I could be convinced to commute to a satellite office that's not affected by rush hour traffic. There's a lot of real estate available in the burbs. These don't really exist though, and their expense far outweighs their benefits.
The problem is that companies expect employees to be mobile when they are not. It's called putting down roots for a reason. Pulling kids out of school, buying a new house is very disruptive.
... or I can hook up my cable modem and work anywhere in the country...
Corporate elites cannot have their cake and eat it too.
Choose one:
1) Make housing affordable, and schooling more effective. Streamline the moving process through law and process improvements. Make transportation systems work better. Improve 2nd and 3rd tier cities social and political life.
2) Let people work from home. Suffer a 10-15% degredation in communications.
3) Have the entire industry force people to come to the office - have miserable workers.
For me option 2 seems to be what will happen - you'll get a control loop where companies will hemorrhage their best workers if they force back to office.
My father was a chemical engineer. Back in the 60s & 70s, the company would pay to relocate our family to wherever they needed him (this included purchasing the house if we didn't sell it before the moving trucks showed up). That included several foreign countries. In my family's experience, that included England, Iran, Ireland & Saudi Arabia. During the 80s, his industry stopped relocating engineers. This corresponded to the end of "the Social Contract" where as long as you were loyal to your company, they had a job for you - for life. When you watch that "Greed is Good" speech from Gordon Gecko [0], notice that table of old farts at the front of the room: that's where they promote the loyal employees (into "executive vice presidencies") when there isn't enough room at the top of the pyramid (and also they're too incompetent to promote in actual line management [1]).
By the 90s, companies stopped paying for relocation of anyone below managerial levels. And instead depended on workers being able to afford to relocate on their own $.
This brings us to today's economy. Large companies, instead of laying older workers off, simply relocate their position to a new office. IBM (who used to be called "I've Been Moved") has a reputation for doing this to their US-based workforce especially when over age 40. If you can't afford to relocate? Great, that's now a "voluntary quit".
If companies want employees to "move where the jobs are", they need to step up to the plate and start paying for relocation. And that includes buying upside-down homes.
> An employer showing favoritism to another employee without reason or explanation
Sometimes "you just like people" or "you just don't like people"; and it turns out that liking the people you work with makes you more productive, so where's the room for that irrational dynamic, where there may not BE a "rational" reason to dismiss one over another?
If companies start buying upside-down homes, they're probably going to start holding them until they can at least wash out. I'd hate to see a trend of employers becoming landlords.
I wonder if the company actually took ownership of the house or just managed a purchase for the employee. I knew someone who worked for the federal government and relocated for a job and took advantage of this kind of benefit. But I don't believe the federal government actually took ownership of the house - I think it was more like, they found the best quick cash offer, and then paid out the amount between that and the appraised value. So the employee gets rid of their house for the appraised value, the employer gets the employee where they're needed and some house flipping company gets some inventory.
In our case, we put the house on the market through a realtor of our choosing. Once we had a finalized offer, the company (probably a third party of some sort) took ownership of the house and paid us the offer price. At that point, had the buyer pulled out it would have been the companies problem.
This was a like three housing market cycles ago and the market was in an upturn, so there really wasn't much risk to the company. Another buyer would have been along right behind the first.
In general, I think people need to think more critically about this "1 job for life" culture of the past. A lot of the supposed benefits of this former corporate culture (like a company-linked pension, or a system where your employer buys you home) just mean that companies exercise even more power over our lives and the economy.
This is a bit like saying that women in a patriarchy should prefer prostitution over marriage, because having many interchangeable abusive masters is better than having just one.
Realtor: "I see your interested in this area. Over here we have Amazon lane, if you buy one of those houses you'll get prime delivery for free. The next street over is Azure Fields if you buy a home there you'll get 50% off a 10 year office 365 subscription.
And down there is Ikea homes. You pay a premium but can customize it however you want. You'll also have to put it together yourself.
But you know that's where we're headed. Little fiefdoms. Starbucks will start buying apartment complexes. "If you don't join that union, we'll pay for your housing!" Then fill them up 4 to an apartment. Then you'll see deductions on your paycheck for electric and internet. Soon you'll barely be making enough to feed yourself, but at least you'll be dry.
I'm not sure that would be worse than the capital driven land-lord situation. I mean, in terms of renting out a house from a former employee until real estate improves enough to sell. Odds are it would be done via the same rental mgt companies that everyone else uses anyway.
At least as long as the company isn't pushing to keep said properties longer than necessary.
Yeah, that is generally bad. While it may be legal, I think it's entirely unethical to have conflicting interests at play in a business. Part of why I hate that Sony, for example, controls both the tech (Bluray, hardware, etc) and media investments. Or insurance providers owning stakes in pharma.
We had someone buy our home for basically top dollar at the time about 20 years ago. They worked for Ford and Ford was relocating him to the area, and he bought the house. I was told there was some relocation expenses they paid, but I don't think Ford bought the house. Well, I know they didn't directly, because we sold to him - that's what the paperwork said. I think he got moving expense reimbursement, but that may have been it. But I know they sold it a couple years later as the market tanked, and must have taken a loss. I wonder if Ford covered some of the loss for him? (Bought at $295k, sold for $205k 2 years later).
FWIW, big tech companies do pay for relocation for rank and file engineers. Meta paid for packing/moving + roughly $20k incidentals when I joined last year.
I work for a non profit. After two years or letting everyone at home, this month they're forcing people to come to office at least twice a week. Not only that, anyone going to work has to book a desk in advance, otherwise they'll be sitting on the floor with their computer on their laps.
This makes no difference to me personally, as I am a thousand miles away in another state, so I lucked out. I am still working from home.
None of this makes any sense whatsoever. I am totally expecting people to leave, just because they are forced to commute.
This is one of the nicer places I have worked. I dread to image what it would be like, in some of the shittier jobs I have had.
In my opinion, anyone who can work from home should do so. It frees up the traffic, makes office space more affordable for those businesses who do need space (dentist, restaurant etc) and in general win-win for everyone. All this talk of making "human connections" at work is just bullshit. Offices are just noisy, leads to office politics and meaningless meetings, cubicles are shitty, open office plans are shittier...
Either that, or make sensible but much, much harder changes to housing, transporation etc. Since nobody seems ready to take on that work, the easier solution is to just let people work from home. It won't solve all problems, but it is a good start
Because they have no power and need the income to eat, and their despotic bosses know this.
What is happening right now with remote work is that we are seeing very clearly who actually does any work and who doesn’t. The people who don’t do any work are the ones who demand you be in an office hybrid setting or full return to office.
Probably the same reason the people who still work at twitter show up, it's either some weird sense of loyalty or perhaps it helps them feel like part of the "those who grind" clique.
I sympathize the Twitter workers that are on work visas. Much harder for them to jump ship. They have to tolerate the nonsense or relocate back to their home country. Especially difficult if you own a home and/or have a family.
All that plus interviewing is broken as shit. Then just the thought of changing jobs is stressful enough, but looking for work while Elmo is breathing down your neck has to be some next level stress. I can see where they would be paralyzed into staying a while.
> The problem is that companies expect employees to be mobile when they are not
I would add, many software companies expect employees to work in such a way that working remotely has to be viable anyway. My direct coworkers were split across multiple Bay Area offices. I had projects going on with other companies, some of them in Seattle. I was encouraged to attend and present at conferences in other cities. I dealt with teams distributed across Europe.
Now, getting face to face time with all of these people is an important part of building relationships, but most of those meetings simply have to be online. I noticed that even though I had a home office, my boss virtually never saw me doing my most important work, because we were both in and out of meetings. I was willing to be dutiful employee who shows up to the office, and attends meetings in-person when I could, but invariably someone else in the meeting wouldn't or couldn't and we'd have to dial them in remotely anyway (ironically, this happen the most with a certain company who claims that they can't make remote work viable - their own employees would not attend meetings in person at their own employer's office).
If you're already in that situation, why can't I live where I want? You already can't assess my productivity by looking at me at a desk. I already have to have a significant remote component to all meetings. When I really need to travel, I can travel. But day to day, you've already had to have the technology and processes to allow people to be distributed for a long time. Let me take advantage of it too.
> I could be convinced to commute to a satellite office that's not affected by rush hour traffic. There's a lot of real estate available in the burbs.
Funny that you say this. I could only be convinced to come to an office if my employer satisfied the following conditions:
- accessible in <20 minutes from a place with affordable rent via bike, walk, or public transit
- no or minimal video meetings in the office; I'm not taking the time to come in to sit on the same video calls I could take at home.
- either a lunch subsidy or reasonable in-house lunch prep options (more than just a refrigerator and a dirty shared microwave)
It definitely feels like housing affordability is a huge wrench in these gears. Up until this year, I lived in major US cities, and rent prices still shock me when I look back in my old neighborhoods. Even the suburbs have spiked to the prices I used to pay for walkable neighborhoods. I'm pretty sure my first criteria can't be satisfied unless the US has some kind of massive market-wide housing price collapse.
I’m lucky to have bought a duplex starter home for like $135k, 8 years ago before prices skyrocketed. It has off street parking and a garage so we can park and charge our two electric cars. The overall level of safety is high on the immediate area I live in, I don’t worry about break-ins.
It’s in a walkable neighborhood a few blocks from a preschool and elementary school we send our kids to plus a park and little beach by the river/ocean. There are also nice neighborhood restaurants and cafe & ice cream parlor and library and community garden plus like consignment shops, etc. Tons of awesome neighborhood events around Halloween, Christmas, 4th of July, etc, plus a regular farmer’s market, etc… all this within east walking distance (even for kids).
My work is 15 minutes by car, low stress commute overall. It has a beautiful common space with a nice kitchen. It doesn’t have a stove or a dishwasher, but the fridge and microwave are super nice, beautiful stone counters with a nice dish washing sink, place for sitting and eating, making coffee via electric kettle, etc. It’s part of our communal “maker space” so we can have great conversations while eating lunch and watching our 3D prints complete. Plus very affordable snack bar, and a cafeteria within walking distance. I also have my own office and lab space which aren’t beautiful, but are nice to have.
Our house and yard are small and not super nice cosmetically, the income isn’t high for 3 kids and a spouse that has to stay home to take care of them, but every time I think about moving or taking a higher paid job, I realize how lucky this situation is. And how I could easily spend twice as much for a house only marginally better or three times as much for a larger and cosmetically better house in a non-walkable area.
We also have to be more specific. What does "going to the office" mean? Does it mean I'm going to an actual office, where I have my equipment all set up how I like it and a tailored environment that helps me stay focused and productive? Or is a bullshit open floor with terrible lighting and everyone is sick all the time because you're sitting face to face for 10 hours with someone you don't even talk to?
"The office" is a tool. It's like we've forgotten the reason for doing things. Software development is really not all that social. It's not akin as a factory or an orchestra or any of these other analogies that get tossed around.
> I could be convinced to commute to a satellite office
I tried this approach. I worked from a satellite with affordable housing, good schools. I had a <10 minute commute between my garage to my desk during peak traffic. I did not like it. Now, I would only entertain the idea of working out of a HQ. The satellite office provided many of the disadvantages of working in an office (open office floorplan, being forced into close proximity with that one annoying coworker, shared kitchen space) while being isolated from other teams and upper management. Those that worked at HQ saw more promotions, had better opportunities for internal mobility, and were taken more seriously inside the company. Going to HQ is fantastic for those career oriented. For everyone else WFH is the way.
1 has nothing to do with "corporate elites," who do not control housing pricing or schooling by any reasonable measure. I don't accept the premise of 2 that there is any degradation in communications except from folks who are new to remote work. 3 will never happen because there are too many people who acknowledge the positives of remote work starting companies and in technical leadership of good companies. There will always be 100% remote and 100% remote+async companies from now on.
"A lot of the lay-offs were senior technical staff like C++ senior engineers; seems more like a realignment to shift those jobs to cheaper subsidiaries like India, Pakistan, Mexico"
Maybe its a disinformation bot, trying to rile up older men (senior C++ engineers) with nativist sentiment (how dare they relocate my job to Pakistan?).
Seems reasonable to me, especially given the blatantly false statement.
Barring a change in city costs. Engineers expected to commute into the office will demand progressively higher rates. I’m not working for a billion+ profit firm for less than it costs to live in my area.
> I could be convinced to commute to a satellite office that's not affected by rush hour traffic.
This right here. If I could get to work and back in 5 minutes I wouldn't mind the commute, ever. Unfortunately everyone wants to have offices in some downtown area, instead of just near a major city in a quieter part of town, safe back-roads that wont bother anyone.
This only works if they put the office in the quieter back-road section near you. Otherwise you're driving all the way across town. The last company I was with I talked with the owner and he was clear why they chose downtown - yes, it sucked, but it sucked pretty equally for everyone.
Downtown is also the place with the most transit going to it - you're excluding anyone who doesn't/can't drive if you choose to build in a quiet section.
It depends on the downtown. Where I live there's almost no transit to downtown and because of traffic, a 20 minute commute turns into an hour.
If instead you have a few smaller offices in the burbs outside of downtown, you could save a lot of time for workers as they would be traveling counter-commute.
That's interesting - how large is the city you're in that has an hour commute but little transit?
I don't understand the value of having a few smaller burb offices - does your entire team have to go to the one you're at (even if they are on opposite sides of the city, thus negating the advantage of it being close), or do they each go their own and then do remote calls to discuss things (thus negating the advantage of it being in office)?
>If instead you have a few smaller offices in the burbs outside of downtown, you could save a lot of time for workers as they would be traveling counter-commute.
This only applies to some people living in some areas. If you locate in the east side suburbs, people who live in the westside suburbs are going to have a helacious commute.
