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Employees are returning to the office to sit on zoom calls

Etheryte 5y ago
I've been working remotely most of my career and I wouldn't trade it for the world. However I believe that "just" having a place to do your video calls or whatnot in peace and quiet can be a tremendous value offer for many if not all people. This isn't to say that I think going to the office should be mandatory. Rather, I would hope that one day more companies can start going remote first with a workspace budget where you get to choose. Whether it's choosing to go to the office and your budget going towards the office rent, or paying for a coworking space with the budget, or just getting a better setup at home, raising awareness of the topic will hopefully lead to more flexible approaches in the long run. Right now, finding a company that's good at remote and has it all figured out is still rare.
- wildrhythms 5y ago
  I have enjoyed being able to choose when and why I go to the office (or especially when I don't). I struggle to imagine how forcing employees into an unpaid, stressful commute is paying off... tech profits have soared in the face of work-from-home.
Apocryphon 5y ago
Have any of the pro-RTO folks on HN experienced this phenomenon? There's definitely a contingent here who do not prefer remote work, curious to read what they think of going back into the office only to have to continue to call in order to collaborate with coworkers.
- gernb 5y ago
  I'm not sure it will matter at FAANG. For > 15yrs meetings always had video conferencing for other offices or team members at home etc... So it's not that much different except at home I can turn off my camera if I'm disheveled. I suppose it's also easier to blow off the meeting at home.
- jakeva 5y ago
  I prefer working from the office, even if it’s empty. 99% of my interactions continue to be remote but I like to have somewhere that isn’t my home office to do work. I don’t like being _that_ much of a hermit.
- bob_roberts 5y ago
  I prefer going to the office at least a few days a week, because (a) I like to socialize with other humans, and (b) I want to get out of my "home office", aka corner of the living room. I work with a distributed team, so I definitely don't go in to collaborate. In fact, on days with a lot of meetings, I'm more likely to work from home.
  - seibelj 5y ago
    The needless socialization at the office killed my productivity. I don’t need to be interrupted and I don’t need an hour lunch. I socialize off-hours with real friends and family. Work is for (more effective) working
- bicx 5y ago
  I’ve been going into the office 3 days per week, and often times, it’s just me and the office manager in the office out of our ~200-employee company. We’ve been hiring remote-first for a while, so that maybe the way it is until our lease ends. Like the other commenter, I just like having a place to get work done that isn’t my home. The plus side of an empty office is that I can take Zoom calls at my desk. It does get rather irritating to have to find an empty call room or conference room when others show up.
- xivzgrev 5y ago
  There’s something good about seeing people in person. Even if a 4 person mtg, 2 are on zoom but me and another are in the same room. It’s nice to be in the room with the other person, and talking. I would prefer NOT to go into office, but I don’t think it’s totally pointless. Beyond what I mentioned above, it’s great for 1:1’s. Go for a walk with someone, or have a coffee. My ideal would be to go in when I want, which would probably net out to 1-2x per month.
  - eganist 5y ago
    What's the "something?"
- nwallin 5y ago
  Even before COVID all my collaboration with teammates was done online. (We use Teams now) I'm at the main site for my company; my boss and all my close collaborators are at a satellite location that's not within driving distance; my boss's boss is down the hall from me. For me, the act of leaving the office at the end of the day is an effective "off switch" that I don't have while my work station and my gaming station is the same chair in the same room. And the office is an effective procrastination temptation blocker that I don't have when I'm at home and surrounded by all my toys, dirty dishes in the sink, and dirty cloths in the hamper. WFH is the worst case scenario of "taking work home with you", which really isn't the way I want to live my life. It never had anything to do with collaboration.
  - codebje 5y ago
    I have a laptop exclusively for work and one exclusively not for work, and at the end of the day the work one gets closed and put away until the next working day. Junk like HN serves well enough for endless procrastination in or out of the office. Having my toys near me has been no worse - if anything my personal projects have suffered because they largely got attention during the commute.
  - spideymans 5y ago
    A WeWork-type setup, where coworkers could come in and collaborate on certain days, sounds perfect for your situation.
- deleted 5y ago
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- renewiltord 5y ago
  We’ve been in-office since early August 2021. It’s been great. Since we have two offices, we dial in every day for our daily meeting. The rest of the time we talk in person and sync up after. We’ve found it quite enjoyable so all of us come in every day. We’re in HFT so if an action would leave money on the table, we’d prefer the alternative that grabs the cash. In this case, we started this office because part of the team was remote in SF and expressed an interest in being in one. It costs a lot per year so we didn’t make the decision lightly.
chihuahua 5y ago
https://archive.ph/kfzuG https://archive.ph/kfzuG
- sabujp 5y ago
  thanks
chihuahua 5y ago
This reminds me of the time about 7 years ago when my team (in Redmond, WA) wanted to send me to Beijing for a year. I didn't agree so they sent someone else instead. He spent most of the year living in Beijing and working with a team in Bellevue, WA.
- rootsudo 5y ago
  That isn't so bad per se. It's pretty common at MSFT from experience, sometimes it helps. But if you are connected in the Seattle area/have a mortgage and such it can def see annoying then to leave.
  - chihuahua 5y ago
    I would have found it pretty annoying to travel thousands of miles only to work with a team that is 8 miles from my previous office.
    - rootsudo 5y ago
      I meant it in the non family, adventure in China way and work maybe late evening hours to 1:1 w/ the redmond team. I had something similar happen to me when I was also at msft, I volunteered to go to Manila and Tokyo (since no one else wanted to go) and it was the same exact situation except to interface with same redmond team and barely any with the international office. My lease was expiring, I didn't feel like renewing, I was home searching (wish I just bought something instead, this was 2015, so imagine the prices) and well I spent over 18 months living abroad with more than quarterly tickets home and I was not even mid 20's. I loved it, but I 100% get it. If I had a family and truly deep network of friends and long term connections there, I would've probably said no, but I wanted to travel. Only downside was, it was Japan in Winter when I arrived. :)
  - syrrim 5y ago
    The timezone difference would be murder, I imagine.
    - 5y ago
gmuslera 5y ago
Interference between Zoom calls (being in different or the same one) is the killing factor here. Specially when not everyone is back, or there are more people from outside participating, and that it has become the new normal. One Zoom call in a work room may be ok (if people there is quiet and don't care a lot of the lone participant speaking from time to time while using headphones), but two or more cause trouble, at least without special microphones. And even if in some workplaces are rooms for phone and now Zoom calls, that too many people use now Zoom calls make them insufficient.
- tootie 5y ago
  I was on Zoom or Meet most of the time for years before the pandemic. Teams were geographically spread. Clients, vendors could be anywhere. I've never had an official WFH job but I also haven't had a colocated team since maybe 2010. Ironically enough my current company is very localized but I have barely set foot in the office due to pandemic.
xwdv 5y ago
If just one person for a meeting has to be on zoom because they’re remote, then so does everyone else, even if they’re sitting at the same table.
- ghaff 5y ago
  And for many of us who work with people in different buildings, locations, and even countries all the time that was pretty much the norm pre-pandemic.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  Yes, and that's why hybrid doesn't make much sense - even if you have 80% in office and 20% remote, then you have to have 100% of the processes/costs/downsides of remote work (because almost everyone needs to work as if you were remotely), but you get only 20% of the benefits of remote work.
  - slavapestov 5y ago
    Isn't it pretty standard to have video conferencing equipment in conference rooms or are there actually companies where people literally sit in a meeting room and dial in with Zoom from their laptops? Sounds pretty silly, and easy to fix with minimal cost.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Or just their desks. It’s a terrible experience to have the people in the conference room using a room camera and the remotes at least for an interactive discussion. It can make some sense if it’s basically an internal meeting but one person say couldn’t travel or missed a flight. But everyone on their own laptop if anyone is was a practice many teams followed pre-pandemic.
    - idunno246 5y ago
      my company turned off all our conference room video conference hardware to force people to dial in individually. the argument being that the remote people have less representation if theyre a small box on a screen vs everyone in the room
deleted 5y ago
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zebraflask 5y ago
Why is this not surprising? I have to wonder how long this kind of thing will last in these types of org structures before there's a collective realization that coordinating groups always has a challenging element to it, even in person in a single office location. With distributed groups, even more "overhead," which Zoom / video calls, I think, have been proven over the last 2+ years to ameliorate to some extent. These kinds of stories come across as almost validating the critique I've seen going around on various discussion forums - that critique would be that the return to office push when the job doesn't inherently require it is more an artifact of an organizational failure to adapt and/or an attempt to put expensive office spaces to some kind of readily visible use, rather than rational or productive management planning.
