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I wonder if we’re just fragmenting into two workforces. The kind of work that can be done remotely (programming, design, sales, etc) and the kind they can’t (r

I wonder if we’re just fragmenting into two workforces. The kind of work that can be done remotely (programming, design, sales, etc) and the kind they can’t (retail, weird bosses and extroverts who feel they must be in office). So it makes sense that 50% won’t consider. I recruited for some software dev positions recently and applicants said that non-remote offices were just a different philosophy.

A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
I suppose it makes sense. Musk tried to put a label around it by calling that group 'laptop class'. I have some pet theories, but those center around commercial real estate.
- spacecadet 2y ago
  Musk who? Smells bad to me.
  - spacecadet 2y ago
    Musk Rat dat who.
- gravescale 2y ago
  It's a fun theory, and sounds rather plausible at first blush, but do so many of the upper management class really have so many commercial real estate investments that they're willing to break the effectiveness of their core business? I know of at least one company with an RTO drive but leased the office, and the land owner doesn't have external shareholders. Also the company paid for quite a snack supply, so backsides in seats actively cost a relatively small but still not trivial amount of money.
  - karmajunkie 2y ago
    there’s at least some municipalities that are essentially bribing employers with tax incentives to RTO to prop up dependent businesses like restaurants.
  - idontwantthis 2y ago
    > break the effectiveness of their core business It could be a non metric cost vs a metric cost. They RTO and deadlines slip but they can blame that on anything. Versus losses on the balance sheet from real estate holdings. I don’t necessarily think the real estate theory is right, but I do think calculations like that happen all the time by tech execs.
  - lassoiat 2y ago
    There is obviously not something conspiratorial here since crossing the conspiracy would have such value for an individual company. I think though there is a network of decision makers that when you take into account this high dimension of decision variables, there is an emergent alignment of self interest towards the office. I work for a very small company and of course no one comes into the office. We are small enough and lack enough of those variables that we don't have to perform this office theater like bigger firms. The bigger firms don't really have a choice when you sum all the inputs.
- leetharris 2y ago
  > I have some pet theories, but those center around commercial real estate. This is the most echoed, low-effort theory repeated over and over on places like Reddit. The vast, vast majority of people I know who want to return to the office have absolutely nothing to do with commercial real estate. If you put any effort into the theory at all it immediately falls apart. Some people just like working in the office.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
    I do not want to go into specifics as they may reveal the place I work at. However, without going into those specifics, I will state that my current employer does have some above average exposure to real estate and the speech some of us got from our managers was 'we should do our part'( in helping CRE recover ). Now, just because it is simple and straightforward, does not mean it is wrong. Oftentimes, money can more easily explain things that seem complex. I don't want to speculate as to why it is branded and dismissed as low effort/reddit origin, but I personally think it is weird. It is, frankly, way more reasonable explanation than other rationale put forth. edit: Come to think of it, I understand the why. Up until now, it was all about 'productivity and collaboration'. The change in rationale would be rather jarring.
  - simoncion 2y ago
    > Some people just like working in the office. No doubt. This isn't a one-size-fits-all thing. Some people absolutely love working in the office. Some people just prefer it. Others have a garbage home office and will never have any home setup conducive to work. I 10000% agree with this, and anyone who says otherwise is being dreadfully foolish. That doesn't explain even a little bit why folks who do not like (or even very, very strongly dislike) coming into the office are being threatened, are getting cut off from any and all promotions, or even being fired for continuing to work from their home office. > If you put any effort into the theory [that the "force everyone to come into the office with threats of removal from the promotion track, or removal from one's position" situation that's ongoing may be related to plummeting commercial real estate valuations and attempts to prop them up] at all it immediately falls apart. Your anecdotes don't support this claim.
vjk800 2y ago
The remote-by-default working style that started during the pandemic has been the single biggest change in my entire adult life (well, that and getting kids). Talking to people who don't have the remote option for legit reasons (like working with hardware that requires office presence), it seems that they don't really get how big of a difference it is. As you said, some sort of fragmenting has already happened.
- SirMaster 2y ago
  It's different, but is it good? I'm a SWE, and we went from full office to full remote for about 6 months when covid hit. I didn't particularly like working fully remote, and went back and have been back at the offices full time since then.
  - unshavedyak 2y ago
    That highly depends on the person. I’m primarily WFH for the last 10 years, like anything it’s not a one size fits all. To me the benefits massively outweigh the negatives. Mostly commute tbh. It just feels more human to me in a world where it feels like your entire life revolves around work. 10 hour days between work, lunch, commute, etc. weekends are full of chores that I didn’t have time to do during the week. Balance is way out of whack, to me personally.
afavour 2y ago
I agree and I think that there are a lot of weird side effects to this (potentially, at least). I live in NYC and go into the office two days a week, which honestly suits my lifestyle just great. But I used to pay for a monthly metrocard, now I pay (much less per month) per ride. Mass transit requires a certain level of ridership in order to be sustainable. In 2023 that subway ridership was at 68% of pre-pandemic levels so not the disastrous drop-off some feared but still a significant drop. Should these trends continue governments are going to have to find some way to equity between lower income workers that must travel to their job and higher income remote workers. Likely taxing the latter, which will be very unpopular.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  > Likely taxing the latter, which will be very unpopular Better civics education should be able to overcome this vieled "fuck you, I got mine" attitude. Richer cities already subsidize rural areas, and rural areas support cities with non-monetary benefits like food. Politicians shouldn't be able to so easily divide us when we need to support each other.
- screye 2y ago
  That's a false dichotomy. Most urban value is exploited by exurban and suburban population, while paying very little tax towards urban upkeep. Similarly, small up-state cities rely on the central 'bread-winner' city while overwhelmingly voting against QOL improvements for that city in state legislature. Rural areas don't factor in too much. Only in the US can it be acceptable for the city's governing body to live outside city bounds. There is an absence of basic incentive alignment and the outcomes show that. Congestion pricing, limiting free parking, mandating weaker housing restrictions around regional transit, etc. are tried and tested ways for cities to get their due. The cities are at fault too. NYC's insistence on housing 100k+ illegal immigrants in manhattan's 3 star hotels is a self inflicted wound. NYC isn't the worst, but I started making a self-inflicted wound list for west coast cities, then we'd be here for a long time. Honestly, US are badly managed in general. However, produce so much economic value that they're able to brute force their way out of the mismanagement. Knowing history, brute force only goes so far.... edit: replied to the wrong person. This was meant for a child comment. But point still stands.
SirMaster 2y ago
I'm not sure, but I am a mostly introverted SWE and I still just like working from the office.

