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There's obviously two sides to the issue, right? Or else there wouldn't be any debate. Or else no companies would do RTO. Why is it that in multiple years of re

There's obviously two sides to the issue, right? Or else there wouldn't be any debate. Or else no companies would do RTO. Why is it that in multiple years of reading HN I've never once seen an article that covers the other side's position? Why is it that the reporting is 100%, completely, always biased in one direction? It's like this across whole swaths of topics, not just about RTO. Wouldn't we prefer forums of communication that were unbiased and which fairly discussed the props/cons of each point of view? Or do we really just prefer the echo chamber / propaganda / dogpile approach?

jdlshore 3y ago
[flagged]
- dmitrygr 3y ago
  Absolutely NOBODY will stop YOU from working in the office, and none of us WFH proponents care about that. We only care when you are bored in the office and want to force US into it. You are welcome to work there, live there, etc, we do not care...
  - jdlshore 3y ago
    Thank you for making my point. There’s nothing in my post about forcing you to do anything. In fact, in my role as VP Eng., I’m one of the strong proponents for continuing fully remote work at my company.
    - dmitrygr 3y ago
      Thank you for making mine. I was replying to "in their dismissal of people who enjoy in-person work." Note that I did not dismiss your liking of offices. Nor does anyone else who prefers WFH. We are all indifferent to it. Like it all you want.
      - jdlshore 3y ago
        Huh. You’re really not reading what I wrote, are you? (Take a second look and find the part where I said I like offices. Look real close. There’s a sentence that talks about my preferences. You’ll find it. Now quote it back to me and explain what it means.)
        drewbug01 3y ago
        You’re technically correct; they’re misreading what you literally wrote. Instead, they’re responding to the combative tone you wrote it with. If you really are the VP of Eng at a company, I hope this kind of fight-picking isn’t how you lead.
        whoopsie 3y ago
        Right? Any leader who thinks a block of people supporting his salary are blanket “toxic” needs to touch grass.
    - wredue 3y ago
      RTO is literally “return to office” or “forcing people back to the office” Maybe consider the wider context of the thread before supposing that you’re only being downvoted “by angry people”
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  You never made an argument for in person so there’s nothing here you offer other than what is effectively a taunt So… Make your case
  - jdlshore 3y ago
    I’m in favor of remote work. The question was why discussion of remote work on HN is one sided. My argument was that it’s one sided because proponents of remote work are loud and borderline toxic, so people don’t bother posting in favor of the opposing view. That’s my case, and in my estimation, the responses thus far have entirely proven it.
    - chii 3y ago
      > proponents of remote work are loud and borderline toxic i think that's a very unfavourable way to view it. The reason they are so "toxic" is becauses this remote work privilege is very easy to remove by those who own the company (or have power within the company). Employees are used to be abused - after all, they are mostly a commodity and cannot really command control over the operation of a company. The bargaining power is next to zero. The remote work happenstance is luck - and grasping it hard doesn't seem illogical when they see the risk of it being removed without their consent. Loss aversion is real.
      - clocot 3y ago
        [dead]
      - jdlshore 3y ago
        I think that makes a lot of sense, and explains the behavior I see. It doesn’t excuse it, though. It’s still shitty behavior, and the opposite of the kind of reasoned discourse I’d like to see on HN. I think there’s an interesting debate to be had on the pros and cons of remote work, and even more interesting discussions to be had about how to compensate for its flaws. (Such as difficulty integrating new hires into the social fabric of the company, challenges experienced by junior devs, a slow burn of “othering” in interactions, lack of serendipitous conversations, challenges with creative group work, tendency towards long scheduled meetings over “pop your head into my office” moments.) Those are actually of intense interest to me, since I’m dealing with these challenges in my real-world work. I have solutions to some of them, but not all. I’d love to learn from other people’s experiences. But that doesn’t seem to be possible on HN, where the barest hint that remote work isn’t perfect brings out the shouters.
- positivedialog 3y ago
