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The rebellion against the return to the office is getting serious
- Proven 4y agoYea yea yea. Let's revisit this after 2 additional interest rate hikes. We're one pathetic 25bps hike from massive layoffs in the bloated tech sector.
- Mountain_Skies 4y agoSounds like a good reason for companies to shed real estate expenses.
- nomad1987 4y agothey are locked in leases, firing is easier.
- rand0m4r 4y agoThanks
- dang 4y agoWe detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31388403 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31388403.
- arrakis2021 4y agoJust make a decision to work somewhere else good god why does everything have to be a movement?
- HarryHirsch 4y agoThere's an organized effort to prop up the value of commercial real estate by ending WFH arrangements - of course there ought to be an organized counter-effort by people who value work-life balance, short commutes, their health, whatever.
- grzm 4y agoDo you have a reference for this organized effort? Sounds like something that would be good to know about and publicize.
- h2odragon 4y agoIf individuals have agency over their working conditions, it might encourage such thinking to extend to other areas of life. Such urges are better characterized as seeking the anonymous safety of "being part of something," which has the added benefit of reinforcing the herd instincts at the same time.
- smt88 4y agoEmployers are not fungible. In certain fields, there are a small number of high-prestige employers. It makes more sense to organize in support of remote work than to leave.
- Apocryphon 4y agoBecause atomized attempts are less likely to deliver change
- lima 4y agoIf enough people do just that, that is a movement.
- happytoexplain 4y agoYou're implying "movements", for some implicit definition, are bad, but you haven't explained why.
- hemreldop 4y ago
- flying_whales 4y agoI feel that my mental health has improved after going back to (voluntarily) office. It was no good being stuck with myself at home all the time. That said, I've worked out of some toxic offices and I don't miss that.
- smt88 4y agoSmart employers will allow people to come into an office only if they want to. It doesn't have to be a binary. They don't need to lose people like you just because other employees want to be remote.
- vmception 4y agoSmart employees will reject going into the office to just video chat with everyone Any other solution?
- rubicon33 4y agoMeetings with part in office, part remote, are so cumbersome and awkward compared to all in office or all remote. The cadences between the two conversations are totally off, making it odd to try and sync up and have natural organic discussions.
- beezlebroxxxxxx 4y agoIn my experience, I've found that to be the case when the meetings are already effectively pointless and not well organized. One solution is to make meetings more structured and important. This has the benefit of also making them rarer. When I've been in meetings that have clear goals and an agenda/talking points to go through so that people stay on topic, I found them to be far more bearable with mixed remote and office employees.
- sgt101 4y agoThe problem is that even if everyone is in the office, they are often in different offices. I currently work at a company with people resourced into projects from two other countries (soon 4), with a plethora of customers on other sites in my country. We have three offices in this country as well, and the head office is in a different country again. Almost every decision (which requires a meeting) requires someone from this diaspora. So we are on video no matter what.
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
- drowsspa 4y agoYou could do without the last sentence, because as per usual Hacker News will pick up on only that sentence. But I agree. In the end, most managers need to physically feel the whip hitting the employee's back.
- Hakashiro 4y ago
- pengaru 4y agoI don't know about sports betting, that seems crazy, but I did know some people who partially bootstrapped their HFT startup by playing online poker at what would eventually become a trading desk once they finished building out their software stack. The few times I visited there was always one of the founders playing ~a dozen online poker games, one table per monitor. AIUI it kept the lights on in those early days for them.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoA business founded by compulsive gamblers. What could possibly go wrong.
- Apocryphon 4y agoSeems like stock and crypto trading completely replaced sports betting a year or two ago when pro sports games couldn't actually be played. Hence the rise of the r/WSB phenomenon. Bringing up sports betting seems anachronistic.
- Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago> Don't go compensating for your ludopathy. You need help. Seek help. If you aren't betting on an head 2 head between an organization which has a total salary cost of 400M vs. an organization which has a total salary cost of 4M... Sports betting isn't limited to North America you know...that's a 5% gain for your capital in just 90 mins that you can compound by always betting on Goliaths
- sAbakumoff 4y agoThis article is behind the paywall, does anyone have a better link?
- vmception 4y ago
- Apocryphon 4y agoGood thing that are a lot of retail and services sector workers are organizing- “Starbucks, Amazon, Apple, Trader Joe’s, Target” https://twitter.com/camdenmitchel13/status/1525525023674466307 https://twitter.com/camdenmitchel13/status/15255250236744663... Once the recession comes, tech workers will be put to the test whether our self-assumed irreplaceability will continue to provide enough leverage against management dictates such as the pullback of remote work. At that time many of us will be wishing that we had taken this opportunity to do a little organizing.
