20 ms·

This is one aspect of the RTO discussion that's sometimes missed: there are plenty of people in the tech sphere (myself included) who've been comfortably remote

by Two9A 3y ago

This is one aspect of the RTO discussion that's sometimes missed: there are plenty of people in the tech sphere (myself included) who've been comfortably remote for much longer than those who were pushed into remote work by lockdowns and pandemic response. We're not about to give up a whole lifestyle we've built over (in some cases) decades, on the whim of whichever executive we happen to be serving under at the present time. Props to the author for highlighting this.

x86x87 3y ago
This is not only about before pandemic remote workers. Once people enjoyed the flexibility they aren't going back.
- ericfrazier 3y ago
  And why should they?
  - x86x87 3y ago
    Exactly. Cat is out of the bag now
  - lizardking 3y ago
    Unfortunately many people are being strong armed into it. People coming out of lay offs are finding less wfh opportunities than existed just a year ago, as a percentage of the available jobs.
    - rgrieselhuber 3y ago
      Organization is always the key. The minute people are treated as isolated cases they are exploitable.
- mc32 3y ago
  Some or many people are just as productive working from home, but also many are not and are more productive in an office environment. There need to be better more reliable ways of measuring this and affording those who are able to be productive while remote the option. Those who aren’t as productive WFH don’t get the choice.
  - bacza2 3y ago
    Why it always need to be only about productivity and not what is better for people? I get that company need to make money but surly productivity is not dropping 50% and company makes significantly less
    - grogenaut 3y ago
      How do you objectively measure productivity? Same question for "better for people". The former can be somewhat measured by in-effective methods such as lines of code produced, revenue per emp in division, and other measures. The latter via surveys. A company's direct objective it to turn a profit. Their indirect objective is might be to do that via retaining productive workers, or they may take a churn approach. Is it surprising they'd put more effort and weight on the former (prod) than the latter (better for people)? What math function allows you to strike the correct balance between the 2 measures. For some employees you might make them maximally satisfied by paying them a lot to do nothing. For others they might want little to no money for socially rewarding work. It's not going to be the same for every person. So in your mind what's the right optimization function for this equation?
    - mc32 3y ago
      If one company were to hire all the slackers and the other all the busy beavers, one will be more likely to succeed vs the other. Unless being a slacker becomes a protected class companies will hire the productive people, given a choice.
    - jheriko 3y ago
      ask yourself that question and answer it. just what in the hell are you thinking?
- DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  I enjoyed the flexibility of WFH but I still prefer working with local teams in the office. There are pros and cons to both, but it's silly to assume everyone has the same preference as you just because your preference is strongly held. This is my response to both your comment and TFA. There is less consensus on this topic than the very-vocal WFH crowd would have you believe. I know plenty of other talented engineers that feel similarly to me. They aren't dogmatic about it, but they prefer working with their teammates in the office.
  - ncallaway 3y ago
    Sure, but RTO is about… forcing the preference for in person work on everyone.
    - throwaway5959 3y ago
      RTO doesn’t really work if five people are back in the office.
      - Kye 3y ago
        Manufacturing buggy whips doesn't work if only five people own buggies. This is a problem for the buggy whip manufacturer to solve, not the people who bought a car or took the train. There's a third option beyond forcing everyone into boxes in the middle of nowhere (old and busted) and everyone working from home (new old hotness).
      - ncallaway 3y ago
        You see how that’s inherently about putting the preferences of the 5 people *above* the preferences of the rest of the office, yes?
        throwaway5959 3y ago
        People are allowed to have different preferences and lifestyles than the majority. I’m not a CEO so it’s not my place to decide what a company does or doesn’t do.
- brightball 3y ago
  There’s a flip side to this where you’re not observing the negatives coming to the company as a result. It’s not all bad but it’s not all good either. Just as an example, I see people complain (a lot) about “cameras on” policies. This is the result of a company trying to eliminate an issue that they are seeing from non-participation to potential instances of fraud. They want to do return to office, but this is a “let’s find a middle ground” step. And yet, people will act as if it’s the end of the world. The alternative is being in the room itself. You have to pick your battles.
- pbhjpbhj 3y ago
