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Comment by varelse | Hacker News Reader

If employers wish to give every single on-site worker their own individual independently ventilated office, I'm down for returning to the office. But that would cost money. As would daily rapid antigen tests for everyone coming into the office that day.

Open Office floor plans already were Petri dishes for infection before the pandemic. Now they are an incremental risk factor for premature death. Who needs that? The world has changed. People trying to return to the before times will be foiled by biology itself.

But also I 100% support people opting into going back to the office with zero protection or any liability for their employers should something unfortunate happen. They should be forced to sign a big release indicating they understand the risks and that they accept it is all on them.

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Genuine question. What percentage of you is saying this for fear or concern of the virus, and what percentage is saying it because you like to work remotely?

From where I’m sitting, it feels like the laptop class liking WFH is one of the brakes for a return to normality.

Normal is context sensitive. The norm for 2021 information sector workers has been remote work.

See also: "I am a man, therefore everything I do is a manly act".

Exactly!

> one of the brakes for a return to normality

I hate how so many have simply defined "normal" as "exactly the way we all lived in November 2019" and then just assume that we must get back to precisely that. As if that moment in time represents some objective Normal Right Way to live. Framing that moment of time as "normal" is preventing us from moving forward to a new normal, with things like more opportunities for remote work and better in-office health-and-safety.

2019 was raging inequality and toxic corporate politics. We have an opportunity to do something about both right now. A lot of people are realizing that starting their own businesses is just as profitable and no less stable than a myriad of crappy McJobs.

Open offices were already a craptastic idea before the pandemic but no amount of data overrode their cost savings so they were portrayed as a perk. I'm pretty much Eric Cartman singing the social distance song by nature, but I get people don't all agree with that. That's your lightcone, not mine. May we never intersect.

When I catch an infection I tend to get pneumonia afterwards and I am sick for months. I already had a predilection for working from home because too many people who are sick insist on coming to the office despite what their company guidance says and even their managers telling them otherwise. WTH is up with that?

Now that there's a small chance that this could kill me, I have zero inclination to return to the office whereas I used to go to the office quite a bit during the summer when people weren't usually sick and avoid it during the winter months especially around the holidays. You asked.

Put it another way. I offer you a job for a $1M salary but there's one catch: every year I drag out the least productive employee (100% according to me) and publicly execute that person in front of everyone else. Would you take that job?

> Now that there's a small chance that this could kill me

Wasn't that also true before covid?

Don't forget the danger of the commute itself. Also a small chance that it could kill you.

Also remember to consider the threat posed by dihydrogen monoxide but I digress...

The ocean in particular has it out for humans. Record drownings in New England this past summer. I dug into it some and realized that I was shockingly ignorant of safe behavior around water in general.

This can be a sign of primary immunodeficiency: http://jmfworld.com/library/educational-materials/10-warning...

Regardless, you still should get checked out by an immunologist. Often, it is treatable with immunoglobulin.

While I do not have primary immunodeficiency, I have 2 rare immune mediated neurological diseases affecting my peripheral nervous system, and I am on subcutaneous immunoglobulin as a treatment. I infuse it twice per week.

I have not had a respiratory infection since being on subcutaneous immunoglobulin, and it's been about 5 years since I started this therapy.

I also feel your pain. I cannot work in an office environment due to health reasons, but some reasons are not due to immunological issues.

It is not at all normal to experience frequent pneumonia due to minor upper respiratory infections. That's likely a symptom of some more serious underlying pathology. I recommend consulting a physician. At least get your vitamin D levels checked.

I've had multiple physicals and my vitamin D level checked. I'm in great health with a resting pulse close to 40. I would love to find a root cause here and address it but I haven't found a doctor who has seen anything obvious. I'm with you otherwise. Any ideas?

Shot in the dark and I'm not a doctor but you could look into getting a genetic test for atypical cystic fibrosis. It's increasingly diagnosed into adulthood and recurrent pneumonia is one of the clues.

Atypical would probably be an understatement. I'm not an expert of the disease, but having it along with family members having it, there are many more symptoms that would have appeared by now.

There are milder / alternate forms of CF that are often diagnosed late in life. They're often mild enough that a doctor will immediately rule out CF.

