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I would look at it more like both sides are players. Playas gonna play. The girl plays, the guy plays. Omar: All in the game It's not like devs aren't gonna j

I would look at it more like both sides are players. Playas gonna play. The girl plays, the guy plays. Omar: All in the game It's not like devs aren't gonna jump ship when the cycle shifts back in the other direction. Edit: RTO is a hill I think devs should be prepared to die on. If every dev is not ready to fight for Remote, don't be shocked when it's not even an option as the years go by. Covid gave us a gift, and it's precious. We have to fight to keep it. Remote or Die.

sokoloff 3y ago
> If every dev is not ready to fight for Remote...We have to fight to keep it...Remote or Die. I had devs quit because we went remote. I have other devs still here but expressing a clear preference for more of an in-office experience. Not everyone has the same preferences and not every dev wants to work remotely. We shouldn't be surprised when those differences of opinion play out in the remote vs hybrid vs in-office spectrum.
- lsmeducation 3y ago
  The Remote contingent needs to fight harder than the office contingent because the office paradigm has been the dominant paradigm up until now. In-office work will realistically be seen as a niche when it's all said and done imho. Similar to LAN parties. It's not the way most people want to do things. Time will tell I guess. But thanks for your anecdote, I hope as time goes on, we begin to see what a niche anecdote it will become.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    I’ve just recently encountered a company with a culture that doesn’t interact so well with remote work, and it’s been eye opening. Lots of preference for talking (in person, or call) as soon as a message exchange goes past about two messages, when often what needs to happen is one party needs to go figure out WTF they actually want or are concerned about so they can describe it clearly—the talking doesn’t help, either, just wastes more time. Awful weirdly-restrictive chat room organization, which is shocking considering nearly-leaderless online communities manage to arrange those kinds of things better. Everything important gets posted to one-on-one chats or ephemeral and invisible-to-outsiders small group direct messages. The effect is they’ve accidentally made a bunch of stuff opaque and secret that really, really should not be. It’s poison for collaboration. I also get the impression some folks here just kinda… aren’t comfortable with written language. Reading or writing it. It’s so weird to see, but some of the folks who’ve been living this kind of job-life 10+ years, now I get how they think remote can’t possibly be as productive as in-person—but it’s mostly due to dumb mistakes that are also harming collaboration in the office. Most of them have no idea the place is doing things so entirely wrong, or how much better it can be with some simple tweaks.
    - smeej 3y ago
      It is absolutely incredible to me the number of people in professional roles who cannot read and write coherently, even when English is their native language. I cannot tell you how many meetings I've had where someone told me I "wasn't communicating clearly" and I asked them to read the unclear message back to me so I could understand what would make it clearer for them. And then I find out they can't read, at least not fluently. They either skip key words altogether or mistake them for other words. I'm convinced fewer than half of American adults could read a random book out loud, fluidly, without preparation.
      - trane_project 3y ago
        I looked this up and found this report: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179.pdf Only 12.5% of the population scores in the levels 4 or 5 (they had to group them together because there were so few is my guess). This is a disgrace. There's no reason why every adult should not be able to read proficiently. We are talking about reading, not some obscure skill. I wonder what these figures would be in Cuba. From what I remember reading, they were much higher because of widespread literacy campaigns. Edit: Found the source of this figures (https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/oecd-skills-outlook-2013_9789264204256-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/oecd-skills-outlook-...) which has data from more contries in the OECD. Japan scores the highest, followed by Finland.