We absolutely should make housing more affordable. The problem is we’ve built most middle class wealth on housing as a scarce and always-appreciating asset, and tons of peoples’ retirements are essentially counting on that continuing. We’re impoverishing the young to enrich the old, and there’s no easy way out.
Also, we don't build starter homes anymore. I monitor the city's development site and all of the home being built are 3+ BR. There are a few apartment complexes with 1,2,3 etc BR, but no starter homes. There was a 55+ retirement development that went in a couple years ago. About 150 homes. Every single one was 3+ BR. WTF!?
If your team is split across 3 timezones and 5 cities already, you're going to damage your communications even further by making everyone go into the office again.
It can depend... there's a few colocation/shared offices in the Phoenix area. I know of a couple in Chandler, Mesa and Peoria in particular. Though I have a gigabit connection at home that's pretty stable and have my workspace setup how I like it.
Personally, I prefer an office space as I find the comradery is better. Being able to have lunch or general conversation is much more natural. Also, a commute that isn't too long (20-30m) is nice for ramping up on the way in and clearing the mind on the way home.
All of that said, since going remote, I don't plan to go back. I really want to move to a more rural location that better aligns with what I want in lifestyle/community. Of course, internet connectivity becomes crucial, and the current interest rates prohibit that.
I also don't think TFA is quite right on that being younger is the stronger reason for a higher chance of layoff. I think a lot of it comes down to experience and value provided from more experienced devs. It can definitely cut both ways and I have seen it in practice. I would suggest it's about perceived and actual value as well as a bit of office politics and agreeableness in the workplace that is more desired.
I do think that the nicest thing about more remote work, is it is more regionally competitive. At the higher end of the talent pool, one is able to compete for jobs that are much better paying that would be available locally, while still being less expense for businesses rooted in tech hub cities. This comes at the cost of communications, which you mention, though I think it's more than a 15% degredation in some cases. My prior position it seemed to hold things up for days on communications at times, with an international team.
I very much feel the opposite way. If my company had offices downtown (where I live, because I like being able to walk to get a beer), I would go every day.
But they don’t - they’re in a suburban sprawl, at minimum a 30 minute drive - more like an hour during rush hour. I would quit on the spot if there were ever an attempt to make me go to the office on a fixed schedule.
I chose a home with good transit to downtown. If I have to drive to an industrial sector across town each day to get to work I probably won't even consider the position.
In my estimation he is not. I "remember" office for good and bad, for most of the time even when I communicated with folks next door/nearby i would still fallback to chat. Water cooler talks is what I miss actually, but if you meetup couple of times a year - you get the feel of those people. Also now that people got so used to streaming more, its often much easier to pair more effectively (if one person drives some stuff, the other person can do other checks etc.)
I do not think 10-15% degradation is underestimated.
> now that people got so used to streaming more, its often much easier to pair more effectively
People keep saying this, but the experience of quickly pairing on something is one of the things I feel has degraded the most. I can't point to a single cause, it's more death by a million cuts, but I absolutely dread pairing with a junior to help them over screen share where I would normally be happy to help someone in person. I'm not exactly inexperienced at it either, I worked fully remote for a couple years a decade before the pandemic.
While everyone has their preferences I find myself hating the office a lot less than I used to these days. (and I was very vocal about hating the office pre-covid[0])
However, some things of note:
1) My "Office" (not home) is not an "Open Office", it's a place where I can reasonably sit in peace and have control of my surroundings (this is something not afforded to most people in offices, and something that work from home provides)
2) I do not have children at home, which is a pro and a con of working remotely. Being able to look after your offspring is great! I have it on good authority though that kids are distraction machines.
3) My Commute is a 10 minute walk through a sparsely populated city in southern Sweden with no heavy trafficways (or even mild trafficways by North American standards)
So even though my home office setup is dedicated, clean, & spacious, I do quite enjoy going to the office at the moment.
My meandering point is that: everyone has different life situations, the office has to be a better place to be than home if you want people to come to it and it needs to be accessible too; it can't be the case that you force people to sit in traffic for 2 hours each day to get to a place where their senses are assaulted all day.
On the whole, gathering around a whiteboard is fantastic and casual conversations over coffee can really help smooth over accidental communication gaps that exist in every organisation. (and, also help create some more positive interactions with colleagues than the relatively normal situation of calling on people only when they need to do something). I can't imagine needing to be in the same place 5 days per week to get the same benefit though.
You have an 'ideal' office (if there were such a thing) though, it's not really the comparison anyone means, or what's generally realistic.
Your sort of office is the sort of thing that for most people is more attainable if they do work remotely, and then rent a space near home, or build/convert a shed/garage/outbuilding.
Your happiness working from the office is also quite tied to your employer, I'd assume (I don't know Sweden or what's normal though), which is obviously either limiting or means you might find yourself back in the 'will only work remotely' camp when looking for a new job.
Everyone renting a place near them (or using a dedicated space in their home if they choose) misses out on “gathering around a whiteboard is fantastic and casual conversations over coffee can really help smooth over accidental communication gaps that exist in every organisation.”
They only miss out on this if the people they are working with are in the same office as them. This isn't always the case at large companies.
I suspect that people who work for companies where teams, organizations, or even the entire company are colocated will tend to favor in-office work to some degree, while people who work for companies where teams and offices are geographically distributed will tend to favor remote work.
I personally worked for Twitter in-office full time for 14 months pre-COVID, and almost every meeting or collaboration I had involved a teleconference with people in another timezone or was done over Slack. There was some opportunity for face-to-face collaboration with people from other teams from time to time, but in my opinion not enough to justify the daily commute. That said, I'm open to a hybrid arrangement for companies where the situation I had at Twitter would not be the case.
> My meandering point is that: everyone has different life situations
Yes, so it's not about preferences, it's not about the pros and cons, it's about not forcing people for needless suffering. Forcing people who want or need (professionally or personally) to work with other people at home is absurd, and forcing people who provide better work at home (for jobs were it makes no difference to be in office) to commute and work in an open space just to reassure bosses is as absurd.
The consistent response I have gotten from managers is that more or less - people fake work sitting in their homes or work multiple jobs, and we collaborate better when we are sitting in an office. They use this as a force function to pull employees back into the office.
I call BS on all of these. Employees faking work - your hiring problem. Employees working multiple jobs - again your problem, keep them occupied with meaningful work, if not bring in legality to protect your IP or whatever. AFAIK no one working multiple jobs are revealing IPs.
In person collaboration - There may be some truth to this. High profile decisions are best taken in person, that being said during covid almost all decisions were done on Zoom not just for a week or so but for 2 years. Isn't that proof enough that even government level decisions can be done on Zoom ?
Design discussions are best done on Miro/Google docs than on the whiteboard. Multiple people can collaborate efficiently on Miro, especially with an iPad. Not only this, every voice is heard instead of just 2-3 folks standing at a whiteboard and driving discussions.
So many tools that make even pair programming or production debugging a breeze.
I can pretty much negate every argument that mandates in person office presence.
What I really vouch for is in person collaboration events once or twice a month where everyone comes together for a couple of days and hash out key issues and have a totally unstructured time for collaboration.
And of course, have an office for those who want to come in to collaborate. Not everyone has a spacious home, people like to hang out with co-workers during lunch etc. However make it mandatory that all group meetings will be done on zoom, in order to provide equal participation opportunity to remote workers. These hybrid meetings with a few people in a room and a few on zoom are a total disaster.
People fake work sitting in offices. If someone is going to fake work in the office, why not let them fake work from home and safe everyone a hassle. Or maybe incentivize real work over fake work.
I worked with someone in the office next to mine for a few years and he was running a side business the whole time. It was bizarre how brazen he was, but people are interesting and varied.
Remote work isn’t perfect, but it’s not like office work was perfect either. It’s like showing an example of a welfare cheat and saying “we can’t give welfare to help parents because people claim imaginary kids.”
I keep saying - if they aren't doing the job you'd fire them even if they were in office. If you think they are working two jobs but they are getting their job done you have to ask yourself - are you paying for someone to get the job done (which in this scenario they are) or someone you force to sit in a seat for x amount of time each week?
Exactly! As a manager if you hire someone to do X, Y, and Z, and he does X, Y, and Z with high quality and up to your expectations in 20 hours, why do you care if he spends his other 20 hours working for Facebook? Assuming performance is good and no confidential information is being shared, the guys second job doesn't hurt you.
I think they just don't want to admit the reason: That if they knew the worker was getting their job done in 20 hours, they'd simply raise their expectations to squeeze more out of the worker for the same pay.
When a service worker or retail clerk does multiple jobs, it's seen as hard-working and hustling, but when an office worker has multiple jobs it's somehow taboo.
Sure, but "hiring someone to do X, Y, Z" is generally consulting, freelancing, or outsourcing.
Employment contracts are typically tied to number of hours (much like service and retail). If you dedicate the 20-40 agreed hours per week to the employer and don't tread on noncompetes or NDA, reasonable managers will have no issues with side-hustles.
At any moment in time, your attention can only be working for one employer. That's what you're paid for as an employee. Much like you typically can't wait tables for several restaurants simultaneously. If you want delivery-based contracts you're looking for a different kind of relationship.
I got at least 2 colleagues that were working multiple jobs from the office,
of course it wasn't 4 hours straight, but committing fixes to their 2nd job/ mini-startup they started was extremely common.
In terms of not working or splitting to multiple jobs. Then that's a performance issue. If you're getting expected work done, it's not a problem... If you aren't, then you're a problem either way. This is not me condoning the practice, only pointing out that it shouldn't be the crux of the problem.
Depending on the job, you won't be on all the time. I have about 2-3 days a week where I'm on and pretty hyper productive and 1-2 where I'm kind of coasting or spending more thinking/learning/reading time.
I do find, I prefer office culture to working remotely... it's much more productive and team cohesion is often much, much better. International work is much harder still to coordinate. Right now I'm working on an East coast team, living in AZ... I'm about to have to start getting up yet another hour earlier next week, and so not a morning person. That said, given the market shifts really remind me of around 2001, and I'm holding on where I am for as long as I can and generally like the people I work with.
Mandatory office presence cuts both ways, you're less likely to gain top talent and even then, you're going to pay above relative market rates for it if you do. I've seen companies try to pay relative to cost of living for developers in different locations, and to me that just doesn't work either. Splitting the difference between top locations and local relative cost of living seems to be the trend, and I'm frankly happy to see it.
Sure. So some people will work for remote-first companies and some people will for for office-first companies.
There's no one-size-fits all and different companies will work with different models. You're not forced to work at any particular company and no company should be expected to be the right place for all profiles.
(Within that the employer of course does have responsibilities to accommodate employee differentiating needs, some of which is in scope of regulation and contracts)
> There's no one-size-fits all and different companies will work with different models. You're not forced to work at any particular company and no company should be expected to be the right place for all profiles.
I think that certain things being "normalized" industry wide has better outcomes, such as someone with a bad commute being able to speak up about working remotely could get rid of that, because remote work is considered commonplace now. Or maybe someone who has a busy home life could be able to spend more time in the office with reserved seating or get a coworking space funded.
Remote work wasn't always "normal" and many didn't even see it as viable if not for the pandemic. Some are mandating returns to the office and a part of that extends to the shaping of the public perception of remote work, along exaggerated statements like "remote workers are worse at collaboration and don't even have the discipline to get dressed properly". While I don't follow Joshua Fluke, I think he had a few videos about similar statements on his YouTube channel a year or two back - sometimes outright misrepresentations of remote work, made to fit a particular perspective.
But as long as people don't attempt to misrepresent what remote/in-office work is like, I think it's perfectly fine for organizations to structure themselves around whatever works for them. I just figured I'd mention the public perception aspect of it all, because sometimes stigma is harmful, e.g. how discussing one's compensation being "taboo" in some places can make one's perception of how much a certain kind of work is valued at inaccurate.
And what does that mean for the largest group in the bell curve: the medium skilled programmer, who does ok but nonmagical work? Not everyone has the ability to be one or two standard deviations above the median.
I've been pursued 10X more by recruiters ever since I've had Google on my resume. That they can tell, and I'll say that Google did a pretty good job of interviewing back in 2014.
I’d like to think I’m a good programmer and it takes me months to find a job. You’ll likely never meet me because I don’t go to conferences, I don’t network, and I don’t hang out with other programmers. (HN is one of two exceptions to that.)
Most people know me from furry events or furry writer Telegram groups. :)
I think this highlights a distinction between "the career engineer" and "the expert engineer". The former treats their career as a profession (invests in progression) while the latter masters their craft.
Skill alone does not dictate trajectory; the career engineer intentionally charts their course forward.
I hate this idea that anyone is “forcing” anyone to do anything. And I see the word used so often in the remote work conversations.
It’s like saying that Tesla “forces” people to work on electric cars. It’s what their business is!
You’re not being forced to commute if your job is in-office anymore than you’re forced to eat canned asparagus if it’s the only vegetable in your cupboard. You can choose to not eat it or you can go to the store and buy something else.
It doesn’t matter if you work better at home if your company is in office. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a job where being in office makes no difference. You either go to the office or look for a new job.
Yes.
There are many reasons why someone would work at a job that doesn't make them happy, chief amongst those is supporting their family as best they can.
Along those lines, I've had a coworker tell me: "Don't get good at doing something you hate."
I’m not sure if you’re saying that I believe you have to be happy with 100% of your job or you have to find a new one?
Because I definitely don’t:
> You either go to the office or look for a new job.
In case it’s not clear from that, I agree with you. There’s parts of every job that suck. You just have to choose whether the benefits outweighs those sucky parts.
Honestly, I feel very similarly, but I have an external factor as well.
Last year I moved to The Netherlands from Dallas, TX, USA. My entire world has totally changed. Part of that move was a new job for a company local to my area.
