4 ms·

What a great foot-gun So, you did your job well WFH for the past 2 years but now you're being mandated to be "40h at the office minimum"? Cool, cool Sounds li

What a great foot-gun So, you did your job well WFH for the past 2 years but now you're being mandated to be "40h at the office minimum"? Cool, cool Sounds like there will be plenty of CVs around

jleyank 4y ago
Way easier and way cheaper than a layoff. No messy separation payments, etc. political theatre as well.
willcipriano 4y ago
I talked to a lot of companies when interviewing a few months back. All of the always in office or 3 days a week in office firms were not paying a premium over remote roles. This made me ask myself, if I provide so much more value in the office why can't they share some of it with me? Unless Tesla has been on top of inflation adjustments over the past two years, I'd be looking for another job just on principle.
- id 4y ago
  Why would they share value with you if the goal is to maximize profit?
  - nessbot 4y ago
    In order to hire them to generate the value for said profit.
  - fennecfoxen 4y ago
    Because in this job market, I have power, and I can use it elsewhere.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    Why would I spend two hours + a day in a car if my goal is to maximize profit per hour worked?
- randomsearch 4y ago
  I think they’d reply that those salaries come from a time when in person work was expected. It’s the remote companies that are effectively giving you a pay rise. Let’s see how it works out now their competitors are back in-office - the next few years will be a big experiment on the efficacy of remote work (unlike the last, where there was no control group).
  - warpeggio 4y ago
    Ah yes, the cargo cult of productivity - if i'm in the office, i'm producing value. I think about this quote from Bezos in 2017 a lot, which is quoted in Mik Kersten's Project to Product: "As companies get larger and more complex, there’s a tendency to manage to proxies. This comes in many shapes and sizes, and it’s dangerous, subtle, and very Day 2. A common example is process as proxy. Good process serves you so you can serve customers. But if you’re not watchful, the process can become the thing. This can happen very easily in large organizations. The process becomes the proxy for the result you want. You stop looking at outcomes and just make sure you’re doing the process right." I'd say "being in the office" is a proxy here.
    - randomsearch 4y ago
      > I'd say "being in the office" is a proxy here. Recently I've been reading some docs on productivity, inspired by a comment on HN. There are some solid findings - don't work too many hours, put your team in a single office so they can directly chat to each other as and when needed, avoid external interruptions from outside that office, etc. It seems that a lot of the findings of improving productivity in-person may also imply that remote work drops productivity. For example, being at home with a bunch of other people in your house might dramatically increase the possibility of external interruption to the team. A discussion between two people in an office might be lower-friction and also instantly bring in other team mates to help if relevant - whilst that might lower individual productivity, the team as a whole is more productive. And this is not just speculation rather looking at existing studies and applying their conclusions to remote. Speculation from me: there's also the matter of lost communication through coffee and lunch breaks. Building that mutual understanding between individuals and about the system surely increases productivity. I think there's a big assumption on HN that individual productivity correlates with team and company productivity, and so if you get more "stuff" done wfh then it must be best. But that clearly isn't true from the experiments we've already done.
lultimouomo 4y ago
> now you're being mandated to be "40h at the office minimum"? And that's for people wishing to do remote work! So >40h at the office, plus an unspecified number of hours working remote. And still it's apparently less than they ask of factory workers. Are they on a 996 schedule?
gonzo41 4y ago
In a recessionary environment it's a great way to shake off the fat of the organization. I great in the way it'll achieve a stealthy downsize, not in the fact all the best talent will just walk out the door.

What a great foot-gun So, you did your job well WFH for the past 2 years but now you're being mandated to be "40h at the office minimum"? Cool, cool Sounds like there will be plenty of CVs around

jleyank 4y ago

Way easier and way cheaper than a layoff. No messy separation payments, etc. political theatre as well.

willcipriano 4y ago

I talked to a lot of companies when interviewing a few months back. All of the always in office or 3 days a week in office firms were not paying a premium over remote roles. This made me ask myself, if I provide so much more value in the office why can't they share some of it with me? Unless Tesla has been on top of inflation adjustments over the past two years, I'd be looking for another job just on principle.

id 4y ago
Why would they share value with you if the goal is to maximize profit?
- nessbot 4y ago
  In order to hire them to generate the value for said profit.
- fennecfoxen 4y ago
  Because in this job market, I have power, and I can use it elsewhere.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  Why would I spend two hours + a day in a car if my goal is to maximize profit per hour worked?
randomsearch 4y ago
I think they’d reply that those salaries come from a time when in person work was expected. It’s the remote companies that are effectively giving you a pay rise. Let’s see how it works out now their competitors are back in-office - the next few years will be a big experiment on the efficacy of remote work (unlike the last, where there was no control group).
- warpeggio 4y ago
  Ah yes, the cargo cult of productivity - if i'm in the office, i'm producing value. I think about this quote from Bezos in 2017 a lot, which is quoted in Mik Kersten's Project to Product: "As companies get larger and more complex, there’s a tendency to manage to proxies. This comes in many shapes and sizes, and it’s dangerous, subtle, and very Day 2. A common example is process as proxy. Good process serves you so you can serve customers. But if you’re not watchful, the process can become the thing. This can happen very easily in large organizations. The process becomes the proxy for the result you want. You stop looking at outcomes and just make sure you’re doing the process right." I'd say "being in the office" is a proxy here.
  - randomsearch 4y ago
    > I'd say "being in the office" is a proxy here. Recently I've been reading some docs on productivity, inspired by a comment on HN. There are some solid findings - don't work too many hours, put your team in a single office so they can directly chat to each other as and when needed, avoid external interruptions from outside that office, etc. It seems that a lot of the findings of improving productivity in-person may also imply that remote work drops productivity. For example, being at home with a bunch of other people in your house might dramatically increase the possibility of external interruption to the team. A discussion between two people in an office might be lower-friction and also instantly bring in other team mates to help if relevant - whilst that might lower individual productivity, the team as a whole is more productive. And this is not just speculation rather looking at existing studies and applying their conclusions to remote. Speculation from me: there's also the matter of lost communication through coffee and lunch breaks. Building that mutual understanding between individuals and about the system surely increases productivity. I think there's a big assumption on HN that individual productivity correlates with team and company productivity, and so if you get more "stuff" done wfh then it must be best. But that clearly isn't true from the experiments we've already done.

lultimouomo 4y ago

> now you're being mandated to be "40h at the office minimum"? And that's for people wishing to do remote work! So >40h at the office, plus an unspecified number of hours working remote. And still it's apparently less than they ask of factory workers. Are they on a 996 schedule?

gonzo41 4y ago

In a recessionary environment it's a great way to shake off the fat of the organization. I great in the way it'll achieve a stealthy downsize, not in the fact all the best talent will just walk out the door.