Ohio State) we spent a lot of time focusing on not just great ways to make money or improve a business, but on people too. At least that was my experience. I'd guess if you spend a lot of time around "ruthless MBAs" you should take a look at what universities they're coming from and see if they have anything in common.
Dirlewanger 6y ago
Also: the MBAs are probably salivating at the fact that they won't have to pay SV-level wages for developers anymore.
cheschire 6y ago
I noticed that in my organization the senior folks stayed in the office but sent all the workers home to create the safety buffer. They continued to show up and network with each other. I believe MBAs are going to love this new world order. The privilege to show your face in the office will become a sign that you've "arrived" and all your time before that will be working towards that privilege. Any office will be the new corner office.
- refurb 6y ago
  Interesting take. Related to that I’m interested how office cliques will work. It’s pretty damn easy to exclude someone if everyone is working from home. Unless they are scouring calendars they may not even know they were left out of an important meeting. Seems like a nightmare for a office with more passive-aggressive types.
  - macintux 6y ago
    Any mixed remote/office work company suffers from this, even with the best intentions. Face-to-face conversations have such a huge latency/throughput advantage over online discussions that the remote employees are typically left out of the loop. (At least, that's been my observation at dedicated remote vs hybrid companies. Maybe things will change post-pandemic, but I'm not optimistic.)
  - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
    Trust me, this already happened and it's an easy way to get rid of your workers after you "relocate" without paying unemployment. Offer remote work and then offer no advancement opportunities until they quit, so you don't take the unemployment hit. Voila, you have shifted the costs unto them to go find a new job.
    - refurb 6y ago
      I have heard this as well, but super curious what the impact will be when WFH/in-office is so widespread.
maxerickson 6y ago
My impression is that other industries are often already back to the office, ignoring state guidance.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  “Ignoring State Guidance” was pretty much one of the main themes of 2020 and likely will be for 2021. Which is one reason we can’t seem to claw our way out of this mess without throwing people under the bus to die.
beforeolives 6y ago
The move to remote work has made me both less productive and personally unhappy. I've mostly just been grateful that I still have a job and trying not to complain considering so many people have been laid off or have had to risk their health when going to work. But the idea of permanent long-term WFH is very unappealing.
- 0x0203 6y ago
  It seems like the majority of people prefer working from home, and I understand why, but I still prefer having a dedicated place away from home to work. It seems to put me in a different frame of mind that is much harder to get to when I'm at home. I've found it much harder to actually work on hobby projects for some reason; since it's all done from the same place, it just feels a bit like work and motivation has certainly waned.
  - dwaltrip 6y ago
    I could be wrong, but my impression is that a majority do want to go into the office at least some days per week.
    - Yeroc 6y ago
      That's definitely my perspective. I certainly like not having to commute (25 minute drive one way) but I would still like to get out of the house for the day 1-2 days per week. I'm introverted though and my commute is relatively easy. WFH is much more daunting for other personality types and situations.
      - ryandrake 6y ago
        I think my ideal would be work-from-anywhere, plus travel to the office for maybe 5 days every month or two. It would be the perfect balance of in-person collaboration, AND allow me to live somewhere affordable.
  - oblio 6y ago
packetlost 6y ago
I think an underrepresented problem with WFH is that even among senior engineers collaborating on a project, overall communication goes down and it results in less cohesion among the team. It results in a small, but quite noticeable amount of siloing within a project. I've also found I don't really know my coworkers as people much anymore because we don't have much of any off-topic discussions which leads to strained social dynamics.
Taylor_OD 6y ago
It sounds like a lot of the issues you are describing could be screened for. Making having an office at home a requirement to become a remote worker. Remote work only for certain levels of employees. Is that a perfect fix? No. But many remote friendly companies are already doing something like that. In 2020 people didnt really have a choice and many had kids at home. That is not a normal WFH situation for many.
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  > In 2020 people didnt really have a choice and many had kids at home. That is not a normal WFH situation for many. Similarly, people who homeschool their kids often remind others that having your kids at home learning remotely because the school is closed, is not the same as the usual homeschooling. (And similarly, many of them hope that current experience will make more people consider homeschooling as an option.)
  - oblio 6y ago
    How can you home school while working full time? I don't believe it's possible.
    - solosoyokaze 6y ago
      One parent works from home and one home schools. It’s easier to do with wfh because you can live in a low cost of living area where one tech salary supports a family and buys a large house with dedicated rooms for work and school.
      - oblio 6y ago
        To summarize, one parent doesn't work. Thought so, you can't do both.
        solosoyokaze 6y ago
        My point is that it's not possible to support a family with one parent homeschooling without wfh because it's the only way you can have only one parent work and also have the room you need to effectively homeschool due to the ability to move to a low cost of living area.
ryandrake 6y ago
Who is actually calling for permanent, "close the office" WFH for everyone? Nobody I know. It seems like a strawman. I would argue it's just as unreasonable as forcing everyone to work in the office or quit, whether they like it or not. Different people work better in different environments, and ideally WFH would stay optional.
- StevePerkins 6y ago
