5 ms·

In broad strokes, it's just old vs new, and an age thing. I'll pick '40' as the mid-point: Old = over 40s (myself included) who are senior, their careers have

In broad strokes, it's just old vs new, and an age thing. I'll pick '40' as the mid-point: Old = over 40s (myself included) who are senior, their careers have been in offices and commuting, and still believe that 'managing people' means real-life first person interaction, and are completely invested in offices, and the cost of paying for them, rather than downsizing. Young = under 40s - have grown up with the internet, github, working/studying remotely and so on. I've worked in companies where the CEO and senior management are all 50 something, and in a couple of companies where they're all approaching 40. Can you guess which company used PCs and which one used Macbooks? Going back further, I can remember working on Sun boxes, because management was reluctant to use that 'new fangled NT3.51 or even NT4.0'. The point being, as the workforce demographic changes, so will the opinions and approaches. And the cycle will repeat.

ghaff 3y ago
I'm not sure it's that simple. I've been effectively remote for a long time and have zero interest in going into an office for the most part. (Though I'd do it more if it were easy, I'm a 2 hour commute to the only office it makes any sense for me to go into.) Anecdotally, I hear it's more younger employees who like going into an office for the social interaction.
- xkqd 3y ago
  My observations agree with your anecdote, but in my experience it was the youngest employees who go into the office for social interaction. Meaning, fresh grads to ~26 year olds. They openly admitted they didn’t want to sit in their 600 sqft apartments all day and that they didn’t have anyone to talk to otherwise. This sounds more like a way deeper loneliness and community problem than a workplace problem.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  That's the same thing I thought: it was the younger people who yearned for the office. Junior employees tended to do worse with WFH, especially those who were onboarding, whereas more senior folks were more comfortable working without much supervision. Younger people also don't tend to have larger homes, with dedicated, quiet office space. Younger employees pinned more of their social life on workmates than older employees who might already have established families and community ties. Anecdotally, I know that on my team, the younger teammates were the most eager about returning to the office. I'm nearly 50 and wouldn't go back in if you held a gun to my head.
- jon-wood 3y ago
  At least currently there's probably a bell curve going on in terms of what age groups want to work in office vs remote. I've also seen younger employees want to be in the office, they enjoy the social side of it, and early in your career its easier to learn and progress if you're colocated and able to ask questions of people easily. The old-school managers are also attached to being in offices, at least partly just because that's how they learned to work so it's easier for them then adapting. You've then got people in their late 30s and early 40s who are all in on remote work, a lot of us have kids, or we moved out of the urban centres, have a network of friends outside of work, so really aren't that bothered about being in the office. What's going to be interesting is seeing what happens as the current generation of senior management age out and retire. Do companies start to lean more towards remote work? And if so what happens about the younger workers coming into industry at that point, presumably they're still going to prefer being colocated for the same reasons, and that will need balancing with the older folk's preferences.
foobarian 3y ago
The thing is, I'm over 40, and I love working from home - and I'm not alone. However I feel that we are very spoiled by having had the opportunity to form our relationships and networks during the in-office era, and that this feels very unfair to the up-and-coming junior generation. Maybe you are right and they are just fine having not experienced the in-office environment.
- carbine 3y ago
  I'm 38, remote, and can't imagine working in-office ever again. Our small-ish team (~25) works very effectively remotely. But I suspect you're right. I learned a huge number of skills being in high velocity office environments, shadowing/observing others, etc. Starting out remote must be much harder.
- randomdata 3y ago
  I'm over 40, but only spent about a year of my career in an office. I haven't seen an office since 2001. I don't feel I missed much in the subsequent years. I still stay in touch with people I worked with remotely. I never spoke to anyone in said office again. Your stated opportunity seems rather romanticized from my perspective. Relationships can form anywhere. You don't have to go too far back in time to when work from home was also the norm (when everyone stayed at home on the farm). The office age was the aberration.
- avgDev 3y ago
  I'm of a strong opinion not to form big friendships at work. I now started making friends outside of work at 37. At work I'm looking out for myself.
  - esafak 3y ago
    Forming professional friendships is looking out for yourself. It helps you get you new jobs -- ones that you won't have access to otherwise -- or employees, if you are hiring.
- joshuanapoli 3y ago
  I thought that older people with families and bigger houses prefer WFH, because it is more convenient and it makes more time for the family. while younger single people with smaller apartments prefer the office, because it’s less cramped and lonely.
DebtDeflation 3y ago
Another example: I've noticed older folks (45-50+) repeatedly say "stop sending emails/texts/Slacks, pick up the phone and call them". Meanwhile, everyone under that age (and to be fair, a decent number even in that age group) considers an unexpected phone call to be rude and disruptive.
- rqtwteye 3y ago