geodel 5y ago
As a mid level computer programer working under policy of work from office at least few days even at peak of covid I see that company is happy when employees are more available remotely for work issues after hours. But when it comes to normal work hours remotely there is lot of hedging mainly because with so many leaving they do not want anger by explicit calls on this. So they like to save all the money by utilizing benefits of online resources. Never flying for mid level employees for any face to face meeting, get togethers etc. No tech conferences, no in-person training and so on. At the same time office is best way to collaborate with team distributed over 4 cities. Doing 5 webex sessions in a day apparently require office to do quality work. Afaik many people who either see best intention or that management is listening their remote work demands are deluding themselves. Management are simply waiting to get great employee churn over so they can announce everyone get back to office if they want to keep their jobs.
JohnBooty 5y ago
I recently spent a week in the office with my team. First time I'd had office time with any team since mid-2018. It was really, really, really nice. I've been a diehard work-from-home guy for ages. Why spend perhaps 10+ hours per week commuting? It's a productivity and environmental nightmare. But... sometimes? Yeah. It's nice to be in the room with other smart people, solving hard problems. I didn't realize I missed it until I experienced it again. For the first time in years. I think it also helps team cohesion. We're human beings, not robots. I think my ideal schedule would be "3 days at home, 2 in the office" per week or maybe "one week in the office, two weeks at home." edit: I'm baffled by the polarized and inflammatory replies to this post. I was just relating a personal experience. I don't have opinions on how others should work. You want to be 100% fully remote forever? Cool. I don't think you're wrong. I'll continue to be remote a majority of the time, myself.
- anothernewdude 5y ago
  Some of us have moved to places that aren't a reasonable commute to an office. It's much nicer not having to deal with big city traffic for anything.
  - JohnBooty 5y ago
    Yeah, I hate big cities, generally. Do you still spend (or, would you like to spend) any time with your teammates? Like several times per year? Or 100% remote?
  - GoodJokes 5y ago
- fartcannon 5y ago
  I did the same and it was as unbelievably worthless as I recalled from before the pandemic. You know what really stands out in the office? How sad it all is. The frowns on the subway, the fake smiles in the office, the pretending, the posturing. Bleh. I'm resigning.
  - 5y ago
Tagbert 5y ago
“My team” are in London, Chicago, Dallas, Cochin, and Bangalore and I’m in Seattle. Commuting to the office just makes it harder to get in early enough for the morning Zoom calls.
- joshz404 5y ago
  Same, well different locations, but same.
giantg2 5y ago
"Employees Are Returning to the Office, Just to Sit on Zoom Calls" Yep my team is split between 2 sites and works with teams in various other sites. We may have some meeting rooms set up, but we will still be using video calls predominantly.
- postalrat 5y ago
  Maybe it's time to create new teams.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Haha you would think. These actually are the new teams. I've been in my current position for two years. During that time: I've had 4 managers. The team structure has changed majorly twice (lost about 1/3 of the team because they got reorg'd to a different team/project, then lost 1/2 to posting or leaving the company). We also had app ownership change majorly 3 times. They're having such a hard time retaining and finding people that they're having to combine teams with 50% losses to make one whole team, start a new office in a new region in the hopes of using a new labor market, start up an offshore team for owning mature products (prod support), and they're finally investigating full/permenant remote jobs to see if they can get more people that way.
janesvilleseo 5y ago
There is no one size fits all. I’m a believer that office time should be optional. If I was an employer I want to get the most from my people. I want to empower them with the tools they need to get the best work done they can. If that is them working at home. Fine. If it’s having a dedicated space (office) that I pay for. Fine. They are adults and can figure out what works best for them. Why would I as an employer know how best all of my employees can work best.
- vanviegen 5y ago
  Individuals may be able to make good decisions for themselves (though, reading this thread, I believe some WFH advocates may just be doing what's convenient, not what makes them happier in the long term), managers need to weigh what's best for the team or the company as a whole. The outcome might be the same, but not necessarily.
thrower123 5y ago
This is what I did for years before March 2020. Maybe I'll go in once in a while to get out of the house, but maintaining two development workstations is a drag. Unless there's an office pizza party or a real scheduled brainstorming session, it's not worth physically being there.
freyr 5y ago
This is the most frustrating part of being forced back to the Bay Area. Even before the pandemic, we always had distributed meetings, with people calling in from various buildings, conference rooms, phone booths, etc. So nothing changes between last month and this month, except that managers get peace-of-mind knowing I’m calling in from somewhere on the premises, and I’m back living in a place where I can’t afford a house. (I did have previous jobs where we worked on hard technical problems, and spending face-to-face time with a couple colleagues hashing out solutions at a whiteboard was invaluable. But that is not my FAANG job, where the whiteboards are rarely used for anything other than interview questions.)
- spideymans 5y ago
  >I did have previous jobs where we worked on hard technical problems, and spending face-to-face time with a couple colleagues hashing out solutions at a whiteboard was invaluable. But that is not my FAANG job, where the whiteboards are rarely used for anything other than interview questions I hope that I get to work on some actually hard problems at some point in my career. Sounds fun :)
  - WWLink 5y ago
    Grass can be greener on the other side. Usually hard problems are expensive to solve, and the business end wants nigh endless amounts of justification and planning for those solutions lol. You think you'll be designing cool architecture (and you will!) but you'll also spend a lot of your time making powerpoints and sitting in meetings to "touch base" and "tag up" and whatever lol.
    - lozenge 5y ago
      It's odd isn't it? Git went from an idea to being benchmarked in about a month. But tell anybody at work you can rewrite something to fix a fundamental design decision causing issues and they will usually say that will be impossible, take forever etc. While they assign you much longer lengths of time just working around something that was poorly designed.
- 5y ago
remram 5y ago
Often, we are made to come and sit on Zoom calls with masks on.
- alexanderchr 5y ago
  Why?
  - NKosmatos 5y ago
    Because in some countries it’s mandatory to wear masks in offices (indoor environments with lots of people), so they force people to come in, sit with their masks for 8 hours, not allow physical meetings (or going to other desks), forcing you to eat at your desk just so that you can do Teams/Zoom/WebEx meetings :-) Insane, I know!!!
- bigDinosaur 5y ago
  That doesn't sound fun. Find a new job? I can tolerate having to come into an office if that's part of the job - but it's either safe enough to do so without masks & zoom or it is not, and should still be remote.
- akhmatova 5y ago
  This is insane of course. Hope your next job goes much better for you.
exbbg 5y ago
paxys 5y ago
This is exactly the case for my company. Since the pandemic started the majority of our engineering hiring has been remote, because why pay Bay Area salaries when you have perfectly great developers willing to work out of Toronto, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Portland or really anywhere else in the same-ish timezones. Now that our HQ has fully opened up and local employees are being asked to come back, how do you deal with the dynamic of up to 50% of your team not being in the same building? What would have been a 1:1 over coffee or a corridor huddle now needs a meeting room reservation, and there aren't nearly enough of them to go around. We are in a place where we get very few of the advantages of in-person collaboration while having to bear all the drawbacks.
- ryanSrich 5y ago
  > What would have been a 1:1 over coffee or a corridor huddle now needs a meeting room reservation, and there aren't nearly enough of them to go around. Genuinely curious because I’ve yet to encounter this myself - but why would you need a meeting for something like this? Can you not just ask your colleague via slack, teams, etc? Or better yet, can either of you write up a proposal and put out a RFC on it? That way there’s no burden of having a meeting just to discuss something? Sorry if that comes off rude. I’m just genuinely curious what you’d need to meet about.
  - onion2k 5y ago
    Slack is slower. You can cover far more in a face to face meeting (or a video call) in less time. This is easily provable too. Have a 30 minute call with someone, and then have a 30 minute Slack chat with them. It becomes very clear that Slack doesn't work as well for that sort of comms. Slack is brilliant for asynchronous stuff, or very short chats, but it doesn't work for longer things.
    - ryanSrich 5y ago
      Slack was just an example though. It could be a google doc. It could be anything written down. In what instance is talking about something better (I guess we’d have to define better but just assume better = retention) than reading about something? If I’m reading about it I can always read it again. In a meeting I’m going to forget 90% of it the moment I walk out the door (or end the zoom meeting).
irrational 5y ago
Same. Half the people we hired during work from home are remote (that was never allowed before). Now all meetings are on zoom and all conversations are on slack. Being in an office is beyond pointless. It wastes time, gas, etc. the main take away from the past 2 years is working in an office is beyond stupid (at least for certain careers like developers). I drive to work, communicate with no one except on the computer, then drive home. So so so stupid.
- simongray 5y ago
