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I hope it's OK to dissent here since all the other comments agree with you anyway. Regarding this: > The fundamental issue I see in this debate is a lack of se

I hope it's OK to dissent here since all the other comments agree with you anyway. Regarding this: > The fundamental issue I see in this debate is a lack of sensibility and nuance in human nature. > The whole matter is debated (understandably in a way) on big numbers and averages. If statistics is invalid, then how do you propose companies decide, based on a reasonable and empirical estimate of reality, on what work arrangement to implement? Do you believe that it is not expensive and disruptive to introduce as many variations of work setups as there are people in a company? What if the people deciding company policy simply prefer and believe in the advantages of onsite, which they have the freedom and right to believe---so why do people who prefer remote force themselves in such places?

codingdave 3y ago
I am 100% in the remote work camp, but I agree with you. Every company has the right to make the choice that works for them... whether empirically driven or not, it is their prerogative to choose. But they do then need to hire the people for whom that choice works. And as people looking for work, we need to accept that some companies are non-viable for us because of the choices they make. The friction we're seeing now is that we're still recovering from a pandemic that forced everyone remote whether it works for them or not. So this idea of remote vs. office being a core strategic decision as a company grows is fairly new. We are all still learning how to navigate the options.
epolanski 3y ago
> If statistics is invalid, then how do you propose companies decide, based on a reasonable and empirical estimate of reality, on what work arrangement to implement? As Einstein said, you should make every problem as simple as possible, but no more simple. The problem we're describing cannot be reduced to few simple statistics, it's exactly making the problem simpler than it is. Not only just the task of measuring productivity of knowledge workers is extremely difficult if not impossible, but getting any statistic across a wide variety of different factors makes it even more pointless. In fact, the problem shouldn't be approached from a macro, but microscopic level. Start from the basics. There's knowledge workers that don't do anything from home. There's knowledge workers that won't achieve anything at the office. There's gargantuan projects like operating systems or databases developed fully remotely and asynchronously. There's projects that barely move without lots of synchronous, meaningful in-person interactions and there's environments like early stage startups that desperately need this kind of situation (albeit I'm sure there's many exceptions). In professional sports it is very well understood that slightly different formulas work differently for different teams and players. Some needs to be fast and lean to be effective. Some need to put up muscle and weight. Many need both. Some need lots of cardio, some need more skills training. And all of that has to interact and mesh together and face different challenges. Yet you want to complex systems like business projects/teams built around few statistics? Ignoring the wide variety of factors and humans that will end up there? I'm not saying that building teams like that is an easy task, sometimes you just need to make work whatever team you're given, and you will have to decide a setup and give the right structure incentives to everyone to make it work. But even if tomorrow a stat told us that there's proof that statistically remote is better for 60% of the teams (or the opposite) that really won't help much.

codingdave 3y ago

I am 100% in the remote work camp, but I agree with you. Every company has the right to make the choice that works for them... whether empirically driven or not, it is their prerogative to choose. But they do then need to hire the people for whom that choice works. And as people looking for work, we need to accept that some companies are non-viable for us because of the choices they make. The friction we're seeing now is that we're still recovering from a pandemic that forced everyone remote whether it works for them or not. So this idea of remote vs. office being a core strategic decision as a company grows is fairly new. We are all still learning how to navigate the options.

epolanski 3y ago

> If statistics is invalid, then how do you propose companies decide, based on a reasonable and empirical estimate of reality, on what work arrangement to implement? As Einstein said, you should make every problem as simple as possible, but no more simple. The problem we're describing cannot be reduced to few simple statistics, it's exactly making the problem simpler than it is. Not only just the task of measuring productivity of knowledge workers is extremely difficult if not impossible, but getting any statistic across a wide variety of different factors makes it even more pointless. In fact, the problem shouldn't be approached from a macro, but microscopic level. Start from the basics. There's knowledge workers that don't do anything from home. There's knowledge workers that won't achieve anything at the office. There's gargantuan projects like operating systems or databases developed fully remotely and asynchronously. There's projects that barely move without lots of synchronous, meaningful in-person interactions and there's environments like early stage startups that desperately need this kind of situation (albeit I'm sure there's many exceptions). In professional sports it is very well understood that slightly different formulas work differently for different teams and players. Some needs to be fast and lean to be effective. Some need to put up muscle and weight. Many need both. Some need lots of cardio, some need more skills training. And all of that has to interact and mesh together and face different challenges. Yet you want to complex systems like business projects/teams built around few statistics? Ignoring the wide variety of factors and humans that will end up there? I'm not saying that building teams like that is an easy task, sometimes you just need to make work whatever team you're given, and you will have to decide a setup and give the right structure incentives to everyone to make it work. But even if tomorrow a stat told us that there's proof that statistically remote is better for 60% of the teams (or the opposite) that really won't help much.