  I am 50+. I call people often and encourage people to call me without the typical hours long build up per chat "Hi", "Hi", "How are you?", "Good", "I have a question", "OK", "Can I call you?", "Yes", "Now?", Yes" and so on. I think remote work loses a lot of agility if you communicate only through chat.
  - kaoD 3y ago
    Seems like you (and/or your interlocutors) are using chat like it was a phone call and concluding a phone call is better to have phone calls.
  - NegativeK 3y ago
    I dislike phone calls, but handle them in two ways: If a chat conversation isn't getting a point across after a couple of back and forths (five minutes is too long,) then it's time for a phone call. Discussions in chat are fine. Flat out lack of understanding is best fixed when they can hear and interrupt for clarification. If I do need to call someone, I simply message them and ask if they're available for a call. There's no need for preamble.
  - flappyeagle 3y ago
    That’s some boomer slack usage. If anyone sends a message with “hi” they get a stern bollocking by me immediately. Our company handbook specifically forbids doing this.
    - rpmisms 3y ago
      Can you say "Hi, I need XYZ"? Or are pleasantries forbidden?
kwhitefoot 3y ago
It varies from country to country, culture to culture. Here in Norway work from home was so normal that during COVID there really wasn't any qualitative change, just a quantitative one. Anyone in a salaried position is being paid for the work they do not where they do it. In the winter my boss would occasionally rent a cabin in the mountains and work there while I, mostly, went in to the office because it was quieter there than at home (three children).
schwartzworld 3y ago
> still believe that 'managing people' means real-life first person interaction, and are completely invested in offices You hit the nail on the head. Senior managers who are unwilling to learn to do their jobs slightly differently are a big part of the problem. Imagine forcing an entire work-force to commute so you can physically stop by someone's desk to interrupt them vs sending a message or scheduling a meeting. Senior managers want productive staff, but instead of listening to what they need to be productive, they set up roadblocks to satisfy their own lazy vanity.
- potta_coffee 3y ago
  They say they want a productive staff but actions speak louder than words.
jhp123 3y ago
I'm 37 and a factor that I haven't seen much discussed is that in-office is a vastly higher burden for my generation. Commutes are longer, more families have two working parents (and need to, to pay the bills). In-office doesn't mean heading out the door at 8:30 and coming home at 5:30 but something more like leaving at 7:00am, dropping off kids at before-school daycare ($$$), driving back to the train station to make it in by 9 and then coming home at 6 after your 1-hour commute to the closest affordable suburb. An 11-hour day, and you are paying out the nose for childcare if you can even get it, and you'll spend all your PTO on kids doctor appointments and parent-teacher conferences and the like.
- astockwell 3y ago
  This almost exactly described my life as well (also 37, lived in a major metro). Not to mention the (surreptitiously unpaid) evening calls we'd have with other TZs after spending that 11-hour day, because take-home laptops.
- DrBazza 3y ago
  Totally agree. I was that age "a few years" ago, and I'm not playing working-hours-one-up-manship, but I was leaving the house at 4.45am, and getting home 7.30-8pm (London). That was probably the low point in my, and others, working life that coincides with the age for raising a young family. It sucks.
- jayd16 3y ago
  I think we really screwed up. We're using WFH to hide child care while saying it's more efficient. We should have just demanded better work hours but here we are.
  - helij 3y ago
    In my case, no. WFH because I prefer it. I manage a team of 7. In our team there are people all across UK. Childcare would be easy for me but commute, oh no! There's talk about less than 40 and more years old. I'm over 40 and prefer remote. In our space it's younger folks that prefer hanging out in the office.
orzig 3y ago
The model needs four buckets: 20-30: Needs mentorship, can live closer to the office 30-40: Has young kids, moved to the burbs 40+ AND Management: Developed management approach pre-pandemic, pre-Slack 40+ but IC: Could go either way This is still HUGELY simplified, and please do not take offense if you are e.g. 30-40 without wanting kids. But "young kids" is just a huge difference in terms of the morning schedule and flexibility needs, especially as most families near urban areas have both parents working.
ghaff 3y ago
>Old = over 40s (myself included) who are senior, their careers have been in offices and commuting, and still believe that 'managing people' means real-life first person interaction, and are completely invested in offices, and the cost of paying for them, rather than downsizing. Absent the Covid years, I'd probably agree more. A lot of managers, execs, and other senior people may not have liked commuting but it was just part of the job. But they're people too and many realized they could manage without going into an office all of the time. People do come in, especially for things like customer visits, but it's mostly a sometimes thing.
okaram 3y ago
Besides the old/young divide, I think there's the geek/suit, or maker/manager divide. As a geek, most of my time is spent working alone, even in ill-defined projects that require a lot of coordination and communication. Working from 'home' (more from wherever I want) is better. Also, although I agree that we lose something if we communicate remotely, I don't terribly care. When I communicate, information is more important than emotions. And they want me to work in an open floor office, ugh. Suits spent most of their time in meetings. They also care much more about the emotions and human touch. They've spent years optimizing for firm handshakes, nice hair, good smiles and that weird clicking noise :). Basically, suits want the office, geeks don't. Productivity doesn't have much to do with it :)
- esafak 3y ago
  http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html

