Return-to-Office Mandates: How to Lose Your Best Performers(sloanreview.mit.edu)
sloanreview.mit.edu
Return-to-Office Mandates: How to Lose Your Best Performers
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/return-to-office-mandates-how-to-lose-your-best-performers/
105 comments
They want people to RTO because it gives middle management who can't get up to date with how to manage a remote team a job to do: micromanage, and because execs have 0 trust in the people they hire.
It essentially all comes down to this, they're worried about people not working when they can't keep their eyes on them at all times. What they can't seem to grasp is that people are already not working much of the time even in an office due to a variety of reasons - smalltalk, watercooler chats, distractions from the all too common open office environment, coffee breaks, useless events/activities that give HR teams something to do, people taking longer lunches due to having to drive somewhere etc.
Additionally real-estate value even though none of them will mention it. People not in the office lowers the value of their investment.
It essentially all comes down to this, they're worried about people not working when they can't keep their eyes on them at all times. What they can't seem to grasp is that people are already not working much of the time even in an office due to a variety of reasons - smalltalk, watercooler chats, distractions from the all too common open office environment, coffee breaks, useless events/activities that give HR teams something to do, people taking longer lunches due to having to drive somewhere etc.
Additionally real-estate value even though none of them will mention it. People not in the office lowers the value of their investment.
I am someone who went out of their way to find an on-site job. Our current hours are Mon-Thr, 10 - 2:30 pm, with remote on Friday, which is a really great balance.
Smalltalk, coffee breaks, etc, are a productivity boon. Random conversations about what other people are working on are much more likely to occur in person as opposed to online. You can’t tell me that the social interactions on Slack even remotely approach the social interactions in person.
Working remote is lonely and erodes a foundational element of sociability. You spend a good portion of your waking hours at work. Your coworkers are your friends.
Also, there is no doubt in my mind that people take longer HN and Reddit breaks while at home than they would at the office with their coworkers having a view on their screens. This isn’t about the panopticon of the management class and more the impetus to be pulling your weight.
There’s just something that is enhanced about any interactions that happen in person. As a broad social trend we need to fight against the retreat from actual human interactions.
Smalltalk, coffee breaks, etc, are a productivity boon. Random conversations about what other people are working on are much more likely to occur in person as opposed to online. You can’t tell me that the social interactions on Slack even remotely approach the social interactions in person.
Working remote is lonely and erodes a foundational element of sociability. You spend a good portion of your waking hours at work. Your coworkers are your friends.
Also, there is no doubt in my mind that people take longer HN and Reddit breaks while at home than they would at the office with their coworkers having a view on their screens. This isn’t about the panopticon of the management class and more the impetus to be pulling your weight.
There’s just something that is enhanced about any interactions that happen in person. As a broad social trend we need to fight against the retreat from actual human interactions.
> Working remote is lonely and erodes a foundational element of sociability. You spend a good portion of your waking hours at work. Your coworkers are your friends.
This statement particularly irked me. Because you’re making the condition of someone being a friend contingent on “amount of time spent with them”.
Tomorrow I’m meeting someone I haven’t seen in about six months. He helped me get out of a very dark place a few years ago. I’m meeting him tomorrow because I want to.
I choose to spend time with my friends. I choose spending three hours on a Wednesday night speaking to a group of friends. I choose to travel for six hours to see my friend in London every few months.
I do not choose my co-workers — the company chooses for me most of the time.
(Yes, I can switch companies. I know that’s a thing).
Working remotely doesn’t have to be lonely. It’s only as lonely as you make it. Go do your work in a coffee shop or something I dunno.
This statement particularly irked me. Because you’re making the condition of someone being a friend contingent on “amount of time spent with them”.
Tomorrow I’m meeting someone I haven’t seen in about six months. He helped me get out of a very dark place a few years ago. I’m meeting him tomorrow because I want to.
I choose to spend time with my friends. I choose spending three hours on a Wednesday night speaking to a group of friends. I choose to travel for six hours to see my friend in London every few months.
I do not choose my co-workers — the company chooses for me most of the time.
(Yes, I can switch companies. I know that’s a thing).
Working remotely doesn’t have to be lonely. It’s only as lonely as you make it. Go do your work in a coffee shop or something I dunno.
Where did you meet most of your friends? Grade school? College? Church? Did you pick them as well? The truth of the matter is that most friends are friends of convenience.
Are you apt to make friends in a coffee shop? Most people are much more guarded and less social in a coffee shop because they're clearly busy and on a completely different team.
Are you apt to make friends in a coffee shop? Most people are much more guarded and less social in a coffee shop because they're clearly busy and on a completely different team.
[deleted]
Is this a Silicon Valley thing? I've certainly never thought of a coffee shop this way. I sung along to a bad 90s rock cover at one once with about 30 other people. It was a great time.
>Working remote is lonely and erodes a foundational element of sociability. You spend a good portion of your waking hours at work. Your coworkers are your friends.
Thats where you do need to explicitly make effort outside of work to fill that gap. You could also make the argument that commuting 90 minutes a day is a regular time suck for you that could be spent doing other productive things.
>Also, there is no doubt in my mind that people take longer HN and Reddit breaks while at home than they would at the office with their coworkers having a view on their screens.
oh, so smoker breaks lol. as long as they're getting the work done, why do you give a shit?
>As a broad social trend we need to fight against the retreat from actual human interactions.
There's nothing stopping you from doing that outside of work, but you need to be more mindful about doing it
Thats where you do need to explicitly make effort outside of work to fill that gap. You could also make the argument that commuting 90 minutes a day is a regular time suck for you that could be spent doing other productive things.
>Also, there is no doubt in my mind that people take longer HN and Reddit breaks while at home than they would at the office with their coworkers having a view on their screens.
oh, so smoker breaks lol. as long as they're getting the work done, why do you give a shit?
>As a broad social trend we need to fight against the retreat from actual human interactions.
There's nothing stopping you from doing that outside of work, but you need to be more mindful about doing it
> you do need to explicitly make effort outside of work to fill that gap
On the one hand, I don’t disagree. On the other, I think this is something that is easy to say, and really hard to implement in practice.
The workplace has been a critical part of the social fabric for a very long time. And the opportunities for finding social connection outside of work are very unevenly distributed, and for the tech industry in particular, we tend to be less likely to have the personalities/skills to create a healthy social life on our own.
Does this need to change? Yeah, probably. I know I’ve personally had to work hard to cultivate social connections. But we should not underestimate the impact of just removing one of the largest social building blocks wholesale. Even if people can adjust, that doesn’t happen magically/automatically.
> There's nothing stopping you from doing that outside of work
There are many things that stop people. If you work a stressful job and/or have kids, your energy may be gone. If you’re a socially anxious person, your anxiety tells you it’s better to stay home. If you live in an area that doesn’t provide many social opportunities, you have that to contend with.
The reality is that society has been trending towards more and more isolation, and while I agree that we can each individually try to do something about that, I don’t think we should underestimate the challenge or assume that it’s just as easy as being “more mindful”.
Some of these issues are systemic, and in the same way you can’t tell a depressed person to just “look on the bright side”, we need to be discussing the deeper issues that are exacerbated by fully remote environments. I’m not saying blind RTO mandates are the solution either, but neither should we discount the challenge people face as the social fabric goes through these massive changes.
On the one hand, I don’t disagree. On the other, I think this is something that is easy to say, and really hard to implement in practice.
The workplace has been a critical part of the social fabric for a very long time. And the opportunities for finding social connection outside of work are very unevenly distributed, and for the tech industry in particular, we tend to be less likely to have the personalities/skills to create a healthy social life on our own.
Does this need to change? Yeah, probably. I know I’ve personally had to work hard to cultivate social connections. But we should not underestimate the impact of just removing one of the largest social building blocks wholesale. Even if people can adjust, that doesn’t happen magically/automatically.
> There's nothing stopping you from doing that outside of work
There are many things that stop people. If you work a stressful job and/or have kids, your energy may be gone. If you’re a socially anxious person, your anxiety tells you it’s better to stay home. If you live in an area that doesn’t provide many social opportunities, you have that to contend with.
The reality is that society has been trending towards more and more isolation, and while I agree that we can each individually try to do something about that, I don’t think we should underestimate the challenge or assume that it’s just as easy as being “more mindful”.
