Social and Economic Effects of the [Bubonic] Plague
Since it was so difficult (and dangerous) to procure goods through trade and to produce them, the prices of both goods produced locally and those imported from afar skyrocketed. Because of illness and death workers became exceedingly scarce, so even peasants felt the effects of the new rise in wages. The demand for people to work the land was so high that it threatened the manorial holdings. Serfs were no longer tied to one master; if one left the land, another lord would instantly hire them.
https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/plagu...
Don't get too excited. Labor laws were passed forcing workers to take their pre-plague and limiting their mobility.
And for about 150 years they enjoyed such a rise in living standards, until the gains were erased in the early 1500s, leading to the Great Peasants' War in Germany.
By “quitting” they mostly mean getting new jobs or career changes. Not necessarily refusing to work in an office. The headline is misleading.
It’s also still a relatively small number in absolute terms:
> In April, the share of U.S. workers leaving jobs was 2.7%, according to the Labor Department, a jump from 1.6% a year earlier to the highest level since at least 2000.
The higher turnover is expected in a booming economy like the one we’re in.
These articles with hyperbolic headlines and underwhelming actual data are very common right now. It feels like the journalists want us to believe some sort of revolution is happening, be it WFH or remote work or people quitting in droves. I’m beginning to think the reality is mostly a boring return to pre-pandemic normalcy, though, given how hard these articles are teaching for something noteworthy to share.
What people miss in these discussions about going full remote is that the market for software developers is very good right now but this won't last forever. Many companies are surely going to embrace full-remote once they have built up the right processes and infra.
When that happens, it is not going to matter whether you live in California or Mexico or Brazil. It is much easier to replace an employee who is working remotely, the burden of looking for employees in the locality of your office is gone. Wages will stop growing. While WFH is very convenient, the strong market is giving developers a false impression that they won't become replaceable cogs in the future.
I think you are very much correct - for all the people lambasting working in an office, I hope they realize it will mean they will be competing against a much larger swath of humanity.
Also, I'm glad you highlighted "Mexico or Brazil". Unlike decades past where lots of outsourcing was done to India, I think many people now realize the inherent inefficiencies when teams are 12 time zones apart. The Americas don't have that problem for US-based businesses. In fact, I often see lots of complaining on HN that Canadian dev salaries tend to be much lower than in the US - seems like a no-brainer to work remotely for a US company if you are in Canada if it results in a big salary increase.
It's not really as simple as larger pool -> easy replacements though. You might find a great remote candidate with great technical skills; but there's an 8-hour timezone difference, they speak poor English (or whatever language your team mostly speaks), don't understand the market that you're working with etc. Granted that there's not much of a difference when it comes to Canadians VS USA-ians, but that's where labor laws might complicate things.
There's usually stringent laws when it comes to hiring people (depending on where you are, I guess). The company I work for, for example, had to sponsor my work permit in the Netherlands for it to be legal to hire me, since I'm not a EU citizen. That's a stressful, expensive and time consuming process for everyone involved, and in general it's just easier for them to hire local talent since they don't have to bother with all the extra steps. I'm not sure of how that works exactly in the US, but I can't imagine it's any simpler or more convenient.
Now, companies might move onto hiring more freelancer type workers to circumvent these issues, but that also has its slew of problems. They're usually more expensive, you have to spend time and resources onboarding them onto the project, they have to get used to the project and its intricacies, they have to learn how the team works, the process for paying them might be different than your usual workflow, they tend to leave just as quickly as they came which compounds the other issues even more.
I think things will mostly progress as they always have. Sure, there will be more competition, but that doesn't necessarily mean that hiring non-local talent is the easiest way to go for most companies, plus as can be seen from any discussion about WFH on HN, there's a sizable group of people that don't enjoy WFH and would rather stay in offices anyways. The WFH crowd like me will be free to pursue a company that suits their needs, and the ones that enjoy WFO will still be able to choose those companies that prefer that. Win-win, in my eyes.
> There's usually stringent laws when it comes to hiring people (depending on where you are, I guess).
These laws tend to exist when the people you hire want to live in the country you are operating from. I'm a non-EU citizen working in the EU, and am definitely worried that my residence country will kick me out, since WFH means I could very well do my job from my home country (and I'm now grateful that at least I'm paying a lot of tax to my country of residence).
>I think many people now realize the inherent inefficiencies when teams are 12 time zones apart
Having people 12 hours offset from the US is useful if you would otherwise have to recruit US employees to work a night shift.
I think realistically this is very far a way. South America does not have schools that compete with MIT and Stanford.
Very few employers need a full staff of MIT and Stanford grads, if any at all.
Some of the best software developers I've ever worked with were from Brazil.
the market for software developers is very good right now but this won't last forever
It will last as long as the software industry keeps growing, or until AI can do the job of a dev. I don't see either happening for a long time.
One of the reasons I moved from California to Mexico a few years ago. Much more affordable and can live on outsourcing wages while working from home.
Might I ask any details about how taxes work in that situation and what cities are good etc.
The US still wants to screw me with excessive 'self-employment' taxes and if I put the local address into Upwork, Mexico wants to take an additional 20% for their own taxes which Upwork is happy to do off the top since they enjoy spending my money more than anything.
I like Ensenada. Thinking about La Paz at some point maybe. Supposedly the water is warmer there.
>> It’s also still a relatively small number in absolute terms:
> In April, the share of U.S. workers leaving jobs was 2.7%, according to the Labor Department, a jump from 1.6% a year earlier to the highest level since at least 2000.
If those are monthly figures they are roughly going from "quit once every five years" to once every three. It's a pretty big change, I think. Positive, IMO -- mobility is healthy for the economy.
But the caveat should be that we can't extrapolate from a unique event like emerging from an 18-month quarantine, which is the context of this entire phenomenon. I think that at least part of the original commenter's point is that the article shouldn't try to frame what may well be a temporary correction as a revolutionary shift, which I agree is what it's trying to do.
Exactly. It should be expected that (for many people) after 18 months there would be an excess of people who would have wanted to leave, if they could. Now that they can, there is a log jam at the exit door.
Seems most commenters on HN for this thread didn’t read the article.
We’re at a daily occurrence now of these “I can never go back to the office” threads. I thought HN was supposed to be an area of intellectual stimulation - not droning on about the same thing for months with no end.
I use to think the same thing, but it seems that HN is both the place where there are cool technical articles and where journalists can pump their tech-clickbait.
I wish there was an easy solution.
> I thought HN was supposed to be an area of intellectual stimulation - not droning on about the same thing for months with no end.
My friend received a flagban seven years ago or so on his “Show HN: Hide this repetitive subject on HN” tool.
>By “quitting” they mostly mean getting new jobs or career changes
I actually had someone on my team quit until WFH was over. They couldn't take WFH any more and plan to return to the job market once they're able to go to the office.
> These articles with hyperbolic headlines
WFH also appeals to American conservatives who want to target cities, which are democratic strongholds, and reduce their power and reputation. The WSJ is the leading news source of U.S. conservative elite.
Can’t imagine not having at least partial WFH after this pandemic. If my office doesn’t let me WFH, I will also be leaving. A good portion of my team is similarly minded, but management is insistent on disallowing WFH. I can’t wait to see their faces when the company bleeds massive swaths of engineering talent.
It’s about damn time that companies realized that they ought to treat their employees like the adults that they are. Absolutely sick of this infantilizing, childish requirement to force employees to come into the office.
People are not obligated to come into the office so you have someone to talk to, and the extremely rare spark of whiteboard innovation is not worth the countless hours of employees’ lives wasted in commute.
The 'hybrid model' is just a marketing trick to try and force people back to offices using the Fear of Missing Out routine.
It's classic foot in the door sales psychology.
Go find a firm that has genuinely embraced full remote and understands that remote can only work properly if everybody is operating in the same mode - precisely to avoid the natural tendency of people to ignore others that aren't in the physical room.
A good way of judging all this is to start costing your time from the moment you start getting ready for work to the moment you stop thinking about it and start doing something else.
When you do that, you'll often be shocked at your hourly rate.
We all have a finite life. How much of it do you want to spend incarcerated needlessly in a transport device?
> We all have a finite life. How much of it do you want to spend incarcerated needlessly in a transport device?
Assuming that there is ~260 working days in a year, subtracting 30 years for holiday we have roughly 230 days that one would have to commute on.
My average London commute was 1 hour each way. That's 2 hours per day. That's 10 hours per week. 460 hours per year. 4.6k hours over a decade. This is not a chill "going on a trip" time in a train - it is stressful rush hours madness, breathing underground air and constantly bumping into a crowd of frustrated commuters who happen to be power walking the opposite way.
To put this into perspective and assuming that an average working day is 8 hours, over the last 10 years I could've easily spent 19 months of full time work commuting during rush hours.
Also ironically ~20 years of commuting adds to almost 10k hours which supposedly would put me on a world-class expertise level in terms of being a train passenger. The problem is I'm a Software Engineer, not a professional underground train passenger.
> Also ironically ~20 years of commuting adds to almost 10k hours which supposedly would put me on a world-class expertise level in terms of being a train passenger. The problem is I'm a Software Engineer, not a professional underground train passenger.
Oh wow, that's such a good way of looking at it! I used to have a 3h20m daily roundtrip commute. Now our office is permanently closed. I work on a treadmill desk, have lunch with my wife, and after work I walk a block to my baby's daycare. I can't imagine ever going back to an office.
> to the moment you stop thinking about it
In that case, i work 168 hours a week and i’m the most productive when walking my dog.
This is the truth. Measuring work in hours only makes sense for work that you can only do when 100% applying yourself to the task (like brick laying or stacking shelves). Most of my high value output happens when I'm in the shower, riding my bike or going for a walk.
If that's your "consideration" then charge for it.
It's what other time based professionals such as lawyers do.
> natural tendency of people to ignore others that aren't in the physical room
It's not just ignoring them, but making it hard for them to get a word in edgewise, or sometimes even to hear what others are saying. Most of the time it's not even intentional. It's getting caught up in the moment, and/or failing to adapt to an environment where different etiquette is necessary.
> Go find a firm that has genuinely embraced full remote
Just to be clear, truly embracing remote works means more than just having butts in seats in homes instead of in an office building. There are still plenty of people out there making most decisions in the same kind of clique-only conversations they used to have in the office, excluding not only people in different time zones but those who are just more socially/culturally distant from the inner circle. Truly embracing remote work means adopting an asynchronous workflow that makes information and conversation available to any team member at any time. Requiring them to be in the right place at the right time to gain full participation isn't embracing remote work, even if that "place" is a videoconference call.
Even US federal employment has started considering remote work as a permanent policy (where possible).
I'm currently looking for new work, and full remote has become a _hard_ requirement. In addition to the great point that you've made; if an employer is insisting on in-person work, there exists a strong signal of deeper issues. For example: dogmatic/discriminatory thinking, egoistic processes, stifled/silenced innovation.
This certainly isn't universally true, but it is a giant red flag.
