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Comment by agentultra | Hacker News Reader

It's really unfair to enforce these RTO policies and simultaneously not enforce proper protective measures to safeguard the health of employees. Let alone the environmental damage caused by forced commuting.

Companies built giant campuses and signed long term leases. Now we're in a world where that is no longer a rational choice. Adapt. They're always talking about innovation. Where's the innovation here forcing people back into offices?

It's just money. Deal with it.

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Yep, a big covid wave is just starting to break (seen concerning hockey stick graphs for both CA and NY in the last week). Good time to start masking up again.

Working in an office is extremely safe compared to almost every other kind of job.

I’m not comparing apples to oranges here. I’m talking about protecting people who are immune compromised, etc. you could be taking care of someone undergoing chemo and bringing COVID home from the office would be pretty bad.

It's not the office that's dangerous; it's the commute.

Also, fewer people commuting leads to better/safer driving for those who must commute, such as nurses.

If getting around outside is unsafe, that's more of a country issue than an office issue. In my city I can just walk to the train station, get on, then get off at the city station and walk in to the office. It's extremely safe and probably a slight benefit in that I have to do 15 minutes of walking twice a day.

This line of reasoning makes no sense. If full remote were more productive, companies would continue to do it.

The fixed costs don't change either way.

What protective measures do you want to see? The aggregate risk here has not changed significantly at this point vs. before remote policies were implemented.

Mandated masking, up-to-date vaccines, exceptions for at-risk employees would be a good start... but I'm not a doctor or epidemiologist. The point is that COVID-19 pandemic is not over and there should be policies followed to protect at-risk and differently-abled employees. They shouldn't have to expose themselves to health risks in order to comply with an RTO policy due to local conditions allowing people to be in public spaces unmasked and with no vaccination.

Full remote is more productive. Enough people seem to think so based off of various surveys.

If productivity were the only factor and companies behaved logically sure, but you know that's not the only factor and they often make decisions that aren't logical. Yet you argue as if it is. Why?

What decisions do you think they're basing RTO on that don't boil down to the production and costs of the business?

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