  Are you being serious? A very vocal portion of HN has advocated this for years. At least for their own positions, if not "forced" onto all employees. For YEARS now, the #1 most reliable way to see your username on the front page of HN is to post a link about David Heinemeier Hansson promoting remote work, or a story skewering Marissa Mayer for squashing it at Yahoo. It's only after 12 months of sitting at home in our sweatpants going crazy, that I'm starting to see more people discuss offices a bit wistfully.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    > At least for their own positions, if not "forced" onto all employees. There is a huge difference between advocating for the option to WFH for yourself and arguing to force everyone to WFH. Few if any are advocates for the latter.
    - oblio 6y ago
      > There is a huge difference between advocating for the option to WFH for yourself and arguing to force everyone to WFH. Few if any are advocates for the latter. The thing is, 100% WFH means that you probably kneecap your career if the others don't do the same.
      - UncleMeat 6y ago
        Maybe. But that's a choice people should be willing to make, IMO.
- macintux 6y ago
vl 6y ago
>I worry that MBAs of other companies will take the lessons learned from Silicon Valley WFH and misapply them. At the end of the day markets are efficient. Some will make mistakes and loose, some will do the right thing and prosper.
- sidlls 6y ago
  I think this is an oversimplification. There isn't one uniform market for labor, even within an industry. What is a mistake for one company might not be for another, but social and other non-economic pressures may cause less weight to be given to such distinctions and work against both.
908B64B197 6y ago
> I worry that MBAs of other companies will take the lessons learned from Silicon Valley WFH and misapply them. Don't worry: It won't be the last time it happens. How many shops have I heard say they are "Just like Google" only to find out that what they mean by that is that they have beanbag chairs? > 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. They'll learn that they need a higher caliber of employees to make it work. Incidentally, these employees are also now hirable by competing SV firms that can and will outbid them.
- sombremesa 6y ago
  > hirable by competing SV firms that can and will outbid them That depends. As an ex-FAANG employee, I happily add a sizeable premium to my salary at the prospect of working at one of those again.
adkadskhj 6y ago
> 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? Yea, i'm very pro-WFH, but i've built my life around it. I own a house with an office. I can't imagine trying to WFH on a couch or some desk in my living room while my wife cooks/watches TV/etc. With that said i still hope people see more chances to WFH, and can start buying/renting homes with this in mind. I have a three bedroom house, turned into 2 offices 1 bedroom, and it worked wonderfully for my wife and I during these WFH times. My wife fwiw was not a WFH person before Covid, but she is currently, and she has adapted quite easily with a dedicated office. One of her coworkers however lived in a tiny apartment with two children and no office. Her QOL was miserable.
- jjtheblunt 6y ago
  we inadvertantly made exactly the situation you couldn't imagine happen, as our house is very new but purposefully small, and the TV and noise with no office is distracting. Honestly wouldn't wish it on others, because it's frustrating when one is accustomed to being able to totally focus.
mullingitover 6y ago
> 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) Who doesn't have open plan offices? There are about three people left in the tech industry these days who still have a private office. > 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. Working in an open plan space is simply inferior to working remotely, except in rare cases where your team is in a bullpen and working full time on a specific project together. It's inferior for engineers because of distractions, and it's inferior for the company because of real estate costs.
- PascLeRasc 6y ago
  I actually feel and work much better in an open-plan office. The energy of other people being present keeps me very focused and I really like that it’s so easy to collaborate. I think it helps prevent me from being burned out. However this is all predicated on open office being a layout where your desk is made of wood, hardwood flooring instead of carpet, your coworkers Aeron is 5’ or less from yours, massive windows close by, and there aren’t any forms of walls other than computer monitors. Cubicles require me to attend therapy.
  - m463 6y ago
    I think introverts do not thrive in the environment you're describing. Unfortunately introverts are not well represented in management or the types of people who make decisions about seating. Also unfortunately, many (most?) software developers are introverts.
    - maxbreaker 6y ago
      I'm an introvert. And a VPE. In the SF Bay Area. I absolutely despise open office plans. I can't work in them. My productivity shot an incredible amount as soon as I had no choice than to work from home in March, and everybody else in the office. Saved 2 hours a day. And I can use my own bathroom... that alone is worth it.
heavyset_go 6y ago
SV isn't as unique as you think it is. A lot of the problems that plague the SF area plague LA, NYC, medium-sized cities and the metro areas surrounding them. I've even lived in small cities with less than 80k people that have similar problems.
taurath 6y ago
People at my company work longer hours, have completely multiple very difficult high profile deadlines due to WFH. That your office is unproductive because you need a physical lab shouldn’t inform those who don’t, IMO!
jasondigitized 6y ago
fortuitous interactions - This is the big problem for me. Developing relationships and getting a pulse on the company and all the opportunities / challenges / "there be dragons" is nearly impossible working from home. The water cooler and grapevine have pretty much disappeared and any chance of getting ahead of arising issues / storms is now gone.
Goosee 6y ago
>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. I know lots of 'lower totem pole' employees with a nicer WFH setup than many managers. From what I've seen, there is a more significant reason higher ups like WFH. PG wrote an essay about the creators schedule versus the managers schedule. A managers schedule (the higher ups) spend their day flip flopping between meetings during each hour increment. Imagine having to walk/transport to a different building on/off campus for a new meeting a many times a day. It can take a lot of valuable time & potentially be exhausting. In WFH, you just click a new link to join a zoom meeting. Much more convenient. The people doing the low level work such as coding tend to be younger. They are looking to make office connections and define their career path. Working out of an office allows for progression in both.