Before I moved, I worked remotely in the US for about 6 years. Well before the pandemic, etc etc. My favorite part of my job being a remote worker was getting together with people once or twice a year for in person retreats or company outings visiting clients.
My commute these days is longer; 30km or about 18 miles and takes about 30 minutes. I own a car, which is ironic considering I moved to a country with the worlds best bicycle infrastructure. For better or worse, work requires our team to come to the office 2 days a week.
But because of that commute, I gain so much. I have structured time to listen to the radio and practice my foreign language listening skills. I am surrounded by people who speak a different language than me unless we're specifically collaborating on work topics (then we speak English). I can observe the habits and idiosyncrasies of this new culture, and for the moment, I really am enjoying it.
Would I have a different opinion if I was commuting 5 days a week? Almost certainly. But once or twice a week is totally manageable for me and my life now.
The takeaway I think is, do what works for you. If you like the office, that's great! If your company doesn't have dedicated offices, ask your boss for a dedicated coworking space. If you like laying on your couch, laptop on your chest, typing away all day, more power to you too.
The key is to not put down others for their preferences, and support your colleagues in being the happiest version of themselves at work, wherever that happens to be.
TBH we'd all like offices a lot more if they had one person offices in them. That's my big chip-on-the-shoulder: we went from personal offices -> open workspaces -> remote -> back to the office in the name of productivity but they won't get rid of open spaces for productivity?
Hah! I do qualify for a tax break as a highly skilled migrant for 5 years, but the salary in general is nowhere near the US. I was making well into 6 figures before and now I make about $50k~ equivalent. Maybe a little less. As a percentage, I probably pay about the same tax rate, with my discount, as I did in the US.
Except for the insane cost of energy (I could rant about that all day), most of my daily living expenses are much more predictable. My family health insurance was cut in half, for superior coverage. Car insurance is about the same, but I have a much smaller car so for me it's cheaper, even with no driving record in this country. If I had the 12 years of history, it would be half the cost again. Luckily, energy prices are coming down and my bill is being cut in half next month.
Overall, I'm very happy! The quality of life I would say is much better. I walk a lot more. I eat better (because eating out in general is $$$) and cook at home 90% of the time. I have 4 weeks of paid vacation and the government requires employers to provide vacation pay equivalent to 1 months salary for salary workers. My company encourages people to take advantage of their vacation time. At 5pm the office is empty despite most people not arriving until 9am or later.
If you're looking to move, I would say now is a decent time to look into it. Decide on a couple of countries you would be interested in and then start contacting companies with open positions. Mine specifically was not advertising for migrants, but they had permission from the government already because of some remote employees in the Philippines. Many European tech companies are hurting for workers and there is a large shortage for most midsize companies. Sure, the pay is a lot less, but if you're open to staying long term, you will receive a pension and becoming a citizen entitles you to retirement benefits as well.
Happy to answer more questions. I think I have contact info in my HN profile if anyone else is intersted!
Looking for children under a certain age is more or less a full time job. Trying to mix it with work is, well, simply a bad decision.
Over that age, and if the kids themselves can manage it... sure, it's great. You're there for breaks and emergencies - much better than being absent for the whole day.
It is more for the commuting in and out of school that it helps.
My kids could walk back from school but primary school do not allows them to get out without me. This is kind of stupid as I would sign a waiver if they wanted it but they won't. So until they both reach what you call high school in the USA I have to go to the primary school and back every day. The most funny thing is sometimes I go there by bicycle, let them out of school give them a kiss then ride bike at full speed home to make it before the call while my daughters are walking on their own. I could pay someone to do that but that just sounds so stupid.
My parents put me on a cross-country train (4 hour trip) to see my grandparents every summer since I was 8. When I was 9 I had to figure out how to switch trains halfway because the direct route discontinued.
1. an absurdly car-friendly society that prioritizes cars well above everyone else - basically, parents have to pick up their children in cars because there is no reasonable pedestrian infrastructure to allow them a safe walking home.
2. a truckload of busybodies ("Karens") that call CPS on children wandering alone - Utah had to pass a law in 2018 [1] to cut down on that crap and other US states are following suit. Unfortunately, in states without that explicit carve-out, schools can be cited for neglect as well.
3. US healthcare being absolutely rotten to the core, which means that should a child get injured on the way from the school home, their health insurance will try to pass the bucket down to somewhere else, and the first obvious thing is to attempt to sue the school because they were the last ones in custody of the child. As a result, schools introduce such policies because the second the child is in custody of the parent, the school is no longer liable for anything and the insurance can go and stuff its claims.
I blame Otis Toole[1], who confessed (and later recanted) to the kidnapping and murder of Adam Walsh. The hysteria Adam's father was able to create in the United States is astounding. I grew up before that happened, and I was still freaked out the first time my child wanted to walk home from a friends house, 2 blocks away about 10 years ago.
In my case this is in europe and most people don't even bring their kids by cars because there is almost nowhere to park and because kids are zoned and are expected to go to the nearest public school which is usually in the same neighborhood.
I guess it is just liability. Child abduction is not a problem we are talking a lot in my area, maybe it has been in the past, I don't know I am an expat.
> I guess it is just liability. Child abduction is not a problem we are talking a lot in my area, maybe it has been in the past, I don't know I am an expat.
Here in Europe we do have the advantage that we don't share the same language, meaning that a child being abducted in Portugal or an immigrant raping a woman in Germany doesn't make headlines in Eastern Poland.
In contrast, in the US even small scale regional everyday crimes (not belittling rape here, just noting the fact that sexual crime is a regular occurrence!) can make national outrage.
I doubt it, because I have a similar issue at my kids' school. Kids must either enter a parent's vehicle (which must have a paper or other sign with the names of the kids being picked up on display) at the drive-through pick up, be picked up in person, or get onto a school bus or other approved after-school service. They cannot leave, basically, without an adult who takes them. I was shocked when I found out about it.
For real? I started doing the 1 mile/2.2 km walk home from school at the age of 8. This wasn't in the idyllic 1950's America either - we're talking the mid 90's with plenty of headlines stating "it could happen to YOUR CHILDREN".
How do the logistics work here? Does each teacher stay with their class until all students have been picked up?
I started school in the early 80s, and was walking or riding my bike to school by myself/with friends in the first grade. This went on through the kidnapping hysteria of the time, so it's just weird to me.
The way it works is they dismiss class in groups of a few teachers at a time, and there are supervising adults at the pick-up places who watch the kids.
Personally I think it's terrible for the development of their independence. Maybe Gen-X and some millennials had too much independence, but it seems like the pendulum has swung far too much to the opposite side.
Our local primary school (UK) allows year 5+ (aged 9/10). Annoying that means I have to meet them off the school bus, despite the bus stop literally being on my land at the bottom of the garden, 20 yards from the house, which means having to wait around for upto 15 minutes depending how early/late it's running.
I'm not aware of any high school in the country that forces parental pickup from year 7 (aged 11/12)
>My kids could walk back from school but primary school do not allows them to get out without me.
Where is this? Our kids flood the park and walk home, that's how it has been in a few places we've lived. Maybe y'all are near major roads or no walkable paths?
I disagree. I work from home as a new dad of a nearly 8 month old girl now. The first 3 months I took off work to be a full time dad, but since then I've returned back to a 4 day work week and when I work Monday to Thursday I am not distracted by my baby girl at all. I have a separate room as an office, if the door is closed then it means no interruptions. My wife is still on maternity leave so she is free to do the majority of the child care during the working week. She respects the door is closed rule and knows that I cannot be interrupted then. However, WFH with a young baby has some MASSIVE advantages which I wouldn't be able to get if I was going to an office:
- I get to spend time with my baby girl in the morning before I start work. I wake up at 6:30, it's by choice, I love getting up early and get half an hour of quiet and peace, drinking a coffee and watching breakfast news before the rest of the house wakes up. Then I get to cuddle my daughter for a while whilst my wife gets up and gets ready herself. By 7:30 or 8am I am in my office, often an hour or even two hours online before any of my peers and I'm already working away completely uninterrupted and get more shit done than so many others.
- When I come downstairs to top up a cup of coffee, have a snack, eat lunch, etc. I get to see my daughter again. I get a chance to quickly give my wife a hand with something, or often I just have the opportunity to cook for us rather than her, which is a huge help if nothing else.
- Because I start earlier than everyone else I can also finish on time and when I finish work then I'm immediately available to start winding down and spend time with my family and my daughter again.
Overall I get more work down, I get more sleep, I am more refreshed, I even get extra time to have an outlet after work, playing tennis, going to the gym, etc. and I get to be a much much better husband and a very involved dad even though I have to work 4 days a week.
This is priceless and if I had to go into an office I'd be less productive, more tired, more angry and irritated (less balanced life) and a worse husband/father.
I'm not sure how you disagree. It's still a full time job, done by your wife :)
I never said there's a hundred feet range around every child which makes work impossible. Only that you can't say that you can "just watch" the child, and expect to do work in the meantime. People do try this, on occasion.
Sorry to say but sweet docile 8 month old girl is EZ mode and very different from a 3 year old boy running around banging on your office door demanding your attention every 20 minutes.
Source: have 3 yo boy and 7 mo girl, even with stay at home mom to help. The girl’s presence is almost unnoticeable during work hours unless I want to see her, it’s fully under my control. The boy is a totally different story. Wouldn’t get anything done if I didn’t go to the office.
Absolutely. Father of 5 kids, oldest are teenagers now. 6 to 12 months is the golden age, and is as good as it gets (cherish this!). between 3 and 5 years old, it doesn't matter if you're meeting with the president of the US, that kid is gonna bang on the door and make all hell kinds of noise outside unless there's another parent/person physically present to distract them. And if it does get quiet all the sudden, you better go out and check on them because they're doing something really bad. Hopefully they're just dumping a whole bottle of shampoo into the toilet, rather than scribbling all over the furniture and walls with a
permanent marker that they somehow materialized out of ether. Bear it well though, eventually that little baby won't need you at all anymore and nostalgia will erase the pain of the early days from your memory, leaving only the good times.
I work from home and strongly support working from home, but interruptions from kids are a serious challenge with no easy solution if you're the only parent/person/adult physically in the house at the moment.
IMHO the best thing for both parents and employers to do is allow flexible hours. if you want to work from 6 am to 10am, then be off for 6 hours and resum then from 4pm to 8pm, that should be easy (barring important meetings, etc).
Do you have children? Children ages from 3-5 are still within dog category of intelligence. They are still learning volume, time, routine, self-control and attachment, and they are hardwired to explore their environment within the safety of adult supervision. They are not designed for the autonomous two-parent household left alone for most of the day every day.
I have a one and a half year old baby boy who comes to visit me every few hours even if I’m in the middle of a meeting, with a big smile on his face and usually calling for me in our own goofy language. I wouldn’t trade that for the world. (Maybe I’ll be singing a different tune next year though; haha)
It's kind of absurd to conflate lockdown WFH of the COVID era with regular WFH. Folks who think they can do childcare and WFH are quickly disabused of the notion, unless they happen to have the most independent of children.
Parent was indeed slightly incorrect. Up until maybe 2-3yrs they are little angels. Then everything changes. I would take 8 hours at the office over 8 hours with a high energy 4 year old. It would be way less exhausting.
My experience would say up until they are walking/crawling (assuming they sleep). After that, it was 24/7 duty to watch for falls, climbing, and by 15months or so, they are stacking things to get to get to higher places.
My daughter slept like an angel, my son has not slept through a single night since he was 5 months old.
When people lived in tribes (or even villages), I doubt one or two adults were responsible 24/7 for a toddler. There are a chain of younger to older children playing and looking after each other, as well as elders.
Completely agree, especially on the last point. We've raised our kid with zero help due to geopolitics and economics, and it's clear this is not how nature intended things.
The honeymoon phase will end man. When they are about one and half or two they will try to find ways to injure themselves nearly every 5 minutes the entire time they are awake.
If you are the person responsible for keeping them safe while working it’s an absolute nightmare.
Not sure if you noticed, there is someone else doing the caregiving. However, the big benefit OP gets is more frequent contact with the kid during the day. Both that setup and benefits of it are perfectly possible at one and half years old.
And yet if we don't want a massive population decline we need to figure out how to raise kids and have a decent standard of living. Even if there's only one parent in the picture.
In Scandinavia there is free daycare.
It works great, gender inequality in the workplace is amongst the lowest in the world. There is no stigma on bringing your kids to the daycare, like in some traditional Western countries; it is actually the opposite, people feel it's good for kids to be with others of their same age.
However birth rates are dropping there as much as in all the other rich countries.
So the problem with population decline and dropping birthrates seems to be somewhere else.
(I often try and struggle to explain my thoughts on this, but I'll try again.)
I keep hearing here in the UK that the reason people aren't having kids is because it's so expensive, and I do what you do -- point people at the stats in Scandinavia where a huge chunk of childcare costs is borne by the state, and yet the birth rates are dropping.
My theory on this, and one that I personally felt as well, is that there's just no compelling reason to have kids outside of some biological imperative.
Having kids is seen as a big life-changing decision that rocks a relatively comfortable boat of material comforts and some light hedonism. Why bother with this when you can coast comfortably through life?
When you have kids on the farm, they are free labor, and you have as many as you can.
If you move into the city, they become noisy, expensive hobbies, and people aren't stupid, they have fewer of them.
Hmm. Well I have an awesome open source app / side project that I have very little time to work on, and my plan for it has always been to create enough kids to code on it for free
Women in the west are guilt tripped into having careers now and looked down on for being stay at home parents full time. Men have always been in this boat. Why would they have more kids when neither parent has time for the ones they already have? So we see them end up with 1-2 kids instead of many
I think that another part of the explanation is, that most couples who do have kids, only have one or two.