  > I drive to work, communicate with no one except on the computer, then drive home. You don't talk to people aside from at the meetings?
  - ebrewste 5y ago
    Not the person you were asking, but I had next to no conversations about work aside from video calls, even before Covid. Between national and international distributed teams (and people working weird hours to avoid sf bay commute hours), and packed meeting schedules, it basically didn’t happen. It’s making me sad to write this and it’s making me think.
    - _y5hn 5y ago
      Have children learn by Zoom from kindergarten, so they adjust early. /s
  - mike_d 5y ago
    Do people have hallway conversations? Sure. Are they conversations that a company would consider help further the bottom line? Not at all.
    - remus 5y ago
      > Are they conversations that a company would consider help further the bottom line? Not at all. I realise this depends on the company and the person, but to me these kinds of conversations are essential. I find all the interesting stuff actually happens in these incidental conversations! I guess the real takeaway here is that to be an effective company you need to have an environment where your employees can work well, but different styles work better for different people so you end up having to compromise.
darinf 5y ago
I love having lunch with co-workers. It’s a great way to connect. Even though at my office only about 30% of folks are back, it’s roughly the same group each day. So I’m happy being back even if all meetings involve Zoom. At least getting a conference room for all the zoom calls is not too hard :)
- chii 5y ago
  > I love having lunch with co-workers. It’s a great way to connect. it is, but some people who prefer the remote world do so because they don't need nor want to socialize with their coworkers.
  - spc476 5y ago
    I love that I get to work from home [1], yet I still get together with some coworkers for lunch once a week. Yes, we don't work for the same department, but we used to regularly go out for lunch before the pandemic. It also doesn't hurt that we all live closer to each other than we do the office. [1] I "work" from the Ft. Lauderdale, Florida office. My manager is in Tampla, Florida, and my two other team members are in Reston, Virginia and Seattle, Washington [2]. There's a push from upper management to get people back in the office in May, but there's no way I'm going in. No point to it. [2] Due to our company being bought out by a larger company, and the rest of my team basically retiring at the end of 2020.
- onion2k 5y ago
  Even though at my office only about 30% of folks are back, it’s roughly the same group each day. This an area where companies will see problems with reopening offices - the people who aren't there (eg remote hires who work hundreds of miles away, people who choose not to return, people who still need to isolate, etc) will feel far less included, will see that their prospects at the company are worse, and ultimately are much more likely to leave because the social aspect of Slack will die off. Maintaining inclusion in a partially remote company is incredibly hard.
  - null_shift 5y ago
proc0 5y ago
I was thinking returning to the office is sort of a 'prisoner's dilemma'. Everyone has to make the same choice for it to be effective, otherwise the office experience is diminished and working from home is better at that point, since you'll be in remote meetings anyway. I still think it's a matter of control that the office is preferred. There's absolutely no reason why software problems can't be solved remotely, especially when half of the industry is outsourced to China or India.
- ryanSrich 5y ago
  The reason to have anyone in an office is because it makes managers and executives feel better. It’s really that simple. No one who has ever worked remotely themselves could possibly believe that employees are more productive in an office. I think the delusion most people tell themselves about in person being better for spontaneous conversations, and better productivity comes down to just wanting human interaction. Which is totally normal. But all of the talk about how being in person is better is just a cope. Working from home is better in every instance where it’s possible.
  - jdrc 5y ago
    ok. how do we make managers and execs feel better even when everyoen is working remotely then? lots of opportunity for dashboard-sellers there
  - vanviegen 5y ago
    > Working from home is better in every instance where it’s possible. So you're saying that people who are just more productive and happier working from the office do not exist? I sure feel like I exist..
    - ryanSrich 5y ago
      I’m saying if you’re more productive in an environment where you’re forced to commute into work, then you don’t have the proper tools to be more productive remotely. This is very common. It’s the lack of a remote working strategy on the part of your company. Of course you won’t have a successful time working from home if you just take your existing in-office work lifestyle and copy-paste it on to working remotely. If your location is causing you to be less productive, then change your location. Go to a coffee shop, or a co-working space. Go to the park. Go anywhere you want.
mulcahey 5y ago
My only 2c is that the WFH vs office conversation often seems to pretend that there aren't a ton of businesses with desk workers where many of their colleagues can't feasibly work from home -- manufacturing for example. It's not even only the people physically building the products who obviously have to be there, but even mechanical engineers have a reason to. My job is to build software to make the lives of the people building our product better. I'd prefer myself and my team to be there with them frequently, instead of considering ourselves to be part of some class of special people that have the luxury of working at home most of the time. That said, I do appreciate the flexibility of being able to work from home for house maintenance, deliveries, family stuff, etc. Beyond all that, going into the office (or factory really) is energizing. Too much time at home and I get reminded of CGP Grey's "spaceship you" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAhsXyO3Ck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAhsXyO3Ck
- chii 5y ago
  > I'd prefer myself and my team to be there with them frequently, instead of considering ourselves to be part of some class of special people that have the luxury of working at home most of the time. there's a balance. I would consider being on site as a special case; do it when needed. This means the workplace needs to plan it out, and know ahead of time when it is going to happen.
black_13 5y ago
dSebastien 5y ago
Same here. Everyone was "happy" and "proud" about our remote performance and now they force us back to the office 50% of the time. Many people seem to see it as a great leap forward, but I don't. One of the company value is supposed to be "independent"... This week I was supposed to go, not see my kids in the morning, waste 2 hours in the train, expose myself to Covid, just to sit alone in an office and discuss through Teams because the rest of the team was not even there. What the actual f**. I just couldn't go. I wrote about this and my feeling is still the same: https://medium.com/management-matters/going-back-to-work-no-thank-you-5429d60acd12 https://medium.com/management-matters/going-back-to-work-no-...
- chews 5y ago
  - A_non_e-moose 5y ago
    Set terms yes, bu the terms are very unreasonable, impractical and paradoxal, they imply unnecessary suffering that actually degrades work performance, the very thing good managers want to keep up. Sacrificing performance for control is the signature of bad management and a bad employer.
  - ulfw 5y ago
    You know your employers benefits of you too, right? That's why they employ you. They don't give you charity or hire you of the good of their heart. They hire you because you bring them more value than you cost. So I don't get this subservient attitude you have to employment. This should really be a two way street.
  - PaywallBuster 5y ago
    a relationship between 2 groups of people can change depending on the circumstances and feedback given
  - andrelaszlo 5y ago
    Are you implying that renegotiating terms isn't an available option, and the only way to deal with an unpreferable situation as an employee is to switch jobs? I am trying to make sense of your comment but I don't really get this attitude either :)
mvkel 5y ago
This is the fundamental problem with hybrid. It's the worst of both worlds, as it forces a regression to the most-accessible, which will always be video calls. I think a lot of the forced-hybrid environments are a result of companies waiting for their commercial leases to die.
mvkel 5y ago
This is the fundamental problem with hybrid. It's the worst of both worlds, as it forces a regression to the most-accessible, which will always be video calls. I think a lot of the forced-hybrid environments are a result of companies waiting for their commercial leases to die. That said, I remember sitting on a lot of conference calls in the office pre-pandemmy, so... isn't video better?
ryanSrich 5y ago
As someone who has worked on startups, side gigs, and only around 6 months at a “real” company. I’m always blown away at how many meetings there are in corporate America. What are you even meeting about? Why aren’t you doing hands on keyboard work? Why does a decision need to be made in a room, with everyone pretending to listen? Why are you presenting something to me when I’ll comprehend it far better if I read it, gather my thoughts, and then send you my questions? And don’t get it twisted. I’ve been in these types of meetings. Client meetings, project meetings, etc. It’s always been as an outsider, but they’re all the same. Small talk, people arrive, someone always has to have everyone introduce themselves, then there’s a quasi-presentation/conversation, and eventually everyone leaves. I can’t think of a less efficient means of communicating an idea than that.
- chillfox 5y ago
  Don’t forget the pre meeting meeting to discuss the upcoming meeting and the post meeting meeting to review the meeting.
  - SteadBytes 5y ago
    Ah yes, the “meeting sandwich”. Everyone’s favourite way to spend an entire afternoon…
  - civilized 5y ago
    He's not joking, folks.
- bigpeopleareold 5y ago
