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Won't comment directly on the strange rant. But it highlights the reality that something has seriously changed since the pandemic. I have multiple employees th

Won't comment directly on the strange rant. But it highlights the reality that something has seriously changed since the pandemic. I have multiple employees that insist on staying home due to their dogs. The amount of discussion around employees' dogs is on another level now, partially due to the anxiety these dogs have when their owners go into the office. It's all very different than prepandemic, I for one never heard "i need to work from home to stay with my dog" as something people used to say

tedivm 3y ago
Before the pandemic most of the startups I worked at allowed people to just bring their dogs in. I got bit by one of my coworkers dogs when I worked at Vicarious (that job really tried to kill me- while there I got electrocuted, bit by a dog, and food poisoning).
Server6 3y ago
It's not the dog. It's the commute and not wanting to be in the office/micromanaged. The dog is just the excuse. I've been WFH since 2017 and will never go back, it's not worth it (at least for me).
jkaplowitz 3y ago
Dogs that grew up during the pandemic likely have a lot more separation anxiety than dogs which grew up pre-pandemic, and therefore so do their owners because the dogs aren't used to it. Also, before the pandemic, workers probably didn't feel comfortable asking for or insisting on work from home, whereas it's been somewhat normalized now.
- pavon 3y ago
  And dogs that had previously been used to their owners going into work got accustomed to them being home all day and needed time to adjust. Before I was approved for permanent WFH, I was gradually increasing the amount of time I went into the office, in case I wasn't approved. It was clear after a few weeks that the one-month deadline we were given wasn't going to be enough time for the dogs to re-adjust. I think two months would have been enough if I kept it gradual, but then one day I got held up much longer than expected and my older dog had a freak-out and ripped the doggy door out of the door and then proceeded to rip off about 3 inches of (fiberglass shell, foam core) door surrounding the hole. It was almost a month after that incident until I could leave to do errands without her having anxiety. I'm glad I didn't have to re-adjust her since she doesn't have much longer to live. I don't know what I'm going to do about the dog we adopted as a puppy during covid, who has never known anything else. I personally think hybrid is the worst of both worlds, but will start increasing my time in office once the older dog has passed so he can get used to me being gone for longer time stretches.
gedy 3y ago
I agree that some folks are a little weird about their pets, but after 3 years working from home, these animals do get trained to assume someone is around. Dogs shred stuff, etc.
- jcutrell 3y ago
  Also, some people treat their inanimate cars with more loyalty and love than a pet, so it’s not really that weird.
  - jen20 3y ago
    Some people treat anthropomorphized _companies_ with that loyalty and love, so it doesn’t seem weird at all.
  - thomasjb 3y ago
    A car, treated right, will last upwards of 100 years, whereas pets have a more finite lifetime. And all they really need is to be stored and used right, with a little maintenance work. Either case is an irrational idolatry though
jcutrell 3y ago
Fortunately workers can now say “I want to work from home because I like it better than your shitty office environment” and if the employer doesn’t like it they can go pound sand and find other workers. Honestly this works as a very nice filter bubble for me. You want me to be on-site because you don’t trust me to be productive unless you can see me? Boy, I bet your Jira hygiene is a lot of fun to be subjected to. I’ve made the permanent decision to not be forced to work in an office ever again. It will always be my personal choice where I am physically located: you probably aren’t paying me enough to control my location.
- EMM_386 3y ago
  I've been remote for over 10 years, so pre-pandemic, and I'll never understand why they need software engineers, specifically, in an office. Every single thing I do is logged and timestamped. Every line of code I check in, every PR request I approve, every work item that I close, every time I log into a server, every email, chatting in groups on Slack/Teams, etc. They can never accuse me of slacking off, because it's all right there. They can easily see what I've been up to all day down to the millisecond. I don't understand the accusations of people "quiet quitting" who aren't even logging in. If that's true then they should obviously be fired. I get my work done more efficiently working remote, without the distractions. And I can work when I feel the most productive.
  - Turing_Machine 3y ago
    > I'll never understand why they need software engineers, specifically, in an office. Because the basic ape dominance drive that's very strong with many managerial types derives more satisfaction from the physical presence of a large group of subordinates who can be ordered about with impunity.
bentcorner 3y ago
> I for one never heard "i need to work from home to stay with my dog" as something people used to say At least in my case it was "I'm not going to get a dog because I go into the office", so it never really came up in hallway conversations. I suspect a lot of people were in the same camp. With WFH they did get a dog, and now it's harder to go back into the office.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  This. Literally the only reason I don't have a dog is because I'm not home for 50 hours per week.
dalyons 3y ago
They don’t want WFH taken away from them, the dog is just an excuse. I don’t blame them - employers reasons for forcing people back are typically equally as weak excuses.
jjulius 3y ago
>It's all very different than prepandemic, I for one never heard "i need to work from home to stay with my dog" as something people used to say I have. I had a few employees who needed time off to tend to a dog who may have been sick, or needed surgery, or even took a couple of days to mourn when their dog had passed.
jen20 3y ago
I suspect some are using it as a more reasonable-sounding proxy for “fuck being around coworkers who cannot shut up for 30 seconds in their open plan office, cannot correctly apply deodorant in the morning, want to talk non-stop to give the appearance of working, and want to commute to some shitty suburban business park with no facilities anywhere near by”. I’d honestly rather work in a dog park than that kind of environment.
arbitrage 3y ago
During the pandemic, my dog became accustomed to having a human around 24x7. I cannot leave my dog for hours at a time without finding that he has thrown a tantrum -- urinating or defecating in places inside the house, or destroying something. Because of this experience, I will likely never have a dog as a pet again. He didn't use to be this needy -- it's the constant presence of humans that made him this anxious when they are away. But until my dog passes, the situation is at a stalemate.
cableshaft 3y ago
When I worked in the office I drove home during lunch, let the dogs out, scarfed down food for ten minutes, then headed back to work. I know others that just cage their dogs for eight hours (which I would never do to my dogs) or took them to doggy daycare every day, which the average day-rate around me is $40/day per dog (and I have two dogs, so it would be $80/day, or $1600/month). My new job is downtown and at least an hour drive away, so I couldn't feasibly drive home during lunch anymore. It would be a significant inconvenience for me to start going to work every day (or at least it would if my wife was also forced to go back to work, she currently works from home also). It's also inconvenient for many other reasons, including a 2-3 hour commute, but yeah, having dogs complicates things, and pre-pandemic, there were very few remote jobs, so people just had to deal with it. But it still sucked.
- midoridensha 3y ago
  Why not just not have a dog? Even kids aren't this much of a difficulty. Why do people want such an inconvenient and expensive pet? It seems like either virtue signaling or wealth signaling to me.
  - meowfly 3y ago
    Or... Perhaps people love and feel responsible for their pets? This problem doesn't seem new to me. Startups letting people bring their dogs to work was a benefit before remote.
    - midoridensha 3y ago
      It wasn't a benefit to coworkers who were allergic to or uncomfortable around dogs. Many people love and feel responsible for their elderly and incapacitated parents. Should companies allow workers to bring their parents (possibly with dementia) to work with them?
      - meowfly 3y ago
        I was never claiming pets should come to the office. I am saying it's not signaling wealth or virtue to take care of your pet. Some people really love their animals, and are willing to part with their money for them. Using your example, I would never begrudge someone spending lots of money on their family either. It seems you don't like pets, and that's OK. It's also OK for other people to love their pets even if it doesn't make sense. It doesn't have to be signaling.