  I asked about WFH prior to the pandemic and was told 'oh it won't work for you, ask again when you're in a senior position; you'll never develop without peer-friendships and a senior worker a couple of desks away'. Then we were forced to WFH. Now, we're being told to do hybrid, but there's no peer friendships because it's hotdesking, and the senior personnel are no longer nearby (they're at home or on a different floor) ... so there's no "return", we're not going back to what we had, we don't have our own desks anymore. Management acknowledge that office days (we're hybrid) will be low in productivity, but no changes to productivity requirements. It's all about collaboration, except you're next to random people you've never met and you can't talk because it's open plan and you'll disturb everyone. None of the reasons given for return fit the reality (in my office), but they probably make sense for senior managers (who seem unable to see past the end of their own noses).
  - light_hue_1 3y ago
    And of course, you will spend all of your time in the office zooming with other people who aren't there. Time to get a new job.
  - taway1874 3y ago
    It's just stupid. How do these people get to such senior positions?
- JeremyNT 3y ago
  > This is not only about before pandemic remote workers. Once people enjoyed the flexibility they aren't going back. I mean this is true in the scenario where demand for their skills outstrips the supply of available workers with said skills. In a different scenario, where tech jobs are being reduced across the board (due to return to normal interest rates and VC funding slowing down), such an "aren't going back" ultimatum isn't necessarily going to be compatible with "I need a job." And of course, if you believe Microsoft, ChatGPT is going to start eating tech jobs left and right any day now. The economy runs in boom and bust cycles, and the winds are shifting. The tech environment from 2020-2022 was extremely weird, and the balance of power now is shifting back to management. Management knows that (at least some) workers highly value remote work, and they're not going to hand that out for free. The only certainty here is change, and as tech workers lose leverage, "remote work" moves from a default assumption to an item that must be negotiated for (perhaps in exchange for some total compensation) - if it's available at all.
throwaway290 3y ago
Been remote for 15 years, recently started full time job, love going to office. No strict work hours but I come anyway, nice to chat with colleagues (and much more productive than those tedious calls or text chats). Also I was already making myself leave home at least daily for physical activity, so if I'm out why not travel to the office? There's a nice coffeeshop near there. Also the chair is comfy enough, desk is adjustable etc. So no, to say it's "bullshit and everyone knows it" is just pushing for some agenda. I wish everyone can have their way, if you don't want to come to the office then don't, employers should make it possible, but don't make it sound as if everyone hates it, it's just wrong.
- and0 3y ago
  That's totally valid, also. I do sometimes miss the office, particularly from when I worked in a healthy office culture, but would want it to be optional.
- variants 3y ago
  As someone who works hands on so I have to work at the office I really wish more people fight to stay home, the commute was so much nicer with people working remote plus the office was much nicer to work in without all the noise and distractions
  - grogenaut 3y ago
    I agree with this but the obvious outcome is that if you're 1 person in a 200 person office floor, your company will consolidate 200 floors into one and it'll get noisy again. The same cost function still exists for office space. I'm very with you on the commutes tho. I live in Seattle and Mondays and Fridays are like driving on Thanksgiving (a major holiday in the US when no one drives and even the roads in L.A. are clear), and Tuesday is worse than the before times. Wed/Thurs are a bit better than the before times though so I just go in on those days (that's also when we tend to have happy hours).
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    If you use public transport it works better (more cost efficient to run = more frequent) when more people use it, so my commute would not get better if people stayed home. But I agree on the last part, I prefer it when certain coworkers WFH. TBH some days I strategically choose my office hours so I overlap with them less.
rwmj 3y ago
Remote since 2002!
- TigeriusKirk 3y ago
  2011 here. Fully remote teams for more of that. It does take time and active effort to become fully productive in a remote environment. It's not something you're just born knowing how to do, it's a set of skills just like working in an office is a set of skills. You have to learn them.
- enobrev 3y ago
  End of 2001 for me!
andrewmutz 3y ago
