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I’m not near a big tech center, but I know of exactly 3 businesses in my town that no longer exist because they would not allow their employees to work remotely

I’m not near a big tech center, but I know of exactly 3 businesses in my town that no longer exist because they would not allow their employees to work remotely. Two of them were owned by former clients of mine. They allowed themselves to fail because they wanted to make their employees’ lives more difficult. It was that simple. There was no need for either business to have a brick and mortar location at all. No need for all the overhead. But as the saying goes: “the cruelty is the point.”

unethical_ban 4y ago
We as an industry are still sailing through the air thinking things are fine with WFH, but in reality the engines have stalled and we're gliding. What I mean by that is that the industry has all the benefits of in-person work, having social connections, having gotten jobs through networking, and of knowing the ins and outs of a domain from pre-covid standards. As time goes on, I think the working population will have more trouble networking for jobs, have less enjoyment from their work, less interaction with other human beings, and fewer people will be able to "break in" from college or from non-IT roles into technology. We are insulating ourselves from spontaneous interactions, and that's a bad thing for evolution. TLDR - Not all RTO is about cruelty.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
  Hi manager! :-) No, we don’t go back to the office.
  - fundad 4y ago
    I would expect managers to be pleased that it's more difficult to network and leave them for a better manager.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      It might be harder to find a better manager, but it's far easier to leave.
  - unethical_ban 4y ago
    I'm "just" a worker who has also benefited from remote work. It's annoying to see people attack anyone who thinks there is a chance of a negative side effect of WFH.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  Then the pendulum will swing back towards hybrid, people will drift towards in-person-first companies such as Apple, and trends will shift again. Perhaps owners and management will get smart and try to woo workers with personal offices instead of the open office default. What you're describing won't last forever, either.
- citizenkeen 4y ago
  I also think there are a lot of people in California who don't want to RTO who aren't thinking about competing with jobs with people in a state with COL like Arkansas or Idaho. WFH is really going to depress wages for most tech workers.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    Californians and the like are moving to Idaho, so the COL there will gradually increase towards parity. And perhaps Arkansas eventually? https://www.camdenarknews.com/news/2022/aug/31/will-climate-change-make-arkansas-a-destination/ https://www.camdenarknews.com/news/2022/aug/31/will-climate-...
    - buscoquadnary 4y ago
      As someone who moved to ID because I have in laws in the area I can tell you it is a terrible place, no one should move here, the locals are rude and crude, it is freezing 8 months out of the year. Everyone here is an avid Trump supporter and openly racist. They drive big pickup trucks everywhere. The mountains are too far away and horrible, everything here is terrible in every way no one should move here the entire state is terrible. The fish have 3 eyes and it is ugly as sin year round, again days 10 below are 0 are common and the roads are never taken care of. Thousands die every year trapped in their home from their houses freezing solid. Again I warn you stay away Idaho sucks, tell all your friends. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1o33skCSN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1o33skCSN8 EDIT: Bug, bugs are everywhere, every horrible thing you have ever heard about any state multiple by 6 and Idaho is still worse. Everyone is carrying a gun everywhere, because you have to constantly shoot away wild animals and other people that try and maul you and eat you. If you've ever played a game in the Fallout series that is what all of Idaho is like. Idaho sucks tell all your friends. EDIT EDIT: If you've already moved to ID it's not too late you can still escape to somewhere better, flee flee for your lives. 3rd EDIT: There is no shopping here either, Amazon can take over a week to deliver, we mostly barter at the country general store in potatoes, not to mention children are mauled by the dozens by bears just walking home from school, which is a one room school house 40 miles away. We have the worst schools in the country. Stay away if you value your children's future.
- spookthesunset 4y ago
