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My problem is that I quite like working with other people. It’s really hard to build relationships with other human beings when not in the same physical locati

My problem is that I quite like working with other people. It’s really hard to build relationships with other human beings when not in the same physical location- sharing jokes, lunches, walks and just shouting across the room about the weird code change . It’s vital. Most large companies think that as they are hiring “the best from around the world” that leaving them around the world is fine. Look leaving people on different floors of the same building screws up team cohesion. So from a certain standpoint, it does not matter. Companies have long ago chosen to cripple their productivity and WFH simply helps, but frankly it annoys me. Get better at building and releasing great code. In the same office. Move people, pay them well. Or maybe I am wrong - maybe the extra cost to co-locate and do the job well is more than the loss of productivity by seperated teams But I bet you the CEO of Crowdstrike is rethinking that idea right now

tomp 2y ago
It’s simply unrealistic to move people. A local good developer would cost ~200k in SF, but to move me and my family would take at least 2x that (to compensate for my partner’s lost income), possibly more (so that I can catch up to peers who’ve been saving US salaries for 10+ years, so that I can buy a house in a reasonable time).
phone8675309 2y ago
I'm the opposite from you. I would rather light my hair on fire than do anything in person with anyone on my team. I was no less productive working from home during the pandemic, a metric I can back up with completed user stores and completed projects. If you want to go back into the office then please, by all means, as that's clearly the place that you work better in, but don't force people who are less efficient in the office to come into the office.
Suppafly 2y ago
>My problem is that I quite like working with other people. Which is fine as long as you understand that the rest of us don't. Most of the push for back to the office is being pushed by extroverted people that miss being about to chat with people and not because of any results driven data.
- gmueckl 2y ago
  People can be introvert and still enjoy lunch and coffee breaks with company. Please don't put blame on broad stereotypes like that.
- lifeisstillgood 2y ago
  Don’t think I am a hale and hearty sales lead. I crave quiet me time as much as the next. But the most productive times in a long and varied career have almost always involved a room with 3-5 other focused people. (That and being on my lonesome doing my own thing - which is great but less team work). As for focusing on results - no thanks. Unless those in the hierarchy get to be judged on those same openly published metrics - no way.
- tegiddrone 2y ago
  At least in my experience, while I am good at text/email communication: my co workers were not. I feel like being a full remote company crippled us in terms of engineering quality. We have more of a license to be left alone and that sucks when we actually do need to coordinate with our coworkers. Easier to just not coordinate and tune out the notifications. All said, maybe it is a larger issue and working from the office is just addressing symptoms that are more apparent when going remote. Are we really missing out on those water cooler talks or is there a missing information/management role. I think of how I've had the conversations with other teams around the occasional virtual water cooler "oh, you're building a microservice to do that... so are we.... why are we building the same microservice?"
ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
> My problem is that I quite like working with other people. It’s really hard to build relationships with other human beings when not in the same physical location- sharing jokes, lunches, walks and just shouting across the room about the weird code change I am a remote worker, and I quite like working with other people, too, which is why I do it. Walking and shouting don't really factor into it, but we do share plenty of jokes. That is why I totally understand and agree with all of what you said, except for the part where you're shouting in a room, especially one in which others are trying to work, or worse, speak in an online meeting from their desk with shouting in the background. That seems pretty disruptive and inappropriate when you could just walk over, or better yet, send a message. To me, that behavior is tantamount to asserting that what you have to say is more important than everything everyone else is doing. If there's a fire, maybe it is. To be sure, my coworkers and I are friends, but I have many more outside of work, and deeper friendships besides. Are you describing your conditions for amicably and effectively working with coworkers, or are you describing your conditions for making coworkers into your friends? Sometimes folks desire deeper work friendships as a substitute for friendships outside of work.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >To me, that behavior is tantamount to asserting that what you have to say is more important than everything everyone else is doing. If there's a fire, maybe it is. depends on your workplace. There were dedicated quiet rooms workers would go in when they really needed to focus. Meanwhile, being in the lounge was a sign for a more lax work period. You don't really get that social messaging, especially since some people never update their status, or worse yet are eternally "do not disturb". >but I have many more outside of work, and deeper friendships besides...Sometimes folks desire deeper work friendships as a substitute for friendships outside of work. I don't. Only thing harder than befriending remote coworkers is trying to keep up with flaky meetup members you see once and never again. If you didn't stay in physical contact with schoolgoers, I have no clue how men c. 2018+ actually make friends post college. Maybe if I played sports it'd be different. but sure, if you could solve this conundrum (I've tried for some 6 years now) I could easily concede to remote work.
  - 2y ago
atomicnumber3 2y ago
"It’s really hard to build relationships with other human beings when not in the same physical location- sharing jokes, lunches, walks and just shouting across the room about the weird code change " see here's the thing that has me scratching my head. I talk to my coworkers WAY more now that we're not all just sitting in our offices or in the open work area with headphones on. and get this, I can screenshot! and screenshare! and link to code!!! it's wild. communicating via analog audio signals produced by forcing air across our meat pipes is positively barbarian in comparison. Yknow something else I just realized? Now when i want to tell someone a command, I can literally just - send them `foo bar /srv/company/* --snafucate --no-fubar` instead of "ok so foo bar - no wait, sorry, backspace that, it's foo space bar, not foobar. Ok now /srv/company/*. Sorry backspace that I mean literally the star character. Ok now dash dash snafucate. Now dash dash no fubar. No sorry not --no fubar it's dash dash no dash fubar. ok yeah hit enter. oh sorry sudo -i -u companyuser first." The alternative to that exchange of course being to type on their cheesy keyboard. No thanks, I don't want to cross-contaminate our keyboard microbiomes, mine is just the way I like it. I dunno. I grew up on IRC and MSN and stuff. So slack is just IRC with inlined GIF memes and mini-memes (emojis) that you can comment onto literally any message. Sounds like a pure win to me.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >I talk to my coworkers WAY more now that we're not all just sitting in our offices or in the open work area with headphones on it will ultimately vary on the workers. There were some people on slightly different teams but in close proximity pre-pandemic that I talked with every day (even planning some personal projects on the side). Then the pandemic came and I never heard from them again, despite technically being a ping away. my team slack channel during the pandemic was still faily lax, meanwhile the other team's slack channel went eerily silent. maybe this will be a non-issue as more Gen Z workers grow up, but I definietly had a different experience from you.