Prior to COVID, everyone understood that remote work was supported by some companies and not others. It was also a type of work that was preferred by some employees and not others. As a result, everyone peacefully self-selected into their preferred employment relationships. Companies got the type of workforce they wanted and workers chose the type of environment they wanted. It was great. Today, as some companies are changing their remote work policies to be return-to-office, there seems to be a lot of resentment about this, and I don't really understand why. We should just return to the status quo before COVID: choose the type of company you want to work for that supports the lifestyle you want to have. If your employer wants to transition back to in-office work and you don't want to do it, switch to one of the thousands of companies that will hire you. You have no obligation to stay at a company that is forcing you back in the office, and the company has no obligation to keep an employee working in a remote context that the company doesn't favor anymore.
- reaperman 3y ago
  > the company has no obligation to keep an employee working in a remote context that the company doesn't favor anymore. Some people who were hired in as permanent remote, now are being demanded to sell their homes and move to cities they’ve never been to before. Companies have no obligation to keep any USA-based employee working (other countries may have different laws), but some reasonable severance payouts would be much more appropriate than firing “for cause”!
  - idontknoworcare 3y ago
    [dead]
  - cdchn 3y ago
    Who is doing this precisely? I've heard a lot of people bemoan that they moved during the pandemic and now are being required to return to the office but I haven't heard of any instances where previously remote employees-- remote from BEFORE the pandemic-- are being required to move to central office locations.
dheera 3y ago
Another aspect of the RTO discussion that's missed: People in long-distance relationships. I don't mind going to the office a fair share of the time but I don't want rules that require N days per week because that prevents me from visiting my partner. I generally work from my partner's place about 1-2 out of every 8 weeks. Going to the office as little or as much on other weeks isn't a huge issue (though admittedly I do work more efficiently from home, and have way better snacks and drinks at home than the office) but I want those 1-2 weeks to be respected.
bradly 3y ago
I was a remote worker at Apple pre-pandemic and had no problems. After COVID I was told that moving states where I live would have to get some approval and is not guaranteed. I left Apple shortly after and have been contracting since. When I was in an office full time, I had to work my life around my work. When I have forty hours to fill out over a seven day period, I'm working my work around my life.
- sys_64738 3y ago
  Why didn't you just move states and ask "forgiveness" later? Companies cannot tell you where and when to live and if they try it see who blinks first. I would certainly have ignored them and let them fire me or RIF me.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Learned appetite for that operating model. Have to have enough financial resources and grit accumulated first.
  - bradly 3y ago
    That just isn't really something I wanted to do. I was in a privileged enough position where I could choose to leave so I did when it became convenient. Not everyone can do that and the new policies may put them in a bind.
  - panzagl 3y ago
    There are a lot of differences between state labor laws and taxes, remote doesn't mean you can just change residences willy-nilly.
    - bradly 3y ago
      That's very true, even contracting I ran into different issues based on where I work from and where they are. Some companies required a business entity is certain states.
  - gamblor956 3y ago
jcims 3y ago
Yep. Remote work since 2002.
chiefalchemist 3y ago
> on the whim of whichever executive we happen to be serving under at the present time. You're being too kind. Whims aren't the problem, lack of imagination is (and in leadership positions that should be unacceptable). The problem is, few of the RTO office execs have WFH long enough to understand it. They have no clue how to lead WFH. They have no clue how to manage WFT. And they're not interested in learning new tricks. They simply wield their power and reinstate the status quo. In a word...weak. The RTO v WFH debate (?) is an opportunity in the market. An opportunity where WFH is the new up and coming opportunity. RTO is all but a fax machine. Who would feel comfortable working at a company where the executives lacked imagination and are all but mandating "Bring back the fax machine"?
spacemadness 3y ago
Yep. Management acted like none of us knew how to work remote and we were all learning. Actually folks, no, I’ve been working like this for a while. And now I need to listen to our leaders say we work better in person and remote folks don’t know how to collaborate. What an utter failure in leadership and communication. The author said it best: these people are assholes. I’ve been so frustrated since people started going back to offices with management trying to undo what I worked to put in place prior to covid under some guise I’ve been underachieving all these years.
hintymad 3y ago
Teams big companies are already distributed across time zones, effectively forcing their employees working remotely. It's quite common for an org to have office in NYC, in Bay Area, in a tech hub in Europe, and in an Indian city. Meetings are conducted over video conference, and communication is mostly asynchronous in writing. I don't see how that is different from WFH. Of course, local office for employees to bond and having face-to-face discussion is really nice, but there are different ways to handle that.