Some of these issues are systemic, and in the same way you can’t tell a depressed person to just “look on the bright side”, we need to be discussing the deeper issues that are exacerbated by fully remote environments. I’m not saying blind RTO mandates are the solution either, but neither should we discount the challenge people face as the social fabric goes through these massive changes.
This is how I understand your position:
At core, it is about prioritization of strategies to facilitate mental health. In office work makes it easy to not explicitly or skip prioritizing socialization because its already there, for the most part. Without that prioritization, it can be easy to become undisciplined in maintaining those strategies for mental health
Been there a few times. For me, I love biking and trail riding. Its two wheel therapy for me, particularly on trails because you do need to pay attention. If your mind starts wandering, you'll be ejected over the bars real quick.
And there's hobbies that you can do outside of work, if its a priority for you. But like physical fitness, that's self-driven, and really easy to slack off and lose gains if you don't keep up with it.
But if you take into account the implied requirements for in-office work, that means time lost in commute, and needing to sync travel plans, vehicles, etc. that's the problem I have with blind mandates, they often are benefiting the person making those decisions, regardless of the people who need to implement and execute projects and goals.
At core, it is about prioritization of strategies to facilitate mental health. In office work makes it easy to not explicitly or skip prioritizing socialization because its already there, for the most part. Without that prioritization, it can be easy to become undisciplined in maintaining those strategies for mental health
Been there a few times. For me, I love biking and trail riding. Its two wheel therapy for me, particularly on trails because you do need to pay attention. If your mind starts wandering, you'll be ejected over the bars real quick.
And there's hobbies that you can do outside of work, if its a priority for you. But like physical fitness, that's self-driven, and really easy to slack off and lose gains if you don't keep up with it.
But if you take into account the implied requirements for in-office work, that means time lost in commute, and needing to sync travel plans, vehicles, etc. that's the problem I have with blind mandates, they often are benefiting the person making those decisions, regardless of the people who need to implement and execute projects and goals.
> At core, it is about prioritization of strategies to facilitate mental health.
I don’t think I’d simplify it to this. I think the workplace is one way people have been filling a mental health need.
In another comment [0], I described some of the other reasons I think time in the office is valuable. More broadly, my position is that there are numerous aspects of time in the office that need to be explored and understood, and that a better argument against blind mandates is to identify and work towards suitable alternatives.
> In office work makes it easy to not explicitly or skip prioritizing socialization because its already there, for the most part. Without that prioritization, it can be easy to become undisciplined in maintaining those strategies for mental health
I think it goes beyond this, and I’d reframe it slightly. I don’t think it’s so much about becoming undisciplined, but about the erosion/collapse of long standing social structures without obvious replacements.
The end result may indeed be that we each have to start being disciplined about getting social time. But for a fundamentally social species that launched society to today’s technological heights on a foundation of social systems undermined by that progress, we’re now flailing about in the clouds unsure what to do about it because we’ve largely forgotten how to build IRL communities at a time when we need them most.
I agree that blind RTO mandates are no good. I agree that there are tradeoffs involved like commuting. I’m mostly advocating for a position that doesn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater while society catches up to our new reality. Realistically, this probably involves some hybrid model. Blind mandates are no good, but I think there’s a failure mode at the opposite end of the spectrum as well.
- [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39875309
I don’t think I’d simplify it to this. I think the workplace is one way people have been filling a mental health need.
In another comment [0], I described some of the other reasons I think time in the office is valuable. More broadly, my position is that there are numerous aspects of time in the office that need to be explored and understood, and that a better argument against blind mandates is to identify and work towards suitable alternatives.
> In office work makes it easy to not explicitly or skip prioritizing socialization because its already there, for the most part. Without that prioritization, it can be easy to become undisciplined in maintaining those strategies for mental health
I think it goes beyond this, and I’d reframe it slightly. I don’t think it’s so much about becoming undisciplined, but about the erosion/collapse of long standing social structures without obvious replacements.
The end result may indeed be that we each have to start being disciplined about getting social time. But for a fundamentally social species that launched society to today’s technological heights on a foundation of social systems undermined by that progress, we’re now flailing about in the clouds unsure what to do about it because we’ve largely forgotten how to build IRL communities at a time when we need them most.
I agree that blind RTO mandates are no good. I agree that there are tradeoffs involved like commuting. I’m mostly advocating for a position that doesn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater while society catches up to our new reality. Realistically, this probably involves some hybrid model. Blind mandates are no good, but I think there’s a failure mode at the opposite end of the spectrum as well.
- [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39875309
Smalltalk and coffee breaks can be exhausting for introverts. Some people prefer to concentrate for long on a single task, too.
And for what concerns the time spent working, well, being in an office means nothing as there are plenty of ways to lose time and screw around.
What about we stop treating workers as children that need constant supervision and size them by the quality of their work.
As you grow up, it becomes clear that no size fits all.
And for what concerns the time spent working, well, being in an office means nothing as there are plenty of ways to lose time and screw around.
What about we stop treating workers as children that need constant supervision and size them by the quality of their work.
As you grow up, it becomes clear that no size fits all.
> "Smalltalk and coffee breaks can be exhausting for introverts."
Exhausting or not, introverts need to network _more_ than the average person. Not having built up a personal network by the later stages of their career will leave them high and dry in an industry downturn.
Yeah, yeah, "my work speaks for itself" is true in theory but, given an equal work record, even an introvert is going to favor the co-workers they personally like more.
Exhausting or not, introverts need to network _more_ than the average person. Not having built up a personal network by the later stages of their career will leave them high and dry in an industry downturn.
Yeah, yeah, "my work speaks for itself" is true in theory but, given an equal work record, even an introvert is going to favor the co-workers they personally like more.
Work is exhausting for everyone.
> Smalltalk, coffee breaks, etc, are a productivity boon. Random conversations about what other people are working on are much more likely to occur in person as opposed to online.
That's a problem with an easy cultural solution: sounds like you need an always-on team video call which people commonly drop into when they are having a break! (During Covid, my team started every day this way, with an open call which was usually used for random chat, or sometimes just for silently working in if nobody felt like chatting.)
That's a problem with an easy cultural solution: sounds like you need an always-on team video call which people commonly drop into when they are having a break! (During Covid, my team started every day this way, with an open call which was usually used for random chat, or sometimes just for silently working in if nobody felt like chatting.)
I actually wrote some software for our team to use at the start of lockdown that was just this, always-on group video and audio chat rooms, loosely modeled on the audio rooms in Discord:
https://github.com/williamcotton/present
https://github.com/williamcotton/present
If 10-2:30 jobs were more common, you might find more people agreeing with you. Unfortunately, those are exceedingly rare.
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Who pays people to drink coffee and chat about Netflix?
Not successful businesses or businesses with any sort of audit requirements.
Or are you hoping the employees do that “small talk” off the clock?
Lastly, open office layouts suck. That’s where smalltalk happens. It doesn’t happen when everyone is in their own office.
Not successful businesses or businesses with any sort of audit requirements.
Or are you hoping the employees do that “small talk” off the clock?
Lastly, open office layouts suck. That’s where smalltalk happens. It doesn’t happen when everyone is in their own office.
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I agree that some of the reasons behind RTO boil down to control.
But I don't agree that this is the only reason, and I think we need to be discussing the reasons RTO can be beneficial, so that we can have a more productive conversation about how to replicate the benefits without blindly applied RTO mandates.
> they can't seem to grasp is that people are already not working much of the time even in an office due to a variety of reasons - smalltalk, watercooler chats, distractions from the all too common open office environment, coffee breaks, useless events/activities
I don’t think that framing this as “not working” gets at what’s happening. Humans are a social species. Working effectively as a group is directly benefited by this kind of “non work”. If you restrict the definition of “working” to just the moments in a day where someone is creating some kind of measurable “productive” output, I think something important is missed. The company is still made of humans. These humans are working on highly complex and interrelated tasks, and fostering an environment of social connection is arguably as important as doing the “strictly work” parts of the job.
Prior to COVID, I was remote but I still went to the office periodically. Those office visits were like filling my gas tank. More communication and collaboration happened during those hallway and water cooler conversations than hours/days of emails and meetings could accomplish. There was a fluidity to it. Start a conversation with Person A about <Project>, arrive at a realization that we need to take to Person B, walk to their desk and bring them up to speed, they know another key stakeholder and pull them in, and 20 minutes later we have consensus on something that would have taken hours or days to align on everyone’s schedules. Multiply this times dozens of complex issues, and the easy access to direct conversations was invaluable.