- jancsika 4y agoIf HN is any indicator, in tech a unionization drive will get you N very smart troglodytes with N distinct first takes, cooked up from hand-carved first principles. Probably garnished with a smattering of alleged uncles' union job war stories. Believe me-- my own uncle used to be a union organizer in tech. After decades of dealing with this pattern he landed in hospital and died. (Doctors said most likely from a broken heart.) And don't forget that unionization drives would necessarily introduce recurring interruptions to developers' coding flow. Just in the U.S. that could hinder development rates by a double-digit percentage. In conclusion, I'd be wary of any unionization drive in tech.
- Apocryphon 4y agoOrganizing tech workers can take any number of forms- I'm partial to the idea of simply strengthening the IEEE/ACM to something akin to the AMA for doctors or APA for psychologists in some capacities. But the main point is that this profession has taken its perks and relative labor power for granted in the past decade, and now that the good times might be ending, we will all soon see what happens when we are without the luxury of a bull market. Perhaps it would have been prudent to have gotten a lot of this codified prior with the leverage that a union or a professional association accords. It's a very "the grasshopper and the ant" situation.
- bluechair 4y agohttps://archive.ph/me38V https://archive.ph/me38V
- alaricus 4y agoI hope so. Because I'm never going back for a full-time or even a hyrid office setup. I love working from home.
- rubicon33 4y agoLet’s see if you still feel that way in 5+ years.
- true_religion 4y agoWhat’s going to change for the worse in 5 years? If anything people will realize they can work for everywhere and congregate to live next to people they like thereby forming tight knit communities.
- davoneus 4y agoWhat will change, as all similar swings in workplace attitude have shown, is that the are unforeseen costs. Additionaly, study after study has shown that non-verbal communication between people is an enormous part of effective communication. Argue all you want, too many studies, turn all over the weekend she the same thing. And the I've thing that video conferencing does is cripple that comm channel. I love my partial remote work schedule, and love that it exists. But I'll never assume it's the "best" way, it that it doesn't have unforseen costs to me and my coworkers
- paulryanrogers 4y ago> Additionaly, study after study has shown that non-verbal communication between people is an enormous part of effective communication. Argue all you want, too many studies, turn all over the weekend she the same thing. And the I've thing that video conferencing does is cripple that comm channel. Citations please?
- davoneus 4y agoA few come to mind: Mehrabian (1981), Fromkin and Rodman (1983), Barnum and Wolniansky (1989), Pease and Pease (2004). In regards to the face specifically take a look at Atkinson (2002), Garau, Slater and Bee (2001). The impact of Hand and Arm movement in regards to communication were studied by Mulken, Andre and Muller in 1998, and in 2002 by Craig, Gholson and Driscoll. Of course the study with the most impact is Mehrabian's 7-38-55 'rule' (which it isn't!). It's wildly misunderstood, but his study found in any communication scenario 7% of information received is through the words spoken, 38% is through the tone of voice, and 55% is though bodily movements. Regardless of the numbers, it just points out that just because someone 'says' something, people don't believe them unless their body language agrees. If their tone, posture, eye-contact, etc.. are saying something else, people invariably believe the non-verbal regardless of the words said. It's been a while, but IIRC, the other studies never find that low of an impact with spoken word, yet it never exceeds 50% either. Lastly, the definition of nonverbal communications can vary widely, but I like Henley's (77) (as a starting point) which lists a few areas "... body postures and movements, facial expressions, gestures, touching, eye contact, use of space, and so on". Hope you find some of that useful.
- lsjkdfoiwnelfsd 4y agoI'm not against WFH or returning to office, also I live in the states, so these are my concerns about returning to office. * Astronomical gas prices, means commuting by car is a financial disaster * Rise of domestic terrorism and gun violence, means offices, public spaces, or public transport no longer feel safe * Most offices aren't equipped with a bidet or shower
- jen20 4y agoI'm not sure about the first two, but the last one is a key point: many people who work in offices appear never to have been toilet trained at any point in their lives.
- Spivak 4y agoGas prices are crazy high though. Apparently my area is doing better than average and gas is still up 250% from last year.
- jen20 4y ago“High” is in the eye of the beholder. I grew up in the UK where petrol cost per liter what it costs per gallon in parts of the US. It’s also in the eye of the beholder in the US - in Texas it’s still super cheap, but California is definitely pricey.