npsimons 3y ago
My brother was 100% remote for 13 years before the pandemic. I was 100% remote way back in 2001. It took the pandemic and WFH to remind me how much better it is, from every conceivable angle. I'm never going back, and have shut down plenty of recruiters and headhunters with one simple phrase: "100% remote."
bit_logic 3y ago
What was the #1 argument against WFH before COVID? It was fear of productivity drop, that the company simply can't function with WFH. Then COVID happened and companies worked fine for three years with WFH. At this point, it shouldn't be called RTO, it should be called STO (Switch To Office), because WFH is the default existing state. And the companies that want to STO, they admit there's NO DATA to support this: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-andy-jassy-no-data-return-to-office-rto-aws-2023-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-andy-jassy-no-data-re... https://fortune.com/2023/08/03/amazon-svp-mike-hopkins-office-return/ https://fortune.com/2023/08/03/amazon-svp-mike-hopkins-offic... The hypocrisy is obvious, they were all so against WFH before COVID, demanding data that it would work. Now it's working fine for three years, and yet they switch to office with no data, a simple "gut feeling" argument. It's indeed bullshit.
- The_Colonel 3y ago
  > Then COVID happened and companies worked fine for three years with WFH. I don't think we have good data on that "worked fine" part. Personally I saw a significant degradation of our team performance during COVID remote. Some people slacked a lot (difficult to catch, though), many people worked hard (perhaps even harder than in office), but the bad communication reduced the overall team productivity a lot.
  - bit_logic 3y ago
    Where's the data? Before COVID, there were plenty of anecdotes from remote companies about how it helped their hiring and productivity, but that wasn't enough to convince the vast majority of companies to try WFH. They stubbornly said the status quo of in-office was enough and no further discussion was allowed. Now where's the data to change the status quo from WFH to the office? Amazon admits they have none. If the other companies forcing in-office had data they would be shouting it as much as they could, but when asked for data, it's just silence. Companies have had record profits and quarters with WFH, so clearly the financial data shows no issues with WFH. Again where's the data? All we hear are anecdotes, that wasn't good enough to change the status quo before COVID, why should it be enough now to change the status quo away from WFH?
deleted 3y ago
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downrightmike 3y ago
It is missed on purpose because leadership wants it to be missed and they get visibly upset if you ask them. Such thin skins for people cracking a whip.
ricardobayes 3y ago
Before the pandemic it was almost unimaginable to be employed fully remotely, at least in Europe. Top achievers got a day per week, working from home as a perk or as a "hiring condition". In my 10 year career before the pandemic I basically never had a coworker who had been working from home on a regular basis. That said I love remote work, and I think it's one of our biggest workplace inventions in this century.
jzb 3y ago
Most of my career has been remote, excepting a stint with a hosting company (being on location was logical, no complaints there), and a brief dalliance with being in-office while I was with a company that was fine with me being remote. Tried the cube life, didn't like it, company happily re-allocated my veal fattening pen to another drone during the heady pre-COVID days when such real estate was scarce. There are too many social, economic, and ecological reasons to put a stake in the heart of requiring people to be in a specific location unless there's an honest to goodness requirement.
caseysoftware 3y ago
When I worked for Bay Area companies from Central Texas, I used my remoteness (+2 hr timezone diff) to my team's advantage very visibly and on purpose. - The UK team wants a noon (their time) meeting? Sure, I'll do it at 6am my time vs the SF team doing it at 4am. - That NYC customer wants us to present at 9am ET? Sure, I'll do it at 8am my time vs the SF's team at 6am. - Need someone to cover that meeting in Atlanta/DC/Dallas/Houston/Chicago? Sure, you can take a 3+ hour(+2-3 timezone) flight to cover it or I can just hop over in a fraction of the time. After a while, I got ALL of the East Coast and European calls simply out of convenience.
somsak2 3y ago
Not clear to me why the requirements should differ if you have been doing 5 years vs. 3.
deleted 3y ago
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bromuro 3y ago
I work remotely since 2006. To me, working remotely is the best - if no the only - way to keep myself mentally and physically healthy.
red-iron-pine 3y ago
Aye, been remote since 2015. Small but niche market for remote folks, mostly who you know and specialized gigs, but could make it work reasonably well. now the market is packed with applicants and the backlash is making it harder.

