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Comment by somethoughts | Hacker News Reader

I'm kinda of curious how this works if you are remote:

"Most of you should expect to gather in person every quarter for about a week at a time. Some roles, especially senior roles, will be expected to gather more often. We’ll do our best to define windows when most large team off-sites will occur and give you plenty of notice so you can make it work with personal and family plans."

Is this like just plan to be in the SF office during normal 9-5 work hours for a week every 13 weeks or is this like plan on a week long 24-7 corporate retreat away from your family every 13 weeks.

If its the former, then that seems sort of like hybrid work just 1 week per 13 week versus 2-3 day per 5 day where you should probably stick to within 1-2 hour commute of your local AirBNB office.

If its the latter then that seems like it might be a non-starter for people with families.

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> If its the latter then that seems like it might be a non-starter for people with families.

If you can't make the time to spend a few days a quarter with your workmates in exchange for the most generous and fair remote working package then perhaps you're not a good fit for Airbnb. Which is totally fair. But they're not exactly taking the piss here. For many (many) people a week long retreat is a perk not a burden.

Haha - I hear you - its a treat if you are single or a DINK (dual income no kids) and need some solo social time. Especially if Monday and Friday are travel days.

But if you have a family you actually like/love - then a full week away really is a non-starter. Especially if its Sunday night and Saturday morning travel. School plays and parent teacher conferences don't get planned based on the AirBNB week long retreat schedule.

And if you are in a dual income family with the stereotypical two kids - if both of you guys are in similar work situations - then on your "on" week - you're gonna be the one doing 2 school pickups and all after school driving.

I worked with plenty of family people (and been the family person) who could find two weeks per year in exchange of complete WFH flexibility the rest of 50 weeks of the year. Especially since steps were taken to accomodate them and not schedule things in the middle of "parent-teacher conferences" and "school plays".

I also did notice that there are plenty of parents who will blame their children for things they themselves don't want to do and not be honest about it. It's not the children that are at fault there though.

In the end, there are plenty of WFH jobs that don't need on-site time at all so you can pick and choose. It's a great market for an engineer to be in now.

You don't seem to realize there are many jobs that parents do which require more travel than 1 week per quarter.

Surely the trade off of spending 50 weeks a year with your kids (when they're home sick, school holidays, etc) you wouldn't be able to with a normal job is worth 2 weeks of not being at home a year?

I definitely feel you on the Sun/Sat travel and I'd push back against that.

Although there are sometimes reasons for it (e.g. community-related conferences that tend to span a weekday and a weekend day), for the most part I sorta resent conferences that force weekend travel. Sometimes I want to take the weekend for myself, but I want it to be my choice.

I work at Automattic (no proper offices, fully remote), which (pre-pandemic) does meetups once or twice per year per team, plus one for the whole company. Meetups are typically a week long. I’ve had the chance to visit Lisbon, Hawaii, and soon Cancun on the company’s dime, so I can’t see a world where I am upset about “having” to attend these trips :)

I recognize that kids makes it difficult. And there are also folks who find it hard to travel much at all. But I’ve found I have the opposite problem: remote work can be extremely challenging from a energy and social point of view without meetups. I’ve never met most people on my current team, and don’t have strong social relationships with them. Those are really only possible to build in person. I come away from meetups with a sense of camaraderie, energy, and vision that’s difficult or impossible to replicate over Zoom.

So for me, I have found remote work more difficult during covid without meetups. I burn out more frequently, and struggle to find as much energy as I’ve had in the past.

True remote work — not 4/5 days, or in close proximity to an office where most work — would be less viable for me without meetups. Just as remote work is less viable for some with meetups. And working in the office has huge drawbacks as well for plenty of people. So it’s all a balancing game, and I wouldn’t say that meetups should be ditched because of this.

I do want to note that when I think of a meetup, a lot of it is social and having a good time. While “real work” obviously happens too, it’s not like these trips are consumed by it. Getting paid to go to a pleasant location of your choice with nice lodging and a decent food/drink budget is super nice. If it was just going to a soulless office at a minimal budget with no expectation of having a good time, I probably wouldn’t be so much in favor of them :) But with a nice mix of meaningful conversations, socialization, brainstorming, and fun, they have a positive impact on my work/life balance. And I’m more productive as well. So it’s a huge win all around for me, and I hope most.

I think the sweet spot would be quarterly weekly meet-ups for culture building which occurs during normal hours from 9am-5pm and occur at the local office versus some "get away" all inclusive conference center where there is a packed schedule of 24/7 culture building (aka drinking, etc.) from 8am-11pm.

If its during normal work hours - employees with kids can live within 1-2 hours can suffer the commute for a week every quarter and socialize but still be home in time for dinner with the kids/wife.

Conversely - the single folks/DINKs can go out and paint the town from 5pm-11pm and experience the actual local nightlife.

The problem with this is that as companies go further and further remote, there’s no such thing as “the local office.” My team is in multiple countries, let alone multiple cities or towns in the same country. Forcing people to still live within commute distance of the office just for four events a year seems pretty restrictive. Currently, I could move anywhere in the world (assuming I could get a visa), and it’d work out. Or more reasonably, I can follow my wife for her career in health care to a different city. Or I could move back to the east coast US to be closer to family. All without changing jobs, teams, and especially pay. I think that freedom is pretty huge, and definitely understated if moving is a serious possibly in one’s life.

That seems like a great way to do it. I wouldn't mind a couple of meetups a year.

> If its the latter then that seems like it might be a non-starter for people with families.

Another new and perfectly legal way to discriminate!

Are you suggesting it would be better if jobs requiring travel were illegal because they represent a loophole to discriminate against people with families?

A week of travel a quarter is not at all unusual for a lot of professional jobs including people with families. In fact, for a fair number of jobs, that would be considered not a lot of travel.

I used to travel every 6 weeks in my 20s for work and it was fine. I won’t travel at all now and it’s also fine. People will figure out what works for them, there will continue to be high paying jobs that are flexible.

Absolutely. There are consultants who pretty much live on the road and there are people who basically don't travel at all. Personally, I hit being away about 50% of the year at peak (including vacation). I doubt if I'll ever hit that again.

If they can, people should find something that works for them because they'll probably hate it otherwise.

It is also not clear who will pay for travelling, if you can work from anywhere but must be in a very specific place and time then travel cost can be significant. Assume I want to work from a small town in North Sweden where housing is really affordable while internet is still fast how will I get to SF?

The company covering all costs, including flight, lodging and food, is a normal standard pretty much everywhere for these events.

It is business travel after all.

WOW airlines used to have a round trip $300 flight from Stockholm to SFO. No food, no water.

>If its the former, then that seems sort of like hybrid work just 1 week per 13 week versus 2-3 day per 5 day where you should probably stick to within 1-2 hour commute of your local AirBNB office.

>If its the latter then that seems like it might be a non-starter for people with families.

And that's okay! If people don't like it or can't make it work with their lifestyle, they don't have to work there

On the other hand, normally you want to try and broaden the pool you hire from, not narrow it.

Plenty of people with families are able to make arrangements like this work, so I don't think it narrows it nearly as much as you seem to imply. Plus, this setup allows new pools of people to work for Airbnb who were originally unable. If I had to bet, I'd say this move is a net increase in available hiring pool.

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