Hacker News Reader

In my team most of us are back in the office now. Luckily we still have the option to work from home, so when that is more convenient I'll work from home, but most days I'll be at the office. Never really got the hang of working from home.

“ Never really got the hang of working from home.”

And thats fine. Everyone should have the option of whichever way works for them. The only issue is that many of those who prefer on site want it imposed on everyone else.

Exactly. The ones who prefer to go in want to drag everyone along with them, which makes me irrationally angry when they try to come up with “objective” reasons for why on-site is better than WFH. You do you and leave me alone.

Agreed. Still would like those that WFH to come in to the office occasionally though, even if just to say hi. :-)

A friend of mine works for the state. She was told to return to the office. The office is in another city. She is having to buy a condo in that city in order to make that feasible.

My wife commutes 45 mins each way. It’s awful because it’s so dangerous. Her office is in a dangerous area and the interstate she uses to commute is known for its deadly wrecks.

What is her team responsible for?

They analyze field reports from other scientists. 100% of her work is done at her PC.

When she’s at the office she has to deal with her lower morale in addition to the random coworker stopping by to chat or her manager interrupting her in various ways.

During her WFH time, she alway completed her work by 10am each morning. Now she struggles to complete it by 5pm while being in the office.

The folks that left had many years to go until they were vested. Since she only has a short time remaining, she decided to stick it out.

I've heard similar reports. I've also directly suffered very malignant management in the past before covid. We're talking people who were outright awful to the business and some who were ultimately fired.

There needs to be better management of management.

On the flip side there is nothing about an office that should turn ~1 hour of work into a day.

The interruptions absolutely do add up. My suspicion too is office bound work probably suffers from work being added on amounting to whole other jobs. Every job I’ve had as a professional has been essentially multiple jobs not reflected in the pay nor job description.

Don't buy it. Yes, interruptions add up. They don't add up to 7 hours a day. I mean look at your story. Your wife's team quit and the office is empty. There's hardly anyone there to interrupt her.

Someone going from a 8 hour workday in the office to a 1 hour workday at home is sandbagging it. There's no two ways around it. Let them WFH and off come the sandbags because they can get that time back. Put them back in the office and the sandbags come back because there's no incentive for them to work any faster. They're stuck in the office for 8 hours no matter how much work they do.

I believe you meant to reply to me. They’re over over 100 individuals on her floor alone. Just her and one other on her team. The engineers and field team still come into the office.

She starts work at 7am. Normal hours are 7 to 4 but lately she’s been staying until 5pm to try to catch up.

During WFH, she logged in at 7am and was usually done by 10am.

I guess I’m going to have to start spelling everything out and including every single detail because some of you like to assume whatever you must in order to fit your narrative.

So she's gone from 3 hours to ~9. That doesn't really change anything about my point. If you're having 6 hours of your day wasted by people not on your team that's on you and not the office.

6 hours of running downstairs and showing the lab manager how to use the autoclave again, 6 hours of answering older coworkers questions about excel, 6 hours of her boss walking into her office and saying “hey, did you see what they said on Fox News last night?”, six hours of chasing crackheads out of the parking lot while they drive to break into her car, six hours of searching for who stole her lunch or almond milk. It all adds up.

But if it makes you feel better to place the blame on her, please go right ahead.

Context switching has a cost. HUGE cost. It takes me over an hour to get “in to the zone” when interrupted from deep work. Emphasis on deep work, Im not talking about writing emails (although that can fall in this category too, not going to judge other professions). It’d take about three interruptions to ruin an entire workdays worth of productivity for me, which is very easy to do in an office environment. I paid a steep price all those years in an office, never again.

It's clearly on the office environment. You've been provided an A/B example where workload is roughly equivalent pre and post period but time to complete has extended.

Many other people have shared similar observations.

Is it a bandwagon to hop on? Perhaps. But better than making the OP subject of dissection and study without an IRB approval or defined survey methodology.

> I guess I’m going to have to start spelling everything out and including every single detail because some of you like to assume whatever you must in order to fit your narrative.

That's the unfortunately thing with some folks' responses. They question every interpretation. As to why they exceed the bounds of reasonable discussion and make everything a dissection because they are missing some key detail they have trouble clarifying seems to be besides the point.

I appreciated your story, and have seen similar experiences.

I’m beginning to learn. I believe I offended someone when I included the term “conservative” when describing my wife’s director.

I suppose that is unavoidable these days.

Ironic, isn't it, that stereotypes can be so darn useful (marketing folks call them personas) yet so universally reviled?

Job description sounds like something that can be easily automated or at least outsourced to $3/hour country.

She’s a microbiologist so it’s a bit more complex than that, but yes the work is fairly simple once you setup your systems to make it efficient.

You mentioned that since WFH ended, the team shrunk due to resignations from 8 to 2. Is the total team workload similar to before?

If so she's doing what 4 people were doing before and that explains most of the increased time to complete work. A few office interruptions and a tiring commute will easily push that past 5pm. I hope it doesn't get worse for her before the vesting.

Yes the workload is the same plus she’s the lifeline of her entire floor and then some.

If anyone has a technical question they go to her. If the lab manager has a question about equipment, they go to my wife.

Please don't ask them to dox their wife.

No one is owed a remote job. Unfortunately, if you work for the state, it is highly likely you don't have the skills and leverage to force the issue as most of the positions are just supporting some sort of bureaucracy and fundamentally have to exist because a lobbyist at one point got a law passed. State jobs, like it or not, are often effectively just political appointments.

Also keep in mind that you can't fire or terminate anyone, ever, in the state, so there's also a chance leadership feels this is the first time they can turnover roles that aren't doing much or meeting their goals. That's a very rare opportunity. If you think "rest-and-vest" is bad in tech, you ain't seen anything when it comes to government. Imagine jobs where no one has accomplished anything in a decade or more.

Of course you immediately jump to some sort of conspiracy though.

You made quite a few assumptions there.

She’s a microbiologist. There aren’t any private sector jobs for her around this area unfortunately. It’s either the state or the university (also the state).

She applied and went through the interview process just like anyone else. There was no “political appointment.”

She isn’t allowed to work from home simply because one individual doesn’t like it. Her director refuses to allow it while the director in charge of the other side of the hallway does allow it.

It’s the result of one man imposing his will on others.

> ...It’s the result of one man imposing his will on others.

This comment almost sounds like the kind of thing one sees in non-gov corporate america! :-)

> it is highly likely you don't have the skills and leverage to force the issue as most of the positions are just supporting some sort of bureaucracy and fundamentally have to exist because a lobbyist at one point got a law passed. State jobs, like it or not, are often effectively just political appointments.

This tells me you haven't met or worked with very many people in state or federal jobs. I feel like this needs reasonable pushback.

SOME of the leadership positions are political appointments. The majority of employees are a highly skilled workforce supporting a specific mission of that particular state agency.

And "can't fire or terminate anyone, ever, in the state" is a bit off as well.