by Two9A 3y ago

x86x87 3y ago

This is not only about before pandemic remote workers. Once people enjoyed the flexibility they aren't going back.

ericfrazier 3y ago
And why should they?
- x86x87 3y ago
  Exactly. Cat is out of the bag now
- lizardking 3y ago
  Unfortunately many people are being strong armed into it. People coming out of lay offs are finding less wfh opportunities than existed just a year ago, as a percentage of the available jobs.
  - rgrieselhuber 3y ago
    Organization is always the key. The minute people are treated as isolated cases they are exploitable.
mc32 3y ago
Some or many people are just as productive working from home, but also many are not and are more productive in an office environment. There need to be better more reliable ways of measuring this and affording those who are able to be productive while remote the option. Those who aren’t as productive WFH don’t get the choice.
- bacza2 3y ago
  Why it always need to be only about productivity and not what is better for people? I get that company need to make money but surly productivity is not dropping 50% and company makes significantly less
  - grogenaut 3y ago
    How do you objectively measure productivity? Same question for "better for people". The former can be somewhat measured by in-effective methods such as lines of code produced, revenue per emp in division, and other measures. The latter via surveys. A company's direct objective it to turn a profit. Their indirect objective is might be to do that via retaining productive workers, or they may take a churn approach. Is it surprising they'd put more effort and weight on the former (prod) than the latter (better for people)? What math function allows you to strike the correct balance between the 2 measures. For some employees you might make them maximally satisfied by paying them a lot to do nothing. For others they might want little to no money for socially rewarding work. It's not going to be the same for every person. So in your mind what's the right optimization function for this equation?
  - mc32 3y ago
    If one company were to hire all the slackers and the other all the busy beavers, one will be more likely to succeed vs the other. Unless being a slacker becomes a protected class companies will hire the productive people, given a choice.
  - jheriko 3y ago
    ask yourself that question and answer it. just what in the hell are you thinking?
DiggyJohnson 3y ago
I enjoyed the flexibility of WFH but I still prefer working with local teams in the office. There are pros and cons to both, but it's silly to assume everyone has the same preference as you just because your preference is strongly held. This is my response to both your comment and TFA. There is less consensus on this topic than the very-vocal WFH crowd would have you believe. I know plenty of other talented engineers that feel similarly to me. They aren't dogmatic about it, but they prefer working with their teammates in the office.
- ncallaway 3y ago
  Sure, but RTO is about… forcing the preference for in person work on everyone.
  - throwaway5959 3y ago
    RTO doesn’t really work if five people are back in the office.
    - Kye 3y ago
      Manufacturing buggy whips doesn't work if only five people own buggies. This is a problem for the buggy whip manufacturer to solve, not the people who bought a car or took the train. There's a third option beyond forcing everyone into boxes in the middle of nowhere (old and busted) and everyone working from home (new old hotness).
    - ncallaway 3y ago
      You see how that’s inherently about putting the preferences of the 5 people *above* the preferences of the rest of the office, yes?
      - throwaway5959 3y ago
        People are allowed to have different preferences and lifestyles than the majority. I’m not a CEO so it’s not my place to decide what a company does or doesn’t do.
brightball 3y ago
There’s a flip side to this where you’re not observing the negatives coming to the company as a result. It’s not all bad but it’s not all good either. Just as an example, I see people complain (a lot) about “cameras on” policies. This is the result of a company trying to eliminate an issue that they are seeing from non-participation to potential instances of fraud. They want to do return to office, but this is a “let’s find a middle ground” step. And yet, people will act as if it’s the end of the world. The alternative is being in the room itself. You have to pick your battles.
pbhjpbhj 3y ago
I asked about WFH prior to the pandemic and was told 'oh it won't work for you, ask again when you're in a senior position; you'll never develop without peer-friendships and a senior worker a couple of desks away'. Then we were forced to WFH. Now, we're being told to do hybrid, but there's no peer friendships because it's hotdesking, and the senior personnel are no longer nearby (they're at home or on a different floor) ... so there's no "return", we're not going back to what we had, we don't have our own desks anymore. Management acknowledge that office days (we're hybrid) will be low in productivity, but no changes to productivity requirements. It's all about collaboration, except you're next to random people you've never met and you can't talk because it's open plan and you'll disturb everyone. None of the reasons given for return fit the reality (in my office), but they probably make sense for senior managers (who seem unable to see past the end of their own noses).
- light_hue_1 3y ago
  And of course, you will spend all of your time in the office zooming with other people who aren't there. Time to get a new job.
- taway1874 3y ago
  It's just stupid. How do these people get to such senior positions?
JeremyNT 3y ago
> This is not only about before pandemic remote workers. Once people enjoyed the flexibility they aren't going back. I mean this is true in the scenario where demand for their skills outstrips the supply of available workers with said skills. In a different scenario, where tech jobs are being reduced across the board (due to return to normal interest rates and VC funding slowing down), such an "aren't going back" ultimatum isn't necessarily going to be compatible with "I need a job." And of course, if you believe Microsoft, ChatGPT is going to start eating tech jobs left and right any day now. The economy runs in boom and bust cycles, and the winds are shifting. The tech environment from 2020-2022 was extremely weird, and the balance of power now is shifting back to management. Management knows that (at least some) workers highly value remote work, and they're not going to hand that out for free. The only certainty here is change, and as tech workers lose leverage, "remote work" moves from a default assumption to an item that must be negotiated for (perhaps in exchange for some total compensation) - if it's available at all.