  I don't think meetings are really there for the informational value for a lot of people, but to give face time as a show of strength. But, I do exactly what you do - I prefer something well-written and it gives me time to think about it. As someone talking to a lot of people within the company, I sometimes get asked to go on a client call. I almost always say no. It's not my job to talk to clients (and that means being ready to look good for them) and saying whatever needs to be said in a call doesn't do much that an email can't do. While being there as an "expert" to the client is probably something that customer-facing people want, I have nothing to gain from it. Useful meetings engage people : a fresh new idea to have everyone go research more, a way to gather the team to focus on tough questions, or to explain a point better than chat messages.
ttGpN5Nde3pK 5y ago
I don't understand why we continue to legislate all these rules around cars, but yet companies that are perfectly capable of employing a remote workforce are allowed to mandate that people drive to the office to sit on a computer. I guess it's more fun banning shit than it is building a world where we don't _need_ to drive _ANY_ car to an office. Or, a world where I can simply get on a trolley/etc to go where I need to.
jdrc 5y ago
we need to target specifically the lack of social element in remote work, not remote work itself. remote work has to change cities and create an ecosystem around it, like the office did. We haven't even started, are there startups working on it?
mikelward 5y ago
I want to come into the office. It's nice to get to know coworkers better. And I like the commute and the routine. But it sucks. There aren't enough meeting rooms for all the meetings. When I do get a meeting room, I have to wait for the last meeting to wrap up. Or I find out that the camera doesn't work. Or the lighting is off. And it's harder to tell who's talking. And messages in the meeting are truncated on the meeting room screen, so there's kinda a private side channel where only remote workers can participate effectively. Our office is open plan, so I can hear people on other teams talking and I can't focus as well. Sometimes the badge readers break and aren't fixed until the next day. Sometimes there are evacuations. The mail room is only open 11am-1pm, so if I have lots of meetings I have to wait another 24 hours to get my important parcel. If they want me to come into the office, they really should make it more productive than working from home.
snakey 5y ago
Forgive me for this digression and for sounding selfish, but as a junior, I’ve really struggled for the last 2+ years to fully adapt to remote / hybrid working. I’m wondering if anyone has advice on how I can continue to grow and become a top-class engineer within a remote environment? Based on my experience so far, it’s very difficult to both onboard and mentor a junior from a remote setting. It’s not impossible, however, a lot of employers / teams still have not setup effective means for including and training the less experienced members of the team. I realise that much of this learning is of my own responsibility but I really, really miss spending time with my team and learning from those more experienced than I. I feel as though I have stagnated an awful lot over the last two years and there’s only so far self-learning can take you when software engineering is such a collaborative process.
- orzig 5y ago
  No need to apologize! It’s reasonable to have needs, and these make total sense. I’ve had success doing very long screen sharing while someone works normally. Let them forget you are there, in some ways it’s a lighter ask than breathing over their shoulder. Take notes on things which don’t make sense and batch your questions for when they want to take a break from coding (maybe on the phone, they can clean dishes out whatever). If no teammate is willing to do that, you might be seeing cultural problems unrelated to remote - maybe explore other teams at the company.
- jen20 5y ago
  > how I can continue to grow and become a top-class engineer within a remote environment? Yes, three things: - Learn to write detailed yet succinct prose, and practice this often. - Learn to unblock yourself, so that asynchronous communication does not become a barrier. Be prepared to dig in at least 1-2 layers of abstraction below where you typically work and spend lots of time researching unfamiliar topics. - Decide whether you want to be a generalist or a specialist. There is room for both in the industry. If you want to be a generalist, make sure you are getting n years of experience and not one year of experience n times. These are largely the same actions to take to be a top class engineer in an office too though.
  - 5y ago
someweirdperson 5y ago
It is for the survival of managers at the lowest level, especially in locations with high wages. Top management considers all workers to be equally capable and replaceable. Management at the lower levels requires people to manage at their location (direct superior always at the same location). With full remote work there is no reason to employ people in locations with non-minimal wages. If there is no employees in a location there is no manager managing them either. It is not managers belief to be able to more easily watch what their employees are doing in a real office. It is just a matter of securing their own job.
- NKosmatos 5y ago
  Exactly this, thank you. Lower/middle management exists only to manage people. Most managers aren’t that good in managing remote workers and not having any “real” work to show to their superiors they really need people back in offices so as to show that they’re working themselves. We’re living in rapidly changing times and the working landscape is changing and will change even more.
Blackstone4 5y ago
Yes this is what I do with my team spread across multiple offices....outside of tech it appears to be a lot harder to push for WFH/remote... I am in financial services.
zxcvbn4038 5y ago
Even pre-pandemic the majority of the people I work with were overseas - before we had Zoom or Hangouts I was on conference calls. The only compelling reason to go into the office was that it was closer to my kid’s school so less commute time to drop him off/pick him up each day. But now he is remote also so it’s no longer an benefit. I’ve only been to the office once in the past three years - to rescue my plants and clean out my desk. Cheers to the facilities person that went around watering all the plants. Has to be awesome having a forty story skyrise to yourself. (I think there is a security guard and a HVAC engineer that still go on site also - I believe the building has to still be cooled to control mold and keep the pumps and values involved from freezing up).
throwaway5371 5y ago
Half my friends say they work less than 1 hour a day remote. Literally attend standup, complain they are somewhat blocked or investigating something and then just work on personal projects or just game. The rest are doing chores because their spouses are not considering them working because they are "home". All kinds of chores from pick up the kids to take the dog to the vet. Whoever says overall productivity increases, is probably talking about very disciplined individuals.
- vladvasiliu 5y ago
  That may be the case, but if you're prone to dicking around and generally not working, there are plenty of ways to not work while your butt is sitting on the company's chair. If I had a dollar for every person I've seen randomly browsing Facebook or similar at the office, I wouldn't need to work anymore. Now I understand that not all people are the same towards work and motivation, and I particularly sympathize with the spouse thing. So I think the broader issue here is management attempting to impose a single One True Way for everybody, which doesn't seem to exist. I also think that the spouse thing may be somewhat a question of habit. As in, after a while, the spouse may end up appreciating that your being at home doesn't mean you're free to do whatever. But you're still able to go start laundry when taking a five-minute break, which is still extremely valuable and couldn't be done from the office.
  - throwaway5371 5y ago
    of course you can waste time in the office as well, from people joining every meeting and asking "but does it scale" to people playing table tennis, but in general its harder to do than remote
    - asdff 5y ago
      It's pretty easy for people to come into work and get nothing done. Roll in at 9:30 and complain about traffic. Spend until 10 easy getting settled in for the day: making coffee, slowly sifting email, recollecting the weekend with others, bathroom break, etc. Now its the first meeting, totally irrelevant to anything you do so you zone out. Suddenly its lunch time. Another hour goes by. It's 1pm now. Check email. Another meeting. Check instagram. 3:30pm. Let me fire off that one email. Wow look, 4:35pm, better leave now to beat traffic. I've seen people make respectable careers out of this.
5350-uiop-1130 5y ago
Of course us plebs don't have any autonomy and the masters needs to remind us of that. There is only one reason to have people in the office, that is so that you can observe them (and own their soul). If certain people have a need for face to face interaction, that is an exception not the rule.
globular-toast 5y ago
I had a job before covid that involved sitting at a desk and being on Skype calls all day. Most people were in the same building but the buildings were large and meeting rooms were scarce so they were rarely used. This isn't anything new, unfortunately. Doesn't make it any less stupid, though.
DarthNebo 5y ago
This was literally what used to happen pre-pandemic as well with international teams. The pandemic just made people realize how weird it was for work to be associated with a place.
snarfy 5y ago
I work at a FAANG. I know many people that immigrated across the world to work at a FAANG. Who am I to complain about driving across town? So I go into the office. I may not like it but reality is that promotions come easier to those that go in. So I burn 2 hours a day and $300/mo in gas driving in.
- isuckatcoding 5y ago
  I’d rather keep those two hours for something enjoyable in my life
GoodJokes 5y ago
squintychino 5y ago
While we as employees have more leverage to work remotely than we've ever had because of the pandemic, companies still have power to dictate work location and they know it. It would not surprise me if down the road we get some kind of leak or revelation saying that top management of many large corporations colluded to force everyone back into the office. Of course that's just speculation at this point, but it really does feel like there's no good reason to force people back other than justifying their office space expense and a reason for middle management to exist. The pandemic has let the cat out of the bag in terms of working remotely and being productive. But some c-level executives are stuck in the past and want to return to it.
barrenko 5y ago
We are abstracting the coworkers away.

