8 ms·

Ask HN: Are you going to quit?

• slt2021 4y ago
  in office work is really needed for first couple months (newhire orientation), after that hybrid is fine. Full remote after full one year is perfect
• quittingoffice 4y ago
  Yes. Office work is for dinosaurs.
  • voisin 4y ago
    Name checks out.
• Dig1t 4y ago
  Yeah but a big chunk of stock vests in October, so holding out for that. I can stomach a month in the office
• arcticbull 4y ago
  Nah, I miss working with other humans. Spending every day in a closet typing by myself honestly sucks. That won't be true for everyone, some folks will have kids at home - but even those, I have to imagine will (a) get tired of the kids or (b) have their kids off at school and be in my situation. I've started biking to work (voluntarily) since there's a lot of flexibility, it's great to get some sunshine and fresh air, and also see other humans. Living your life in a 12ft radius of your bed ain't great lol.
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • freedom2099 4y ago
    Move to a bigger place then! The beauty of wfh is that you can live wherever you want! I have a very nice home office… my wfh setup is by many orders of magnitude better than what the office used to offer: better desk (nice electric standing desk), better chair, better monitors, better headset/mic, a quiet space!
    • arcticbull 4y ago
      Moving to a bigger place won't put my coworkers into it lol
      • freedom2099 4y ago
        If you need a social life get in touch with your friends and family! Working from home you will get much more time to spend with them!
        • arcticbull 4y ago
          I spend plenty of time with friends and family after work - and on weekends of course - however I spend 9am to 7pm in isolation. This is the part I am referencing. I'm completely open to it not being a problem for you, but I don't like it. With respect, the question was what about I am going to do.
          • freedom2099 4y ago
            I guess this is a problem without a solution that will make everyone happy. On my side 8 hours without a single human interaction are my ideal working day (unfortunately that rarely happens since I have many meetings or people reaching out on teams).
            • arcticbull 4y ago
              And I appreciate the flexibility! I don't want to force people to come in especially since I want to keep the ability to work from Hawaii for a week.
• throwawaysleep 4y ago
  I take at least one interview a week on company time. Always be prepared to leave at the drop of a hat.
  • eru 4y ago
    Why on company time? (I typically don't officially track work hours anyway (only informally for myself to keep track of my work/life balance), and just worry that I get my week's worth of work done. So I wouldn't even know how to do any extracurricular activity 'on company time'.)
  • postalrat 4y ago
    Only one?
• frays 4y ago
  I was ready to make the move until I learnt about the Google hiring freeze. I'm going to play it safe and remain in my role for now.
• birdyrooster 4y ago
  I will call their bluff.
  • timmyboop 4y ago
    How do you mean?
    • birdyrooster 4y ago
      Just keep doing what works best for our team regardless of whether that means butts in seats three days a week or not.
• obnauticus 4y ago
  Be careful doxing yourself with this one :).
• implfuture 4y ago
  A primary factor in choosing my latest job was having an office to go into. I’ve been going in M-F and love working in person again. I don’t think forcing everyone back is necessarily the right strategy, but instead encouraging teams to re-form around people with similar preferences.
  • Nav_Panel 4y ago
    I've also been going in 4 days a week since we signed our office lease a few months ago, I really like it. We still do full remote (since day 1, back in 2018!) but I find that the office really helps with communication, especially amongst leadership. Doesn't bother me if any of the devs are FT remote, but I definitely prefer seeing the CEO, head of business, head of product, etc. all in person.
  • thebigspacefuck 4y ago
    I haven’t been going into the office M-F but I’m up to a couple days a week and it’s been good to recalibrate to what a full day in the office feels like. The morning ritual of preparation. The commute creating bookends to the workday. Going out to lunch or grabbing drinks after work with colleagues. Maybe I’m the only one, but I really let myself go during part of the pandemic and by going back to the office it feels like I’m coming out of it in some way. I may go back to the office full time for a while just to know I’m making the decision to work remotely for the right reason and not because I ended up that way 2 years ago.
  • rswskg 4y ago
    I'm feeling that this is the new contrarian take
• fshbbdssbbgdd 4y ago
  My boss is pretty chill about making us go in. The office has a lot of utility, so it’s great to have it available.
• jcadam 4y ago
  I've moved to a rural area and am thus in a position to where I now have to work remotely. I much prefer the lifestyle out here to living in cities, so as long as a large number of companies are sticking with remote work, I should be good. Companies like Apple that invested in massive new campuses in recent years understandably have an incentive to get people in them.
  • egeozcan 4y ago
    > Companies like Apple that invested in massive new campuses in recent years understandably have an incentive to get people in them. I don't understand it. It's a sunk cost, getting people there will just increase the costs and make many unhappy.
• frellus 4y ago
  • ParetoOptimal 4y ago
    > People who refuse to work from the office, even a few days out of the week, look like total snowflakes to me. I thought the level of intelligence on HN was higher than this.