throwaway290 3y ago

Been remote for 15 years, recently started full time job, love going to office. No strict work hours but I come anyway, nice to chat with colleagues (and much more productive than those tedious calls or text chats). Also I was already making myself leave home at least daily for physical activity, so if I'm out why not travel to the office? There's a nice coffeeshop near there. Also the chair is comfy enough, desk is adjustable etc. So no, to say it's "bullshit and everyone knows it" is just pushing for some agenda. I wish everyone can have their way, if you don't want to come to the office then don't, employers should make it possible, but don't make it sound as if everyone hates it, it's just wrong.

and0 3y ago
That's totally valid, also. I do sometimes miss the office, particularly from when I worked in a healthy office culture, but would want it to be optional.
variants 3y ago
As someone who works hands on so I have to work at the office I really wish more people fight to stay home, the commute was so much nicer with people working remote plus the office was much nicer to work in without all the noise and distractions
- grogenaut 3y ago
  I agree with this but the obvious outcome is that if you're 1 person in a 200 person office floor, your company will consolidate 200 floors into one and it'll get noisy again. The same cost function still exists for office space. I'm very with you on the commutes tho. I live in Seattle and Mondays and Fridays are like driving on Thanksgiving (a major holiday in the US when no one drives and even the roads in L.A. are clear), and Tuesday is worse than the before times. Wed/Thurs are a bit better than the before times though so I just go in on those days (that's also when we tend to have happy hours).
- throwaway290 3y ago
  If you use public transport it works better (more cost efficient to run = more frequent) when more people use it, so my commute would not get better if people stayed home. But I agree on the last part, I prefer it when certain coworkers WFH. TBH some days I strategically choose my office hours so I overlap with them less.

rwmj 3y ago

Remote since 2002!

TigeriusKirk 3y ago
2011 here. Fully remote teams for more of that. It does take time and active effort to become fully productive in a remote environment. It's not something you're just born knowing how to do, it's a set of skills just like working in an office is a set of skills. You have to learn them.
enobrev 3y ago
End of 2001 for me!

andrewmutz 3y ago

Prior to COVID, everyone understood that remote work was supported by some companies and not others. It was also a type of work that was preferred by some employees and not others. As a result, everyone peacefully self-selected into their preferred employment relationships. Companies got the type of workforce they wanted and workers chose the type of environment they wanted. It was great. Today, as some companies are changing their remote work policies to be return-to-office, there seems to be a lot of resentment about this, and I don't really understand why. We should just return to the status quo before COVID: choose the type of company you want to work for that supports the lifestyle you want to have. If your employer wants to transition back to in-office work and you don't want to do it, switch to one of the thousands of companies that will hire you. You have no obligation to stay at a company that is forcing you back in the office, and the company has no obligation to keep an employee working in a remote context that the company doesn't favor anymore.