        sokoloff 3y ago
        > Only 12.5% of the population scores in the levels 4 or 5 (they had to group them together because there were so few is my guess) The reason they did that is called out in endnote 3, "This analysis combines the top two proficiency levels (Levels 4 and 5), following the OECD’s reporting convention (OECD 2013), because across all participating countries, no more than 2 percent of adults reached Level 5." The PIAAC definitions of each level are here: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/measure.asp?section=1&sub_section=3 https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/measure.asp?section=1&sub_... and I would estimate that extremely few daily tasks would require (or even be aided by) level 5 literacy proficiency.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
  I always hear of this legion of office lovers but when you ask for actual number splits it ends up perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly being that the vast majority of people want 100% remote. All you office people can go work together then, don’t make it miserable for the rest of us
  - majormajor 3y ago
    > I always hear of this legion of office lovers but when you ask for actual number splits it ends up perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly being that the vast majority of people want 100% remote. All you office people can go work together then, don’t make it miserable for the rest of us A comment like this making claims about what happens when you see actual numbers should link to some actual numbers... Anecdotally, my social circle is increasingly preferring hybrid, which loses one of the most-frequently-touted benefits of remote (make your home wherever you want, even potentially super cheap real estate). IMO remote will likely hang on at bigger, cog-in-assembly-line type information jobs, but some sort of frequent in-person meetups will be hugely valuable for high-ambiguity/collaboration/creative work. For me the difference between "0 days in the office and nobody within a hundred miles" for three years and now "1 day in the office a week" has been huge, productivity-wise.
    - likenesstheft 3y ago
      > but some sort of frequent in-person meetups will be hugely valuable for high-ambiguity/collaboration/creative work This is some vanilla scrum master bull shit, this isn’t how products or code get built.
    - SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
      Here you go: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/remote-work-statistics/#:~:text=Sixty%2Dfive%20percent%20of%20workers,opportunities%20from%20in%2Doffice%20work https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/remote-work-statisti.... Note that this is Forbes, who is probably going to be biased towards in office work so the actual numbers from an unbiased source would probably be even more dramatic > For me the difference between "0 days in the office and nobody within a hundred miles" for three years and now "1 day in the office a week" has been huge, productivity-wise Why draw such a false dichotomy here? This doesn’t feel like an argument in good faith. The company I work for does onsites twice a year and gives people optionally the budget to meet in person once a quarter beyond that pretty much anywhere they want. I’ve never felt that I needed more than that to do high impact work
- vsareto 3y ago
  Higher costs of living make relocation and in-office work more restrictive, but that isn't a big concern for remote. Same for the travel burden. It would be very natural to see remote salaries become lower than in-office salaries on convenience, while in-office salaries go up because of that, but that's not really happening. So while you should choose work for your preferences when you can, you shouldn't let companies gain advantages like under compensating in-office workers. After all, they've already mostly taken away actual offices for individuals. This fight could be fought on that principle alone.
- mmmm2 3y ago
  Sure, not everyone wants to go remote, but many people do. Those of us who like remote work want to preserve it as an option. There's already resistance from companies with leases and cities with "empty" downtowns. I'm hopefully the change will stick despite that.