That sort of ticks the box for life fulfillment goal 'kids', you don't need to have three or more for that.
The reason most Westerners have only two kids is because they don't have a social support group which can take turns raising the extra children. The practical limit for a two-parent household is two kids if they are of a similar age and one partner is taking care of the kids full time. Beyond two kids you're pretty much going to start having to neglect someone some of the time simply because each kid demands so much attention and there is a limit to how much time you have preparing things for them and mitigating disasters. For three or more kids to work generally you need a stronger family support network which is able and willing to devote time to taking care of your children.
As someone with four children who lived most of their early lives a thousand miles away from any established support network, I didn't find this to be true.
On the contrary, the marginal cost of each child decreased with increased help from their siblings.
Perhaps the given scenario is true in "helicopter parenting" modes, but we don't generally employ those.
Right, but now the older children are being parentized and have to do some of the child-rearing instead of just being care-free kids themselves. Not everyone wants that for their children.
I have some friends whose parents made them take care of their siblings too much and they are worse off mentally than their peers. I won't subject my kids to that treatment.
> My theory on this, and one that I personally felt as well, is that there's just no compelling reason to have kids outside of some biological imperative.
> Having kids is seen as a big life-changing decision that rocks a relatively comfortable boat of material comforts and some light hedonism. Why bother with this when you can coast comfortably through life?
I strongly disagree with this. It's a fair question, but humans are social creatures and find pleasure in more than just base things. We describe things as rewarding. Why play sports when you could sit down comfortably? If you play sports, why not play against the easiest opponent? Play all games on easy mode, why make it harder? Why go and find a romantic partner in life, wouldn't it be easier to sit at home and masturbate all day? Why study and learn new topics, why not just do the bare minimum to earn enough money to sit and watch tv.
People even volunteer. That's working for free.
This doesn't mean everyone has to find them rewarding, but there's far more to it than "I just feel I need to have kids".
Poor people are still having a lot of kids, it's the developed world that has a problem. I think the decline is birthrate is much better explained by material wealth and the corresponding education of women that goes along with it as causes of the drop.
If you are having a substantial amount of kids at least one partner's income is entirely eaten up by childcare expenses so it is cheaper to simply not work and take care of the kids full time.
The other thing is ability to control the amount of children. Knowledge of contraception and its availabity. Because even if you are stay at home and committed to be, things are much simpler with 4 kids then with 9.
> point people at the stats in Scandinavia where a huge chunk of childcare costs is borne by the state, and yet the birth rates are dropping.
What, the state that raises its funds by draining resources from families? The state paying for childcare can't make it cheaper to raise children; it just means everyone is living with the costs that they were already going to have to pay. On average, if the cost of raising kids is high people still won't be able to afford them.
If you walk through the logic more deeply; it is unlikely that the state paying for childcare can make it cheaper to raise children. Who is supposed to pay for the costs? People who were already willing and available to help before the state got involved!
And if the state mucks up any part of its policy, it will make it even more expensive by spending the money in sub-optimal ways.
It's cheaper to raise kids since you would already have paid the cost in taxes if you didn't get kids. The important metric is the difference in cost of having kids vs not having kids, and since daycare is heavily subsidized, the difference is small.
Same things go for schools, food in schools, universities, et.c., they are all "free", as in paid for by everyone in proportion to their wealth, instead of individually by the parent.
If we start with the assumption that the cost of childcare is costly enough that it would lead to an unacceptable drop in living standards for the average couple, and then force them to pay that cost anyway (regardless of whether they actually have children) it is unlikely that the follow up is going to be the couple having kids. They'll probably be busy desperately working to get their living standard up to a state that is bearable.
It isn't cheaper to raise kids. They're actually losing more under the socialised system because they still have to give up enough resources to raise the kids and now also to cover inefficiencies in the government program. On average everyone would be worse off. Or you're going to be taxing grandma so instead of her providing helpful childcare services she has to go and work at McDonalds to make up the difference or something. Society is geared towards supporting children already - routing the resources through the state or through the family can't make it easier. Men work to support families, women work to support families, grandparents have nothing better to do than support families. The resources were already tagged to support families. The government can't magic more resources into existence if raising kids is expensive. They'd be taxing families so instead of using the resources to support their families, the resources are being ... handed out to support families. There are no gains, so it isn't going to help.
State spending can reallocate; I can see some potential success in using childcare to free up high performing parents. But if the problem is median experience, reallocation can't do much.
Postscript The taxes in these countries are no joke. Young families are losing a lot more to the tax system than the "free" childcare makes up for. If you traded the free childcare for paid childcare and low taxes, they'd likely be in a much better position to have kids. [Taxes] approx. = [Cost of Services] + [Admin Costs] + [Cost of Rorts]. That isn't making it easier to fund a family.
Main problem with your logic is that it assumes a situation where most people are having kids. Given the situation in Scandinavia is that many people aren’t having children, you end up in a situation where everyone is being taxed to fund childcare, while most people aren’t actually taking advantage of that taxation, so those who are can actually gain more resources than they put in.
The average woman in a Scandinavian country has 1.6 kids. That suggests it is quite common. Going by averages, literally every woman has a child, and half the men.
In actual practice there will be particularly fertile women that have more children and their childcare needs will be draining resources from others, making it harder for them to form families.
I should stress that I don't think childcare costs are the big driver of low fertility. But to say that resource reallocation is going to help is a bit ... I mean, where are these resources going to come from? Everyone was already putting their resources towards their families, diverting money away from those families is the engine that powers the state. That is where the soldiers come from, the welfare comes from, all the labour, where the goods get produced, etc. We'd be asking them to stop caring for their families and instead spend all day caring for their families but according to how the government wants instead of what they actually think they need. You can't take from them, give it back to them and expect them to have more. They aren't even going to have the same.
A billionaire can't wave their arms in the air and make nannies sprout from the ground like mushrooms. The nannies have to come from somewhere else where they were doing something else.
If families are feeling the pinch, that "something else" is probably work that was important to setting up families and maintaining a standard of living. Forcing billionaires to put money into childcare is just making it more difficult to have children because those resource aren't going to be going towards whatever the more pressing problems are.
Billionaires make all that money by making things happen that people need done. Disrupting that and sending the resources to childcare is not likely to work either. If the problem is that childcare is too expensive, what is important is bringing down the cost, not trying to find someone else to pay the cost. There is no-one else, having children is too common an activity.
Traditionally the economic benefit of children was that they would basically work for you, including supporting you into old age. This made the enormous investment a lot more worthwhile.
Also the childcare obligations were much less (a 12 year old could be pretty much self sufficient by working).
With pensions, no child labour, etc, the trade-off is not like that any more in economic terms. Having children is basically a total economic loss and a rational person would tend to avoid it. It's seen as a luxury nowadays, something most can't afford.
throw the nuclear family back into the dumpster where it belongs. The most straightforward answer how two working parents raise a kids is, they don't. At least alone. It takes a village as the proverb goes. If you have your grandparents and your uncles, aunts and other folks around as I was lucky enough to have growing up you're never bored, and they're never bored.
I agree it takes a village, and like you I was lucky to grow up with lots of aunts, uncles, and grandparents around all the time. But I don’t like the idea that it we need a village so both parents of the child can work full time.
The first couple years of a kid’s life are formative, and fleeting. Why only spend a small portion of each day together? It takes more than that to form a good bond.
Plus, grandparents might have all the free time, but aren’t as able to do everything as someone in the next younger generation. But why don’t any of the aunts and uncles have jobs, while the kid’s parents do, in your hypothetical?
The sooner we get away from 5 8s the better IMO, so we can start living richer, balanced lives. At least the commute is going, which really makes it more like 5 10s on average.
> But why don’t any of the aunts and uncles have jobs, while the kid’s parents do, in your hypothetical?
They do. In functional families everyone still works but because you have a dozen+ people to split the "chores" of life with, someone is typically available or can make themselves available at any given time.
It's also a family, so it's not just "aunts and uncles" but everyone from grandparents down to nieces and nephews. Lots of people at different stages of life able to contribute different things. The working-age folks tend to bring in money, and those who aged out or are too young contribute in other ways offloading tasks from those working a standard job.
The American nuclear family unit along with suburbanization in my opinion will destroy the country at a societal level. Thought this for a very long time. Humans are not meant to be isolated efficiency machines.
There is no adequate alternative to loving parents. "The village" can only help or hinder, not replace.
The primary factor to success and happiness in life is your family structure and having their loving guidance and support.
Today, the village mostly hinders. Few people have experience with children anymore and most are self centered. Their "help" mostly consists of direct criticism, or indirect criticism in calling the authorities.
Related expectation is that in that setup, you are expected to help grandparents, uncles and aunts too. It also means the other family members have a say into how you run your own house, what you do, what your kids do and so on. As in, a lot of independence people cherish goes out of window.
In particular, it could mean that you cant move to SV for better job, because some relative depends on you.
I don't particularly live near any of my relatives though (the closest ones I could rely on are four hours away). Many people are in my situation of having moved for a better job, which necessarily leaves those other people behind.
I actually like the office and don’t like working from home. It’s the commute that makes me work remotely.
I start my shower 15 minutes before work and am online and productive. Going into the office adds on at least an hour and all the intangibles with it (gas, drycleaning, food, etc).
And childcare is so possible with remote work and much more difficult with commuting.
If I could teleport instantaneously to my office I would choose it in a heartbeat.
I had a similar setup: private office (not a great view, though) and 5-10 minute commute.
I would still only work from home.
I enjoyed riding my bike to work when the weather was nice, but I’d rather ride to other places instead (better routes). Same goes with walking, I’d rather walk around my neighborhood and nearby parks and lakes than the central business district.
I suppose my point is that even if you’re in an ideal situation, the office still doesn’t make sense. Most people are not in that position so it makes even less sense.
The occasional face-to-face get together is nice, but you don’t need an office for that.
My last job in a physical office was similar. 10 minute bike ride with a locker room and showers at the office, nice solo cube. It was a great office environment, but the Kabuki hustle to appear busy in an office is extremely stressful.
I think before the pandemic a lot of people were judging performance based on appearances (does this person seem busy, do they have a high profile in meetings). The wider cultural shift toward remote has led to increased emphasis on delivery.
The real revelation for me is just how mentally taxing driving is. I _hated_ going to the office and felt like shit every weekday. Then I moved to an inner city apartment and walked to work and I loved the office and the walk in. I’ve been remote working for 2 years now as it let met access better jobs in another city but it’s really starting to get to me so I’m moving to that city so I can get back to the office.
This. I hated driving to the office as well, and I have done it for years. At some point I got a job closer to home so I started biking to work instead. And since then I don't mind coming to the office anymore. I even like it.
But as per usual people don't want to make the necessary sacrifices.
If you want to live in a big expensive city you have to pay more. If you work a job that pays the maximum their office is probably in a big expensive city which means you either have to live in said city or commute there.
I could have higher paying job, but that would require 1-2 hour commute.
I could also move closer to the office, but that would mean taking on debt or paying high rent.
My compromise is to live ~15 minute drive away from the office. I live in cheaper city (I'd have to pay at least twice if not thrice as much for same size apartment), but I have to commute to the office, I could use public transportation, but then I'd be chained to schedules and it would take ~45 minutes in total, so I choose to own a car and drive.
Sure, but living in cities has its benefits besides being closer to work and depending on what you want that’s worth the pain. I tend to go into the office two or three days a week and I’ll generally have an evening activity in town on one or two days, like drinks or theatre or a meet up or something. If you’re doing it for fun as well as work the commute isn’t so bad and the trains are quiet later in the evening.
> 2) I do not have children at home, which is a pro and a con of working remotely. Being able to look after your offspring is great! I have it on good authority though that kids are distraction machines.
From my experience, no one wants to get back to the office more than fathers that want to escape their wifes and children.
The problem with point 2 is that kids is category that includes everything from 0 years old babies to 17 years old teenagers.
So, homeoffice while caring about 1 years old, yup the kid is distraction machine. Home office that allows you to interact with your 10 years old as he comes from school, fill the kids needs and then return to work is awesome.
> 1) My "Office" (not home) is not an "Open Office", it's a place where I can reasonably sit in peace and have control of my surroundings (this is something not afforded to most people in offices, and something that work from home provides)
This x1000, it's not just getting rid of distractions by people walking by or talking... but especially how you sit. My back is shot, I prefer lying on a sofa or in one of these bean bags. No way to do that in the office.
Just fwiw, some offices like mine do have beanbags and couches, and I’ve had lots of great discussions and working sessions in them. Unless it’d be totally out of place (e.g. Telemarketing cube farm or something) try talking to bosses / facilities about making some space for that? A lot of more modern offices have a decent amount of lounge space and different types of working environments like lunch rooms, individual tables, tables and chairs off to the side, benches, lounge chairs, chaise lounges, outdoor cabanas (my personal fav), grassy spots under trees, etc etc.
> 1) My "Office" (not home) is not an "Open Office", it's a place where I can reasonably sit in peace and have control of my surroundings (this is something not afforded to most people in offices, and something that work from home provides)
I think Open Office approach only works when its your team in a secluded area, and then any other teams have a wall to block out your teams shenanigans. I prefer remote, but I miss the one open office place I worked in where we were just isolated by teams mostly, it was also maybe 8 of us? So its different from having a much larger team set.
It's a different perspective when you can do something instead of must do something.
When I'm visiting my parents, I like to clean leaves and get rid of the snow from the driveway. But if I had to do it every day, because I wouldn't be able to use the car if I didn't? That's a completely different perspective.
It's like "I'm fine with going to the office, though mine has a top class chef, free booze, an infinity pool, and cheerleaders, oh and all my personal friends work there, and it's right next door to me".