reaperman 3y ago
> the company has no obligation to keep an employee working in a remote context that the company doesn't favor anymore. Some people who were hired in as permanent remote, now are being demanded to sell their homes and move to cities they’ve never been to before. Companies have no obligation to keep any USA-based employee working (other countries may have different laws), but some reasonable severance payouts would be much more appropriate than firing “for cause”!
- idontknoworcare 3y ago
  [dead]
- cdchn 3y ago
  Who is doing this precisely? I've heard a lot of people bemoan that they moved during the pandemic and now are being required to return to the office but I haven't heard of any instances where previously remote employees-- remote from BEFORE the pandemic-- are being required to move to central office locations.

dheera 3y ago

Another aspect of the RTO discussion that's missed: People in long-distance relationships. I don't mind going to the office a fair share of the time but I don't want rules that require N days per week because that prevents me from visiting my partner. I generally work from my partner's place about 1-2 out of every 8 weeks. Going to the office as little or as much on other weeks isn't a huge issue (though admittedly I do work more efficiently from home, and have way better snacks and drinks at home than the office) but I want those 1-2 weeks to be respected.

bradly 3y ago

I was a remote worker at Apple pre-pandemic and had no problems. After COVID I was told that moving states where I live would have to get some approval and is not guaranteed. I left Apple shortly after and have been contracting since. When I was in an office full time, I had to work my life around my work. When I have forty hours to fill out over a seven day period, I'm working my work around my life.

sys_64738 3y ago
Why didn't you just move states and ask "forgiveness" later? Companies cannot tell you where and when to live and if they try it see who blinks first. I would certainly have ignored them and let them fire me or RIF me.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Learned appetite for that operating model. Have to have enough financial resources and grit accumulated first.
- bradly 3y ago
  That just isn't really something I wanted to do. I was in a privileged enough position where I could choose to leave so I did when it became convenient. Not everyone can do that and the new policies may put them in a bind.
- panzagl 3y ago
  There are a lot of differences between state labor laws and taxes, remote doesn't mean you can just change residences willy-nilly.
  - bradly 3y ago
    That's very true, even contracting I ran into different issues based on where I work from and where they are. Some companies required a business entity is certain states.
- gamblor956 3y ago

jcims 3y ago

Yep. Remote work since 2002.

chiefalchemist 3y ago

> on the whim of whichever executive we happen to be serving under at the present time. You're being too kind. Whims aren't the problem, lack of imagination is (and in leadership positions that should be unacceptable). The problem is, few of the RTO office execs have WFH long enough to understand it. They have no clue how to lead WFH. They have no clue how to manage WFT. And they're not interested in learning new tricks. They simply wield their power and reinstate the status quo. In a word...weak. The RTO v WFH debate (?) is an opportunity in the market. An opportunity where WFH is the new up and coming opportunity. RTO is all but a fax machine. Who would feel comfortable working at a company where the executives lacked imagination and are all but mandating "Bring back the fax machine"?

spacemadness 3y ago

Yep. Management acted like none of us knew how to work remote and we were all learning. Actually folks, no, I’ve been working like this for a while. And now I need to listen to our leaders say we work better in person and remote folks don’t know how to collaborate. What an utter failure in leadership and communication. The author said it best: these people are assholes. I’ve been so frustrated since people started going back to offices with management trying to undo what I worked to put in place prior to covid under some guise I’ve been underachieving all these years.

hintymad 3y ago

Teams big companies are already distributed across time zones, effectively forcing their employees working remotely. It's quite common for an org to have office in NYC, in Bay Area, in a tech hub in Europe, and in an Indian city. Meetings are conducted over video conference, and communication is mostly asynchronous in writing. I don't see how that is different from WFH. Of course, local office for employees to bond and having face-to-face discussion is really nice, but there are different ways to handle that.