I've been working remotely most of my career and I wouldn't trade it for the world. However I believe that "just" having a place to do your video calls or whatnot in peace and quiet can be a tremendous value offer for many if not all people. This isn't to say that I think going to the office should be mandatory. Rather, I would hope that one day more companies can start going remote first with a workspace budget where you get to choose. Whether it's choosing to go to the office and your budget going towards the office rent, or paying for a coworking space with the budget, or just getting a better setup at home, raising awareness of the topic will hopefully lead to more flexible approaches in the long run. Right now, finding a company that's good at remote and has it all figured out is still rare.

wildrhythms 5y ago
I have enjoyed being able to choose when and why I go to the office (or especially when I don't). I struggle to imagine how forcing employees into an unpaid, stressful commute is paying off... tech profits have soared in the face of work-from-home.

Apocryphon 5y ago

Have any of the pro-RTO folks on HN experienced this phenomenon? There's definitely a contingent here who do not prefer remote work, curious to read what they think of going back into the office only to have to continue to call in order to collaborate with coworkers.

gernb 5y ago
I'm not sure it will matter at FAANG. For > 15yrs meetings always had video conferencing for other offices or team members at home etc... So it's not that much different except at home I can turn off my camera if I'm disheveled. I suppose it's also easier to blow off the meeting at home.
jakeva 5y ago
I prefer working from the office, even if it’s empty. 99% of my interactions continue to be remote but I like to have somewhere that isn’t my home office to do work. I don’t like being _that_ much of a hermit.
bob_roberts 5y ago
I prefer going to the office at least a few days a week, because (a) I like to socialize with other humans, and (b) I want to get out of my "home office", aka corner of the living room. I work with a distributed team, so I definitely don't go in to collaborate. In fact, on days with a lot of meetings, I'm more likely to work from home.
- seibelj 5y ago
  The needless socialization at the office killed my productivity. I don’t need to be interrupted and I don’t need an hour lunch. I socialize off-hours with real friends and family. Work is for (more effective) working
bicx 5y ago
I’ve been going into the office 3 days per week, and often times, it’s just me and the office manager in the office out of our ~200-employee company. We’ve been hiring remote-first for a while, so that maybe the way it is until our lease ends. Like the other commenter, I just like having a place to get work done that isn’t my home. The plus side of an empty office is that I can take Zoom calls at my desk. It does get rather irritating to have to find an empty call room or conference room when others show up.
xivzgrev 5y ago
There’s something good about seeing people in person. Even if a 4 person mtg, 2 are on zoom but me and another are in the same room. It’s nice to be in the room with the other person, and talking. I would prefer NOT to go into office, but I don’t think it’s totally pointless. Beyond what I mentioned above, it’s great for 1:1’s. Go for a walk with someone, or have a coffee. My ideal would be to go in when I want, which would probably net out to 1-2x per month.
- eganist 5y ago
  What's the "something?"
nwallin 5y ago
Even before COVID all my collaboration with teammates was done online. (We use Teams now) I'm at the main site for my company; my boss and all my close collaborators are at a satellite location that's not within driving distance; my boss's boss is down the hall from me. For me, the act of leaving the office at the end of the day is an effective "off switch" that I don't have while my work station and my gaming station is the same chair in the same room. And the office is an effective procrastination temptation blocker that I don't have when I'm at home and surrounded by all my toys, dirty dishes in the sink, and dirty cloths in the hamper. WFH is the worst case scenario of "taking work home with you", which really isn't the way I want to live my life. It never had anything to do with collaboration.
- codebje 5y ago
  I have a laptop exclusively for work and one exclusively not for work, and at the end of the day the work one gets closed and put away until the next working day. Junk like HN serves well enough for endless procrastination in or out of the office. Having my toys near me has been no worse - if anything my personal projects have suffered because they largely got attention during the commute.
- spideymans 5y ago
  A WeWork-type setup, where coworkers could come in and collaborate on certain days, sounds perfect for your situation.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
renewiltord 5y ago
We’ve been in-office since early August 2021. It’s been great. Since we have two offices, we dial in every day for our daily meeting. The rest of the time we talk in person and sync up after. We’ve found it quite enjoyable so all of us come in every day. We’re in HFT so if an action would leave money on the table, we’d prefer the alternative that grabs the cash. In this case, we started this office because part of the team was remote in SF and expressed an interest in being in one. It costs a lot per year so we didn’t make the decision lightly.

chihuahua 5y ago

https://archive.ph/kfzuG https://archive.ph/kfzuG

sabujp 5y ago
thanks

chihuahua 5y ago

This reminds me of the time about 7 years ago when my team (in Redmond, WA) wanted to send me to Beijing for a year. I didn't agree so they sent someone else instead. He spent most of the year living in Beijing and working with a team in Bellevue, WA.

rootsudo 5y ago
That isn't so bad per se. It's pretty common at MSFT from experience, sometimes it helps. But if you are connected in the Seattle area/have a mortgage and such it can def see annoying then to leave.
- chihuahua 5y ago
  I would have found it pretty annoying to travel thousands of miles only to work with a team that is 8 miles from my previous office.
  - rootsudo 5y ago
    I meant it in the non family, adventure in China way and work maybe late evening hours to 1:1 w/ the redmond team. I had something similar happen to me when I was also at msft, I volunteered to go to Manila and Tokyo (since no one else wanted to go) and it was the same exact situation except to interface with same redmond team and barely any with the international office. My lease was expiring, I didn't feel like renewing, I was home searching (wish I just bought something instead, this was 2015, so imagine the prices) and well I spent over 18 months living abroad with more than quarterly tickets home and I was not even mid 20's. I loved it, but I 100% get it. If I had a family and truly deep network of friends and long term connections there, I would've probably said no, but I wanted to travel. Only downside was, it was Japan in Winter when I arrived. :)
- syrrim 5y ago
  The timezone difference would be murder, I imagine.
  - 5y ago

gmuslera 5y ago

Interference between Zoom calls (being in different or the same one) is the killing factor here. Specially when not everyone is back, or there are more people from outside participating, and that it has become the new normal. One Zoom call in a work room may be ok (if people there is quiet and don't care a lot of the lone participant speaking from time to time while using headphones), but two or more cause trouble, at least without special microphones. And even if in some workplaces are rooms for phone and now Zoom calls, that too many people use now Zoom calls make them insufficient.

tootie 5y ago
I was on Zoom or Meet most of the time for years before the pandemic. Teams were geographically spread. Clients, vendors could be anywhere. I've never had an official WFH job but I also haven't had a colocated team since maybe 2010. Ironically enough my current company is very localized but I have barely set foot in the office due to pandemic.

xwdv 5y ago

If just one person for a meeting has to be on zoom because they’re remote, then so does everyone else, even if they’re sitting at the same table.

ghaff 5y ago
And for many of us who work with people in different buildings, locations, and even countries all the time that was pretty much the norm pre-pandemic.
PeterisP 5y ago
Yes, and that's why hybrid doesn't make much sense - even if you have 80% in office and 20% remote, then you have to have 100% of the processes/costs/downsides of remote work (because almost everyone needs to work as if you were remotely), but you get only 20% of the benefits of remote work.
- slavapestov 5y ago
  Isn't it pretty standard to have video conferencing equipment in conference rooms or are there actually companies where people literally sit in a meeting room and dial in with Zoom from their laptops? Sounds pretty silly, and easy to fix with minimal cost.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Or just their desks. It’s a terrible experience to have the people in the conference room using a room camera and the remotes at least for an interactive discussion. It can make some sense if it’s basically an internal meeting but one person say couldn’t travel or missed a flight. But everyone on their own laptop if anyone is was a practice many teams followed pre-pandemic.
  - idunno246 5y ago
    my company turned off all our conference room video conference hardware to force people to dial in individually. the argument being that the remote people have less representation if theyre a small box on a screen vs everyone in the room

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

zebraflask 5y ago

Why is this not surprising? I have to wonder how long this kind of thing will last in these types of org structures before there's a collective realization that coordinating groups always has a challenging element to it, even in person in a single office location. With distributed groups, even more "overhead," which Zoom / video calls, I think, have been proven over the last 2+ years to ameliorate to some extent. These kinds of stories come across as almost validating the critique I've seen going around on various discussion forums - that critique would be that the return to office push when the job doesn't inherently require it is more an artifact of an organizational failure to adapt and/or an attempt to put expensive office spaces to some kind of readily visible use, rather than rational or productive management planning.

geodel 5y ago

As a mid level computer programer working under policy of work from office at least few days even at peak of covid I see that company is happy when employees are more available remotely for work issues after hours. But when it comes to normal work hours remotely there is lot of hedging mainly because with so many leaving they do not want anger by explicit calls on this. So they like to save all the money by utilizing benefits of online resources. Never flying for mid level employees for any face to face meeting, get togethers etc. No tech conferences, no in-person training and so on. At the same time office is best way to collaborate with team distributed over 4 cities. Doing 5 webex sessions in a day apparently require office to do quality work. Afaik many people who either see best intention or that management is listening their remote work demands are deluding themselves. Management are simply waiting to get great employee churn over so they can announce everyone get back to office if they want to keep their jobs.