A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago

I suppose it makes sense. Musk tried to put a label around it by calling that group 'laptop class'. I have some pet theories, but those center around commercial real estate.

spacecadet 2y ago
Musk who? Smells bad to me.
- spacecadet 2y ago
  Musk Rat dat who.
gravescale 2y ago
It's a fun theory, and sounds rather plausible at first blush, but do so many of the upper management class really have so many commercial real estate investments that they're willing to break the effectiveness of their core business? I know of at least one company with an RTO drive but leased the office, and the land owner doesn't have external shareholders. Also the company paid for quite a snack supply, so backsides in seats actively cost a relatively small but still not trivial amount of money.
- karmajunkie 2y ago
  there’s at least some municipalities that are essentially bribing employers with tax incentives to RTO to prop up dependent businesses like restaurants.
- idontwantthis 2y ago
  > break the effectiveness of their core business It could be a non metric cost vs a metric cost. They RTO and deadlines slip but they can blame that on anything. Versus losses on the balance sheet from real estate holdings. I don’t necessarily think the real estate theory is right, but I do think calculations like that happen all the time by tech execs.
- lassoiat 2y ago
  There is obviously not something conspiratorial here since crossing the conspiracy would have such value for an individual company. I think though there is a network of decision makers that when you take into account this high dimension of decision variables, there is an emergent alignment of self interest towards the office. I work for a very small company and of course no one comes into the office. We are small enough and lack enough of those variables that we don't have to perform this office theater like bigger firms. The bigger firms don't really have a choice when you sum all the inputs.
leetharris 2y ago
> I have some pet theories, but those center around commercial real estate. This is the most echoed, low-effort theory repeated over and over on places like Reddit. The vast, vast majority of people I know who want to return to the office have absolutely nothing to do with commercial real estate. If you put any effort into the theory at all it immediately falls apart. Some people just like working in the office.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
  I do not want to go into specifics as they may reveal the place I work at. However, without going into those specifics, I will state that my current employer does have some above average exposure to real estate and the speech some of us got from our managers was 'we should do our part'( in helping CRE recover ). Now, just because it is simple and straightforward, does not mean it is wrong. Oftentimes, money can more easily explain things that seem complex. I don't want to speculate as to why it is branded and dismissed as low effort/reddit origin, but I personally think it is weird. It is, frankly, way more reasonable explanation than other rationale put forth. edit: Come to think of it, I understand the why. Up until now, it was all about 'productivity and collaboration'. The change in rationale would be rather jarring.
- simoncion 2y ago
  > Some people just like working in the office. No doubt. This isn't a one-size-fits-all thing. Some people absolutely love working in the office. Some people just prefer it. Others have a garbage home office and will never have any home setup conducive to work. I 10000% agree with this, and anyone who says otherwise is being dreadfully foolish. That doesn't explain even a little bit why folks who do not like (or even very, very strongly dislike) coming into the office are being threatened, are getting cut off from any and all promotions, or even being fired for continuing to work from their home office. > If you put any effort into the theory [that the "force everyone to come into the office with threats of removal from the promotion track, or removal from one's position" situation that's ongoing may be related to plummeting commercial real estate valuations and attempts to prop them up] at all it immediately falls apart. Your anecdotes don't support this claim.