tomp 2y ago

It’s simply unrealistic to move people. A local good developer would cost ~200k in SF, but to move me and my family would take at least 2x that (to compensate for my partner’s lost income), possibly more (so that I can catch up to peers who’ve been saving US salaries for 10+ years, so that I can buy a house in a reasonable time).

phone8675309 2y ago

I'm the opposite from you. I would rather light my hair on fire than do anything in person with anyone on my team. I was no less productive working from home during the pandemic, a metric I can back up with completed user stores and completed projects. If you want to go back into the office then please, by all means, as that's clearly the place that you work better in, but don't force people who are less efficient in the office to come into the office.

Suppafly 2y ago

>My problem is that I quite like working with other people. Which is fine as long as you understand that the rest of us don't. Most of the push for back to the office is being pushed by extroverted people that miss being about to chat with people and not because of any results driven data.

gmueckl 2y ago
People can be introvert and still enjoy lunch and coffee breaks with company. Please don't put blame on broad stereotypes like that.
lifeisstillgood 2y ago
Don’t think I am a hale and hearty sales lead. I crave quiet me time as much as the next. But the most productive times in a long and varied career have almost always involved a room with 3-5 other focused people. (That and being on my lonesome doing my own thing - which is great but less team work). As for focusing on results - no thanks. Unless those in the hierarchy get to be judged on those same openly published metrics - no way.
tegiddrone 2y ago
At least in my experience, while I am good at text/email communication: my co workers were not. I feel like being a full remote company crippled us in terms of engineering quality. We have more of a license to be left alone and that sucks when we actually do need to coordinate with our coworkers. Easier to just not coordinate and tune out the notifications. All said, maybe it is a larger issue and working from the office is just addressing symptoms that are more apparent when going remote. Are we really missing out on those water cooler talks or is there a missing information/management role. I think of how I've had the conversations with other teams around the occasional virtual water cooler "oh, you're building a microservice to do that... so are we.... why are we building the same microservice?"

