6 ms·

why?

etothepii 6y ago
I can't speak for the poster but obvious issues include: * Having any kind of separation between work and home. * The requirement to have an office space that you likely pay quite a lot of rent for. * Lack of spontaneous interaction with co-workers (especially new ones)
mikeyouse 6y ago
I went from ~3-4 days in the office to full remote during the pandemic.. and then we gave up our office space since it was going "so well". I'm not quite ready to quit, but the office had tons of perks -- nice cafeteria / nice espresso / gym / beautiful setting in SF / casual face-time with the leadership / coworkers in different departments sharing a common space. Sure there was a commute involved, but I enjoyed getting out of the house. Hopefully things will be better post-pandemic and I'll get some of the social interaction by working out of coffee shops and from parks, but the quality of life improvement from changing from a "5 days/week in the office" to "3 days/week in the office" was substantially larger for me than going full remote.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Most workers don't have the perks you mention. It's an edge case for a small cohort of Silicon Valley tech workers out of the entire cohort of those who had to go remote. If your office experience was blah, or you had a long commute, you likely realized a lot of utility and benefit having your employer forced to support remote work.
  - decafninja 6y ago
    So much this. My office (investment bank) is dull, dreary, depressing, dystopian, Dilbertesque. Everyone must wear at least business casual (dress shirt, dress pants, dress shoes). We have none of the perks mentioned above. The commute is miserable. Very little sunlight. Even our coffee is an atrocity. This is probably standard fare for most old school non-tech companies. I've visited the offices of quite a few Silicon Valley tech companies. The atmosphere could not be more different. If I had to use an analogy, coming into my office is like checking into the local cheap motel. Going to a SV tech company office feels like it would be akin to checking into a hip and luxurious boutique hotel. I've said this before, and I know grass is greener on the other side, but if my office environment were better, I could imagine myself enjoying being at the office more. As it stands currently, it is outright depressing.
    - currymj 6y ago
      this raises the question, what are the companies where going into the office is like checking in to the Four Seasons?
      - decafninja 6y ago
        Lol, if I had to take a guess, I'd wager the C/executive suites at some top hedge funds. I've heard some stories about Steven Cohen's office suite at SAC for example. Despite being wealthy, tech company execs don't seem to be at that level of ostentatious old school display of wealth. Edit: I've been at some hedge funds too - and most of the lower employees, especially in tech (cost center) still get the cheap motel experience.
      - BruiseLee 6y ago
        Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
      - alchemism 6y ago
        The hospitality industry, obviously. (sorry)
        decafninja 6y ago
        I've actually interviewed at Hilton for a SWE role. The office was pretty depressing haha.
  - mikeyouse 6y ago
    Yeah no doubt - I used to commute to Hayward from SF and it nearly killed me, even though the office perks were still nice (though that was a 5-day/week office job). Post GFC, it was manageable with the decreased Bay Area traffic but as the economy heated up, my 45min 8am commute turned into a 1.5hr 7am commute. My current org was 90% remote to begin with, there was just a "main office" with a few dozen employees working out of their casually, and regular department gatherings in the space when a number of people had to be in SF. So going full remote was easier for our org than others, but I wouldn't mind a few days back in an office.
anthropodie 6y ago
Probably people just figured out that they don't need big cities to live. Personally I think cities are overrated anyway and this is why: - heavy traffic hence heavy pollution - huge commute times to work - need to pay lot more for home (both buy/rent, may even have to take loan) - everything is expensive. My current expenses are 1/3 of that of city and I already have a home. I live in a town since pandemic
- ghaff 6y ago
  Most of the relatively recent net inflow into certain cities is from a fairly specific young college-educated demographic. And the reality in places like Manhattan is even though a lot of those sorts of folks moved to the "big city" for jobs after graduation, in practice, many of them moved to the suburbs when they got married, had kids, etc. After graduation I probably knew dozens of people who moved to Manhattan or nearby. I'm not sure more than one couple I know is still there.
  - decafninja 6y ago
    I notice that very few people that work in Manhattan actually live in Manhattan. Unless you're very young and happy to live with roommates, or are already loaded, or are making big bucks from a, say, high finance or FAANG SWE job, most people seem to be commuting in from NJ or the outer boroughs (Brooklyn and LIC are probably priced out too).
- jacksonkmarley 6y ago
  I think the advantages of living in a big city really emerge when you have hobbies/interests/needs that are not very common. In that case if you want in-person interaction with like-minded people, or to attend specific facilities, you need a big enough population that the relevant small percentage of people becomes a significant community.
Thaxll 6y ago
Because working from home for 1year just sucks and it opened my eyes that it's not something I want to do if I have a choice, you miss so much on the social side.
- duckfang 6y ago
  I don't go to work to socialize. I go to work to make money. And if I had enough money, I wouldn't work for someone else at all. I socialize by going to conventions, events, clubs, parties; with people I want to be around.
  - imiric 6y ago
    While I agree with you, I think it's a mistake to reject all social aspects of working. It doesn't have to be about making friends, and certain type of work definitely benefits from direct social contact. Even with programming being mostly a solitary activity, discussing a piece of code, brainstorming design, pair programming, etc., are all much easier and interactive in person. The online tooling is just not there yet. We've settled on text chat, crappy video conferencing and code review tooling, but they're a lossy alternative to in-person communication. Maybe one day when our brains are wired up this will improve, and we have VR in the meantime. Outside of tech work, consider how many professions depend on communication where this lossiness is unacceptable. So I definitely get that there's a wide spectrum of preferences towards telecommuting.
    - duckfang 6y ago
      Then I didn't quite get my point across. I'm not at all saying "Be antisocial at work". That just makes for a shitty time for everyone. What I was trying to get to was "dont use work as a way to make friends as well", since many of those relationships are predicated upon working said job. It's all too easy to lose a job and be simultaneously be isolated by having all your 'friend network' in a group that no longer talks or relates to you. By having people who are your friends outside work, how you change jobs doesn't matter. It's a discussion with your friends about that place. And talking ill about that workplace can be done, and not alienating or as sour-grapes. Now, for the few people that do cross over to non-work, it's awesome. Welcome them as a friend, and not a "work-friend". But I find that I've only had a very small handful of people whom that happened with.
samr71 6y ago
- I'm a young college grad. It's difficult to new meet people without that workplace structure - I'm far more productive in an office - Onboarding remotely really doesn't work at all In short, working from home is boring, lonely, and stressful all at the same time.
- adregan 6y ago
  I totally sympathize with younger workers, but coincidentally, I have an opposite experience as an older worker. I stopped building my social life through work `n` companies ago; I'm way more productive at home and my setup is way nicer; I have onboarded many engineers in person and remotely and find onboarding remotely to be much easier and less of a drain. This only confirms the line that my coworkers and I are noticing as folks make their decisions as to return to the office or not. The older (married and (some) with children) engineers are staunchly in the WFH camp, while the greener hands are enthused about working from the office.