Example case studies:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7652023/

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20542704209210...

I was in this same boat (probably not as fit as you), but got sick a lot (pneumonia twice, bronchitis a couple of times, hospitalized with "mystery virus" twice including once leading to ICU, etc etc) no obvious signs of immune compromise, decent Vitamin D nothing showing up on physicals etc until I went to see a Rheumatologist for chronic pain. He diagnosed me with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome[1], which turns out to explain all sorts of other things that I thought were seperate and unrelated problems. It's worth drilling into these things further because there could be some underlying cause that joins all the dots together and (although there's no real treatment for EDS) you could get help.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/ehlers-danlos-syndromes/

So all human activity prior to March 2020 was murderous, evil and so forth?

Technically, the activity of lumbering golems constructed by unthinking strands of DNA seeking to make copies of themselves, and if it weren't for that meddling virus...

> Technically, the activity of lumbering golems constructed by unthinking strands of DNA seeking to make copies of themselves, and if it weren't for that meddling virus...

This is frankly insanity. You can't think this right minded?

"We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA. ... This is exactly what we are for. We are machines for propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a self-sustaining process. It is every living object's sole reason for living. " - Richard Dawkins

I'm familiar

So you go from that, to all human interaction is evil?

No, but you keep harping on it. What gives?

If that isn't your assertion what is?

actually RNA, not DNA, but more or less correct.

By way of DNA but aren't we splitting strands here?

> What percentage of you is saying this for fear or concern of the virus, and what percentage is saying it because you like to work remotely?

I'm not the person you asked, but for me it's the virus. Not only for myself as a healthy 20-something year old, but also for the family and other people that I see outside of work as well as for my colleagues. We're all vaccinated, we have tests in the office and you're recommended to take one in the morning and take your mask off only after the results are in 15 minutes later, but still we work from home because I really don't fancy dealing with spreading corona to my parents and grandparents and I guess it's similar for the others.

It's not all terrible of course, I dread having to get a bus subscription again (80 euros a month to do with whatever I want is a lot of entertainment), I dread the commute time, the inflexibility. But I also miss my colleagues and the 'flexibility' of going into the city for something small and silly because I'd already be there for work. I have a much harder time concentrating on work at home. Some people have no problem with that and I kept it up for a while too, but it's been pretty bad since about mid-summer this year. At one point it just really hit me that I'm done with covid.

But then this shit happens https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor... and I figure: okay then, let's be good for another holiday season and then I'll see about going back to the office again. It also feels stupid because it's never me, like, I haven't gotten covid at any point, I've been responsible, I'm not part of the problem. But then I'm also privileged in this ivory tower making an above-median amount of money early in life while just sitting at home. It's mixed feelings all around.

In short, to answer the percentage question with a percentage: let's say I like office/home 60/40 (not as a time share, but as advantages vs. disadvantages). I'm not dying to go back, but the virus is definitely the reason that tips the scale.

This post is an up/downvote rollercoaster but I can't readily identify the reason. I am curious to hear feedback on where I'm right or wrong, so do share please. (PM is also fine, contact in profile.)

Just the various tribes waving their respective flags.

If the tentative R0 of ~3 for omicron holds, then one tribe is about to decrease in number drastically. Their bodies, their choices...

Hey, I'm interested in news (also if it's tentative) regarding info about new variants but I'm apparently not on channels where this typically pops up. Do you have a good source for that?

Edit: Wikipedia on omicron actually looks quite complete already and answered some things I was curious about, but keeping up with the edits (it's currently updated like every 20 minutes) would be a bit hard as a news source. Maybe I should just check the most interesting sections every now and then.

I read a variety of sources who are all immunologists, epidemiologists, or doctors. What I try to avoid for the most part is armchair engineer experts of all persuasions and media sorts trying to express a dynamic evolving situation as compelling soundbites.

Or best guess, and it's all just guesswork for at least the next few weeks, it's more contagious, evades the vaccines, but it's potentially less lethal. That's good and bad.

https://secureservercdn.net/50.62.198.70/1mx.c5c.myftpupload...

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03619-8

More as the situation evolves (literally).