  > They’re angry, vocal, and sure of their morale superiority. There’s no point in engaging with them, so I remain quiet. They do have morale superiority on this issue though. Not because WFH is superior and they are smarter than everyone else. But because the arguments brought by their counterparts are in most cases either very dishonest, or very dismissive and confrontational. RTH mandates acknowledge that the fulfillment of the employees preferring WFH is not their priority even if it does not negatively impact productivity. Company culture is prioritized over employee fulfillment, while it was pretended that these cultures were all about making employees happier. Masks off, people are calling the BS, and this is perfectly legitimate. What you see as arrogance really isn't, it is just outrage, and a legitimate one in my humble opinion. Keep in mind that not everyone has the luxury of watching this situation playout while being comfortably employed as VP of a fully remote company.
  - jdlshore 3y ago
    > the arguments brought by their counterparts are in most cases either very dishonest, or very dismissive and confrontational. Can’t say I’ve seen that on HN. Typically, the arguments I see are along the lines of “I prefer working with people,” “I don’t have a good place to work at home,” and “I get distracted too easily at home.” Can you point to 5 examples of those dishonest or confrontational replies? Because I see examples of the bad behavior I’m talking about in pretty much every single thread about remote work on HN.
    - orwin 3y ago
      No, those point are not about RTO, just find a co-working space near your home, with a 5 minutes bike commute (mine is 3 minute away), and with luck it'll also include good food and a gym (bouldering gym in my case).
      - deciduously 3y ago
        That "just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Many, many people do not live a bike ride away from places like that.
- nottorp 3y ago
  > Signed, VP Eng at a fully remote company. Management does seem to be in favor of office work. Do you feel like you don't have control?
  - jdlshore 3y ago
    No, I have just as much control either way… but good management isn’t about control. It’s about understanding the work system and manipulating it so people will succeed. (This means things like improving processes, mediating disagreements, providing coaching and skill development opportunities, etc.) (Edit: I believe the RTO trend is due to herd-following behavior from incestious boards, shadow layoffs, management inexperience with making remote work successful—it’s harder than in-person work—and the genuine issues remote work causes with interpersonal relationships and team dynamics.)
    - nottorp 3y ago
      > but good management isn’t about control. It’s about understanding the work system and manipulating it so people will succeed I happen to agree, but obviously the RTO people don't. I'll make a bet that you have worked as <whatever the people you're managing do>, and were good at it, before going management. You understand the work from the inside.
malfist 3y ago
This is the both sides fallacy
transcriptase 3y ago
The other side of the issue is extroverts wanting to extrovert, managers worrying about losing out on the watercooler aspect of career advancement, and the collective will of companies with commercial real estate holdings not wanting to crash that particular market. Cities want it because there are plenty of businesses that rely on office workers buying food etc in downtown cores. None of those have anything to do with the quality of life of employees or benefit to the company productivity wise. That’s why nobody cares.
- denimnerd42 3y ago
  there's also the soft-layoff side. You can encourage those pesky mothers or child caretakers to quit as well as those that don't live very close or can't stand the office for any myriad of reasons..
- 15457345234 3y ago
  > Cities want it because there are plenty of businesses that rely on office workers buying food etc in downtown cores. So casually dismissing the fact that this provides a HUGE amount of employment and revenue and, in turn, encourages face to face socialisation which builds communities and social cohesion. Like... what's your plan for these people, this huge proportion of the population that can't work remotely, won't enjoy working remotely, don't want to work remotely etc. People enjoy socialising. That's why so many TV programs are made about work and the office environment. People enjoy the social aspect of it. It's not all 'the office' - that's a massively cynical viewpoint. Most people get something out of going to the office, date co-workers, play golf with their colleagues, you know. Society is not going to change to revolve around shut-in people haters. You're a minority. You're not normal.
  - renewedrebecca 3y ago
    nice black and white thinking there. it's not an either-or situation. people who want to go into an office should. people who don't want to, shouldn't have to. and hell, with the way you seem to think, why would anyone want to go into an office and be around people like you all day.
yazzku 3y ago
"...examined a sample of firms on the S&P 500 list—137 of which had RTO mandates and 320 that clearly did not between June 2019 and January 2023." There are samples of both types of RTO policies in the study. So the study itself deals with the supposed bias in your question. "Overall, the analysis, released as a pre-print, found that RTO mandates did not improve a firm's financial metrics, but they did decrease employee satisfaction." Though I cannot speak to the quality of the study or its conclusion, because the damn crap is behind a login/paywall. Link to the actual study: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4675401#maincontent https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4675401#...