Getting back home was also important because I could then go deep on tasks that required long periods of focus.
I’m not saying I think RTO is the only answer. But I have yet to see anything close to the kind of collaboration and connection that is possible in a collocated environment. Companies have proven that it’s possible if it’s baked into the core of their culture, e.g. GitLab, but the reality is that most companies aren’t built this way, and many people aren’t built this way.
So yes, I agree that RTO for the purpose of control is a problem. It’s also not the only reason for RTO, and we need to broaden the conversation to find solutions to the human social collaboration that has been lost.
But I don't agree that this is the only reason, and I think we need to be discussing the reasons RTO can be beneficial, so that we can have a more productive conversation about how to replicate the benefits without blindly applied RTO mandates.
> they can't seem to grasp is that people are already not working much of the time even in an office due to a variety of reasons - smalltalk, watercooler chats, distractions from the all too common open office environment, coffee breaks, useless events/activities
I don’t think that framing this as “not working” gets at what’s happening. Humans are a social species. Working effectively as a group is directly benefited by this kind of “non work”. If you restrict the definition of “working” to just the moments in a day where someone is creating some kind of measurable “productive” output, I think something important is missed. The company is still made of humans. These humans are working on highly complex and interrelated tasks, and fostering an environment of social connection is arguably as important as doing the “strictly work” parts of the job.
Prior to COVID, I was remote but I still went to the office periodically. Those office visits were like filling my gas tank. More communication and collaboration happened during those hallway and water cooler conversations than hours/days of emails and meetings could accomplish. There was a fluidity to it. Start a conversation with Person A about <Project>, arrive at a realization that we need to take to Person B, walk to their desk and bring them up to speed, they know another key stakeholder and pull them in, and 20 minutes later we have consensus on something that would have taken hours or days to align on everyone’s schedules. Multiply this times dozens of complex issues, and the easy access to direct conversations was invaluable.
Getting back home was also important because I could then go deep on tasks that required long periods of focus.
I’m not saying I think RTO is the only answer. But I have yet to see anything close to the kind of collaboration and connection that is possible in a collocated environment. Companies have proven that it’s possible if it’s baked into the core of their culture, e.g. GitLab, but the reality is that most companies aren’t built this way, and many people aren’t built this way.
So yes, I agree that RTO for the purpose of control is a problem. It’s also not the only reason for RTO, and we need to broaden the conversation to find solutions to the human social collaboration that has been lost.
> But I have yet to see anything close to the kind of collaboration and connection that is possible in a collocated environment.
The head of data science came over to my flat for an afternoon on two separate occasions in the last year.
Without a shadow of doubt, those were the most productive meetings I’ve had in the last year.
And that included full afternoon workshops in a rented meeting room with the executives.
Co-located collaboration doesn’t need to mean “working in the same building which the company is paying rent on”.
If we had a bigger team, hell, I’d be happy for them to all come over and hang at mine for an afternoon while we get stuff done. I’d buy coffee, order some food, make copious cups of tea for everyone! Put on some records, show off my synths. Make a fun day out of it.
So, I agree. Colocated collaboration is important.
It doesn’t need to happen in a stuffy open plan office though!
Alternatives do exist… but the “suits” will never, ever, agree to things like this ^
The head of data science came over to my flat for an afternoon on two separate occasions in the last year.
Without a shadow of doubt, those were the most productive meetings I’ve had in the last year.
And that included full afternoon workshops in a rented meeting room with the executives.
Co-located collaboration doesn’t need to mean “working in the same building which the company is paying rent on”.
If we had a bigger team, hell, I’d be happy for them to all come over and hang at mine for an afternoon while we get stuff done. I’d buy coffee, order some food, make copious cups of tea for everyone! Put on some records, show off my synths. Make a fun day out of it.
So, I agree. Colocated collaboration is important.
It doesn’t need to happen in a stuffy open plan office though!
Alternatives do exist… but the “suits” will never, ever, agree to things like this ^
Completely agree that this kind of collaboration can (and probably should) be done in new ways.
I do think this kind of focused work is distinct from the kind of hallway catchups that happen organically that just don’t in a remote environment, but even just having a standing “we all meet at <place> at <interval>” would go a long way.
I do think this kind of focused work is distinct from the kind of hallway catchups that happen organically that just don’t in a remote environment, but even just having a standing “we all meet at <place> at <interval>” would go a long way.
i am remote since 2010. I used to love to go to the office each 3 months, spend a week there. Now office is empty, company decided to down-size it, moving to another place and people go just to office in Summer to abuse the air-conditioning.. It is said that we lost the office, which use to be the place where we used to build a strong team spirit and have important discussions or team events..
This would make sense if the managers were in the same offices as the workers, but at least from my experience, they aren’t. You still have VC all your meetings.
>> Office workers dont "make" anything. i know that sounds rude but i cant think of another way to describe it...office workers "work" is all between their ears?
For some projects the entire scope can fit inside a single head, but as the scope and complexity increase the work happens between the brains. This is where the issue lies. Collaboration is critical for most projects of any real significance. This is where offices are helpful. If you simply think about an individual’s work and not the team’s collective output, then offices don’t make sense.
I see a lot of people focusing on management in this thread, but in my experience collaboration is the responsibility of everyone. From an IC’s perspective, I found working at a remote company to be generally unpleasant. People would routinely engage in sandbagging, delays and it would be difficult to understand why things are blocked. I found that trust was lower, and people were far less collegial. This is true to some extent of remote teams as well, so I think there is just something in how the brain works that doesn’t click with taking orders from a television.
There are many instances where being at home heads down is much better for getting work done and strict rto mandates are generally unhelpful in these instances. But ultimately the conversations around this typically end up trying to talk past the point or gloss over the bigger issues which is that a healthy and productive team is what matters.
For some projects the entire scope can fit inside a single head, but as the scope and complexity increase the work happens between the brains. This is where the issue lies. Collaboration is critical for most projects of any real significance. This is where offices are helpful. If you simply think about an individual’s work and not the team’s collective output, then offices don’t make sense.
I see a lot of people focusing on management in this thread, but in my experience collaboration is the responsibility of everyone. From an IC’s perspective, I found working at a remote company to be generally unpleasant. People would routinely engage in sandbagging, delays and it would be difficult to understand why things are blocked. I found that trust was lower, and people were far less collegial. This is true to some extent of remote teams as well, so I think there is just something in how the brain works that doesn’t click with taking orders from a television.
There are many instances where being at home heads down is much better for getting work done and strict rto mandates are generally unhelpful in these instances. But ultimately the conversations around this typically end up trying to talk past the point or gloss over the bigger issues which is that a healthy and productive team is what matters.
Good point to identify collaboration as the more important variable, but of course plenty of orgs figure out how to collaborate effectively while remote. In fact, almost every org that achieves moderate scale will have to figure that out.
> From an IC’s perspective, I found working at a remote company to be…
What was your control group?
> From an IC’s perspective, I found working at a remote company to be…
What was your control group?
Of course plenty of orgs are able to collaborate effectively remotely. But in my experience these orgs are the exception. My experience is that most companies, especially as they get larger, are unable to facilitate a strong collaborative environment while remote.
> but of course plenty of orgs figure out how to collaborate effectively while remote.
Some do, but most don't. Too many companies seem to think becoming remote means just installing Zoom on everybody's computers and sending them home. In reality, there is a lot more to it than that.
No remote technology comes close to having collaborators together in a room with a whiteboard, with a well-defined agenda. But while remote collaboration is less efficient, it doesn't mean it can't work. You just have to recognize that things are going to move slower and consensus of opinion will take more time.
Some do, but most don't. Too many companies seem to think becoming remote means just installing Zoom on everybody's computers and sending them home. In reality, there is a lot more to it than that.
No remote technology comes close to having collaborators together in a room with a whiteboard, with a well-defined agenda. But while remote collaboration is less efficient, it doesn't mean it can't work. You just have to recognize that things are going to move slower and consensus of opinion will take more time.
Where’s the work on converging the two so (ideally) it doesn’t matter if you’re in the office or not?
I spend half my work time in a chem lab and half not in the lab. I would benefit if the two environments were not so disjoint.
