Hacker News Reader

Comment by catchnear4321 | Hacker News Reader

Are you sure? I’ve been seeing numerous headlines suggesting that you don’t actually feel that way - in fact no one does, and everyone really wants to go back to the office.

Additionally, fabric of society, progress, puppy dogs, and America. Think of the children (during your commute.)

We’re in this cubicle together. (Management thought it would cut costs.)

View on HN

You get cubicles? Fancy. My last corporate gig was one step away from hot desking us. Everyone in non-engineering roles had already been moved to hot desks and a generous, adorable little cartoon bear decorated cubby to store your personal items. Engineering raised such a fuss about setting up monitors and whatnot they we stalled the full rollout for a spell, but the writing was on the wall.

Imagine that. Forcing employees into an office, but not even guaranteeing a desk. It’s hardly better than going to a cowork or even a coffee shop.

My expectation is that hot desks will become the norm, as companies will (in time) decrease their office space in line with the % of the workforce who are actually in the office on an "average" day.

At some point companies may even try having some employees offer to work from somewhere other than the office, like a coffee shop or even home if you absolutely had to, to deal with any over-crowding issues that come up from this. You can’t really work in the office if it is over-subscribed. Can’t have people standing around waiting for desks. (Hmmm… or conference rooms for that matter…)

Sure you won’t get the in-office perks, but the company appreciates your understanding.

Starbucks should just open co-working spaces. It's literally just a Starbucks but with monitors, keyboards and mice.

It would be cheaper for Starbucks to open a cafe in every office instead. And we've come full circle!

I actually don't know any coworking spaces that provide monitors, much less keyboards and mice, so there's an idea to capitalize on.

They could call it something work-related, like ... WeWork? :D

Hot desks are about the dumbest thing there is. Then why go to the office at all? So you can sit next to random people on an uncomfortable table/chair for hours?

They’ll provide the family picture on the desk, to make it more personalized.

So you can have a meeting in person and/or work on hardware that's on site. That's the only reason to go to the office these days.

Here we are now really only going to the office if there's some collaborative work that would benefit from face-to-face. And in that you don't really need your own desk since you're probably going to be spending most of your time in a meeting room anyways.

I think there's some people still going to the office daily and I imagine they basically have their own dedicated desk at this point.

I'm dealing with a particularly stupid inter-departmental fight over hot desking right now. I'm not in the office enough to "justify a dedicated desk", but I also have lots of sensitive hardware others aren't allowed to touch covering "my" desk. I attempted to compromise with the relevant department by suggesting that we just mark the desk as permanently reserved the way other teams have, but that was rejected because "rules say...", as was API access to reserve it automatically.

The joys of bureaucracy...

Excuses that API will book it automatically and there’s nothing else to do are just that - excuses.

Oh no, it's worse than that. I can't even get API access to book things automatically. I would have to manually log in and do it every day, and there's only so far ahead I could book.

Can't script/screen scrape that process either because the site is behind SSO, so I would truly need API keys to access it automatically.

Coffee shops are so much better than offices. The only time I get interrupted is to ask me if the seat next to me is taken. I can go to any one I want to at any time. I am not required to stay there for any length of time. The cute barista remembers my order. (Ok, that last one's a lie, but we can't have everything)

Coffee shops are nice but only for short periods of work. It's definitely untenable if everyone starts to stay for more than 3 hours.

Co-working spaces are basically coffee shops that allow you to stay for a lot longer.

I guess you don't have any meetings during the workday. Most coffee shops are just to noisy to have anything close to a meeting. That's at least my experience.

Most meetings I go to are superfluous and can be replaced with a slack thread; I think the noise would encourage fewer (and shorter) meetings. Stack them all up at either the beginning or ending of the day and then go to a coffee shop for a few hours.

> I’ve been seeing numerous headlines suggesting that you don’t actually feel that way - in fact no one does, and everyone really wants to go back to the office.

A Full Return to the Office? Does ‘Never’ Work for You? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/business/return-to-work-o...

Why the return to the office isn’t working https://www.vox.com/recode/23161501/return-to-office-remote-...

The idea of working in the office, all day, every day? No thanks, say workers https://www.npr.org/2022/06/05/1102744672/remote-work-from-h...

Full return to office is 'dead,' experts say — and remote is only growing https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/full-return-work-de...

Why no one wants to go back to the office https://www.ajc.com/life/opinion-why-no-one-wants-to-go-back...

Nobody Wants to go Back to the Office https://medium.com/@coloradogirl750/nobody-wants-to-go-back-...

Is it link sharing time?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lonely-office-is-bad-for-am...

https://hbr.org/2021/07/why-you-may-actually-want-to-go-back...

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/therockettman_why-you-should-...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/want-to-go-back-to-the-office-d...

https://news.yahoo.com/no-one-wants-back-office-110038268.ht...

https://nypost.com/2022/06/07/america-needs-to-go-back-to-wo...

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/01/why-youll-want-to-be-back-in...

Another good one:

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

I love when I read headlines like "Actually people who get paid less are happier and more productive."

Yeah sure, maybe if you include the middle management staff in your regressions.

I have never ever seen any headline like this.