- paulddraper 3y ago
  Well it's the third time this article has been posted here in the last 6 weeks.
rufus_foreman 3y ago
>> There's obviously two sides to the issue, right? This is false.
- CPLX 3y ago
  So there’s literally no example, anywhere on this wide planet, of a company that would be more successful with its team working together in an office?
  - yazzku 3y ago
    This is not what the study concludes or even suggests.
  - grimjack00 3y ago
    From my experience, companies are more concerned with "in an office" than "working together". Yes, when the whole team is working from a single location, there can be advantages. But that situation is uncommon. In fact, the only time I can recall being in that situation during the last 20 years is a short stint I had at a startup; about 10 people, from CEO to intern, in a single open office. And even then, they only _required_ in-office three times a week. More common, teams are split over two or more cities/states/countries. I'm currently in Colorado. I'm never going to have a water cooler chat with my colleague in Budapest.
- undersuit 3y ago
  Thank you. I'd like the option to work from work or home and I don't want to schedule it.
tamimio 3y ago
The other side is all over companies’ announcements, emails, and LinkedIn posts. The debate is not between equal peers, but between the few who want to bring back the pre-pandemic norms because they need to: fill the void in their lives as their lives revolve around work, and/or satisfy the need to control others and feel it face to face, and/or justify the commercial building rents, and/or help landlords pay their debts, among other reasons. On the other side, you have the average person who discovered that they can do the same job perfectly well while saving on commute costs, time, and even rent by being far from crowded hubs, and spending more time with family, especially since they still produce the same outcome. This is not your typical debate, this is a typical power exchange dynamic between different classes, the greed versus the need.
- chii 3y ago
  Why are those reasons for RTO any less valid than the ones presented by employees?
  - positivedialog 3y ago
    Breach of social contract. For years these companies pretended that their corporate culture was all about going out of their way to make employees happy and fulfilled. The massive WFH brought forth by the pandemic has exposed that corporate culture actually clashes with employee fulfillment and is not focused on supporting it. The rationale with their RTO mandates may have merits, the problem is this broader context. This is making an about face without ever openly admitting the longstanding hypocrisy, and this is what makes the arguments brought forth difficult to hear for most people, and I personally think that their feeling is legitimate.
    - busterarm 3y ago
      Also big tech companies tend to have their offices in locations that are supply-constrained hellholes. I. Will. Never. Go. Back. To. New. York.
      - 3y ago
paulddraper 3y ago
Numerical advantage. Most ICs prefer working from home. Most managers prefer teams to work in office. There are more ICs than managers.
- boppo1 3y ago
  Good kuck getting ICs to unionize. Otherwise it's 'there's more miners than mine bosses'.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jiggawatts 3y ago
HN is full of entrepreneurs, which by and large are more experienced, more senior people. A total beginner/junior would not be running a startup (I hope). Someone who struggles to write a function or a for loop isn't going to be hired by startups that have like... three developers total, and the success or failure of the entire company hinges upon their output! The real world is full of juniors, especially in IT and software development, where the continuing growth of the industry means that juniors can outnumber more experienced staff. I have no problem working from home solo, but I've noticed that juniors will flounder. Even if they find something useful to do, they don't get to "look over my shoulder" to see how I do things. It's the little things too, things you might not even consider to be a skill because it's so automatic for you. Ctrl-C / Ctrl-V Yes, really. Really! I've lost count of the number of times I've stopped some kid typing something (with typos) and told them to do it again using the clipboard to avoid that. Tab It's not even watching someone type out each and every character one painful keystroke at a time. It's that not using tab-complete means they don't get the implicit spell-check. They also don't get to rotate through the variants of the function names (or whatever), so there isn't that implicit act of "discovery" as they see what else is up for grabs. Etc, etc... There's a thousand things like that a junior can pick up by being present physically next to a senior. Zoom or Teams is just not the same, especially because by default these systems don't show the keyboard shortcuts used.
- jen20 3y ago
  > Even if they find something useful to do, they don't get to "look over my shoulder" to see how I do things. This is your fault. I work remote, and have an open video call when I’m coding. Lots of people drop in for that. The keyboard is neither here nor there: I promise you can’t tell what I’m typing from looking at my keyboard, yet jetbrains solved this decades ago with the shortcut presentation mode.
