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Comment by irrational | Hacker News Reader

Same. Half the people we hired during work from home are remote (that was never allowed before). Now all meetings are on zoom and all conversations are on slack. Being in an office is beyond pointless. It wastes time, gas, etc. the main take away from the past 2 years is working in an office is beyond stupid (at least for certain careers like developers). I drive to work, communicate with no one except on the computer, then drive home. So so so stupid.

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It’s more than just developers, our CEO is in love with in person interactions, so now we have managers at my company who have made a zoom background of their office and work from home to try to keep up appearances. It’s the most bizarre thing. At a big enough company, everyone won’t be in the same office and you’re interacting across regions, so you’re already doing zoom/teams/emails/voicemails/ whatever pre and post pandemic. If you’re spending your day on the phone or email or in conference calls, that can be done from home.

We're also almost completely remote. I still find it fun to go to the office 2-3 times a week. Yeah, it's a 40 minute commute, sitting in the train and listening to podcasts (or biking in the summer). In the office I typically have my own room without distractions, the company orders lunch and I get to be somewhere else than home every now and then.

I also have a great remote setup at home. A room, with a fast desktop computer and all. Still changing the location few times a week clears my head somehow...

Where I work, it was actually like this before the pandemic. We are a global company with lots of tiny offices. Teams were assembly remotely just to satisfy requirements. It was silly to be in an office.

> I drive to work, communicate with no one except on the computer, then drive home.

You don't talk to people aside from at the meetings?

Not the person you were asking, but I had next to no conversations about work aside from video calls, even before Covid. Between national and international distributed teams (and people working weird hours to avoid sf bay commute hours), and packed meeting schedules, it basically didn’t happen. It’s making me sad to write this and it’s making me think.

Have children learn by Zoom from kindergarten, so they adjust early. /s

Do people have hallway conversations? Sure. Are they conversations that a company would consider help further the bottom line? Not at all.

> Are they conversations that a company would consider help further the bottom line? Not at all.

I realise this depends on the company and the person, but to me these kinds of conversations are essential. I find all the interesting stuff actually happens in these incidental conversations!

I guess the real takeaway here is that to be an effective company you need to have an environment where your employees can work well, but different styles work better for different people so you end up having to compromise.

Those conversations are actually the most important reason our directors want us back in the office. It's how company culture spreads to new people.

It's funny, I once had a manager who was outraged I hadn't done something she asked for. I said I wasn't aware of the requirement.

She hadnt actually made any formal announcement. She just liked informal chats with colleagues and assumed all important decisions she made would just spread to everyone through some kind of office osmosis.

She then got annoyed with me that I didn't have enough casual conversations with the team. She wasn't a good manager. But it remains the only time I've been reprimanded for focusing on getting my job done and not chatting enough!

Depends on the company, at my current company it was very rare.

I do not even talk in meetings

If I get an idea during a meeting, I send it as an email afterwards

Not really. I come in, sit down, put on my headphones, and stare at my screen pretty much the entire day. I’ve never engaged in small talk in the hallway, even pre-pandemic. It pisses me off when people stand around talking and disturbing people around them trying to concentrate. If you want to have a conversation, schedule a conference room and close the door.

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