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.
oblio 6y ago
> has given management the idea that WFH frays the social ties It does fray social ties. We're social beings, made for face to face interactions. That's how we operate. There's a reason almost every language has a proverb along the lines of "out of sight, out of mind".
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  Many would argue that it’s unhealthy to rely on your work for social bonds. I much prefer keeping my social circle and my work circles completely separate. Wfh means I can spend more time socializing with those I care about.
  - throwaway98797 6y ago
    For some of us that’s all we got. For others they prefer their co-workers over forced social socializion due to family relations.
    - solosoyokaze 6y ago
      Not having social bonds out of work is definitely a problem with our society. It's fixable though, there are lots of groups outside of work you can connect with and start meeting people. The internet made this a lot easier. > For others they prefer their co-workers over forced social socialization due to family relations. Honestly, these are the co-workers I hate being around the most as they treat you like an outlet for not just social contact but often therapy or venting about their family. I literally never want to hear about a co-worker's terrible marriage (for an example I've had to deal with quite a bit).
  - lmm 6y ago

rjzzleep 6y ago

While I mostly agree with you, one of the health institutions in Germany that I know of(and probably plenty others), only had laptops and VPN's available for middle and upper management. So while upper and middle management got to WFH, older folks and plenty of people with preexisting heart and lung conditions got to work in cramped 3-5 people offices. I agree that a lot of people can't afford a full size home office. Nonetheless most of them will probably also only have a small cubicle or less at work. My statement doesn't negate what you said, but do keep this perspective in mind also.

tartoran 6y ago
Absolutely this. If a company wants people to come into the office but does not have enough space for them they should be forced to allow those employees to work remotely or pay for adequate space. They can't have both.

ipaddr 6y ago

"who either function well with very little guidance" That's the definition of a senior developer and senior employees. For junior developers I've worked in pre-covid with juniors in wfh environments and success rates are lower. For everyone 1 developer who finds there way you have another who can't setup there environment. If someone held your hand in school or if you relied on working together I could see things falling apart quickly online. I feel like the new grads will have wfh school experience from this year will adapt well.