ghaff 3y ago

I'm not sure it's that simple. I've been effectively remote for a long time and have zero interest in going into an office for the most part. (Though I'd do it more if it were easy, I'm a 2 hour commute to the only office it makes any sense for me to go into.) Anecdotally, I hear it's more younger employees who like going into an office for the social interaction.

xkqd 3y ago
My observations agree with your anecdote, but in my experience it was the youngest employees who go into the office for social interaction. Meaning, fresh grads to ~26 year olds. They openly admitted they didn’t want to sit in their 600 sqft apartments all day and that they didn’t have anyone to talk to otherwise. This sounds more like a way deeper loneliness and community problem than a workplace problem.
ryandrake 3y ago
That's the same thing I thought: it was the younger people who yearned for the office. Junior employees tended to do worse with WFH, especially those who were onboarding, whereas more senior folks were more comfortable working without much supervision. Younger people also don't tend to have larger homes, with dedicated, quiet office space. Younger employees pinned more of their social life on workmates than older employees who might already have established families and community ties. Anecdotally, I know that on my team, the younger teammates were the most eager about returning to the office. I'm nearly 50 and wouldn't go back in if you held a gun to my head.
jon-wood 3y ago
At least currently there's probably a bell curve going on in terms of what age groups want to work in office vs remote. I've also seen younger employees want to be in the office, they enjoy the social side of it, and early in your career its easier to learn and progress if you're colocated and able to ask questions of people easily. The old-school managers are also attached to being in offices, at least partly just because that's how they learned to work so it's easier for them then adapting. You've then got people in their late 30s and early 40s who are all in on remote work, a lot of us have kids, or we moved out of the urban centres, have a network of friends outside of work, so really aren't that bothered about being in the office. What's going to be interesting is seeing what happens as the current generation of senior management age out and retire. Do companies start to lean more towards remote work? And if so what happens about the younger workers coming into industry at that point, presumably they're still going to prefer being colocated for the same reasons, and that will need balancing with the older folk's preferences.

foobarian 3y ago

The thing is, I'm over 40, and I love working from home - and I'm not alone. However I feel that we are very spoiled by having had the opportunity to form our relationships and networks during the in-office era, and that this feels very unfair to the up-and-coming junior generation. Maybe you are right and they are just fine having not experienced the in-office environment.

carbine 3y ago
I'm 38, remote, and can't imagine working in-office ever again. Our small-ish team (~25) works very effectively remotely. But I suspect you're right. I learned a huge number of skills being in high velocity office environments, shadowing/observing others, etc. Starting out remote must be much harder.
randomdata 3y ago
I'm over 40, but only spent about a year of my career in an office. I haven't seen an office since 2001. I don't feel I missed much in the subsequent years. I still stay in touch with people I worked with remotely. I never spoke to anyone in said office again. Your stated opportunity seems rather romanticized from my perspective. Relationships can form anywhere. You don't have to go too far back in time to when work from home was also the norm (when everyone stayed at home on the farm). The office age was the aberration.
avgDev 3y ago
I'm of a strong opinion not to form big friendships at work. I now started making friends outside of work at 37. At work I'm looking out for myself.
- esafak 3y ago
  Forming professional friendships is looking out for yourself. It helps you get you new jobs -- ones that you won't have access to otherwise -- or employees, if you are hiring.
joshuanapoli 3y ago
I thought that older people with families and bigger houses prefer WFH, because it is more convenient and it makes more time for the family. while younger single people with smaller apartments prefer the office, because it’s less cramped and lonely.

DebtDeflation 3y ago

Another example: I've noticed older folks (45-50+) repeatedly say "stop sending emails/texts/Slacks, pick up the phone and call them". Meanwhile, everyone under that age (and to be fair, a decent number even in that age group) considers an unexpected phone call to be rude and disruptive.