JohnBooty 5y ago

I recently spent a week in the office with my team. First time I'd had office time with any team since mid-2018. It was really, really, really nice. I've been a diehard work-from-home guy for ages. Why spend perhaps 10+ hours per week commuting? It's a productivity and environmental nightmare. But... sometimes? Yeah. It's nice to be in the room with other smart people, solving hard problems. I didn't realize I missed it until I experienced it again. For the first time in years. I think it also helps team cohesion. We're human beings, not robots. I think my ideal schedule would be "3 days at home, 2 in the office" per week or maybe "one week in the office, two weeks at home." edit: I'm baffled by the polarized and inflammatory replies to this post. I was just relating a personal experience. I don't have opinions on how others should work. You want to be 100% fully remote forever? Cool. I don't think you're wrong. I'll continue to be remote a majority of the time, myself.

anothernewdude 5y ago
Some of us have moved to places that aren't a reasonable commute to an office. It's much nicer not having to deal with big city traffic for anything.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  Yeah, I hate big cities, generally. Do you still spend (or, would you like to spend) any time with your teammates? Like several times per year? Or 100% remote?
- GoodJokes 5y ago
fartcannon 5y ago
I did the same and it was as unbelievably worthless as I recalled from before the pandemic. You know what really stands out in the office? How sad it all is. The frowns on the subway, the fake smiles in the office, the pretending, the posturing. Bleh. I'm resigning.
- 5y ago

Tagbert 5y ago

“My team” are in London, Chicago, Dallas, Cochin, and Bangalore and I’m in Seattle. Commuting to the office just makes it harder to get in early enough for the morning Zoom calls.

joshz404 5y ago
Same, well different locations, but same.

giantg2 5y ago

"Employees Are Returning to the Office, Just to Sit on Zoom Calls" Yep my team is split between 2 sites and works with teams in various other sites. We may have some meeting rooms set up, but we will still be using video calls predominantly.

postalrat 5y ago
Maybe it's time to create new teams.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Haha you would think. These actually are the new teams. I've been in my current position for two years. During that time: I've had 4 managers. The team structure has changed majorly twice (lost about 1/3 of the team because they got reorg'd to a different team/project, then lost 1/2 to posting or leaving the company). We also had app ownership change majorly 3 times. They're having such a hard time retaining and finding people that they're having to combine teams with 50% losses to make one whole team, start a new office in a new region in the hopes of using a new labor market, start up an offshore team for owning mature products (prod support), and they're finally investigating full/permenant remote jobs to see if they can get more people that way.

janesvilleseo 5y ago

There is no one size fits all. I’m a believer that office time should be optional. If I was an employer I want to get the most from my people. I want to empower them with the tools they need to get the best work done they can. If that is them working at home. Fine. If it’s having a dedicated space (office) that I pay for. Fine. They are adults and can figure out what works best for them. Why would I as an employer know how best all of my employees can work best.

vanviegen 5y ago
Individuals may be able to make good decisions for themselves (though, reading this thread, I believe some WFH advocates may just be doing what's convenient, not what makes them happier in the long term), managers need to weigh what's best for the team or the company as a whole. The outcome might be the same, but not necessarily.

thrower123 5y ago

This is what I did for years before March 2020. Maybe I'll go in once in a while to get out of the house, but maintaining two development workstations is a drag. Unless there's an office pizza party or a real scheduled brainstorming session, it's not worth physically being there.

freyr 5y ago

This is the most frustrating part of being forced back to the Bay Area. Even before the pandemic, we always had distributed meetings, with people calling in from various buildings, conference rooms, phone booths, etc. So nothing changes between last month and this month, except that managers get peace-of-mind knowing I’m calling in from somewhere on the premises, and I’m back living in a place where I can’t afford a house. (I did have previous jobs where we worked on hard technical problems, and spending face-to-face time with a couple colleagues hashing out solutions at a whiteboard was invaluable. But that is not my FAANG job, where the whiteboards are rarely used for anything other than interview questions.)

spideymans 5y ago
>I did have previous jobs where we worked on hard technical problems, and spending face-to-face time with a couple colleagues hashing out solutions at a whiteboard was invaluable. But that is not my FAANG job, where the whiteboards are rarely used for anything other than interview questions I hope that I get to work on some actually hard problems at some point in my career. Sounds fun :)
- WWLink 5y ago
  Grass can be greener on the other side. Usually hard problems are expensive to solve, and the business end wants nigh endless amounts of justification and planning for those solutions lol. You think you'll be designing cool architecture (and you will!) but you'll also spend a lot of your time making powerpoints and sitting in meetings to "touch base" and "tag up" and whatever lol.
  - lozenge 5y ago
    It's odd isn't it? Git went from an idea to being benchmarked in about a month. But tell anybody at work you can rewrite something to fix a fundamental design decision causing issues and they will usually say that will be impossible, take forever etc. While they assign you much longer lengths of time just working around something that was poorly designed.
5y ago

remram 5y ago

Often, we are made to come and sit on Zoom calls with masks on.

alexanderchr 5y ago
Why?
- NKosmatos 5y ago
  Because in some countries it’s mandatory to wear masks in offices (indoor environments with lots of people), so they force people to come in, sit with their masks for 8 hours, not allow physical meetings (or going to other desks), forcing you to eat at your desk just so that you can do Teams/Zoom/WebEx meetings :-) Insane, I know!!!
bigDinosaur 5y ago
That doesn't sound fun. Find a new job? I can tolerate having to come into an office if that's part of the job - but it's either safe enough to do so without masks & zoom or it is not, and should still be remote.
akhmatova 5y ago
This is insane of course. Hope your next job goes much better for you.

exbbg 5y ago

paxys 5y ago

This is exactly the case for my company. Since the pandemic started the majority of our engineering hiring has been remote, because why pay Bay Area salaries when you have perfectly great developers willing to work out of Toronto, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Portland or really anywhere else in the same-ish timezones. Now that our HQ has fully opened up and local employees are being asked to come back, how do you deal with the dynamic of up to 50% of your team not being in the same building? What would have been a 1:1 over coffee or a corridor huddle now needs a meeting room reservation, and there aren't nearly enough of them to go around. We are in a place where we get very few of the advantages of in-person collaboration while having to bear all the drawbacks.

ryanSrich 5y ago
> What would have been a 1:1 over coffee or a corridor huddle now needs a meeting room reservation, and there aren't nearly enough of them to go around. Genuinely curious because I’ve yet to encounter this myself - but why would you need a meeting for something like this? Can you not just ask your colleague via slack, teams, etc? Or better yet, can either of you write up a proposal and put out a RFC on it? That way there’s no burden of having a meeting just to discuss something? Sorry if that comes off rude. I’m just genuinely curious what you’d need to meet about.
- onion2k 5y ago
  Slack is slower. You can cover far more in a face to face meeting (or a video call) in less time. This is easily provable too. Have a 30 minute call with someone, and then have a 30 minute Slack chat with them. It becomes very clear that Slack doesn't work as well for that sort of comms. Slack is brilliant for asynchronous stuff, or very short chats, but it doesn't work for longer things.
  - ryanSrich 5y ago
    Slack was just an example though. It could be a google doc. It could be anything written down. In what instance is talking about something better (I guess we’d have to define better but just assume better = retention) than reading about something? If I’m reading about it I can always read it again. In a meeting I’m going to forget 90% of it the moment I walk out the door (or end the zoom meeting).

