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Comment by paulcole | Hacker News Reader

Yes, it’s true that those are different things. But the remote vs. in-office argument isn’t as simple as “do your own thing.” Sure, it can be made that simple, but it doesn’t represent the situation well.

Some subset of people who want to work in an office want to do so only with people who only work in an office as well. For these people, “everyone do your own thing” is not a satisfying solution. And it doesn’t have to be! Work doesn’t have to satisfy everyone.

If you work with people like this and say, “just do your own thing, it works for me” then you are trying to control other people because it pleases you better.

And again, there is nothing wrong with this. You are looking out for yourself, which is fine. It’s then up to your employer to make a decision on policy and then the employees decide if that’s a policy they want to work under.

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No, I am not controlling anyone in that case. I am treating other people as professionals and letting them structure their work the way they think is best. Maybe it would be even better for me if they all worked from home, but I am not telling them to. I am questioning why the office workers try to make other people return to office with bad faith arguments (water cooler talk and synergies), when remote workers seem just happy to be working from home, without pressuring office workers to come and join them.

> I am treating other people as professionals and letting them structure their work the way they think is best

Again, you're ignoring that the office workers preference isn't simply to work in an office. It's often to work in an office (only or primarily) with other people also in that office.

> I am questioning why the office workers try to make other people return to office with bad faith arguments (water cooler talk and synergies), when remote workers seem just happy to be working from home, without pressuring office workers to come and join them.

You're making the bad-faith argument that a person in the office and a person working at home is a win-win situation. The remote workers may be just as happy, but those in the office are not just as happy.

I get it. People like remote work. People want to protect their right to work remotely. But at least acknowledge that some people are negatively affected by the push for remote work.

The situation doesn't need to be a win-win! Somebody can lose out on what they think is best for them. That's 100% fine. It's up to the company to make a decision and then up to the employees to decide how they'll react to that decision.

They have plenty of other office workers to talk to. For some reason, that is not enough, and the office workers need a better argument than "real product development happens at the water cooler". For the employer to make an informed decision it's better if the arguments are honest.

It can be a large win-small loss situation too. Remote workers gain two hours of commute back and forty hours of focused work. Office workers lose the open floor plan vibe (it's called back to office but tech workers don't have offices) and ability to push around their colleagues, or whichever the actual reason is. I don't understand it fully. It doesn't seem morally justifiable to me, and they encroach more on the professional autonomy on the remote worker than the remote worker does to them. The office workers wouldn't like it if they were being coerced to work from home for some BS reason.

> For some reason, that is not enough, and the office workers need a better argument than "real product development happens at the water cooler".

Here's the thing: they don't need a better argument. They don't need an argument at all. It's their preference.

> I don't understand it fully. It doesn't seem morally justifiable to me, and they encroach more on the professional autonomy on the remote worker than the remote worker does to them.

Here's the thing: it doesn't need to be morally justifiable to you or anyone else. It's a preference for working in-office with other people in-office.

I think you do understand this it's just that you don't like it because you have your own preference.

You don't need an argument for a preference. If you try to coerce other people according to your preference, you need an argument, as you would in any other context. For some reason, the RTO arguments are very bad. Is there some part the proponents can't say out loud?

No. It's possible my stock options would be worth more if the office workers adopted the more efficient form of work from home. Maybe the hybrid meetings would be more enjoyable fully remote. I still wouldn't think about trying to coerce them into that with talk about synergy or the online version of water coolers. That's a bad thing to do. Let them enjoy the office, and others remote.

> If you try to coerce other people according to your preference, you need an argument, as you would in any other context.

You may think you're more likely to get your way if you have a compelling argument but history has proven that's not always true.

The argument is, "I would like this better."

> For reason, the RTO arguments are very bad. Is there some part the proponents can't say out loud?

No, I believe the part being said out loud is, "We prefer to work at a company where all employees are in office." That's all you need to say. The only people I've ever heard talk about water coolers are the dismissive WFH people.

It has nothing to do with getting your way but working efficiently and with respect for the autonomy of your colleagues.

That's a bad argument. Sounds like we should not work from the office then. What comes after the "I like making others work in the office, because"? That's the quiet part not being said out loud. I'm interested.

That's not what I'm hearing or what you would read in an announcement for one the partial RTOs that have happened at some tech companies.

They exist: a managing director and an executive director at my last place of employment used the words "water cooler" on all-hands meetings among their justifications for RTO. "Coffee machine" was another variation. Swiss financial institution. I no longer work there, because I don't need to waste 2 hours/day on trains and buses just to spend my entire day on video calls with other international management. I'd rather raise chickens.

If we didn’t have to collaborate then that would be a fair statement. But when we have to work closely together, doing it on Zoom is excruciating.

> If you work with people like this and say, “just do your own thing, it works for me” then you are trying to control other people because it pleases you better.

No you explicitly aren't. Not bending to someone else's preference is not "controlling" them.

This is correct only if you also believe that a company mandating RTO is not controlling their employees because they are not bending to someone else's preferences.

Not really. Giving employees the choice to work from home or not is the opposite of controlling them. Just like giving employees the option to work only forty hours a week is not controlling them but giving them liberty. It's such a good thing it's law in many countries.

No, because the company is requiring the employee to do something. The employee refusing to return to the office is not mandating action from anyone else. The company requiring RTO is requiring a specific action. The company is asserting control over the employee.

Control in and of itself is not a bad thing, the employer/employee relationship is about exchanging money for control of ones time, but it's still control.

But refusing to return to the office because your co-worker prefers to work in a full office? That's only control in the same sense that my refusing to let someone stab me in the chest is a limitation of their freedom of movement. Sure, if you want to really twist your perspective you can get there, but it's not a useful definition.

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