    • antisthenes 4y ago
      There's a substantial layer of people in the US who derive most of their meaning from work and don't have a social circle outside of coworkers. It's easy for them to lash out against an outgroup. I wouldn't take it personally.
      • ParetoOptimal 4y ago
        What bothers me most isn't about me personally, but how much it pretends like both immunocompromised people and disabled people don't exist. That and the fact that we're still in the covid pandemic (though I'm rooting for the univeral vaccine) and monkeypox looks to be getting worse. My worst case-scenario would be something like: - back to school, covid and/or monkeypox cases silently spreading - September "come back to office or be fired" mandate brings people back to office - covid and/or monkeypox spread from back to school merges with back to office
  • jcadam 4y ago
    I would say as someone who is now fully remote, you really should only work for companies that are "remote first" if you want to stay that way.
    • quickthrower2 4y ago
      I think this is true. Working full remote for a non-full remote first, even if the company is really cool about it, has practical nigglings. The setup won't be as ideal for a remote worker as it could be. The dev environments will assume you are in the office physically, and not be quite as good otherwise. You might need to remote desktop or VPN, so any internet downtime (or even just shit latency) and you are off work. Also culturally ... it will be an office based company still. Whether it be silly jokes about being the one working from home full time, for example, or needing to feel like you have to be there for your career. It can come through in subtle ways. Also things like regular synchronous meetings will prevail.
• moomoo11 4y ago
  I’m going remote while my employment status still shows me as full time remote. However I’m moving to the Bay Area to fulfill my dream of living (hopefully someday in the future thrive lol) in the tech hotbed
• deleted 4y ago
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• 01100011 4y ago
  China is falling into recession. Europe is falling into recession. A Federal Reserve governor(Kashkari) is now expressing doubt that inflation can be reined in without triggering a recession. Stonks have recovered from the initial drop, but that is a familiar pattern in many previous stock bubbles before the market really plummets. Think really hard about switching jobs now. If you do, have liquid reserves to fall back on(cash or cash equivalents, T-Bills, not stocks), and pick a company with good cash flow. I understand folks who have ridden out the last two recessions and will tell you you'll be fine, and you probably will be, but don't be hasty right now. A lot of big companies are going to be under growth pressures in the next few quarters and one easy way to cut expenses is to fire people.
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • falcolas 4y ago
    I know this isn’t quite what you’re meaning, but it sounds like you’re saying “don’t quit so they can fire you instead.”
    • bigmattystyles 4y ago
      All things being equal, you are much less likely to be laid off from an employer you have been with, where you have a track record than at a place where you’re the new person and still need to be trained / onboarded
    • bluefirebrand 4y ago
      If you're in a country with any kind of decent labour rights, getting let go is 100% better than quitting. If you quit you don't get EI, you don't get any kind of payoff from the company, and it looks worse than "I was let go due to company downsizing" when interviewing.
      • almost_usual 4y ago
        So get fired for not commuting to work then.
• egeozcan 4y ago
  I already did quit my previous job in Frankfurt because they wanted us to return to the office towards the end of 2020. I expect to be treated like an adult and have the flexibility to come to the office on the days when I, or my co-workers see the need. In my current job, I have that flexibility and that is worth at least a couple of 10 thousand euros per year to me (well if the inflation can't be controlled for some more time then maybe not).
• mathieuh 4y ago
  I moved jobs from a job with 100% WFH allowed to another one with 100% WFH allowed. Luckily I live 15 minutes door-to-door on the bus away so I’ve been going in for not even a full day once per week. I do now think it’s nice to see people, but really that’s all I’m going in for, I find I am far more comfortable and therefore work better at home. Don’t see myself ever working in an office again, and I look back on the days where I would actually take two flights a week to go and work in other people’s offices with amazement that I actually put up with it
  • fileeditview 4y ago
    It's the same for me. I really sometimes miss my colleagues but not in a way that I get depressed, sad or lonely (I have a family and 2 kids at home). I just miss talking to them, drinking a coffee or having lunch together. We still try to do this from time to time but it happens only every few months. For working my home office is far superior.. less disruptions, better ergonomics, no commute. The only thing that I think is really better in person are whiteboard sessions. Sure you can do it online via whatever collaborative tool but it is not the same.
• bluefirebrand 4y ago
  My job doesn't have an office in town. If they start to insist I move to one of the cities they have an office in, I will refuse and they can terminate me if they want. I'm not doing it. If they open an office in town, I'll consider going in once a month or so
  • missedthecue 4y ago
    Once a month?? Why the office hate?
    • bluefirebrand 4y ago
      Everything about working in an office sucks. Commuting sucks, paying for parking sucks, shared kitchens suck, open floor plans suck, office politics suck, being at the whim of people "just dropping by your desk to ask a quick question" sucks. Getting sick all the time when people don't stay home and they spread it around the office sucks. No seriously, I haven't had a cold or flu since the pandemic started, I love not getting sick every flu season. What is good about offices? Why do you like them?