> No remote technology comes close to having collaborators together in a room with a whiteboard, with a well-defined agenda.
Sad to say this is very true (with a minescule number of lucky exceptions IME). There is a lot of effort going into trying to narrow the gap but no breakthroughs yet that I have seen.
But there seems to be no work on the opposite.
For example these days it’s pretty routine to have automatic transcripts and recordings of zoom calls posted in the appropriate slack channels so you can catch up on parts (or all) you missed, refer to a discussion that might not have felt significant at the time, and so on. That stuff doesn’t exist in meatspace meetings.
The random asynchronous slack remark in the middle of the night can be transformative (most of course are useless). The same is true running into someone at the coffee machine.
We’re a startup but every morning we have a deliberately agendaless, unstructured call (late enough that kids are at school and you’ve had time to catch up on things if you want). Sometimes it’s 20 minutes and sometimes three hours. We ended up doing a major technology pivot as a result of this. But this doesn’t scale.
I spend half my work time in a chem lab and half not in the lab. I would benefit if the two environments were not so disjoint.
> No remote technology comes close to having collaborators together in a room with a whiteboard, with a well-defined agenda.
Sad to say this is very true (with a minescule number of lucky exceptions IME). There is a lot of effort going into trying to narrow the gap but no breakthroughs yet that I have seen.
But there seems to be no work on the opposite.
For example these days it’s pretty routine to have automatic transcripts and recordings of zoom calls posted in the appropriate slack channels so you can catch up on parts (or all) you missed, refer to a discussion that might not have felt significant at the time, and so on. That stuff doesn’t exist in meatspace meetings.
The random asynchronous slack remark in the middle of the night can be transformative (most of course are useless). The same is true running into someone at the coffee machine.
We’re a startup but every morning we have a deliberately agendaless, unstructured call (late enough that kids are at school and you’ve had time to catch up on things if you want). Sometimes it’s 20 minutes and sometimes three hours. We ended up doing a major technology pivot as a result of this. But this doesn’t scale.
Because our jobs are collaborative by nature, and zoom can't replace in person interactions. It's also not only meetings. Social interactions are important too. Some of my colleagues became friends, or at least people I feel I can trust in the workplace. This would be hard to achieve purely remote.
Now I'm not saying everybody should return to office, and I've been full remote for several years now, and I'm a bit worried that it's not going to last. But objectively, there's value to work in the office. It's not all black or white.
Now I'm not saying everybody should return to office, and I've been full remote for several years now, and I'm a bit worried that it's not going to last. But objectively, there's value to work in the office. It's not all black or white.
I have found that what can replace in-person interactions for discussion of thought processes and ideas is medium- to long-form writing. A lot of people either don't know how to do it or hate doing it (so they don't do it), but I believe that it is necessary to have a culture of document writing if you want to be successfully remote.
That is a big part of the cultural divide I have seen on remote work. A lot of people who are used to doing long-form writing are very comfortable working remote and building a remote culture (see Hey and Oxide for two big examples). People who do not like long-form writing and want to have meetings instead (eg bank executives and the current YC partners) are pushing for the office.
The social stuff is true - a lot of people used to use the office to find friends and romantic partners, and that is not going to happen over zoom calls or essays.
That is a big part of the cultural divide I have seen on remote work. A lot of people who are used to doing long-form writing are very comfortable working remote and building a remote culture (see Hey and Oxide for two big examples). People who do not like long-form writing and want to have meetings instead (eg bank executives and the current YC partners) are pushing for the office.
The social stuff is true - a lot of people used to use the office to find friends and romantic partners, and that is not going to happen over zoom calls or essays.
Long form writing, while very useful, is no silver bullet. Sometimes the most effective way to make a decision (or just clarify misconceptions) is to get people into the same room and talk things through.
That's why you write some position papers and then get people on a zoom call with that specific topic when you need to talk it out. No ambling daily standups or weekly standing "progress update" meetings - use focused meetings with a specific topic.
This is how many successful engineering and knowledge organizations through the years have functioned (s/zoom call/meeting/).
This is how many successful engineering and knowledge organizations through the years have functioned (s/zoom call/meeting/).
> That's why you write some position papers and then get people on a zoom call with that specific topic when you need to talk it out.
That sounds like a good option in cases when you're already aligned on what problem you're trying to solve. If not, you might spend days researching a problem and writing a paper on something you don't need to solve.
That sounds like a good option in cases when you're already aligned on what problem you're trying to solve. If not, you might spend days researching a problem and writing a paper on something you don't need to solve.
the engineering culture of the last century has largely been lost in software. design documents, well-scoped technical meetings, plans of record, schedules.
what you lose in remote is its replacement, a kind of freewheeling, ad hoc, piecewise discussion where everything just evolves organically.
while I enjoy the latter, the constraints of remote force the former in order to function at all. and it really does have its benefits.
what you lose in remote is its replacement, a kind of freewheeling, ad hoc, piecewise discussion where everything just evolves organically.
while I enjoy the latter, the constraints of remote force the former in order to function at all. and it really does have its benefits.
well put. I work from home since 2011. My team was 90% of people working from office. 10% from Home. Now we have 10% working from office and 90% from home. The team cannot perform, there is people that simply cannot perform from home but dont want to go back to office. Team spirit from home is almost inexistent. We killed our team spirit and the quarterly meetings that we had in the office (which means people working from home, would go to the office and spend a week there), because it became to expensive. Managers dont know what to do, but its clear that something has to be done.
Why can't your team perform?
Collaboration can exist and grow if its fostered. The same things that foster collaboration in office can be done remotely, but you do need to be explicit about it.
One thing remote does select for is those people who are independently productive.
Collaboration can exist and grow if its fostered. The same things that foster collaboration in office can be done remotely, but you do need to be explicit about it.
One thing remote does select for is those people who are independently productive.
Is that your experience? I see people loosing the empathy with colleagues, colleagues are just a handle on slack, not committing in the level they should, not attending meetings. Meetings where people are just looking their mobiles, don't turn it on their cameras and don't participate at all at meetings.. It happens a lot and with some people the whole social aspect deteriorates pretty fast. In the office there is a dynamic that for some people is vital, the social aspect... i.e people tend to be much less rude and open to compromise face to face than just online..
I guess at base, what is keeping these people in jobs where collaboration is required, along with a standard of base professionalism and courtesy?
In other words, why haven't these people been counseled to change their act? And if no progress has been made, have them seek employment elsewhere?
Just because you're in a remote environment doesn't give you free reign to be an asshole.
In other words, why haven't these people been counseled to change their act? And if no progress has been made, have them seek employment elsewhere?
Just because you're in a remote environment doesn't give you free reign to be an asshole.
I would push back on the "collaboration" thing a bit because it's an often-used reason for forcing everyone into one place. Yes, tech jobs (we're mostly talking about Software Engineering, so let's just stick with that) are not 100% lone-wolf coding projects where each engineer goes into their vacuum and pumps out software. On the other hand, it doesn't require constant human interaction like a Wall Street trading floor. It's somewhere in the middle, and that's where company culture and deliberate choices come into play.
We don't collaborate constantly like on the trading floor, nor do we have to be available at all times to collaborate. Nothing worse than being in the zone and then having Lumburgh walk up and say, "Heeyyyy, mind if we chat about something right this minute??" I could see a workable scenario where you set aside 1 hour per day as "human interaction time" when you do face-to-face collaboration. And, if that's feasible, then maybe instead you could do 1 day every two weeks or even 1 week every quarter.
I also like full remote, but when I took the job, I made sure that I was within striking distance of the office in case there was something I absolutely couldn't do without this in-person collaboration.
We don't collaborate constantly like on the trading floor, nor do we have to be available at all times to collaborate. Nothing worse than being in the zone and then having Lumburgh walk up and say, "Heeyyyy, mind if we chat about something right this minute??" I could see a workable scenario where you set aside 1 hour per day as "human interaction time" when you do face-to-face collaboration. And, if that's feasible, then maybe instead you could do 1 day every two weeks or even 1 week every quarter.
I also like full remote, but when I took the job, I made sure that I was within striking distance of the office in case there was something I absolutely couldn't do without this in-person collaboration.
> Can anyone break down why these companies want/need people to come back to the office at all? as far as I know, and from everything ive seen, office workers can do this stuff anywhere (even in our shops waiting room.) meetings are all on zoom and VPN is a thing.