sokoloff 3y ago

> If every dev is not ready to fight for Remote...We have to fight to keep it...Remote or Die. I had devs quit because we went remote. I have other devs still here but expressing a clear preference for more of an in-office experience. Not everyone has the same preferences and not every dev wants to work remotely. We shouldn't be surprised when those differences of opinion play out in the remote vs hybrid vs in-office spectrum.

lsmeducation 3y ago
The Remote contingent needs to fight harder than the office contingent because the office paradigm has been the dominant paradigm up until now. In-office work will realistically be seen as a niche when it's all said and done imho. Similar to LAN parties. It's not the way most people want to do things. Time will tell I guess. But thanks for your anecdote, I hope as time goes on, we begin to see what a niche anecdote it will become.
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  I’ve just recently encountered a company with a culture that doesn’t interact so well with remote work, and it’s been eye opening. Lots of preference for talking (in person, or call) as soon as a message exchange goes past about two messages, when often what needs to happen is one party needs to go figure out WTF they actually want or are concerned about so they can describe it clearly—the talking doesn’t help, either, just wastes more time. Awful weirdly-restrictive chat room organization, which is shocking considering nearly-leaderless online communities manage to arrange those kinds of things better. Everything important gets posted to one-on-one chats or ephemeral and invisible-to-outsiders small group direct messages. The effect is they’ve accidentally made a bunch of stuff opaque and secret that really, really should not be. It’s poison for collaboration. I also get the impression some folks here just kinda… aren’t comfortable with written language. Reading or writing it. It’s so weird to see, but some of the folks who’ve been living this kind of job-life 10+ years, now I get how they think remote can’t possibly be as productive as in-person—but it’s mostly due to dumb mistakes that are also harming collaboration in the office. Most of them have no idea the place is doing things so entirely wrong, or how much better it can be with some simple tweaks.
  - smeej 3y ago
    It is absolutely incredible to me the number of people in professional roles who cannot read and write coherently, even when English is their native language. I cannot tell you how many meetings I've had where someone told me I "wasn't communicating clearly" and I asked them to read the unclear message back to me so I could understand what would make it clearer for them. And then I find out they can't read, at least not fluently. They either skip key words altogether or mistake them for other words. I'm convinced fewer than half of American adults could read a random book out loud, fluidly, without preparation.
    - trane_project 3y ago
      I looked this up and found this report: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179.pdf https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179.pdf Only 12.5% of the population scores in the levels 4 or 5 (they had to group them together because there were so few is my guess). This is a disgrace. There's no reason why every adult should not be able to read proficiently. We are talking about reading, not some obscure skill. I wonder what these figures would be in Cuba. From what I remember reading, they were much higher because of widespread literacy campaigns. Edit: Found the source of this figures (https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/oecd-skills-outlook-2013_9789264204256-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/oecd-skills-outlook-...) which has data from more contries in the OECD. Japan scores the highest, followed by Finland.
      - sokoloff 3y ago
        > Only 12.5% of the population scores in the levels 4 or 5 (they had to group them together because there were so few is my guess) The reason they did that is called out in endnote 3, "This analysis combines the top two proficiency levels (Levels 4 and 5), following the OECD’s reporting convention (OECD 2013), because across all participating countries, no more than 2 percent of adults reached Level 5." The PIAAC definitions of each level are here: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/measure.asp?section=1&sub_section=3 https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/measure.asp?section=1&sub_... and I would estimate that extremely few daily tasks would require (or even be aided by) level 5 literacy proficiency.
SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
I always hear of this legion of office lovers but when you ask for actual number splits it ends up perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly being that the vast majority of people want 100% remote. All you office people can go work together then, don’t make it miserable for the rest of us
- majormajor 3y ago
  > I always hear of this legion of office lovers but when you ask for actual number splits it ends up perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly being that the vast majority of people want 100% remote. All you office people can go work together then, don’t make it miserable for the rest of us A comment like this making claims about what happens when you see actual numbers should link to some actual numbers... Anecdotally, my social circle is increasingly preferring hybrid, which loses one of the most-frequently-touted benefits of remote (make your home wherever you want, even potentially super cheap real estate). IMO remote will likely hang on at bigger, cog-in-assembly-line type information jobs, but some sort of frequent in-person meetups will be hugely valuable for high-ambiguity/collaboration/creative work. For me the difference between "0 days in the office and nobody within a hundred miles" for three years and now "1 day in the office a week" has been huge, productivity-wise.
  - likenesstheft 3y ago
    > but some sort of frequent in-person meetups will be hugely valuable for high-ambiguity/collaboration/creative work This is some vanilla scrum master bull shit, this isn’t how products or code get built.
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
    Here you go: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/remote-work-statistics/#:~:text=Sixty%2Dfive%20percent%20of%20workers,opportunities%20from%20in%2Doffice%20work https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/remote-work-statisti.... Note that this is Forbes, who is probably going to be biased towards in office work so the actual numbers from an unbiased source would probably be even more dramatic > For me the difference between "0 days in the office and nobody within a hundred miles" for three years and now "1 day in the office a week" has been huge, productivity-wise Why draw such a false dichotomy here? This doesn’t feel like an argument in good faith. The company I work for does onsites twice a year and gives people optionally the budget to meet in person once a quarter beyond that pretty much anywhere they want. I’ve never felt that I needed more than that to do high impact work
vsareto 3y ago
Higher costs of living make relocation and in-office work more restrictive, but that isn't a big concern for remote. Same for the travel burden. It would be very natural to see remote salaries become lower than in-office salaries on convenience, while in-office salaries go up because of that, but that's not really happening. So while you should choose work for your preferences when you can, you shouldn't let companies gain advantages like under compensating in-office workers. After all, they've already mostly taken away actual offices for individuals. This fight could be fought on that principle alone.
mmmm2 3y ago
Sure, not everyone wants to go remote, but many people do. Those of us who like remote work want to preserve it as an option. There's already resistance from companies with leases and cities with "empty" downtowns. I'm hopefully the change will stick despite that.