4 ms·

A refrain I’ve heard from real life friends and people on the internet alike is that employees are being asked to come back to the office where they wind up jus

A refrain I’ve heard from real life friends and people on the internet alike is that employees are being asked to come back to the office where they wind up just sitting on video calls much of the day. This seems like an absolute worst case for job satisfaction to me. I’m lucky enough to work wherever I want and accept Zoom meetings as a prerequisite to that, but find them tiring and a poor simulacrum of real in-person conversation. If I were asked to come to an office every day and deal with the commute and the stupidity of most modern office designs and still had the majority of meetings happen over video, I’d be pretty dissatisfied with my job.

grajaganDev 2y ago
Plus there is often no good room to take Zoom meetings so people do so at their desks in an open office plan.
bluedino 2y ago
On the other hand, some people are stuck at home all day, no in-person interaction, management is possibly out of touch and ignoring remote people, less tasks, less achievements, less recognition...
- OptionOfT 2y ago
  I'm looking for a new job, and one of the pre-requisites is that it is fully remote. When parts are remote (or if teams are split in 2 locations) you run the risk of excluding people who are remote. In fully remote situations even water-cooler chats are deliberate.
yks 2y ago
In the last few decades workers got the impression that there is some sort of a utilitarian reason or rationale behind the workplace practices or management approaches. After all there is research! Business schools! This facade has started to crack in many places, and RTO is just a very obvious example, it's almost absurd how the companies prizing themselves for being "data-driven" descended into "we're doing this because bossman says so". But it follows the spirit of times anyway, people will quickly adjust.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  We're learning that our companies are not data-driven, they're data-chauffeured: Bossman decides what he wants to do, and then (maybe) they cherry-pick data that support that pre-determined decision and ignore any data that contradict it.
hx8 2y ago
> but find them [zoom] tiring and a poor simulacrum of real in-person conversation After working remotely for 8 years, I find video conferencing to be preferable. * I am more physically comfortable. I can control the thermostat, the humidity, the lighting level. My preference on these three things are very different than standard office. In addition I have better control over items such as the food I am digesting, the office chair I am sitting in, the smells in the room, etc. One concrete example, I am often cold in offices. If I am cold my muscles tend to be tense, and my mind reads that signal and makes me more anxious/alert. I can concentrate better and think more clearly if my body/mind is relaxed. * Reduction of information to only the most relevant. Do you know how much data you receive when sitting next to another human. Significantly more than the 1000mb/s my home internet connection provides. During a critical negotiation or an intimate moment you might want that extra volume. During engineering it's a distraction. I don't want to smell my co-workers lunch while paired programming. All of the conversations are more focused. * Consent. I choose to connect. I can choose to disconnect at anytime. I'm never stuck in a conversation while waiting in line for coffee, and if someone virtually decides to drop by my desk, I have more flexibility in dealing with the urgent need.
- macNchz 2y ago
  I think those are all fair and reasonable—ultimately I've chosen not to work in an office since late 2019, so I'm not exactly an in-person absolutist. Personally, though, I do think that the higher-bandwidth effect is valuable to me. I think part of what makes me feel like video calls are tiring is that my brain is working overtime trying to extract some of that extra signal from the participants, while in-person I'm able to better gauge others' reactions intuitively and adjust my tone or approach without much conscious effort. People have told me for years that I have a "calming presence" in the workplace/meetings, which is not a way I'd describe myself unprompted, so I think I've silently benefited from nonverbal cues in that way. Being in a comfortable environment is a huge one though for sure. So many modern offices are comically badly arranged, with people trying to do thinking work space shared with people having meetings who are overflowing from the insufficient number of conference rooms. It's kind of a joke.
  - 2y ago
schwartzworld 2y ago
Honestly, in-person communication is vastly overrated. If a decision is made in a meeting, you better hope someone thought to document it. If we are planning something that requires engineer feedback, hopefully you’re quick enough (and confident enough) to come up with your questions in realtime. I’d rather move most of this stuff into slack or confluence. It’s more egalitarian, and it has the added benefit that I can search and find the past conversations to reference them later.
- macNchz 2y ago
  I think for discussion/negotiation with decisions being made, my hierarchy of preference would be (from most preferred to least): - Message board style like Github issues - Slack thread - Email thread - Video call - In person meeting I do really like in-person meetings for brainstorming or collaborative design type stuff. Having a real whiteboard is hard to beat, and I think the discussion can flow a little more naturally without any latency. I have found that AI notetakers can bridge this gap fairly well—whether in a virtual meeting or in person. If the calendar event has a virtual meeting with a notetaker that joins by default, someone can join the meeting and throw a phone down on the conference table and everyone gets a full transcript, summary, and list of next steps afterwards. One of my favorite real world applications of LLMs so far.
galleywest200 2y ago
My buddy works at Salesforce and they are started to enforce RTO for a few days a week in Seattle. There are two kickers to this. First the employees have to hot-desk, which means they do not have an assigned desk and have to find a spot each day. Funnily enough, they all had desks before the pandemic... Secondly, there is a second office essentially just for executives that is elsewhere and not connected to the main one. If Salesforce wants to complain about the cost of owning buildings and getting people to RTO maybe close the superfluous executive office first...
- macNchz 2y ago
  Hot-desking would drive me nuts. When I worked in an office I found it disruptive having to move or rearrange desks even once a year or less. One would think we would have learned from TBWA trying it 30 years ago https://www.wired.com/1999/02/chiat-3/ https://www.wired.com/1999/02/chiat-3/
  - jerlam 2y ago
    Hot-desking also makes it hard to find someone in person, which is one of the claimed benefits of working in office.
    - scintill76 2y ago
      It must be so that you’ll pass by other people and might have serendipitous conversations that lead to increased knowledge and synergy. /s Also among the claimed benefits of working in office.
KoolKat23 2y ago
I think you're romanticising in person meetings, so much wasted time, you don't have other information on hand. These days you have videocalls you didn't have that back then (less ubiquitous).

grajaganDev 2y ago

Plus there is often no good room to take Zoom meetings so people do so at their desks in an open office plan.

bluedino 2y ago

On the other hand, some people are stuck at home all day, no in-person interaction, management is possibly out of touch and ignoring remote people, less tasks, less achievements, less recognition...

