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Office is a space where complete strangers can become a collective, sharing common goals and establishing bonds that can help achieve great things. This is pos

Office is a space where complete strangers can become a collective, sharing common goals and establishing bonds that can help achieve great things. This is possible with remote work, but much harder. In my experience, remote workers are generally rather detached from their colleagues and projects. YMMV, but I vastly prefer working from office.

throwawayboise 5y ago
This has only been my experience in very small startups with all the people in the same room or at least the same building. In all my other jobs, including the startups that have grown into more traditional businesses, I have been pretty much a heads-down worker. I come in, do my work, and go home. There's not really much bonding or common culture going on that remote/on-site would really change anything.
bluefirebrand 5y ago
This strikes me as a very romantic view of what offices are. Maybe it is possible for an office to be like this, but I would suspect that it is an exceptional case. Mostly offices are where people go to do sufficient work to get paid, and the only real goal coworkers have in common there is a desire to receive paycheques and make sure the company doesn't go under so they can continue receiving paycheques. If people didn't have to make money they absolutely would not spend their days pushing paperwork around and sending emails as part of some shared collective goal.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  I wasn't talking about what all offices are, but about what some of them can be. It is clear that many offices are dull hives that suck the life out of their occupants. But why be in such office? Why should someone have a job just to get a paycheck, getting miserable in return? There are always options. To look at it from a different side, office is a tool, which, used correctly, can give a tremendous boost to productivity. But it is not a given. It has natural advantage - like physical proximity between people and disadvantages - the need to commute being one of them.
  - bluefirebrand 5y ago
    Again, this strikes me as an extremely romanticized view of life and employment. > Why should someone have a job just to get a paycheck Because we need some amount of money to survive in our society and we need lots of it to thrive in our society. > There are always options. Not really. There are always options if you have highly in demand skills with no external responsibilities that prevent you from relocating to better work or risking a job change. Most average office workers cannot risk a job change (because job changes ARE risky) due to family or other responsibilities. They also don't possess terribly in-demand skills. > office is a tool, which, used correctly, can give a tremendous boost to productivity This is employer talk. It's unclear to me why a worker should care about their productivity more than their paycheque, or their comfort, or their time spent commuting. > It has natural advantage - like physical proximity between people This has just as much potential to hurt productivity because the #1 timewaster at offices is other people.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
      > They also don't possess terribly in-demand skills. Such workers shouldn't be calling BS on their leaders on return to offices, they should keep their heads down and do as they told. Regarding your points about needing money, the audience here is blessed to be in such high demand, that they can freely choose projects and leadership they like. We have just one life, why earn money doing something that you don't love?
      - bluefirebrand 5y ago
        > Such workers shouldn't be calling BS on their leaders on return to offices, they should keep their heads down and do as they told. So people shouldn't have any say just because they have lesser in-demand skills? Note that I didn't say these people were useless, they fulfill some role, just one that could easily be done by many others. They might be extremely loyal, productive people who just want to continue working from home for whatever reason but because their skills are less in-demand, they should shut up and do as they're told? Wow dude.

throwawayboise 5y ago

This has only been my experience in very small startups with all the people in the same room or at least the same building. In all my other jobs, including the startups that have grown into more traditional businesses, I have been pretty much a heads-down worker. I come in, do my work, and go home. There's not really much bonding or common culture going on that remote/on-site would really change anything.

bluefirebrand 5y ago

This strikes me as a very romantic view of what offices are. Maybe it is possible for an office to be like this, but I would suspect that it is an exceptional case. Mostly offices are where people go to do sufficient work to get paid, and the only real goal coworkers have in common there is a desire to receive paycheques and make sure the company doesn't go under so they can continue receiving paycheques. If people didn't have to make money they absolutely would not spend their days pushing paperwork around and sending emails as part of some shared collective goal.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
I wasn't talking about what all offices are, but about what some of them can be. It is clear that many offices are dull hives that suck the life out of their occupants. But why be in such office? Why should someone have a job just to get a paycheck, getting miserable in return? There are always options. To look at it from a different side, office is a tool, which, used correctly, can give a tremendous boost to productivity. But it is not a given. It has natural advantage - like physical proximity between people and disadvantages - the need to commute being one of them.
- bluefirebrand 5y ago
  Again, this strikes me as an extremely romanticized view of life and employment. > Why should someone have a job just to get a paycheck Because we need some amount of money to survive in our society and we need lots of it to thrive in our society. > There are always options. Not really. There are always options if you have highly in demand skills with no external responsibilities that prevent you from relocating to better work or risking a job change. Most average office workers cannot risk a job change (because job changes ARE risky) due to family or other responsibilities. They also don't possess terribly in-demand skills. > office is a tool, which, used correctly, can give a tremendous boost to productivity This is employer talk. It's unclear to me why a worker should care about their productivity more than their paycheque, or their comfort, or their time spent commuting. > It has natural advantage - like physical proximity between people This has just as much potential to hurt productivity because the #1 timewaster at offices is other people.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    > They also don't possess terribly in-demand skills. Such workers shouldn't be calling BS on their leaders on return to offices, they should keep their heads down and do as they told. Regarding your points about needing money, the audience here is blessed to be in such high demand, that they can freely choose projects and leadership they like. We have just one life, why earn money doing something that you don't love?
    - bluefirebrand 5y ago
      > Such workers shouldn't be calling BS on their leaders on return to offices, they should keep their heads down and do as they told. So people shouldn't have any say just because they have lesser in-demand skills? Note that I didn't say these people were useless, they fulfill some role, just one that could easily be done by many others. They might be extremely loyal, productive people who just want to continue working from home for whatever reason but because their skills are less in-demand, they should shut up and do as they're told? Wow dude.