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Return to Office Enters the Desperation Phase
- asnyder 3y agoFunny how they close the article with an in office gossip update as being an example of a major benefit of coming in. Really, couldn't close on something more substantial to the business?
- mistrial9 3y agoits polite to discuss the chit-chat.. its "not polite" to discuss the actual supervision as it is implemented. This is about supervision and metrics, manager roles and executive roles, as much as anything IMHO
- cmiles74 3y agoThis entire article is weak on the work-from-office advantages. While they claim that some companies have "run the numbers," unfortunately no factual data from this number running has made it into the article.
- spacemadness 3y agoThey’ve certainly run the numbers on corporate real estate to fuel all this corporate gaslighting.
- HappySweeney 3y agoSure that stuff is nice, but is it worth burning $200 and 30 hours every month?
- Kon-Peki 3y ago> “You can interrupt each other without being rude when you’re in person,” With a large pay increase and a promotion to “guy who remembers stuff so nobody else has to”, I would gladly come into the office and not feel like it was rude to be constantly interrupted. But as it is, my job is “finish the work you asked me to do”, and constant interruption is quite rude, in-person or otherwise.
- smcleod 3y agoIt's the complete opposite when you’re in person. It’s so much more rude as your demanding their immediate attention at a time that suits you. Remote you can manage your notifications and methods of contact which is so much healthier.
- damnesian 3y agoExactly so. In-person interruptions, in the hands of manager who uses physical presense to feel superior, morph into intimidation.
- uxp100 3y agoRather not rehash this discussion, but just a reminder that some people feel exactly opposite. In person disruption is really no big deal for me, but slack is a tool that destroys all productivity.
- helij 3y agoNotifications on Slack can be turned off.
- illiac786 3y agoAnother mental burden to remember to turn off slack notification, and notifications of this other Collab tool whenever I do not want to be interrupted. Also, at least for me, it's not black and white when I need quiet time. I might jot down something, brings another idea and suddenly I have a new idea to fix a problem which has been nagging at me for months and off I go for 10 hours. I won't think about turning off notification until there is one - by then my mental flow has been disturbed. But I do love home office, I just want to outline that managing notifications is not without friction.
- helij 3y agoWhy not make it a default state? My default is all notifications off. I understand that for some people that's not really an option but for most it certainly is.
- sharemywin 3y agoI just don't know how you get the Genie back in the bottle. Will employees come back in eventually probably if forced to enough. will smaller companies see how much of a benefit WFH is and use it as a hiring advantage I would imagine. I wonder if people forced to come back into the office are working a ton of free hours for the company. I can't really stay late because I have that commute now. And every time someone from management sent an email or tried to have a zoom I'd have a hard time not asking in the zoom why it wasn't an in person meeting? And I could see people spending a whole lot of time "collaborating" too. Maybe there needs to be a blog post 50 passive aggressive ways to get back at your employer for making you come back into the office.
- dv_dt 3y agoEmployees should start associating in-office required days with just talking about a four day work week (which is probably another anathema thing to management).
- teeray 3y agoWell, assuming an hour traveling in and an hour out from the office, that’s another 8-hour day. So yeah, talking about a four-day work week is completely reasonable.
- bannedbybros 3y ago[dead]
- ralphc 3y agoThere was an article in Salon or Slate last year where they asked people what it would take to get them back in the office, and the universal answer was on-site free day care for their kids.
- soupfordummies 3y ago>And every time someone from management sent an email or tried to have a zoom I'd have a hard time not asking in the zoom why it wasn't an in person meeting? I love this as malicious compliance in RTO workplaces. Brilliant.
- smcleod 3y agoI’ve been seeing companies that have tried to get people to commute to/from and “work” from their office (any number of days) starting to lose the good people - the ones you want to keep around. I’ve kept in contact with a couple of them and they’re now 100% remote, one is working for a local company the other an international and they seem genuinely so much happier.
