I scored most (if not all) of my career-defining opportunities from hallway convos after a meeting, or chatting while waiting for coffee to brew, so YMMV.
Not everything in life is about career advancement.
I think people who wants to work from home should be able to. I'm doing hybrid personally as well now, it's great for keeping my chronic pain under control. And I enjoy coming in couple days a week to a quieter office (as lots are doing hybrid/mixed wfh as well).
Internet has conditioned us to think that people can only have extreme beliefs, and any disagreement means their opinion must be the polar extreme opposite of mine. I can simultaneously appreciate opportunities I've got from socializing with people in a fully-WFO setting while also appreciating benefits of WFH ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This isn't about assuming extreme positions, this is about reading what someone has written and responding to it at face value.
Yes, that's not what you said, just like that's not what the comment you replied to said.
I explicitly did not say "everyone should work from home", using words like "many of us", so right, "that's not what [I] said", and you're just making up an argument where none exists.
Well said :)
If you're not ok with that, that's your choice to make: find jobs that give you those opportunities, and tilt your work-life balance toward work. Hell, you should be happy that I have more flexibility in my working arrangements and can make this trade-off: less competition for you to get what you want.
But you see, all the decision makers about the RTO are the sort of people who would be obsessed with career development. So they would be very biased against this sentiment. In an employer's market, they have all the power now.
(Yes, I am aware of a few exceptions who attain "fellow" or equivalent levels, but they are the exceptions to my observation and such positions are anyway <1% of the technical workforce; not everyone can be a fellow).
Maybe what you describe works at some places or for specific people. Many companies will ignore your ideas. Your title is code monkey and that's all you do - shut up and listen to us important people. Some managers are very threatened by their subordinates, or are unimaginative. The business side generally wants what they want. God forbid you suggest some new approach.
And that's mostly what you get with this attitude that doesn't value any meetings / communication which doesn't relate directly to one's work.
But the organizations don't want to have code monkeys (typically), because to produce value, people can't just churn out code to complete assignments, they need to also understand the context, be able to identify made up problems, be able to design the most minimal solution covering the business needs etc. That requires understanding, certain alignment, communication.
> And that's mostly what you get with this attitude that doesn't value any meetings / communication which doesn't relate directly to one's work.
But all the things you've listed in the following paragraph are totally communications that relate directly to one's work. What is the case that unrelated communications are also essential?
Remote work will continue to reduce over the next couple of years. If you don’t have a real reason for being at home during the work day, expect to be back in the office soon.
Any real data on this? All the data our company has shows increased performance during WFH, such as an increase in deliveries and decrease in cycle time. So even if it's not as well formed, it seems it's formed sufficiently.
That’s not where it actually ends, however. How do you know what to work on? How do you know if you built a profitable thing? Being remote lets you ignore those things in ways that are harder to do in person.
Hybrid is probably here to stay, but “remote first” was a pandemic only thing.
Lol don't tell me what I think. Those are the metrics that our management uses. That's their focus, and are pervasive in the industry. Sure, you can talk about shipping the wrong thing. What's the metric called for that, or would it fall under rework? Our rework has not gone up. There's no noticeable increase in failed projects either.
"Being remote lets you ignore those things in ways that are harder to do in person."
No, it really doesn't. These same ritual and due diligence conversations take place remotely. Or maybe your org doesn't have good procedures?
a) we're not talking about how people decide what to build, as that has nothing to do with working remotely,
b) managers aren't involved in determining either what to build or how well the plan to build something was executed, and
c) the people who do decide those things have meetings which are irrelevant when talking about working remotely or in person.
Am I understanding you correctly?
How? That's certainly not what I've observed.
And I say this as someone who was also working remotely before the pandemic. I’m always wary of people who refuse to acknowledge the downsides of ideas they support…
You’ve got to do better if you expect to retain employment long term, and certainly if you expect to retain the privilege of working remotely.
You may have had a better experience. If so, then, with all sincerity, I congratulate you on your luck; I bear no ill will to those who happen to find genuinely good employers.
Just don't take your experiences as typical and use them to argue that the rest of us should act as if our experiences either didn't happen, or aren't common.
I've retained employment for nearly two decades, and have retained the "privilege" of working remotely for nearly half of that. I'm not concerned.
If you expect anything else, you might expect humans to not be like humans.
Its a free for all for asking questions, sending messages, making unofficial FYI notes, its an attempt to document those conversations that would have otherwise taken place between individuals. Everyone from the top down has read/write access. Main objective to document those conversations, so nothing gets missed, like people being otherwise engaged in meetings/phone calls. Self Censorship takes place because everyone can view it, reduces staff harassment problems.
I agree most of my 'big breaks' were face to face, that was due to the point I was in my career at that time. I've still had some great progression during remote working times - sometimes you just need to make these things happen - contacting someone just for a chat if that is what you need, turning up to online meetings early to spend a little time chatting before the proper meeting, or asking specific people if they have time to stay on.
I really think half the problem is that we aren't yet used to the new rules of engagement, and are still figuring out what feels right. But opportunity is still there.
But I really enjoy socializing with folks with similar interests (e.g., tech), and I work with a lot of neurodivergent colleagues which puts less of a strain on my social battery as I don't have to be "normal"---we're all weird and it's fine.
Still, my social battery drains quickly nonetheless, I tend to have to leave after hanging out for an hour or two.