from Hacker News

Why workers are calling BS on leaders about returning to the office

by aseerdbnarng on 6/3/21, 7:05 PM with 173 comments

by darth_avocado on 6/3/21, 8:13 PM
The whole pushback against remote work is absolutely nuts. When the companies were staring at shutdowns and loss of revenue, everyone gladly accepted the idea that people can work from home. And contrary to the popular belief, productivity increased (our own CEO admitted at one point in an all hands). But the minute there was a sign things are opening up, there's a complete opposite viewpoint being pushed from the same people.
I think there's a lot of different things going on here: 1. Control freaks are losing their minds in the Pandemic and they want some of the control back. 2. Extroverts are losing it and want things to be social again. 3. People who have bullshit jobs and absolutely don't add any value except look busy on "make work" are having a hard time justify their need in the company. 4. People who absolutely cant stand their families want to spend time away from them.
And to all of these people I will say, go to the office if that's something you want, but don't make me go too.
by throwawayboise on 6/3/21, 8:02 PM
One worker complained that the manager “wanted butts in seats because we couldn’t be trusted to [work from home] even though we’d been doing it since last March,” adding: “I’m giving my notice on Monday.”
I've seen this with my current employer. Their message has been that going forward at some point, "Working remotely is not an option."
There's really no reason I can't work from home. I've been doing it since March 2020. I don't have any customer-facing responsibilities; I administer servers and write code. The only thing that requires my physical presence is the occasional need to install or replace hardware.
It was one thing to not support remote work in 2019 when it was an unknown. In 2021, we've proven it can work; workers know it, and employers should know it. There's no un-ringing that bell.
I'm older, and have no desire to return to the startup lifestyle again but there's no doubt I can find remote work. As I see it, the choice is mine, and taking a mini-retirement and looking for new opportunities if my employer wants to be inflexible is not exacly unappealing.
by zeta0134 on 6/3/21, 8:21 PM
I'm firmly in camp "office time sounds wonderful" because I live alone, and as it turns out, not having any humans nearby is downright depressing. I'm also somewhat introverted (weird, right?) and while I was living with other people, I desired quite the opposite; staying at home was much less distracting than being in the chaos of a shared space most days.
So which do I prefer? Ehh, it depends. I'm not planning to live alone forever, it's just where I'm at right now. I'd imagine others are in a similar boat; we're different, and not necessarily constant either. So, as much as I encourage opening the offices back up and will take part in that space if given the chance, I wouldn't force that on anyone. I think the responsible thing to do is to measure performance rather than seat-in-chair, and so long as everyone's pulling their weight, let each employee make their own informed decision. It's their health on the line, after all, and healthy employees do better work.
by post_break on 6/3/21, 7:49 PM
We were told for years, there is no flex time, don't even think about it. While the higher ups obviously flexed whenever they wanted to. Suddenly covid hits and I'm scrambling to get everyone setup so they can work remote. We go a whole year working remote with almost no issues or lost productivity. And now we're back in the office and the mood has definitely changed.
by commandlinefan on 6/3/21, 7:51 PM
Well, if remote work isn't feasible (for the reasons stated), neither is offshoring. Or outsourcing. Or physical satellite offices.
by EMM_386 on 6/3/21, 8:54 PM
As a software engineer, I will never, ever work from an office again. There are zero reasons to.
And this isn't even related to Covid, I've been working remotely for 6 years.
Everything I do is carefully tracked. Every line of code is logged and timestamped. All my assigned tasks are viewable by anyone, with every associated line of code one click away. When I am connected to the VPN to access work resources, everything is carefully logged.
If we need to do a meeting, we use Microsoft Teams. You can chat with me whenever you want, and can schedule a video call whenever you need to.
At least with my job, a senior software engineer, there is zero need for an office.
I realize not everyone is in my position, and there are plenty of jobs that do require you to go into a physical office space. This career is not one of them.
by sva_ on 6/3/21, 8:29 PM
Is it possible that this pushback against working from home might (at least in part) be motivated by a desire of keeping real-estate prices up? After all, if offices aren't needed anymore, prices would probably plummet, and real estate is a very popular asset among a certain group of people.
by CapmCrackaWaka on 6/3/21, 8:22 PM
The pros and cons of remote work have posted many times here. Just like most things, it is going to come down to market forces determining whether remote work will stick.
If employers discover that they can pay less (in real estate and salary!) if they offer remote work as an option, while keeping the efficiency of an office worker, then the companies that do this will have a competitive edge. If companies discover that having employees in the office is a competitive advantage, then I don't care how harshly HN lambasts office work, it will make a comeback.
I expect the result will be somewhere in the middle. Certainly different jobs and industries are going to be affected differently. As HN is mostly computer jockeys, I have no doubt that remote work will be more common to the people here.
by wrs on 6/3/21, 8:14 PM
I'm trying and failing to think of any important part of "company culture" that only works for people in the same room. Culture is made of shared values (codified in actions, not PowerPoints), communication norms, peer reactions, shared history, inside jokes...all of that stuff can work remotely. If your company has more than one office it already has to work remotely.
by hvocode on 6/3/21, 8:48 PM
I wish it were only leaders who are desperate to get back to the office, but it seems like the other force pushing for return to office time is the cohort of people where work IS their social circle. I can't relate to that crowd - even when I was young and single, my social circle was largely outside work and in grad school I tended to socialize outside my department.