- helij 3y agoWe have a completely flexible working arrangement. Pretty much 'do what you want'. We provide equipment for working from home and we also have offices stocked with food, etc. If we changed that and demanded return to office I know for a fact that the most capable people would be the first to give notice and we would immediately be less profitable.
- throw10920 3y ago> starting to lose the good people - the ones you want to keep around. Right, because telework is only beneficial for the good developers, because most outside of the top 20%/10%/5% won't be able to compete with low-cost international labor enabled by telework. Telework is quite clearly a way to cut down on the middle class while enriching a small elite class of workers, and comments like this show those who think that they're in that class.
- l3mure 3y ago[flagged]
- throw10920 3y agoMy comment is clearly related to the parent comment - they're both obviously and unambiguously about telework and its ramifications. To claim that "it's a generic political tangent" is completely absurd. I will admit that it was more political than I was aware of and is appropriate for HN, and for that I apologize to later readers - it's too late for me to edit it, and so I'll just have to live with it.
- gwill 3y agohttps://archive.ph/KS2yh https://archive.ph/KS2yh
- pavel_lishin 3y agoAnother anecdote to throw in the bucket: they announced that we'll be returning to the office on July 10th, and also that we'll be pausing catered lunches on July 7th. (I know that it's the peak of privilege to complain about not getting free food delivered to work, but this feels like all-stick, and literally no carrots.)
- czbond 3y agoOne could consider a paycheck a carrot....
- Ar-Curunir 3y agoAs opposed to workers working for the company for free?
- czbond 3y agoAs opposed to a hyper competitive market where the worker is replaceable due to the market OR a market where there is literally little to no high paying jobs available, even for qualified applicants.
- ineedasername 3y agoThe paycheck is the baseline, a given when it comes to performing labor in this context. Perks of working in a given location are the carrots above and beyond the standard baseline of “I work, you pay me”.
- meepmorp 3y agoNo, my paycheck is why I show up at all, it's table stakes. Carrots are things that show I'm appreciated, and the bare fucking minimum to keep me there isn't a show of appreciation.
- mlhpdx 3y agoWow. This comes off as “yes, pay taxes AND make offerings to me”.
- nine_zeros 3y agoIf there is one thing everyone should know, it is that board members, CxOs and VCs are all just regular humans. They think exactly like you. Which means, they are as dumb as you. "They would much rather focus on their own returns than on the continued well-being of the company." Apply this line to your job, your career, your family. This is life in modern America.
- thebigwinning 3y agoYes. Well all those positions are just employees as well, not owners.
- nine_zeros 3y ago> Yes. Well all those positions are just employees as well, not owners. Yes, but those positions rely on ICs taking "ownership" of the work, often at the expense of IC's own health, relationships and families. Treat the company the way they treat you (and your peers). Nothing more, nothing less.
- dlivingston 3y agoA nitpick, but: if you get equity with your comp package, then you are an "owner" as well. The distinction between you and the C-suite is that their equity package is much higher.
- bluefishinit 3y ago> “You can interrupt each other without being rude when you’re in person,” said Mr. Medina, whose company, Outreach, is now in the office on a hybrid basis. “In a Zoom conversation, you have to let somebody finish their thought.” How is this not admitting that WFH is superior? If it puts a damper on people like this who feel it's their right to interrupt your thoughts, it's only a good thing. This article title may sound pro-WFH but it's basically pro-WFO and has no data other than CEO "feelings" to back it up. It also doesn't even mention all of the companies that started fully remote and will stay that way. Count me among those who would never WFO again, for any reason.
- sharondolovsky 3y agoMaybe it's my ADHD or cultural norms, but I read it as "finally, a conversation doesn't have to a boring turn-based event". Natural conversations are duplex
- greesil 3y agoDefinitely ADHD. My neurotypical coworkers can't stand my constant interruptions. On the flip side their adherence to turn-based conversations drives me crazy.
- giraffe_lady 3y agohttps://sambleckley.com/writing/church-of-interruption.html https://sambleckley.com/writing/church-of-interruption.html
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ineedasername 3y agoI very much agree with your response, yet will also say that I’ve still observed plenty of interruptions on Zoom. It may just raise the difficulty barrier, which I don’t regard as bad.
