Why American workers aren’t returning to the office like their intl counterparts | Hacker News Reader

Why American workers aren’t returning to the office like their intl counterparts

cnbc.com

32 pointse2e431 comments

I think this is an interesting phenomenon that I have also noticed. The article guesses at a few reasons like our houses are big and our commutes are long. I have a few of my own ideas:

Toxic American office culture. The US workplace is a pretty intense place to be. It's full of hustle culture, toxic positivity, and turns your day into a kind of performance art. Even things like diversity initiatives have gotten quite intense and while I'm a huge diversity advocate, I absolutely feel like I am walking on eggshells in our current cancel culture. We should remember than about 50% of the country does not seem to value such things when they go to the ballot box which means the modern office is an ideological battleground. It's a pretty stark difference to how the office is presented from a few decades ago full of things like goofing off, office romances, lifelong friendships and so on.

A highly atomised, individualistic society. People in the US seem a lot more comfortable getting their social needs from their phone. Life is centered on the individual, not on the community. It seems people don't find as much reason to connect with a bunch of worksonas all day every day. Remote keeps these low-value relationships to a minimum.

> The US workplace is a pretty intense place to be.

I think this is a lot of it. The office has always been a rather unpleasant place to work for a whole lot of people, and things like the open office fad make it borderline intolerable.

The only reason people have put up with it over the years is because there was no choice. Now, these people have gotten a taste of what it's like to work in a not-awful environment and they don't want to go back.

I had to return to an office setting for a new job, and have been reminded about how awful it is. I'm already planning my exit strategy.

> I think this is a lot of it. The office has always been a rather unpleasant place to work for a whole lot of people, and things like the open office fad make it borderline intolerable.

Are these aspects less common outside of America there? Over here in the UK, just about every tech related role I've had in the last decade has involved an open office environment, and none of these have been particularly pleasant to work in. Yet somehow the numbers of folks returning are supposedly higher here than in the US?

Doesn't seem to make much sense, unless somehow other parts of Europe haven't gone that direction with their office designs or something.

I agree that many officeplaces are "intense" or downright toxic. But keep in mind that the diversity initiatives you are concerned about are actual attempts to make the workplace less intense and toxic -- for women, people of color, anyone in the LGBTQ+ community, people from minority religions, people with disabilities and anyone else who hasn't typically been welcome in offices.

The depictions of goofing off and office romances make for nice sitcoms, but a full picture would also show you the people who were sexually harassed, verbally abused, denied promotions, denied time off to care for loved ones, and more.

Are the diversity initiatives sometimes awkward, sometimes uncomfortable, and sometimes possible even ineffective? Sure, it's a difficult process and there's no guidebook. But it's certainly far better than continuing to ignore the real problems because some voters aren't aware of them (and some are downright hostile to change because it affects their economic interests or perceived status.)

And I am LGBTQ+ so I get it, I really do. It’s still a little intimidating keeping up with an ever changing landscape of shibboleths. And you can never assume people’s pure intentions either. Being part of a minority group does not mean you can’t play politics. I have absolutely watched these things weaponized in HR complaints and people being branded as biased. We don’t have a culture of teaching and forgiveness but of shaming and reprimand.

the best way to to navigate that landscape is to be professional, keep sexual innuendo to a minimum, and treat people with respect. that reduces your risk profile to a manageable level. If someone is truly weaponizing HR with false complaints and getting away with it, you should look for a different office. That is not acceptable and not typical and you should be able to find better.

Ditch your loving families, homes, and autonomy to come help Steve and Karen feel validated in their management roles.

Commuting is fun everyone, it's not like the endless traffic fatalities killing more people than guns and violence each year will ever actually hurt you in a way that damages our profits. That makes you accountable and ownership is big here at Big Co. Inc. Just think of all the positive vibes you can check while hordes of people fail to zipper onto freeway junctions ensuring you never see your children during sunlight hours.

This guy gets it.

Substitute freeway with mass transit and you get the same answer: first hand learning experience of tragedy of the commons for 2 hours a day with your favourite set of strangers, and at least one mentally ill person that hasn't showered this fiscal quarter, but cannot be involuntarily committed because of the silly things that people used to do as mental health treatments in the 1950s.

Not to mention we just came off a pandemic that was spreading like crazy and killing lots of people. It was a very strong reminder that public transit and offices are why you are sick all the time.

I feel like you went off the rails a bit at the end, wanting to commit homeless people is rather unhinged

Before throwing stones, you may want to introspect on the fact that the parent never said “homeless” but rather “mentally ill” and you just assumed that’s what he meant

Definitely more of a Rorschach for kevviiinn than anything I wrote.