There's also my responsibility. This is my responsibility by choice, and I'm not out for anyone who doesn't make the same choice. If I am hired by said in-person employer, then I am supporting and perpetuating that behavior. The transport device also happens to be destroying the planet: I would be supporting that. The transport device is a luxury: I would be supporting discriminating against people with no access to it. Some jobs are by definition in-person (doctors, baristas, cleaners, etc.), and I would be consuming their transportation resources (whether that's room on a train, or a road). The housing market madness has been driven by access to in-person work hubs.
In-person work, where it isn't actually required, is a terrible idea. It's bad for you, and it's also bad for everyone around you.
Have you considered that some of us actually see the benefits in a hybrid model? There are downsides to working remotely, just like there are downsides with working in the office. Some of us just want to get our work done.
Companies that don't allow partial WFH confuse me. All my employers, even before the pandemic, have allowed ad-hoc WFH whenever. It worked fine. If the team had a meeting or day where we all needed to be in we just said so and worked around anyone who had to WFH at certain times or days. There was never any official policy, people were just trusted to be sensible. Got a GP or dentist appointment near home, just WFH. Feeling under the weather but not so bad that you take a sick day, WFH. Need a day to focus, WFH. Hell if you know you're going to have a hangover, WFH (you never said so but it was an open secret and no one cared so long as the work got done). It was great and I can't see any downside to it at all.
I've been remote/WFH for the past 20 years, and it gets more common every year. For the past 4-5 years, I haven't even worked for companies in the same time zone/continent. Its never been an issue for me personally/professionally. The EU companies I've worked for seemed based around the 'life happens, just get your work done' premise.
That kind of ad hoc WFH is very common, but it's different from a policy that permits N days a week WFH.
Our CEO wanted everyone back in the office even after agreeing that fully remote resulted in no perveptible decline in productivity. The rationale is that serendipitous interactions happen more often in person, which I believe, but not enough to come back in full time. Anyway, engineering was pretty clear that we would have even more attrition if we had to come back in, and the CEO relented.
I’m trying to think of a less dramatic way to describe the aftertaste of that interaction, but all I can come up with was that it felt a bit like servitude—like this person felt he could dictate to me where I would do my work including an unpaid commute (it’s not like my work depends on me being in a factory, for example). I’m thankful that my skill set is basically on fire right now and I can go elsewhere without losing money, but at the same time sad for everyone else who lacks that luxury.
> it felt a bit like servitude
A feudalistic remnant in the nature of corporate hierarchy is that people higher up in the hierarchy feel that this gives them inherent superiority over people lower in the hierarchy. In reality, there's no reason that someone in a corporate hierarchy needs to have their status (including compensation, etc.) determined by their place in the hierarchy. A hierarchy should just be an efficient means to organize a group effort, and not a social order.
This assumes they make more money for the sake of their position in the hierarchy rather than having valued skills at performing well at that level of the hierarchy. Believe it or not, most people don’t do well in mgmt positions. To find someone that can perform that job can be harder than finding a good “individual contributor”. I’ve seen plenty of good technical people wash out of even basic supervisory/team lead positions. So I think there is a scarcity element at work.
In practice the CEO is a founder of this company and another successful startup and is a billionaire. I don’t have any reason to think he’s a horrible person or anything, but this one interaction chafed me.
Agreed, and in fairness the fact that it was such a noteworthy experience means that it is rare, at least in my life. For the most part the hierarchy has been just a means to organize a group effort. And even then I prevailed. I think that says a lot about the intervening progress.
It's possible that the rank-and-file will only follow leaders who have been granted outsize status.
That way, executive compensation would need to be high even if value over replacement executive is low.
I'd prefer to let my bosses trickle down all over my face. That's the american way.
The arc of human history, especially in the west, has bent toward equality. I think some hierarchy is necessary, but I like how one of the previous comment distinguishes between organizational hierarchies and social (status) hierarchies. I’m not sure the latter are useful at all.
There may be an ounce of truth to that, but the reality is that it mostly has to do with financial incentives related to taxes, to continue having overhead expenses to write off. Talk to most corporate accountants and they may be able to explain the budget and tax implications. What this really is, is a case of that it’s easier to do things the way they always have been done than to have to actually rethink and rework things.
What I’m saying is that this is an IMMENSE opportunity for startups to attract young/emergent talent and possibly even established talent that is prioritizing remote work.
Others are correct, corporate matters are working on how to corral their herds back into their expensive capital investments on prime real estate, even if most people have no clue what’s really going on die the the blinding light of affirmation.
The hybrid model is such a joke. For most, working in the office might as well be the 21st century business suit: an antiquated formality designed to demonstrate your obedience to authority. The hybrid model is a suit on a t-shirt. And forcing employees to be in the office X days a week means productivity on those WFH days will be nonexistent, especially if they butt against a weekend.
But of course while the WFH life will be sweet for the next 5 or so years, increasingly invasive productivity/monitoring/presence tools will make us long for the days when we could walk away from the computer and not worry about triggering some inactivity alarm.
I'm struggling with the idea of hybrid WFH.
It still means that I need to live near the office. Instead of a cheaper, quieter place far away from cities.
Besides making middle-management happy, I'm not sure what is the benefit of having one required day per week at the office.
With the "everyone remote" of 2020, one of the things that spooked a lot of companies is the employees adding to additional complications by living in states (or sometimes countries) that have different labor laws, taxes, and such without telling the company.
This resulted in things where they suddenly found out that they need to pay taxes in four states (and Canada - unless they get that employee to leave within 3 weeks... and firing them is an option).
The three day hybrid may also be something to discourage one employee trying to hold down two remote jobs (on Reddit, this is a not uncommon question and sometimes a really suspicious coworker who suddenly can't VPN or connect to slack for a day or two each week).
The hybrid model keeps a number of problems that the company would otherwise have to think about and enforce non-issues.
Well, I don't know how this works in the US, but in germany when you are self-employed, but basically only work for one company - it would be declared a fake selfemployed situation, with lots of legal and tax complications, basically forcing the company to employ you regulary.
(to counter companies pushing their workers to be self employed, to avoid taxes, healthcare costs, etc. But I am not convinced if the result is beneficial to the workers)
I've found that it's much harder to form social bonds, especially cross-team, when working remotely and never seeing people in person. Socializing via Zoom is not the same. The lack of lunch and hallway conversation hurts a lot without even getting into the outside of work socializing. That in turn leads to minor issues exploding because no one has a sense of empathy built for anyone else.
Came to make a comment like this. Some jobs are great to do entirely remotely and forcing workers in those roles to come into an office is completely outdated bullshit.
But there are tons of jobs that require trust and collaboration. For those workers, in-person relationship building is a fundamental part of the job.
We need to be clearer in our job titles and descriptions about that, so that there is less conflict in expectations of remote work.
Yes it's harder for most people to form bonds online.
I have worked with people whom only have friends, and social time, through an office setting. I've worked with people who can't wait to get away from their family by going to work. My dad couldn't wait until monday.
I was that guy that socialized, and made friends through work. I'm still that guy kinda? The hour grooming, and the two hour commute is making me think I should reach out to people whom I come in contact locally.
That said, some people don't need the social experience going to an office provides.
They have full lives, and don't need to show up to the charade. If they are good employees, why force them back?
Smart employers will let them work from home.
Agreed. I didn't mind for the first part of the pandemic, as I knew everyone on my team and we just kept shooting the shit on chat or video. But then I switched jobs, and last week was actually the first time I met most of them. I've found it much harder to build the same rapport.
You are not the modal employee.
I’m not at zero but generally avoid socializing at work. It just stresses me out for some reason. I’m pretty affable and approachable and genuinely like people, just from a distance.
So ... since you only worked or worked out ... when did you actually eat?
Autist idiot.
You sound like a fun person to work with!
because people have families, and parents can't just bounce on their children?
Yes. And I's argue that some semi-structured time to exchange ideas, come up with ideas, "bond," etc. with everyone on some scale of team and even guests from other teams is probably better than bump into you conversations that often aren't going to happen with people on other floors, in other offices, and even on different continents.
I'm guessing the company size (~15) has a lot to do with it, but the 100% remote startup I am at has had a lot of success with onsites 2-3x / year.
I think that occasional in-person contact is important to avoid the "erosion of trust" that I've seen occur over and over again working full-time remote at multiple companies for most of a decade before COVID. Even famously all-remote teams have relied on periodic conferences and summits to maintain that contact. It works. It's why I never balked at travel requirements - as often as monthly - during those remote jobs.
The key is to recognize that the in-person contact is part of the mix to enhance empathy/connectedness and for those few situations where a multi-way high-bandwidth conversation is necessary. Planning sessions are an example IMO. Understanding how people really feel about priorities etc. is important, but often involves interpreting facial expressions and body language that aren't captured (or conveyed well) on video. Making it a part of your every day team work environment puts you into an entirely different and no longer remote-friendly milieu.
I find in person meetings more effective. I’d rather meet once a week or 2 and get all the big meetings done then go away to code, than have Zoom meetings every single day.
I predict that in all the full time WFH companies, some small group will start having in person meets once every X. Or some other startup will innovate past an incumbent by having a hybrid model.
Then hybrid will be the next “new” thing.
I guess I should be so fortunate that I've been working from home since the end of February 2020 and that all we use is Microsoft Teams for audio-only calls. We have never done video calls and I cannot imagine why anyone would stand for that shit.
Oh, I’m not afraid to say I hate teleconferencing.
And I assure you I wasn’t imagining the average of 3-4 hours of online meetings every single day that was compressed to 1-2 days every 2 weeks once we started meeting in the office again.
I think that quality issues are part software and part internet connectivity. We use an internal version of Google Meet and it works fantastically well (and during the pandemic has acquired a ton of useful new features).
Internet quality and speed is a function of a few things, including where people live. I wouldn't want to extrapolate but I've not been finding connectivity to be an issue for internal meetings. Yes, occasionally there are hardware issues (e.g. I had a flaky WiFi chip in my laptop). These may be unfortunate for a particular meeting but tend to get fixed and so "can you hear me?" is definitely not a recurring pattern in my experience.
Sometimes people choose to join video calls from their phone while, for example, walking their dog (a completely acceptable thing culturally). In those instances video and audio quality can be variable; it's up to the individuals to make sensible choices around which meetings are suitable for this sort of thing.
Finally, there's a phone backup, where you can dial into a meeting (audio only) over a phone line. Some people use this if they need to take a meeting from somewhere with particularly bad connectivity. I personally have not needed to use it once in the 15+ months of WFH but I've seen others use it.
People unintentionally speaking over each other was definitely a thing in the beginning, especially in larger meetings. I've been founding it happen less and less over time, as people learned when to pause and we developed better ways to moderate large online meetings. Video makes this much easier compared to audio-only.
Overall, I think I've come to prefer video calls to in-person meetings, at least when _everyone_ joins over video. It'll be interesting to see how well the original, hybrid model (some participants joining in person and some over video) will work.
I don't have that option. The number and length of meetings is the same if I'm WFH or in the office.
Since we're doing SCRUM, their spacing is also the same: sprint review, retrospective, splaning, refinement, ideation, etc..
But you don't need to live as close, right? A one hour commute sounds like hell, but once a week? Meh.