irrational 5y ago

Same. Half the people we hired during work from home are remote (that was never allowed before). Now all meetings are on zoom and all conversations are on slack. Being in an office is beyond pointless. It wastes time, gas, etc. the main take away from the past 2 years is working in an office is beyond stupid (at least for certain careers like developers). I drive to work, communicate with no one except on the computer, then drive home. So so so stupid.

simongray 5y ago
> I drive to work, communicate with no one except on the computer, then drive home. You don't talk to people aside from at the meetings?
- ebrewste 5y ago
  Not the person you were asking, but I had next to no conversations about work aside from video calls, even before Covid. Between national and international distributed teams (and people working weird hours to avoid sf bay commute hours), and packed meeting schedules, it basically didn’t happen. It’s making me sad to write this and it’s making me think.
  - _y5hn 5y ago
    Have children learn by Zoom from kindergarten, so they adjust early. /s
- mike_d 5y ago
  Do people have hallway conversations? Sure. Are they conversations that a company would consider help further the bottom line? Not at all.
  - remus 5y ago
    > Are they conversations that a company would consider help further the bottom line? Not at all. I realise this depends on the company and the person, but to me these kinds of conversations are essential. I find all the interesting stuff actually happens in these incidental conversations! I guess the real takeaway here is that to be an effective company you need to have an environment where your employees can work well, but different styles work better for different people so you end up having to compromise.

darinf 5y ago

I love having lunch with co-workers. It’s a great way to connect. Even though at my office only about 30% of folks are back, it’s roughly the same group each day. So I’m happy being back even if all meetings involve Zoom. At least getting a conference room for all the zoom calls is not too hard :)

chii 5y ago
> I love having lunch with co-workers. It’s a great way to connect. it is, but some people who prefer the remote world do so because they don't need nor want to socialize with their coworkers.
- spc476 5y ago
  I love that I get to work from home [1], yet I still get together with some coworkers for lunch once a week. Yes, we don't work for the same department, but we used to regularly go out for lunch before the pandemic. It also doesn't hurt that we all live closer to each other than we do the office. [1] I "work" from the Ft. Lauderdale, Florida office. My manager is in Tampla, Florida, and my two other team members are in Reston, Virginia and Seattle, Washington [2]. There's a push from upper management to get people back in the office in May, but there's no way I'm going in. No point to it. [2] Due to our company being bought out by a larger company, and the rest of my team basically retiring at the end of 2020.
onion2k 5y ago
Even though at my office only about 30% of folks are back, it’s roughly the same group each day. This an area where companies will see problems with reopening offices - the people who aren't there (eg remote hires who work hundreds of miles away, people who choose not to return, people who still need to isolate, etc) will feel far less included, will see that their prospects at the company are worse, and ultimately are much more likely to leave because the social aspect of Slack will die off. Maintaining inclusion in a partially remote company is incredibly hard.
- null_shift 5y ago

proc0 5y ago

I was thinking returning to the office is sort of a 'prisoner's dilemma'. Everyone has to make the same choice for it to be effective, otherwise the office experience is diminished and working from home is better at that point, since you'll be in remote meetings anyway. I still think it's a matter of control that the office is preferred. There's absolutely no reason why software problems can't be solved remotely, especially when half of the industry is outsourced to China or India.

ryanSrich 5y ago
The reason to have anyone in an office is because it makes managers and executives feel better. It’s really that simple. No one who has ever worked remotely themselves could possibly believe that employees are more productive in an office. I think the delusion most people tell themselves about in person being better for spontaneous conversations, and better productivity comes down to just wanting human interaction. Which is totally normal. But all of the talk about how being in person is better is just a cope. Working from home is better in every instance where it’s possible.
- jdrc 5y ago
  ok. how do we make managers and execs feel better even when everyoen is working remotely then? lots of opportunity for dashboard-sellers there
- vanviegen 5y ago
  > Working from home is better in every instance where it’s possible. So you're saying that people who are just more productive and happier working from the office do not exist? I sure feel like I exist..
  - ryanSrich 5y ago
    I’m saying if you’re more productive in an environment where you’re forced to commute into work, then you don’t have the proper tools to be more productive remotely. This is very common. It’s the lack of a remote working strategy on the part of your company. Of course you won’t have a successful time working from home if you just take your existing in-office work lifestyle and copy-paste it on to working remotely. If your location is causing you to be less productive, then change your location. Go to a coffee shop, or a co-working space. Go to the park. Go anywhere you want.

mulcahey 5y ago

My only 2c is that the WFH vs office conversation often seems to pretend that there aren't a ton of businesses with desk workers where many of their colleagues can't feasibly work from home -- manufacturing for example. It's not even only the people physically building the products who obviously have to be there, but even mechanical engineers have a reason to. My job is to build software to make the lives of the people building our product better. I'd prefer myself and my team to be there with them frequently, instead of considering ourselves to be part of some class of special people that have the luxury of working at home most of the time. That said, I do appreciate the flexibility of being able to work from home for house maintenance, deliveries, family stuff, etc. Beyond all that, going into the office (or factory really) is energizing. Too much time at home and I get reminded of CGP Grey's "spaceship you" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAhsXyO3Ck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAhsXyO3Ck

chii 5y ago
> I'd prefer myself and my team to be there with them frequently, instead of considering ourselves to be part of some class of special people that have the luxury of working at home most of the time. there's a balance. I would consider being on site as a special case; do it when needed. This means the workplace needs to plan it out, and know ahead of time when it is going to happen.

black_13 5y ago

dSebastien 5y ago

Same here. Everyone was "happy" and "proud" about our remote performance and now they force us back to the office 50% of the time. Many people seem to see it as a great leap forward, but I don't. One of the company value is supposed to be "independent"... This week I was supposed to go, not see my kids in the morning, waste 2 hours in the train, expose myself to Covid, just to sit alone in an office and discuss through Teams because the rest of the team was not even there. What the actual f**. I just couldn't go. I wrote about this and my feeling is still the same: https://medium.com/management-matters/going-back-to-work-no-thank-you-5429d60acd12 https://medium.com/management-matters/going-back-to-work-no-...

chews 5y ago
- A_non_e-moose 5y ago
  Set terms yes, bu the terms are very unreasonable, impractical and paradoxal, they imply unnecessary suffering that actually degrades work performance, the very thing good managers want to keep up. Sacrificing performance for control is the signature of bad management and a bad employer.
- ulfw 5y ago
  You know your employers benefits of you too, right? That's why they employ you. They don't give you charity or hire you of the good of their heart. They hire you because you bring them more value than you cost. So I don't get this subservient attitude you have to employment. This should really be a two way street.
- PaywallBuster 5y ago
  a relationship between 2 groups of people can change depending on the circumstances and feedback given
- andrelaszlo 5y ago
  Are you implying that renegotiating terms isn't an available option, and the only way to deal with an unpreferable situation as an employee is to switch jobs? I am trying to make sense of your comment but I don't really get this attitude either :)

mvkel 5y ago

This is the fundamental problem with hybrid. It's the worst of both worlds, as it forces a regression to the most-accessible, which will always be video calls. I think a lot of the forced-hybrid environments are a result of companies waiting for their commercial leases to die.

mvkel 5y ago

ryanSrich 5y ago

As someone who has worked on startups, side gigs, and only around 6 months at a “real” company. I’m always blown away at how many meetings there are in corporate America. What are you even meeting about? Why aren’t you doing hands on keyboard work? Why does a decision need to be made in a room, with everyone pretending to listen? Why are you presenting something to me when I’ll comprehend it far better if I read it, gather my thoughts, and then send you my questions? And don’t get it twisted. I’ve been in these types of meetings. Client meetings, project meetings, etc. It’s always been as an outsider, but they’re all the same. Small talk, people arrive, someone always has to have everyone introduce themselves, then there’s a quasi-presentation/conversation, and eventually everyone leaves. I can’t think of a less efficient means of communicating an idea than that.

