Bet on It: 37% of Desks Will Be Empty | Hacker News Reader

Bet on It: 37% of Desks Will Be Empty

gallup.com

31 pointsrmason12 comments

It has a weird cascading effect. At one time I lived alone and absolutely loved my two closest coworkers...spent the day laughing and chatting and genuinely loved going into the office each day. If you asked me at that time, I'd have been a 5 day office vote.

Over a few months the company allowed remote, and those quit showing up. And in turn, I quit showing up, and became a '0 day office' vote.

I'm interested to see how many others go through something similar when companies start return to office options.

Similar thing for me, went back to the office once it was an option. After a few weeks I started questioning why I was in the office at all, and I think it came down to a lack of social interaction in my life. Turns out that working on that completely separately from my job has made me a much happier person. And when I inevitably quit my current job one day, I won't be losing all of my friends.

I went through exactly the same thing. Pre-pandemic I loved going into the office. When our office opened back up last summer most people continued to work remotely. We went from having ~40 people in the office to 4 including me. I continue to show up because I have my own office at work that is much better than my home office, but I don’t enjoy it nearly as much. If I had a better home office I would stop coming in.

Managers are afraid of remote because it is more work for them.

Sucks for them, the 37% will soon become 95% because remote work is self-amplifying: the 60% office is not a good place to work

> the 60% office is not a good place to work

Why?

I've worked in person, ~40% remote, and 100% remote. I thoughtv~40% remote was far and away the best work situation. The only necessary component to make it work was that my team had to be there on the same days. So far as I can tell, for trust building and certain kinds of collaborative work (some of which is super important) nothing beats in person. Given that the survery results indicate most people still don't want full remote, why wouldn't they go with a mixed in-person/remote setup?

> the 60% office is not a good place to work

My office was so crowded before the pandemic that the 60% office might actually be a more pleasant place to work. Less trouble finding conference rooms, bathrooms ... nap rooms. Less packed transit would also make me enjoy my office workday even more.

That said, 60% of a previously almost-empty office could indeed be a bad place to work.

> less trouble finding conference rooms, bathrooms ... nap rooms.

The discussion here is usually uber-focused on tech startups. Most jobs are not like that, they are normal offices without massages and washing machines, and are not overcrowded. But an office filled with 40% of random employees who are constantly making noisy zoom meetings feels more like a customer call center than a place where you can focus.

We 're still in the early days of remote and people are still afraid of it/ have not adapted their lives around it. When people settle in this new reality, the desire to see the office is going to wane a lot.

Most people where I work have already adapted to it, we've been remote for like 2 years at this point. Most of my coworkers have already invested in their home office, to the point where it's drastically nicer than their work counterparts. They don't want to go back to the office, they don't want to go back to using the office equipment, and they don't want to feel like they wasted money on their home office.

Corporate seems loathe to just go fully remote. We're apparently in a hiring drive; I'm curious if they're trying to overstaff so they have some breathing room for people that quit when they force us back in to the office.

Yes! I was going to the empty office and it was great, now more people have showed up, it's getting crowded and I prefer to WFH again.

Do you really believe that 95% of office jobs will become remote?

Also, isn't the inverse also as likely, i e., if 60% are remote and the job is more challenging for managers, then they'll find opportunities to replace the 60%?

Things will bifurcate into remote and in-person teams/divisions/companies.

37% is approximately equal to 1/e. It is also the chance you never win the lottery even after playing the lottery as many times as there are tickets when there is only one winning ticket. For example, .999^1000=37%.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com