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Comment by rofws | Hacker News Reader

I had read a comment(that I completely agree with) from someone here on HN (sorry I forgot the username), that the current WFH is working because EVERYONE is working from home.

The moment half of the work force starts working from the office again, the dynamics are going to change. Those offtopic, face to face chitchats you have with your colleagues or boss hugely help your career growth. The WFH people are going to miss out on that.

One positive that this crisis has created though, is all businesses and institutions will take remote work seriously, and take the steps required to make it possible, especially as another wave of COVID19 is expected.

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> Those offtopic, face to face chitchats you have with your colleagues or boss hugely help your career growth. The WFH people are going to miss out on that.

I suspect there is a non-trivial amount of people who don't care about that. I've been writing software for a while now. I don't want to become team lead or manager. I don't care for the drama. I just want to do my job, get paid, and go home.

In that case, WFH is perfect.

Yeah, but you'll be lower on the social ladder. If your boss needs to fire 1 person in your team, you will be the first to go.

(I find it amusing that this was downvoted when it's basically an axiom :-) )

Maybe so. Although outside of the US (Europe for instance), businesses are not so trigger happy that they lay people off every other month.

When a company must do budget cuts and layoff, it’s a big deal once in a few years thing. Not bi-annually.

Whatever the frequency is, it’s a risk. Arguably though if you’re remote you’re getting paid HCOL wages while living in a lower COL area, so being laid off isn’t as much financially dangerous as it would be in SF/NYC. Plus all these working years you’ve avoided the stress and drama that goes with climbing the ladder/getting in your boss’s pocket.

Not sure why you’re getting downvoted though, it’s a legitimate concern.

First sentence of post you're replying to:

>I suspect there is a non-trivial amount of people who don't care about that

And the third sentences says:

> I just want to do my job, get paid, and go home.

Hard to get paid if you get fired...

Right. Luckily you can find work elsewhere after being laid off.

Have you been checking the unemployment rates recently?

Like I said. This isn't everyone's cup of tea. I'd rather be unemployed than grovelling to my boss and play the climb the ladder game. That's me. You do you.

Developers are in the 1%. A good dev is always going to find work, at least for the foreseeable future. There is a huge scramble to snap up newly redundant talent now. I had a dev who lost their job reject a job offer today because another company got there first. I know what job he took but he doesn't know I know so it's not like he said it to soften the rejection.

> There is a huge scramble to snap up newly redundant talent now

Absolutely.

People are lowballing hard, trying to take advantage of the economy and are surprised when their offers are rejected.

This is one of the reasons why!

There is also the up-or-out policies though, I think your point makes a lot of sense and will work at smaller companies unless the big ones accept less churn.

> Those offtopic, face to face chitchats you have with your colleagues or boss

Those have been gone for a long time, though - I've spent the majority of the past 20 years commuting to an office only to report to and work with people who commuted to an office in a different city.

I have better convos with folks, now I can ping them, we can chat and both find a time to steal 10 minutes and jump on video chat. I can prime the conversation over chat, so when we meet we both have enough context.

Yep. As someone who has worked from home for most of the past 20 years (pandemic? what pandemic, i'm still available)... if the company isn't 100% remote you'll be left behind.

So apply to Twitter now :)

Got to agree here. It only takes one manager in your upstream that doesn't like remote to cut you out of the loop. It's not certain that it will happen, but over a long career it approaches certainty. It's not necessarily the end of the world, but advancement is companies is very tricky when you are a minority remote worker.

BTW, slightly off topic, but that picture of working on the beach? Too bright. Can't work. One day I hope I will finally be able to get an e-ink based laptop. I live within walking distance of the beach ;-) Perhaps sacrificing upward mobility isn't so bad...

Shameless plug: we've just beta launched a tool to replicate this always-on intra-office chat remotely. Squawk is an intercom that provides effortless voice chat between remote teams and workers. Take a peek at https://squawk.to

The permanence of cultural changes will depend on how long the lock down lasts for remote friendly work. It’s entirely possible that some states will continue to recommend offices work remotely if possible to reduce risk for a long time, far longer than restaurants and gyms remain closed. In that scenario many of the cultural changes may be permanent.

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