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> In-person is much better if you don't know what you need to build, are trying to "figure it out as you go along", and are relying on the implicit fast feedback loop of standing next to each other.

true.

> For large companies like FAANG, I actually think they mostly fall in bucket 2

Also true most fall in the "figure it out" bucket... But here's where it gets funny: just meet in-person you say?

No, this is FAANG. You're in MTV, but the people you need to collaborate are in NYC, LAX, SEA, AUS, SFO...

So your in-person experience is you booking a room just for yourself so you can video conference all those people who also booked a room for themselves.

Because every other team is in same situation, finding a meeting room is a challenge in itself.

Take the call from your desk then?

No, this is FAANG, every building is open office layout, it'd be rude & disrespectful to your colleagues around who are busy coding.

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A lot of companies want the benefits of distributed teams, but also want to force everyone to come to offices and do conference calls in meeting rooms instead of work remote.

It's mind boggling to me. All I can think is that there is a lot of ego tied up in offices for some reason.

Because people with "people skills" need people in the office to justify their existence. It is beyond ego for them, it is about their survival.

Wall Street is pressuring everybody for Return to Office to shore up their collapsing commercial real estate holdings.

And to further reduce headcount through silent layoffs.

Not just wall street. All of the governments, and thus their budgets, where this real estate resides are completely dependent on property taxes and the overall commerce in the area which will collapse if people (and then secondary small businesses) just simply aren't there anymore.

Budget collapses would be karmic, given how many local governments court commercial real estate while neglecting residential real estate by not encouraging (or actively fighting) the development of new homes. Too many city halls decided that housing people who work in their city is someone else's problem, and would be quite happy with 0 new residents within city limits if it meant all new developments are commercial.

This was the first thing I noticed when I started working about a decade ago. Endless conference calls while people extolled the benefits of in-person interaction which wasn't even happening. As a result, I now have a healthy amount of cynicism about advocacy of office work. I take ICs who favor it at face value when they say it works better for them, but clearly, many of the most vocal advocates in management don't even care if any of the supposed benefits are realized.

Working for a FAANG right now and since RTO was mandated, I noticed that our team have been spending ~5 mins before the beginning of the meetings finding a room and setting up the audio/visual system for conference calls with other teammates across the country. This is for a company that has a lot of office space in its birth town and has HQs in a few other cities. A couple of teammates (out of 8 total) privately told me that they hate the RTO.

I personally prefer fully remote because I hate the distraction in the open office plan and associated pains like having to find meeting rooms, having to share restrooms with others (I admit this is just my personal pet peeve), and not being able to avoid distraction when I am in the zone for working. Most of all, I don't like the commute (I have to commute 1 hour each way, so everyday, I am spending 2 hours; when I worked from home, I started early and end up working an extra hour or two because I don't have to commute; these days, I try to arrive at 8-9am and leave by 5-6pm to beat the traffic and once I get home, I don't do any work). I consider quitting someday soon and am waiting for my wife to complete her training. Once she has done that, we will move to a place where she can find work, and I will quit my FAANG job for a fully-remote one (sure, my income will take a small hit, but quality of work life is more important for me).

If I went into "my" office I probably wouldn't recognize a single person at this point and I'm not sure there's anyone who I regularly work with who is assigned to that office, much less goes in.

>No, this is FAANG, every building is open office layout, it'd be rude & disrespectful to your colleagues around who are busy coding.

Individual offices have not been the norm for everyone at large companies maybe ever? Cubicles are "better" but not that much better. (Source: I had one for years--both full-height and then shorter.) And the fact is that lots used to spend a lot more time on the phone than they generally need to today given other communication channels. When I've been in an office I absolutely make calls from my desk and everyone else does too.

People taking calls from their desks is the worst post COVID office etiquette change I’ve noticed.

Sure this happens but it’s not like it’s everyone. For example right now 80% of the people I collaborate with are in the same office as me. So it’s still noticeably better to come in the office.

The downside is it’s hard to get actual coding down because of all the “collaboration”. So my ideal would be 1-2 days in office to meet and then 3-4 days to code ins peace at home.

> No, this is FAANG, every building is open office layout, it'd be rude & disrespectful to your colleagues around who are busy coding.

But at the same time it's perfectly okay to just come up to your busy colleague and pester them about something, because collaboration.

Establishing working relationships and setting boundaries is a professional skill

It isn’t okay, but there’s enough nonverbal cues you can use to determine whether someone is busy at their desk.

I can be just as busy at a watercooler away from my screen. That’s not the point. I think that all of the arguments in this conversation, whether they are valid or not, are not at all relevant to the purpose of the conversation.

I have this wild guess that if a significant number of companies cut their leases on all those monstrous office spaces that are kept being built all the time, it could hurt some people with important companies a fucking lot, and the ripple effect could prove to be immense and disastrous.

Spice must flow, and the fact that there are parties interested in those office spaces running and bringing money in has diddly to do with whether there are any actual productivity advantages of bringing the office workers back to the office or not.

For enough dough you can buy enough experts and pundits and other talking heads that will overflow the information space with thinkpieces and analyses that go either way.

Meanwhile, the only actual productivity boost is when you have a private office with a closable door within walking distance from your living place. But it’s not like anybody would give you _that,_ plebeian.

> No, this is FAANG. You're in MTV, but the people you need to collaborate are in NYC, LAX, SEA, AUS, SFO...

I don't think this is really that common. I spent a decade in MTV on a wide variety of teams. I had VCs with people in different locations a handful of times and I never had one by myself. And getting deep focus with those people was so valuable that it was easier to just go to NYC, MUC, or SYD once a quarter than it was to jump on a call.

Even FAANGs do not apply perfect hashing to distribute teams across their office locations (well, for all I know, Google does, but the one I work at doesn‘t). And often it already helps if some of the team is co-located.

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