I work from home, and my team is distributed, so we work fine online, but there are a few times when we say 'we'll have that conversation over a beer when we meet in person'.
I’ve always held a belief that a lot of America’s social and economic inequalities are fueled by the consolidation of good, high paying jobs around a few major cities. I’d get behind any party that tries to tackle this by incentivizing the distribution of these jobs across America. If cheaper, quieter lifestyles result from this, all the better.
It seems like you might be mixing up cause and effect. I'd assume that the Bay area is the country's lowest fertility Metro precisely because it's filled with ambitious people.
The entire west is not having children, it’s not just the Bay Area.
Did your parents dropped you on your head as a baby?
Social bonds, Office chat, meetings around a table, etc. There are so many things you can't get over a zoom call that not having a hybrid model is what I won't understand. You can have the best of both worlds and if that means that there are some limits on where you can live?
I saw someone say that a lot of what makes WFH successful currently are the bonds that we had built while working together... and that as time goes on, those bonds will loosen as new people come in that don't have those experiences and those hallway talk.
I think I agree with that... but it remains to be seen how things will work going forward. I see most companies going to a hybrid model. I see a large number of turnover at places that don't offer hybrid.
My current place of employement seems to be winding up towards hybrid and I have a long commute (had before covid). I'd be unhappy with 5 days meat in seat. I'll be very happy if I only have to be there 2 days a week. Still happy with only 3. Sad with 4. I'd probably hunt for a new job with 5. Maybe 4.
Absolutely - it's a complicated equation and all things determine. From personality (some love home, some love office) to child care to technology (laptop, internet cost at home, speed) to all what you mentioned and a hundred more points.
I think, personally, most will want hybrid - to get the best of both worlds - and it's simply a matter of finding the right personal and corporate balance (if possible).
We'll see how long term the effects of COVID are. We might see WFH become mainstream... we might see a massive pushback to go back to the Old Normal. I think successful companies will find the middle to keep their talent.
A lot of meetings are much easier to have in person.
Socializing, as other people pointed out, is also much easier in person.
On HN and Reddit people are engaged in the characteristic activity of friendship - discussing topics of mutual interest - yet it would be pretty sad if that’s all someone had for friends.
Similarly, just because you do work with some people, does not make them your team.
Now maybe programming can be organized in a way that doesn’t really require a team. People can get projects done by interacting in a more transactional, contractor/gig-worker way. But that is a very different experience from being part of a team.
Humans were not made to spend 40+ hours/week not socializing.
You had 18+ years spending 24/7 with your parents. Also, I'm sure the weekly calls aren't quite enough from their end, they never are for a parent--understandably!
Whenever I get a meeting I don't understand why I was invited to, I just ask whoever invited me, or my boss if customer did, what my purpose is in the meeting.
Almost always I can avoid the full meeting with the understanding that they can call me in if they need my expertise. When that happens it's typically just a couple of questions and I can go back.
Sure some weeks can get a bit busy with meetings if we have a lot of projects going on, but I'm almost never in a meeting where I feel I'm wasting time.
This is something great about video conferencing. Forced to attend a meeting that has no bearing on your work. If you are there in person, banging away on your keyboard the whole time in the corner is considered rude. On video conferencing you can just mute yourself, turn down the volume and just keep your ears perked for your name and keep working.
Though if there's anything the past few months have demonstrated, online meetings have that same problem.
Depends on the hybrid model.
If it's "3 days every week at the office", then you need to live close by.
If it's "two days every month", you can just stay at a hotel for that time with the money you saved from commuting - maybe even bring the whole family =)
> I'm struggling with the idea of hybrid WFH.
I'd be ok with up to a max of one day a week in the office.
That doesn't restrict location too much. Only one day a week, I'm willing to put up with a multi-hour commute. Anything more than one day, I don't think so.
I think a hybrid model where the office is essentially a private coworking space could work pretty well.
The company would be run like they're fully remote but there would be an easy place for people to meet up when necessary.
>The company would be run like they're fully remote
You sort of have to if some people are in-office and some aren't. For example, and I know a lot of folks don't want to hear this, but it's a good practice that everyone does video calls from their own desk.
I also hear of companies looking at reconfigurations of their spaces to be more collaboration-oriented, e.g. more space to conference rooms and enclaves with a lot more emphasis on hot-desking for the rest.
I’m not comfortable meeting at my desk unless literally all my neighbors are supposed to be participating (not concentrating on something else). My office has some phone booths that were so popular (pre-pandemic) that it's been hard to find an empty one.
> but it's a good practice that everyone does video calls from their own desk.
We do that sometimes, but I find it a bit painful. First you have to be on top of mute/unmute if you're having a conversation with the guy next to you otherwise everyone gets echo. And then, even if you are, if it's the guy next to you talking you hear him "for real" first then through the video call with a slight delay.
The hybrid model makes sense, because some people (like me) enjoy being at the office with colleagues.
I don't want a situation where I am forced to always be in the office. But I also don't want to have colleagues I never see. That doesn't mean "mandate exactly X days at work". But it does mean "be at the office sometimes".
Your only justification for forcing people to come to your office is to suit your needs. If a role can be done successfully 100%, people like you need to think about others before you start supporting upsetting someone else's lifestyle to make yourself happier.
That’s what team offsites, conferences and company outings are for. There’s more ways to get face to face time then “go to the office to work”
I feel fortunate that I will be half-retired/self employed by the time the entire industry is a mix of sweatshops and plumbing work, which will be before the end of the decade.
I'd swear it just keeps getting worse.
> but management is insistent on disallowing WFH
I think a lot of management will be out of a job in the future, and they are grasping for control. Not saying we don't need managers, just that there are lots of fat that can be removed, and people have noticed lots of the managers weren't needed or invisible when WFH.
Having worked from home for ~8 years, I don't think it actually makes that much difference - you still end up with a manager who is responsible for making sure they can handle problems you have or about you and asking you to do things, and you still have managers associated with the projects you work on (those may or not be in any way related). The ones who randomly rearrange the seating however can disappear.
I am a manager that has been full-time WAH for 15+ years. A leader who understands their role should be empowering people to do their jobs, and providing them the tools they need to do it, be it in the office, at home, or on another planet even. That's what leaders do. If they think their job is to monitor and micromanage their teams, then they are not leaders, just bad managers. Leaders see the value in employees creating a situation where they increase their productivity. I really don't care where my employees work as long as they meet clearly defined goals and objectives. They know what they need to do, and I trust them to figure out how best to accomplish it!
The ones who randomly rearrange the seating however can disappear.
Reads to me like this is the exact chaff being separated from the wheat in the parent comment, and you know what: good. The less managers like that, the better for labor and the workforce at large IMO.
I think a few of us have had that manager and hopefully learned how not to lead and motivate people.
Just like with developers there is a huge difference between a mediocre and a splendid manager, both in productivity and how nice they are to work with.
WFH just makes the difference much more obvious.
I hear this a lot of times recently — what I'm interested by now is where the new equilibrium will be going forward.
So far us software engineers have often seen jobs as replaceable and we know we'll have another one at the snip of a finger should we quit.
But with enough people actually quitting, how many remote or soon-remote companies will there be to scoop up the supply until quitting an office job cold could be a bad decision?
Genuinely curious here: Any of those quitting for the same reason recently, how hard was it to land an equally well paid remote job?
> how many remote or soon-remote companies will there be to scoop up the supply until quitting an office job cold could be a bad decision?
We'd have to take into consideration how the demand will change at the companies who are refusing remote work right now. I'd expect that it wouldn't diminish: they will still have business goals that will require developers to fulfill. They won't suddenly say "No software people want to work for us? Eh, we don't need them anyways. Let's build toasters instead".
I changed jobs recently, though not because the old one was going to make me come back to the office. I've never seen such a frothy job market, I had multiple offers for fully remote roles with a 20%+ raise.
I'm a data engineer in the Midwest with just under a decade of experience. All these companies seem to be hiring plenty of other roles and levels of seniority as well.
You motivated me enough to finally update my Linked-In and mark it open for work. I'm also in the Midwest (near Chicago).
If you don't mind me asking, to what extent did you put yourself out there? For the longest time I just pursue whatever recruiters reach out to me, but I think I should probably do more active searching this time around.
That's great! I sent a few cold applications through workatastartup.com, but I mostly just updated my profile there and on LinkedIn, and flipped the switch to "tell recruiters I'm open" on the latter.
I had a similar experience to you on LI. I wasn't particular desperate for a new gig, so I aimed high on salary range. At first I was told I was too expensive, but a couple weeks in I had plenty of options at or above my range, so shoot for the moon!
> So far us software engineers have often seen jobs as replaceable and we know we'll have another one at the snip of a finger should we quit.
I think this is going to be the thing that cracks.
If everybody is WFH, I probably don't need YOU specifically. Programmers are about to get a big wake up call as to what their value actually is in the global market--and it's a lot less than they think.
If I were a particularly nasty manager, I would be pushing WFH like crazy and looking at laying off both my most expensive and most vocal WFH people in 18 months.
The most senior folk pulling the strings will survive. The rank and file will get decimated.
Be careful what you wish for.
Turkeys voting for Christmas (t'was ever thus).
That said, this is an unavoidable consequence of globalization that was due to happen anyway.The "pandemic" simply accelerated it.
A big section of the conceptual "West" is in for a very rude awakening.
I suspect that most of the drive to get back to the office is coming from the middle manager. You just can’t do ass sniffing at home at it’s essential for their carrier advancement in the megacorps.
Oh man do I feel this. I used to report to the director, just one step below the VP. Zero issues. Everything went smoothly. My team is very independent and we interacted with the guy like once a month, he’d just ask about one particular issue and move on.
Everyone is retiring here and they want to prepare new blood, that means unnecessary middle management. Everyone has them, but I was lucky. Until 2020.
This new guy wants to meet once a week. Got us all in the office FIRST, while everyone else was still WFH. I do need to be onsite for a few things, but I live 3 miles from work and being on call had been working great, but you think he was listening? Now I just spend my time sitting at the office when I could be letting my dog out with the same productivity.
Additionally he has no power of making any decisions that matter, so talking to him is useless. He doesn’t have the courage to transmit messages to other teams that could be a problem for someone else, so we are basically gagged. And whenever something happens he will defend himself, not us, so we are pretty much abandoned. The decline in quality of my position went from an easy 90 to a 10 in a matter of months.
In other words, my happy job turned into me looking for a job.
> If my office doesn’t let me WFH, I will also be leaving.
Agreed. I hope to never work in an office again. It's a horrible concept.
I was ok with office work during the first 15+ years of my career when I had a private office. That works very well. Commute was annoying, but I'll take it.
But then came the cubicles. Ugh. Then came the open office nightmare. I will never be in an open office again. Not an option, full stop.
You want my expertise? The options are remote or private office.
We already had partial WFH - my company has a lot of developers late in their career (aged 50+), they've been through the mill and can't be fucked with stupid hours anymore. And don't need constant supervision either.