As an IC whose manager is nowhere to be seen in the office: I find these questions puzzling. Do folks here notice zero difference when their coworkers are present at their office vs. when they aren't? Claiming you "can" do this stuff anywhere feels similar to claiming you "can" fulfil your body's nutritional needs through drinking Soylet every day. Just because you might be able to that (and maybe you prefer to do it personally) that doesn't mean it's enjoyable or a good idea for everyone.
As an IC whose manager is nowhere to be seen in the office: I find these questions puzzling. Do folks here notice zero difference when their coworkers are present at their office vs. when they aren't? Claiming you "can" do this stuff anywhere feels similar to claiming you "can" fulfil your body's nutritional needs through drinking Soylet every day. Just because you might be able to that (and maybe you prefer to do it personally) that doesn't mean it's enjoyable or a good idea for everyone.
There's a difference between being remote friendly and remote first.
the former is "yeah, you can work from home, but you're going to miss out on alot if you're not at the office"
the latter is "we consciously make sure to integrate everyone in collaboration, regardless of location and have tooling/procedures for collaboration"
If you're asking this question, it might be that you're in a remote friendly environment with explicit lack of communication or collaboration support
the former is "yeah, you can work from home, but you're going to miss out on alot if you're not at the office"
the latter is "we consciously make sure to integrate everyone in collaboration, regardless of location and have tooling/procedures for collaboration"
If you're asking this question, it might be that you're in a remote friendly environment with explicit lack of communication or collaboration support
No, not every conversation is a "collaboration". Do you dial into Zoom during lunch and coffee too? When you grab a coworker passing by do you start a Zoom call to make sure the whole team can spectate your random conversation?
No, but you also make sure to bring it up in slack or whatever to fill in your other teammates when the material is relevant and useful. Or just because?
That's... not how it works for any human being. The whole point of a conversation is that you can engage in it while it's happening. You make a point in the middle when it's relevant, and someone replies with something else they feel is relevant. When you've already had a 30+-minute conversation over lunch, no human is going to remember it and copy to Slack, no remote worker is going to go through and respond point-by-point as if they'd been there in person, and no human who has already invested that time and energy in the conversation is going to re-start the conversation at every juncture just to explore alternative directions it could've gone in person.
What actually happens in the best case is you give a few sentences of summary if you believe it might impact your coworkers' work, and then schedule a meeting if there's more to discuss. Which (ignoring the fact that even the best people don't always do this) is great, except you could be entirely wrong about whether there was anything beneficial for any coworker to hear. That junior engineer on the team might've been able to overhear how you fixed a problem that was second-nature to you, but now they don't. That dude who just returned to work might've been able to tell you they were interested in picking up the work you were overloaded with, but now they don't. That team lead on the adjacent team you would've grabbed during lunch with might've told you they were planning to handle the larger problem next quarter, but now they don't. etc...
What actually happens in the best case is you give a few sentences of summary if you believe it might impact your coworkers' work, and then schedule a meeting if there's more to discuss. Which (ignoring the fact that even the best people don't always do this) is great, except you could be entirely wrong about whether there was anything beneficial for any coworker to hear. That junior engineer on the team might've been able to overhear how you fixed a problem that was second-nature to you, but now they don't. That dude who just returned to work might've been able to tell you they were interested in picking up the work you were overloaded with, but now they don't. That team lead on the adjacent team you would've grabbed during lunch with might've told you they were planning to handle the larger problem next quarter, but now they don't. etc...
that's where communication and collaboration strategies and procedures exist. It can be really easy to have them be mindless things, rather than mindful things. You can use your medium of communication, whether text, ad-hoc calls, or so on. No need to schedule meetings unless both parties are booked for ad-hoc chats
With some examples
* Hey, I was chatting with X a bit ago, couple things came up about service A and B. Got some time for a quick call?
* Hey, I can use a sanity check with this brainstorming session, got any time free? Oh, is Junior X available too?
Not saying your points aren't valid. But the same things would also happen if I were at my desk and you were off talking somewhere. How would you get me into the conversation?
The big difference is mindfulness, I think. Remote communication requires more mindfulness about team and communication, whereas in office you can be really lazy about that.
At the end of the day, its about communication and collaboration, and making sure loops are closed. Reasons for unclosed loops exist, regardless which environment you're in
With some examples
* Hey, I was chatting with X a bit ago, couple things came up about service A and B. Got some time for a quick call?
* Hey, I can use a sanity check with this brainstorming session, got any time free? Oh, is Junior X available too?
Not saying your points aren't valid. But the same things would also happen if I were at my desk and you were off talking somewhere. How would you get me into the conversation?
The big difference is mindfulness, I think. Remote communication requires more mindfulness about team and communication, whereas in office you can be really lazy about that.
At the end of the day, its about communication and collaboration, and making sure loops are closed. Reasons for unclosed loops exist, regardless which environment you're in
> the same things would also happen if I were at my desk and you were off talking somewhere.
Nobody claimed otherwise. The point here is they wouldn't happen when not "off talking somewhere". Like, you know, when there are more than 2 people grabbing coffee/lunch.
> How would you get me into the conversation?
This is indeed no different than when everyone is at the office and you decline to grab lunch with the rest of your team. You miss out in a similar fashion. And just like how nobody is going to replay the entire conversation to you over Slack and restart it at every juncture, nobody is going to do that for you in person... that's just how humans are. The fact that you are capable of missing out in-person in a similar fashion is not an argument for anything.
Nobody claimed otherwise. The point here is they wouldn't happen when not "off talking somewhere". Like, you know, when there are more than 2 people grabbing coffee/lunch.
> How would you get me into the conversation?
This is indeed no different than when everyone is at the office and you decline to grab lunch with the rest of your team. You miss out in a similar fashion. And just like how nobody is going to replay the entire conversation to you over Slack and restart it at every juncture, nobody is going to do that for you in person... that's just how humans are. The fact that you are capable of missing out in-person in a similar fashion is not an argument for anything.
that doesn't mean it's enjoyable or a good idea for everyone.
> Return-to-Office Mandates
The topic under discussion is employers mandating things for everyone, isn't it?
> Return-to-Office Mandates
The topic under discussion is employers mandating things for everyone, isn't it?
Yes, and the point is there's nothing here that will be good for everyone. If you let people ditch the office then those who would benefit from being in person fail to do so. If you force everyone to be in then those who want to be alone will be unhappy. Your preference might be the latter, and that's totally understandable, but that's a very distinct argument from "the latter is inherently better" or "I don't understand the benefits of the former".
> Just because you might be able to that (and maybe you prefer to do it personally) that doesn't mean it's enjoyable or a good idea for everyone.
The inverse of this that's always frustratingly missing from this point of view is going to an office. Just because you might be able to/enjoy to do that, doesn't mean it's enjoyable or a good idea for everyone.
People talking about wanting to stay remote for the most part have some line about RTO people being more than welcome to do so, if that's what they want. But RTO people want EVERYONE back to the office to fulfill their want for social interaction, and their inability to be effective remotely.
Both options need to be available. The stigma for working remote needs to die. The people who choose to work remote need to recognize the tradeoff and work harder to stay in the loop and on task. People in the office need to shut up about wanting EVERYONE back, and need to stop making claims that it's "better." No one size fits all, the world would be a better place if people just minded their own business and stopped looking at their neighbor, who might want to stay working remote. Managers need to hire people they trust so the temptation to micromanage isn't there.
The inverse of this that's always frustratingly missing from this point of view is going to an office. Just because you might be able to/enjoy to do that, doesn't mean it's enjoyable or a good idea for everyone.
People talking about wanting to stay remote for the most part have some line about RTO people being more than welcome to do so, if that's what they want. But RTO people want EVERYONE back to the office to fulfill their want for social interaction, and their inability to be effective remotely.
Both options need to be available. The stigma for working remote needs to die. The people who choose to work remote need to recognize the tradeoff and work harder to stay in the loop and on task. People in the office need to shut up about wanting EVERYONE back, and need to stop making claims that it's "better." No one size fits all, the world would be a better place if people just minded their own business and stopped looking at their neighbor, who might want to stay working remote. Managers need to hire people they trust so the temptation to micromanage isn't there.
I'll throw my two cents in here.