OptionOfT 2y ago
I'm looking for a new job, and one of the pre-requisites is that it is fully remote. When parts are remote (or if teams are split in 2 locations) you run the risk of excluding people who are remote. In fully remote situations even water-cooler chats are deliberate.

yks 2y ago

In the last few decades workers got the impression that there is some sort of a utilitarian reason or rationale behind the workplace practices or management approaches. After all there is research! Business schools! This facade has started to crack in many places, and RTO is just a very obvious example, it's almost absurd how the companies prizing themselves for being "data-driven" descended into "we're doing this because bossman says so". But it follows the spirit of times anyway, people will quickly adjust.

ryandrake 2y ago
We're learning that our companies are not data-driven, they're data-chauffeured: Bossman decides what he wants to do, and then (maybe) they cherry-pick data that support that pre-determined decision and ignore any data that contradict it.

hx8 2y ago

> but find them [zoom] tiring and a poor simulacrum of real in-person conversation After working remotely for 8 years, I find video conferencing to be preferable. * I am more physically comfortable. I can control the thermostat, the humidity, the lighting level. My preference on these three things are very different than standard office. In addition I have better control over items such as the food I am digesting, the office chair I am sitting in, the smells in the room, etc. One concrete example, I am often cold in offices. If I am cold my muscles tend to be tense, and my mind reads that signal and makes me more anxious/alert. I can concentrate better and think more clearly if my body/mind is relaxed. * Reduction of information to only the most relevant. Do you know how much data you receive when sitting next to another human. Significantly more than the 1000mb/s my home internet connection provides. During a critical negotiation or an intimate moment you might want that extra volume. During engineering it's a distraction. I don't want to smell my co-workers lunch while paired programming. All of the conversations are more focused. * Consent. I choose to connect. I can choose to disconnect at anytime. I'm never stuck in a conversation while waiting in line for coffee, and if someone virtually decides to drop by my desk, I have more flexibility in dealing with the urgent need.

macNchz 2y ago
I think those are all fair and reasonable—ultimately I've chosen not to work in an office since late 2019, so I'm not exactly an in-person absolutist. Personally, though, I do think that the higher-bandwidth effect is valuable to me. I think part of what makes me feel like video calls are tiring is that my brain is working overtime trying to extract some of that extra signal from the participants, while in-person I'm able to better gauge others' reactions intuitively and adjust my tone or approach without much conscious effort. People have told me for years that I have a "calming presence" in the workplace/meetings, which is not a way I'd describe myself unprompted, so I think I've silently benefited from nonverbal cues in that way. Being in a comfortable environment is a huge one though for sure. So many modern offices are comically badly arranged, with people trying to do thinking work space shared with people having meetings who are overflowing from the insufficient number of conference rooms. It's kind of a joke.
- 2y ago

schwartzworld 2y ago

Honestly, in-person communication is vastly overrated. If a decision is made in a meeting, you better hope someone thought to document it. If we are planning something that requires engineer feedback, hopefully you’re quick enough (and confident enough) to come up with your questions in realtime. I’d rather move most of this stuff into slack or confluence. It’s more egalitarian, and it has the added benefit that I can search and find the past conversations to reference them later.

macNchz 2y ago
I think for discussion/negotiation with decisions being made, my hierarchy of preference would be (from most preferred to least): - Message board style like Github issues - Slack thread - Email thread - Video call - In person meeting I do really like in-person meetings for brainstorming or collaborative design type stuff. Having a real whiteboard is hard to beat, and I think the discussion can flow a little more naturally without any latency. I have found that AI notetakers can bridge this gap fairly well—whether in a virtual meeting or in person. If the calendar event has a virtual meeting with a notetaker that joins by default, someone can join the meeting and throw a phone down on the conference table and everyone gets a full transcript, summary, and list of next steps afterwards. One of my favorite real world applications of LLMs so far.

galleywest200 2y ago

My buddy works at Salesforce and they are started to enforce RTO for a few days a week in Seattle. There are two kickers to this. First the employees have to hot-desk, which means they do not have an assigned desk and have to find a spot each day. Funnily enough, they all had desks before the pandemic... Secondly, there is a second office essentially just for executives that is elsewhere and not connected to the main one. If Salesforce wants to complain about the cost of owning buildings and getting people to RTO maybe close the superfluous executive office first...

macNchz 2y ago
Hot-desking would drive me nuts. When I worked in an office I found it disruptive having to move or rearrange desks even once a year or less. One would think we would have learned from TBWA trying it 30 years ago https://www.wired.com/1999/02/chiat-3/ https://www.wired.com/1999/02/chiat-3/
- jerlam 2y ago
  Hot-desking also makes it hard to find someone in person, which is one of the claimed benefits of working in office.
  - scintill76 2y ago
    It must be so that you’ll pass by other people and might have serendipitous conversations that lead to increased knowledge and synergy. /s Also among the claimed benefits of working in office.

KoolKat23 2y ago

I think you're romanticising in person meetings, so much wasted time, you don't have other information on hand. These days you have videocalls you didn't have that back then (less ubiquitous).