vjk800 2y ago

The remote-by-default working style that started during the pandemic has been the single biggest change in my entire adult life (well, that and getting kids). Talking to people who don't have the remote option for legit reasons (like working with hardware that requires office presence), it seems that they don't really get how big of a difference it is. As you said, some sort of fragmenting has already happened.

SirMaster 2y ago
It's different, but is it good? I'm a SWE, and we went from full office to full remote for about 6 months when covid hit. I didn't particularly like working fully remote, and went back and have been back at the offices full time since then.
- unshavedyak 2y ago
  That highly depends on the person. I’m primarily WFH for the last 10 years, like anything it’s not a one size fits all. To me the benefits massively outweigh the negatives. Mostly commute tbh. It just feels more human to me in a world where it feels like your entire life revolves around work. 10 hour days between work, lunch, commute, etc. weekends are full of chores that I didn’t have time to do during the week. Balance is way out of whack, to me personally.

afavour 2y ago

I agree and I think that there are a lot of weird side effects to this (potentially, at least). I live in NYC and go into the office two days a week, which honestly suits my lifestyle just great. But I used to pay for a monthly metrocard, now I pay (much less per month) per ride. Mass transit requires a certain level of ridership in order to be sustainable. In 2023 that subway ridership was at 68% of pre-pandemic levels so not the disastrous drop-off some feared but still a significant drop. Should these trends continue governments are going to have to find some way to equity between lower income workers that must travel to their job and higher income remote workers. Likely taxing the latter, which will be very unpopular.

paulryanrogers 2y ago
> Likely taxing the latter, which will be very unpopular Better civics education should be able to overcome this vieled "fuck you, I got mine" attitude. Richer cities already subsidize rural areas, and rural areas support cities with non-monetary benefits like food. Politicians shouldn't be able to so easily divide us when we need to support each other.
screye 2y ago
That's a false dichotomy. Most urban value is exploited by exurban and suburban population, while paying very little tax towards urban upkeep. Similarly, small up-state cities rely on the central 'bread-winner' city while overwhelmingly voting against QOL improvements for that city in state legislature. Rural areas don't factor in too much. Only in the US can it be acceptable for the city's governing body to live outside city bounds. There is an absence of basic incentive alignment and the outcomes show that. Congestion pricing, limiting free parking, mandating weaker housing restrictions around regional transit, etc. are tried and tested ways for cities to get their due. The cities are at fault too. NYC's insistence on housing 100k+ illegal immigrants in manhattan's 3 star hotels is a self inflicted wound. NYC isn't the worst, but I started making a self-inflicted wound list for west coast cities, then we'd be here for a long time. Honestly, US are badly managed in general. However, produce so much economic value that they're able to brute force their way out of the mismanagement. Knowing history, brute force only goes so far.... edit: replied to the wrong person. This was meant for a child comment. But point still stands.

SirMaster 2y ago

I'm not sure, but I am a mostly introverted SWE and I still just like working from the office.