5 ms·

I've grown pretty tired of these kinds of missives that are so one-sided that they don't even attempt to do an honest "pros/cons" look at widespread remote work

I've grown pretty tired of these kinds of missives that are so one-sided that they don't even attempt to do an honest "pros/cons" look at widespread remote work. For me, I certainly agree with all of his noted pros: less time wasted in traffic, more flexibility especially for working parents, and even some things he didn't mention, like fewer distractions when you need "heads down" time. Even before the pandemic I always preferred working from home when I knew I just needed a long stretch of coding time, and things like huge open-plan offices terrified me. I also agree that RTO plans are largely useless; you often just get the "people come in and then just spend half their time on Zoom because some colleagues are still remote" dynamic. But I do worry about the long-term effects of so much remote work, primarily: 1. When I was new in my career, I learned a ton just "through osmosis" by being around more experienced colleagues. I also built good relationship and friendships early in my work career (to be honest, I always felt kind of sad for people who took the "colleagues aren't your friends" mindset. Perhaps not all of them, but why not make friends with people you spend a lot of time with?) I certainly understand married people with kids and with well-developed friend groups being much more happier with remote work, but I think it's much harder to develop those relationships in the first place if you start out remote from the get go. 2. I really worry about overall isolation, and also an increase in polarization. We used to talk about the loss of "third spaces" when countries became much less religious, and now we're seeing the loss of that "second space" (the office) as well. I go into the office multiple times a week just because I get stir crazy staying in my house all the time. The average number of people I have contact with in any week is way, way down, and that doesn't help my tendency toward depression. In other words, yes, I agree that remote work has won, but given that, I think it's a good time to focus on ameliorating the negatives.

