4 ms·

I think it’s getting toward that dystopian future where we are forced to Jack into the matrix only from regulated spots in the physical world. So rather than j

I think it’s getting toward that dystopian future where we are forced to Jack into the matrix only from regulated spots in the physical world. So rather than just putting on your goggles from wherever you are and working, Meta wants you to drive into the office, sit in a tiny cubicle, put your goggles on and work there. Hopefully it’s just stupidity and culture clash and not maliciousness. It’s similar to an early push at my org for “return to office” that involved everyone coming in and zooming all day with people in mostly different spots. Some people like this, but for many it seemed like a waste.

FiberBundle 4y ago
> Meta wants you to drive into the office, sit in a tiny cubicle, put your goggles on and work there. They want you to sit in an open office, which is even worse imo.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  The cubicle walls are virtual.
- saddist0 4y ago
  Nope, no longer "open" office. https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-metas-push-to-solve-the-noisy-office-ba43042 https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-metas-push-to-solve-the-...
  - q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
    This is one of the funniest things I've seen yet from the RTO movement. It's a cubicle, but smaller! And someone could steal 1/4 of it at any time! Brilliant. To make it doubly funny, I'd actually love a few of these panels for my home office — they look great for just mounting on the walls to quiet things down a bit. I just bought a bunch of those hexagonal acoustic panels that are marketed to Twitch streamers for the same purpose, but this thing that Meta made looks even better. They should just brand it as a "Metaverse Pod" and sell it directly. Maybe they could probably even book the revenue under their Metaverse unit.
908B64B197 4y ago
> It’s similar to an early push at my org for “return to office” that involved everyone coming in and zooming all day with people in mostly different spots. Some people like this, but for many it seemed like a waste. Would have made sense in the early 2000's. Back in the days, corporate HQs had fast networking. Even lugging a machine home, doing anything over 56k would have been a pain. Now folks have dedicated fiber going straight to their router.
- kevstev 4y ago
  Heh yeah even in the mid 2000s I at one point lived directly across the street from the office. I would get calls sometimes on the weekend to the tune of "hey man can you just run in real quick and check something for me?" because it was just such a PITA to use remote tools in those days. I think the tool of that era was WinVNC IIRC, though there were slight improvements every other year or so until RDP became the defacto standard. Also, at work you generally had much better equipment, a bigger monitor, and later multiple, etc. Nowadays the reverse may be true. I asked the office for a replacement monitor after one of mine kicked the bucket, and they sent me home a 1920x1080 monitor, which compared to my thunderbolt and 2560x1440 dell, looked like a window back in time 10 years.
  - giantrobot 4y ago
    > I asked the office for a replacement monitor after one of mine kicked the bucket, and they sent me home a 1920x1080 monitor I'm fully remote and my job sent me a monitor, keyboard, and mouse along with my work laptop. The keyboard, mouse, and monitor are all garbage. They're just e-waste to me so I use the laptop stand alone. It's 2023. Employers know developers stare at their screens all day. Giving them shitty 1080p screens is an obliviousness bordering insulting.
slowmovintarget 4y ago
More Brazil than The Matrix I'd venture.
tempestn 4y ago
I've got a friend who works for a government agency up here in BC, Canada. She's been all remote for years, but they now want her (and everyone else) in the office 2 days a week, likely going up to 3. Problem is, the office is almost a 2-hour drive, one way, from home, and she's not doing anything there that can't be done from home. Her manager (who has no power over the policy itself) thinks he has a solution though; there's a different government office in her city that she could probably work at instead, at least most of the time. She doesn't know anyone there, and there's no work done there related to her work (let alone anything she couldn't do at home), but they think it could check the "be in the office" box.
testbjjl 4y ago
You left out getting paid (well) every two weeks and receiving options that are increasing in value as the company becomes more efficient. It’s not personal, it’s not stupidity it’s just business and there are hundreds of thousands of developers who are willing and capable of replacing any of us. The alternative is to start your own business. If you did and generated more revenue while your employees were in the office based on previous data, I think you’d end your remote work policy for all but the people who are irreplaceable to your revenue stream.
- prepend 4y ago
  > The alternative is to start your own business. If you did and generated more revenue while your employees were in the office based on previous data, I think you’d end your remote work policy for all but the people who are irreplaceable to your revenue stream. I think it’s simpler than this and if my goal is maximum productivity to recognize that different work modes get me there. I think some work and people combo (eg, software dev and data work) is well-suited for remote work. So I’ll actually outperform in office companies in my field by strutting my work culture to maximize this. I’d certainly start my own org if needed. Or more likely just choose to work with others who have done the same.
- sp332 4y ago
  That is too defeatist. There isn't an unending pool of potential employees that FB wants to hire. The company is getting less efficient because they are not negotiating effectively. Remote work is a powerful bit of leverage for recruiting and retention, and FB has flushed it.
- abeppu 4y ago
  > If you did and generated more revenue while your employees were in the office based on previous data, I think you’d end your remote work policy for all but the people who are irreplaceable to your revenue stream. This is confusing "happened in overlapping time periods" with "happened because of". What if you generated less revenue during a period where TikTok was eating your lunch, Apple changed privacy controls which impacted the targeted ad landscape, your CEO was focused on VR, and also lots of people were WFH? From the stories I've heard from Meta, the issue was way more that there were a lot of strategically questionable projects than that staff were less efficient at pursuing them because of WFH.