Another thing; partial work from home has been a thing over here for a long time now, called "the new working". In practice though, it was just as bad as the open office, in that it was a tactic to reduce the amount of office space needed. Because some clipboard warrior decided that office space was their biggest expense, not staff, nor the realization that they can do more with the same staff if they make some changes to improve their productivity - e.g. no open offices, fixed workspaces, and a goal in their career.
I think asking employees to come in, say once a month is a pretty cool balance. So on that day that everyone comes together, rather make it a social thing and not a sit and work day. Have a friendly townhall and focus on cohesion & empathy. Ask them what they need, if their home circumstances can be improved etc.
They can have a much smaller office space (can be fancier since it is smaller) for people to meet if they really need to (specifically client facing), then there are internet & coffee & snacks, desks & couches available. 90% staff don't have to go to the office to be honest.
And the rest of the money being saved on having smaller offices can be funneled to employee bonuses/benefits or gear (better desks/chairs if you are chair-bound) (more frequent upgrades or let the employee choose what gear they want (within reason)), (at work I have 1x 24" 1080p screen, at home I have 2x 27" 1440p but I bought it with my own money... (which is the ultimate size and density for programming for me)), (decent webcam & dedicated microphone and good headphones), paid for tooling (like gitkraken/jetbrains/pluralsight subscriptions). Stuff like that will make a huge difference.
> ... the extremely rare spark of whiteboard innovation is not worth ...
Crazy idea - install a whiteboard at home and point a 4k camera at it. The broke college student version of this involves a pen, paper, and the camera on your cellphone; it works quite well.
Whiteboard area in a conference room has some challenges to recreate. That said, we've found collaborative editing replaces a lot of sloppy handwriting and people capturing with smartphones and recreating after the meeting. To say nothing of the fact, that wealthy SV companies complaining that they have to structure their entire companies arounf in-person because virtual whiteboards are a really hard problem should be basically ridiculed.
I actually agree that in-person get-togethers are useful. I'm just not convinced they can't be handles as quarterly events in many situations--as many companies with distributed workforces already do.
I didn't mean to claim 100% equivalence, just to point out how trivial it is to replace the core functionality if that's really what the issue is. Personally I think that collaborative editing tools are a strict improvement in all areas except for free form diagrams.
> virtual whiteboards
Even a fully virtual equivalent is fairly trivial. Just buy a damn drawing tablet already! Being good enough to do commercial artwork on, they're all but guaranteed to far exceed the needs of any software developer.
Having used said virtual whiteboards - they suck. Most of ‘whiteboarding’ is the low lag communication, body language, ease of just ‘doing something’ by hand. In my experience, the connection issues, lack of ability to get good fidelity in communication, random glitches and other issues, just ruins the majority of it.
Not having a terrible commute or paying 10x the national average for a closet to live in are definitely a strong plus in the other column though for sure.
For me, whiteboards are worthless. I have zero artistic skills, bad handwriting, and my thought processes are not particularly visual. When I have to participate, I usually just stand at the board and talk, and never draw anything.
For capturing bullet points, and other terse text, a Google doc is far superior.
Not so crazy. I've been looking for whiteboards (well, smart boards) with hdmi out or just using a camera for instructor at home use. A Black Magic Design ATEM allows for multiple inputs and use on Zoom as a web cam. We did buy an overhead web cam specifically for our beadwork instructor do she could show closeups of her working hands free.
Oh fun, now I can watch someone think a solution on zoom. Jesus, it was painful enough doing it in person.
Personally I look forward to hybrid but where I decide when to go in to the office as needed to get work done. Probably that would mean 2-3 days a week for me, given the kind of engineering work I do. I'm actually tired of staying home all day every day because of work. I actually kind of enjoy "going somewhere" for the day, seeing the sun rise, smelling the fresh bread and coffee as I pass the bakery, seeing restaurants setting up for the day, and the world waking up together with me as I step outside. Somehow that sensual experience gives me a sort of motivation to get stuff done.
In my current commute situation it meas going from peninsula to SF for the day, which also means I get to have lunches in the city that I wouldn't otherwise get at home, and can meet people after work who live in the city. My work is also a couple blocks from the Caltrain station, and so the commute isn't really an issue, I just walk into this big metal box and keep working and I appear in SF an hour later, it's actually kind of relaxing, and I just like trains in general, and looking out the window watching the entire Bay Area fly by me without me having to drive. In the evening on the return ride I see the fog rolling over the mountains as I look out the train window, and that's relaxing too, and as I pass by about 10 other bay area towns, I can choose any single one of them to get off the train and have dinner, or bike around the town just for the hell of it, to get some exercise.
I don't want to commute for face time though. Rather, I'd do it for things like a big space with proper air conditioning, sunlight, and conference rooms without annoying gas leaf blowers that linger in front of my front door exactly when I'm having meetings. I also work on industrial-sized robots, and even if the company were to buy extra hardware, it's pretty impossible/unsafe to be running that kind of stuff at home. It's enormously more efficient to sit in front of the actual thing than to try to cope with a video feed.
I'm a bit of an ambivert, slighly more introverted, but not an extreme introvert. I do enjoy company, and I do miss the lunch conversations about wild and awesome things that I didn't get during the pandemic. I've also found time and time again at past organizations that those in-person socializing circumstances enormously helped build mutual trust with coworkers (specifically peers, not managers or subordinates) for when things actually went wrong. We're social animals and it's still hard to get around that biological fact.
Moving to the middle of nowhere to get cheaper rent and a bigger work space isn't really what I want to do either, because I do like having access to public transportation and food from around the world, including the grocery stores of the ethnic foods I'm used to eating. I'm kind of happy living in a cosmopolitan/global part of the world. I hate the high rents, admittedly, but I realize I can't have it all.
But yeah, no, I wouldn't commute or do hybrid to please management. It's just me. I still want to make the decision about when to go in myself based on circumstances.
> I actually kind of enjoy "going somewhere" for the day, seeing the sun rise, smelling the fresh bread and coffee as I pass the bakery, seeing restaurants setting up for the day, and the world waking up together with me as I step outside. Somehow that sensual experience gives me a sort of motivation to get stuff done.
This sounds rather idyllic and I'm sort of picturing you as Belle in Beauty in the Beast as she walks around her provincial town singing to the shopkeepers as she walks to the library.
It sounds like it would suit your needs to work remotely from a rented office desk. It sounds like it’s not as big an issue for you since you’re a few stations from work, but it also sounds like the work office doesn’t afford you much over many other offices.
I used to do this type of commute
But having the ticket master interrupt my work or sleep used to kill me
>Absolutely sick of this infantilizing, childish requirement to force employees to come into the office.
It's not infantilizing or childish.
There's pros & cons.
Find a company that aligns with what you seek.
To each company their own.
They will be happy to replace you with a H1B worker (who himself will be happy to migrate from India to the USA). The current situation is temporary since COVID immigration restrictions remain in place.
I’ll have a new job. They can do what they want. Hiring fresh H1B employees to replace seasoned engineers rarely ends well. It’s part of the reason we get paid as much as we do.
If I end up leaving because the company refuses to offer WFH, it won’t be getting a 2-week notice or any form of knowledge transfer from me.
I hear the thing these days is to see how long your former employer will pay you before realizing you aren't doing any work for them anymore. It sounds like a joke but I’ve seen it happen on multiple occasions. Coworker just stops showing up and 5 months later their Slack is deactivated.
And wouldn’t their manager be responsible for not noticing?
It's going to be harder to justify a "shortage" of workers when companies cut themselves off from the remote worker pool. I have no doubt they will, but the lie will be much more obvious.
Companies also won't be able to claim they hire the best if the rule out remote, but of course they'll still say it.
That is very job specific if H1B exist with the skills and experience needed
Eh I don’t think so. If it comes to that Americans will just stop letting people come here to work and dismantle these programs. It’s actually something that has been unifying the Sanders/AOC and Trump camps for some time. I don’t know if he has but if not I don’t see Biden really changing much in terms of opening up/increasing H1B visas or any others in the foreseeable future. Maybe more refugees or asylum seekers though.
The current state of affairs is that we have a labor shortage. The country needs more and more service workers. Tech is the go to backup plan for any college graduate (from any major), so the white collar work is perfectly saturated at the moment due to tech (not just developers, pm’s, sales, designers, etc). The only need for h1b are for the truly ruthless cost cutters. Otherwise, you can continuously undercut just here locally with new college graduates or career-changers (bootcamps, etc).
Inflation isn't a good thing. It is probably going to exasperate the wealth inequality and I don't see how it will improve employee leverage. It is an invisible tax caused by government artificially increasing the money supply.
we do not have a labor shortage. We have a wage shortage
I'll be distressed if we don't have at least optional work-from-office after the pandemic. I'm vaccinated. You're vaccinated. We're all adults. The company remains in possession of empty office space. Yet most firms seem to think the best thing to do is lead from behind, wait and see, until they can protect themselves by saying "i guess everyone is doing it".
Definitely channel that distress into anger. You hold the cards. Encourage the company to change, and vote with your feet if they don’t.
WFH isn’t just a preference thing, having the option is about being treated with dignity like an adult.
We are uniquely privileged to be in an industry where leaving for better jobs is common and rather doable.
I already did. I got fired from the job, found another job that gave me roughly a 60% raise (!) (including publicly tradeable equity), and now I rent a private office in a coworking space with some of the extra cash. This was a victory.
A consequence of this is a price tag on how much anger I have, and it's fairly small. More peaceful for me this way.
Never mind that. In some companies HR mandates meetings on various social and workplace issues where they essentially being told what they should think. This blatant disregard for freedom of thought makes me think of nothing short of "politinformation" meetings in good old USSR. Teambuilding outings especially when forced and on weekends fall into the same category.
I am very lucky that I was employed only in one company before going on my own and never had to deal with the crap like that personally but I saw it happen to other people.
You might as well stay at home and do nothing because no one wants to work around whiny crybabies like you,anyway.
Managers are getting a pretty bad rap in these threads, and maybe (or maybe not) in BigCo’s that’s reasonable, but I run a tiny shop and I’ve asked my team to come to the office as often as possible, despite the fact that half of us have been working together for years - and we get on just fine online.
The reason is that the other half of the team haven’t got this experience; they are young and relatively inexperienced, and I want them to see how we work, how we solve problems, how their peers communicate and how we think about different aspects of the business. I want to be able to jump on the whiteboard at a moments notice and maybe pull in a couple of others, while other people in the office can also listen in. This is every bit as important to the professional growth of our juniors as it is to my new business. If the sales guy and I are having a discussion and the junior front end developer hears us, he gets a sense of how we work that he’ll never get if the meeting is held in PMs on Slack or Discord.
I have no problem with WFH in principle, but my position is, if you are able to come in, then come in. If you have kids or other commitments then fine, work from home a couple of days a week. But by default, it’s better for everyone if you’re in the office.
I know this doesn’t work for all companies, but its not like this policy is poorly considered or arbitrary. I guess my company is going to attract people who prefer this mode of operation, and I know other companies are WFH first. But there are reasons for why we do what we do.
> they are young and relatively inexperienced, and I want them to see how we work, how we solve problems, how their peers communicate and how we think about different aspects of the business.
You basically want the seniors' suffer the uncompensated inconveniences of WFO so that the juniors can grow.