Robotbeat 6y ago
Yeah, I definitely think it’s a senior vs junior thing. Experienced folk already know the ropes and keep their head down without interruptions from underlings or junior developers. Junior developers have a harder time with acquiring tacit knowledge and need more handholding, which they don’t get because the experienced folk have their head down. I’ve had a couple interns lately, and the WFH experience with them has been much less successful than past in-person internships have been. They’re able to basically moonlight on a remote project, and there has been actually MORE handholding required as it’s much harder to judge when they’re struggling or if they have things under control. There are a lot more non-work distractions for them and they have developed less camaraderie between each other as lunch times, social activities, and fortuitous interactions have been rarer. The lack of established trust also has significant overhead. So I agree that this is in many ways a senior vs junior and a maturity divide, however these are digital-native students and they’re still struggling, so I’m not sure I agree it’s going to get much better. I think some of the WFH productivity gains are coasting on pre-pandemic trust and implicit knowledge transfer that aren’t happening as much any more. You can see how hard it is for young people in particular by seeing the drops in performance due to school-at-home. (However, WFH is indeed forcing some familiarity with remote work for many institutions that resisted technology and teleworking arrangements, so there definitely has been some improvement in some areas. It has been a godsend for some people, and that will be a lasting benefit of 2020’s forced WFH experiment.)
- porb121 6y ago
  I interned remotely last summer and it was a disaster. I had very little direction, couldn't stay focused on work, didn't meet anyone, and really learned very little. Not looking forward to doing it again this summer.

rorykoehler 6y ago

I’m CTO in a software company but I don’t have a proper home office. I was using a small coworking space a 2 minute walk around the corner instead. During the pandemic i’m working in the kitchen for 4 hours before the kids get up and then in the afternoon when my wife takes the kids out. We were always partially wfh as a company anyways and tbh I get zero work done in the office when I go. I only go for morale and relationships (though I do need to take a 20 hour flight to get there). I couldn’t imagine this working in lab based companies but for a company like ours offices are bad or neutral for productivity but useful for mental health.

reader_mode 6y ago
> I was using a small coworking space a 2 minute walk around the corner instead This was something I wanted to do as well - only to find out that the local coworking doesn't let you do calls in the space - you have to walk out into halls or limited number of "booths". And I found this common in coworking spaces around here. Which is a stark contrast with how open layout offices I worked in worked (you were expected to keep noise down to tolerable levels but if you didn't want to be disturbed by noise you had headphones). The idea sounds excellent - I live 5 walking from a nearby coworking space that's really well equipped - but in practice it's not ideal. + having to leave my equipment around strangers isn't the best either and I don't want to meet randoms in a coworking space before I can feel comfortable leaving a wallet on the desk when going to the toilet. I might end up renting a private office there - but the smallest office they have is 2 people and that's a lot more expensive than a coworking desk. I agree with everything else you said - I love walking out with my wife and son around lunch time and flexible work hours are much better - I tend to be most productive later in the day anyway - which usually meant I spent mornings in the office socialising and procrastinating and then having to work late - I get to spend that time with my family now.
- rorykoehler 6y ago
  I use afternoons for focused work, no calls, so it works for me. In the morning I usually work from the kitchen taking calls etc as I can make coffee etc and everyone is still asleep anyways. Calls are definitely an issue for coworking. I even considered designing and developing modular call booths for coworking space at one time (when I ran a space).

snarf21 6y ago

Well said. I like how you laid out both sides. For employees, this is a preference. I'm tired of the "best" narrative. Everything has trade-offs that are not calculated in.

ericmay 6y ago

> I worry that MBAs of other companies will take Sorry just want to nitpick - this really has not a whole lot to do with MBAs or any degree specifically. I think it would be a little bit more beneficial to swap MBA with management. Many of the things you're discussing are true of engineering managers, researchers with PHDs, and accountants and not specifically one group of people with one degree - they don't run the whole world and have exclusive ownership of "all the bad decisions".