> the laptop class liking WFH is one of the brakes for a return to normality

I see what you're saying, but you can't separate WFH from fear of the virus, so I think you're assuming nearly all workers don't fear the virus at all.

It's a real risk for anyone in the high-risk group, but a lot more people also face real risk if they: interact with older family members, go to church services or participate in gatherings outside of work, have small kids, have at-risk family members living with them, interact with unvaccinated people, or interact with health care workers.

I still reduce my interactions because even being vaxed + boosted, I know I could spread a new variant. Asking me to go into a cramped, shared office space for many hours per day would not sit well. Even worse would be if I knew it made me less productive and eliminated some of the flexibility I had in my schedule.

Covid precautions and adherence to same has been a giant Rorschach test. Given a situation in which old norms are no longer assumed, with different information and beliefs, what does each person think is "reasonable"?

Personally, IMHO, if someone isn't wearing a mask in crowded public places and getting their vaccinations, it's mind bogglingly hypocritical to be claim to be afraid of returning to the office.

Either they're worried enough about the virus to protect themselves and the people around them, or they're not. And if they're not, then how can they be too worried to be in the office?

* Leaving aside the issue of the minority who medically can't vaccinate.

> Leaving aside the issue of the minority who medically can't vaccinate.

Perhaps nitpicking, but it isn't just a matter of whether you can vaccinate. For example, cancer patients can often still receive the vaccine (depending on their health and current phase of treatment), but that doesn't mean that they aren't still at a dramatically higher risk from exposure to Covid than others, despite being vaccinated.

False dichotomy. Systems of reasons affect decisions.

E.g. I'm willing to add a fully vaccinated office to my risk profile, but how do I get there? Even if I could trust everyone in the office was vaccinated (I can't), public transit was my only option before. Will the company send me a taxi with a vaccinated driver? Of course not.

Companies are asking people to take unnecessary risk for questionable speculative gain and burdening employees with figuring out (and paying for) how to do it safely.

You can't. The courts are blocking vaccine mandates. Ergo you are indeed being asked to take a risk on behalf of your employers in exchange for absolutely nothing. I thought by now we would at least have required electronically verified vaccination status to fly but we can't even manage that so it seems the workplace is a lost cause.

I wonder if we'll end up with something like smoking and non-smoking sections. E.g. this building is for vaccinated and that building is for unvaccinated.

Approximately known as red and blue states at this point, no?

I hope that dystopian reality never comes to pass, there’s enough social conflict in this world as it is without artificially inventing more categories of “reasons to hate our fellow human beings”.

I laugh when I hear that phrase - back to normalty. We are never going back to how it was. Society has been irreversibly changed now and people's entire perception of the world has been dramatically altered.

There is no future without scheduled, forced vaccinations. That is not normalty returning. That's insanity.

The people trying to return to 2019 are suffocating fish on a dock slowly dying so one can understand why they might hallucinate a bit and think things are going back to what they were and everyone will be super peachy happy at our new doubled death rate much like no one saw the end of Donnie Darko coming...

I'm inclined to agree that reality has permanently changed, and I also want to remind folks that it's OK to feel grief for what we've lost and some of the good things we used to be able to appreciate. In some ways, I think this idea of a return to normal is making it harder for us to find forward-thinking ways of mitigating risks in our public place. Most measures and redesigns seem to be temporary and not optimal.

What you call "normality" others might call the "the same old bullshit". Calling it "normal" doesn't make it "right", or "desirable", or even "healthy". For instance, I won't be the only one in this thread pointing out what a health risk (meaning, "you'll get sick", not "u die") open office plans were before Covid showed up. So to answer the question that wasn't addressed to me, I say this because I like to work remotely and have demonstrated that I am more productive WFH. To pull me back into the office under some idea of "normalcy" is going to get an enthusiastic "bullshit" out of me.

But that even assumes there's a chance to return to "normality" to begin with. The virus is out there, it's going to be out there for a while longer if not permanently. On top of that, the winds of change have been blowing hard for going on two years now. One's desire to return to The Before Times is a dream; IMO, things will be different, in one way or another, from now on.

I think it's really silly to fear the office at this point, but I hate offices enough that I will pretend to be silly along with them when asked by bosses. I just hope we don't enter a state where we are in the office yet still afraid of things like conference rooms and lunch tables, which would be the worst of everything.