Anyone with two brain cells can write a stupid article on their "blog" now a days and sound like an authority. My workplace in the bay area already has return to office for a while, guess how many people are showing up week to week? Last time i was in the office a couple days ago, it felt like a ghost town. This is the "people" voting with their actions and those actions tell me that everyone (including me) favors WFH much more than slogging to the office.

The stupid blog posts will continue until attendance improves. - Management

Who wants to spend all day and night in the same place unless you live in a mansion?

Don't people get sick of staring at the same four walls all day?

Yes. Thankfully, laptops are fairly portable.

Sometimes I even risk going outside.

And wifi is really common too!

The trick is to have separate work/home spaces. Most fulltime remotes, myself included, either have a dedicated work-only area or work from coffee shops and the like.

The whole point is flexibility! If you don’t want an office, don’t have one. If you want one, have one. But jobs that force you into a specific office remove the choice.

I'll take the same four walls over the same eight walls plus two hours of traffic per day.

I can only understand this sentiment if you're stuck in a single room/studio apartment. Many of us have houses, apartments, or condos that aren't anywhere near the size of a mansion.

Four walls and some people you care about, sure.

Nope. I'm lucky in that I have dedicated home office (ie. bedroom that we don't need for a bed), but I absolutely don't get sick of it. It's much better than even the dedicated offices with a door I've had at some previous jobs. It's comfortable, private, has a window, its climate is controlled by me, it's decorated the way I want (in my case filled with retro computers, my electronics workbench, artwork on the walls, etc). And when I get stuck, or have a hard time focusing, I can get up, go talk to my wife or son, play with my dog, lay on the couch for a bit, go for a walk, etc. Heck, even the 4 walls are painted colors I chose!

I've worked from this room for the past ~9 years, since we've lived in this house, and won't complain at all if I work here for 9 or 39 more.

I could've written your post myself. Every time I see an article about how Apple or some other company is planning to wind down their work-at-home policies and mandate office attendance, I'm tempted to stand up from my desk or workbench, walk over to my window, open it, and simply experience ten or fifteen seconds of fresh air in a peaceful, wooded neighborhood setting.

Maybe once or twice a week, I do just that. It's a basic exercise in gratitude. At those moments, I remind myself that the ability to work at home in a comfortable, quiet, well-equipped environment is an extraordinary privilege, one that I must never take for granted.

My fellow engineers who have to drive, bike, or ride a bus to the Brobdingnagian toroidal panopticon in Cupertino are absolutely among the industry's elite. The best of the best, both respected and envied by their peers at other companies. Most years, the majority of them likely outearn me handily... as they should, because many of them are better at their jobs than I am at mine. I wouldn't trade places with any of them for ten times their salary, and I've told recruiters as much.

I actually feel sorry for those poor souls. Commuting is for suckers and open office plans are for livestock. The progressive companies that will eventually outcompete companies like Apple for engineering talent have most likely already been started in other peoples' garages, spare bedrooms, and basements... where they'll remain.

People literally got sick of going to the office. It's why working from home became a thing in the first place. I have no wish to see diseased ridden coworkers.

That is literally not at all what happened.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised there are covid deniers here.

Well, that’s a radical interpretation of the text. But I guess someone else must have had the same interpretation, so to be clear: the part I object to was “literally got sick of”. I share your lack of desire to be enclosed in spaces with sick people, and covid has very much amplified my desire never to work in such spaces again. But it wasn’t the going to the office part which made people sick, other than that happened to be where some people got infected. Maybe that seems needlessly pedantic, but I think it’s a disservice to the people infected in public markets, nursing homes, hospitals, their own homes, and plenty of other places they just happened to be, to frame it that way.

I live in a generous but small basement, with windows on one side. I work from home 100% of the time. I spend nearly all of my personal time outside, and nearly all of my family (pup and me) time out walking and/or playing, and the remaining part of it cuddling. I’m not sure which four walls I should feel closed in by, but I pretty much only see the walls for the time I’m plopped on my couch or at my desk working, or when I open my eyes in the morning.

You’re allowed to go outside. It’s not hospitable everywhere and I get that. You’re also allowed to go any number of other places that would welcome your presence. If that doesn’t work well for you, by all means go to the office if you’d prefer. I want to spend all of my day at or near home, it’s a nice place to work and I love to spend the rest of my time out and about or snuggling my pup. You can enjoy what you enjoy and I can enjoy what I enjoy.

When I'm at work, I mainly stare at two monitors (and not four walls).

If you get sick of what you see at home, you have ways to change that. Inexpensive ones, even.

If you get sick of what you see at the office, maybe you can put some funko pops on your hot desk and take them home each day so no one steals them.

If you make enough money, you can get a place to live that has more than one room.

I have a room with bookshelves along one wall and a large world map on another wall, and it has a desk which goes up and down at the touch of a button. It's such a nice room that I go into it on weekends to spend fun time on my personal computer, but it's also where I go on weekdays to work.

I have a separate living room (with a TV), and kitchen, and bedroom, and so on. Not a mansion, but definitely some variety.

Then again, that's my personality. I don't feel cooped up unless I haven't left the house in a week or so. Other people feel cooped up in a lot shorter period of time.

> in fact no one does, and everyone really wants to go back to the office.

That's me. I did really want to go back and am back 5 days a week. It's great :)

Jamie Dimon, isn’t your office a 2600 square foot apartment on Park Ave?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com