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Comment by asdajksah2123 | Hacker News Reader

> The more I think about this, the more it seems like something really bizarre is going on.

That's only because people refuse to accept the obvious. Executives, whether correctly or wrongly, genuinely believe having employees colocated in the same geographical space is beneficial for their companies.

It's not even such a stretch to imagine this because we absolutely know they believed this before the pandemic. In fact, most SV companies were willing to pay employees located elsewhere huge sums of money to move to the Bay Area.

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Or executives believe it is beneficial for themselves. I've seen plenty of managers over the year manage by "perceived busy-ness", and managers who liked walking the floor and to get a feel for whether people are busy have to actually do real work to check when people work from home. Or execs are more likely to be extroverts who like their job because it provides an opportunity for them to be at the centre of a group of people. Or enough board members are also on the boards of companies that make a living from commercial real estate.

There are many options, and many of them can be true to various degrees at the same time.

When you fundamentally change a balance of anything you're likely to run into all kinds of odd entrenched interests you may never have thought about, in part because many of them may never have needed to assert themselves before.

>Or executives believe it is beneficial for themselves.

It doesn't matter, the end-result is the same, and it's completely up to you to either recognise it, or be delusional about it. We all make that choice, it's just the majority of commentators choose to engage in semantics.

Motivations matter for those who want to understand how to address it.

> Or executives believe it is beneficial for themselves.

I don't disagree with this. I do get that feeling that this is part of it...

But executives are often the ones trying to squeeze an extra dollar out of every line on the ledger. Are they really willing to spend so much extra for this perceived personal benefit? Are their bosses willing to indulge them like that?

These aren't insignificant costs. For gigantic companies, the big skyscraper headquarters in some world class city must comprise just as much of the budget as a more modest building for a more modest company in Oklahoma. They're spending millions for it.

But it's a cost they don't bear, it typically ends up in a different section of the balance sheet. And as soon as somebody else pays for it, personal benefit (perceived or real) takes the front seat. See business class pricing in travel, for example.

If their bosses do the same it won't be seen as indulgent. And indeed cargo cutting what their boss does might well be another aspect of it.

Please don’t skip the other thing that we all know to be true.

There is a lot of work from home abuse.

Of course, work from home advocates would never do that!

Everyone knows the quiet part. Just have a few people talk about it, tells me that it isn’t insignificant.

There is a lot of in the office abuse too. Time shooting the shit with colleagues, popping out for a coffee or just goofing off in front of a desk. Probably half the comments on this very website were probably written by someone who was being paid to work.

Now when I'm working from home and not feeling productive I have options. Go for a lie down if I'm tired. Get ready and go for a run if I'm frustrated. Go downstairs and have a cuddle with my 1 year old etc.

Ok, agreed.

Now, if you're telling me there is in office abuse, why would I assume it's not worse when no one is looking?

It's not even an assumption. We KNOW people are working two jobs, or they take off when they feel like it, there are plenty of annecdotes of people saying "I only work 20 hours a week now, and get the same amount done".

Look, I don't care. My employees are remote or have the option, but we have daily standups and its a small team. It works as a small team and falls apart at scale.

The fact that WFH advocates get emotional, nonsensical, and flat out refuse to discuss or admit abuse is all I need to know that it is more rampant that people are admitting to.

> The fact that WFH advocates get emotional, nonsensical

Interestingly, the person you are responding to is very reasonable in their point.

You, on the other hand, sound pretty emotional and nonsensical about "WFH abuse".

If you can't measure productivity of your remote team, that is really a "you" problem.

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