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> Most of all I get sad when I see ineffective teams with no ability or motivation to improve—whether remote or co-located. This. I get that remote isn't alway
by 0xbadcafebee 3y ago
> Most of all I get sad when I see ineffective teams with no ability or motivation to improve—whether remote or co-located.
This. I get that remote isn't always practical or effective, I do. But it's the staunch insistence on one way of working, and the denial that it needs improvement, that pisses me off so god damn much.
If I could actually get more work done in an office, of course I would go back. I have a huge backlog of shit to get through! But an hour commute isn't making that easier. And we all have been in the office where half the team is spread out just because they want to get away from noise, or to find a more comfy place, or they need heads-down time without interruptions. We've all been in meetings where 3 people are remote just because they needed to let a repair man in at noon, or their daughter's sick, or something's going on. And that is fine. So what's wrong with keeping that the same, and just not requiring people go in?
Then there's all the other dysfunctional shit that has nothing to do with an office, where the office is the excuse to never fix it. We can't figure out our online communications? No problem, just buy a big room and shove people in it and they can just walk up to each other all the time. We can't properly organize our documentation? Big room, shove people in it, walk up and ask where something is. No documentation? Big room, shove people, interrupt, ask how it works. Need to decide something but don't want to have a meeting? No problem, just interrupt 5 people at once and have an impromptu meeting. Who needs to improve their business process when they can just have people interrupt each other all day and never write a single thing down?
Remote doesn't magically work well either. You have to do specific things to make remote successful. I'm pretty sure the reason for mandatory return is just that they don't want to try. Even if half the workforce wanted to work in an office, they could buy a smaller office and let workers do what they need to do. But that would still require improvements to get the remote half to work well with the in-office half, so let's just avoid that extra work and force everyone into the office. That's easy for management, but sucks for the workforce, and the business.