42 ms·

Neuro normative? Good grief. They don't want to work in the office - no need to gobbledygook it up in some bizarre appeal to authority. I can say as someone

• warning26 4y ago
  > A lot of these younger folks pushing for full time remote at the start of their career are putting themselves into a box I don't think they fully appreciate This 100%—I worked remotely for my first 5 years after graduating college, and I thought it was great until I went into a real office and found out what I was missing. I vowed to never work a remote job again (of course, the pandemic forced a quick end to that vow, hah.)
  • lghh 4y ago
    And you still have that choice both under the model that the workers here are suggesting and in the greater economy.
    • warning26 4y ago
      Problem is, when you give workers a choice to come into the office, it becomes a game theory problem that ultimately results in no one coming in. "Why come to the office if none of my team members are there?"
      • fartcannon 4y ago
        If you strongly believe the office is valuable, surly there are others who agree with you. Those people will be there. Everyone else can work from home.
        • thaway2839 4y ago
          Game theory shows that systems involving multiple people making decisions without coordination can very easily settle into subptimal equilibriums. And that's almost certainly gonna be the case here.
          • ThalesX 4y ago
            What about time spent commuting?
• agentdrtran 4y ago
  many (most?) neuro-atypical people absolutely have a much better experience wfh rather than in person and policies that force back to office ignore their needs.
• lghh 4y ago
  > Neuro normative? Good grief. They don't want to work in the office - no need to gobbledygook it up in some bizarre appeal to authority. I'm not sure what you're saying here. Do you not think neuro-normativity is a real thing? Or do you think that neuro-divergent people will be worse off with a truly flexible work-from-home policy? I don't think they are requesting that the office cease to exist. It sounds like they want a hybrid approach that has no required office time. > A lot of these younger folks pushing for full time remote at the start of their career are putting themselves into a box I don't think they fully appreciate This is condescending. It assumes that people who want full-time remote are not aware of the trade offs. I try to think better of people when they make an effort at self-determination. They know their lives better than I do, I imagine.
  • spullara 4y ago
    There is no possible way for someone just out of college to actually understand the tradeoffs. Young people have little to no experience with building a career or what it entails.
    • danaris 4y ago
      There is no possible way for you—or any of us, at this present moment—to know just how those tradeoffs and the shape of work will be changed over the next few decades by this pandemic, its aftershocks, and the new understanding we have all gained of just what is really possible with remote work. The idea that because you've been working for a decade or two and know how things were before the pandemic, these poor, dumb college kids should just listen to you and let you tell them that everything has always been this way and always will be this way just doesn't hold up to basic scrutiny.
      • Grustaf 4y ago
        They should just accept that they voluntarily joined a company that has always been very skewed towards in office work.
      • EricE 4y ago
• closedl00p 4y ago
  Agreed-- as someone who is also later-career and personally enjoys WFH, I realize in retrospect that I learned a lot (both technically and in terms of how to be productive in a larger team environment) from less-structured in-person collaboration with more senior peers and mentors. And I feel that really set me up for growth and future success / leadership. Some of that is possible remotely, but I don't think it would have been the same as there was a lot of on and off collaboration and chatting over the course of a month sitting side by side. Especially with someone senior who worked on a parallel team where we might not have talked as much if we'd only been meeting through meetings. And as someone who's managed teams during the pandemic, I'll say that I saw WFH be especially challenging for some earlier-career folks and new hires, who I've seen trying to learn everything "on their own" and feeling a bit adrift. I went out of my way to have more 1:1 check-ins with them, set them up with other senior peers for regular video "coffee chats" and mentorship opportunities, and so on. But it was challenging. I've also seen Slack be a powerful force for new or junior people asking questions about how to use a tool or the history of some decision (once we built a culture of "it's fine to just ask questions to this channel, no question is dumb"), especially across teams or offices, so async digital collaboration is powerful as well, of course.
  • ghaff 4y ago
    It's hard for me to imagine my first job in tech as a PM being remote. Modest apartment, not knowing people in the area, and general lack of spontaneous contact. OK, the communication tools were much more limiting and the social/cultural norms were different too. (Actually had email but way too many sales reps and SEs liked to call anyway to ask some question that could (sometimes) be resolved in a one minute email.) So maybe it would be just different. But hard for me to wrap my head around.
• BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  The opposite also exists, plenty of anecdotes where individuals felt isolated at work and/or after they quit their job, losing any connection they had. The workplace isn't the magical cure-all to a society where people are increasingly busier and more focused on themselves and the online world.