But liking vs not liking it is not the point (as it varies, as you said, between people, and also over time: e.g. someone might not have kids now, but they might get. Or they might need to rent elsewhere and have a much longer commute). The real point is whether people are given the option to go or not: then they have the power to make the decision.
>I have it on good authority though that kids are distraction machines.
More of a nuance here, they are mainly only distraction machines for 5-7 years, after that it is more about scheduling conflicts and being able to be "present" when they are. Especially for children attending traditional school programs (public or private), they are gone most of the day and then have their own distractions (homework, hobbies, trainings, friends, etc).
>Being able to look after your offspring is great!
This is a big no and main reason why I am against WFH. Here in Finland we have ample maternity leave and pretty good paternity leave as well, so why in the fuck are we allowing these new fathers to "work" from home while looking after the kid? The mother has maternity leave precisely so she can take care of the kid(s), she should be doing it for the 8 hours you are working, but every single new father takes huge part of work day off to take care of kids.
Yeah they claim they will work overtime during the evening or on weekends, but
A) I doubt they actually make up the time since they don't take into account all the time the kid is just in the room with them distracting them and
B) it doesn't matter if we need to collaborate and you aren't on the clock when rest of us are on the clock
>My meandering point is that: everyone has different life situations
I just wish WFH advocates would remember this when someone is not for WFH. Whenever I bring up my reasons for liking the office here I get replies that just dismiss my reasons or are otherwise just mean spirited simply for disagreeing with their point of view.
For those curious of my own reasons to go to office:
- cheap & healthy food prepared by someone else
- good coffee prepared by someone else / machine
- easy to go to the gym on my way to the office
- nice separation of work and "civilian" life, I can just leave work at the office when I leave
- a reason to put on trousers and a clean shirt in the morning
The reason why I don't go to office more often currently is lack of lunch service. I don't want to go to eat at restaurant or pack a lunch every day. This then cascades to rest of my life - I haven't been to the gym whole winter since I can't be arsed to clear the snow and ice off of my car just do drive to the gym and back and I'm wasting time brewing coffee and making food.
For me it's the opposite. Food outside of home means it's low quality food in comparison to the fresh organic produce which we buy locally and my wife and myself have had freshly cooked food all our lives so we really value fresh home made delicious food rather than having a burger or some other rubbish outside.
- good coffee prepared by someone else / machine
Again, the complete opposite for me. The first kitchen appliance which we bought when we moved into our house was a Sage Oracle coffee machine, one of the best bean to cup machines and we buy an organic blend of well sourced beans from a local shop in South West London. Everyone who visits us and drinks our coffee says that they never had such a good cup of coffee before.
- easy to go to the gym on my way to the office
In the city the gyms are crammed, overcrowded and small and they have limited facilities. Here where I live we have a massive David Lloyd just a 6 minute drive away, it's a massive complex with indoor/outdoor tennis courts, gym floor, 20+ studios for classes, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a creche for children, a bar and restaurant and the most amazing spa. Going to my local gym after work is a million times better than those shitty crammed basement bullshit gyms in the city where all the offies are.
- nice separation of work and "civilian" life, I can just leave work at the office when I leave
I love my work. We have an office room in our house. If I'm inside this room with closed doors I'm in deep work mode. If outside I'm in home mood. Clean separation enough, also the best separation is to finish work, put on my sports gear and go hit the tennis courts or go with my family for a walk outside or something. I don't need to sit on an overcrowded stuffy tube full of sick overly tired miserable looking people in order for my brain to switch into home mode.
- a reason to put on trousers and a clean shirt in the morning
Never wore shirt to work, even when I went into the office. I'm thankful for that.
My office used to have fresh food made locally. I also don't want to frequent restaurants. As I said in my comment, but I guess we aren't reading comments fully anymore.
I am not a coffee snob and this is by intention. I like the caffeine - it is a wonderful drug and I can enjoy a well made cup of coffee, but I want to be able to have coffee anywhere I feel the need without having to look for something specific or being disappointed in the taste. Filter is fine. Instant is fine. I do have couple coffee bean grinders and couple fancier brewers, but it is a rare day I care to use them.
Again depends where you live. Where I live when I go to the gym between 5 and 6 there are usually no one there. I can lift in peace. I would love to have room for my own gym, but I would have to move. And if it wasn't for the snow I probably would go to the gym and I probably will start when the snow melts.
I bought my apartment before Covid, so I didn't prioritize having home office since back then only reason to have remote day was if I had a package coming in that was too large to bring home from office. So I'm working from my living room which is not ideal. Yes, I could make the sacrifice and take a loan, put my current apartment up for sale and move to something that has dedicated office, but I don't see the point. My office is being renovated and by the end of the year (assuming the schedule holds) I can start going to the office again every day.
I think this is where we have a language break down. By shirt I mean just like a t-shirt or hoodie. The confusion was mine since I did change "pants" to "trousers", but didn't think far enough.
Nope. You realize that kids need and beg for endless amount of attention from parents long after maternity/paternity leave ends, even in Finland. Its clear from your post you don't have much experience with being around small kids for longer time. Unless you plan to subsidize everybody's maternity leave till kids are teens, then leave is just bare minimum, even at 1 year, heck even at 3 as its back home.
In fact, first half year/year are by far the easiest months in incoming years when you look back, just tons of sleeping, no teething. If parents complain during this phase its usually due to this being first child so they are still learning, or child is non-standard.
Its great if you like being in the office, a lot of lonely or career-oriented people I talked to feel the same, and there are some nice perks to be had. Most of what you describe is just matter of a bit of discipline, which is a skill most people these days are rather lacking, not bad to train that a bit. Ie if you like that somebody cooks for you and does your coffee, for sure work is not the only place to get it, not even in Finland, heck get it delivered home if you are so lazy that you don't want to clear snow to go to gym (which is TBH ridiculous if you think about it).
>Its clear from your post you don't have much experience with being around small kids for longer time.
Yep, that is literally what day care is for. This is how things have been done for decades. How are things all of a sudden any different - other than now the father is working from home and the mother can offload onto him and eat into his work time.
As with everything having kids requires sacrifices, meaning you lose your free time since you have to build and take care of your family, but then trying to now shift that on the employer is unreasonable.
>a lot of lonely
Again (not-so) subtle attack on my person. Of course I must be lonely (and probably a loser) since I prefer to have the perks of working in an office.
>Most of what you describe is just matter of a bit of discipline
Aaand there comes the dismissing.
>heck get it delivered home if you are so lazy
I would if I could. No place delivers before 10 or 11. However this is due to the city I live in. I am sure in bigger expensive city I could get coffee delivered at 6, but not here. Also since again I've made the sacrifice with pay I don't want to be paying 10€+ every morning to get coffee delivered, I could afford it, but I am not so well off that I wouldn't notice it in my finances.
>you don't want to clear snow to go to gym (which is TBH ridiculous if you think about it).
More dismissal. Yeah, you can think it is ridiculous, but I think having kids is ridiculous so that argument doesn't hold much weight.
Your comment also points towards the solution for low natality. In rich countries people want a lot more for their kids. They want to raise the kids themselves and spent a lot more time with them in the unique moments when they are still small. So just pay one parent 12 years to take care of their kid. My guess is natality will jump right back.
Back in the day, on a farm kids used to be a form of free labor - of course they took effort up front, but after the oldest are capable for watching after the youngest it breaks even and then after few years the oldest can start to help with actual work.
Now days in cities kids are more like very expensive pets.
I do 100% remote work and will never go back. I'm lucky that the company I work at is remote first, so all processes are optimized for it. I get 90 days a year to work from other countries too, this year I stayed in Barbados for 4 weeks (it was an amazing experience) while I championed a project with a public release date (work still gets done). I have a routine with walks at lunch, exercise after work etc. I can shift my working day by 1-2 hours if I decide. If I get bored of working at home I grab my WeWork card and meet with a friend at one of the locations in town. Or I go to a cafe. I don't have a ton of recurring Zoom meetings like in the "remote" companies. I can see people on the team at the offsites (more free travel to other cities/countries) and have fun with them too.
I refuse to ever go back into an office again with my current job. A new job may convince me, but to be honest, I work better when I'm working from home. I'll just say that when you pay for a mortgage, and then you go somewhere for 8 or 9 hours a day, you're wasting your money. When you work from home, you're getting to experience the mortgage you're paying for and every dollar you spend matters. It changes your perspective.
With my current job, despite being moved across the country in 2014 to work in an office and then being told to stay at home indefinitely once COVID-19 hit, I had experienced 4 bosses trying to fire me once I got into an office. I had to attend unnecessary meetings in person that made no sense. I had to kiss asses and say hi to people that I really didn't want to see or know in person. It'd take a lot to convince me that I should go to an office to do a job I can perfectly do at home.
I remember when I was first moved across the country.. and I asked, "Am I safe for at least 6 months to a year?" And the boss who required the move said, "We cannot guarantee that." Not more than 3 months in and I had four different bosses scrutinizing me for everything from the way I wrote code, to the way I dressed to the way I was sitting... and it just sucked. I even had a boss that almost fired me for putting Lorem Ipsum in the content before it was sent to the client. #truestory read all about it: https://confessionsoftheprofessions.com/lorem-ipsum-almost-g...
So I'm done with that life.. hopefully indefinitely.
I had to kiss asses and say hi to people that I really didn't want to see or know in person.
If our environment is filled with people like that - maybe we should just move on, you know? Even if WFH masks this pain somewhat by requiring us to not plant our lips physically on on their asses on a daily basis, but merely astrally, via Slack and what not.
Being as the underlying rot is still there on some level, and ultimately, just as toxic.
(I know, I know, I know - eventually it pretty always ends up being "like that". No matter how rosy everything smells at the onset).
Your project manager sounds dumb, but Lorem Ipsum is a bad idea for development in general. It just confuses people, including clients, as you saw and wrote. Apps in staging should be seeded with real-looking information and text, and there are plenty of seeding libraries out there that do this. If you need to generate paragraphs of text, there is non-lorem text seeders that create real English paragraphs.
I tried putting "English gibberish" in there, from cupcake ipsum (https://cupcakeipsum.com/) to bacon ipsum (https://baconipsum.com/) and was told to stop. We can't put regular English text in the content because they send us the actual content they want in English and there can be up to 5 to 10 sets eyes of project managers on the same project, who might get confused as to whether this is the actual text or not. I suppose we could've put "THIS TEXT IS PLACEHOLDER" but unless required, Lorem Ipsum is standard procedure text.
>Lorem Ipsum is a piece of text, used by designers to fill a space where the content will eventually sit. It helps show how text will look once a piece of content is finished, during the planning phase. Filler text has been widely used for centuries, so most people are familiar with seeing Lorem Ipsum on a mock design.
Why would I commute (and in doing so lose 2 hours of my time per day)? Focusing in the office is next to impossible, the equipment is sub-par (I have a 3-monitor setup at home)? What is it about software engineering that requires physical presence? Currently we meet once a week in the office and I get almost no work done that day, and I’m not the only one.
I never understood why anyone would spend hours traveling each day just so they can sit in front of a computer in another place for a while and go back home. Glad the world has caught up with this being complete nonsense!
It does add up. I went from a place where I had about 20-30 min commute to 2 mins. That is 1 hour per day extra. 5 hours extra per week. ~260 hours per year. That is nearly 32 days extra per year to do stuff.
I have gone back to the 30 min commute. I do not care for the commute part. The office bit is 'nice'/whatever as it is as I tell the people I work with 'toy distraction free'. As all of my cool things I like to mess with are at home.
But honestly they are paying me a decent salary and part of the deal is I do what they pay me for, for a few hours of the day. I am selling my time for money. If they want to pay for that I am fine with it. They want to pay me to 'work from home' I am fine with that too. It is is 'their dime'.
Some people don't have a home office, or even a basic desk + chair setup that's suitable for long hours of computer work.
A colleague of mine prefers going to the office because at home he's constantly distracted by kids.
Another has literally injured himself due working from his kitchen in a bad position for a year. It's worse than RSI. He had to rehabilitate for half a year just to get back to 95% health, and even now whenever he concentrates for too long the pain comes back.
One might say, "well they should arrange a suitable setup then". Not everyone has a home that's large enough. Besides, my experience is that most people don't have the discipline or will to do this properly, and as an employer you have to more or less force this upon employees (not even "recommend" is good enough).
In the Netherlands, if employees — even office employees — injure themselves, then the employer is obliged to take care of them for max 2 years, even if the injury was not directly caused by the employer.
> my experience is that most people don't have the discipline or will to do this
This widely believed anecdotally driven piece of opinion-data was what COVID invalidated. Studies demonstrated no significant loss in productivity and in many cases increased productivity during WFH during covid - putting aside contexts where it was clearly unsuitable / suboptimal (people trapped in their houses with small kids, no appropriate equipment etc).
Perhaps the real lesson is that most people at most companies were vastly unproductive at the office to begin with, so working from home didn't risk losing very much.
It is my personal experience at my own workplace. I literally saw with my own eyes that if I don't force employees to have a proper work environment, then they won't set one up by themselves, only to get back pain a few days later.
Where I live, the people with long commutes are more likely to live outside the city in a house with an extra room. It's the urban apartment dwellers that don't have the extra space.
An extra bedroom in most parts of metro Boston is like an extra $1000-1500, even in the close suburbs. An unlimited pass for public transit is $90/month. A blue bike annual membership is that much per year. It doesn't even come close.
The home office equipment can be bought from the higher salaries the companies are able to provide now that they don't need to waste as much money on office rent. Of course, getting a good chair is just as important as it used to be!
