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Comment by akudha | Hacker News Reader

If everyone (whenever possible, obviously a trucker or a nurse can't work from home) worked from home, imagine how much better off we would all be - traffic would be less, people would eat home cooked food, less stress, less office politics, no need to pay for office space/coffee/electricity (even toilet paper) ... on and on and on. If I were running a software company, I'd calculate all these savings and pass it on to my employees and retain talent.

I guess the only people who don't like remote is middle management, their career depends on dumb meetings and other such meaningless things. At home, at least we can mute ourselves and do something useful.

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>"If I were running a software company, I'd calculate all these savings and pass it on to my employees and retain talent.

This is the height of foolishness; to dismiss all those experienced managers out of hand. If someone far more experienced than you has taken a position, you should try to understand why a smart person could think that way, before calling them 'dumb'.

Experience doesn't necessarily equal to wisdom or smartness. I have been working remote for the last 5 years, after working in offices for a decade. Guess what advantage the office gave me? Nothing. Everything good I did in office I do at home, just more efficiently.

Also, you're assuming those "experienced" managers are taking a position that is beneficial to everyone. At least in my experience, this is not often true. They're doing what they need to do, to further their own careers (not faulting them, just pointing it out).

I didn't call the managers dumb, I called their meetings dumb. One can be super smart and still force dumb meetings, if that helps his/her career.

In person vs. remote has many trade-offs, and different situations entail different costs & benefits. 'Software' is a big industry, with a wide variety of specific situations. I imagine that in general, remote work is likely better for big teams working on relatively 'high-certainty' projects where they have a high degree of domain-relevant expertise. In-person work seems better for more uncertain projects and smaller teams which can benefit from greater communication, and integrated problem-solving.

I'd be interested to learn more about what types of projects you've worked on.

Compared to, say, calling something the height of foolishness and not knowing the source's experience?

I've had some great middle managers, but I've had far more (and even some of the good ones) that the company's and my own productivity wouldn't have suffered if that entire layer in the organization had never existed.

Spotted the manager /s

Indeed, the epitome of Chesterton's fence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...

Interesting that you think managers have far more experience than ICs

On average, sure. There's not really such a thing as an entry level engineering manager.

But in FAANG the majority of managers manage at least one SWE with more experience than them.

They're not dumb, but their interests are misaligned with yours.

Take it a step further. No need to live on top of one another (unless you like that), no need to live in an unpleasant climate, no need to tolerate local politics you don’t like, etc. An explosion in human freedom.

Yup, if only we can work from anywhere...

I am flat out refusing non-remote jobs (I was remote even before covid) even though I am just an average engineer. One recruiter argued with me - she was like "remote workers should be paid less", lol. In my opinion, remote workers should be paid more, as companies aren't spending on their office space, electricity etc.

If our species survives for another 100 or more years, future generations will look at our cubicles and laugh. There is absolutely no reason for digital workers to go to office (with very few exceptions).

The one (only?) good thing that came out of COVID is people are realizing a lot of bullshit they have been fed all these years about work and are pushing back, though slowly - one of them being remote working.

Take it a step further. No need to be present in a physical world at all, as you can replace all human-to-human interactions and other legacy experiences with their digital equivalents.

Even food can be delivered to the body via a series of tubes.

I’m saying move to Thailand or something, not hook yourself up to nutrient tubes and a brain internet interface.

I'm pretty sure you're trying to paint this as unreasonable by extending it, but ... yes? If I could plug my brain into the Matrix (without evil AI), I'd totally spend most of my time there.

I expect this to become a reality. I know a few people who derive all their pleasure and entertainment from the virtual world. One such person (my wife's cousin) explicitly told me that all he wants in life is to work as little as possible to earn just enough to sustain himself while he spends the rest of his waking hours playing games. His parents are frustrated and mad as hell, but are also very wealthy. Last I checked they were basically trying to set him up with a mostly automated business to sustain his lifestyle in perpetuity.

I know, it's unironically amazing!

Just make it so it's easy to employ people cross borders and you are trillionere.

…and on the hit lists of high-tax nations…

There should be shared office space next or in to the living areas so people could still socialice without commute.

With how I see everyone working during full remote work I think having an office will be viewed as a competitive advantage in the near future. Going from office mostly remote work will be another stage in a companies life-cycle. Cutting edge and heavy R&D reinvestment to stable slower long-term growth.

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