- turtlebits 3y agoTo me that means you can easily flag someone down without having to interrupt them by speaking mid call. In person also allows for async conversations during demos/presentations and is much easier to read the room for the speaker.
- Zetice 3y agoThere are so many downsides to WFH, and even the upsides encourage the opposite behaviors you want in a team, so this is in no way surprising. The larger permanent WFH experiment failed. That said, not every role, in every situation, needs in person interaction. It’s even reasonable to argue not every day needs in person interaction.
- Supermancho 3y ago> There are so many downsides to WFH, and even the upsides encourage the opposite behaviors you want in a team, so this is in no way surprising. This blanket statement is not compelling on its own. In theory or in practice, it would need to be demonstrated that any of these soft assertions are true.
- esarbe 3y agoI'm really wondering what kind of downsides you see to WFH; to me, there are only upsides: - no commute - being at home with the people you love and miss - not getting distracted by office drama - simplified work/life integration As a company we're using WFH as a selling point for engineers - they love it.
- Zetice 3y ago- Encourages less communication on team - Harder to join team for new members - Harder to learn field for novices - Lack of unit cohesion through informal interactions - Lack of access to equipment and tools necessary to complete job effectively - Lower social interaction - Risk of underworking - Risk of overworking - Unending distractions The list goes on... The interactions that take place when humans are next to one another is irreplaceable by current technology. Actual bandwidth to exchange ideas is lower. I know this is going to bring a lot of bitter downvotes, and I accept that, but the reality is WFH failed as a universal, "Everyone can do this." idea. The upsides are all for the employees, and the downsides are all shouldered by the employer, the one with the money, the one who creates and justifies the job, so it is ending for most. Not everyone! But most. Specific to your team, I do think it can work remotely, and have run remote engineering teams. But (and this is a big but) it requires a specific personality for everyone on the team, and you must do a lot to make up for the loss of in person interactions, and I can totally understand orgs who either a) don't think they have teams with the right dispositions to handle it or b) don't think they'll be able to successfully execute on all of the many extra work involved in recreating some of the missing aspects of WFH teams. Do you have conflicts? If so, how do they get resolved? Maybe it all works, but if any real problem shows up, I've found creating safety is a lot more difficult remotely. WFH can breed all of the nasty "snake pit" attitudes and behaviors a lot more easily when everyone (or even someone) is remote and therefore less interconnected.
- uxp100 3y agoThese articles are kinda funny to me since I don’t know anyone in my corner of the industry, in my corner of the world who has been fully wfh since 2021. And like, nobody is all that upset about it? We need to share hardware, we were borrowing lab equipment, passing prototypes and going in to have techs solder stuff, etc, might as well go in a few days a week. I’m not saying I don’t get why people like wfh, it’s just like, a small subset of workers this applies to who have purely computer jobs, and many of the articles about it seem to imply “everyone” is working from home, never mind carpenters or cooks.
- seabrookmx 3y agoIs it that small of subset? Even outside of software, there's many many jobs remote works for. Accountants, lawyers, graphic designers..
- uxp100 3y agoProbably not THAT small, but not most workers, and I guess I feel that articles like these, reflecting the work that the authors themselves do, make it that WFH-capable jobs are the default. Office workers are normal, and taxi drivers aren’t. But that might be reading a bit much into it.
- nologic01 3y agoThe pre-pandemic work arrangements were in what is called a meta-stable state. "If the ball is only slightly pushed, it will settle back into its hollow, but a stronger push may start the ball rolling down the slope" [1] They only looked normal because there just aren't many mechanisms for society to explore (at scale) nearby states that might be more adapted but require a lot of energy to reach. We have now tunneled by force into a more stable state. Everybody knows that massive amounts of knowledge work can be done remotely. There are tradeoffs of-course, a new equilibrium must be reached, but it has nothing to do with the old one. That is a good thing. Somehow we should be able to get to better states without going through existential risks. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metastability
- nness 3y agoMetastability is a nice abstraction for exactly this topic.