> Another has literally injured himself due working from his kitchen in a bad position for a year. It's worse than RSI. He had to rehabilitate for half a year just to get back to 95% health, and even now whenever he concentrates for too long the pain comes back.
I have literally injured myself due to working in offices: got back and chest pain because every piece of furniture from desk to chair was absolute garbage, each day hands, wrists, and forearms were in pain within minutes because of lousy keyboard and mouse, eyes crying so much I wanted to gouge them out because the screen was spectacularly bad (low contrast, low resolution, high minimum brightness, high latency) and lighting was the worst (single window giving into an artificially long room, overhead neon ceiling lighting flickering at mains frequency, no other lights). Of course it was open space, so to not be constantly distracted one isolates themselves with headphones and music for hours on end and whatnot.
Most employees had at least two items each they bought on their own dime or brought from home (whether it was lights, screens, chairs, headphones, laptops...) to make it bearable.
A coworker suffered from back pain and was put of commission for 6 months, came back feeling better, stayed two months... and was out again for 6. Another started
to have ear ringing because of the constant music. At some point I felt terrible chest pain, like being hit by a truck, a piercing sensation from front to back, like being impaled by a javelin, couldn't raise arms, went out to try and catch my breath and legs gave in as I stepped outside. I thought I was having some heart attack of sorts but it was "merely" my chest and back muscles getting so tense over the years that they cramped and would not let go, even if it meant choking to death.
Took months to realise, years to undo the damage.
This experience was a tad extreme but the principles are generally consistent across many many workplaces: employers buy the cheapest hardware, rent the cheapest place, and throw the coding masses in there, where employees try to make the best with what they are given and what they can bring from home. The tech startup bubble where employees get the best hardware and working conditions is the exception, not the rule.
So to sum up: employees suffer commuting and terrible work conditions that they accomodate for with their own gear from home, only to end up isolating themselves once on site, for the benefit of having two times 10min face to face watercooler talk + 45min lunch per day. No wonder so many want to skip the nonsense, work from home, and do the occasional social thing outside of the office.
Ultimately I guess offices are part about control over employees and part status symbols for companies (as in, "we rented that big place", not as in "you'll have the best working conditions")
Commutes are often filled to the brink with people, there usually isn't enough space for everyone to move freely, and depending on one's location, you might have nothing but a black tunnel wall outside the windows. Public transport often requires one to switch trains or buses, and traffic jams are a constant worry for drivers.
Travelling, as in actually going somewhere, is often a nice and relaxing experience. Taking a delayed filled-to-the-brink bus to the train-station, switching to a delayed train without a single free seat, switching to a hermetically sealed metro car an hour later and finally arriving at the office 30 minutes late is _not_ a relaxing experience.
I'd love to see my coworkers now and then, but commuting really neutralises any benefits from going to the office.
That's the thing, though; when you're bound by working hours and need to commute (which most people are), you don't really have much choice and will need to commute during rush hours.
Personally, I'd rather find a non-tech sector job close to my home than commuting to a tech job. I am very happy to be fortunate enough to have the option to work from home all of the time -- most people don't
I just had to say this: I admire and applaud your patience which you demonstrated when responding to the person above. Kudos for being insightful and kind at the same time.
Tech jobs haven't been 9-5 for about twenty years. If your employer wants you punching a clock and sitting at a desk, you need to change your job, or Change Your Job.
If you can walk to a train station in 5 minutes, then socialized with your train friends for half an hour to 45 minutes or read a book. Or if you commute by walking, cycling and running and it is considered your daily physical activity, it is fine.
If you spend your time running to a bus stop, not being able to do anything in the bus because it is crowded and bouncy, then have to catch a train, that is also full then another one, to run to another bouncy crowded bus and reach your office 1h30 to 2h00 without having been able to spend a decent amout of time reading, chatting or something else, this is totally lost. If you are driving chance is it is also lost for the most part.
I made friends when I was commuting by train in Switzerland.
The first weeks you ignore people. Sometimes you start talking because of a special event, an unexpected halt, whatever. First friend I did was a cyclist like me so we were bumping into each other when hanging our bicycles to the hook when entering the train and one day he complimented me on my bicycle and then we started talking. Second one is a girl I was seeing most of the time because we were kind of looking for the less busy cars at the end of the lane every morning where most people are too lazy to walk to. She was sitting so straight and elegant one day I simply asked her if she was dancing ballet as most people who sit so well are dancers. It happened she wasn't but we started chatting and now we are friends. Another one I really started talking to because of another girl who was sitting at my side and who had intellectual developmental disability. That girl kept talking and talking, she was very funny, aware of her disability yet made fun of it saying it made her more entertaining and it was true and she was constantly making jokes about life, her and ourselves. I never met that person again but she made me and the woman sitting in front of me chatting about how good time we had talking to her afterwards that we ended up chatting for an hour and also became friends. These are the three I kept as friends and met outside of the commute context even years after we all stopped taking those trains and am still in touch with while living in another country. But I met other people I would bump into once in a while, whom I exchanged numbers and we would chat a bit every time we met.
It takes a bit of time usually and you don't get to be friend with a complete car but if you take the very same commute daily for months you eventually find out that you can bound with one or two people that share part of the journey.
Lots of people I know who live in the north of England and Scotland get to know the people they end up commuting with, but this seems much less common in the south of England. I think conversation with strangers on the train is also much more common up north.
I've got the John le Carré George Smiley Collection on at the moment. Blasting through snowy countryside on a beautiful sunny day listening to tales of Cold War spies? Cannot be beat.
The key word is might. I was commuting in a big city, 1+ hour one way, regardless car or public transit. So you'd think that in the latter case I had 40-50 minutes to do stuff? Wrong. First you need to wait for the transport, technically you can read something quickly while waiting, but you always need to watch for car numbers, not to miss yours, and holding a phone out in winder is fucking cold. In summer sun blinding a screen and causing it to overheat due to max brightness. Then you are riding in the overcrowded tram or bus, one hand holding the rail not to fall, so no typing, and reading is rather limited when you are packed like sardines. Then you repeat all that for the second leg of the trip (not many are lucky to have a direct line to work). So all in all out of 1 wasted hour you maybe read for like 10 minutes total in shitty conditions. Oh, and reading standing really hurts your neck (because you are reading face down), spine (because you are always in the asymmetrical stance), and hand (carpal syndrome from holding too wide phone and doing swiping gestures with the same hand).
Commuting in the car obviously makes impossible to do anything else.
When I was a younger human, riding my motorcycle into the office every day was an amazing hobby. I loved it and would absolutely go back to that daily habit if it works for me.
Irony aside, I'd rather drive to meet friends or family living in the countryside than to work. And all things being equal, I'd rather bike, I'm still sightly overweight and it helps.
so what do you call 3 hours a day when you're forced to sit/stand in a carriage? sure, I can find activities to occupy myself, read a book, listen to podcast, etc, but this is not by choice. I'd rather go for a run. So if I cannot do what I want during the time, then the time for me is lost. And don't even get started on "learning new skills" while on a train. Studying requires concentration, at least for me, so no, I cannot learn new language while standing under someones armpit.
Once a week is a lot, that’s hybrid and not remote. The thing is if someone “forces” you into an office once a week then it’s not for team collaboration but for control. They want to control that you are never going to travel too far from the office away. Organisations who care about collaboration and team bonding would say you should meet when the team decides it’s right for them. Throw in some budget so the teams can go for a nice lunch together when it happens, maybe have some for drinks after or let them plan an activity. But let the team decide when that time is, after all they will know best when a natural moment takes place where getting together will be good. It could be once a month, once every 6 weeks or sometimes once every two weeks.
I'm working as a freelance developer in Denmark, this is my reality. I live about 30-40 minutes away from my current customer, and every time I go there I will charge the time spent. My company can also pay me a tax free "bonus" for every kilometre driven, because I use my own private car.
I like the work/home divide. I like the in person interactions. I like being able to walk and meet with other departments and dig into what really needs doing. Pairing is easier and the work I do feels more effective. I do appreciate flexibility in my role and being able to work wherever I want whenever I want. But for 70-80% of the time, I prefer the office and considering the full office, Im not alone.
I feel that software engineering isn’t a one size fits all and its up to you to chase the work environment you enjoy the most.
>the equipment is sub-par (I have a 3-monitor setup at home)?
This is a funny reality. Even the profligate employers of software developers are reluctant to spend money on a monitor setup as nice as what I had at home at the entry level.
...except, of course, I paid for it - plus sales tax - with the money they gave me - net of income tax.
I do mostly remote work, but there’s advantages to physical presence. First, offline is a more rich channel for communication. Blunt analogy is an audio vs video meeting. It’s easier to explain and understand people. If you have a lot of uncertainty and things changing fast, you want this.
Secondly, it brings people together. I myself found this argument BS, but I found out it really depends on the team. I am looking forward to the interactions I am having in the office now.
So, to each their own. Most importantly IMO is that teams can have freedom to decide what works best for them.
It depends not only on the own team but also the other teams you collaborate with or provide service for.
We're a small "DevOps" team that provides all kind of services but we figured out that people in our company (it's a small startup) just don't come to us virtually if they need something or want a second opinion.
So we said we'll come into office once a week on a specific day and that day they can approach us with everything. Of course it hasn't changed behavior of everyone but that day we have more interactions with all kind of colleagues than the rest of the remote days combined.
Doing a mental/empathy exercise to think about all the reasons why people would want to do that is an important practice for your career growth and building great software products for people that aren't like you.
I personally would prefer to working remotely (at least 4 days a week) unless my commute is less than 15-20 minutes but executives put significant value in seeing people working from the office. If they'll decide to save (offices are not cheap) and hire a remote developer what would stop from hiring around the world? Developer salaries in developed countries (and especially the US) are much higher than world average.
Working from office you compete with candidates in the same city or in the same country if willing to relocate. Working remotely one have to compete with the whole world.
I think the debate here has grown pretty stale. There’s a lot of arguing about what’s right or wrong, when this isn’t really about right or wrong.
There’s a factual question here about whether remote first companies are more, less, or equally competitive with office first companies. Anecdotes aren’t going to answer that question. Logical arguments aren’t going to answer that question. Passionate rants about pointy haired bosses aren’t going to answer that question.
We just going to need to wait and see the natural experiment play out. Meanwhile, if you are an employer make the best call you can with insufficient data. That’s why you get so much upside. If you’re an employee take the role that’s best for you and your family.
Anecdotal evidence does suggest this to be determined on a combination of the individual, and the task. If individuals are more productive, then the company as a whole must be more competitive?
In my own case, if we say an ideal productivity output per day is 1 unit, that is 100% productive. Commuting to the office, office distractions, and general tiredness, I would put the hard limit at 50%. I've measured it, and the duration I'm very productive tends to be at best, half the working hours. Usually, it's much less. Any meeting that could be handled in slack, design documents w/feedback do not count (this is almost all meetings). The many "could you..", "do you know...", etc, all take up a good chunk, even though the requests are only 5 minutes worth of work.
While working from home, suddenly the deep focus you had 2 hours in, stretches on for 6 hours, or even 10. Or around 2-300% productive.
To what extent there is a tradeoff in office culture, and colloquial banter, that has its own value, I'm not sure. But, for people who value getting shit done, the office, and commuting, sure adds a lot of negative value in the mix.
And, you might think that this just applies to "hands-dirty" (as much as they get dirty while typing on a keyboard :p) engineering work. Though I would argue it applies equally to secondary work planning, task breakdown, and strategic planning.
> If individuals are more productive, then the company as a whole must be more competitive?
This is only obviously true for rote work.
For more ambiguous knowledge work increasing task completion rate may make the company less competitive if the tasks are less aligned with the company strategy (ever seen a product became a tangled mess of half-broken features?). If you're mathemtically inclined, it's useful to model tasks as vectors adding to the company's vector of progress; the net result can be a reduction in progress if the task vector and company vector are misaligned.
Anecdotally, this misalignment is the what everyone at the middle management layer and above is worried about. You get to the end of the quarter and you realize that the work team A did was misaligned with the work from team B and now their shared business goal is shot. Many people's reaction to this line of thinking is "well that's management's fault" but, as the parent correctly calls out, that's beside the point. "Just hire more competent managers" is not something you can do en masse.
If only a tech recruitment company would publish biannual findings from their factual observations of the whole industry, they'd have a strong evidence-based vantage point which none of us individual tech workers have. They could use a catchy name like "Hired dot com" and people would write news articles about their findings.
That doesn’t tell us how remote first companies will compete in the marketplace. It’s just gazing at our own navels. We need to wait and see how things shake out.
The entire premise of the article is that remote-hiring companies have access to premium talent that office-hiring companies don't. So yes, it clearly answers your question.
I have managed to mangle my wrists so much over the years that I now almost exclusively use my computer with voice and an eye tracker.
I will never work in an office again, unless the company I work for wants to pay for me to have a private office with a door that closes, and pay to duplicate my home set up (~£1000+).
Even then:
- it just seems moronic for me to spend my own free time on commuting. So I would also want my company to pay for that, both in transport fees and in my time.
- it's very inconvenient to have to bring a packaged lunch to work, or wasteful to buy one every day.
- I can control my own temperature, my own noise levels, and take breaks when I feel my performance lagging, not when it's socially appropriate to do so
I think it's totally fine to come to an office occasionally to collaborate or celebrate, but doing it every day or even once a week is valueless
Yep. So I've been working for about fifteen years, had it from the start, but it just keep on getting worse. So now have migrated to a no keyboard solution, and am working on a no mouse solution.
My setup, software:
- talon (https://talonvoice.com/), basing my configuration on the standard repo (https://github.com/knausj85/knausj_talon/), with some minor modifications. This is how I navigate my whole computer, and runs the voice recognition and eye tracking. This is how I'm typing this right now. There are also a bunch of other little system changes that you need to make (eg, on macOS, disable double space to type a period), which is documented by the community with varying levels of success.