  - whoopsie 3y ago
    Can’t agree more. Mob programming alternatives to Zoom like Multi are also superior to in person because they generate summaries with files edited, branches, websites viewed so the junior / new employee can relax and focus on what’s important. If you aren’t actively sharing “how to work” tips with colleagues, particularly juniors, it’s your fault not an office’s. The whole point of being an engineer is to be clever and find solutions where others couldn’t to make the world a better place.
AndrewDucker 3y ago
Go find some research that shows the opposite effect. Submit it. Join in the conversation. Complaining that the research doesn't support your side doesn't really seem like a useful approach.
- Eridrus 3y ago
  A few papers I found when trying to actually look into this: Software engineers give substantially less code review feedback when not colocated (either remote or just in different buildings); https://www.nber.org/papers/w31880 https://www.nber.org/papers/w31880 People are less productive WFH, and those who self select into remote work take an even bigger hit than those who prefer the office: https://www.nber.org/papers/w31515 https://www.nber.org/papers/w31515 Previous pre-pandemic papers that I didn't save links to also found negative selection effects into WFH were significant. If you believe the mythical man month, which all software engineers seem to, then productivity hits to engineers are very bad for the project since outcomes are not linear in inputs. Anecdotally, CTOs I have talked to were all uniformly negative about remote work at their companies, basically all feeling that their teams were less productive than before the pandemic.
  - whoopsie 3y ago
    I’ll bite. Your first linked study does not say what you hope it does. In fact, it’s hopelessly lost and irrelevant. Here’s a passage that makes it clear “remote” is conflating multiple unrelated concepts and that the quantitative metrics are like Elon asking me to print out my code to determine “programs written per month”. A remote New Zealand vs Seattle worker is very different than a 1000 head site deeming two people organizationally distinct enough to plop in separate campuses. We find that distant teammates impose negative externalities on the mentorship of teammates sitting together. These externalities can explain about a third of proxim- ity’s impact. Furthermore, before COVID-19, adding a new hire in another building reduces feedback among proximate teammates (who predate the new hire), while adding a new hire in the same building has no such impact. Teams’ attempts to ac- commodate distant teammates by, for example, moving in-person meetings online, have substantial negative externalities.7 Our findings indicate that additional mentorship has an opportunity cost: engi- neers who sit near all their teammates write fewer programs. Our difference-in- differences estimate suggests that proximity reduces programs written per month by 23 percent (p-value = 0.008), with similar effects on total lines of code and total files changed. The effects on output are present for both junior and senior engineers but are particularly pronounced for senior engineers, who do most of the mentoring.
intended 3y ago
Which is the other side? It’s only in the past few days that I have seen 2 articles cover the same study that suggested that RTO isnt all that great. Otherwise it’s generally been about how RTO is needed or necessary.
Simulacra 3y ago
You don't see the other side because I think mostly the media is pro labor. If company says return to the office, the media is going to say no, I side with the laborer, who does not want to return to the office. That kind of decision I think shapes the reporting. I guess you could chalk it up to general media bias and issue advocacy.
- deprecative 3y ago
  The media is pro wealth. It's no pro labor. They operate as a clickbait factory with nothing of value desperate for eyes on ads and nothing else.
nottorp 3y ago
> Drilling down, the data indicated that RTO mandates were linked to firms with male CEOs who had greater power in the company. Here, power is measured as the CEO’s total compensation divided by the average total compensation paid to the four highest-paid executives in the firm. Here's your explanation. They're compensating for something.
- nh23423fefe 3y ago
  all the men ruining the world have tiny dicks!
Archelaos 3y ago
> Why is it that in multiple years of reading HN I've never once seen an article that covers the other side's position? If there were one, why didn't you submit it?
socar 3y ago
>omg omg french literature forum is not discussing japanese welding equipment. so biased toward one thing ok
cbeach 3y ago
Are you surprised that a majority of people would favour having the freedom to work in the environment that best suits them and their team? RTO mandates are simply a way to curtail freedoms that we’ve established; freedoms that we demonstrably didn’t abuse. Why would anyone (except a commercial real estate investor, or an authoritarian senior manager) defend RTO mandates, given the data shown in this study?