FiberBundle 4y ago

> Meta wants you to drive into the office, sit in a tiny cubicle, put your goggles on and work there. They want you to sit in an open office, which is even worse imo.

ethbr0 4y ago
The cubicle walls are virtual.
saddist0 4y ago
Nope, no longer "open" office. https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-metas-push-to-solve-the-noisy-office-ba43042 https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-metas-push-to-solve-the-...
- q7xvh97o2pDhNrh 4y ago
  This is one of the funniest things I've seen yet from the RTO movement. It's a cubicle, but smaller! And someone could steal 1/4 of it at any time! Brilliant. To make it doubly funny, I'd actually love a few of these panels for my home office — they look great for just mounting on the walls to quiet things down a bit. I just bought a bunch of those hexagonal acoustic panels that are marketed to Twitch streamers for the same purpose, but this thing that Meta made looks even better. They should just brand it as a "Metaverse Pod" and sell it directly. Maybe they could probably even book the revenue under their Metaverse unit.

908B64B197 4y ago

> It’s similar to an early push at my org for “return to office” that involved everyone coming in and zooming all day with people in mostly different spots. Some people like this, but for many it seemed like a waste. Would have made sense in the early 2000's. Back in the days, corporate HQs had fast networking. Even lugging a machine home, doing anything over 56k would have been a pain. Now folks have dedicated fiber going straight to their router.

kevstev 4y ago
Heh yeah even in the mid 2000s I at one point lived directly across the street from the office. I would get calls sometimes on the weekend to the tune of "hey man can you just run in real quick and check something for me?" because it was just such a PITA to use remote tools in those days. I think the tool of that era was WinVNC IIRC, though there were slight improvements every other year or so until RDP became the defacto standard. Also, at work you generally had much better equipment, a bigger monitor, and later multiple, etc. Nowadays the reverse may be true. I asked the office for a replacement monitor after one of mine kicked the bucket, and they sent me home a 1920x1080 monitor, which compared to my thunderbolt and 2560x1440 dell, looked like a window back in time 10 years.
- giantrobot 4y ago
  > I asked the office for a replacement monitor after one of mine kicked the bucket, and they sent me home a 1920x1080 monitor I'm fully remote and my job sent me a monitor, keyboard, and mouse along with my work laptop. The keyboard, mouse, and monitor are all garbage. They're just e-waste to me so I use the laptop stand alone. It's 2023. Employers know developers stare at their screens all day. Giving them shitty 1080p screens is an obliviousness bordering insulting.

slowmovintarget 4y ago

More Brazil than The Matrix I'd venture.

tempestn 4y ago

I've got a friend who works for a government agency up here in BC, Canada. She's been all remote for years, but they now want her (and everyone else) in the office 2 days a week, likely going up to 3. Problem is, the office is almost a 2-hour drive, one way, from home, and she's not doing anything there that can't be done from home. Her manager (who has no power over the policy itself) thinks he has a solution though; there's a different government office in her city that she could probably work at instead, at least most of the time. She doesn't know anyone there, and there's no work done there related to her work (let alone anything she couldn't do at home), but they think it could check the "be in the office" box.

testbjjl 4y ago

You left out getting paid (well) every two weeks and receiving options that are increasing in value as the company becomes more efficient. It’s not personal, it’s not stupidity it’s just business and there are hundreds of thousands of developers who are willing and capable of replacing any of us. The alternative is to start your own business. If you did and generated more revenue while your employees were in the office based on previous data, I think you’d end your remote work policy for all but the people who are irreplaceable to your revenue stream.

prepend 4y ago
> The alternative is to start your own business. If you did and generated more revenue while your employees were in the office based on previous data, I think you’d end your remote work policy for all but the people who are irreplaceable to your revenue stream. I think it’s simpler than this and if my goal is maximum productivity to recognize that different work modes get me there. I think some work and people combo (eg, software dev and data work) is well-suited for remote work. So I’ll actually outperform in office companies in my field by strutting my work culture to maximize this. I’d certainly start my own org if needed. Or more likely just choose to work with others who have done the same.
sp332 4y ago
That is too defeatist. There isn't an unending pool of potential employees that FB wants to hire. The company is getting less efficient because they are not negotiating effectively. Remote work is a powerful bit of leverage for recruiting and retention, and FB has flushed it.
abeppu 4y ago
> If you did and generated more revenue while your employees were in the office based on previous data, I think you’d end your remote work policy for all but the people who are irreplaceable to your revenue stream. This is confusing "happened in overlapping time periods" with "happened because of". What if you generated less revenue during a period where TikTok was eating your lunch, Apple changed privacy controls which impacted the targeted ad landscape, your CEO was focused on VR, and also lots of people were WFH? From the stories I've heard from Meta, the issue was way more that there were a lot of strategically questionable projects than that staff were less efficient at pursuing them because of WFH.