- cursorless (https://www.cursorless.org/), and then vscode. Before this I used Sublime Text for years and years, but cursorless is too good for coding. I know there are some projects on going to port it to different editors, but I haven't massively looked into it.
- vimium extension for web browsing (works in both chrome and firefox). This makes things like clicking links easier with your voice, without having too use an eye tracker all the time.
And then hardware:
- DPA 4488 microphone -> DAD6001 microdot-XLR converter -> Shure X2U USB XLR interface. ~£800. It's a very expensive microphone, but it's what the developer of talon uses (same brand anyway), and since I'm using this for work I want to remove every obstacle to having my voice recognised correctly and quickly
- Tobii Eye Tracker 5. ~£250. This is basically the only game in town. It works well enough but needs a lot of light. It also needs to be physically mounted to a monitor. In theory this means I don't need to use a mouse, but because I have a 34" ultrawide it doesn't work well on the edges, so I have a specific window size and location configured (say "layout mouse") which I could move apps into if I need to.
- At some point soon I want to replace the X2U with something higher quality and more permanent on my desk. Soon!
Got any tips for a 30 year old who wants to prevent needing all this in the future? Wrist strength is something I never think about, but I'm sure it could sneak up on me one day.
The issue isn't a lack of strength if your wrists, it's over-use of of your wrist.
All you can really do is read up on ergonomics and make sure your setup follows best practices - ones backed by actual research. As SCdF said, take frequent breaks. Pay attention to your wrist and hands when they feel sore.
A couple of things that have worked for me:
1. Switch using your mouse to your non-dominant hand throughout the day. It sucks at first but you will get good pretty quick
2. Use the mouse as little as possible. For web browsing specifically there are good browser plugins that make keyboard nav pretty easy
3. I had a lot of success using an Xbox controller plugged into a computer as a mouse. One joystick to move the cursor, one for scrolling, buttons to emulate mouse clicks. This was good for something like web browsing where I wasn't typing a lot. Or reading documents. It felt a lot more ergonomic than a mouse, kept my wrists at a better angle, and for the most part only used my thumbs and not my wrist.
Truthfully if I knew that I wouldn't be in this position. I imagine it's probably pretty genetic.
Things that help me the most though, is taking frequent breaks, getting enough sleep, and getting enough cardio. Weight lifting I think also helps as well, though I'm not sure on that.
And yet, you can have all of that at home without much effort. My setup is significantly less elaborate than yours, and still not something any company seems willing to replicate any more. I don't think either is excessive, obviously my own setup I don't consider excessive since I spent /my own money/ to make it so. It's insanity that any company would expect you to return to the office and accept anything less.
Employer 1: “All work is on-site, no exception. No lunch. Open source? What’s that? Sounds like you’re earning money on the side!”
Employer 2: “Work is fully flexible, but usually people like to go in the office 2-3 days a week. We like to pick the same days. Paid lunch. We rely on open source, but we don’t actively contribute.”
Me to Employer 1: “I have another offer, 10% higher salary, fully flexible work conditions, Rust, and they won’t fire me for doing open source.”
Employer 1: “You can work home one day per week, you can do open source, and here’s +3% salary.”
I’m sure they had to respect their own budget. But the number of companies that reverted to 100% work on-site after covid just grew right back.
I spent the pandemic working all kinds of hours, and now management wants people back in the office. It does feel like my effort is not valued, but an ex colleague once said something really interesting: if you are sacrificing yourself to compensate for your company's shortcomings, they will never get fixed.
So if something has to be deployed to production, it now has to be done during normal working hours. I'm not going to commute and still have to turn on the computer when I get home.
I must return to the office for 4 days a week soon. Popcorn time, it will be very interesting, because some colleagues come 1 day a week for meetings now. If 4 days in the office will be enforced I will look for something different despite coming promotion. I really hate open space budget offices.
The irony is an open office is fine when hardly anyone is going in. I think 400sqft per person in an open office space is a good amount to enjoy low noise. I have been as low as 40sqft/person including walkways and open office and it was impossible to work to the point it was a major reason I had to leave.
I have roughly 60 sqft for me in the office. 6 feet wide table and walkway behind me. At home I have 160 sqft room dedicated for work. The difference can’t be bigger.
That’s big! At the open office I had.. my desk and a tiny bit of personal space since I lucked out on a corner near a window. A few feet of space to the side and back of my desk
Yeah it is common to end up with a desk, a desk worth of space
for your chair and maybe half a desk walkway. What tends to happen is company expands but moving office is too hard so is put off.
You can start literally any time a new job as a developer. The problem is more
like that your executives believe their company is sexy so you will stay while it's usually not.
Everyone has a price, but I think the pandemic taught us that there are things we value more than just money.
I have a 1 year old. I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with her every day. When I'm done work, instead of commuting for 40-75 minutes, I immediately get a big hug from her. She'll go to daycare in a few months when my wife goes back to work- but I'll get to walk her there every morning.
If I had to pick between a 30% pay cut to stay this way, or to stay at the same salary and commute every day, I'd take the pay cut. It wouldn't be a hard decision at all.
Now, if you started offering to double or triple my salary but it's in-office, there would be some hard decisions to make. But nobody is. They want to pay the same money, but with the commute- and I will continue to politely decline.
This is me. I actually prefer working in an office if everything is equal. But it isn't. Remote work means I can support and be with my family in ways that are completely impossible in person.
If my employer came to me tomorrow and told me they were cutting my pay by 50% for working remotely I'd look for alternative remote jobs, but I wouldn't move back to where the office is.
I have the best of both worlds as an introvert - moved to a low COL city as my job is fully remote and rented a 15 m2 private office in a local office building for £230/month, that's 10 minutes away. This way I shield myself from family distractions during work hours. My productivity has never been this high.
I did something similar but went to a coworking space. A very nice 10min walk from my house, a bunch of my friends also work there so we have lunch together, in the evenings we sometimes go for a drink, close to my gym so can do gym breaks as well. Life changing!
People are beating the horse talking about their own opinions of working from home, but this thread could be a lot more compelling if people focused on at the very least the headline. It's a story about how expectations are shifting in the wider labor market, and people here are unfortunately missing the forest for the trees.
The article goes on to say that when you mandate back to office, 70% of your staff either quits immediately or starts looking for new jobs. It's crazy just how much expectations have shifted over the past three years.
Well, tbh I was trying to kill engagement on the post in a way that will cause others to copy it later thereby killing engagement on this junk forever but there is some skill here that I lack. The gnashing of teeth and wailing will proceed.
while people will all point out the benefits of working together in the office, when you weigh it against the blindingly obvious downsides:
- enormous time lost to commutes
- massive lost flexibility
- restriction of your workforce to the tiny 20 mile radius of people willing / able to physically travel to your office instead of literally the entire world (or at least, those in your time zone who speak your language)
If you put the mild benefits of "chit cat at the water cooler", "separation b/w home and work" etc which mostly only benefits the extroverts it seem utterly bonkers to sacrifice all that. Far better to invest in actually doing remote well - which does take effort and does heavily mitigate many of the things people complain about with WFH.
I'd rephrase "chit chat at the water cooler" as "not being alone in a room for most of the day". Others are happy to spend time away from their home, which might be unsuitable for productive work.
I am quite fine with this arrangement, but it's a bit more charitable to those who aren't.
I think differences in people's personal lives silently drive this conversation.
I've worked remote before covid (better part of a decade now). I've never felt alone .. but I'm married. So I spend my remote work time with my wife instead of being apart from her in an office. That drives my love of remote work. But someone without that may frame it as "being alone all day."
My workplace requires us to come in a few days a week. I don't like it, but I don't dislike it enough to quit.
I don't get value out of being in the office. I'm an introvert. I come in, dump my laptop on the table in the dull open space office, put my noise cancelling headphones on, then do the same exact thing I do at home. I do the watercooler banter on Slack.
My coworkers are fine with remote work. My manager outright admits that he would have let the team stay remote if he wasn't getting prodded by HR, who are of course enforcing corporate's diktat.
And that brings us to the problem.
Corporate.
Corporate wants everyone back in the office and they're insane about it.
Every unoccupied screen now has some lines about how cool being back in the office is.
Every company-wide meeting has a 10 minute speech about how we should finally get back together and collaborate.
There is total disregard for people's actual circumstances.
They keep telling us this policy is for our own good, that we can work better this way, but a FAQ document had a question on it about those who collaborate with people in other regions and even with all the HR-speak flowery words the answer basically was: we don't care, deal with it and come to the office.
An executive at a corporate-wide meeting outright BRAGGED about being sick with COVID and lying about it so he could attend a company function in person at the height of the pandemic.
The obsession is genuinely uncomfortable at this point.
This is worth at least 4x any salary I would have got anywhere else.
So much more free time, no commute, the ability to really live in my community, REAL flexibility. What price tag is there to having more time with your family?
I rally thought a lot about the 4x figure.
That's the minimum required for me to even consider the hell of an office work again.
I feel like this is the real disconnect. I wonder how much of the current situation can be attributed to malfeasance in commercial architecture. A huge amount of office layouts are simply inhumane. Take this floor plan [0] I found by searching for "commercial space with private office floor plans" for example. There are cubes with workers' backs positioned literally 3ft from a door to an occupied room.
When I position a desk in spaces I control, I point my back away from doors, windows, and walkways. Literally every cubicle or open office floor plan I've seen in practice seems to explicitly do the opposite. What fluffy things architects or executives have to say about collaboration is irrelevant imo, you are indisputably more physically vulnerable in positions with your back exposed. Some part of me is always trying to be aware of what's happening behind me and it kills my focus. I don't actually fear violence in such situations it's just a reflex.
Agreed. I mostly work from home but on occasion if I go in (for some forces reason) i do absolutely no work. I chit chat, go on long walks, chit chat more, go on a long lunch, look at the internet a little and then leave early enough so that i am still home at the time I normally home when I WFH. Your tax dollars hard at work.
In my experience chit chatting lays the groundwork for extemporaneous collaboration, the kind that turns a week of work into an hour of work, because you happened to remember that one guy said he did something like this at a previous job.
I'm curious if other's have been experiencing this. I'm at my second job now where there's a big push to off-shore to India.
If you can be remote, to an exec, they might not see it too differently between you and offshore, except for how much better the bottom line is. We're even hiring roles that I thought I'd never see moved over there, too, like Product Managers.
I bet we'll see this trend increase.
Since this is my second go at offshoring everything. Compared to 2015, it's not nearly as cheap to go get offshore talent. It used to be about 1/6th the cost, now it's about 1/2....
I'm curious about other's experience with this. I took current job because we were a very tech-driven, high performing, highly-skilled company, and I never thought we'd move engineering jobs overseas to improve the bottom line.
I've seen this too, and I've also seen the results. I'm highly confident that this trend will cause those companies that adopt it to suffer and that it won't negatively impact the job market in the West.
The reality is that there aren't enough people competent in tech roles in the entire world to serve the global need for people with those skillsets, and I encourage my employer to hire remote, from anywhere in the world, and pay a Western salary, to get the best talent possible to do the job.
This is a different tactic than "offshoring", which is usually driven by bean counters without any regard to strategic alignment, work quality, or how it impacts customers and the long-term trajectory of the company/brand. There are enough companies and teams in tech like mine that hire people wherever they are that are competent, that companies focused on "offshoring" get people at a lower cost, but also at a significantly lower competency. That ratio used to be roughly equal, but as you pointed out the cost is roughly 1/2, however the competency is still around 1/6th.
I am in that 40%. During the pandemic when things moved to remote, I sold my suburban home and moved to a regional area. Truth be told, I was already working remotely anyway. I did occasionally go into the office, but everyone found that remote work worked so well, they just decided to give people the option. It's not super regional, but where I am there is no sewerage, so I have a waste treatment plant (a fancy septic tank) and my kids have a yard, everyone is happy. I still have a 1gbps internet connect that is very reliable, phone reception can be spotty, but we love it.
Remote work is not only a way of life now for me, but my household. Our family moved to a new area and while it was a big adjustment for us, everyone is so happy. When we were living in our shoebox of a house, it was nice to be close to the beach and brand name stores, but everyone seems less wound up. The traffic isn't bad, it takes 15 minutes to drive to the town centre which has a reasonable sized shopping centre and nice restaurants. Public transport isn't great, but there is transport.
The best thing of all about working 100% remote is the flexibility. Some days I need to do the school drop off and pick up, I just let my employer know and it's not an issue. Sometimes I'll start earlier to compensate or work through lunch. I never miss packages anymore (I don't miss going to the post office to pick up packages). The postal service doesn't leave everything at your doorstep anymore like they did during the pandemic. If you need to sign, someone has to be home or they're taking it to the post office. I get to eat lunch with my wife, do some chores around the house. Sometimes I will get away from the computer and go out and push the mower to cut the lawn.
If I were to quantify how much we have saved in child care costs, it would be immeasurable. One child costs us $70 per day for childcare. There have been days when my kids have been sick and I was working from home, so I could help out, but also work on my laptop (even if it's beside them). When I finish work, I can go outside and kick a ball with my son. Remote work has been tremendous from a family bonding perspective. If I were working in an office, my kids would only see me on the weekends as I wouldn't get home until it's their bedtime and I would be leaving as they were waking up.
The one thing people need to respect is not everyone wants or can work from home. And I think people on both sides of the fence should have the choice. Obviously, if you're applying at a company that only works remotely, then you waive the right to complain. But, if the company offers both, nobody should be forced one way or the other. Flexibility is now a perk.
