The only people causing backlash are rich people who want to micromanage workers in the office
this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2023
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That's the truth. I've been working from home more than 10 years now, over a few different companies and I can safely say I'm more productive and less stressed than I ever was working in an office environment.
There are no valid arguments against remote work.
But what about the poor real estate owners who are losing money on their office buildings? Have you even thought about their needs?
To recap the tech work environment evolution over the last 20 or so years: After the dot com crash/9-11 mess, the board rooms all started cracking down on what they viewed as an over-privileged under performing expensive workforce. That accelerated with the financial meltdown of 2008-2010, the signifier of the entrance into the terminal phase of this particular version of the system. However the easy money shenanigans of the fed and friends restarted a tech boom (along with that gadget the iphone of course, that boom). Once again the tech workers were in astoundingly short supply and were demanding and getting loot, more loot than they deserved. There was sort of a passive -aggressive rear guard action to reduce loot sharing in the form of 'agile development' and 'open office plans' etc. But shit was out of control. And then a pandemic that absolutely nobody could have guessed that would happen happened and everyone went home and tech workers were like: fuck those awful offices with everyone sharing farts sneezes and boogers. The oligarchs were REALLY PISSED ABOUT THIS DEVELOPMENT. So they are in the process of trying to get back on top of those idiot techies by forcing everyone to go into their shitty fart and sneeze infested offices with the shitty machine coffee and the shitty snacks and the shitty commute.
I really only see two issues with remote work: the difficulty of training and onboarding new employees, and the lack of social interaction with coworkers.
That second one is probably more controversial because some people just don’t care about that. And that’s fine. But for me, I’m spending a significant portion of my time at work. I liked being able to chat with coworkers while we worked. It’s not the same on Zoom.
Training is a significant issue that will vary depending on the job and the industry, but so far I haven’t seen a good substitute for in-person training. The actual onboarding can be done remotely—you don’t need to be face-to-face to review the employee manual. But in my job, being able to turn to the person next to you and ask a question is huge.
After that, though, the arguments against productivity are bogus and there’s no good reason to force people into the office.
being able to turn to the person next to you and ask a question is huge.
The fact people can't do that and are forced to be respectful of my time is a major plus for WFH.
Listen, I get what you are trying to say. Yeah, I miss the social time, and yeah, there are some communication challenges, but it's just not worth it. It's not worth being cramped into soulless, noisy cubicles, wasting ten unpaid hours a week and thousands of dollars annually commuting, spending large sums of money eating lunch out or prepping a packaged lunch, spending millions on real estate, being away from pets or children, not being able to multitask house chores while passively listening in on meetings, being exposed to sick colleagues, sharing public toilets with your not so hygienic colleagues...
Just the ten hours you save commuting could go to joining a club to makeup for the social time (while doing something you actually like).
It's win-win for everyone. Except for commercial real estate owners. I am convinced the bulk of calls to ending WFH come from those who stand to profit from that manufactured misery.
Oh yeah, don’t get me wrong, I agree with you. It’s not worth forcing people to work in the office for the occasional time I want to ask a coworker a question. I wouldn’t trade the extra time I get with my family for anything, not to mention money saved on gas and food.
My point was that there are still hurdles to overcome, and those will be different depending on the industry and office. I work for a firm somewhere between small and mid-size, and we really did have a good culture where it was easy to collaborate and ask questions without it being too much. But we’ve struggled to connect with new hires in the same way remotely.
There’s a better solution than forcing people back in the office, but there are still growing pains. And it seems like many companies just don’t want to take the time to find solutions, and just revert back to how it was before.
I also think the kind if real-estate might just change. Instead of buying lunch every day and maybe drinks after, people might try a few times a year working from a resort or the like for a week and pay for that. You get half a vacation (weekends and nights) and work during the dat either in the businesses center or in the suite.
I would say it's a cultural thing. We use Teams for that and did XMPP back to 2012. We were spread across buildings before WFH for support reasons. I was doing remote support back in 2007 just on the same campus. Now I can do it from home. The only difference is who goes and picks hardware up if that's required.
ASYNC is also better for not constantly taking highly productive people out of "the zone" working on projects but still lets them mentor. You have to occasionally force a zoom or chat time, but I think it works pretty well, if a little slower for the interrupting person, but projects get done faster limiting the interrupting.
I also think you might need to have supervisors actually figure out training rather than just hoping the group can figure it out. This is again culture and I argue some official shadowing and mentoring and training is sorely needed to be forced on a lot of places vs drop in a new person with nothing and expect them to somehow figure out who even actually is the SME or product owner to get started.
Being spread out in a big company is something I’d kind of forgotten about. My last job had several offices in different cities, and my direct manager worked in LA while I was in one of the other offices so it was always just phone calls or Teams meetings. They hated WFH, but even then I questioned why it mattered because to them I’m either 1,000 miles away at the office or 1,010 miles away at my house. It made no difference.
And beyond that working with other departments meant I was calling down a few floors for assistance on things. Even my direct workmates were spread around the office, and we’d often call or text each other instead of getting up and walking across the floor.
in my job, being able to turn to the person next to you and ask a question is huge
Works the same over chat (or audio + screen share if needed).
With the added bonus they can't simply turn to you and ask whenever they feel like it, you get to ignore them if it's not convenient, or schedule time later.
I'm full time WFH. I think one of the biggest issues with WFH is that companies put a lot of effort on their in the office culture and none on their WFH culture. If your company has no engagement with your WFH employees, that's the companies fault. Frequent checkins and the ability to reach people for questions are important. For our team the agile process with daily standups and accountability help a lot. A video team room is also a big plus.
It’s about wealthy people and their commercial real estate investments.
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