jdlshore 3y ago

[flagged]

dmitrygr 3y ago
Absolutely NOBODY will stop YOU from working in the office, and none of us WFH proponents care about that. We only care when you are bored in the office and want to force US into it. You are welcome to work there, live there, etc, we do not care...
- jdlshore 3y ago
  Thank you for making my point. There’s nothing in my post about forcing you to do anything. In fact, in my role as VP Eng., I’m one of the strong proponents for continuing fully remote work at my company.
  - dmitrygr 3y ago
    Thank you for making mine. I was replying to "in their dismissal of people who enjoy in-person work." Note that I did not dismiss your liking of offices. Nor does anyone else who prefers WFH. We are all indifferent to it. Like it all you want.
    - jdlshore 3y ago
      Huh. You’re really not reading what I wrote, are you? (Take a second look and find the part where I said I like offices. Look real close. There’s a sentence that talks about my preferences. You’ll find it. Now quote it back to me and explain what it means.)
      - drewbug01 3y ago
        You’re technically correct; they’re misreading what you literally wrote. Instead, they’re responding to the combative tone you wrote it with. If you really are the VP of Eng at a company, I hope this kind of fight-picking isn’t how you lead.
        whoopsie 3y ago
        Right? Any leader who thinks a block of people supporting his salary are blanket “toxic” needs to touch grass.
  - wredue 3y ago
    RTO is literally “return to office” or “forcing people back to the office” Maybe consider the wider context of the thread before supposing that you’re only being downvoted “by angry people”
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
You never made an argument for in person so there’s nothing here you offer other than what is effectively a taunt So… Make your case
- jdlshore 3y ago
  I’m in favor of remote work. The question was why discussion of remote work on HN is one sided. My argument was that it’s one sided because proponents of remote work are loud and borderline toxic, so people don’t bother posting in favor of the opposing view. That’s my case, and in my estimation, the responses thus far have entirely proven it.
  - chii 3y ago
    > proponents of remote work are loud and borderline toxic i think that's a very unfavourable way to view it. The reason they are so "toxic" is becauses this remote work privilege is very easy to remove by those who own the company (or have power within the company). Employees are used to be abused - after all, they are mostly a commodity and cannot really command control over the operation of a company. The bargaining power is next to zero. The remote work happenstance is luck - and grasping it hard doesn't seem illogical when they see the risk of it being removed without their consent. Loss aversion is real.
    - clocot 3y ago
      [dead]
    - jdlshore 3y ago
      I think that makes a lot of sense, and explains the behavior I see. It doesn’t excuse it, though. It’s still shitty behavior, and the opposite of the kind of reasoned discourse I’d like to see on HN. I think there’s an interesting debate to be had on the pros and cons of remote work, and even more interesting discussions to be had about how to compensate for its flaws. (Such as difficulty integrating new hires into the social fabric of the company, challenges experienced by junior devs, a slow burn of “othering” in interactions, lack of serendipitous conversations, challenges with creative group work, tendency towards long scheduled meetings over “pop your head into my office” moments.) Those are actually of intense interest to me, since I’m dealing with these challenges in my real-world work. I have solutions to some of them, but not all. I’d love to learn from other people’s experiences. But that doesn’t seem to be possible on HN, where the barest hint that remote work isn’t perfect brings out the shouters.
positivedialog 3y ago
> They’re angry, vocal, and sure of their morale superiority. There’s no point in engaging with them, so I remain quiet. They do have morale superiority on this issue though. Not because WFH is superior and they are smarter than everyone else. But because the arguments brought by their counterparts are in most cases either very dishonest, or very dismissive and confrontational. RTH mandates acknowledge that the fulfillment of the employees preferring WFH is not their priority even if it does not negatively impact productivity. Company culture is prioritized over employee fulfillment, while it was pretended that these cultures were all about making employees happier. Masks off, people are calling the BS, and this is perfectly legitimate. What you see as arrogance really isn't, it is just outrage, and a legitimate one in my humble opinion. Keep in mind that not everyone has the luxury of watching this situation playout while being comfortably employed as VP of a fully remote company.
- jdlshore 3y ago
  > the arguments brought by their counterparts are in most cases either very dishonest, or very dismissive and confrontational. Can’t say I’ve seen that on HN. Typically, the arguments I see are along the lines of “I prefer working with people,” “I don’t have a good place to work at home,” and “I get distracted too easily at home.” Can you point to 5 examples of those dishonest or confrontational replies? Because I see examples of the bad behavior I’m talking about in pretty much every single thread about remote work on HN.
  - orwin 3y ago
    No, those point are not about RTO, just find a co-working space near your home, with a 5 minutes bike commute (mine is 3 minute away), and with luck it'll also include good food and a gym (bouldering gym in my case).
    - deciduously 3y ago
      That "just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Many, many people do not live a bike ride away from places like that.
nottorp 3y ago
> Signed, VP Eng at a fully remote company. Management does seem to be in favor of office work. Do you feel like you don't have control?
- jdlshore 3y ago
  No, I have just as much control either way… but good management isn’t about control. It’s about understanding the work system and manipulating it so people will succeed. (This means things like improving processes, mediating disagreements, providing coaching and skill development opportunities, etc.) (Edit: I believe the RTO trend is due to herd-following behavior from incestious boards, shadow layoffs, management inexperience with making remote work successful—it’s harder than in-person work—and the genuine issues remote work causes with interpersonal relationships and team dynamics.)
  - nottorp 3y ago
    > but good management isn’t about control. It’s about understanding the work system and manipulating it so people will succeed I happen to agree, but obviously the RTO people don't. I'll make a bet that you have worked as <whatever the people you're managing do>, and were good at it, before going management. You understand the work from the inside.