why?

I can't speak for the poster but obvious issues include: * Having any kind of separation between work and home. * The requirement to have an office space that you likely pay quite a lot of rent for. * Lack of spontaneous interaction with co-workers (especially new ones)

mikeyouse 6y ago

I went from ~3-4 days in the office to full remote during the pandemic.. and then we gave up our office space since it was going "so well". I'm not quite ready to quit, but the office had tons of perks -- nice cafeteria / nice espresso / gym / beautiful setting in SF / casual face-time with the leadership / coworkers in different departments sharing a common space. Sure there was a commute involved, but I enjoyed getting out of the house. Hopefully things will be better post-pandemic and I'll get some of the social interaction by working out of coffee shops and from parks, but the quality of life improvement from changing from a "5 days/week in the office" to "3 days/week in the office" was substantially larger for me than going full remote.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Most workers don't have the perks you mention. It's an edge case for a small cohort of Silicon Valley tech workers out of the entire cohort of those who had to go remote. If your office experience was blah, or you had a long commute, you likely realized a lot of utility and benefit having your employer forced to support remote work.
- decafninja 6y ago
  So much this. My office (investment bank) is dull, dreary, depressing, dystopian, Dilbertesque. Everyone must wear at least business casual (dress shirt, dress pants, dress shoes). We have none of the perks mentioned above. The commute is miserable. Very little sunlight. Even our coffee is an atrocity. This is probably standard fare for most old school non-tech companies. I've visited the offices of quite a few Silicon Valley tech companies. The atmosphere could not be more different. If I had to use an analogy, coming into my office is like checking into the local cheap motel. Going to a SV tech company office feels like it would be akin to checking into a hip and luxurious boutique hotel. I've said this before, and I know grass is greener on the other side, but if my office environment were better, I could imagine myself enjoying being at the office more. As it stands currently, it is outright depressing.
  - currymj 6y ago
    this raises the question, what are the companies where going into the office is like checking in to the Four Seasons?
    - decafninja 6y ago
      Lol, if I had to take a guess, I'd wager the C/executive suites at some top hedge funds. I've heard some stories about Steven Cohen's office suite at SAC for example. Despite being wealthy, tech company execs don't seem to be at that level of ostentatious old school display of wealth. Edit: I've been at some hedge funds too - and most of the lower employees, especially in tech (cost center) still get the cheap motel experience.
    - BruiseLee 6y ago
      Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
    - alchemism 6y ago
      The hospitality industry, obviously. (sorry)
      - decafninja 6y ago
        I've actually interviewed at Hilton for a SWE role. The office was pretty depressing haha.
- mikeyouse 6y ago
  Yeah no doubt - I used to commute to Hayward from SF and it nearly killed me, even though the office perks were still nice (though that was a 5-day/week office job). Post GFC, it was manageable with the decreased Bay Area traffic but as the economy heated up, my 45min 8am commute turned into a 1.5hr 7am commute. My current org was 90% remote to begin with, there was just a "main office" with a few dozen employees working out of their casually, and regular department gatherings in the space when a number of people had to be in SF. So going full remote was easier for our org than others, but I wouldn't mind a few days back in an office.