Robotbeat 6y ago
Yes, management generally.
justapassenger 6y ago
MBA hate here is ridiculous. Blaming MBAs for how companies behave is like blaming people with software engineering degree for writing buggy code. Not having people with MBA degree won’t magically make your company better, same as employing developers without a diploma won’t magically make your product more stable.
- tehjoker 6y ago
  People without business degrees tend to consider more variables than simply optimizing the business for profit extraction at any cost. No guarantee, but that's what an MBA trains people to do. For some reason, doing that causes all kinds of social problems that were completely unanticipated by philosophers in the 1800s.
  - ericmay 6y ago
    That might be what some MBA programs do for some graduates but I can at least give you a data point that the MBA program I attended spends a lot of time focusing on how that type of extraction is bad for long-term business. There are some cases where it actually is perfectly ok to extract value from a business before winding it down. But that doesn't mean that all of a sudden anybody with an MBA degree is some sort of ruthless capitalist. I got an MBA because I wanted to learn more about business, network, and hopefully adjust my own personal career path. I can say for Fisher (Ohio State) we spent a lot of time focusing on not just great ways to make money or improve a business, but on people too. At least that was my experience. I'd guess if you spend a lot of time around "ruthless MBAs" you should take a look at what universities they're coming from and see if they have anything in common.

Dirlewanger 6y ago

Also: the MBAs are probably salivating at the fact that they won't have to pay SV-level wages for developers anymore.

cheschire 6y ago

I noticed that in my organization the senior folks stayed in the office but sent all the workers home to create the safety buffer. They continued to show up and network with each other. I believe MBAs are going to love this new world order. The privilege to show your face in the office will become a sign that you've "arrived" and all your time before that will be working towards that privilege. Any office will be the new corner office.

refurb 6y ago
Interesting take. Related to that I’m interested how office cliques will work. It’s pretty damn easy to exclude someone if everyone is working from home. Unless they are scouring calendars they may not even know they were left out of an important meeting. Seems like a nightmare for a office with more passive-aggressive types.
- macintux 6y ago
  Any mixed remote/office work company suffers from this, even with the best intentions. Face-to-face conversations have such a huge latency/throughput advantage over online discussions that the remote employees are typically left out of the loop. (At least, that's been my observation at dedicated remote vs hybrid companies. Maybe things will change post-pandemic, but I'm not optimistic.)
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  Trust me, this already happened and it's an easy way to get rid of your workers after you "relocate" without paying unemployment. Offer remote work and then offer no advancement opportunities until they quit, so you don't take the unemployment hit. Voila, you have shifted the costs unto them to go find a new job.
  - refurb 6y ago
    I have heard this as well, but super curious what the impact will be when WFH/in-office is so widespread.

maxerickson 6y ago

My impression is that other industries are often already back to the office, ignoring state guidance.

ryandrake 6y ago
“Ignoring State Guidance” was pretty much one of the main themes of 2020 and likely will be for 2021. Which is one reason we can’t seem to claw our way out of this mess without throwing people under the bus to die.

beforeolives 6y ago

The move to remote work has made me both less productive and personally unhappy. I've mostly just been grateful that I still have a job and trying not to complain considering so many people have been laid off or have had to risk their health when going to work. But the idea of permanent long-term WFH is very unappealing.