> This is every bit as important to the professional growth of our juniors as it is to my new business.
This is not altruism though, juniors' professional growth is important for your business growth.
> if you are able to come in, then come in. If you have kids or other commitments then fine, work from home a couple of days a week.
We know from "unlimited time off" experiments that the game theory of this doesn't play off that way. People will race to bottom yielding to tacit peer and management pressure.
> I know this doesn’t work for all companies, but its not like this policy is poorly considered or arbitrary ... But there are reasons for why we do what we do.
No one is saying it is arbitrary. It works better for management. And management makes the calls. That's the reason.
> I guess my company is going to attract people who prefer this mode of operation
Or lose the talent that prefers to have more agency on their work conditions.
Presumably they pay their employees.
Yeah and also “work from office” and “mentor juniors” is in the PD and the contract.
It’s not like we were being underhanded. If they didn’t like it, they wouldn’t have signed on.
My company incorporated in December 2020. Mid pandemic. One of the people I’m talking about starts in two weeks.
I know this doesn’t fit everyone’s model of WFH utopia, but whatever happened to an assumption of good faith at HN?
Drop the sarcasm, it's annoying and obfuscates the dialogue.
WFH employees get paid too, we're talking about the differences between costs of WFH and WFO externalized to the employee, which are not trivial e.g. commute, access to wider and cheaper housing market, all the associated stresses etc.
> As a manager it seems to me that WFH externalises one of the most expensive costs to employees: office space.
I would agree on principle but there is a circularity here. The cost of own housing used as office space is directly related to how expensive the housing was. In Bay Area the marginal cost of a 3rd bedroom could be $XXXk while anywhere else it can easily an order of magnitude less. Then it is not necessarily as the most expensive item anymore.
The more office time employers demand, the more spatially concentrated the work force is going to be housed, which will increase the cost of that extra bedroom.
Turns out concentrating the work force is also aligned with the sunken real estate investments those BigCorps had undertaken. You can bet as we look higher in the corporate hierarchy, the likelihood of personal real estate investments increase too. So it is a balancing act of those influences vs. the projected attrition rate of the workforce, who mostly did actually like WFH. That's how we landed on the unstable-as-hell equilibrium of hybrid WFH-WFO for now.
I think that most people that hate working in the office don't hate it because of the office - they hate it because of focus quality.
A social obligation here, a senseless chat there, a coffee here...a person reminding you about an unimportant email there.
There are just way too many distractions from work, at work. And those distractions are what people describe as "corporate life" because corporates over-micro-managed everything.
Open office spaces are horrible, except for the people not having to work in them - which coincidentially always decide pro open office work space.
If the work culture is manifested in interrupting your colleagues over unimportant stuff all the time, it's perceived as toxic by engineering people because they lose valueable focus time.
That is essentially what it boils down to. Add the additional time required to get there (and costs on the side of the employee for commute) and you have the perfect formula to get rid of quality work people.
While there are upsides of working in the office, there's also huge downsides that management likes to ignore in the discussion.
"I guess my company is going to attract people who prefer this mode of operation, and I know other companies are WFH first"
It will be interesting to see if discouraging WFH can actually be an advantage when it comes to recruitment and retention, but when all of the main players in tech are embracing WFH, its hard to see how smaller players can sell "no WFH" as a benefit.
Is this statement true, that all the main players in tech are WFH first? Didn't Apple just announce 3 days WFO are mandatory?
But in any case, I'm no FAANG, and I was just trying to explain the motivation for my preference that people WFO where possible. I wouldn't say I see it as a competitive recruitment advantage, but I'm yet to be convinced it's a disadvantage either.
> I have no problem with WFH in principle, but my position is, if you are able to come in, then come in. If you have kids or other commitments then fine, work from home a couple of days a week. But by default, it’s better for everyone if you’re in the office.
Lets hope to god there is a large enough demand for WFH that your position becomes intolerable for more companies. I think having access to on office as an option is great, but thinking its "better" is a unfounded claim.
But so is WFH! I’ve literally had a guy beg me to WFO. Surely a better world would have a diversity of options? Or are we one size fits all now? (That size being the one that fits you)
Have you actually asked your team if they feel the same way, though? (and I mean actually asked, not just "hey bud, you're happy with coming into the office, right?")
I used to whiteboard out problems with the whole team. I loved it. We had a couple of star employees who were really good at coming up with ideas and sketching them out. Being able to get the whole team on-side for a problem and understanding the answer was great. Then I discovered (overheard conversation at a social function) that half the team absolutely hated them. I followed up in 1-to-1 meetings, and yes, over half the team didn't enjoy them, didn't feel they could contribute, and saw them as a waste of everyone's time (and saw them as me ego grandstanding). The couple of "stars" did enjoy them, and thought they were great.
During my MBA, I discovered this is common. Introverts don't enjoy this kind of interaction, and don't benefit from it. Some people don't come up with ideas by "vibing" off others - they come up with ideas by themselves. Some people can't talk about an idea until it's complete - the whole idea of "talking through" an idea to completion gives them the shudders, and doesn't work for them.
You may find, after digging, that (like me) you're doing what you love, and not what the team benefits from.
I'm not going to say you're wrong, but you are making assumptions that don't necessary apply to me.
I don't generally do huge whiteboarding sessions with the whole team. Typically I write detailed technical documentation about what I'm trying to achieve, and how I think it should be done, which I share with the team who are implementing it.
It's typically only when they don't understand something that I jump on the whiteboard. And it's typically the more junior people that don't understand things.
It's not that I love huge, didactic whiteboarding sessions; I don't. What I do enjoy is explaining ideas in small whiteboard sessions with just one or two other people, or with small teams who have specific questions, and I feel that these sessions are much more productive in person than they are remotely.
I get that, I'm not saying that you might be making the same specific mistake that I did (large whiteboarding sessions).
I'm saying you might be making the same generic mistake I did (assuming that because I enjoy something, and no-one is complaining, the whole team enjoys it). And that's purely because when you described it, you sound a lot like I did before I learned that lesson.
As you say, I'm making assumptions. If you're sure that you're not making this mistake, I believe you. Well done, you're doing better than I did :)
Oh I’d never say I’m sure of anything! In fact your comment did affect me, and I’ll be thinking about it a bit over the next few days.
It’s like the old saying, that it’s difficult for us to see ourselves as others do.
Everyone on my team is different from goals to what makes them happy to how they work, cant expect them all to work the same and management is figuring out what’s best for each one
That's too wide a generalization. I believe your parent poster simply outlined the two polar opposites and that if somebody doesn't thrive in an environment where ideas are "bounced back and forth" then you shouldn't mandate them attending such sessions. Nothing else.
> Is it important that the org bends to the will of a subset of workers with specific preferences
Huh? Where did this come from? Why "bend"? You can just post on Slack: "The 'Ideation' event is coming, attendance is not mandatory, come if you want to hang out and discuss ideas about tasks X and Y!"
Whoever wants to -- and loves that way of work -- will come. Everybody else will keep on digging on their own tasks and job will still get done. Win-win, no?
> or is it important that we get a group of people who are going to get the work done?
I don't understand why are you conflating "not willing to spend an hour with people enthusiastically discussing ideas" with "I can't get dev work done"?
Too much polarization and "us vs. them", dude. Your colleagues are not your enemies.
I really suggest you read up on management styles and leadership.
Again, you sound a lot like I did before I got my eyes opened. And the leadership stuff in my MBA really helped me to see where I got this so badly wrong.
I am rather junior and recently joined a fully remote team. The culture is so geared towards written documentation that it's honestly not a problem. Every one is extra careful about writing up extra detailed instructions for the youngsters. Also, I'm spending a good chunk of time exploring and researching by myself obviously, but I consider that a perk since one tend to learn better that way.
I dunno man, documentation is way different to what happens in person. I’m sure you’ll learn heaps, but I think what you learn will be qualitatively different from what you’d learn in an office. Maybe not better or worse, but certainly different. Good luck to you though! Welcome to the industry.
I have worked for a few years in person before too. About quality I'm not really sure. It's probably dependent on the company / team you join.
But it's true that I got most of my workstation/tooling out of my previous supervisor, who installed his stuff since I had no preference and it made it more similar to his own machine, making the process of helping me on my desk easier. That probably would not happen remotely :)
>Managers are getting a pretty bad rap in these threads, and maybe (or maybe not) in BigCo’s that’s reasonable, but I run a tiny shop and I’ve asked my team to come to the office as often as possible, despite the fact that half of us have been working together for years - and we get on just fine online.
In my BigCo job, your run-of-the-mill managers don't have any influence on this stuff. The high-level decisions are being made by executives who are at least four or five layers of reports away from the masses of ICs (eg the CEO is seven hops above me on my management chain), and whose entire job--as well as the entire job of everybody they come in contact with--consists of attending meetings. We experience the company and the workplace in vastly different ways, and articles & discussions like this are the result of that disconnect.
Right, so you want whats best for you and your profitability, with no consideration of the expense to the employee.
I actually don’t mind one way or the other, but I just want a clear rationale for over riding the employees preference.
I despise the water cooler theory because I’m perfectly capable of socializing over voip or IM. I do it at work and then shortly afterwards with friends on discord.
The real reasons for return to office should be tangible. If you have metrics that people are taking advantage, share them. The only thing I’ve seen so far is out of this world productivity increases.
> I despise the water cooler theory because I’m perfectly capable of socializing over voip or IM
Different people have different work styles. The water cooler theory is predicated on random, unplanned interactions, which are much harder over those channels. At the proverbial water cooler, an employee might engage with someone they had not planned to speak with, or maybe don't even know, and get some information or connection of value. Maybe you overhear* a couple of other people talking there and you join the conversation because the subject happens to impact you. I'm not sure how well that's replicated by Discord/Slack channels.
After a year+ WFH during the Inside Times, I have come to see the value of at least quarterly, if not monthly, face-to-face team meetings or casual events. Of course, if you have employees in different cities, like west and east coast, you can't affordably meet very often.
* I would hope people would not have a conversation that should be private in a public space, so being overheard is not a bad thing.
It's also worth noting that there's a huge bias toward pure software engineers on HN.
I do software, but I have to work with some large industrial hardware and it's so much easier to just have the hardware in front of you. Especially when you have to from time to time set up hardware that isn't even on the network yet.
Telepresence just isn't there yet, and the quality of internet connections and videoconference tools still suck. I have dual 4K monitors and still get 720p feeds or worse on most videoconference tools, you can't even read a damn whiteboard with that, let alone push physical reset buttons or e-stop buttons on actual hardware.
I mean, that's a great example of a clear rationale! If my job required interacting with machinery or hardware that had to be centrally located, I wouldn't need to be "required" to come into the office any more than I'm "required" to use Git to manage my code—I'm a professional, and that's just part of what I do.
The issue comes up with roles when that isn't the case. In most programming roles I would not have any clear reason to be in-person, and even if I did have times where I clearly needed to be in the office, I would not appreciate being forced to come in outside those times. Requirements like that are frustrating because they require a real cost on my end (less flexible schedule, less control over my environment, a commute) and simultaneously signal a fundamental lack of flexibility, respect and trust from my employer.
