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Comment by dh2022 | Hacker News Reader

dh2022

This logic (we have billions in real estate investments that somehow we need to use. So let's use them by bringing people back to the office) is an example of cost sunk fallacy. The 3 multinationals I worked for are aware of this fallacy. Amazon is another example of company writing-off hundreds of millions right away (FirePhone). All this preamble just to point that there are other things beyond just "we must fill these offices". Probably productivity decreased? BTW - my current employer (big tech company) also wants to bring everyone back into the office, even though it increased the headcount during the pandemic and there was no campus expansion for 1 and half year due to COVID lockdowns and there is no space for everyone.

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It's worse than that. It presumably costs more to operate a building than to mothball it and at least try to sublease it. If there's really no value in filling the building up with people, it's a bit like deciding to drive your car around aimlessly because "I own it so I should use it."

And workers have no choice in the current setup, hence the need for labor regulation to allow for remote work if the work can legitimately be performed remotely. Otherwise, "make my assets worth it plebs." (half joking)

The UK has a law where workers have the right to request flexible work arrangements, for example: https://www.gov.uk/flexible-working

I'm currently on paternity leave, and I do need to drive my car every so often to keep the 12V battery charged up...

Buy a trickle charger, they cost under $20. :-) That being said, leaving a car sitting for many months is not great without fuel stabilizer IIRC.

> BTW - my current employer (big tech company) also wants to bring everyone back into the office, even though it increased the headcount during the pandemic and there was no campus expansion for 1 and half year due to COVID lockdowns and there is no space for everyone.

My current company hasn't made such a demand, but I've also heard that in others in this country about 20% of people actually prefer to work in person daily, everyone else seems to work remotely a lot of the time.

Now, I'm probably under a certain sampling bias here, but the few times I recently went into the office, it seemed comparatively empty, unless a team had decided to meet up in person for whatever reason.

I guess not everyone enjoys the commute, especially in pretty cold weather (or just thrives while working remotely for a plethora of reasons).

> My current company hasn't made such a demand, but I've also heard that in others in this country about 20% of people actually prefer to work in person daily, everyone else seems to work remotely.

That 20% probably also expects/demands everyone else show up, because they prefer everyone else to be there, too! :)

If there's an equal distribution of talent/productivity among the remote-demanding group and the on prem-demanding group, and only 20% demand on prem, the smart move is to cut the smaller group loose. They offer a smaller talent pool and most of the highest-performing talent will be in the remote group.

You got a citation for that?

I’m a part of the 20% who enjoys going into the office a few times a week. There are three other folks who show up regularly; the rest rarely — if ever — make an appearance. I’m fine with this arrangement and I don’t see a need to force everyone else back in.

With the the exception of misguided upper management, I suspect most people take a more nuanced view of remote work.

I suspect that most people who would like more coworkers to come back into the office appreciate that they have very little say in the matter and should probably largely keep quiet about their preferences--and perhaps seek out somewhere where things are different if they care.

I suspect many have preferences but not strong enough ones to take imminent action.

Honestly idk if even 50% of that 20% care. Maybe nobody cares! It's all good. :)

My guess was that a lot of the management demanding people to return to the office, are the kinda people that want to be around a lot of people, so they ask everyone to come back so they feel better. That's all.

I don't know where I fit in all this. I went full remote and at my company they don't allow everyone to do that - it's more of an "ask your boss and maybe they'll let you" kinda thing lol.

I'm not even an introvert. At least, I don't consider myself one. I like being around others and chatting and socializing and stuff. I just don't care for the expectation to be there at the same time for many hours every day. My office is big and noisy and there's a ton of people in the room making noise. It is distracting as hell.

It's also not in my favorite place to hang out. It's a kinda boring commercial area on a busy street with no good places to walk or hang out outside the office. IDK. I do visit sometimes.

> That 20% probably also expects/demands everyone else show up, because they prefer everyone else to be there, too! :)

This hasn't been my experience exactly, though I've also participated in the occasional get-together at the office when the team collectively decided to work together in person.

As for the motivations of those who prefer to be at the office, some might have living conditions where the office environment is a more pleasant for work (especially given some family situations), others like to have clear boundaries between a work place and a rest place... whatever those motivations might be, I don't judge.

Though I can see how it would be annoying if someone demanded that everyone fit their preferred way of work. I once talked to someone who was dead set on only doing synchronous communication and rejected the idea of someone being able to respond to their question an hour later or so as acceptable - something like that would definitely cause problems, though that's just a particular mindset to look out for.

> whatever those motivations might be, I don't judge

The rest of us judge. That's part of being human and trying to understand situations. (Judge strongly but lightly?)

I only mention this because that comment seemed a bit like shaming for using judgement.

It's not guaranteed that it's a sunk cost fallacy.

I'm going to make up some dumb numbers: suppose people are 5% more productive in the office, but the office has an amortized cost of 10% total compensation. You shouldn't open an office. But say you've purchased an office outright, and maintenance is now only 2% of the cost of total compensation (8% of cost was paid up front). In that case, you would want people in the office.

In the real world, this is more complicated, because you also add in employee preferences as a reason for or against an office, you can't neatly measure productivity, you probably didn't buy the office in cash, you leased it, or borrowed money to buy it...).

All the evidence points to workers (especially programmers) being more productive when working from home, not less.

Short term yes, long term unclear. I’ve personally experienced something that could be cranked out in a multi day white boarding session stretch out for months of on/off meetings. It’s harder to collaborate remotely.

At that point, have everyone get together for an offsite/onsite.

That was the plan but unfortunately there was a company-wide travel freeze

That is an issue right now at a lot of places. Distributed teams are pretty much stuck with video calls. But you deal with it. Most people aren't going to move cities at their own expense to avoid video calls.

You're probably an extrovert if you experience greater productivity from a whiteboard session than an email conversation.

I used to do this, too; get the whole team together around a whiteboard and sketch a new thing out. Some of the team made very little contribution in the sessions; I always put this down to them not being very quick (they made good contributions later over email). When I took some management training later I learned that this style of collaboration doesn't suit everyone: the "quiet" folks were just extremely uncomfortable sharing their ideas in the public forum of the whiteboard session.

Now I create a slack channel for this, and stretch the process out over a couple of days. I get more input and better ideas this way.

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