      • missedthecue 4y ago
        I like commuting, I like smalltalk, I like dropping by people's desk to ask a quick question, and I don't mind it when people do the same to me. I like getting to know people, I like going out for lunch with coworkers, I like building relationships with people. I like knowing the identity of those I work with beyond a Slack pfp. I can understand the not getting sick part, but I guess I never really suffered from colds that often. (Though I know some people who get them four times a year -- if this is you, I sympathize) I know this website has a selection bias for introverts but surely I cannot be the only human who feels this way. The worst part is that anyone who wants WFH can have it, but I cannot have what I need. I pay for a WeWork just to get me out of the house, but that's basically nothing more than an expensive home office. My job is still 100% slack and zoom with everyone else in their bedrooms. WFH makes me depressed.
• hsn915 4y ago
  Probably, but not because of going back to the office. If anything, being back in the office would be welcome for me. Sure, commute is a bit inefficient, but a lot of time is wasted when no one goes to the office ever. Three times a week seems like a good balance to me.
• deleted 4y ago
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• pm90 4y ago
  I would leave. Not because I don’t like the office; but trying to force employees to do this doesn’t sit well with me. Remote first with optional office for those who chose to should be the default strategy. Anecdotally Ive continued to receive a similar amount of recruiter emails as I did before the market downturn a few months ago. So my current thinking is that tech layoffs are companies force purging to please the Wall Street gods while demand continues to stay stratospherically high for technology.
• exapple 4y ago
  I quit Apple early June because of this reason. Found a new job with better pay. Starting September.
  • gaws 4y ago
    What's the job? What's the pay?
• wXD29445tmDjTPC 4y ago
  [Throwaway account but a real answer nonetheless]. I will quit in a few days due to a combination of various factors. I found out, way too late in my professional life, that I was exploited by all the companies I worked for. My salary being too low, and the ridiculous number of days working from home are important factors but it's not limited to this. An old friend called me recently and offered me a job at his company. I thought about it for a few days, talked to my wife about it, and accepted an interview. That's where I discovered that I was being "exploited." I will have interesting tasks, I'll work on modern C++ again which is good since I have been lazy about it and didn't improve for those past few years, I will have up to 4 days of WFH per week if I want, and I managed to get a 40% salary increase (yes, 40%). My current employer refused all my demands: salary, WFH, support from the managers, budget, ... I will get most of that elsewhere. I will miss my colleagues who are very competent, but I will NOT miss the management and the crazy answers from the HR department. They will freak out though when I send my resignation letter as I became a central point across all the teams, but it's their loss. End of the rant!
  • theklr 4y ago
    Kudos to you stepping out and up and getting what you’re worth.
• bravetraveler 4y ago
  I probably would if mine were actually taking a stance. It's been mixed messaging so I'm on the fence. I'm in a fairly odd situation, however. Prior to lockdown I was already WFH. Oddities are coming... After the lockdown started we went through at least two leadership changes. Now I'll [eventually] have to self report by 'filing a request' to make the WFH status official. It doesn't sound like it's something likely to be denied, but rather something I'll regret later. I'm now having to basically have this same negotiation again six years later. If I have to do that, I may as well do it for more money. I don't recognize my role [or team] anyway after going through the tumbler
  • redditor98654 4y ago
    Amazon?
    • bravetraveler 4y ago
      Nope, I'll never work for Bezos hah
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• otoburb 4y ago
  >>So... those of you working at companies demadning a return-to-office... are you going to quit? As with most situations of this nature, it's infinitely easier to make this decision if you already have a decently competitive job offer in-hand.
• chr1ss 4y ago
  yep, would do and do
• Brajeshwar 4y ago
  Always be Quitting. This was on HackerNews some time back -- https://jmmv.dev/2021/04/always-be-quitting.html https://jmmv.dev/2021/04/always-be-quitting.html
• drusepth 4y ago
  Not "quitting", but I considered taking a job at a FAANG (and letting startup be passive income) for a hot second a month or two ago... until they couldn't guarantee the remote position I was applying for would continue to be remote for the rest of the year. Now I'm _really_ glad I didn't take it.
• wooque 4y ago
  I'm going to quit, but not because of return-to-office, but because I can. I'll take few months off before searching for a new job. I don't have big expenses and plenty of cash in bank.
• theshrike79 4y ago
  My current job was a "hybrid" model, practically everyone is 100% remote unless they specifically wanted to go to the office. Three people wanted to - they lived a 10 minute walk away from the office and didn't have space in their apartments. All jobs I apply from now on should be remote with a local option. Some things are just easier to do in-person, but mandating 3 days in the office per week is just overkill. Let the team decide what's best for them. And if you have some bigger all-hands events, warn a few weeks beforehand so people can make accommodations.
  • teeray 4y ago
    > If you have some bigger all-hands events… Just do something else instead. Have an internal podcast that I can listen to async while I mow my lawn or clean my house. There’s no need to tie up your entire workforce for a live stream. Deal with Q&A (which is usually terrible anyway) by having a Q&A episode where you answer the top 10 upvoted questions.