I also work on hardware. Oddly enough I moved my lab to my house when the pandemic hit, but I don't work with really huge or dangerous stuff.
I think there's going to be an interesting dynamic when the hardware workers go back to the office and the software workers stay home. The tendency for the software department to become isolated from the rest of the business was already present before the pandemic, but may become more pronounced.
I do a mix of software, smaller scale hardware, larger hardware, and am spooling up manufacturing.
So, right now I am in a lot, but no longer have an office. That is at home now, including enough gear to work on the small scale hardware.
If I come in, you can find me in the shop. My senior firmware engineer and I work best together, but work very well remote too.
So, I am going to move a machine here. We normally get together for a few days and will now just do it more regularly.
I am the better tech anyway, and do enough software to make me a good working extension. We expect this to be a net gain.
As that manufacturing spools up, I will WFH, only coming in when doing R&D, or to improve on or resolve manufacturing problems.
Pre-pandemic, I traveled everywhere, hated it. That is gone now.
Outside of software and other info heavy roles, having flexibility will be seen as a great thing.
As we optimize the diverse tasks, we will work better, and have many options. One of my favorites is to get up at oh dark 30, work in the shop when there are no distractions and head home after lunch. Those are the days when I get the most physical work done, and or solve the worst problems.
I've been working from home for the last 5 years, and I'm never going back. I get more done, I have more energy throughout the day, and it makes it much easier to put family first (which is one reason I think FANG and others are so afraid -- they lose a little bit of control).
It is most definitely a control thing. Companies are afraid to lose the iron grip they have over the lives of employees.
> iron grip
Jeez, give it a rest. Companies don't give a crap about your life. None have ever showed the slightest interest in anything I do when not at work.
If this was really the case, WFH would be a no-brainer and would not meet so much resistance from management.
Most companies clearly care more about the fact that they can account for the time you’re in office, as opposed to how productive you actually are.
In my years of office work across a variety of “innovative” companies, tech megacorps and unicorn startups alike, I have found the moments of truly productive whiteboard collaboration rare and far between. It’s fun when it happens but I just don’t see it warranting the daily commute. Of course, that is my own opinion and personal preference.
But yes, I agree that it’s a no-brainer to let employees choose the work style that suits them best.
>>So you think there is absolutely no difference in the kind of collaboration that can be done online vs. IRL?
Office is not the only place where face-to-face collaboration can happen. Coffee shops, for example, are one of my favorite co-working environments.
Seriously? I would never, ever consider doing that to my employees. It’s plainly obvious if someone is doing their work or not without tracking their mouse movements.
What’s the name of your company so I can tell everyone I know to avoid it like the plague? My company is gingrapp.com. We’re hiring and would never subject anyone to this.
So either you live in a place where human rights don't exist, or will be in an entirely new world of pain and humiliation once you are found out. And in the meantime, since can't own up to your snooping, you can't act on it at ALL without parallel construction, i.e. without being a liar and a cheat. What you gain by this is only valuable to those who can't lead and inspire. What you lose is invaluable yet unknown to you. Sad.
That’s ridiculous, and only proves my point that management is obsessed with meaningless metrics and what employees do with their free time rather than whether they’re completing their assigned duties or not.
That only works until someone writes a "boss" app that pretends to click keys and move the mouse.
Back in the 80's, many computer games had a "boss" key which would pause the game and throw up a screen that looked like a spreadsheet.
^ this is a troll post
Have you seen an increase in productivity?
> None have ever showed the slightest interest in anything I do when not at work.
Right, but they do what they can to increase the time you are at work. I'd say requiring 40 mandatory hours in an office is a start to that, and they do plenty to try to grow those 40.
I feel your point, but obviously not every work environment is the same.
That's true, but it's weird to tell someone to give it a rest because you have a different experience.
Have you ever been asked to come in on Saturdays? Often?
So they were very much interested in what you did when not at work : they wanted you to come in at work.
Companies don't, managers often do.
I've never, ever encountered a manager that was interested in what anyone did when not on the clock. (Well, my manager at Boeing did invite me to come flying with him, and I did, and got a nice aerial tour of Seattle.)
Of course, I'm sure they exist. Not often, though.
The people who want to control other peoples' lives go into politics and activism, not business.
I had a job where I worked in a cubical next to the main door, unfortunately also next to the head of engineering's office. I actually got in trouble with him because I would frequently walk by* and also a lot of people would talk to me as they hung around the area (literally the water cooler...). The experience completely soured me on the whole company, and as soon as I could I found a remote working job and am much happier now!
*after I was told I walked around too much I kept an internal record of every time I left my desk and for what reason. It turns out, the main reasons I walked by was 1) meetings, 2) lab work, and 3) bathroom. I was hoping he would bring it up again so I could show him the Excel sheet!
I find it kind of absurd that management thinks it’s appropriate to chastise employees as if they are naughty children. It’s dehumanizing to say the least.
Why does management care what I do in my free time, so long as I get my job done? It’s a power trip, plain and simple.
I hope you gave a reason if they asked why you’re leaving.
I used to walk around the office a lot because I'm a fidgeter. At home as well, I rarely stay seated for long.
Ask again when the job market isn’t as good. And be careful, when layoffs come, those that aren’t seen as much will be thought off as less useful, even if it’s untrue. I’m for WFH where possible but let’s not pretend time zones and in person interactions, just to name a few benefits of colocation have no benefit or that they don’t appeal to anyone. Personally, my personality is such that I need to be at the office to be productive. I don’t actually think I’m in the minority.
Sure, but how many years of my life will I waste, wringing my hands in fearful anticipation of when the job market tanks?
Either way, I’m fairly confident I’ll be able to get a job, or have enough saved to weather the storm. In the meantime, the sense of freedom that comes from WFH is unparalleled.
You got kids? :-)
WFH with kids is amazing. You get to see them grow up and can move to a lower cost of living area where they can have room, a yard…
It’s definitely the most family friendly working arrangement.
There are a lot of WFH options now and more every day. Many, if not most new startups will never have an office.
I’d be far more worried about being saddled with a huge mortgage to live close to an office. In a downturn, it’s not like there will be office jobs either. Yet you could still easily get stuck paying 1M+ for housing that would cost <300k in locations where you could wfh.
Personally speaking, I cannot wait to have the opportunity to be back to the office 100% of the time. I just cannot cope with the lack of proper division between my home life and work life.
Some of my colleagues agree, but I obviously recognise the fact that most do not.
Even before the pandemic our organisation had hybrid working conditions and I’m pretty sure that’s what they’re aiming for again in the near future; for good or for ill.
“ lack of proper division between my home life and work life.”
This tells me you’re doing WFH wrong or don’t have enough discipline for it. That’s okay, wfh is not for everyone, but don’t blame this on anyone but yourself.
There are tons of ways to have that proper separation, including but not limited to, replacing the transitional commute with a walk to switch contexts. You can find a lot of tips and techniques on the web.
When I’m done with work for the day, I’m done, and it doesn’t intrude in my home life, even though my “office” is literally in the next room.
I am reasonably productive WFH (I was 2 days a week remote before pandemic and have had fully remote jobs in the past)- but the way some people talk about it really bothers me.
The people that want it, really want it, are almost like zealots about it. Where if anybody mentions that they struggle with WFH, they get mad almost like it's a kid raising his hand to tell a teacher they forgot to collect the homework.
And I get it - Going full remote would literally be life changing for a lot of people. But there has to be nuance there.
People often talk about the importance of a "third place" in communities. A place that isn't home or work for people to socialize. The WFH zealots are advocating for a complete elimination of even a "second place" - But the workplace is something a lot of people benefit from. You form deeper connections and sometimes friendships with your coworkers, some people use it as a way to concentrate away from the responsibilities of home.
Getting rid of the office would have huge implications on our society as a whole.
I also feel that WFH was easier for me when I did it after having been in office for a long time. Both in terms of connections with the team and having office time helps instill discipline around work. As newer generations enter the work-force without that, I can see it being really hard for them (in both directions - in that they slack off and don't do anything or that they become workaholics.)
I really like your point about losing our "second place". It's a great way to verbalize the feeling I've had that permanent WFH on a major scale takes American individualism to the logical extreme.
Rather than learning to live with each other, we'll all just retreat to our own little castles (or shacks), taking all focus away from making public spaces enjoyable for everyone. Who needs public transit when we never leave home? Whatever your station in life is where you'll stay, there are no trains coming.
We'll all have a carefully curated whitelist of like-minded neighbors to protect ourselves from witnessing any of the negative externalities of our lifestyles. Our only view of the outside world will be entertainment news that coddles our doxastic anxiety, telling us the exactly what we want to hear at all times.
>takes American individualism to the logical extreme.
It's funny that you opened your comment complimenting how I verbalized something, but this feels like an even better verbalization of it.
What's the answer to my crappy 2 hour a day commute? Remote work, not funding public transportation.
It's all about convenience without stopping to think of what we're losing as humans. We didn't evolve to live these siloed lives without any sense of community. I feel like American society forments a lot of loneliness.
And the tone of it really comes through in the people who advocate so fiercely for it - there's an entitlement there.
Lucid take!
I am glad I do a mix of things. Some are great to WFH, others like hardware dev, R&D benefit from being around machines and often people too.
I'm sorry, but seriously how out of touch do you have to be that 14+ months into the pandemic you still think that people can't have poor WFH experiences for reasons out of their control?
Can you give a few examples of those reasons?
I understand that life circumstances and general aversion to WFH can make one not like it -- absolutely. And the reasons enumerated are fair.
I don't think your original parent poster meant ill, IMO they were just saying that bending your home WFH setup to your will is achievable but I get it that some people just don't want to -- or their estate is too small or otherwise unsuitable for WFH (like kids not understanding your need to focus).
Where it gets problematic is that even if some people absolutely can't do WFH (and some absolutely can't do work from office like myself for the last 10 years and a half) and even with us respecting each other, the end result is not always productive -- one group doesn't work well with the other (reasons unknown, at least for me?) and it all kind of ends up in "us vs. them" mentality. :(
I don’t blame anybody at all. You may well be right, there are likely many ways to make working from home more comfortable for me. Although I’ll add that I only have one room so my “office” is literally my bedroom.
However, why must I make it work if/when I get other options? I liked working in an office with other people.
I definitely don’t mean to generalise - I know loads of people who don’t feel the same way as I do. I was just sharing my personal experience.
Oh if you have other options and you prefer them, go for it :)
WFH will also be the ultimate hiring perk. It now basically costs nothing, since the costs have already been realized. Also, everybody wants it, so it’s high value among candidates. You can basically offer the same comp as a current employer but add WFH and you have a compelling offer.
WFH already has been a hiring perk for many who were willing to put in the effort to get there.
I don't think people quitting directly correlates to WFH. A bunch of people I know who wanted to quit during the pandemic are quitting now instead. No one wanted to risk being unemployed during the pandemic.
This. I know a ton of people who were planning to move going into 2020 who put it off because interviewing is still a massive clusterfuck right now. I’ve been warning the execs I deal with that they should expect a massive uptick in the exit of competent people in the coming months as things normalize.