rqtwteye 3y ago
I am 50+. I call people often and encourage people to call me without the typical hours long build up per chat "Hi", "Hi", "How are you?", "Good", "I have a question", "OK", "Can I call you?", "Yes", "Now?", Yes" and so on. I think remote work loses a lot of agility if you communicate only through chat.
- kaoD 3y ago
  Seems like you (and/or your interlocutors) are using chat like it was a phone call and concluding a phone call is better to have phone calls.
- NegativeK 3y ago
  I dislike phone calls, but handle them in two ways: If a chat conversation isn't getting a point across after a couple of back and forths (five minutes is too long,) then it's time for a phone call. Discussions in chat are fine. Flat out lack of understanding is best fixed when they can hear and interrupt for clarification. If I do need to call someone, I simply message them and ask if they're available for a call. There's no need for preamble.
- flappyeagle 3y ago
  That’s some boomer slack usage. If anyone sends a message with “hi” they get a stern bollocking by me immediately. Our company handbook specifically forbids doing this.
  - rpmisms 3y ago
    Can you say "Hi, I need XYZ"? Or are pleasantries forbidden?

kwhitefoot 3y ago

It varies from country to country, culture to culture. Here in Norway work from home was so normal that during COVID there really wasn't any qualitative change, just a quantitative one. Anyone in a salaried position is being paid for the work they do not where they do it. In the winter my boss would occasionally rent a cabin in the mountains and work there while I, mostly, went in to the office because it was quieter there than at home (three children).

schwartzworld 3y ago

> still believe that 'managing people' means real-life first person interaction, and are completely invested in offices You hit the nail on the head. Senior managers who are unwilling to learn to do their jobs slightly differently are a big part of the problem. Imagine forcing an entire work-force to commute so you can physically stop by someone's desk to interrupt them vs sending a message or scheduling a meeting. Senior managers want productive staff, but instead of listening to what they need to be productive, they set up roadblocks to satisfy their own lazy vanity.

potta_coffee 3y ago
They say they want a productive staff but actions speak louder than words.

jhp123 3y ago

I'm 37 and a factor that I haven't seen much discussed is that in-office is a vastly higher burden for my generation. Commutes are longer, more families have two working parents (and need to, to pay the bills). In-office doesn't mean heading out the door at 8:30 and coming home at 5:30 but something more like leaving at 7:00am, dropping off kids at before-school daycare ($$$), driving back to the train station to make it in by 9 and then coming home at 6 after your 1-hour commute to the closest affordable suburb. An 11-hour day, and you are paying out the nose for childcare if you can even get it, and you'll spend all your PTO on kids doctor appointments and parent-teacher conferences and the like.

astockwell 3y ago
This almost exactly described my life as well (also 37, lived in a major metro). Not to mention the (surreptitiously unpaid) evening calls we'd have with other TZs after spending that 11-hour day, because take-home laptops.
DrBazza 3y ago
Totally agree. I was that age "a few years" ago, and I'm not playing working-hours-one-up-manship, but I was leaving the house at 4.45am, and getting home 7.30-8pm (London). That was probably the low point in my, and others, working life that coincides with the age for raising a young family. It sucks.
jayd16 3y ago
I think we really screwed up. We're using WFH to hide child care while saying it's more efficient. We should have just demanded better work hours but here we are.
- helij 3y ago
  In my case, no. WFH because I prefer it. I manage a team of 7. In our team there are people all across UK. Childcare would be easy for me but commute, oh no! There's talk about less than 40 and more years old. I'm over 40 and prefer remote. In our space it's younger folks that prefer hanging out in the office.

orzig 3y ago

The model needs four buckets: 20-30: Needs mentorship, can live closer to the office 30-40: Has young kids, moved to the burbs 40+ AND Management: Developed management approach pre-pandemic, pre-Slack 40+ but IC: Could go either way This is still HUGELY simplified, and please do not take offense if you are e.g. 30-40 without wanting kids. But "young kids" is just a huge difference in terms of the morning schedule and flexibility needs, especially as most families near urban areas have both parents working.

ghaff 3y ago

>Old = over 40s (myself included) who are senior, their careers have been in offices and commuting, and still believe that 'managing people' means real-life first person interaction, and are completely invested in offices, and the cost of paying for them, rather than downsizing. Absent the Covid years, I'd probably agree more. A lot of managers, execs, and other senior people may not have liked commuting but it was just part of the job. But they're people too and many realized they could manage without going into an office all of the time. People do come in, especially for things like customer visits, but it's mostly a sometimes thing.

okaram 3y ago

Besides the old/young divide, I think there's the geek/suit, or maker/manager divide. As a geek, most of my time is spent working alone, even in ill-defined projects that require a lot of coordination and communication. Working from 'home' (more from wherever I want) is better. Also, although I agree that we lose something if we communicate remotely, I don't terribly care. When I communicate, information is more important than emotions. And they want me to work in an open floor office, ugh. Suits spent most of their time in meetings. They also care much more about the emotions and human touch. They've spent years optimizing for firm handshakes, nice hair, good smiles and that weird clicking noise :). Basically, suits want the office, geeks don't. Productivity doesn't have much to do with it :)

esafak 3y ago
http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html