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Comment by Cthulhu_ | Hacker News Reader

Maybe, but it would also be good if more (tech) companies offered a decent working environment.

That's coming from personal experience btw, where most jobs / assignments I've had, it was usually open plan, flexible seat arrangements.

I have a new job now where I have a fixed desk with a set of drawers. It's a breath of fresh air and honestly it sounds so stupid and trivial. But employers don't have their employees' best interest in mind.

My cynical take on this move is that the company doesn't have to pay as much for office space + worker transport anymore.

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I'm an ardent supporter of remote work, and I wouldn't go back to non-remote work without a hefty pay raise, but I think I probably would have considered office jobs during my last search if the offices I'd worked in previously had actually been pleasant.

Open office plans, low cubicle walls, cubicle sharing, frequent noise and disrespect of focus, flimsy banged up office chairs and equipment, no budget for standing desks, the lack of real employee lounges and couches to both work and chill out at, strict clocking in and out, and insufficient meeting space are chasing away good employees, especially now that we're all forced to work remotely. More people won't be willing to go back if they can help it.

Notice I mentioned nothing about free snacks, foosball tables, beer on tap, etc. I'd trade all of that for some semblance of serenity in the office.

>Notice I mentioned nothing about free snacks, foosball tables, beer on tap, etc. I'd trade all of that for some semblance of serenity in the office.

Amen

Free snacks & beer are an anti-perk if you want to maintain a healthy BMI, and a healthy body. Alcohol is a drug with side effects (even if you don't have a hangover), but most people don't think of it that way.

It always bugs me that "Free snacks" rarely includes fruit, nuts or other things that aren't processed.

Yes, almost always corporate carbs, which I like to call carbage.

That's strange. The offices at Bloomberg, Microsoft, Walmart Labs, etc., all had healthy options when I've been there.

Define healthy... For me, fresh fruit, nuts, even low sugar jerky are healthy. Anything with modern wheat and refined carbs tends to be problematic.

>Free snacks & beer are an anti-perk if you want to maintain a healthy BMI, and a healthy body.

or it turns into a perk again if you think of it as a way to train yourself against temptation.

This mentality is weird to me.

"employee stock options are an anti-perk if you want to maintain a gambling-free lifestyle."

"airbnb travel stipends are an anti-perk if you want to maintain a body free of traveler's diseases."

"free on-site dry-cleaning is an anti-perk when they lose a button on your jacket."

everything good in life can be viewed from a dark angle, but it gets pretty tiring to do so.

false equivalency - there aren't slot machines in the office kitchen.

> disrespect of focus

This right here is my beef in a nutshell. My attention should be under my control. For example, I can't believe that leaving audible cell phone notifications on is becoming normalized.

Yeah, that's the worst thing for me. Whenever I've brought this issue up to employers, I usually get a blank stare. To me, it's just self evident that I can get more done with fewer distractions, but a lot of people seem unwilling to imagine a workplace without chaos.

Granted, remote work isn't free from distraction. Far from it, in fact. At least I can control the noise level and close Slack and email, if need be.

Nothing makes me rage more than people who leave audible cell phone notifications and ring tones on in places that are supposed to be quiet (offices, library). It's one of the most selfish and disrespectful things I can think of. Especially if you are getting 20 messages in a row...the phone is right there you don't need the sound!

The people who I’ve seen leave their ringtones on are usually the most self-centered people I’ve known.

> My cynical take on this move is that the company doesn't have to pay as much for office space + worker transport anymore.

Don't forget it removes the work/home barrier. Now you are at work 24/7 and on call at all hours. Work and productivity has consumed most of modern life. The last bastion of freedom from work/productivity was the home. Now people are celebrating the loss of that precious personal space. Strange.

Hmmm. I work a little less than before due to fewer distractions. I shut my laptop and don't keep any work apps on my phone. Take a stand and hold it.

If you’re working enough extra hours to overcome commute and prep time, you’re doing it wrong. :D Step away when shift over.

I won't go near an open office after COVID19 and I doubt I'm alone, I think things will change greatly.

with an outlook like this why would you go anywhere? an office you have at least a chance of professionalism which is far different than what you can encounter in the open

Offices are great places to spread infection. I'm not sure how to quantify how much it matters to me that I become diseased in a respectful manner, but it isn't very much.