- ChrisRR 4y agoThat was my first thought whenever Americans complain about their "high" petrol prices
- throwawayboise 4y ago> offices, public spaces, or public transport no longer feel safe They are statistically as safe or safer than they've ever been, but the drama-driven "news" reporting today would love to have you believe otherwise, so that you tune in every day to learn about everything you're supposed to be afraid of.
- sys_64738 4y agoBeen working remotely for more than 15 years and decline to work in an office ever again. I go in once every two weeks for a day to do white boarding design work and hardware analysis. Beyond that, no chance.
- coldcode 4y agoIn my final job (unless I unretire) I worked the last year at home. Most of the people I had to be in meetings with were on another coast, so most meetings were zoom/etc anyway. We did have some meetings locally but not too often. We were just as productive WFH as in the office. What I missed however was social interaction, eating lunch together with my team, occasional movie outings, etc. Living by yourself and not seeing people most of the time is not great for everyone. I'd rather see it be optional. If you are experienced then WFH is easy to do, but for new people being in person makes it much easier to learn a complex business/code environment like we had. I could draw on a white board our crazy world much easier than try to explain it online. Also the insistence by some people for cameras in zoom calls drove me nuts, I hate cameras so I never turned mine on (also my bandwidth was never great so video often made the audio fall out, a good excuse).
- ozzythecat 4y agoWork from home is great when you have a team of driven, motivated individuals. If your team demonstrates you can work remotely and make progress, there’s no immediate reason to go back to the office, maybe except for some team building events. I believe many of the folks vehemently against the return to office are ignoring this detail. At my last company, I left because leadership refused to recognize that not all teams are the same. We didn’t want to manage people when they’re not delivering. Some organizations were working people to death while other orgs and teams became a form of corporate welfare. Imagine not showing up to any meetings, making no progress on your Kanban board, etc etc. Either you have management find some way to motivate them, directly let them go, or force them to come in until they demonstrate they can work from home. Ignoring the problem or pretending it doesn’t exist, or worse, making up for it by offloading even more work to your high performers is all wrong. I saw managers who refused to do anything because it meant they’d effectively lose half or more of their people. Meanwhile, other orgs were unsustainable engineer burnout factories.
- Akronymus 4y agoAs someone with self control issues, work from home has been a disaster for me.
- Spivak 4y agoWhich is why I think the solution is “office available.” You wanna come in and work, great — we have desks, coffee, soda, snacks, hardwired business internet and quiet. If you don’t that also cool.
- blacksmith_tb 4y agoIt's a solution to that, but worse one than the disease for my office, where's there less bandwidth (shared among ~100 people), bad tea/coffee, and having to listen to other people on Zooms (or be on a Zoom myself in a noisy environment).
- hiptobecubic 4y agoI find that most of the tech companies don't actually have that last one.
- mirceal 4y agoi remember when wsj was a serious source of info. Rebellion? Seriously? The drones are not happy and are not falling in line with what the feudal lords want? "Is getting serious": like up until now people were casually joking about this until they figured out it's an option to WFH. We, people, pretend to be the smartest creatures around to continuously do things that are directly against our best interest even when we have evidence to point us in the right way. It's stupid af and preserving a failed way of doing things should not ever be a priority (the focus should be on the transition to something better)
- drewcoo 4y agoIf the emperor had no clothes, the WSJ would snipe at the rebellious, tittering hoard.
- timcavel 4y ago
- acd 4y agoI think its the open office layout and commuting which are not good. We need to go back to private office space and start with local work hubs where people live. Its also quite insane to spend 1-2 hours of commute per day back and forth to and from the office. Commute time is mostly waste.
- dqpb 4y agoOh the irony of tech companies rebelling against digitization of the workplace.
- hiptobecubic 4y agoRight? It's hilarious that the leadership of the people working on e.g. Google Apps thinks it's not good enough to run their business on. It's even more hilarious that they think being in the office is much different. I used to have video calls with people on other floors of the building because we couldn't be bothered to walk up the stairs.
- xedrac 4y agoI'd be fine going back into the office if I didn't have to deal with our horrible open office floor plan. The visual and auditory distractions make it really hard to get into the zone. I don't love commuting either, but there is something to be said about separating home and work, and interacting with people face to face occasionally.
- apple4ever 4y agoDitto. I like being in the office to see people and chat. But open office floor plans are terrible. Too many distractions and not enough privacy.