>From where I’m sitting, it feels like the laptop class liking WFH is one of the brakes for a return to normality.

I agree, and I wish people were more honest about that aspect. I quit my old job over a mandatory return to the office policy and took a full-time remote position instead. If you’re posting on HN chances are you have a highly in-demand skillset and can get remote work if you want it; hiding behind COVID just drags out this diet dystopia longer than its natural lifespan. I realise people have different tastes but the taste of “covid culture” has got rather stale for many people.

> it feels like the laptop class liking WFH is one of the brakes for a return to normality.

So, people liking the what works for them makes them "brakes"?

And normality is forcing people to do what they don't like, for the sake of what exactly?

Sorry to break it for you, friend, but people liking things is not an obstacle. It's an business opportunity.

It's the people who are insisting on not moving with the times that are "brakes". And that's anyone who calls 9-to-5 asses-in-seats "normality".

Ain't nothing normal about that. And that ship, too, has sailed.

It’s also a bit odd to consider remote working the paragon of virtue when of course the vast majority of jobs simply can’t be done from home.

So it’s a bit of a pickle to claim working in an office is equivalent to killing others, when we all accept buying products that clearly weren’t made by people that were working from home. Are we casually supporting these people killing each other, just so we can buy a hamburger?

There's a reason "we're not essential, we're expendable" became a meme among service workers. We are absolutely expecting low wage workers to sacrifice themselves to keep the economy and luxury services running.

Now you're figuring out the west's informal caste system. Now apply this concept to the equity pie slices that go to startup TLAs vs founding engineers and be amazed...

Funnily enough this used to be a benefit Microsoft touted.

This is the kinda idiot I wouldn't want to work with. Take one thing and go to the extreme. What a crazy way to live.

> But also I 100% support people opting into going back to the office with zero protection or any liability for their employers should something unfortunate happen

There's a legitimate concern about people being coerced into "volunteering" to return to the office by their employer. Perhaps not most people at Google, but even there some employees will be in a situation where their manager can bully them into the office.

All of that is pointless. You're inevitably going to be exposed to the virus many times throughout your life regardless of what your employer does. Whether you're exposed in the office or somewhere else hardly matters. Fortunately the vaccines and other treatments make the risk minimal.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/94646

In every argument for and against any covid related policy, the debate falls apart when the participants fail to realize people have different risk assessments. Age, co-morbidities or lack thereof, pre-existing risk-taking lifestyle or not, co-habitating with anyone else or not, and the list goes on.

Sure, but I'm betting that an everybody does what they want to to the point that it doesn't endanger anyone else isn't even good enough for some people who feel the need to control the behavior of others.

What is this obsessive need to bring everyone back into the same poorly ventilated rooms? What business goal is served here other than literally making them look busy? Do you want to wear a mask for 7 to 12 hours a day on the job when you could be at home?

But also for those who feel that doing so is better than working from home, more power to you. Just don't make me join your club. It's just not my thing.

Also irrelevant. Think it through over the long term. Since the virus is now endemic and can't be eradicated anyone who lives outside of a sterile bubble will occasionally be exposed regardless of the protective measures they take. Just like with the other endemic coronaviruses such as HCoV-OC43. Differences in personal risk assessment won't change that reality. Unfortunately some people still have an irrational, unscientific belief that they will somehow magically be able to avoid the virus forever.

That said, I do hope that remote working will continue to be an option for those who want it as there are advantages besides virus exposure.

New treatments are becoming available all the time, better vaccines will emerge, why wouldn't I want to delay? I take care of an elderly parent; becoming sick and not knowing it is potentially fatal to her.

I can be cautious and likely avoid significant exposure for another year or two at least, but not if my employer disallows it.

I don't think it's very constructive to call every personal risk assessment "irrelevant" without qualifications.

For one, there might be vaccines that work more broadly and give immunocompromised individuals better protection in the future, or cures/remedies that help your body fight the virus better when you do fall ill.