• dont__panic 4y ago
  There are tradeoffs in both directions. Your point about spontaneous interactions is a good one, but consider the other tradeoffs at play: - open layout offices are awful places to work where many people struggle to focus at all, to the point where their work is negatively impacted - separating home location from work location opens up opportunities to work places certain people would never have considered before, unless they wanted to leave their friends/family/social groups/etc. behind - cutting out a commute every day saves folks time, money, stress, and likely cuts down on a lot of wasteful greenhouse gas emissions I'm relatively early in my career, but I also love WFH compared to in-office work. Why? I hated the commute, I don't like socializing with my coworkers outside of actual work, and I struggle to focus with folks on calls around me and without decent thermostat control. I acknowledge that some people can deal with all of those things, still be productive, and reap the benefits of in-person work. But there are also those of us whose careers have skyrocketed in the past couple of years specifically because we have a working arrangement that works better for us now. It's hard to say how much this will impact my career trajectory in the long term. But I'm also more concerned about my private social life and hobbies than I am about my career, and remote work works far better for that, too. TL;DR: Different strokes for different folks. Young people are not doomed by remote work.
  • EricE 4y ago
    I'm not saying anyone is doomed - you are just going to have dramatically fewer opportunities for serendipitous interactions; that's just a plain fact any way you slice it. And maybe for your career path that isn't important - but for most people it's far more important than they likely realize. Your reputation is the greatest asset you have - it always saddens me at how carelessly many people today treat theirs. Social media doesn't help here either; heck it's a constant struggle for me too. I also don't think it has to be 100% either way. The most productive time in my career was when I split time in the office and at home. Office time was for meetings, collaboration, strategizing with others, networking, pushing the corporate bureaucracy along, etc. At home time was focus time to actually get shit done. It worked amazingly well and I consider myself fortunate to work for several organizations that did allow and respect at least some remote work. Like most things in life, extremes in any direction are rarely healthy, especially over time. What I think is most dangerous about moves like this is by pushing so hard to one extreme they risk convincing a company like Apple that the whole concept is more trouble than it's worth. I dunno, maybe there is enough of a labor shortage of smart people where Apple will really shoot themselves in the foot if they maintain a hard line - but I doubt it. We rarely are as essential to the organization as we like to think we are :) It will be interesting to see how it plays out but I think there are better ways of making your case than resorting to race bating and victimhood right out the gate.
• fartcannon 4y ago
  A lot of tech savvy younger folks are perfectly capable of making relationships entirely online. I'm not even young, and I've done it myself. 25 years ago, I made several friends on Yahoo Chat! who I have never seen in real life but speak with regularly. Many more over the years via builtin boards. These days discord exists and it's a primary social source for a number of kids. These kids could enter a fully WFH workforce without blinking an eye and continue to develop life long relationships with their new colleagues if they desired. I've done both. But to be honest, the only friends I've maintained from previous in person jobs are the ones who I also connected with via a chat program.
  • dleslie 4y ago
    This is spot-on. Nearly all of our younger hires have their social networks _entirely online_, and most of our older employees are in a similar situation albeit with a few token IRL friends. That said, I work in game development and I suspect that causes some selection bias.
    • fartcannon 4y ago
      Could be. I know a lot of the older people in my not-game-development field won't join work functions organized in online chats. You have to call them, or send them an email. Out of curiosity, I hear a lot of negative things about working in game development. How do you like it?
      • dleslie 4y ago
        Game development is full of exploitative companies looking to squeeze whatever effort they can from passionate young people. When you're young and inexperienced it's best to avoid those companies as best you can; the experience you'll gain will be less desirable than at a company that treats you well and presents you with opportunities for long term growth. That said, as an older programmer I would not expect to ever earn anywhere near your earning potential for the skills you'll gain, if you were to work outside of gaming. It doesn't matter that you might single-handedly build the infrastructure to host millions in MAU on a shoestring budget; the profit margins are razor thin, if there's any profit at all, and the wages reflect that. Your customers don't want to pay you, investors don't want to buy in, the media dislikes you by default, and your industry is saturated with competition. All that said, I have worked outside of gaming and still keep coming back to it. I've taken substantial pay cuts, leaving good jobs of my own volition, to return on several occasions. I do it because I've never experienced so much _freedom_ as I do as a game developer. If there's something I want to try, build or learn then I generally start on that _immediately_. Nowhere else have I felt so able to express myself and better myself. * Addendum: YMMV. I've worked mostly in small studios, on Indie titles and subcontracting on AAA titles. I imagine things are different at very large studios.