My company cannot afford to demand that we are in-office. We aren't super-rich and cannot afford planet-busting salaries. So to get people we have to cast a wide net. We get people in other cities. Part of our team is in India anyhow.
Overall it just doesn't make sense to have millions of people moving around twice a day who don't need to and this will take over. COVID made it much clearer but it's obvious anyhow.
Employers who are forcing their employees back in really are shooting themselves in the foot if these stats are to be believed. Plenty of great applicants will just never consider their positions.
15 years remote worker here. I would be sad to have to get back to the office. I get that some gatherings around a whiteboard are useful. We concentrate those in a once or twice per year gathering.
My wife and cats and soon to be children are more important than any coworker at a whiteboard ever could be. I'll be scrapping remotely sooner than I take a rich office job. My time is more valuable than your business ever could be.
So let them? What's the deal, why can't we have a society where people who want to work from home, do so while those who want to work remotely do so as well? I do know that I am deciding for myself (100% remote).
Because if companies decide that in office is more productive or more reliable, remote options will dry up. And the fact most big tech companies are going back to office suggests they have the data to show it is more effective.
Where is the data? If this is true, then this is something companies will have to learn to deal with, and compensate differently for. If I enjoy working from home better, but am 10% less productive, please pay me 10% less. It's still not worth for me to show up to an office.
I've worked remotely for years now (still less than 10). It's OK. It took a while to get used to.
I am not a full-time SWE, so it's better when I am coding on things. The quiet and lack of distraction is important. Even then, I turn on some music and put on headphones.
What was very useful to me when I was working in an office was the hallway conversations, and making all the random connections. You would find opportunities to learn and get involved with things, and expand your sphere of influence. There's pros and cons.
I'm not sure leadership understands the utility of quiet and isolation for coders. As well, there's the concern about "How do we know they're working" - which is a very old school way of thinking.
That old school way of thinking also goes like, "We pay you to be here 8 hours a day, so you better be here and not screwing around". But that's not really what you're being paid for in a SWE position. If you aren't meeting your KPI's (hitting deadlines, pushing good code, spreading knowledge, etc.) you'll get fired. Because you're getting paid to perform well, not just sit there working - you're paid to work well.
So - if you hire people who can hit every KPI and work 20 hours a week, who cares? You're not paying someone hourly anyways. You're paying a salaried worker.
I would expect that number to be higher than reality because when push comes to shove a lot of people are not actually going to quit. But it’s still a surprisingly high number.
My take here is that remote first is great for a new company where you can build and hire with the specific knowledge that everything will be remote. But porting everything to remote, some folks will not cope at all.
I'd like to see how the numbers differ in well designed cities, like those in the Netherlands, compare to these presumably American numbers where everything is a car dependent hellscape
Exactly, almost everyone mentions awful commutes, but if you have a short walk or bikeride through a beautiful city to start and end your work day, then I think it's pretty great. (Even then I like flexibility to only go in ~3 days a week.)
european single male pov:
1. I like my 30 minute bike ride to work
2. I like the social interaction, laughing, chatting and atmosphere of my office
3. I am less productive, but I'm not a machine. I (should) care about my well being more
4. I still work from home once in a while. Flexibility is key
But, everyone is different. I totally understand many people have a lot more reasons than me to work remotely
Yeah this conversation feels very car-centric (understandably so, since much of the world and especially the US is currently overrun with cars, but still sad)
I would not, no. I fail to see how that matters though.
I would definitely leave this company if I was forced into a remote setting. I would go find another job. I would also take pay cut for keeping an office.
I think the office as a concept will need to change, and is going to change. We already started changing it for the worse decades ago with open spaces, non-permanent workplaces and so on.
The thing we fear losing out on is the social aspect where you learn to understand people by meeting them more and observing them work. You see when they are happy and or stressed, even when you don't have a face-to-face call. You can have unplanned conversations. I have been remote for 10 years but I do understand the value in this.
The idea of going to an office against your will to sit there quietly and work (or even do video calls), is obviously going away companies aren't going to afford making people do that, because of all things you can do with an edge in compensation, that feels like the worst investment.
We need more models for teams than just "office", "remote" or "hybrid". We need "commute hybrid" where everyone can come in regularly say once a week, and "travel hybrid" where people can show up for say one week per quarter or similar. The problem as I see it is choosing one of these models, and making it work for a team or company. What do you do if you have a team that is "commute hybrid" while some are "travel hybrid" or fully remote? (I'm in that situation myself now and it's not without friction).
A lot of people here voicing displeasure for in office work - so I'll add a counter point:
I really miss the in person communication and relationship building of office work. I would love to be back in office 3 or 4 days a week, but have a medical condition (DVT) that basically requires me to be up and moving constantly or keep my leg elevated.
Have a custom set up at home that allows me to recline at my desk for most of the day with a standing desk, keyboard tray and down tilted monitor on an arm.
Could only imagine trying to get this sort of setup in an office (although - if I asked, I'm sure they'd oblige, but would just be an awkward set up since the office is now optional in a "hot desk" sort of fashion).
No. Pet peeve of mine, but actually this article is based on a survey and the actual detail from the survey is:
> The report showed that nearly 40% of software engineers preferred only remote roles, and if their employers mandated a return to the office, 21% indicated they would quit immediately, while another 49% said they would start looking for another job.
So it sounds like they've asked a few questions along the lines of "Do you prefer remote or onsite work?" and "If your employer said you had to return to the office, what would you do?" and they're drawing these conclusions based on the response to those questions. I'd be surprised if this is much of a reflection on reality.
Some questions that are fun to think about with surveys like this (that arent answered in the article):
- What is the sample size?
- How was the sampling performed? (Just guessing here, but I'd be surprised if they sampled many software engineers in china for example)
- Could the sample be biased? Did this survey go out in a newsletter for example? What kind of people might be subscribed to that newsletter?
- The survey asked people what they would do in a hypothetical situation. If push came to shove would they actually do it?
What continues to amuse me is that this is still being framed as an ongoing debate. It's really not a debate; this is outdated leadership fighting against social and technological progress, while demanding that their employees give up the personal freedom they've enjoyed for the past few years.
Unless you're one of a handful of massive, highly desirable tech employers, it's probably time to adapt. If you're a city relying on a massive pool of office workers doing a thing workers don't need to do anymore, it's probably time to adapt as well.
Commute is a huge factor for remote workers. Most rural ppl travelling to downtown has to endure either rush hour traffic or crowded subways plus avg an hour each way.
Agree, the commute is 90% of the reason I'd like to stay remote. I think I'd prefer an office in some cases, but wasting an additional 1-2 hours is unreasonable.
Here's an idea, I'd be willing to return to office if my workday was 6 hours - with no change in pay - to make up for the time I'm wasting in traffic.
My "office" is a warehouse in some little town outside Denver. It's 20 minutes from anywhere, and an hour from where you would buy a house. It has a sparse smattering of desks populated with single monitors and those lowest tier dell mice and keyboards. All the desks are in one room. There's a bathroom. The kitchen is always in some state of dirty and nobody ever makes coffee.
40% of American SEs need to realize there are people in India and China that will do the same job for 1/6 the wage. If a company is going through the hassle and problems with remote workers, they might as well do it on the cheap.
It’s not the same as it was 15 years ago. My interactions in general have encountered well educated individuals familiar with American culture.
Do any of the Big Five stand out in terms of being above-average (or below-average) for WFH? Or are they universally meh? I know there's team-by-team variation, just wondering about overall trends.
Apple has been anti-WFH from the beginning, which led to their director of machine learning, Ian Goodfellow, resigning.
Amazon was previously very WFH-friendly but their CEO, Andy Jassy, recently announced RTO.
Meta and Google have allowed a high percentage of their employees to WFH.
Microsoft has a lot of in-person roles in Redmond.
I don’t mind going in. I mind the long ass commute (I like to live rural), but I do mind going into an office just to… telecommute with the rest of the team
I think the fundamental issue is that there is a distribution:
1. “the coaster”: won’t do anything on their own initiative and needs to have a manager to get anything done
2. “the clock in, clock out”: they do the job for a full workday and don’t need supervision but they don’t go above and beyond
3. “the always on”: loves what they do and is always working and contributing. They may work weird hours like really early in the morning or really late at night. They use the saved commute time as an opportunity to get started earlier or work later
If your firm’s hiring process has inadvertently optimized for #1 then WFH will not work. If the firm has managed to find enough #3, then RTO will damage company productivity.
Ironically, the fact that Apple was able to make the migration from PowerPC to Intel back in the day was because they gave a #3 type employee a special exemption to WFH.
One of the things remote-first companies are going to need to do is to migrate from interviews that are centered around “what you know” to “show me you can get stuff done”
I am not dedicated to the job beyond doing what is asked for me to the best of my ability and my team is distributed all over the world (in fact, 0 are in my office).
I exchange my time, skills and knowledge for money. If the company wants that time to be spent sitting on a chair at a particular location, they need to pay me more than one that does not.
I feel sorry for people like you who make their job their life. The company has no dedication to you.
In what way does it not work, when perhaps my position only requires that I attend virtual meetings, push code to a remote repository/depot, & edit online documents? What does my presence in the office, offer in value to the business? What does my presence in the office, offer in value to ME?
Your position requires that you dedicate your time to improving or promoting the company's products.
Virtual meetings and collaboration platforms are but tools to achieve that. An event better tool is working next to your colleagues to enable more synergy between the various initiatives people are working on organically.
As someone dedicated to your company's mission, you should want to use the best tool for the job.
I've been doing this "sham" for 3 years, but somehow my work is still getting done. Weird.
The fact that you can't believe anyone would have the discipline to do their job without someone looking over their shoulder says far more about you than about remote workers.
It's seldom a single variable decision. What percentage would say "remote only" if it paid 80% less? 50% less? 20% less? Etc. Some would take it but most would not.
It also depends where you live. I moved to the Midwest and while finding Bay Area salaries remote is difficult, finding remote jobs that pay +30% more than any jobs in this city is easy
I have been permanently remote for nearly a decade now. I never intend to go back into the office, and this is despite regularly traveling to meet with coworkers/customers and realizing that there is a high degree of value to face-to-face communication and camaraderie building.
For me it comes down to three simple things:
1. Commute
2. Control of my Surroundings
3. Time Management (and as a centerpoint, Food)
To expand on these three points, my biggest challenge is that if I were to take on going back to the office in my current or a future role, I'd be putting myself into a situation where I would be expected to be physically present at exactly the same time every day in an environment which I have no control over and which is not structured to suit my style of working or being, and to do so I would need to restructure how I manage my time and especially how I eat (I follow a strict diet and process) in order to adapt to the expectations and allowances of management and coworkers.
If CEOs want workers back in the office, here's a handful of things they can do that would make this much much more tenable, all of which also generally improve society and reduce operational costs for the company:
1. Move your offices away from city centers and towards the places people actually live, and advocate for those municipalities to provide (good, reasonable, high speed) transit interconnection. Teams should be colocated with one another, but to make this possible you need to entice people to the office by making it not a horrible, stressy process to get there and an enjoyable experience once you are there. A maximum 30 minute commute by transit or car, maximum 1 hour by e-bicycle for the average person assigned to that office. Any more than this, and nobody will deal with that. Let me put this into simple business-speak, your best employee's BATNA to RTO is simply quitting and going to work for your competitors remotely, don't be stupid.
2. Provide knowledge workers with assigned offices that have closable doors. If you want to make it by seniority, that's probably reasonable, but it's absolutely insane to expect a staff engineer or senior level PM that are doing strategy, architecture, and planning work that have outsized business impact (and the salaries to match) to share a hotel desk with 3 other people in an open floorplan office where they are /constantly/ interrupted by noise, movement, and other distractions.
3. Constrain meeting schedules to a 5-6 hour block of time centered on the work-day, make it a company rule to avoid meetings on Fridays and to outright ban meetings that are first-thing in the morning or at the very end of the day. Preferably eliminate as many meetings as possible for ICs, but if you're going to make people attend a meeting, it shouldn't fuck up their morning routine by effectively disallowing the flexibility of 10-15 minutes in their morning or at the end of their day. I know for me, I would quit with no notice before I skip my breakfast ahead of work, there's absolutely no excuse for management to demand someone be physically present first thing in the morning down to the minute for office work.
While working remotely none of these things are a concern, I commute 1 minute from my bedroom to my home office, which is in a separate room specifically structured for my preferred working environment, and I can eat while I'm working which means I've never had to skip any of the meal times in my diet in order to meet some arbitrary and unnecessary time expectation. When I do travel to the office, I get less "work" that doesn't involve meeting people face to face done, although I'm usually the first or second person to arrive at the office so have at least some quiet time (and despite my comments above, I am basically never late, I just don't like the anxiety that comes with the expectations), this difference in productivity is pretty much entirely down to surroundings. Open Floor Plan offices are a mistake, and companies don't seem to care and just double-down on it.
I suppose it’s a good anti-competitive group strategy. Without the hassle of setting up a guild, the experienced developers can prevent new developers from gaining the skills/experience/tutelage necessary to compete with them for jobs.
The problem is that companies expect employees to be mobile when they are not. It's called putting down roots for a reason. Pulling kids out of school, buying a new house is very disruptive.
... or I can hook up my cable modem and work anywhere in the country...
Corporate elites cannot have their cake and eat it too.
Choose one:
1) Make housing affordable, and schooling more effective. Streamline the moving process through law and process improvements. Make transportation systems work better. Improve 2nd and 3rd tier cities social and political life.
2) Let people work from home. Suffer a 10-15% degredation in communications.
3) Have the entire industry force people to come to the office - have miserable workers.
For me option 2 seems to be what will happen - you'll get a control loop where companies will hemorrhage their best workers if they force back to office.