Ironically with the increase in unemployment pay and stimulus packages, it probably would have been better to be unemployed during the pandemic
> Ironically with the increase in unemployment pay and stimulus packages, it probably would have been better to be unemployed during the pandemic
Not for a large chunk of the HN audience. The stimulus and unemployment don't come close to covering the six-figure salaries many on here get paid.
I have to admit, after I fought for remote work with a bunch of hiring managers before the pandemic, I feel quite a bit Schadenfreude right now.
Also, I think, in the long run remote work will level the playing field between introverts and extroverts quite a bit.
Level - how so? I’m on the extroverted side of an introverted team/industry. I love WFH because of its obvious superiority. Yet it seems to me it is more isolating of more introverted colleagues. It is a lot easier for them to take a back seat in discussions and a lot harder to draw them out.
I had the impression some people got their positions via water cooler talk.
They just became friends with their bosses when they talked about private stuff at work.
Introverted people usually don't do this and missed out on this opportunity.
Remote work removes many of these non-work related things, that could still impact your work. People who profited from it in the past won't so much in the future.
It will not because remote only will continue to be rare. There’s a bit of a Harrison Bergeron thinking there.
Take a look at Dice, Indeed, LinkedIn Jobs, Github Jobs, etc. Look at the amount of remote positions there are now. Objectively, your comment is false.
Let’s see where things are in 18 months.
As someone who hires, remote at least does have its pluses - one can reasonably expect comp (costs) to decline and perks are gone. Not sure why I wouldn’t just hire a team in Eastern Europe though once remote is the way.
You're not going to hire a team in Eastern Europe for the same reasons why, in our current time, most companies don't use that method of hiring: time zone differences, language/culture differences and size of qualified talent pool. American developer salaries are so high not just because they're located in high COL areas, it's because most of the high performing developer talent is in the US. This isn't saying there isn't talent in Europe but per capita, the US has the lion share of the talent.
Why would it? Are you reading the replies here? Most people want it. I doubt that management will be able to continue keeping it down.
IMO these people are shooting themselves in the foot long term. If companies learn to WFH full time these people will eventually be replaced with cheaper labour from oversees.
I wouldn't be so sure. Many overseas contractors I've worked with lack communication skills that Americans have. Whether it's due to cultural differences, native language, or something else. And these gaps can waste a lot of time.
Totally true. They're already being replaced domestically by cheaper labor coming here from overseas. Imagine if there wasn't all that paperwork involved and their hiring pool gets larger at the same time.
I've seen that happen several times already and I'd say you are usually wrong.
I mean yes, you absolutely can hire much cheaper devs, sure, but I've witnessed the fallout from them not being good at their jobs which then mandated bringing me and several other senior devs onboard so we can fix the mess and get the project back on track.
So can companies utilize the global market and hire cheaper devs? Yes. Is that usually risky? Also yes.
(Exceptions exist of course, e.g. Eastern European devs are usually high quality and are happy with 2X, if not even 3X-4X, less payment than the American ones.)
yeah - been thru that once..twice..wait 3 times... lets see: india, china, russia...
And yet, all the developers I know actually managed to stay employed/get jobs/etc.
The world is full of doom-sayers...and someday they'll be right. I just don't think thats day is today :-)
Aren't there some restrictions regarding what can be outsourced to foreign countries?
This is called progress. There will always be a market for high-end expertise.
That seemed like an awful lot of words to describe the entirely predictable fact that the job market will pick up significantly as we shed pandemic restrictions and that workers in low-wage service jobs tend to quit a lot. A few anecdotes about people liking WFH doesn’t make the trend any more mysterious or novel.
I think we've gone a little overboard with the whole, "unprecedented times" stuff. Sure, pandemic economics are weird, but they're not "up is the new down" weird, basic economic principles apply, and we're not throwing out the whole book, just writing a new chapter.
That’s good, it’ll naturally lead to companies that are either WFH only or office only and people will have their pick. Everyone wins.
Unless one performs better than the other.
>"management is insistent on disallowing WFH."
Color me surprised. For some managers it may become a time where they'd have to look for a new job and likely not because that was what they wanted.
Yes there are very good managers that help great deal in facilitating development. I am sure those would be just fine.
But I suspect there are more managers who are busy with nothing but convincing the rest of the company that they are needed and irreplaceable while doing useless work.
Of all the people I know who prefer to work in the office rather than WFH, it's always for reasons unrelated to the actual merits of WFH. For example, they live in a tiny apartment in the city with wife, kids, nanny, and need a place to go to get away during the day. Or in one interesting case someone wants a chance to hit on other employees.
People are not atomic units at work. They are part of teams and part of a larger organization. The question is not where you work best, but where the teams and larger organization work best.
Silicon Valley leaders, such as Google, have long invested significant resources in incentivizing people to stay at the office - great food, massages, ping pong, lectures, etc. The value of being at the office hasn't changed, and Silicon Valley already experimented with mostly remote work and rejected it, years ago. I remember Yahoo (IIRC) abruptly canceling their experiment and bringing people back to the office.
I'm surprised to see some SV companies now planning for WFH. Nothing has changed in that regard, especially for them - it's not like their employees didn't understand how to use Zoom and were forced to do it by the pandemic, like people in less tech-savvy industries.
Make the office worth going to. Have socials that are interesting enough to come to. Meetings all day should be done digitally since we have a globalized economy.
Organize in person events that are worth attending. Maybe we found a new purpose of management…
i’ve gone back in to the office a few days just for change of pace.
i’d forgotten that they buy the cheapest kleenex, and the cheapest toilet paper.
but hey there’s an endless supply of sugary drinks to tempt me all day.
Can someone whose company is doing hybrid WFH share a bit about how zoom and in-person meetings are scheduled and happen?
Do people coordinate their in-person days so that meetings can be in-person?
How do zoom meetings happen when some employees are in a meeting room together, and others are on zoom?
It’s easy enough to have a big screen in that room to put remote participants on-screen, but how do remote people know who is talking or see all around the room? Where are cameras placed?
I did hybrid at a company a couple years ago, and the way we solved the meeting problem was that everyone at the in-person meeting would connect via their laptop as well. All in-person laptops would be on mute except one, who would have a good camera that could capture the room.
I found it pretty natural to _also_ look at the camera while also looking around the room, as if you were just making eye contact with a new person. And while the "highlight" border would only ever show for one in-person person, cameras are usually close enough that your eye is naturally drawn to whomever's mouth is moving.
> How do zoom meetings happen when some employees are in a meeting room together, and others are on zoom?
Generally, remote attendants means everyone takes the call from their desk. (some exceptions if the structure allows it, e.g. people in a meeting room present to a distributed audience, but for general meetings that's the default)
Many traditional companies are bound to the office for a simple reason: they have offices as a financial investment. This is true even for super rich tech companies, who went into a big real estate buying spree during the last few years. If they don't have use for these offices, the value of such real estate will go down precipitously. They are forced to keep the office style, at least for a majority of their employees.
But why? Isn't that a sunk cost fallacy? In fact, running those offices is going to cost more in operations and maintenance that having them under-utilized?
Presumably they bought empty commercial real estate. If it remains empty they'll get back most of that investment when they sell.
OP probably meant it in an industry wide phenomenon.
If one corp transitions to full WFH, their office just keeps their value.
If all corps go WFH, nobody would want offices like that, and all offices would plummet in value.
The success of the “open office” on full display.
I will absolutely quit if my job tries to force me back into the office.
I'm convinced that distributed teams, where team members need to cooperate a lot, will be almost always (often significantly) less productive than co-located teams.
I'll mention something trivial yet having strong effects. While working, I often come up with a bunch of random work questions. When co-located, I often look at the person who could answer / I could discuss with. Are they in the office currently? Are they currently looking deeply focused or are they already distracted / looking bored so asking them would not probably cause an issue? If yes, I can ask them and get an immediate answer to solve a problem / clarify my thinking etc.
There's no corresponding possibility with WFH which leads me to shooting an IM which is often answered too late thus delaying the problem-solving. You could say that the difference between getting an answer in 1 minute or 10 minutes does not make much difference, but in reality it can have big consequences. With 10 minutes latency, you've probably already switched contexts and will take a look at the answer later, thus introducing even more delay.
Another thing I noticed that different people manage differently with WFH. Some people communicate often and even build relationships over Zoom calls with ease. Such people typically have great communication / interpersonal skills in the first place. But OTOH there are people who hardly ever initiate communication, very often keep muted in most calls etc. Those are usually the more quiet ones in IRL, but in WFH they are even quieter, and it shows. This is very much amplified when the team did not ever meet each other IRL.
I think that the "best WFH performers" can form great distributed teams. But it's not going to work for the majority of teams, who are likely to see productivity decrease.
I actually believe most of the WFH communication problems could be solved / mitigated with better technology (VR office), but we're simply _nowhere near_ that.
My last job was remote even before pandemic, but the pandemic was used as an excuse to fire people... who a few months later turned into off shore replacements. Thankfully I received an SBIR which will cover half my salary for a few months. But it’s also a good time to quit due to child and health care tax credits!
"Revenue crunch used as excuse to lower overhead costs"
man, employees are never going to get it and they resist unionizing? see you in 100 years this is hilarious
I fully agree regarding unions or even co-ops. The managers at this job wanted me to have ideas about the future of the product... that is, do their managing for them. Why would I contribute in that manner after you demonstrated your view of the workers as disposable?! I will take my ideas and capture the value, myself or with a like-minded group. Not be the phd face lending legitimacy to your mismanaged business.
I agree, for years American s worked liked dogs, for 2 weeks vacation when Europe gets six weeks off paid. We spend more time at work with coworkers than we do with our family’s. We need to rethink our work model.Please, I am not going back
Good.
I intend to find a fully remote role and then move back to a cheaper city.
Not everyone needs to live in San Francisco
If it really has to be hybrid only, would it be better if the in person office was set to one week a month? That way the remaining 3 weeks employees can do WFH, and also decide which one week/5days they would like to go in person.
I feel like this approach would make it more collaborative for employees as they can decide which days they want to go in person, probably pick a day when some/few office colleagues want to go into the office. Any important meetings can also be set for those days. People wouldn’t have to move to their actual cities in this fashion, also companies would still be seeing people in the office. Just a thought.
As a 59yo I have come to appreciate how my future post work (fulltime) life may look, and what limits I'd need to place on EITHER WFH or Back-To-Office life.
So thank you plague, for showing me what my future holds.
I need to figure out how to segregate my work issued laptop from the rest of my home network when I'm working from home. I don't trust work IT to not be scanning traffic on my home network.
Despite a lot people leaving the workforce permanently, the stock market keeps going up, GDP forecasts are very strong, and so are corporate profits. It goes to show the remarkable ability of companies to adapt in the face of adversity, and also the resiliency of the US consumer ,especially the high-end consumer. "If 50% of employees quit, fine, we'll just boost the productivity by 100% of the 50% who remain using cloud, zoom, and other services"
> the stock market keeps going up
It's not because of productivity gains, the Fed has been pumping money into the economy without regard for inflation and we're finally seeing the financial system respond. everything is more expensive, not just stocks.