First off, I come from a blue-collar background, and actually enjoy building and repairing physical things, though I hate getting under vehicles. So if you enjoy that kind of work, then remember it because working on increasingly abstract systems can (at least for me) feel increasingly pointless.
I'll say that in person work has the highest bandwidth for collaboration. You're correct that all the work is done between ears, but in large, complex systems, that means multiple peoples' ears. I'm introverted on a level that most people find weird, but when I need to solve a problem that crosses domains in the systems I work on, typing text into a chat client is painfully slow. I want to get everyone involved on a call. What is best is when we're all together at our desks with access to whiteboards; I loathe trying to whiteboard on screens.
There are also management pressures that people chafe against. If your manager just wants to see butts in seats because they want to survey their domain and feel powerful, that is indeed a good reason to reject RTO. But I think good leaders do understand the power of in-person collaboration and can try and ecourage it while also balancing the benefits of remote work. I see this at my current place - our CEO has made it clear that she would like to see people back but has never created any sort of mandate. But some people have returned to hybrid schedules on their own because they find some collaboration helpful. In fact one of the developers and I have made some good progress on goals that have been stalled out for a long time since he started coming in once a week.
Interestingly I also see it in friends who are purely remote; they work for companies that do not have a presence in our town. They've actually started joining co-working spaces in order to get out of the house and get some sense of comraderie.
First off, I come from a blue-collar background, and actually enjoy building and repairing physical things, though I hate getting under vehicles. So if you enjoy that kind of work, then remember it because working on increasingly abstract systems can (at least for me) feel increasingly pointless.
I'll say that in person work has the highest bandwidth for collaboration. You're correct that all the work is done between ears, but in large, complex systems, that means multiple peoples' ears. I'm introverted on a level that most people find weird, but when I need to solve a problem that crosses domains in the systems I work on, typing text into a chat client is painfully slow. I want to get everyone involved on a call. What is best is when we're all together at our desks with access to whiteboards; I loathe trying to whiteboard on screens.
There are also management pressures that people chafe against. If your manager just wants to see butts in seats because they want to survey their domain and feel powerful, that is indeed a good reason to reject RTO. But I think good leaders do understand the power of in-person collaboration and can try and ecourage it while also balancing the benefits of remote work. I see this at my current place - our CEO has made it clear that she would like to see people back but has never created any sort of mandate. But some people have returned to hybrid schedules on their own because they find some collaboration helpful. In fact one of the developers and I have made some good progress on goals that have been stalled out for a long time since he started coming in once a week.
Interestingly I also see it in friends who are purely remote; they work for companies that do not have a presence in our town. They've actually started joining co-working spaces in order to get out of the house and get some sense of comraderie.
It's also clearly a result of the job market turning for tech employment.
The moment the job market stopped being red hot, companies started becoming more and more draconian with RTO.
I think a lot of them see it as low risk with possible upside for the employer.
Of course for employees who have been remote/hybrid for 4 years now, it's often upending lives for questionable benefit.
Your employer doesn't care about you wasting 5-10 hours/week commuting that could be otherwise split between work & family.
The moment the job market stopped being red hot, companies started becoming more and more draconian with RTO.
I think a lot of them see it as low risk with possible upside for the employer.
Of course for employees who have been remote/hybrid for 4 years now, it's often upending lives for questionable benefit.
Your employer doesn't care about you wasting 5-10 hours/week commuting that could be otherwise split between work & family.
Good point. If it were customary (or required) that companies pay for time spent commuting, they'd be less thrilled about mandating return-to-office. As it is today, an employee's 2 hour commute each way doesn't cost the company, it costs his family.
A similar pet peeve of mine are execs who spontaneously demand entire orgs/divisions/teams attend some earlier than normal start time meeting.. or worse, to do so for a new weekly series.
It's like a manager time vs maker time thing.
Execs tend to be later in their career without young children to attend to, making enough to have a non-working spouse (and/or some "help"). Further they tend to be early risers and while they start the day earlier I observe they end their day earlier too, becoming unreachable long before I punch out for the day.
So sure for exec rolling into the office for a 7:30/8 meeting is no big deal. They've already checked train times to ensure it works for THEIR schedule. For everyone else they suddenly need to re-arrange things like school/daycare drop-offs, coordinate with their working spouses work schedule, might need to wake up 2 hours early to buffer for train schedules, etc. Has knock on effects to both spouses schedule the evening before as well.
All so the big guy can pontificate.
It's like a manager time vs maker time thing.
Execs tend to be later in their career without young children to attend to, making enough to have a non-working spouse (and/or some "help"). Further they tend to be early risers and while they start the day earlier I observe they end their day earlier too, becoming unreachable long before I punch out for the day.
So sure for exec rolling into the office for a 7:30/8 meeting is no big deal. They've already checked train times to ensure it works for THEIR schedule. For everyone else they suddenly need to re-arrange things like school/daycare drop-offs, coordinate with their working spouses work schedule, might need to wake up 2 hours early to buffer for train schedules, etc. Has knock on effects to both spouses schedule the evening before as well.
All so the big guy can pontificate.
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> Can anyone break down why these companies want/need people to come back to the office at all?
If you rewind the technology job market back a few decades, outsourcing was the big trend. Why have your software written by these expensive American programmers when you can hire 3x as many programmers in Eastern Europe or India or Mexico for the same cost?
For whatever reason, this didn't work very well. It wasn't a complete failure, but the results were definitely worse.
People wanting to understand why it didn't work came up with a bunch of guesses - one of the most popular was the idea that synchronous, face-to-face communication is vital. Being able to get around a whiteboard and have a discussion, things like that. Meetings where you can see people's faces and see if they're understanding you, instead of just talking at a bunch of people on mute with their cameras off.
And of course, if you were a low- or mid-level American manager with a team of expensive American programmers, this idea was popular with you. You want everyone to be convinced your team is great value for money.
So we have a load of managers who've spent the past few decades convincing one another that in-office workers are much more efficient than workers who can only be contacted over Skype.
If you rewind the technology job market back a few decades, outsourcing was the big trend. Why have your software written by these expensive American programmers when you can hire 3x as many programmers in Eastern Europe or India or Mexico for the same cost?
For whatever reason, this didn't work very well. It wasn't a complete failure, but the results were definitely worse.
People wanting to understand why it didn't work came up with a bunch of guesses - one of the most popular was the idea that synchronous, face-to-face communication is vital. Being able to get around a whiteboard and have a discussion, things like that. Meetings where you can see people's faces and see if they're understanding you, instead of just talking at a bunch of people on mute with their cameras off.
And of course, if you were a low- or mid-level American manager with a team of expensive American programmers, this idea was popular with you. You want everyone to be convinced your team is great value for money.
So we have a load of managers who've spent the past few decades convincing one another that in-office workers are much more efficient than workers who can only be contacted over Skype.
How did you learn to be a mechanic?
As an industry, it’s important to teach new generations.
A senior engineer with good self discipline can work from home.
A great engineer will elevate their team and thus be more valuable than working alone. And this process helps juniors grow.
You could learn to be a mechanic from books and then have a service that matches people with car problems with mechanics at home. Why do you need a work site?
As an industry, it’s important to teach new generations.
A senior engineer with good self discipline can work from home.
A great engineer will elevate their team and thus be more valuable than working alone. And this process helps juniors grow.
You could learn to be a mechanic from books and then have a service that matches people with car problems with mechanics at home. Why do you need a work site?
OP works in a diesel repair shop. These aren't mechanics like the local tire and repair shop. My experience with them is from the first 30 years of my life as a full time farmer. They work on yuuuge machinery sometimes. They also do field work when the machine can't come to them.
More often than not, these things have to take place at the shop because there are specialized diagnostic and other tools (like a mill or crane like OP says). These are not portable pieces of equipment.
So your analogy sort of falls flat there. It would be like the server master (made that up just now and I like it). That person may not be able to work from home, because the physical machinery is important.
Otherwise, yes, your point of teaching youth is important.
More often than not, these things have to take place at the shop because there are specialized diagnostic and other tools (like a mill or crane like OP says). These are not portable pieces of equipment.
So your analogy sort of falls flat there. It would be like the server master (made that up just now and I like it). That person may not be able to work from home, because the physical machinery is important.
Otherwise, yes, your point of teaching youth is important.