0x0203 6y ago
It seems like the majority of people prefer working from home, and I understand why, but I still prefer having a dedicated place away from home to work. It seems to put me in a different frame of mind that is much harder to get to when I'm at home. I've found it much harder to actually work on hobby projects for some reason; since it's all done from the same place, it just feels a bit like work and motivation has certainly waned.
- dwaltrip 6y ago
  I could be wrong, but my impression is that a majority do want to go into the office at least some days per week.
  - Yeroc 6y ago
    That's definitely my perspective. I certainly like not having to commute (25 minute drive one way) but I would still like to get out of the house for the day 1-2 days per week. I'm introverted though and my commute is relatively easy. WFH is much more daunting for other personality types and situations.
    - ryandrake 6y ago
      I think my ideal would be work-from-anywhere, plus travel to the office for maybe 5 days every month or two. It would be the perfect balance of in-person collaboration, AND allow me to live somewhere affordable.
- oblio 6y ago

packetlost 6y ago

I think an underrepresented problem with WFH is that even among senior engineers collaborating on a project, overall communication goes down and it results in less cohesion among the team. It results in a small, but quite noticeable amount of siloing within a project. I've also found I don't really know my coworkers as people much anymore because we don't have much of any off-topic discussions which leads to strained social dynamics.

Taylor_OD 6y ago

It sounds like a lot of the issues you are describing could be screened for. Making having an office at home a requirement to become a remote worker. Remote work only for certain levels of employees. Is that a perfect fix? No. But many remote friendly companies are already doing something like that. In 2020 people didnt really have a choice and many had kids at home. That is not a normal WFH situation for many.

Viliam1234 6y ago
> In 2020 people didnt really have a choice and many had kids at home. That is not a normal WFH situation for many. Similarly, people who homeschool their kids often remind others that having your kids at home learning remotely because the school is closed, is not the same as the usual homeschooling. (And similarly, many of them hope that current experience will make more people consider homeschooling as an option.)
- oblio 6y ago
  How can you home school while working full time? I don't believe it's possible.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    One parent works from home and one home schools. It’s easier to do with wfh because you can live in a low cost of living area where one tech salary supports a family and buys a large house with dedicated rooms for work and school.
    - oblio 6y ago
      To summarize, one parent doesn't work. Thought so, you can't do both.
      - solosoyokaze 6y ago
        My point is that it's not possible to support a family with one parent homeschooling without wfh because it's the only way you can have only one parent work and also have the room you need to effectively homeschool due to the ability to move to a low cost of living area.

ryandrake 6y ago

Who is actually calling for permanent, "close the office" WFH for everyone? Nobody I know. It seems like a strawman. I would argue it's just as unreasonable as forcing everyone to work in the office or quit, whether they like it or not. Different people work better in different environments, and ideally WFH would stay optional.

StevePerkins 6y ago
Are you being serious? A very vocal portion of HN has advocated this for years. At least for their own positions, if not "forced" onto all employees. For YEARS now, the #1 most reliable way to see your username on the front page of HN is to post a link about David Heinemeier Hansson promoting remote work, or a story skewering Marissa Mayer for squashing it at Yahoo. It's only after 12 months of sitting at home in our sweatpants going crazy, that I'm starting to see more people discuss offices a bit wistfully.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  > At least for their own positions, if not "forced" onto all employees. There is a huge difference between advocating for the option to WFH for yourself and arguing to force everyone to WFH. Few if any are advocates for the latter.
  - oblio 6y ago
    > There is a huge difference between advocating for the option to WFH for yourself and arguing to force everyone to WFH. Few if any are advocates for the latter. The thing is, 100% WFH means that you probably kneecap your career if the others don't do the same.
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      Maybe. But that's a choice people should be willing to make, IMO.
macintux 6y ago

vl 6y ago

>I worry that MBAs of other companies will take the lessons learned from Silicon Valley WFH and misapply them. At the end of the day markets are efficient. Some will make mistakes and loose, some will do the right thing and prosper.

sidlls 6y ago
I think this is an oversimplification. There isn't one uniform market for labor, even within an industry. What is a mistake for one company might not be for another, but social and other non-economic pressures may cause less weight to be given to such distinctions and work against both.