malfist 3y ago

This is the both sides fallacy

transcriptase 3y ago

The other side of the issue is extroverts wanting to extrovert, managers worrying about losing out on the watercooler aspect of career advancement, and the collective will of companies with commercial real estate holdings not wanting to crash that particular market. Cities want it because there are plenty of businesses that rely on office workers buying food etc in downtown cores. None of those have anything to do with the quality of life of employees or benefit to the company productivity wise. That’s why nobody cares.

denimnerd42 3y ago
there's also the soft-layoff side. You can encourage those pesky mothers or child caretakers to quit as well as those that don't live very close or can't stand the office for any myriad of reasons..
15457345234 3y ago
> Cities want it because there are plenty of businesses that rely on office workers buying food etc in downtown cores. So casually dismissing the fact that this provides a HUGE amount of employment and revenue and, in turn, encourages face to face socialisation which builds communities and social cohesion. Like... what's your plan for these people, this huge proportion of the population that can't work remotely, won't enjoy working remotely, don't want to work remotely etc. People enjoy socialising. That's why so many TV programs are made about work and the office environment. People enjoy the social aspect of it. It's not all 'the office' - that's a massively cynical viewpoint. Most people get something out of going to the office, date co-workers, play golf with their colleagues, you know. Society is not going to change to revolve around shut-in people haters. You're a minority. You're not normal.
- renewedrebecca 3y ago
  nice black and white thinking there. it's not an either-or situation. people who want to go into an office should. people who don't want to, shouldn't have to. and hell, with the way you seem to think, why would anyone want to go into an office and be around people like you all day.

yazzku 3y ago

"...examined a sample of firms on the S&P 500 list—137 of which had RTO mandates and 320 that clearly did not between June 2019 and January 2023." There are samples of both types of RTO policies in the study. So the study itself deals with the supposed bias in your question. "Overall, the analysis, released as a pre-print, found that RTO mandates did not improve a firm's financial metrics, but they did decrease employee satisfaction." Though I cannot speak to the quality of the study or its conclusion, because the damn crap is behind a login/paywall. Link to the actual study: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4675401#maincontent https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4675401#...

paulddraper 3y ago
Well it's the third time this article has been posted here in the last 6 weeks.

rufus_foreman 3y ago

>> There's obviously two sides to the issue, right? This is false.