What I was actually alluding to is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Connor_v._Donaldson and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addington_v._Texas

From my non-scientific, but rather large sample size of these mass transit experiences, I would ballpark unmedicated schizophrenia rates in excess of 50-60%.

And let’s waste the limited supply of oil that took millions of years to form in order to move people back and forth on a daily basis. All while spewing toxic particles into the air and ruining the climate. But hey, we have a ”culture” to protect here at Big Co. F-k the future, f-k humanity, and f-k everyone except a tiny group of executives who own mansions five minutes from the office.

I agree with the posts that American office culture is largely toxic to varying degrees. Every employee is going to fight it because it is awful, but I wonder how much is technology / space based.

In much of the world dedicating a room in your home to an office is hard if not impossible. Additionally, internet connection speeds are not great everywhere. The US lags in some rural areas, but generally internet access is pretty good most places in the US these days.

Yes, in Europe utilities seem to be a factor also. The office is heated and air conditioned and has good internet. Your heat might be too expensive to turn on 24 hours a day, home AC is rare in most countries and several European countries have pretty flaky home internet or people use LTE. I have definitely heard people express that they would rather use their employer’s utilities than their own. The lower average salary but more expensive energy plays a big factor.

Some random anecdotical data points :

I live in New Orleans, the largest city in Louisiana. On a busy street in the city center.

I could benefit from fiber for my home office. It’s just not available.

The best I can get for $120 / month is some decent DSL. It’s fine, until I need to upload GO of data.

My parent in rural France have a strong and reliable fiber connection they have no need for for. They pay 55$ / month for it

In regard to home AC, so far we don’t need it in large swath of Europe. House are better isolated and climate is less hot overall.

Energy price are not comparable indeed. But a factor to take into account is the consistent effort to insulate houses , subsidies for heat pump , etc etc. Your energy money get you further. ( same for gas, we drive compact cars mostly )

Not contradicting anything you say. Just giving it a tad more colors.

How is there no cable broadband available?

T-mobile, ATT &Cox are the tree ISPs. They don’t cover my part of town with real broadband. I live in a street that everyone in town knows.

I was surprisedW

Imo - the article is missing forest for the trees with many comments attributing it to "individualism" in the US society and how it differs from Europe.

Imo - this boils down to a simple thing: US employees actually have a lot more power than they realize simply thanks to the sheer amount of tech companies operating in such a large economy, fighting for the best talent they can find. This is also reflective in topics like no NDA in California fwiw. Employees in Europe are much more married to the job and with fewer tech companies operating, the market innovates less.

“Meanwhile, office attendance has returned to 70% to 90%”

Seriously? I knew two remote guys before COVID including me :D Now literally all my friends work from home. Also ratio of remote gigs to onsite ones is much better in favor of remote than in 2019. And most on sites are still hybrid aka 2-3 remote days weekly, and this became a norm not only in tech.

70%-90% attendance sounds way off. At least where I live (Poland). Is it the same in other European countries or seriously almost everyone is back in the office?

Anyway - way to go, USA!

I know all countries have the expensive city/cheap countryside dynamic but I would guess very few places are as polarized as the US with a few super expensive cities vs very cheap rural areas.

Why would they? You can work remotely from a cruise ship for only $30k/yr apparently. There isn't anything you could possibly have at the office that could compete with that. That's lower than the rent in many cities. It's less than most states pay to house prisoners. You even get free medical consultation.

We live in a ridiculous society of which office culture is but one ridiculous aspect, and now that a lot of people have had a taste for something else they're rightly telling the corpos to shove it.

30k/year lower than most cities? Definitely not if you're talking about housing rent

I live in a lower CoL “city” with a 440k home and 2.875 interest rate and I pay 24k/year for my mortgage. I gotta imagine that most major cities are significantly more than what I pay so yeah that seems pretty accurate even for houses.

30k/yr is 2500 per month just for rent. Only a few cities have average rents that high. Definitely not accurate

I can't speak for cities, but, in my small town in the middle of nowhere America, 2.5k/month will get you a shitty 2-bed, 1-bath apartment. That doesn't include electricity, heat, etc.

In my city in middle america 1k will get you a nice 2 bed 1 bath with laundry in the unit

Debatable, but consider that the package also includes meals, entertainment, internet, and medical consultation.

Is that data even true? In my previous company, in my new one (both with multiple bases and contact to other companies), and also the social circle it looks like there is much more push and people in the US returning back than in Europe.. or just England? That country feels strange in every of its decisions and acts since Brexit :D

Also the typical office culture seemed to be much more.. lets say cultivated .. in the US?

UK here, I know very few people that have returned to the office and where they have it's been on a hybrid one day a week basis

Europeans are 90% back to the offices ? Any source on that ?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com