For another, right now hospitals are starting to overflow here and if I decide today to start going out and about as if nothing is amiss again, me or a loved one might end up there at a time where they're actually full. That is not cool for the covid patient, the medical personnel that usually already do overtime during normal times, or the people whose treatments are delayed again because it's full of covid patients again. We do still have a period to work through, either by (booster or initial) vaccinations or by forced inoculation for anti-vaxxers (aka having covid).

It's not about being too short-sighted to see that it's very likely we'll all be exposed eventually.

My sweet 79-year-old father-in-law has had his “elective” hernia surgery rescheduled twice, and now cancelled without a rescheduled appointment because too many people in Germany “trust their natural immunity” or “deserve to do their own research”.

The 2020s: when residents of the wealthy West discovered that “elective” procedure doesn’t only mean cosmetic or gender-affirming surgery, but anything that isn’t literally preventing you from dying right now, or a baby coming out.

I'm usually on the lifting restrictions side of the argument, but do you honestly not see the difference in health risk of contracting the virus x times vs potentially (x + y) times? So far it seems like immunity is not permanent..

I honestly do not see the difference in health risk. Reinfections are rare but will be more common over time, just as with any other coronaviruses (or most upper respiratory viruses in general). Fortunately the vaccines and other treatments are pretty effective, and the natural immunity from surviving an infection typically reduces the symptom severity for subsequent reinfections.

The evidence indicates that another coronavirus HCoV-OC43 probably caused the 1889-90 pandemic and killed millions of people worldwide. The same virus is still endemic. It doesn't kill many people today because most of us get infected as youths and then retain some level of immunity which protects us later in life.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7252012/

There's more to life than avoiding disease. I'm not going to put my life on hold and hide.

I'm not saying you should..I'm completely back to my pre covid behaviors and only wear a mask when I have to. That being said, I think a lot of your post is basically just conjecture; the claim that exposure to covid past the first infection or vaccination does not increase risk needs a little bit more evidence, and I don't blame people who are coming to the opposite conclusion.

Biologically speaking SARS-CoV-2 is just one more coronavirus and isn't particularly special or unusual. We already know that prior infection with other coronaviruses such as HCoV-OC43 provides pretty good protection against symptomatic reinfection with the same coronavirus as long as the patient is otherwise healthy. If anyone claims that SARS-CoV-2 is somehow different then the burden of proof is on them; extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

As for vaccines, we obviously can't have any data on long term effectiveness. But short term effectiveness against severe symptoms is pretty good, and periodic boosters are available to those who want them.

If you don't see the value in delaying exposure to that virus until there is something close to a sterilizing vaccine that's your viewpoint and you are entitled to that viewpoint. I hope you realize others see things differently. I understand that people feel isolated and I support them doing as they please up to the point that it endangers others.

To that end, opening up all the corporate offices for those that feel the need to be in the office once again whilst 100% allowing work from home seems the best of both worlds. We have vaccines. But we also have a rapidly evolving virus and a perfect storm right now for it to evolve further. I'm betting on the virus to win this one in the short-term. But I'm also betting in the long term that it's doomed, fortunately.

I have been offered a job in a new SARS vaccine design team and, ironically, they want to put me in a tiny crowded office with no HVAC.

Of course, when I stated I'm less than happy about that, they claimed it's very safe. Yet all workers are traveling by bus and masks are not mandatory.

So are you seeing the red flags here or not? This doesn't seem like a winning effort. This seems more like the opening scene to The Stand or the French lab that spawned the zombie apocalypse. Not that I think this virus is the end of the world but I do think it is the global marshmallow test. I can wait a really long time. I'm not a people person anyway.

Aside: genuine bona fide former bench scientist who used to work in a hot lab here. I stopped working in hot labs because the safety practices of my coworkers terrified me. Many of them are dead of cancer now, decades later. While there's no strong evidence for it, I cannot entirely dismiss the lab Leak theory here based on my prior experience working with fellow scientists and their cavalier attitudes towards safety. Had I stayed I think I would have lost my mind.

Why is it ironic? The outcome from a proper vaccine would be eliminating masks and other measures. It seems 100% aligned with the company goals, but not the common perpetually-anxious-but-loves-to-look-rational dream.

We're so confident we'll stop the zombie apocalypse that we require all our new employees to be bitten by zombies!