• ryanmcbride 4y ago
  You seem to be interpreting a lot of your personal experience as solid fact. It's fine that the way your career happened to shake out worked out for you but that doesn't mean it's the only way to work, and it certainly doesn't mean it's the best way for everybody to work. People work differently, commuting is a nightmare and gets worse every year, if you want to be in an office I don't think you'll have trouble finding a job to accommodate. A few years before the pandemic I swore I'd never commute again and I intend to live out the rest of my career that way. You will never catch me commuting every day.
  • shrimp_emoji 4y ago
    >I swore I'd never commute again and I intend to live out the rest of my career that way s/commute/go to the grocery store ;)
  • passivate 4y ago
    It seems like there are ways to solve the commuting problem, by moving closer to work for example, in much the same way as you say others should find a job to satisfy their in-person work requirements. But opinions aside, what is true is that remote work is not common in the vast majority of workplaces around the world - and isn't a viable option for a number of of jobs. Saying "People work differently" doesn't change that reality.
• simion314 4y ago
  But without going into a parallel universe where you always worked remote in a fully remote team you can't actually say for sure, you are just guessing with a giant and obvious bias. On top of that what worked for you might not work for other people in other life situation and other geographic locations.
  • EricE 4y ago
    Oh I 100% know - there are a handful of spontaneous hallway conversations that started as idle chit chat and veered off in unanticipated directions that altered my career path. I can see them clearly since they were literally life changing. None of them - not one - would have happened virtually. There would never had been a reason for me to interact with those people other than I just happened to be in the same physical time/space as them and happened to stop and chat. It's rather silly when you try to think about it rationally - that so much should ride on random chance; but it's also life. There's millions of years of social evolution favoring in person contact and to pretend otherwise is just silly.
    • simion314 4y ago
      >None of them - not one - would have happened virtually. And is it possible that this is not a universal thing? Maybe some people can solve problems or have ideas in a different way? Or maybe in the parallel universe you might have maybe less financial/career success but something even better (less stress more happiness) anyway I can tell you that as a developer you can solve problems, you can help the team from remote too. I have almost 20 years of coding experience only on remote but won't bet that 100% an office job would have been better or worse, we never know.
• odessacubbage 4y ago
  i can only speak for myself, but work from home has genuinely been life changing as an autistic person. i also think you are right that choosing to work remotely comes at the risk of limiting opportunities, but the difference in quality of life is significant enough that i am willing to take that risk [it's not like those of us with terrible interpersonal skills were going to be making many life-changing connections irl anyway]
  • EricE 4y ago
    That is awesome! Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having the choice. What I think is crazy is people want to act like there aren't trade off's. You clearly are aware of them and for you they still overwhelmingly work in your favor - that's win-win. If there is one positive thing from the pandemic, it did force companies that would have never entertained remote work to at least do it - and many will probably keep at least some remote work as part of their employment package. However I don't see it staying at, of all companies, Apple. Their corporate culture, desire for information control/secrecy - at this point if you are an employee of Apple and surprised they want everyone back in the office - well, that's more your problem than theirs.
• saiya-jin 4y ago
  There is more in life than just career, I'd say based on site where we are most of our careers are largely meaningless if one steps back enough. But trying to explain this to folks who consider their office careers as pinnacle of their lives with some numbers on account to back this up are relatively high is often futile. Something about strong resistance to admitting mistakes done / direction taken in life that can't be undone. I don't get why things need to be strictly this or that. Some way in between is almost always best. My needs may be very different from next guy's needs, but as long as we deliver what is expected who cares about the details. Or to summarize this for those in back seats - WFH gains are not in added work productivity for most (some achieve that, mainly due to crappy offices) but what we gained for our personal lives while still able to perform enough. Its not even only about commuting, for me its 20 mins each way, but overall amount of freedom I gained is massive. Life is damn too short. Don't do decisions that you will almost guaranteed regret later. Chasing career is frequently quoted as #1 regret by dying folks.
• Spooky23 4y ago
  If you’re appealing to corporate authority, at-will employment means that being irritating to management can get you fired or perhaps blacklisted. Barring a union contract, seeking shelter via anti-discrimination laws is the best aircover. So you shift from complaining about work conditions to complaining about conditions that do not reasonably accommodate a protected condition. Being not “neuro-normative” is a great one to use as it feeds into tech stereotypes and is really difficult to disprove.