chillfox 5y ago
Don’t forget the pre meeting meeting to discuss the upcoming meeting and the post meeting meeting to review the meeting.
- SteadBytes 5y ago
  Ah yes, the “meeting sandwich”. Everyone’s favourite way to spend an entire afternoon…
- civilized 5y ago
  He's not joking, folks.
bigpeopleareold 5y ago
I don't think meetings are really there for the informational value for a lot of people, but to give face time as a show of strength. But, I do exactly what you do - I prefer something well-written and it gives me time to think about it. As someone talking to a lot of people within the company, I sometimes get asked to go on a client call. I almost always say no. It's not my job to talk to clients (and that means being ready to look good for them) and saying whatever needs to be said in a call doesn't do much that an email can't do. While being there as an "expert" to the client is probably something that customer-facing people want, I have nothing to gain from it. Useful meetings engage people : a fresh new idea to have everyone go research more, a way to gather the team to focus on tough questions, or to explain a point better than chat messages.

ttGpN5Nde3pK 5y ago

I don't understand why we continue to legislate all these rules around cars, but yet companies that are perfectly capable of employing a remote workforce are allowed to mandate that people drive to the office to sit on a computer. I guess it's more fun banning shit than it is building a world where we don't _need_ to drive _ANY_ car to an office. Or, a world where I can simply get on a trolley/etc to go where I need to.

jdrc 5y ago

we need to target specifically the lack of social element in remote work, not remote work itself. remote work has to change cities and create an ecosystem around it, like the office did. We haven't even started, are there startups working on it?

mikelward 5y ago

I want to come into the office. It's nice to get to know coworkers better. And I like the commute and the routine. But it sucks. There aren't enough meeting rooms for all the meetings. When I do get a meeting room, I have to wait for the last meeting to wrap up. Or I find out that the camera doesn't work. Or the lighting is off. And it's harder to tell who's talking. And messages in the meeting are truncated on the meeting room screen, so there's kinda a private side channel where only remote workers can participate effectively. Our office is open plan, so I can hear people on other teams talking and I can't focus as well. Sometimes the badge readers break and aren't fixed until the next day. Sometimes there are evacuations. The mail room is only open 11am-1pm, so if I have lots of meetings I have to wait another 24 hours to get my important parcel. If they want me to come into the office, they really should make it more productive than working from home.

snakey 5y ago

Forgive me for this digression and for sounding selfish, but as a junior, I’ve really struggled for the last 2+ years to fully adapt to remote / hybrid working. I’m wondering if anyone has advice on how I can continue to grow and become a top-class engineer within a remote environment? Based on my experience so far, it’s very difficult to both onboard and mentor a junior from a remote setting. It’s not impossible, however, a lot of employers / teams still have not setup effective means for including and training the less experienced members of the team. I realise that much of this learning is of my own responsibility but I really, really miss spending time with my team and learning from those more experienced than I. I feel as though I have stagnated an awful lot over the last two years and there’s only so far self-learning can take you when software engineering is such a collaborative process.

orzig 5y ago
No need to apologize! It’s reasonable to have needs, and these make total sense. I’ve had success doing very long screen sharing while someone works normally. Let them forget you are there, in some ways it’s a lighter ask than breathing over their shoulder. Take notes on things which don’t make sense and batch your questions for when they want to take a break from coding (maybe on the phone, they can clean dishes out whatever). If no teammate is willing to do that, you might be seeing cultural problems unrelated to remote - maybe explore other teams at the company.
jen20 5y ago
> how I can continue to grow and become a top-class engineer within a remote environment? Yes, three things: - Learn to write detailed yet succinct prose, and practice this often. - Learn to unblock yourself, so that asynchronous communication does not become a barrier. Be prepared to dig in at least 1-2 layers of abstraction below where you typically work and spend lots of time researching unfamiliar topics. - Decide whether you want to be a generalist or a specialist. There is room for both in the industry. If you want to be a generalist, make sure you are getting n years of experience and not one year of experience n times. These are largely the same actions to take to be a top class engineer in an office too though.
- 5y ago

someweirdperson 5y ago

It is for the survival of managers at the lowest level, especially in locations with high wages. Top management considers all workers to be equally capable and replaceable. Management at the lower levels requires people to manage at their location (direct superior always at the same location). With full remote work there is no reason to employ people in locations with non-minimal wages. If there is no employees in a location there is no manager managing them either. It is not managers belief to be able to more easily watch what their employees are doing in a real office. It is just a matter of securing their own job.

NKosmatos 5y ago
Exactly this, thank you. Lower/middle management exists only to manage people. Most managers aren’t that good in managing remote workers and not having any “real” work to show to their superiors they really need people back in offices so as to show that they’re working themselves. We’re living in rapidly changing times and the working landscape is changing and will change even more.

Blackstone4 5y ago

Yes this is what I do with my team spread across multiple offices....outside of tech it appears to be a lot harder to push for WFH/remote... I am in financial services.

zxcvbn4038 5y ago

Even pre-pandemic the majority of the people I work with were overseas - before we had Zoom or Hangouts I was on conference calls. The only compelling reason to go into the office was that it was closer to my kid’s school so less commute time to drop him off/pick him up each day. But now he is remote also so it’s no longer an benefit. I’ve only been to the office once in the past three years - to rescue my plants and clean out my desk. Cheers to the facilities person that went around watering all the plants. Has to be awesome having a forty story skyrise to yourself. (I think there is a security guard and a HVAC engineer that still go on site also - I believe the building has to still be cooled to control mold and keep the pumps and values involved from freezing up).

throwaway5371 5y ago

Half my friends say they work less than 1 hour a day remote. Literally attend standup, complain they are somewhat blocked or investigating something and then just work on personal projects or just game. The rest are doing chores because their spouses are not considering them working because they are "home". All kinds of chores from pick up the kids to take the dog to the vet. Whoever says overall productivity increases, is probably talking about very disciplined individuals.

vladvasiliu 5y ago
That may be the case, but if you're prone to dicking around and generally not working, there are plenty of ways to not work while your butt is sitting on the company's chair. If I had a dollar for every person I've seen randomly browsing Facebook or similar at the office, I wouldn't need to work anymore. Now I understand that not all people are the same towards work and motivation, and I particularly sympathize with the spouse thing. So I think the broader issue here is management attempting to impose a single One True Way for everybody, which doesn't seem to exist. I also think that the spouse thing may be somewhat a question of habit. As in, after a while, the spouse may end up appreciating that your being at home doesn't mean you're free to do whatever. But you're still able to go start laundry when taking a five-minute break, which is still extremely valuable and couldn't be done from the office.
- throwaway5371 5y ago
  of course you can waste time in the office as well, from people joining every meeting and asking "but does it scale" to people playing table tennis, but in general its harder to do than remote
  - asdff 5y ago
    It's pretty easy for people to come into work and get nothing done. Roll in at 9:30 and complain about traffic. Spend until 10 easy getting settled in for the day: making coffee, slowly sifting email, recollecting the weekend with others, bathroom break, etc. Now its the first meeting, totally irrelevant to anything you do so you zone out. Suddenly its lunch time. Another hour goes by. It's 1pm now. Check email. Another meeting. Check instagram. 3:30pm. Let me fire off that one email. Wow look, 4:35pm, better leave now to beat traffic. I've seen people make respectable careers out of this.

5350-uiop-1130 5y ago

Of course us plebs don't have any autonomy and the masters needs to remind us of that. There is only one reason to have people in the office, that is so that you can observe them (and own their soul). If certain people have a need for face to face interaction, that is an exception not the rule.

globular-toast 5y ago

I had a job before covid that involved sitting at a desk and being on Skype calls all day. Most people were in the same building but the buildings were large and meeting rooms were scarce so they were rarely used. This isn't anything new, unfortunately. Doesn't make it any less stupid, though.

DarthNebo 5y ago

This was literally what used to happen pre-pandemic as well with international teams. The pandemic just made people realize how weird it was for work to be associated with a place.

snarfy 5y ago

I work at a FAANG. I know many people that immigrated across the world to work at a FAANG. Who am I to complain about driving across town? So I go into the office. I may not like it but reality is that promotions come easier to those that go in. So I burn 2 hours a day and $300/mo in gas driving in.

isuckatcoding 5y ago
I’d rather keep those two hours for something enjoyable in my life

GoodJokes 5y ago

squintychino 5y ago

While we as employees have more leverage to work remotely than we've ever had because of the pandemic, companies still have power to dictate work location and they know it. It would not surprise me if down the road we get some kind of leak or revelation saying that top management of many large corporations colluded to force everyone back into the office. Of course that's just speculation at this point, but it really does feel like there's no good reason to force people back other than justifying their office space expense and a reason for middle management to exist. The pandemic has let the cat out of the bag in terms of working remotely and being productive. But some c-level executives are stuck in the past and want to return to it.

barrenko 5y ago

We are abstracting the coworkers away.