tedivm 3y ago

Before the pandemic most of the startups I worked at allowed people to just bring their dogs in. I got bit by one of my coworkers dogs when I worked at Vicarious (that job really tried to kill me- while there I got electrocuted, bit by a dog, and food poisoning).

Server6 3y ago

It's not the dog. It's the commute and not wanting to be in the office/micromanaged. The dog is just the excuse. I've been WFH since 2017 and will never go back, it's not worth it (at least for me).

jkaplowitz 3y ago

Dogs that grew up during the pandemic likely have a lot more separation anxiety than dogs which grew up pre-pandemic, and therefore so do their owners because the dogs aren't used to it. Also, before the pandemic, workers probably didn't feel comfortable asking for or insisting on work from home, whereas it's been somewhat normalized now.

pavon 3y ago
And dogs that had previously been used to their owners going into work got accustomed to them being home all day and needed time to adjust. Before I was approved for permanent WFH, I was gradually increasing the amount of time I went into the office, in case I wasn't approved. It was clear after a few weeks that the one-month deadline we were given wasn't going to be enough time for the dogs to re-adjust. I think two months would have been enough if I kept it gradual, but then one day I got held up much longer than expected and my older dog had a freak-out and ripped the doggy door out of the door and then proceeded to rip off about 3 inches of (fiberglass shell, foam core) door surrounding the hole. It was almost a month after that incident until I could leave to do errands without her having anxiety. I'm glad I didn't have to re-adjust her since she doesn't have much longer to live. I don't know what I'm going to do about the dog we adopted as a puppy during covid, who has never known anything else. I personally think hybrid is the worst of both worlds, but will start increasing my time in office once the older dog has passed so he can get used to me being gone for longer time stretches.

gedy 3y ago

I agree that some folks are a little weird about their pets, but after 3 years working from home, these animals do get trained to assume someone is around. Dogs shred stuff, etc.

jcutrell 3y ago
Also, some people treat their inanimate cars with more loyalty and love than a pet, so it’s not really that weird.
- jen20 3y ago
  Some people treat anthropomorphized _companies_ with that loyalty and love, so it doesn’t seem weird at all.
- thomasjb 3y ago
  A car, treated right, will last upwards of 100 years, whereas pets have a more finite lifetime. And all they really need is to be stored and used right, with a little maintenance work. Either case is an irrational idolatry though

jcutrell 3y ago

Fortunately workers can now say “I want to work from home because I like it better than your shitty office environment” and if the employer doesn’t like it they can go pound sand and find other workers. Honestly this works as a very nice filter bubble for me. You want me to be on-site because you don’t trust me to be productive unless you can see me? Boy, I bet your Jira hygiene is a lot of fun to be subjected to. I’ve made the permanent decision to not be forced to work in an office ever again. It will always be my personal choice where I am physically located: you probably aren’t paying me enough to control my location.