CPLX 3y ago
So there’s literally no example, anywhere on this wide planet, of a company that would be more successful with its team working together in an office?
- yazzku 3y ago
  This is not what the study concludes or even suggests.
- grimjack00 3y ago
  From my experience, companies are more concerned with "in an office" than "working together". Yes, when the whole team is working from a single location, there can be advantages. But that situation is uncommon. In fact, the only time I can recall being in that situation during the last 20 years is a short stint I had at a startup; about 10 people, from CEO to intern, in a single open office. And even then, they only _required_ in-office three times a week. More common, teams are split over two or more cities/states/countries. I'm currently in Colorado. I'm never going to have a water cooler chat with my colleague in Budapest.
undersuit 3y ago
Thank you. I'd like the option to work from work or home and I don't want to schedule it.

tamimio 3y ago

The other side is all over companies’ announcements, emails, and LinkedIn posts. The debate is not between equal peers, but between the few who want to bring back the pre-pandemic norms because they need to: fill the void in their lives as their lives revolve around work, and/or satisfy the need to control others and feel it face to face, and/or justify the commercial building rents, and/or help landlords pay their debts, among other reasons. On the other side, you have the average person who discovered that they can do the same job perfectly well while saving on commute costs, time, and even rent by being far from crowded hubs, and spending more time with family, especially since they still produce the same outcome. This is not your typical debate, this is a typical power exchange dynamic between different classes, the greed versus the need.

chii 3y ago
Why are those reasons for RTO any less valid than the ones presented by employees?
- positivedialog 3y ago
  Breach of social contract. For years these companies pretended that their corporate culture was all about going out of their way to make employees happy and fulfilled. The massive WFH brought forth by the pandemic has exposed that corporate culture actually clashes with employee fulfillment and is not focused on supporting it. The rationale with their RTO mandates may have merits, the problem is this broader context. This is making an about face without ever openly admitting the longstanding hypocrisy, and this is what makes the arguments brought forth difficult to hear for most people, and I personally think that their feeling is legitimate.
  - busterarm 3y ago
    Also big tech companies tend to have their offices in locations that are supply-constrained hellholes. I. Will. Never. Go. Back. To. New. York.
    - 3y ago

paulddraper 3y ago

Numerical advantage. Most ICs prefer working from home. Most managers prefer teams to work in office. There are more ICs than managers.

boppo1 3y ago
Good kuck getting ICs to unionize. Otherwise it's 'there's more miners than mine bosses'.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jiggawatts 3y ago

HN is full of entrepreneurs, which by and large are more experienced, more senior people. A total beginner/junior would not be running a startup (I hope). Someone who struggles to write a function or a for loop isn't going to be hired by startups that have like... three developers total, and the success or failure of the entire company hinges upon their output! The real world is full of juniors, especially in IT and software development, where the continuing growth of the industry means that juniors can outnumber more experienced staff. I have no problem working from home solo, but I've noticed that juniors will flounder. Even if they find something useful to do, they don't get to "look over my shoulder" to see how I do things. It's the little things too, things you might not even consider to be a skill because it's so automatic for you. Ctrl-C / Ctrl-V Yes, really. Really! I've lost count of the number of times I've stopped some kid typing something (with typos) and told them to do it again using the clipboard to avoid that. Tab It's not even watching someone type out each and every character one painful keystroke at a time. It's that not using tab-complete means they don't get the implicit spell-check. They also don't get to rotate through the variants of the function names (or whatever), so there isn't that implicit act of "discovery" as they see what else is up for grabs. Etc, etc... There's a thousand things like that a junior can pick up by being present physically next to a senior. Zoom or Teams is just not the same, especially because by default these systems don't show the keyboard shortcuts used.

jen20 3y ago
> Even if they find something useful to do, they don't get to "look over my shoulder" to see how I do things. This is your fault. I work remote, and have an open video call when I’m coding. Lots of people drop in for that. The keyboard is neither here nor there: I promise you can’t tell what I’m typing from looking at my keyboard, yet jetbrains solved this decades ago with the shortcut presentation mode.
- whoopsie 3y ago
  Can’t agree more. Mob programming alternatives to Zoom like Multi are also superior to in person because they generate summaries with files edited, branches, websites viewed so the junior / new employee can relax and focus on what’s important. If you aren’t actively sharing “how to work” tips with colleagues, particularly juniors, it’s your fault not an office’s. The whole point of being an engineer is to be clever and find solutions where others couldn’t to make the world a better place.

