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> And while many US companies have been pushing employees to return to the office I still don't see the reason why you should go to office if you do your work

> And while many US companies have been pushing employees to return to the office I still don't see the reason why you should go to office if you do your work just right. There are more expenses if you go to office rather than being remote.

jansan 3y ago
Work is not only getting a task done. It also involves helping struggling or new colleagues. How does "learning on the job" even look like with remote work? When I started as an engineer after university, I learned so much during lunch breaks or at the water cooler. This does not happen with remote work and there is nothing to compensate for this.
- sensanaty 3y ago
  > When I started as an engineer after university, I learned so much during lunch breaks or at the water cooler. I started working in a hybrid setting and found remote so much better for learning compared to in-person where there's 30 people talking and distracting me from getting familiar with the work, how much hand holding do Juniors even need anyway? If anything having it be async is so much better since you'll have everything written down so you can reference it later whenever you need it, rather than listening to some senior blab off for half an hour about unimportant crap that just confuses you more. If Juniors don't know to ask questions, that problem isn't solved by forcing them into the office and having someone peeking over their shoulder constantly (which can be daunting and detract heavily from any potential learning there could be had), you need to foster an environment where they're not afraid to reach out for help when they need it. Also who wastes their lunch break talking about work? On whatever rare occasion I'm forced to go into the office, literally no one wants to discuss anything work-related (myself included) during lunch. People are talking about anything other than work, because duh. I've also never even seen these mythical watercoolers where people are apparently discussing life-altering breakthroughs all day every day that you hear about constantly, we do have a sink where people will chitchat about, again, literally anything other than work with others procrastinating though. This might be a US-specific thing I guess, but I've never in my life encountered anything even remotely like it in either Asia or the EU. > ...and there is nothing to compensate for this. I mean if you do literally nothing and just throw up your hands and say "welp, nothing can be done here, guess we all have to be sardines in a miserable can!" (aka the office) then sure, I guess there's nothing you can do. On the other hand you could invest time into properly documenting the project and the processes surrounding the project while setting up proper asynchronous channels and methods which ultimately benefits everyone, regardless if they're remote or not.
deelowe 3y ago
Depends, did you get a sweet tax deal for locating your HQ with the implicit understanding that putting the HQ there would drive tax revenue back to the city? Did you tell your friends and top investors of this decision and did they purchase real estate in the area with the implicit understanding that they'd be landlords for your new HQ? Work from home is a cost savings companies so it would seem they'd be motivated to downsize office space, but this isn't what's happening. In a world where costs are always the highest priority, I'm not buying the culture/work ethic argument.
- meindnoch 3y ago
  This. The investor class is furious about remote work, because it affects their real estate pyramid scheme.
lumost 3y ago
I recently went RTO in a major metro, the post tax hit was between 10-15k USD, I was fortunate to already own a home near enough to my office. The majority of which comes from parking, and lunch. Pre-pandemic you didn’t really notice these things, but it adds up fast.

jansan 3y ago

Work is not only getting a task done. It also involves helping struggling or new colleagues. How does "learning on the job" even look like with remote work? When I started as an engineer after university, I learned so much during lunch breaks or at the water cooler. This does not happen with remote work and there is nothing to compensate for this.

sensanaty 3y ago
> When I started as an engineer after university, I learned so much during lunch breaks or at the water cooler. I started working in a hybrid setting and found remote so much better for learning compared to in-person where there's 30 people talking and distracting me from getting familiar with the work, how much hand holding do Juniors even need anyway? If anything having it be async is so much better since you'll have everything written down so you can reference it later whenever you need it, rather than listening to some senior blab off for half an hour about unimportant crap that just confuses you more. If Juniors don't know to ask questions, that problem isn't solved by forcing them into the office and having someone peeking over their shoulder constantly (which can be daunting and detract heavily from any potential learning there could be had), you need to foster an environment where they're not afraid to reach out for help when they need it. Also who wastes their lunch break talking about work? On whatever rare occasion I'm forced to go into the office, literally no one wants to discuss anything work-related (myself included) during lunch. People are talking about anything other than work, because duh. I've also never even seen these mythical watercoolers where people are apparently discussing life-altering breakthroughs all day every day that you hear about constantly, we do have a sink where people will chitchat about, again, literally anything other than work with others procrastinating though. This might be a US-specific thing I guess, but I've never in my life encountered anything even remotely like it in either Asia or the EU. > ...and there is nothing to compensate for this. I mean if you do literally nothing and just throw up your hands and say "welp, nothing can be done here, guess we all have to be sardines in a miserable can!" (aka the office) then sure, I guess there's nothing you can do. On the other hand you could invest time into properly documenting the project and the processes surrounding the project while setting up proper asynchronous channels and methods which ultimately benefits everyone, regardless if they're remote or not.

deelowe 3y ago

Depends, did you get a sweet tax deal for locating your HQ with the implicit understanding that putting the HQ there would drive tax revenue back to the city? Did you tell your friends and top investors of this decision and did they purchase real estate in the area with the implicit understanding that they'd be landlords for your new HQ? Work from home is a cost savings companies so it would seem they'd be motivated to downsize office space, but this isn't what's happening. In a world where costs are always the highest priority, I'm not buying the culture/work ethic argument.

meindnoch 3y ago
This. The investor class is furious about remote work, because it affects their real estate pyramid scheme.

lumost 3y ago

I recently went RTO in a major metro, the post tax hit was between 10-15k USD, I was fortunate to already own a home near enough to my office. The majority of which comes from parking, and lunch. Pre-pandemic you didn’t really notice these things, but it adds up fast.