- mattkevan 3y agoI left my previous employer when it was clear they were forcing everyone back to the office. The CEO recently claimed on Twitter and LinkedIn, essentially that people working from home were lazy grifters who did nothing all day. He’s the sort of manager who believes on the one hand that no-one does any work unless he personally is there to crack the whip, and on the other that it’s fine to pay less than market rate salaries because the company culture is so fantastic. Also conveniently forgetting that the best years the company ever had financially was when everyone was remote. Now work for a much smaller fully remote company who love the fact they’re no longer geographically limited for good employees.
- BaseballPhysics 3y agoSeems like these companies are banking on a recession to impact the job market and reduce labour bargaining power, thereby freeing them to change the WFH situation without significant attrition. It'll be interesting to see who ends up being right.
- twobitshifter 3y agoI saw a video that indicated that the attrition from RTO is desirable for some CEOs. If revenues are falling, its better to have staff leave than it is to announce layoffs. RTO gives them a shield and they can paint the WFH crowd as lazy and not a culture fit.
- BaseballPhysics 3y ago"If revenues are falling" is a big if. I've seen no real evidence that'd happening, and rather the reverse seems to be occurring: record corporate profits. Now, granted, tech is an outlier in that a lot of companies ballooned up during the pandemic and are now undoing that mistake, and so your explanation makes sense in that industry, but the push for RTO is happening outside tech as well.
- spacemadness 3y agoI might entertain giving up remote if these clowns at the helm decided to get rid of crowded open office plans. I can’t stand open office plans and get anxiety thinking about being forced back into them. It’s one of the reasons I worked on getting a remote position even before the pandemic. I think I’ll leave the tech industry if it comes down to that being the only option.
- wonderwonder 3y agoCEO and leadership need peons genuflecting to feel powerful. My wife took a job that promised 2 days wfh. First week they switched it to 1 day because leadership thinks it's easier to build relationships in office. Total bait and switch. Was a year ago and she is still there and enjoys the job. I'm still furious about it but let it go. It's frustrating because plans involving the kids were made and then the job changes the playing field and all kid duties are mine 4 days a week instead of 3. Figure for most people that have to go back it's way worse.
- ssklash 3y agoIt's funny how not one sentence mentioned corporate real estate, which I think is a far bigger driver of the push to in-person work than "you can't interrupt people on Zoom" or whatever inane reason these corporate types think justifies the huge (and patently unnecessary) expenditure in employee time and energy commuting represents.
- Simulacra 3y agoI had to return to the office because I was getting left behind by the people who were.
- eloisant 3y agoYes, we need some in-person contact. But we don't need to do that every week, a few times a year of "get together" for a few days is enough.
- x86x87 3y agoAt this point this is just propaganda. The desperation phase? Yes, for employers. Watch this whole RTO thing collapse and corpos "changing their mind" once the herd gas been thinned and 2024, an elections year, rolls around. They have limited time to pull this off.
- djoldman 3y agoIt's curious how there seems to be few if any hard numbers on the work in the office side of the argument. What I've seen are anecdotes like, "We're more creative in person" or, without evidence: "Being near each other makes the work better." In google's case: ok, take a look at all those KPI's for teams that WFH vs in office: where is that? On the WFH side, it's straightforward to calculate the commute hours saved, carbon footprint lowered, and minutes more spent with friends/family. Now that many workers have enjoyed the WFH status quo, they feel that management is actively removing benefits.
- squalo 3y agoAnother article about forced RTO that fails to mention that executives are afraid of losing their tax incentives / welfare payments by not delivering x number of bodies to the location that gave them incentives to be there
- minerva23 3y ago> "In a Zoom conversation, you have to let somebody finish their thought.” Tell me your company doesn't use headsets without telling me. Seriously, if their major complaint is half-duplex audio, just make sure everyone is using headsets so everyone can speak and listen at the same time.