Technology

Companies with remote work will harvest all the talents from RTO ones, so a difference in productivity and costs (rent) will do the rest.

RTO will fail

Management are assholes and idiots.

Nothing will get better without demands. People need to organize.

But if I've learned anything from history, it's that the ownership class would rather murder all of their employees than give a few dollars more a day.

Worked from home for 8 years, and routinely finished projects ahead of schedule which left me with a ton of time to work on furthering my education, personal projects, home maintenance and hobbies. Work life balance!

Been working an in-person role for 2 years now, have zero time during the day to do anything else, couldn't do most of those things at the office anyway, and I make no additional money. These last two years have felt like my life has largely been on hold.

Hybrid mode do me well.

Allows to have the advantages that on site have ( real contact with the collegues ) while allowing to take a breath from transportation.

To the surprise of no one.

I have an unusual situation - immaterial commute, flexible hours - and enjoy working in the office more than working from home. Have done both and working from home is a drag.

Doesn't mean I'd force others to come in! But the only thing worse than a meeting is a teams meeting, and there is a lot of value for me getting that space back in my house, and in the incidental learning I both receive and provide to others when we are in person. Also it's entirely possible I'm too introverted to happily work from home.

So as long as work provides a common space to work I am happier here. I do think the environment benefits from fewer commuters but I don't drive to work because it's so close.

Capitalism as we know it, isn't about effectiveness nor efficiency, it is primarily about power. So long as this remains the case, workers will continue to be abused for the amusement of the higher ups.

If they would get rid of these terrible open plan offices, where people can hear the silent fart you try to squeeze out gently, and go back to offices where you at least would have a smidgen of privacy, this would improve office attendance.

extroverts can't understand that not everyone is like them. more at 11

Whether it's a mix of control or egos, I think it is mostly about the fallacy that they are leaving unspent productivity on the table. Yet, COVID proved that people can be effective at home. It's nonsense to assume that you won't do the job and then somehow get paid for it. It's a strawman.

That is why, after all logical arguments were made, and bad faith responses dispelled, they chose to say it was about culture. That undefinable metric exist solely in the validation of HR and management. Pizza lunches, recognition events, and captive audiences.

Turns out the commute, fluorescent lighting, constant interruptions and performative desk sitting weren’t secretly essential ingredients for human happiness after all. Shocking. Next study: 7,700 managers discover that seeing someone in a chair is not actually a productivity metric.

Surprise surprise

Here's the actual study if anyone cares to read it.

Skimming it, a couple things I noticed: This was a study of over 7,000 people across all departments at a large healthcare system. They found on-site workers skewed younger with shorter tenure and remote workers skewed older with longer tenure.

One potential pitfall: They didn't control in any way for department or role, and so floor nurses and housekeeping staff who must work fully on-site are being compared to tenured nurses working utilization review or revenue cycle staff whose job is billing/coding and who don't have to interact with anyone in their roles. In-person and remote jobs in healthcare tend to be very different jobs. I don't know how well this study could be generalized to other types of job settings based on this info

RTO work often is about control and not about cost or efficiency.

I can’t believe how much more I get done when I’m left alone and focused on the task at hand.

I don’t feel particularly isolated. Everybody is different but a once-week team chat and seasonal social lunches fill my cup.

Turns out when you can do errands and meet non-work friends for coffee as you please you don’t need to lean on your office family so much for connection and purpose.

"I think flexibility is here to stay," she said.

This is the problem with academics. They do a study, find something is logically better, then assume humans will act logically.

Unfortunately, most CEOs don't give a shit if their employees are more happy, productive, and less likely to quit if they work remotely. They just want to feel like they have control over people's lives, which is why we're seeing more return to office initiatives.

They signed a 20-year lease 10 years ago so they feel like they have to use the building.

Source: wild assumptions, i know nothing about commercial real estate.

I'm very fortunate to have a job with a very small company (literally 4 people) where we get to set the rules.

It is funny to see the ingrained notion we (collective "we") once had that working from home could never work. I started this job in 2018, and I often suggested we do a work from home day each week since we all had laptops. My bosses (co-owners of this company) always shot it down. "Oh we'd never get any work done!"

Then, of course, COVID. And while I certainly would rather COVID not have happened, it did convince them that working from actually works. And, of course, they loved it as well. So since 2020 I have not had to go back to the office. We still have office space for some minor things, and once in a blue moon we might gather there. But in six years I've probably spent six days in the office.

Heck, I'm fortunate enough to finally have convinced them we should take Fridays off, too. We piloted that program two years ago over the summer, and it, of course, stuck because everyone likes that—though we actually just take every-other Friday off. But still. Hard to beat.

I just changed careers from 100% remote for the last 6yrs, to 100% on-site, and it's bittersweet. I'm really going to miss the freedom.