• systemvoltage 4y ago
  Agree completely. There is a general malaise. It is going to create huge imbalances for people that want to work in office and together. Companies that are built from in-person collaboration will see different levels of productivity and innovation. I say let the experiment run. It will soon become apparent.
• thaway2839 4y ago
  I honestly don't understand some of the ideas people have about remote work. Remote work may be great, but there will be challenges associated. For example, so many people are going about saying that they should be paid the same whether they work in SF or Topeka. And the assumption is that means people in Topeka will be paid SF salaries. And that may be true for a few years while we are still inside an extremely tight labor market. However, once there is the slightest bit of slack, it's far more likely that employees in SF will be paid Topeka salaries. A few years further it's even more likely that people in Topeka and SF will be paid Bangalore or Rio or Mexico City salaries. If there's no benefit from being geographically co-located, then the market should drive everyone to locate themselves in the cheapest geographies possible. Now, this may not actually be true, even in a looser labor market, and there may be other reasons that would lead to salaries across Topeka and SF remaining at SF levels, but a clear eyed discussion would start from the earlier assumption, that salaries would drop, and then justify why that wouldn't happen. What I'm seeing instead is that everyone is assuming that salaries will rise, and then operating based entirely on that assumption, without any discussion about why this may or may not be true.
  • searchableguy 4y ago
    I think what you are missing is cheaper places don't offer the same quality and standard of living. Although this may force people to skip the overrated bubbles.
    • ghaff 4y ago
      Certainly the Bay Area and quite a few other places on the West Coast (depending on your tolerance for clouds) are, to my taste, pretty attractive places beyond job prospects in certain industries. But NYC, Boston, Austin--add your other fairly popular cities in the US, much less Toronto in Canada--and cold/snowy winters or hot/humid summers haven't led to especially cheap housing.
  • mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
    Pay rising seems to be because of a labor shortage and if SF base pay is top of market in the US/world then other areas will incrementally move higher to attract/retain talent. It seems like the software developer market has much more hiring activity than pre-pandemic so I don't think equalizing to the cheapest geography/salary for remote is going to happen. It appears the trend upwards with a labor shortage is more the case that "A rising tide lifts all boats" type of thing where other markets are also trending upwards. What would be more interesting about remote work is a discussion about the labor shortage. Is it because more people are leaving for more pay and causing a ripple effect in the place they left (like a game of musical chairs)? Are there a lot more VC, therefore startups and just more open positions?
• _proofs 4y ago
  your understanding of personal, spontanoeus, life-changing moments are viewed through a context specific lens: your behaviors, routines, and lifestyles which at the time created a specific interaction. and you seem to be recalling it with rose-colored glasses. because then suddenly you draw a conclusion that all personal spontaneity which has life-changing implications must happen in person (and that only these kinds of interactions can be serendipitous) and must happen according to <whatever arbitrary rules you think governs (your personal, remember) interactions>. however your lens fails to resolve the context for what it is: a set of circumstances around how you personally lived (and worked). Nothing more, nothing less. many moons ago i happened to accidentally click on a game server for a game i play which has quite a niche, but super competitive online gaming community (fps). i quickly found myself in a server where there were a handful of people spectating a couple of people playing. all very casually. sometimes taking turns. i then discovered each person in the server was a professional player, who previously and currently for the time competed for money, and were to varying degrees successful. i spent the remainder of my night unexpectedly well, not playing, and just watching. hanging. getting pointers. ultimately it led to me making some cool friends, but specifically finding a mentor -- one of them took me under their wing and taught me how to really play the game. that interaction alone pushed me to not only stick with the game and to become a better player -- which under this person's guidance was crazy because of the knowledge they possessed -- but it also left me with a life-long friend. this friendship is one i very much so value, and it was formed totally accidentally, unexpectedly, serendipitously, and completely 100% virtual -- i have yet to meet this person, or any of the others (they are foreign) in person to this day. that is one of many personal experiences i have had on the internet. i have absolutely no idea how people arrive at a general conclusion that `office == only_vector_for_serendipity` other than this line of thinking being a direct consequence of drinking Steve Jobs'/Apple kool-aid (ie: designing bathroom layouts to favor random interactions), while also conflating personal experience with universal truth-ness. that does not mean in-person interactions, random or otherwise, serve no purpose (ever work with someone who has valuable input but often self-censors? body language is hard to hide). i am just baffled as to how one can make such a sweeping statement about a thing being absolutely necessary.