908B64B197 6y ago

> I worry that MBAs of other companies will take the lessons learned from Silicon Valley WFH and misapply them. Don't worry: It won't be the last time it happens. How many shops have I heard say they are "Just like Google" only to find out that what they mean by that is that they have beanbag chairs? > 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. They'll learn that they need a higher caliber of employees to make it work. Incidentally, these employees are also now hirable by competing SV firms that can and will outbid them.

sombremesa 6y ago
> hirable by competing SV firms that can and will outbid them That depends. As an ex-FAANG employee, I happily add a sizeable premium to my salary at the prospect of working at one of those again.

adkadskhj 6y ago

> 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? Yea, i'm very pro-WFH, but i've built my life around it. I own a house with an office. I can't imagine trying to WFH on a couch or some desk in my living room while my wife cooks/watches TV/etc. With that said i still hope people see more chances to WFH, and can start buying/renting homes with this in mind. I have a three bedroom house, turned into 2 offices 1 bedroom, and it worked wonderfully for my wife and I during these WFH times. My wife fwiw was not a WFH person before Covid, but she is currently, and she has adapted quite easily with a dedicated office. One of her coworkers however lived in a tiny apartment with two children and no office. Her QOL was miserable.

jjtheblunt 6y ago
we inadvertantly made exactly the situation you couldn't imagine happen, as our house is very new but purposefully small, and the TV and noise with no office is distracting. Honestly wouldn't wish it on others, because it's frustrating when one is accustomed to being able to totally focus.

mullingitover 6y ago

> 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) Who doesn't have open plan offices? There are about three people left in the tech industry these days who still have a private office. > 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. Working in an open plan space is simply inferior to working remotely, except in rare cases where your team is in a bullpen and working full time on a specific project together. It's inferior for engineers because of distractions, and it's inferior for the company because of real estate costs.

PascLeRasc 6y ago
I actually feel and work much better in an open-plan office. The energy of other people being present keeps me very focused and I really like that it’s so easy to collaborate. I think it helps prevent me from being burned out. However this is all predicated on open office being a layout where your desk is made of wood, hardwood flooring instead of carpet, your coworkers Aeron is 5’ or less from yours, massive windows close by, and there aren’t any forms of walls other than computer monitors. Cubicles require me to attend therapy.
- m463 6y ago
  I think introverts do not thrive in the environment you're describing. Unfortunately introverts are not well represented in management or the types of people who make decisions about seating. Also unfortunately, many (most?) software developers are introverts.
  - maxbreaker 6y ago
    I'm an introvert. And a VPE. In the SF Bay Area. I absolutely despise open office plans. I can't work in them. My productivity shot an incredible amount as soon as I had no choice than to work from home in March, and everybody else in the office. Saved 2 hours a day. And I can use my own bathroom... that alone is worth it.

heavyset_go 6y ago

SV isn't as unique as you think it is. A lot of the problems that plague the SF area plague LA, NYC, medium-sized cities and the metro areas surrounding them. I've even lived in small cities with less than 80k people that have similar problems.

taurath 6y ago

People at my company work longer hours, have completely multiple very difficult high profile deadlines due to WFH. That your office is unproductive because you need a physical lab shouldn’t inform those who don’t, IMO!

jasondigitized 6y ago

fortuitous interactions - This is the big problem for me. Developing relationships and getting a pulse on the company and all the opportunities / challenges / "there be dragons" is nearly impossible working from home. The water cooler and grapevine have pretty much disappeared and any chance of getting ahead of arising issues / storms is now gone.

Goosee 6y ago

>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. I know lots of 'lower totem pole' employees with a nicer WFH setup than many managers. From what I've seen, there is a more significant reason higher ups like WFH. PG wrote an essay about the creators schedule versus the managers schedule. A managers schedule (the higher ups) spend their day flip flopping between meetings during each hour increment. Imagine having to walk/transport to a different building on/off campus for a new meeting a many times a day. It can take a lot of valuable time & potentially be exhausting. In WFH, you just click a new link to join a zoom meeting. Much more convenient. The people doing the low level work such as coding tend to be younger. They are looking to make office connections and define their career path. Working out of an office allows for progression in both.