  Totally agree. The pendulum is gonna swing back, it's just a matter of time. Yes there will be more remote-first companies but we will see how that pans out over 5 or so years. There is a hell of a lot more to running a tech company than just writing code. Code writing can easily be done from home but there is a lot of other roles where it isn't as easy. Plus, are people really gonna just hunker down in isolation? Aren't they gonna get a little stir crazy? We will see. PS: The fact that suggesting WFH isn't all peaches and roses gets one so harshly attacked suggests that there is some serious unspoken ulterior motives at play. It's kinda funny to me how so many arguments for WFH are centered around the individuals themselves. None of them are really arguing that WFH is actually the best for a business.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    What if, as a compromise, the first step is we get rid of open offices. That would go a long way towards getting rid of a near-universal complaint (at least on HN) about the pre-disease status quo, which WFH has freed tech workers from for a while. > It's kinda funny to me how so many arguments for WFH are centered around the individuals themselves. Many of those individuals may have families who they want to be around more, or help with, during the day. And less work commuting is inherently better for the environment. > None of them are really arguing that WFH is actually the best for a business. So far, we need to see more signal that businesses, namely the tech companies located in say SF, are being adversely impacted.
    - N1H1L 4y ago
      Yep. I am working hybridly - where I am in my office 2-3 days per week, and remote the rest. It's insane how less stress I have when I WFH. I have to work onsite those days due to the nature of my job. Less traffic, especially the early money school --> downtown rush. My office space has poor ventilation, the HVAC is outdated and has no natural light at all. And the less that can be said for my cafeteria food the better. Honestly, if you as a company want my seat in the chair, you do need to provide facilities that make it worth it.
    - spookthesunset 4y ago
- dividefuel 4y ago
  We're 2.5 years into the big, unplanned WFH experiment. I would think all of the in-person benefits you mention would be visibly expiring by now. Are they? I'm sure in some cases they definitely are, but industry-wide I would think we'd see more clear evidence by now if that was the case.
  - unethical_ban 4y ago
    I honestly think it will take half a decade or more. It will take seeing the long term effects on new entrants to the fields (college hires) as well as seeing those people trying to get new jobs at new places.
mstipetic 4y ago
The businesses literally shut down because of that? They were that stubborn? Or they noticed it too late?
- hollywood_court 4y ago
  The one I was most familiar with was a business that edited wedding photos and videos. The owner insisted that each employee be on site each day. There were other factors too such as the fact that he forced them to work on Windows machines when each employee had M1 Macs at home. He made the fatal mistake of saying “if you don’t like it, go start your own business.” Well, two of them did. My wife and I gave them the money they needed to do a bit of marketing and hooked them up with our attorneys. Now they work wherever they wish. The owner made a lot of entertaining social media posts afterwards about how lazy workers are ruining this country. The guy was a walking stereotype
  - postalrat 4y ago
    How can you be sure that the business itself didn't fail?
    - hollywood_court 4y ago
      It did fail. He had no employees and he didn't know how to perform the work himself. In our local FB and Nextdoor groups, there were many brides complaining about not receiving their photos/videos for months after their weddings. He wasn't bright enough to outsource. He ended just returning all the original photos/videos and refunding deposits. The building he leased is still vacant today. Whenever my wife saw someone complain, she would refer them to the former employees who went and started their own LLC.
pessimizer 4y ago
Because many methods of making money are cruel, a lot of stupid people develop an intuition that the best business decision no matter what is the one the people beneath you least want you to do. They see a world where they're trying to get all they can out of lazy employees that are constantly trying to get one over on them. Those employees' tricks are what is standing between them and retiring on passive income. This is like 85% of small business owners. If you like working from home, working from home is bad for the business. It's a bit protestant. Like the idea that food is unhealthy exactly to the degree of how good it tastes.
- hollywood_court 4y ago
  What you described is seen all over small towns here in the South. So many of my peers think that their employees owe them something. As a tradesman, I hear the same thing from so many of my peers in the real estate repair/building industry. What most of them don't realize is that they are actually successful exploiters of labor rather than successful business people. I judge a company by how well they treat the lowest man on the totem pole. All around me you'll find small business owners who send their kids to private school, their wives drive fully loaded Yukons/Tahoes, they have lake homes and boats, they have healthcare, they take multiple vacations per year, etc. Yet not a single one of their employees can enjoy a single one of those amenities. So you effectively have 15-20 skilled tradesmen working full time to support the lifestyle of one family. When you have all of that, but your employees have none of it, you're exploiting their labor.
  - nebula8804 4y ago
    Times like this I am reminded of all those Swiss CNC shops that offer to train people out of high school sometimes for 4+ years fully paid and then offer them a full time job often a lifetime position. These businesses have operated for generation some for 100+ years now. We are starting to see bits of this come back but I wonder if this country still has the culture to make it stick. [1]:https://youtu.be/kWBQHicfyfQ?t=254 https://youtu.be/kWBQHicfyfQ?t=254
    - 4y ago