Here is an well-documented analysis of a specific outbreak in an office:

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/8/20-1274_article

"We described the epidemiologic characteristics of a COVID-19 outbreak centered in a call center in South Korea. We identified 97 confirmed COVID-19 case-patients in building X, indicating an attack rate of 8.5%. However, if we restrict our results the 11th floor, the attack rate was as high as 43.5%."

I'm not sure that I understand this sentiment. Is the worry about COVID specifically (and hence would be abated by a vaccine or herd immunity), or is it about increased awareness of all infectious diseases? My lack of understanding stems from a (perhaps naive) assumption that social distancing will eventually go away along with the threat. I'd be glad to hear others' opinions on the matter.

I was already sick of getting sick 3-5 times a year just being in an open office, the fact that I'm more aware now that I can get something that will do more than knock me out of being able to code for a week is a huge deterrent to me ever wanting to work in a hamster cage surrounded by hundreds of other people with hundreds interactions with whoever.

I mean, I'm not a germophobe or something but I already thought it was gross how often I got sick and I'm 100% certain it was from my office environment, now I have a real reason that "suck it up stupid" doesn't just brush away. Every winter someones kid gets sick then it just blasts through the open office. Then it happens 3 weeks later, then again, then again..I'm pretty sure I got sick 3 times earlier this year, maybe 4.

Sounds like you’re vitamin D deficient. After a good workout, your immune system should be getting stronger, not weaker.

I take 5k a day or so, Trader Joe’s has for $5.

Wait, do people in your office not take sick days when they get ill or something?

Do they in yours? Every office I've ever worked in has offered unlimited sick days, and in every one there was a segment of people who just insisted on coming in sick anyway. When coronavirus was ramping up, the executives at my current place sent out series of increasingly severe messages that you must not come into work sick.

And if you don't have unlimited sick days, it's much worse because people refuse to stay home so as not to use up their allotted time off. My wife used to work at a place that lumped PTO and sick days together, and it definitely created a culture of coming into work no matter how sick you are (especially if you already have plans to use your PTO).

What difference does it make if you did the "right" thing by using up all of your sick days by September and then have to go into work with a cold in November?

You don't know if you will or won't use sick days in the future, so IMO, you should use them as soon as you get sick, instead of "banking" them and hoping you need them later. But either way, I was arguing more against companies that don't offer unlimited sick days than employees who don't take them. I think having a limited number (or worse, lumping them in with PTO) actively encourages people to come into work sick.

Sick days aren't a real solution because people only take the days that they are the most sick off. But will happily work while contagious and 'just starting' to feel sick.

That's a culture and policy thing. A business could easily say "if you're feeling a bit under the weather and not sure, you are instructed for the good of the people around you to work from home those days just in case". In fact, I would be intensely surprised if businesses did not, in the present situation. It'll take a long time for people to stop being "evacuate the room" level jumpy about even minor symptoms.

>A business could easily say "if you're feeling a bit under the weather and not sure, you are instructed for the good of the people around you to work from home those days just in case".

In my personal experience companies have always said something like that, in particular in email or other forms of recordable communications, but then don't really back it up. Employees come in obviously sick their boss says "are you sure you should be here today?" but subtly indicates their approval for being in the office.

Companies need to move to actively disciplining employees who come in sick instead of either working from home or taking paid sick days.

I'm going to make a guess that the attitude is going to change when "someone came in with a temperature" means everyone gets sent to quarantine and the office gets deep cleaned by a team in hazmat suits.

In my 20+ year career I only recall working at one place that provided paid sick leave, and that company only provided two weeks of annual vacation. Even if everyone worked from home the full 2-3 weeks they were feeling the least bit off from a cold, the office would be a ghost town for at least 2-3 months out of the year. Which maybe it should be, but that would clearly defy the common expectations of the world pre-COVID.

Few jobs ago I had "desk neighbour" that no matter how sick he was (seasonal flu and so on), he was coming to work. One time I've asked him why he wouldn't take sick leave (which is paid leave, 80% but still) and he said, that he's not staying home so he wouldn't infect his kids... Of course every time he was sick, I was getting sick. Which is natural consequence of sitting 1.5m from someone sneezing/coughing for a week.