AndrewDucker 3y ago

Go find some research that shows the opposite effect. Submit it. Join in the conversation. Complaining that the research doesn't support your side doesn't really seem like a useful approach.

Eridrus 3y ago
A few papers I found when trying to actually look into this: Software engineers give substantially less code review feedback when not colocated (either remote or just in different buildings); https://www.nber.org/papers/w31880 https://www.nber.org/papers/w31880 People are less productive WFH, and those who self select into remote work take an even bigger hit than those who prefer the office: https://www.nber.org/papers/w31515 https://www.nber.org/papers/w31515 Previous pre-pandemic papers that I didn't save links to also found negative selection effects into WFH were significant. If you believe the mythical man month, which all software engineers seem to, then productivity hits to engineers are very bad for the project since outcomes are not linear in inputs. Anecdotally, CTOs I have talked to were all uniformly negative about remote work at their companies, basically all feeling that their teams were less productive than before the pandemic.
- whoopsie 3y ago
  I’ll bite. Your first linked study does not say what you hope it does. In fact, it’s hopelessly lost and irrelevant. Here’s a passage that makes it clear “remote” is conflating multiple unrelated concepts and that the quantitative metrics are like Elon asking me to print out my code to determine “programs written per month”. A remote New Zealand vs Seattle worker is very different than a 1000 head site deeming two people organizationally distinct enough to plop in separate campuses. We find that distant teammates impose negative externalities on the mentorship of teammates sitting together. These externalities can explain about a third of proxim- ity’s impact. Furthermore, before COVID-19, adding a new hire in another building reduces feedback among proximate teammates (who predate the new hire), while adding a new hire in the same building has no such impact. Teams’ attempts to ac- commodate distant teammates by, for example, moving in-person meetings online, have substantial negative externalities.7 Our findings indicate that additional mentorship has an opportunity cost: engi- neers who sit near all their teammates write fewer programs. Our difference-in- differences estimate suggests that proximity reduces programs written per month by 23 percent (p-value = 0.008), with similar effects on total lines of code and total files changed. The effects on output are present for both junior and senior engineers but are particularly pronounced for senior engineers, who do most of the mentoring.

intended 3y ago

Which is the other side? It’s only in the past few days that I have seen 2 articles cover the same study that suggested that RTO isnt all that great. Otherwise it’s generally been about how RTO is needed or necessary.

Simulacra 3y ago

You don't see the other side because I think mostly the media is pro labor. If company says return to the office, the media is going to say no, I side with the laborer, who does not want to return to the office. That kind of decision I think shapes the reporting. I guess you could chalk it up to general media bias and issue advocacy.

deprecative 3y ago
The media is pro wealth. It's no pro labor. They operate as a clickbait factory with nothing of value desperate for eyes on ads and nothing else.

nottorp 3y ago

> Drilling down, the data indicated that RTO mandates were linked to firms with male CEOs who had greater power in the company. Here, power is measured as the CEO’s total compensation divided by the average total compensation paid to the four highest-paid executives in the firm. Here's your explanation. They're compensating for something.

nh23423fefe 3y ago
all the men ruining the world have tiny dicks!

Archelaos 3y ago

> Why is it that in multiple years of reading HN I've never once seen an article that covers the other side's position? If there were one, why didn't you submit it?

socar 3y ago

>omg omg french literature forum is not discussing japanese welding equipment. so biased toward one thing ok

cbeach 3y ago

Are you surprised that a majority of people would favour having the freedom to work in the environment that best suits them and their team? RTO mandates are simply a way to curtail freedoms that we’ve established; freedoms that we demonstrably didn’t abuse. Why would anyone (except a commercial real estate investor, or an authoritarian senior manager) defend RTO mandates, given the data shown in this study?