smarmgoblin 3y ago
Totally agree that these are issues worth thinking about and mitigating. One thing I’ve started doing at work is documenting workflows in various ways: not just docs but talks and screencasts where a new engineer could see my workflow. (I also give new engineers advice to keep a digital notebook! I still learn tons by doing this.) For the isolation bit I just wonder what we will see replacing that. It’s possible we never see anything and everyone just deals with it but I hope shared office spaces or something similar picks up. I get plenty of socialization elsewhere but little breaks in the workday to not focus on productivity and just chitchat were nice and maybe important some days.
odyssey7 3y ago
Point (1) is a function of the team's culture around new hires and working relationships generally. Occupying the same building, the same floor, or even the same room as a coworker is simply not equivalent to having a beneficial work culture. You can neglect new hires just as effectively in an office, and you can support new hires just as effectively over Teams.
- drewcoo 3y ago
  And to pick up the other point, the "contest" was not about #2, the general well-being of people everywhere. They're businesses.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  I 100% agree that in office doesn't make up for a bad work culture. But I don't think that negates that being in-office with a good work culture can have significant benefits over being remote with a good work culture. Also, my issue isn't just with "new hires", it's with new inexperienced hires. I started my career in a company that had a "boot camp"-like training environment for new grads, and I found it hugely, hugely beneficial for both learning new things and for developing strong relationships that have lasted 25 years later. I disagree that kind of experience can be replicated over Teams, though I fully acknowledge that kind of experience is rare to begin with.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    There’s over $120B in enterprise value of remote first enterprises. Feelings are fine, the data shows the model is effective. You can hire the best talent anywhere, talent that has options. That is a material competitive edge vs hiring a cohort that is willing to tolerate a non remote operating model. My hot take: Don’t hire helpless people, and the people you do hire, make sure they are fully supported to know what they need to do their job (internal mentor/buddy, knowledge base, frequent check ins until they’re more autonomous, etc). In person onboarding can help, as can week long in person on sites every quarter or twice a year (team cohesion).
    - 3y ago
mech422 3y ago
also, fairly unrelated to what you mentioned... I hate the junior engineers "its so easy to ask a more experienced engineer a _quick_ question" comments.. If you're asking me a 'quick' question - google it dammit. Interrupting more senior engineers should be reserved for more 'difficult' problems - specialized domain knowledge you can't find anywhere else, etc. If you're interrupting me for stuff you could find by browsing the repos, or googling - I'm gonna be annoyed. If its something more technical/nuanced and it takes me 10+ minutes to resolve, I'm going to be impressed. Again, I realize you made no claims about this, but the conversation always seems to pop up in these WFH articles
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  The problem is "easy" is relative. "quick" for a senior =/= "quick" for a junior who may not even know what terms to google. > specialized domain knowledge you can't find anywhere else, etc. so most of the proprietary workplace tools, likely with shoddy or outdated documentation? Yeah, that sounds like a big issue that is definitely not the junior's fault.
  - mech422 3y ago
    I'm sorry, I don't find a junior not knowing what terms to google to be a compelling argument. Nor do I find "proprietary workplace tools" to be a compelling arguement. Either the on-boarding sucked, or they didn't pay attention to it, either way that "is definitely not the" seniors fault. If you can't expend the basic effort, don't expect someone else to bail you out...
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      In that case I am glad you've only had properly functional workplaces with perfect on-boarding, documentation that properly explains all jargon and tribal knowledge, lack of legacy code with random landmines that would take weeks to understand from scratch, and no directors that will change the entire trajectory of a project on a whim. My reality is a lot more bleak. That and/or you went straight into a truly elite workplace where a "junior" is still someone with years of experience in industry. It is hard to sympathize with truly green workers when you have none. And industry seems to be leaning towards that as of late.
prepend 3y ago
> I think it's much harder to develop those relationships in the first place if you start out remote from the get go. There are many coworkers I met during Covid and have only known then remotely for years. I feel pretty close to them and know their kids, hobbies, etc. In some cases I’ve gotten to meet them in person and it feels like I sat next to them for years. In some ways it’s easier because I can have these virtual connections to more people, but in IRL I would only sit next to 1-3 people. What I do miss is going to lunch every day. That was really nice. But at my current org, there’s no lunch culture so it was rare to eat lunch with people before remote work.
- kyleee 3y ago
  Lunch is the true pandemic casualty
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >In some ways it’s easier because I can have these virtual connections to more people, but in IRL I would only sit next to 1-3 people. interesting, it's the opposite for me. I was in a small satellite office but I felt I got to know half of the 30 people in my area fairly quickly. once the office shut down I never saw nor talked to most of those people. Just my immediate team of 3-5 people (2 of which came after the pandemic). The main upside was that I did talk more to people in the main office than I did before, but there was no chance of any get together when we're 500 miles apart. I agree with missing lunch. That was definitely the best time to talk to people you'd never have a chance to otherwise.
dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago
In my company we solved this problems many years ago before the pandemic. * As the project is quite large, every time a new person appears (no matter if junior or senior), for each sprint they get someone to show them around, answer their questions etc. That guardian angel changes each sprint - and it lasts several months. * We have open channels for ad-hoc meetings and the culture encouraging joining them even if the topic discussed is not directly related to your current task. In other words, you can just listen to what other people are trying to solve when doing your task and are free to interrupt them if you feel interested in so on. * Every 3 months we try to get together as much as possible for 2-3 days (it never happened 100% as we live on different continents, the rest joins from their local offices or homes) - and it feels great! * My teammates are really cool and our bosses too, so we have the necessary space to communicate without worrying it will impact our performance. And if someone really wants, they can always come to a local office - but most of the time they are empty as everybody loves WFH and NO WE ARE NEVER COMING BACK.
DonsDiscountGas 3y ago
> why not make friends with people you spend a lot of time with? All well and fine if you can, but you shouldn't be forced to. And it shouldn't be the only way to make friends. People with that mindset typically have other social groups. > I think it's a good time to focus on ameliorating the negatives Agreed, and this is something we should've been doing starting decades ago (see: Bowling Alone). We already link health insurance to peoples jobs, it shouldn't be a persons entire social life.
- kyleee 3y ago
  Who said anything about being forced to be friends with coworkers?
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >And it shouldn't be the only way to make friends. I'm all ears on current ways to make friends as an adult, or at least ideas on where to go. Like the GP said, 3rd places are down and instead of talking about ways to build more 3rd places we're potentially seeing the collapse of 2nd places. And I don't think people are exactly comfortable going or inviting people into their 1st place as of now. It's not a solution but it is the current best alternative that is currently falling by the wayside.
rakkhi 3y ago
Best reason I heard for return to office: workers were working 2+ jobs in the same time and being just at productive at our job. How dare they!
- spixy 3y ago
  But why? Just have one job and enjoy your free time. However if workers have so little productivity on-site, there is something wrong with the company (or workers).
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    Why? Because with all your life costs covered from job #1, you can bank all the after-tax income from job #2.
lewdev 3y ago
I think the negatives apply to new/inexperienced workers and it's unfortunate that it wasn't addressed in the article, but this affects the smaller population of the entire workforce and will be one of those things that will be improved on over time. I imagine there being new processes to get new workers on-boarded and adjusted to remote work and that could be having them temporarily in the office. I also started my career in a cubicle farm with a lot of other software engineers which was great for my growth, but I think that could be replaced with adjustments to the process of ramping up juniors. Perhaps colleges or training programs will incorporate training to deal with the lack of seniors or assign juniors with seniors to work together in a mentorship with guidelines.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >but this affects the smaller population of the entire workforce and will be one of those things that will be improved on over time. I'm not as optimistic. that class of 2020-2022 (high school and college) got socially stunted in a way that I feel will only break the physical divide further. Those kids in 20 years won't even see it as a problem that they never got a proper prom, a chance to walk the stage, a chance to properly onboard into their first step of their career and form connections that will help them grow. It'll just be a new normal, a colder normal facilitated by the false platitudes that is modern social media. The only possibly good long term (20+ year) ramifications will be that a lot of old crusty government processes will definitely be streamlined through the net. Having platforms livestream electorial forums to a populace who treat the internet as a natural extension of their bodies will completely change the dynamics of how candidates argue and pander.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
Yeah, I resonate a lot with these two issues. 1) While I'm sure there's always going to be some imposter syndrome, I simply feel like I'm not growing the same in a post pandemic world. People in general are less connected and that osmosis from random lunch conversations or overhearing other engineer's problems may be a big part of how the pioneers of yester-decade could take command of a system or entire product and truly thrive. not only do I not get that knowledge, but I feel I get less opportunities to really show I can push to the next level. I'm not as trusted with unfamiliar areas because I'm less a face and more a name that pings for PRs. I can't branch out as much because it's even harder to converse with other teams, I find it harder to get promoted as it's hard to point to "significant impact" (which I never get a chance to) and if I go looking for jobs I get less impressive things to talk about that may help with a more senior role. This may indeed be a young/old divide as someone who was surrounded by older folk with families who feel elated (and after consulting my own family with young kids, I start to get it). Whereas I always felt more ambivalent on the situation. It does feel great once you get to a point where you feel no need to grow, but I very much do. 2) isolation is also a huge problem as well, especially since I moved to a town where none of my college friends are. Now with remote work I have to physically force myself to get out for the sake of sanity. I live alone so I can legitimately go a week without seeing another physical face if I fell into my usual habits. to call it "loneliness" is an understatement, and it doesn't feel healthy at all.