I mean you could opt to stay super safe in a bunker and automatically die after 70 years or so, or go play along with the zombie wearing a helmet. There is a risk to living life to the fullest. Not everyone is you.

I don't intend to stay locked down anywhere.

During the peak of the pandemic I was still going to my office at Oxford University. However, this other institution I'm potentially joining has much more relaxed safety measures.

I think having a low-density office is a must even if there is no pandemics. I want to be productive, and I don't want to be surrounded by tens of coughing people during the flu season. It's just commonsense.

Um, one is pretty safe outdoors so far. I'm living a pretty good life modulo I miss watching movies on the big screen, mostly addressed by procuring a cheap 70" flatscreen. What's not so safe is congregating in poorly ventilated spaces. Why are you so hellbent on suggesting life is incomplete without doing so?

I'm not hellbent on proving anything, but looking at the thread at large, it seems you are very much. Carry on.

> To that end, opening up all the corporate offices for those that feel the need to be in the office once again whilst 100% allowing work from home seems the best of both worlds.

Except that's not what's likely to happen. Even if 100% WFH is the official policy, people will be leaned on to come into the office. And as the number of people working remotely shrinks, that will only get worse, because it's very hard to be an outlier when everyone else is communicating real-time face to face.

Speak for yourself. I've been WFH mostly for over a quarter century. No fate but the one you make and all that stuff...

I didn't say it can't work, I said it was harder to be the only remote person.

I've seen all-remote, all-local, and mixed environments. I just don't have faith that mixed environments work well, but every situation is different.

The secret is not hiring fungibles and instead hiring people you can trust. But also those sorts are in demand and your overlords will probably not give you the $$$ to hire them. So we're forced to make do with fungible talent and that's where it all falls apart IMO.

Got any sage advice? That's a rare amount of time to have done WFH in 2021

Stand up for your needs. And deliver sufficiently that your manager prefers to keep you working. The one exception where I tried to work 100% in an open office led to me catching the flu and staying stick for 4 months. People complained about my coughing so they gave me a private office rather than allow me to WFH until I felt better (got to keep the private office though). I had no complaints, but just about no one is going to do that.

I think it's fair that being the one remote member on a team is difficult. But especially going forward I don't expect that to be the norm. And in practice I'm generally communicating with people in a lot of different locations anyway.

A slightly different formulation:

"All of that is pointless. You're inevitably going to be exposed to ionizing radiation many times throughout your life regardless of what your employer does. Whether you're exposed in the office or somewhere else hardly matters."

Viral loading matters a great deal.

> Fortunately the vaccines and other treatments make the risk minimal.

For some definition of 'minimal', for most people, this is thankfully very true.

I can choose to willingly not go into a closed space with 1000+ people. The risk of exposure is going to be higher in the office. I have no qualms with meeting my team for lunch or dinner or even a team offsite for a whole day once a month but the notion of coming into potential close contact with hundreds of people day to day is very scary.

The sorts that wish to require you to work in spaces like that are not worth working for under any circumstances. You can do better if you try, don't settle...

Why not have to sign, I assume you mean, liability waiver when you step foot outside of your home?

One of the biggest sources of infections in the already vulnerable has been nosocomial vectors. Should your hospital admissions be assumed as a dangerous activity that is optional at your own risk?

Children get on average 5-8 viral infections a year. Should parents be told that they should sacrifice their child's lifelong immune health and rectitude to prevent themselves getting a common virus as has been our custom for millennia?

Just like HR departments exist solely to protect corporations from lawsuits this agreement is there to protect corporations from idiotic lawsuits insinuating that the dumbass who went into the office unmasked and got covid somehow takes zero responsibility for their behavior.

Or is this your way of saying that you're opting into getting a free smallpox infection this year because children get 5 to 8 viral infections a year? We still have some small stockpiles of smallpox if you're so inclined.

> Or is this your way of saying that you're opting into getting a free smallpox infection this year because children get 5 to 8 viral infections a year? We still have some small stockpiles of smallpox if you're so inclined.

I genuinely can't decipher what point you are making?

Infections are natural and cool? OK! Help yourself to HIV, smallpox, polio, hantavirus, covid, measles, MERS, and Ebola. Can you feel that healthy natural immunity building now or what?

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