ImPostingOnHN 2y ago

> My problem is that I quite like working with other people. It’s really hard to build relationships with other human beings when not in the same physical location- sharing jokes, lunches, walks and just shouting across the room about the weird code change I am a remote worker, and I quite like working with other people, too, which is why I do it. Walking and shouting don't really factor into it, but we do share plenty of jokes. That is why I totally understand and agree with all of what you said, except for the part where you're shouting in a room, especially one in which others are trying to work, or worse, speak in an online meeting from their desk with shouting in the background. That seems pretty disruptive and inappropriate when you could just walk over, or better yet, send a message. To me, that behavior is tantamount to asserting that what you have to say is more important than everything everyone else is doing. If there's a fire, maybe it is. To be sure, my coworkers and I are friends, but I have many more outside of work, and deeper friendships besides. Are you describing your conditions for amicably and effectively working with coworkers, or are you describing your conditions for making coworkers into your friends? Sometimes folks desire deeper work friendships as a substitute for friendships outside of work.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
>To me, that behavior is tantamount to asserting that what you have to say is more important than everything everyone else is doing. If there's a fire, maybe it is. depends on your workplace. There were dedicated quiet rooms workers would go in when they really needed to focus. Meanwhile, being in the lounge was a sign for a more lax work period. You don't really get that social messaging, especially since some people never update their status, or worse yet are eternally "do not disturb". >but I have many more outside of work, and deeper friendships besides...Sometimes folks desire deeper work friendships as a substitute for friendships outside of work. I don't. Only thing harder than befriending remote coworkers is trying to keep up with flaky meetup members you see once and never again. If you didn't stay in physical contact with schoolgoers, I have no clue how men c. 2018+ actually make friends post college. Maybe if I played sports it'd be different. but sure, if you could solve this conundrum (I've tried for some 6 years now) I could easily concede to remote work.
- 2y ago

atomicnumber3 2y ago

"It’s really hard to build relationships with other human beings when not in the same physical location- sharing jokes, lunches, walks and just shouting across the room about the weird code change " see here's the thing that has me scratching my head. I talk to my coworkers WAY more now that we're not all just sitting in our offices or in the open work area with headphones on. and get this, I can screenshot! and screenshare! and link to code!!! it's wild. communicating via analog audio signals produced by forcing air across our meat pipes is positively barbarian in comparison. Yknow something else I just realized? Now when i want to tell someone a command, I can literally just - send them `foo bar /srv/company/* --snafucate --no-fubar` instead of "ok so foo bar - no wait, sorry, backspace that, it's foo space bar, not foobar. Ok now /srv/company/*. Sorry backspace that I mean literally the star character. Ok now dash dash snafucate. Now dash dash no fubar. No sorry not --no fubar it's dash dash no dash fubar. ok yeah hit enter. oh sorry sudo -i -u companyuser first." The alternative to that exchange of course being to type on their cheesy keyboard. No thanks, I don't want to cross-contaminate our keyboard microbiomes, mine is just the way I like it. I dunno. I grew up on IRC and MSN and stuff. So slack is just IRC with inlined GIF memes and mini-memes (emojis) that you can comment onto literally any message. Sounds like a pure win to me.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
>I talk to my coworkers WAY more now that we're not all just sitting in our offices or in the open work area with headphones on it will ultimately vary on the workers. There were some people on slightly different teams but in close proximity pre-pandemic that I talked with every day (even planning some personal projects on the side). Then the pandemic came and I never heard from them again, despite technically being a ping away. my team slack channel during the pandemic was still faily lax, meanwhile the other team's slack channel went eerily silent. maybe this will be a non-issue as more Gen Z workers grow up, but I definietly had a different experience from you.