Comment by pcthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pcthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

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I totally feel the draw to both. Personally, I really like the freedom of WFH and it wins out against the benefits of being in office for me. But I can see the appeal to being in office too; there's something really nice about working with your teammates, especially if you get along with them and learn from each other.

The thing with your attitude though, is that you're saying it only works for you if everyone is in office. Basically that everyone has to be in office for you to enjoy your office environment. This only works on teams where everyone feels this way. And that's a perfectly reasonable approach to hiring for a new company. The problem is that people have been WFH long enough that every team is likely split on 'team-in-office' sentiment. If a company wants to require staff in office at this point, it should be for building new teams, not applied to existing teams. Then people with the same sentiment as you can choose to transfer to those teams if desired.

My main employer is always very flexible, even before the pandemic, I just met one day in the office (everyone else had to be there too) and the rest I was free to chose. Perfect combination of seeing eachother and WFH.

We had small rooms so distraction was not a point. Commute was 25minutes.

I do believe we should get more flexibility where possible.

I wonder how everyone would feel about WFH vs. office if highly paid, highly valued employees weren't forced into literally the smallest possible space for a third of their day. If we all had our own real offices and a work space not architected to be as abusive and "efficient" as possible, would we think differently about how nice it is not to go to the office any more?

Likewise for city design where commercial space is highly concentrated and disproportional to residential... if workspaces were spread out and there weren't hubs with way more jobs than housing... maybe commuting wouldn't be so long and so unpleasant and the thought of working from the spare bedroom or the couch would seem ridiculous.

I think that makes a big difference! Cubicles should be outlawed really, or at least optional. Seems like an archaic thing to me. For my own contracted jobs I went to place that had you choose between an open plan or a small room workplace. All flexible.

So I think you are right, if we had more choice, people are happier. Hubs are also a great way forward I think.

Maybe there are some exceptions, like high security or high demand for coordination on the spot, but a lot of sectors should or could be more flexible.

A cubicle had at least the resemblance of a piece of space I could call my own.

My worst experience involved commuting two hours by train to a high rise, tiny "open plan" office space (read: a few important people got offices, the rest of us were in one not very big room). It was like a sort of torture... for up to 15 hours a day the only escape from being within a several feet of and in eyeline of half a dozen people at least was hiding in a bathroom stall for a few minutes.... and a space which could be mine and any sort of private was usually two hours of a foul smelling, packed, and unstable public transit away. Growing up in an environment where the median number of people within a mile was usually 3... being forced to be constantly "on display" and knowing that there was no escape other than hours of public transit at the end of the day was deeply psychologically unsettling. I lasted about 6 months.

Yeah that sounds ugly! Personally I don’t think could stand that either. You need time to be able to shut off from the social hubbub.

>And that's a perfectly reasonable approach to hiring for a new company.

And likely discriminatory.

I prefer working from home because I (am caring for an ailing parent|just had a baby|am not neurotypical|have a disability|etc.)

WFH is going to start being seen as a "reasonable accommodation" because the last 18 months have proven that lots of jobs can be done just fine without a physical office and denying that to employees who benefit from it for protected reasons isn't going to fly.

In short: suck it up. Dialing a few people in to an in person meeting is fine. Maybe it doesn't work exactly as well for some reasons but so what? Getting along well with your coworkers doesn't require colocation.

why is this downvoted?

>why is this downvoted?

I didn't vote, but probably it's mostly because of "In short: suck it up", because it seems like a crudely-expressed attempt to deny others the option of disagreement or further discussion

For arranged meetings including the remote workers won't be a problem but there are many 'meetings' that happen in a work context where important information is exchanged that are informal that remote workers will miss out on.

I think this is an org-smell though, I shouldn't miss out on important details because I was in the stall or taking a quick walk either. My first job was remote communications oriented despite being overwhelmingly in-office employees, and it was amazing how much information you could find by searching communication channels and wikis. The norm was to ask questions and talk about impromptu problems in chat, and if you needed to collaborate you went to designated areas or scheduled a meeting. Remote workers weren't out if the loop and on site new hires like myself had a huge wealth of searchable info to absorb

That only really happens if the on-site people neglect to provide the remote workers with a summary. Even when everyone still came in to the office, this happened to sick workers, people on different shifts, locations, teams, etc. In other words: it's about emotional intelligence and seeing yourself as part of a team, not working in an office.

for a small effort. is not difficult to say, "George should be part of this discussion". Ok you may need to all put on headphones or get a room so you can use a speaker phone, but really, not that hard.

What if George had been away getting coffee or at the bathroom when you started the conversation, he would have missed out anyway.

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