This social argument I sympathize with - nobody likes to be lonely. But please - don't force everyone to go back to one model of working simply to support a subset of people who've chosen to make their life revolve around their employment.
by whoisjuan on 6/3/21, 8:34 PM
Here’s the thing, while remote work this year has been a net positive in productivity for many tech companies, that wasn’t necessarily the case for all companies, mainly because of their inability to measure it. Many companies were more concerned about trying to keep a iron grip on employees than enabling them to be successful as remote workers.
There are some naive executives who believe having an office is a big part of what helps them operate successfully. These executives are just entrenched in the old ways. They can’t fathom a world where their employees can work efficiently in a remote environment because they build all their management based on the idea of personal face to face interactions.
There’s another group of executives that’s even worse. Those who simply operate from mistrust. They need to have their employees in the office because otherwise they can’t validate and measure their employees output (although this is just as hard to measure in person). They need to see the employee physically present because for them employees salaries can only be justified when they add working hours, not based on the merits of their output.
But a reality check is here for all of them. One positive outcome from Covid is that it’s fully rebalancing the power between employer and employee. Definitely eager to see how this plays out.
by jdhn on 6/3/21, 8:31 PM
I really believe that if the push to return to the office continues, we're going to see articles crying as to how "entitled workers" are leaving companies who push for limiting/ending remote work.
As an anecdote, I had a conference call with coworkers from another company who said that there were lots of people from their company that were leaving because the company had reneged on their promise to continue full time remote work.
by okareaman on 6/3/21, 8:35 PM
If enough people hold firm this is a chance to change the corporate office paradigm for good. There are a lot of good reasons to WFH and a lot of bad reasons managers have for not allowing it. I programmed from home for 12 years, then worked in corporate offices for 5 years. I did my best work at home. I was really happy with my work output and quality of work I produced. Then working in offices I could never adjust and both myself and my employers were disappointed in my output. It's due to a lot of small things, like I sometimes get burned out thinking about a problem and need to take a quick nap to refresh. This was never possible in an office. It was better for my wife too. If she wanted to run out while the kids were napping, I was there for them while I worked. It was just so nice compared to the hell of being stuck in some office park with people I didn't know that well and didn't even like that much.
by Andrew_nenakhov on 6/3/21, 8:12 PM
Office is a space where complete strangers can become a collective, sharing common goals and establishing bonds that can help achieve great things.
This is possible with remote work, but much harder. In my experience, remote workers are generally rather detached from their colleagues and projects. YMMV, but I vastly prefer working from office.
by addicted on 6/3/21, 8:04 PM
As far as I can tell this article contains fewer arguments about whether work from home is better or not, and more arguments about how certain companies are messing up the transition through bad communication.
The one argument, #3, about corporate culture is in favor of not WFH. They are saying that research shows corporate culture is important, but the methods used to build corporate culture when people are WFH are failing badly. Which indicates that if corporate culture is indeed important, then the only way to really build it without pointless BS is by having people working together in a physical location.
by Hypergraphe on 6/3/21, 10:14 PM
Yeah well, I think it depends of your workplace. I would never want to trade back my quiet home office with a view and my high end gear for my company's fully crowded and super loud openspace and the low cost gear waiting for me at my desk. I don't want to waste my time commuting anymore as it doesnt make any sense. But I admit that I miss eating lunch with some of my coworkers or taking a cofee break with them.
by johbjo on 6/3/21, 9:43 PM
The observation that many office jobs are meaningless must have been made many times before the pandemic, and I/we can't be the only ones to have made it.
Maybe the purpose of many workplaces, from the perspective of some managers and workers, is not only related to the output of the company. I have come to the belief that part of the purpose of "work" for some people is "live role playing" careers, and thus they want to fill the roles for the other co-players.
From this perspective, it's not surprising that people want to return to the office.
by mbrodersen on 6/4/21, 1:37 AM
Offering remote work is a competitive advantage. You get access to a larger pool of talent. The smart companies realise this. If you are a manager and you can’t figure out how to manage people remotely, then you are an incompetent manager.
by IdontRememberIt on 6/4/21, 12:22 AM
I wonder if returning to a more human/intimate offices size (vs open spaces) would not solve a big part of the frustrations about productivity. (Only because I remember my first offices +20 years ago).
by rgblambda on 6/3/21, 8:48 PM
>As another worker put it, “I can tell you, most people really don’t give 2 flips about ‘company culture’ and think it’s BS.”
Is there anyone who doesn't think "company culture" is bullshit?
by emc3 on 6/3/21, 7:47 PM
In-office work needs to be compensated differently than WFH. They will try to decrease WFH compensation initially, like the loss of benefits threat in the article, but the number of potential employers is higher for WFH workers, giving them leverage.
by madengr on 6/3/21, 8:13 PM
We had higher billable hours during the summer lockdown than ever, though they still came up with the excuse for 2% raises; “well the economy is not good”.
by kevingadd on 6/3/21, 7:48 PM
"One worker’s company “had everyone come into the office for an outdoor luncheon a week ago,” according to a post"
Some of the stuff companies do truly baffles me. It's only the beginning of June, you can't really assume your whole team is fully vaccinated. Why would you bring everyone in for lunch and then send them home? All downside and near-zero upside. It'd be another matter if it was a full day event where you did some meetings or seminars in addition to the meal, but are you really going to make people commute in, eat, and go home?