I could take off about three months of vacation right now, but I don’t because I’m so busy that I know that taking time off and then playing catch up is worse than not taking time off at all.

It will go away. I'm in Europe where things are closer to normal already. I meet friends, people go shopping (with hygiene measures and masks), schools and gyms are opening.

Also keep in mind that there was always a threat of infectious diseases. And it will persist until we find a universal cure for all viruses. Being somewhat of a germophobe myself, I was always aware of it.

Hopefully, people will stay at home when they are sick, though.

Europe tech has always been different than US tech scene.

The societies are very different. Here, the armed protesters demand haircuts and tattoos. In Europe, the French are flooding Spanish border towns in search of cheaper booze and smokes.

Yes, hyperbole, but a lot of Americans have legit apprehension about cramming into elevators to ride up office towers to work. It's seen as glamourous in the UK to work in a Canary Wharf office tower with a view. In the US, notsomuch.

Edit: I know people who still won't go into tall buildings post 9/11. Something that Europeans don't have in their psyche.

It is unlikely the vaccine will be perfect. Strains mutate. Plenty of people still get the flu despite a flu vaccine.

My even more cynical take is that companies are finding employees are way more productive working from home. I think part of it could be that with COVID-19, a lot of us are looking for an outlet for our energies, and so are working harder than normal.

Where I work we have been moving at 150% pace over the last month. I suspect its related to working from home not actually slowing anyone down and everyone not wanting to look like they are slacking while not in the office. Personally I have been starting work 40 minutes sooner than I normally do since it just takes me 40 less minutes to get to my desk.

With COVID-19 it depends on your family situation though. People without kids are probably working more, but people with kids (and who don't have a live-in nanny) are really struggling to juggle their work with child care. I imagine many people in that situation are less productive.

It doesn't depend only on your family situation. I am a PhD student working for the last 6 weeks from home without kids. And and also without a good income. I never expected my makeshift desk with the cheapest IKEA chair to become my work environment for 8+ hours per day, and I seriously worry about long-term injury resulting from this.

This isn't meant to diminish the difficulties of people who need to look after their children. But I work in a laboratory where the senior people blithely complain about how hard it is to manage shared child-raring duties in a well-equipped home office, while junior employees are more or less expected to magically have a productive home office in a shared flats, often in less-than-ideal environment (e.g. with noisy room-mates or building sites next door), with RSI staring us down.

The second-hand market for office items might help.

Right, good point there. People without kids definitely have way more time and energy to devote to work than those with.

> Right, good point there. People without kids definitely have way more time and energy to devote to work than those with.

Definitely? I have no kids and live with and fully support my father who had a brain tumor the size of a walnut in his head a couple years ago. Just because someone doesn't have kids doesn't mean they don't have responsibilities (goodness so many negatives in one sentence!).

I feel your pain, currently taking care of both parents I'm fortunate to still have around in mid 70's, one had a bad hemorrhagic stroke and is still recovering and can't walk, other has cancer and is completing chemo with a positive outlook after radiation. We have aides but with Covid-19, I am beyond paranoid they will infect my parents and send them to an early grave so I run this place like a high security compound and check temp and have a scrub in protocol I'm enforcing. I'm in my late 20's, no kids, no siblings. I feel blessed to have my parents around who had their mobility and independence snatched away from illness in the span of a year and I will never put them in a nursing home to die.

Dependents is the more general word.

Maybe it's different for me because my organization is one of the last holdouts where everyone at least has there own assigned cubicle and many have full offices, but every single person in my team has complained about getting far less done than normal. Most of us had a tremendous amount of time and money invested in making our workspace productive, and it's very hard to replicate that at home.

I think it is safe to say that a proper office is always best. It can be at home of course, but it need to be proper. (Desk, chair, shelf, door, flower).

If my office was 10 min walk away I would not want to work at home, but it is 1h by car ...

The evidence is not in favor of long term WFH though.

The evidence shows that WFH work creep is a thing - you get people who dont know how to turn off, and bosses who think they can get more out of you since you are a few feet away from your laptop.

There is also a decrease in creativity and networking - evidence again shows that a good team has someone who is very tuned to the emotional and mental states of the people around them doing a lot of bridging.

Finally - the people who work at office get more money over time, unless the firm takes active measures to combat these biases.

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