anthropodie 6y ago

Probably people just figured out that they don't need big cities to live. Personally I think cities are overrated anyway and this is why: - heavy traffic hence heavy pollution - huge commute times to work - need to pay lot more for home (both buy/rent, may even have to take loan) - everything is expensive. My current expenses are 1/3 of that of city and I already have a home. I live in a town since pandemic

ghaff 6y ago
Most of the relatively recent net inflow into certain cities is from a fairly specific young college-educated demographic. And the reality in places like Manhattan is even though a lot of those sorts of folks moved to the "big city" for jobs after graduation, in practice, many of them moved to the suburbs when they got married, had kids, etc. After graduation I probably knew dozens of people who moved to Manhattan or nearby. I'm not sure more than one couple I know is still there.
- decafninja 6y ago
  I notice that very few people that work in Manhattan actually live in Manhattan. Unless you're very young and happy to live with roommates, or are already loaded, or are making big bucks from a, say, high finance or FAANG SWE job, most people seem to be commuting in from NJ or the outer boroughs (Brooklyn and LIC are probably priced out too).
jacksonkmarley 6y ago
I think the advantages of living in a big city really emerge when you have hobbies/interests/needs that are not very common. In that case if you want in-person interaction with like-minded people, or to attend specific facilities, you need a big enough population that the relevant small percentage of people becomes a significant community.

Thaxll 6y ago

Because working from home for 1year just sucks and it opened my eyes that it's not something I want to do if I have a choice, you miss so much on the social side.

duckfang 6y ago
I don't go to work to socialize. I go to work to make money. And if I had enough money, I wouldn't work for someone else at all. I socialize by going to conventions, events, clubs, parties; with people I want to be around.
- imiric 6y ago
  While I agree with you, I think it's a mistake to reject all social aspects of working. It doesn't have to be about making friends, and certain type of work definitely benefits from direct social contact. Even with programming being mostly a solitary activity, discussing a piece of code, brainstorming design, pair programming, etc., are all much easier and interactive in person. The online tooling is just not there yet. We've settled on text chat, crappy video conferencing and code review tooling, but they're a lossy alternative to in-person communication. Maybe one day when our brains are wired up this will improve, and we have VR in the meantime. Outside of tech work, consider how many professions depend on communication where this lossiness is unacceptable. So I definitely get that there's a wide spectrum of preferences towards telecommuting.
  - duckfang 6y ago
    Then I didn't quite get my point across. I'm not at all saying "Be antisocial at work". That just makes for a shitty time for everyone. What I was trying to get to was "dont use work as a way to make friends as well", since many of those relationships are predicated upon working said job. It's all too easy to lose a job and be simultaneously be isolated by having all your 'friend network' in a group that no longer talks or relates to you. By having people who are your friends outside work, how you change jobs doesn't matter. It's a discussion with your friends about that place. And talking ill about that workplace can be done, and not alienating or as sour-grapes. Now, for the few people that do cross over to non-work, it's awesome. Welcome them as a friend, and not a "work-friend". But I find that I've only had a very small handful of people whom that happened with.

samr71 6y ago

- I'm a young college grad. It's difficult to new meet people without that workplace structure - I'm far more productive in an office - Onboarding remotely really doesn't work at all In short, working from home is boring, lonely, and stressful all at the same time.

adregan 6y ago
I totally sympathize with younger workers, but coincidentally, I have an opposite experience as an older worker. I stopped building my social life through work `n` companies ago; I'm way more productive at home and my setup is way nicer; I have onboarded many engineers in person and remotely and find onboarding remotely to be much easier and less of a drain. This only confirms the line that my coworkers and I are noticing as folks make their decisions as to return to the office or not. The older (married and (some) with children) engineers are staunchly in the WFH camp, while the greener hands are enthused about working from the office.