smarmgoblin 3y ago

Totally agree that these are issues worth thinking about and mitigating. One thing I’ve started doing at work is documenting workflows in various ways: not just docs but talks and screencasts where a new engineer could see my workflow. (I also give new engineers advice to keep a digital notebook! I still learn tons by doing this.) For the isolation bit I just wonder what we will see replacing that. It’s possible we never see anything and everyone just deals with it but I hope shared office spaces or something similar picks up. I get plenty of socialization elsewhere but little breaks in the workday to not focus on productivity and just chitchat were nice and maybe important some days.

odyssey7 3y ago

Point (1) is a function of the team's culture around new hires and working relationships generally. Occupying the same building, the same floor, or even the same room as a coworker is simply not equivalent to having a beneficial work culture. You can neglect new hires just as effectively in an office, and you can support new hires just as effectively over Teams.

drewcoo 3y ago
And to pick up the other point, the "contest" was not about #2, the general well-being of people everywhere. They're businesses.
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
I 100% agree that in office doesn't make up for a bad work culture. But I don't think that negates that being in-office with a good work culture can have significant benefits over being remote with a good work culture. Also, my issue isn't just with "new hires", it's with new inexperienced hires. I started my career in a company that had a "boot camp"-like training environment for new grads, and I found it hugely, hugely beneficial for both learning new things and for developing strong relationships that have lasted 25 years later. I disagree that kind of experience can be replicated over Teams, though I fully acknowledge that kind of experience is rare to begin with.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  There’s over $120B in enterprise value of remote first enterprises. Feelings are fine, the data shows the model is effective. You can hire the best talent anywhere, talent that has options. That is a material competitive edge vs hiring a cohort that is willing to tolerate a non remote operating model. My hot take: Don’t hire helpless people, and the people you do hire, make sure they are fully supported to know what they need to do their job (internal mentor/buddy, knowledge base, frequent check ins until they’re more autonomous, etc). In person onboarding can help, as can week long in person on sites every quarter or twice a year (team cohesion).
  - 3y ago

mech422 3y ago

also, fairly unrelated to what you mentioned... I hate the junior engineers "its so easy to ask a more experienced engineer a _quick_ question" comments.. If you're asking me a 'quick' question - google it dammit. Interrupting more senior engineers should be reserved for more 'difficult' problems - specialized domain knowledge you can't find anywhere else, etc. If you're interrupting me for stuff you could find by browsing the repos, or googling - I'm gonna be annoyed. If its something more technical/nuanced and it takes me 10+ minutes to resolve, I'm going to be impressed. Again, I realize you made no claims about this, but the conversation always seems to pop up in these WFH articles

johnnyanmac 3y ago
The problem is "easy" is relative. "quick" for a senior =/= "quick" for a junior who may not even know what terms to google. > specialized domain knowledge you can't find anywhere else, etc. so most of the proprietary workplace tools, likely with shoddy or outdated documentation? Yeah, that sounds like a big issue that is definitely not the junior's fault.
- mech422 3y ago
  I'm sorry, I don't find a junior not knowing what terms to google to be a compelling argument. Nor do I find "proprietary workplace tools" to be a compelling arguement. Either the on-boarding sucked, or they didn't pay attention to it, either way that "is definitely not the" seniors fault. If you can't expend the basic effort, don't expect someone else to bail you out...
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    In that case I am glad you've only had properly functional workplaces with perfect on-boarding, documentation that properly explains all jargon and tribal knowledge, lack of legacy code with random landmines that would take weeks to understand from scratch, and no directors that will change the entire trajectory of a project on a whim. My reality is a lot more bleak. That and/or you went straight into a truly elite workplace where a "junior" is still someone with years of experience in industry. It is hard to sympathize with truly green workers when you have none. And industry seems to be leaning towards that as of late.

prepend 3y ago

> I think it's much harder to develop those relationships in the first place if you start out remote from the get go. There are many coworkers I met during Covid and have only known then remotely for years. I feel pretty close to them and know their kids, hobbies, etc. In some cases I’ve gotten to meet them in person and it feels like I sat next to them for years. In some ways it’s easier because I can have these virtual connections to more people, but in IRL I would only sit next to 1-3 people. What I do miss is going to lunch every day. That was really nice. But at my current org, there’s no lunch culture so it was rare to eat lunch with people before remote work.

kyleee 3y ago
Lunch is the true pandemic casualty
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>In some ways it’s easier because I can have these virtual connections to more people, but in IRL I would only sit next to 1-3 people. interesting, it's the opposite for me. I was in a small satellite office but I felt I got to know half of the 30 people in my area fairly quickly. once the office shut down I never saw nor talked to most of those people. Just my immediate team of 3-5 people (2 of which came after the pandemic). The main upside was that I did talk more to people in the main office than I did before, but there was no chance of any get together when we're 500 miles apart. I agree with missing lunch. That was definitely the best time to talk to people you'd never have a chance to otherwise.

dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago

In my company we solved this problems many years ago before the pandemic. * As the project is quite large, every time a new person appears (no matter if junior or senior), for each sprint they get someone to show them around, answer their questions etc. That guardian angel changes each sprint - and it lasts several months. * We have open channels for ad-hoc meetings and the culture encouraging joining them even if the topic discussed is not directly related to your current task. In other words, you can just listen to what other people are trying to solve when doing your task and are free to interrupt them if you feel interested in so on. * Every 3 months we try to get together as much as possible for 2-3 days (it never happened 100% as we live on different continents, the rest joins from their local offices or homes) - and it feels great! * My teammates are really cool and our bosses too, so we have the necessary space to communicate without worrying it will impact our performance. And if someone really wants, they can always come to a local office - but most of the time they are empty as everybody loves WFH and NO WE ARE NEVER COMING BACK.