npsimons 3y ago

My brother was 100% remote for 13 years before the pandemic. I was 100% remote way back in 2001. It took the pandemic and WFH to remind me how much better it is, from every conceivable angle. I'm never going back, and have shut down plenty of recruiters and headhunters with one simple phrase: "100% remote."

bit_logic 3y ago

What was the #1 argument against WFH before COVID? It was fear of productivity drop, that the company simply can't function with WFH. Then COVID happened and companies worked fine for three years with WFH. At this point, it shouldn't be called RTO, it should be called STO (Switch To Office), because WFH is the default existing state. And the companies that want to STO, they admit there's NO DATA to support this: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-andy-jassy-no-data-return-to-office-rto-aws-2023-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-andy-jassy-no-data-re... https://fortune.com/2023/08/03/amazon-svp-mike-hopkins-office-return/ https://fortune.com/2023/08/03/amazon-svp-mike-hopkins-offic... The hypocrisy is obvious, they were all so against WFH before COVID, demanding data that it would work. Now it's working fine for three years, and yet they switch to office with no data, a simple "gut feeling" argument. It's indeed bullshit.

The_Colonel 3y ago
> Then COVID happened and companies worked fine for three years with WFH. I don't think we have good data on that "worked fine" part. Personally I saw a significant degradation of our team performance during COVID remote. Some people slacked a lot (difficult to catch, though), many people worked hard (perhaps even harder than in office), but the bad communication reduced the overall team productivity a lot.
- bit_logic 3y ago
  Where's the data? Before COVID, there were plenty of anecdotes from remote companies about how it helped their hiring and productivity, but that wasn't enough to convince the vast majority of companies to try WFH. They stubbornly said the status quo of in-office was enough and no further discussion was allowed. Now where's the data to change the status quo from WFH to the office? Amazon admits they have none. If the other companies forcing in-office had data they would be shouting it as much as they could, but when asked for data, it's just silence. Companies have had record profits and quarters with WFH, so clearly the financial data shows no issues with WFH. Again where's the data? All we hear are anecdotes, that wasn't good enough to change the status quo before COVID, why should it be enough now to change the status quo away from WFH?

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downrightmike 3y ago

It is missed on purpose because leadership wants it to be missed and they get visibly upset if you ask them. Such thin skins for people cracking a whip.

ricardobayes 3y ago

Before the pandemic it was almost unimaginable to be employed fully remotely, at least in Europe. Top achievers got a day per week, working from home as a perk or as a "hiring condition". In my 10 year career before the pandemic I basically never had a coworker who had been working from home on a regular basis. That said I love remote work, and I think it's one of our biggest workplace inventions in this century.

jzb 3y ago

Most of my career has been remote, excepting a stint with a hosting company (being on location was logical, no complaints there), and a brief dalliance with being in-office while I was with a company that was fine with me being remote. Tried the cube life, didn't like it, company happily re-allocated my veal fattening pen to another drone during the heady pre-COVID days when such real estate was scarce. There are too many social, economic, and ecological reasons to put a stake in the heart of requiring people to be in a specific location unless there's an honest to goodness requirement.

caseysoftware 3y ago

When I worked for Bay Area companies from Central Texas, I used my remoteness (+2 hr timezone diff) to my team's advantage very visibly and on purpose. - The UK team wants a noon (their time) meeting? Sure, I'll do it at 6am my time vs the SF team doing it at 4am. - That NYC customer wants us to present at 9am ET? Sure, I'll do it at 8am my time vs the SF's team at 6am. - Need someone to cover that meeting in Atlanta/DC/Dallas/Houston/Chicago? Sure, you can take a 3+ hour(+2-3 timezone) flight to cover it or I can just hop over in a fraction of the time. After a while, I got ALL of the East Coast and European calls simply out of convenience.

somsak2 3y ago

Not clear to me why the requirements should differ if you have been doing 5 years vs. 3.

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bromuro 3y ago

I work remotely since 2006. To me, working remotely is the best - if no the only - way to keep myself mentally and physically healthy.

red-iron-pine 3y ago

Aye, been remote since 2015. Small but niche market for remote folks, mostly who you know and specialized gigs, but could make it work reasonably well. now the market is packed with applicants and the backlash is making it harder.