unethical_ban 4y ago

We as an industry are still sailing through the air thinking things are fine with WFH, but in reality the engines have stalled and we're gliding. What I mean by that is that the industry has all the benefits of in-person work, having social connections, having gotten jobs through networking, and of knowing the ins and outs of a domain from pre-covid standards. As time goes on, I think the working population will have more trouble networking for jobs, have less enjoyment from their work, less interaction with other human beings, and fewer people will be able to "break in" from college or from non-IT roles into technology. We are insulating ourselves from spontaneous interactions, and that's a bad thing for evolution. TLDR - Not all RTO is about cruelty.

aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
Hi manager! :-) No, we don’t go back to the office.
- fundad 4y ago
  I would expect managers to be pleased that it's more difficult to network and leave them for a better manager.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    It might be harder to find a better manager, but it's far easier to leave.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  I'm "just" a worker who has also benefited from remote work. It's annoying to see people attack anyone who thinks there is a chance of a negative side effect of WFH.
Apocryphon 4y ago
Then the pendulum will swing back towards hybrid, people will drift towards in-person-first companies such as Apple, and trends will shift again. Perhaps owners and management will get smart and try to woo workers with personal offices instead of the open office default. What you're describing won't last forever, either.
citizenkeen 4y ago
I also think there are a lot of people in California who don't want to RTO who aren't thinking about competing with jobs with people in a state with COL like Arkansas or Idaho. WFH is really going to depress wages for most tech workers.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  Californians and the like are moving to Idaho, so the COL there will gradually increase towards parity. And perhaps Arkansas eventually? https://www.camdenarknews.com/news/2022/aug/31/will-climate-change-make-arkansas-a-destination/ https://www.camdenarknews.com/news/2022/aug/31/will-climate-...
  - buscoquadnary 4y ago
    As someone who moved to ID because I have in laws in the area I can tell you it is a terrible place, no one should move here, the locals are rude and crude, it is freezing 8 months out of the year. Everyone here is an avid Trump supporter and openly racist. They drive big pickup trucks everywhere. The mountains are too far away and horrible, everything here is terrible in every way no one should move here the entire state is terrible. The fish have 3 eyes and it is ugly as sin year round, again days 10 below are 0 are common and the roads are never taken care of. Thousands die every year trapped in their home from their houses freezing solid. Again I warn you stay away Idaho sucks, tell all your friends. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1o33skCSN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1o33skCSN8 EDIT: Bug, bugs are everywhere, every horrible thing you have ever heard about any state multiple by 6 and Idaho is still worse. Everyone is carrying a gun everywhere, because you have to constantly shoot away wild animals and other people that try and maul you and eat you. If you've ever played a game in the Fallout series that is what all of Idaho is like. Idaho sucks tell all your friends. EDIT EDIT: If you've already moved to ID it's not too late you can still escape to somewhere better, flee flee for your lives. 3rd EDIT: There is no shopping here either, Amazon can take over a week to deliver, we mostly barter at the country general store in potatoes, not to mention children are mauled by the dozens by bears just walking home from school, which is a one room school house 40 miles away. We have the worst schools in the country. Stay away if you value your children's future.
spookthesunset 4y ago
Totally agree. The pendulum is gonna swing back, it's just a matter of time. Yes there will be more remote-first companies but we will see how that pans out over 5 or so years. There is a hell of a lot more to running a tech company than just writing code. Code writing can easily be done from home but there is a lot of other roles where it isn't as easy. Plus, are people really gonna just hunker down in isolation? Aren't they gonna get a little stir crazy? We will see. PS: The fact that suggesting WFH isn't all peaches and roses gets one so harshly attacked suggests that there is some serious unspoken ulterior motives at play. It's kinda funny to me how so many arguments for WFH are centered around the individuals themselves. None of them are really arguing that WFH is actually the best for a business.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  What if, as a compromise, the first step is we get rid of open offices. That would go a long way towards getting rid of a near-universal complaint (at least on HN) about the pre-disease status quo, which WFH has freed tech workers from for a while. > It's kinda funny to me how so many arguments for WFH are centered around the individuals themselves. Many of those individuals may have families who they want to be around more, or help with, during the day. And less work commuting is inherently better for the environment. > None of them are really arguing that WFH is actually the best for a business. So far, we need to see more signal that businesses, namely the tech companies located in say SF, are being adversely impacted.
  - N1H1L 4y ago
    Yep. I am working hybridly - where I am in my office 2-3 days per week, and remote the rest. It's insane how less stress I have when I WFH. I have to work onsite those days due to the nature of my job. Less traffic, especially the early money school --> downtown rush. My office space has poor ventilation, the HVAC is outdated and has no natural light at all. And the less that can be said for my cafeteria food the better. Honestly, if you as a company want my seat in the chair, you do need to provide facilities that make it worth it.
  - spookthesunset 4y ago
dividefuel 4y ago
We're 2.5 years into the big, unplanned WFH experiment. I would think all of the in-person benefits you mention would be visibly expiring by now. Are they? I'm sure in some cases they definitely are, but industry-wide I would think we'd see more clear evidence by now if that was the case.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  I honestly think it will take half a decade or more. It will take seeing the long term effects on new entrants to the fields (college hires) as well as seeing those people trying to get new jobs at new places.