While this is true, the stock market gained something like 20% while CPI is sitting at ~5%.
Given the high-inflation environment we seem to be in currently, I wonder if employees might actually start to capture some of that increased productivity in the form of increased compensation?
I don't expect employers to pay more willingly, but if these supply/demand changes continue, perhaps they won't have an alternative?
The stock market has been going up because the Fed has not stopped pumping money into it.
I wonder if partial WFH causes more or less environmental pressure in in the bigger picture. No need for daily travel from the worker's perspective, but e.g energy usage at home increases. Also, companies still keep their office spaces with all the creature comforts, heat those buildings "just in case", etc. It's like we have double options for everything now.
I think there's a pretty big downside to WFH: lack of in-person contact reduces team bonds which causes much more... volatility? I.e arguments are more likely to spiral out of control since you don't really know other people / care about them.
A concrete hypothesis might be: Less people would have left Base Camp if they were not remote.
I mean, it’s your choice if you don’t want to meet up with your team. Lunch or coffee probably won’t be forbidden by company policy.
Not really true is it? WFH can mean I'm in Seattle and you're in San Diego. Not exactly a quick trip to the local cafe.
What you're describing seems more like a remote gig. I don't read WFM and remote as the same thing. Remote is WFM but WFM is not necessarily remote. You can have an in-office job that's WFM for 4 days per week, but that's not remote.
If it has to be hybrid only, then how about going into office for one week a month and the employees can pick whichever days they want to go in person to office and do WFH the rest of the month. I feel like this will make employees collaborate more and choose to come in person on specific days all together.
A lot of middle & senior level "aggregator+PPT+strategy rejig only" managers are going to find themselves out of a job if people dont come back into offices. The actual "task doers" will hopefully get their way this time.
If people haven't been changing jobs in the past year, and a typical tech turnover is 15%, we can probably expect a lot of turnover this year. It's going to be an interesting amount of churn.
I cant wait until I can go back to the office 100%. WFH, while convenient, is something I never wanted. I didnt want it 20 years ago when I started to work, and I dont want it full time today either, even with the covid experience. Human interaction is not tradable, and online conferencing sucks even more then a real meeting.
That's fine! (I've said this in another similar thread recently:) The push here (to the extent that it's organized) should not be "abolish offices, everyone is remote". It should be "trust people to choose the environment where they work best". If you like the office, then you should be able to choose a company that has an office for you to work in. I personally work remotely and find it suits me. But I wouldn't mind working in a hybrid situation either, where being in the office was occasional/available.
> then you should be able to choose a company that has an office for you to work in
This is the key part though, this isn't an individual choice, it's a company (or at least team) one.
If the rest of your team is in the office, and you aren't, then you aren't going to be "in the loop" and you aren't going to be an effective engineer.
If the rest of your team is not in the office, and you are, well, at that point it's not really different from a coworking space. The advantages of in person communication simply don't exist.
So... expect teams changing from/to in office to be painful, people who disagree are going to have to choose over leaving or sucking it up, and that's not a nice choice to be making. Unfortunately this is somewhat viral between teams too, because your manager is effectively on the "manager team" as well as the local team, and people do move around between team...
Moreover there will be plenty of times were you want to work for company X for reasons unrelated to whether or not they work from an office, you like the company mission, the technology, etc. As a result even once things settle down you can't expect everyone to be happy with the office/no-office/partial-office choice that is made...
The problem is that the "I like the office and everyone else should too because it legitimizes and popularizes my choices" crowd will never say that out loud so you don't know which arguments are in earnest.
Well, probably a lot of "I like the office" implies "... because I like being around my coworkers" and that obviously falls apart if you're the only one.
And if the feeling wasn't reciprocated, maybe that's for the best.
I would go back to office if my commute was like 20 minutes by bike and I would share a small office with one to three other people on my team.
But my commute is 1 hour one way, some people don’t get seats on the train, U-Bahn in Berlin is like a can of sardines during rush hour and the bigger part of my team is in another country and the customer is at the other side of Germany. And the office is one big open office with ~40 people working. You need noise canceling headphones to keep your sanity. I couldn’t focus without them.
I‘m glad they don’t want to force us to come back.
My commute is a 5 minute walk. And thats no accident. I very deliberately chose my flat to be quite near to work. Has saved me about 5000 hours of commute time so far.
I love how that's an obvious option for everyone else too! /s
Yeah, my wife has a 10 minute commute by bike. I make her change her job, so I can be nearer to mine.
No, sorry, it’s great where I live. Great nature around the corner, everything walkable, still a town with restaurants, but there aren’t that many interesting full stack dev and devops jobs and they didn’t pay as good. So, I’ll stay remote as long as I can.
For those starting out in SV now, that’s usually a choice of giving up a great job or paying super expensive rent/putting all your savings in a house or packing in with roommates.
We need some way to support both preferences. I’ve also been working professionally for more than 20 years and I absolutely hate working in an office. This past year working from home has done more to improve my mental health than I could possibly imagine. Just the thought of having to work in an office again makes me sick. But I can also understand that there are people like you. I don’t really understand why you feel that way, but I don’t really need to as long as accommodations are made for both people like me and people like you.
We online conference for our meetings anyway, so mine as well do it from the comfort of our homes.
Good for you. Just don't be surprised if you're the only one at the office when you get there, though. You might need to find human interaction outside work.
Being the only one talking to the VPs and CEO in the office during lunch is probably going to be a great career boost. So don't be surprised when the people who go into the office get the nice promotions and you don't.
Interestingly my whole team is very much in favor of being in the office a few days a week.
I think a lot of people on the 100% remote side of the debate are heavily underestimating the value of relationship building and team cohesion (for most people). You can't replace the frequent face to face social interactions, lunches, and drinks after work with a Zoom call. We are social animals and the more channels there are in an interaction (words, voice, body language, etc...) the richer that interaction is, and the more we get out of it. A likely counter to this will be "well I don't care about those things", ok, that's fine, but that is not true for everybody.
"Team cohesion" can work against you if you don't fit (which can be caused by a large variety of reasons). So maybe people estimate it very well, and calculate that less interaction is better.
No one said your co-workers must or should be your only social connections. Simply that it helps if they are A social connection.
You're still going to deal with your co-workers eight hours a day. Dealing with people who think of you as a friend is a lot easier than with people who don't.
Firstly, the context of what I wrote was building trust and team cohesion within the organization. I don't think having or not having friends and family is relevant to that.
Secondly, we spend a lot of our finite lives working, do you want that part of your life to be cold and robotic? Wouldn't life be richer with a wide range of human relationships?
Lots of different valid opinions, here. I've worked about half my career remote. In terms of team cohesion, socialization, and communication, I've seen remote outperform in-person and vice-versa.
Can't you have multiple Zoom calls with some one-on-one rather than a single Zoom call?
Do you have good internet? If not, upgrading it might improve the video signal.
What about something like Discord with voice setup so you can literally chat every five minutes if you want?
Could you not use one of the VR programs on Oculus Quest that create virtual meeting rooms like Spatial?
What about playing a game together once a week online? Could be something that requires a ton of cooperation like Rainbow Six.
I'm not saying that real lunches or whatever are not great and a step up in bandwidth, but I feel like if you really take advantage of all of the possibilities then you can still have social opportunities online that can build real cohesion. Which I think you are not really trying.
Agree with this assessment. I don’t care what anybody says, zoom and slack cannot replace sitting next to your teammmates.
Because in most companies, you're having lunch with VPs and CEOs regularly? I've only worked at one company where I regularly saw anybody at the VP level and up on a regular basis. Unless you're working at a small company, this example just doesn't have any basis in reality.
I was poking fun at them saying no one will be in the office by pointing out that if you're literally the only non-manager in the office then you've got some advantages.
Most promotions happen by moving jobs anyways, so eh.
And the best jobs go to personal referrals from those who are trusted. Which is easier if the VP you used to work with is vouching for you than if they don't know you.
Where do you work that the C-level people eat in the same place as the office workers?
I’ve worked at a Fortune 500 company for 20 years and I’ve never so much as seen a C-level person, even though we all work on the same campus. They have separate parking garages, separate buildings, separate fitness facilities, separate eating facilities, etc.
I know your comment was tongue-in-cheek, but some seem to believe this.
From what I've seen, its a losing game. You can kiss all the ass you want, socialize whatever. But when there is an opening in companies like that, it seems like the boss's son-in-law/college crony/etc. always gets the job..
Where I live, people are apparently not a chicken as where you live... Most of my coworkers are happy to go back to the office. I guess we have about 10% which would like to have full WHF. OTOH, I also dont care what the majority wants. What counts to me is what I want.
Yeah, something tells me the fact that your coworkers are more excited to be back in person doesn't have anything to do with how brave you all are.
Maybe consider that are other reasons besides fear for why people prefer to work in an environment that is productive for them?
So far, I only know:
* Doesnt want to go back to work because of fear of infection * Wants to go back to work because she cant stand the kids and her husband anymore
I havent heard any other stories so far. Maybe because I am not allowed to stay very long at the office...
Right? Hey bro, I really don’t need to interact with you. You think I give a shit about your need for human interaction when you’re making me commute daily and pretend to fake work half the time at a desk.
Fuck that, go to a bar, I don’t need friends.
You are a lazy piece of shit!!! I hope you all quit so you don’t get unemployment. I have never herd of such stupid words come out of a persons mouth. Lose your cars and home then live in the streets I will laugh my ass off. Oh but you would want welfare because you are entitled, the only thing you are entitled to is get off your ass and go back to work like the people who have been on the front line this entire pandemic. There are plenty of qualified people to do your jobs, people like you are why the world is having a shortage on about everything that is a commodity. Let’s talk about wasted time like every time your lazy fat ass gets hungry you stay logged on and go fix a snack which takes 20-30 minutes and then you have to shit for the third time in the am and don’t forget you tend to your kids for another 20-30 minutes because your husband who is supposed to be working from home is out mowing the lawn, because you want to get a early start to the weekend and you don’t want to use your personal time to mow and clean the house. You are a piece of work!!!! Then let’s talk about the amount of work accomplished, you can’t complete the task because it takes approval or some kind of input from someone else but your not going to the office until Monday ,oh did I mentioned it was Tuesday and the person who has to sigh off on your task won’t be in until Thursday and then again you won’t get it until the following Monday now two weeks ave gone by for something that you could have walked over to there cubicle and had them sign off in 15 minutes or less. You and everyone like you is why we are in the state we are in. I hope you do quit and take your lazy friends with you. The average person working from home is working less than 50% of the time and accomplishing even less so quit we will hire people who want a job and are willing to show up to work for it. Thank you to all those who have continued to put there self out there, so lazy pieces of shit could either wfh (lmfao) or collect unemployment good luck to you and your family I fill sorry for your pitiful children who will suffer because of your laziness and take a shower I can smell you from here. I know you will also do that while you are on the clock.
WFH doesn't seem worth all this anger. It emphasizes to me that Internet rage/outrage is a social activity, to a degree, an exciting opportunity to join with others, share emotions with them, and have some power.