>Why do you need a work site?
I can think of 3 good reasons:
1. Businesses don't want to remember a bunch of addresses and who sent what where. Even if it's dropped off at a central lot, you'd still need to arrange further transportation from the lot since a lot of the equipment is broken, doesn't even have tires, or is otherwise not street-legal.
2. Diesel mechanics don't usually work on consumer diesel engines - this is heavy equipment. These shops tend to be located along highways for a reason - they need the wide berths highways provide. You'll have trouble fitting a lot of this equipment in your driveway, much less your garage.
3. The shop insurance situation would be a nightmare.
I can think of 3 good reasons:
1. Businesses don't want to remember a bunch of addresses and who sent what where. Even if it's dropped off at a central lot, you'd still need to arrange further transportation from the lot since a lot of the equipment is broken, doesn't even have tires, or is otherwise not street-legal.
2. Diesel mechanics don't usually work on consumer diesel engines - this is heavy equipment. These shops tend to be located along highways for a reason - they need the wide berths highways provide. You'll have trouble fitting a lot of this equipment in your driveway, much less your garage.
3. The shop insurance situation would be a nightmare.
Rich and powerful people invested in real estate. They can afford to run a campaign to keep those investments productive. That's all there is to it. Whenever you're confused about a situation, ask yourself who's going to make a profit from it, and it'll start to make sense.
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The standard argument for office work is that there are some intangible benefits to in-person work and communication that can't be effectively replicated over zoom and slack. The cynical argument is that managers like being able to walk around the room and count their worker bees. The conspiratorial argument is that corporations are in cahoots with commercial real estate developers.
There are debates on all these arguments, but your coffee pot standard is the opinion of most hn users.
There are debates on all these arguments, but your coffee pot standard is the opinion of most hn users.
Read "Bullshit Jobs" and you'll understand immediately.
Three things missing from this article:
* Overhiring adjustment without paying severances or doing official layoffs
* Monkey see, monkey do. Management is highly unoriginal, and loves to copy what others are doing without thought.
* Ego and power. Management loves in office, can't imagine anyone else not wanting to be face to face. Crack the whip, people respond and do what you say, so there's an ego boost
edit
* This article is assuming that management cares about their staff over their own personal priorities. Everyone is replaceable, and there's no reason for any loyalty, whether down or up the chain.
* Overhiring adjustment without paying severances or doing official layoffs
* Monkey see, monkey do. Management is highly unoriginal, and loves to copy what others are doing without thought.
* Ego and power. Management loves in office, can't imagine anyone else not wanting to be face to face. Crack the whip, people respond and do what you say, so there's an ego boost
edit
* This article is assuming that management cares about their staff over their own personal priorities. Everyone is replaceable, and there's no reason for any loyalty, whether down or up the chain.
> Monkey see, monkey do. Management is highly unoriginal, and loves to copy what others are doing without thought.
This is what I have noticed. Management says that GOOG and MSFT are doing it so it must be right. Follow the herd. Lemmings. It just reinforces to ICs that management is just totally incompetent and useless at their jobs. They steal a wage.
This is what I have noticed. Management says that GOOG and MSFT are doing it so it must be right. Follow the herd. Lemmings. It just reinforces to ICs that management is just totally incompetent and useless at their jobs. They steal a wage.
These are huge factors.
I work in an industry where a couple firms that are very well run, have large investments in tech/infra and also, were the hardest RTO pushers.
A lot of also-rans that have made piddling investments in tech/infra are now following along and saying things like "well our competitors have RTO".
It's doubly funny because they pay less well, and therefore could have instead used flexibility as a hiring incentive. Instead the offer is - we pay less, and make you come into the office just as much! It's like explicitly screening for second-best employees.
A lot of also-rans that have made piddling investments in tech/infra are now following along and saying things like "well our competitors have RTO".
It's doubly funny because they pay less well, and therefore could have instead used flexibility as a hiring incentive. Instead the offer is - we pay less, and make you come into the office just as much! It's like explicitly screening for second-best employees.
Yup -- the Valley has been around long enough to get infected by MBAs. Even executives who have an engineering background get their brains eaten by this b-school mindset, where every worker is a cog who falls into performance buckets. Once you internalize that outlook, of course the answer to every problem is more process, more structure, etc.
Naturally the MBAs themselves are indispensable, irreplaceable, special snowflakes.
Naturally the MBAs themselves are indispensable, irreplaceable, special snowflakes.
> "Monkey see, monkey do. Monkey see, monkey do. Management is highly unoriginal, and loves to copy what others are doing without thought."
Having seen hordes chasing whatever the latest software industry fashion, fad, and get-rich-quick scheme is for a couple decades now, I'd say software developers are even more "highly unoriginal, and love to copy what others are doing without thought", dohohoho.
Having seen hordes chasing whatever the latest software industry fashion, fad, and get-rich-quick scheme is for a couple decades now, I'd say software developers are even more "highly unoriginal, and love to copy what others are doing without thought", dohohoho.
Spoiler alert! Nearly everyone is monkey-see monkey-do. The number of genuinely original ideas I've encountered during my 25+ year career can probably be counted on at most two hands. In engineering, it's kind of expected: You build off of others' research, implement using safe, known design patterns, stick with what works and is reliable. But in leadership it's poison. Too many companies spend all their time looking at their competitors for ideas of what to do next.
I understand that some people prefer to work from home, but there seems to be a narrative that every single one good software engineer is in that camp, and I honestly don’t see where this belief came from… I very much miss the days where I could meet all the junior members of my team in the office and quickly sort out whatever was blocking them etc.
What prevents you from quickly unblocking people remotely? Genuine question; I keep hearing people saying similar things about junior team members, but I don't understand what the remote issue is with them in particular.
Sending a message can be a big hurdle when you’re new to a job. A junior person likely has a very deified view of senior team members and believes that their time is sacrosanct. Encouraging junior people to “just ping me” is like telling an arachnophobe “it’s just a spider”.
If you work with someone in an office, natural opportunities arise to grab some time, whether it’s when they’re bumbling around the office, grabbing something to eat or walking from a meeting.
A remote company can create an environment to address these problems, with structured time for conversations but it is very difficult to get right.
I am a fan of both remote work and in office work. Remote work is cheap and has little margin for error; in office is expensive as it is paying for guard rails that make it (relatively) difficult to get wrong.
If you work with someone in an office, natural opportunities arise to grab some time, whether it’s when they’re bumbling around the office, grabbing something to eat or walking from a meeting.
A remote company can create an environment to address these problems, with structured time for conversations but it is very difficult to get right.
I am a fan of both remote work and in office work. Remote work is cheap and has little margin for error; in office is expensive as it is paying for guard rails that make it (relatively) difficult to get wrong.
I don't find it difficult--I regularly book time to do pair programming over Tuple with everyone who's up for it on the team. That's in addition to taking opportunities to chat on Slack about anything they're working on, e.g. PR reviews.
What I've seen work is for the team to have a private channel, and whoever isn't in the middle of something can answer, and the whole team will see that answer sooner or later.
Colocation gives you a) passive source of information (e. g. just by observing people, see them being frustrated or cursing) and b) lower barrier to get talked to. Both can be disruptive for your own work, but facilitate more communication. You yourself can be more proactive, but that doesn't solve the problem on the whole team / organization level.
The thing that I see happening is that someone remote is stuck in a spiral of XY problems and there isn't as much serendipity to talk about it with someone -- nobody is there to see that you're exhibiting signs of frustration while also knowing the problem you're working on is simple
Well when I have some free moments I like to walk around and stop by grad students offices and see what they're up to / make suggestions. I'm not gonna do the same thing on slack...
I honestly don’t know the answer, I guess this is exactly what this whole debate comes down to. In theory all the tools are there, in practice people see very mixed results.
I've never seen it suggested that all the best prefer WFH, only that statistically more of them leave when they don't like any new mandate. The way it works out is that the better devs are more mobile and more likely to get employment where the working environment suits them.
Yeah there are clearly tradeoffs, neither side's zealots seem willing to admit it though cause the stakes are so high so the conversation remains fundamentally dishonest.
The debate isn't really about whether home or office is better, it's about who should have the power to weigh and make decisions about those tradeoffs: employer vs. employee. I think most of the professional class are loath to think about it that way because it sounds suspiciously like the beginnings of a labor movement.