mstipetic 4y ago

The businesses literally shut down because of that? They were that stubborn? Or they noticed it too late?

hollywood_court 4y ago
The one I was most familiar with was a business that edited wedding photos and videos. The owner insisted that each employee be on site each day. There were other factors too such as the fact that he forced them to work on Windows machines when each employee had M1 Macs at home. He made the fatal mistake of saying “if you don’t like it, go start your own business.” Well, two of them did. My wife and I gave them the money they needed to do a bit of marketing and hooked them up with our attorneys. Now they work wherever they wish. The owner made a lot of entertaining social media posts afterwards about how lazy workers are ruining this country. The guy was a walking stereotype
- postalrat 4y ago
  How can you be sure that the business itself didn't fail?
  - hollywood_court 4y ago
    It did fail. He had no employees and he didn't know how to perform the work himself. In our local FB and Nextdoor groups, there were many brides complaining about not receiving their photos/videos for months after their weddings. He wasn't bright enough to outsource. He ended just returning all the original photos/videos and refunding deposits. The building he leased is still vacant today. Whenever my wife saw someone complain, she would refer them to the former employees who went and started their own LLC.

pessimizer 4y ago

Because many methods of making money are cruel, a lot of stupid people develop an intuition that the best business decision no matter what is the one the people beneath you least want you to do. They see a world where they're trying to get all they can out of lazy employees that are constantly trying to get one over on them. Those employees' tricks are what is standing between them and retiring on passive income. This is like 85% of small business owners. If you like working from home, working from home is bad for the business. It's a bit protestant. Like the idea that food is unhealthy exactly to the degree of how good it tastes.

hollywood_court 4y ago
What you described is seen all over small towns here in the South. So many of my peers think that their employees owe them something. As a tradesman, I hear the same thing from so many of my peers in the real estate repair/building industry. What most of them don't realize is that they are actually successful exploiters of labor rather than successful business people. I judge a company by how well they treat the lowest man on the totem pole. All around me you'll find small business owners who send their kids to private school, their wives drive fully loaded Yukons/Tahoes, they have lake homes and boats, they have healthcare, they take multiple vacations per year, etc. Yet not a single one of their employees can enjoy a single one of those amenities. So you effectively have 15-20 skilled tradesmen working full time to support the lifestyle of one family. When you have all of that, but your employees have none of it, you're exploiting their labor.
- nebula8804 4y ago
  Times like this I am reminded of all those Swiss CNC shops that offer to train people out of high school sometimes for 4+ years fully paid and then offer them a full time job often a lifetime position. These businesses have operated for generation some for 100+ years now. We are starting to see bits of this come back but I wonder if this country still has the culture to make it stick. [1]:https://youtu.be/kWBQHicfyfQ?t=254 https://youtu.be/kWBQHicfyfQ?t=254
  - 4y ago