EMM_386 3y ago
I've been remote for over 10 years, so pre-pandemic, and I'll never understand why they need software engineers, specifically, in an office. Every single thing I do is logged and timestamped. Every line of code I check in, every PR request I approve, every work item that I close, every time I log into a server, every email, chatting in groups on Slack/Teams, etc. They can never accuse me of slacking off, because it's all right there. They can easily see what I've been up to all day down to the millisecond. I don't understand the accusations of people "quiet quitting" who aren't even logging in. If that's true then they should obviously be fired. I get my work done more efficiently working remote, without the distractions. And I can work when I feel the most productive.
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  > I'll never understand why they need software engineers, specifically, in an office. Because the basic ape dominance drive that's very strong with many managerial types derives more satisfaction from the physical presence of a large group of subordinates who can be ordered about with impunity.

bentcorner 3y ago

> I for one never heard "i need to work from home to stay with my dog" as something people used to say At least in my case it was "I'm not going to get a dog because I go into the office", so it never really came up in hallway conversations. I suspect a lot of people were in the same camp. With WFH they did get a dog, and now it's harder to go back into the office.

JohnFen 3y ago
This. Literally the only reason I don't have a dog is because I'm not home for 50 hours per week.

dalyons 3y ago

They don’t want WFH taken away from them, the dog is just an excuse. I don’t blame them - employers reasons for forcing people back are typically equally as weak excuses.

jjulius 3y ago

>It's all very different than prepandemic, I for one never heard "i need to work from home to stay with my dog" as something people used to say I have. I had a few employees who needed time off to tend to a dog who may have been sick, or needed surgery, or even took a couple of days to mourn when their dog had passed.

jen20 3y ago

I suspect some are using it as a more reasonable-sounding proxy for “fuck being around coworkers who cannot shut up for 30 seconds in their open plan office, cannot correctly apply deodorant in the morning, want to talk non-stop to give the appearance of working, and want to commute to some shitty suburban business park with no facilities anywhere near by”. I’d honestly rather work in a dog park than that kind of environment.

arbitrage 3y ago

During the pandemic, my dog became accustomed to having a human around 24x7. I cannot leave my dog for hours at a time without finding that he has thrown a tantrum -- urinating or defecating in places inside the house, or destroying something. Because of this experience, I will likely never have a dog as a pet again. He didn't use to be this needy -- it's the constant presence of humans that made him this anxious when they are away. But until my dog passes, the situation is at a stalemate.

cableshaft 3y ago

When I worked in the office I drove home during lunch, let the dogs out, scarfed down food for ten minutes, then headed back to work. I know others that just cage their dogs for eight hours (which I would never do to my dogs) or took them to doggy daycare every day, which the average day-rate around me is $40/day per dog (and I have two dogs, so it would be $80/day, or $1600/month). My new job is downtown and at least an hour drive away, so I couldn't feasibly drive home during lunch anymore. It would be a significant inconvenience for me to start going to work every day (or at least it would if my wife was also forced to go back to work, she currently works from home also). It's also inconvenient for many other reasons, including a 2-3 hour commute, but yeah, having dogs complicates things, and pre-pandemic, there were very few remote jobs, so people just had to deal with it. But it still sucked.

midoridensha 3y ago
Why not just not have a dog? Even kids aren't this much of a difficulty. Why do people want such an inconvenient and expensive pet? It seems like either virtue signaling or wealth signaling to me.
- meowfly 3y ago
  Or... Perhaps people love and feel responsible for their pets? This problem doesn't seem new to me. Startups letting people bring their dogs to work was a benefit before remote.
  - midoridensha 3y ago
    It wasn't a benefit to coworkers who were allergic to or uncomfortable around dogs. Many people love and feel responsible for their elderly and incapacitated parents. Should companies allow workers to bring their parents (possibly with dementia) to work with them?
    - meowfly 3y ago
      I was never claiming pets should come to the office. I am saying it's not signaling wealth or virtue to take care of your pet. Some people really love their animals, and are willing to part with their money for them. Using your example, I would never begrudge someone spending lots of money on their family either. It seems you don't like pets, and that's OK. It's also OK for other people to love their pets even if it doesn't make sense. It doesn't have to be signaling.