There's definitely a lot of cowardice and fear underlying the capital class's current strategy of "remain in limbo until forced to move." Maybe it's fear of losing that crucial employee that keeps the light on, maybe it's fear of employees waking up to what exactly a job is and what's expected of them (compliance for 40-60 hours a week of their lives) and becoming demotivated.
It certainly doesn't seem to be fear that allowing WFH means they will lose their competitive edge in their industry. Agree it's more about the capital/labor relationship potentially fraying.
The labor movement LARPing you see every so often online I think is ridiculously premature. The labor movement at the turn of the century was ridiculously volatile and borne from a ton of unrest. It's a ways away.
It certainly doesn't seem to be fear that allowing WFH means they will lose their competitive edge in their industry. Agree it's more about the capital/labor relationship potentially fraying.
The labor movement LARPing you see every so often online I think is ridiculously premature. The labor movement at the turn of the century was ridiculously volatile and borne from a ton of unrest. It's a ways away.
This is not about preference about where you work (ie maybe not all good engineers prefer WFH). This is about fkexibility ane accountability. People don't like being jerked around. Don't like being forced to do stupid things that don't matter. The better you are at your job, the more options you have. When you have options you don't have to stand for this bs.
This is partly how OpenAI snagged many of DeepMind’s top LLM engineers in ‘21-‘22.
DeepMind instituted far more draconian RTO than Google meanwhile a lot of DMers being from the US had gotten used to the flexibility of being able to spend extensive time with family back home.
DeepMind instituted far more draconian RTO than Google meanwhile a lot of DMers being from the US had gotten used to the flexibility of being able to spend extensive time with family back home.
WFH for office jobs could’ve been one of the best drivers of climate action and reduction in all sorts of pollutants, while also increasing general happiness in society.
Of course we stopped doing it.
Of course we stopped doing it.
The article focuses on Productivity as a sole cause for employers insisting on RTO. Yet, In some cases, we have CEOs on video record stating how remote work options help them hire and retain top talent.
I feel there are other factors such as government tax write offs/subsidies related to RTOs - eg employees cause retail around offices to have lowered traffic… hence lower sales tax revenues.
Why won’t employers just come out and say it? Your guess is as good as mine.
My companies CEO just a few years ago was talking about just this - how remote was good because we could now pull from a greater pool of talent and how he couldn't imagine going back to full-time in office.
Complete about-take to now where the same person and all the execs can't help but mention at every opportunity how good being in-office is despite no company metric having improved since RTO, team morale and trust in execs at an all-time low, attrition higher than it basically has ever been and every company survey having outright negative results in every single metric.
Complete about-take to now where the same person and all the execs can't help but mention at every opportunity how good being in-office is despite no company metric having improved since RTO, team morale and trust in execs at an all-time low, attrition higher than it basically has ever been and every company survey having outright negative results in every single metric.
It's the modern day 1984 in action in our lifetime. Gaslighting by execs who are dumb as two bricks.
For some reason, companies are perfectly fine with losing their "best performers" for any number of reasons, they won't bet an eye. I suppose it's the equivalent of "we don't negotiate with terrorists"
My theory is that having loads of money gives companies the leeway to simply not care about losing top performers. After all their bank account allows them to get other top performers.
Obviously there are more nuances to this topic.
Obviously there are more nuances to this topic.
But they do negotiate all the time. For employees that are critical they do this all the time. For the regular employees? Nope
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I’m to the point where I think we can’t afford me returning to office. My being present at home means that my wife has more flexibility in her work schedule, has allowed her to go back to school, and allows me to see my kid during daylight hours.
And all the other stuff we always mention.
And all the other stuff we always mention.
im hoping to round out this career i fell into 24 years ago in about 5.5yrs. I love my org and my colleagues but i value not sitting in traffic 1.5hrs cumulatively per day, being home when my progeny hops from the school bus, and walking my dogs around my wooded neighborhood (instead say, strolling solo around a lack luster business park), far more. Rto would force my hand to an early retirement from the general industry. simple as that (which would kinda suck - i wont be of retirement age yet)
Honestly one of the worst things over the years is feeling like more and more companies don't like their best performers.
High performance people are difficult. High performers have high taste & drive. They believe in themselves & their capabilities. If there's dysfunction at the workplace or corporate politics or hiccups or whatever impeding things, the high performer is the most likely to not be easy, most likely to react.
The people doing the best are often the people who don't particularly fit in well with the bell curve of your organization, with being managed down to. Letting good people go, alas, is often good protection for the corporate status quo, with other workers saddled with picking up the boulder someone else put down & figuring out a new how to trudge forwards. But the corp will be glad there's less vocal people, less standout behavior, more normalized predictable & routine life.
High performance people are difficult. High performers have high taste & drive. They believe in themselves & their capabilities. If there's dysfunction at the workplace or corporate politics or hiccups or whatever impeding things, the high performer is the most likely to not be easy, most likely to react.
The people doing the best are often the people who don't particularly fit in well with the bell curve of your organization, with being managed down to. Letting good people go, alas, is often good protection for the corporate status quo, with other workers saddled with picking up the boulder someone else put down & figuring out a new how to trudge forwards. But the corp will be glad there's less vocal people, less standout behavior, more normalized predictable & routine life.
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Besides all the points in the article, there is one more point that infuriates me about RTO mandates, and it's the double standards.
Director level and above at my company have much more flexibility to WFH that regular employees. In fact several of them in my org do it.
During an all hands, someone asked one of them about the RTO mandate, since they worked remotely. The director answered with a straight face that although he works remotely, he built the network that got him promoted to Director going to the office, and that's why you should go. If that level of patronizing doesn't make you lose faith in leadership, I don't know what does.
Director level and above at my company have much more flexibility to WFH that regular employees. In fact several of them in my org do it.
During an all hands, someone asked one of them about the RTO mandate, since they worked remotely. The director answered with a straight face that although he works remotely, he built the network that got him promoted to Director going to the office, and that's why you should go. If that level of patronizing doesn't make you lose faith in leadership, I don't know what does.
RTO mandates are just another manifestation of the antagonism that exists between the working and management classes. A smart manager would care what employees think of them and wish to make the employee’s job as streamlined as possible. Conclusion: Most managers are stupid. Until management’s image changes, I (personally) refuse to be promoted. :)
A smart manager will also become an unemployed manager if they swim against the top-down management structure driving a high level decision. Most middle managers are yes men who exist for the only reason to execute the incontestable mandates from their highly compensated but totally incompetent superiors.
I haven't seen it mentioned about RTO yet, but I'm sure some managers really just want to be able to conduct certain conversations and behaviors in person, completely off the record. Working for these people would range in badness from being victimized to potential accusations of conspiracy.
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Can anyone break down why these companies want/need people to come back to the office at all? as far as I know, and from everything ive seen, office workers can do this stuff anywhere (even in our shops waiting room.) meetings are all on zoom and VPN is a thing.
Office workers dont "make" anything. i know that sounds rude but i cant think of another way to describe it...office workers "work" is all between their ears? I have to be in the shop, dressed in my PPE and work boots, and ready to fix stuff that actually exists. If i work from home, trucks dont get repaired because thats what i do. When some office tech worker logs in, everything they make is already in front of them...its everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Just let them all work from home and be done with it. less road congestion means lower prices to ship stuff in the USA because trucks dont wait as long or waste as much fuel idling in gridlock. ambulance response times improve, carbon emissions go down...i mean the whole damn thing seems like a real no-brainer.
The rule aught to be: If the heaviest thing you pick up in your workday is a coffee pot, then stay home.
EDIT: so the "social" aspect isnt something i considered because ive never had a zoom that ever lasted more than 5 minutes (i had to talk to a doctor during covid i think.) Im sorry i didnt consider it before, but is work really a great place to do social stuff? as an example, my jobs loud and busy. typically im shouting at my coworkers or using a radio. at the end of the day we're all a little tired. sometimes there are tasks like millwrighting or crane work that cannot include a social aspect for safety reasons.
but! twice a year we put down the air tools and meet up at a local park. our foreman is a decorated BBQ enthusiast, so he cooks up a mess of food to eat. His daughter is an 'aspiring' DJ so she picks the tunes and takes care of requests. We all sit around a rented out park shade and shoot the breeze over beers and bratwurst. its really great. Can/do office workers do that?