DonsDiscountGas 3y ago

> why not make friends with people you spend a lot of time with? All well and fine if you can, but you shouldn't be forced to. And it shouldn't be the only way to make friends. People with that mindset typically have other social groups. > I think it's a good time to focus on ameliorating the negatives Agreed, and this is something we should've been doing starting decades ago (see: Bowling Alone). We already link health insurance to peoples jobs, it shouldn't be a persons entire social life.

kyleee 3y ago
Who said anything about being forced to be friends with coworkers?
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>And it shouldn't be the only way to make friends. I'm all ears on current ways to make friends as an adult, or at least ideas on where to go. Like the GP said, 3rd places are down and instead of talking about ways to build more 3rd places we're potentially seeing the collapse of 2nd places. And I don't think people are exactly comfortable going or inviting people into their 1st place as of now. It's not a solution but it is the current best alternative that is currently falling by the wayside.

rakkhi 3y ago

Best reason I heard for return to office: workers were working 2+ jobs in the same time and being just at productive at our job. How dare they!

spixy 3y ago
But why? Just have one job and enjoy your free time. However if workers have so little productivity on-site, there is something wrong with the company (or workers).
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Why? Because with all your life costs covered from job #1, you can bank all the after-tax income from job #2.

lewdev 3y ago

I think the negatives apply to new/inexperienced workers and it's unfortunate that it wasn't addressed in the article, but this affects the smaller population of the entire workforce and will be one of those things that will be improved on over time. I imagine there being new processes to get new workers on-boarded and adjusted to remote work and that could be having them temporarily in the office. I also started my career in a cubicle farm with a lot of other software engineers which was great for my growth, but I think that could be replaced with adjustments to the process of ramping up juniors. Perhaps colleges or training programs will incorporate training to deal with the lack of seniors or assign juniors with seniors to work together in a mentorship with guidelines.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
>but this affects the smaller population of the entire workforce and will be one of those things that will be improved on over time. I'm not as optimistic. that class of 2020-2022 (high school and college) got socially stunted in a way that I feel will only break the physical divide further. Those kids in 20 years won't even see it as a problem that they never got a proper prom, a chance to walk the stage, a chance to properly onboard into their first step of their career and form connections that will help them grow. It'll just be a new normal, a colder normal facilitated by the false platitudes that is modern social media. The only possibly good long term (20+ year) ramifications will be that a lot of old crusty government processes will definitely be streamlined through the net. Having platforms livestream electorial forums to a populace who treat the internet as a natural extension of their bodies will completely change the dynamics of how candidates argue and pander.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

Yeah, I resonate a lot with these two issues. 1) While I'm sure there's always going to be some imposter syndrome, I simply feel like I'm not growing the same in a post pandemic world. People in general are less connected and that osmosis from random lunch conversations or overhearing other engineer's problems may be a big part of how the pioneers of yester-decade could take command of a system or entire product and truly thrive. not only do I not get that knowledge, but I feel I get less opportunities to really show I can push to the next level. I'm not as trusted with unfamiliar areas because I'm less a face and more a name that pings for PRs. I can't branch out as much because it's even harder to converse with other teams, I find it harder to get promoted as it's hard to point to "significant impact" (which I never get a chance to) and if I go looking for jobs I get less impressive things to talk about that may help with a more senior role. This may indeed be a young/old divide as someone who was surrounded by older folk with families who feel elated (and after consulting my own family with young kids, I start to get it). Whereas I always felt more ambivalent on the situation. It does feel great once you get to a point where you feel no need to grow, but I very much do. 2) isolation is also a huge problem as well, especially since I moved to a town where none of my college friends are. Now with remote work I have to physically force myself to get out for the sake of sanity. I live alone so I can legitimately go a week without seeing another physical face if I fell into my usual habits. to call it "loneliness" is an understatement, and it doesn't feel healthy at all.