Comment by daly | Hacker News Reader

Comment by daly | Hacker News Reader

Paul,

Do you commute to an office every day, sit at a desk in a 4 person shared cubicle, have monthly "performance reviews" by someone unqualified to manage your subject area, have to deal with 3 children's weekly scheduled school-caused sickness, own an old car and only 1 so it is out of service when it needs repair?

I worked from home for years ... scratch that, I "lived at work" while at home for years. If you believe that getting your work done on time only during 9-5 then you've never had to deal with after-hours emails demanding results by the next morning.

Take a job that requires a 1-hour "10 minute standup" every morning at 8:30am so it "doesn't impact the work day". Take a job that needs at least a week to complete with no external progress (e.g. programming) and listen to the constant requirement for "progress updates". Note how there is a built-in assumption that because you're home you're slacking.

Fight through heavy snow or rain, struggle to find a parking space, find out there is no coffee in the break room, that only 1 of 3 toilets are working, that the internet connection is down, and your other 3 cube-mates are all loudly sick of something "going around in the office".

Sure. Go ahead. Assume the worst of your employees. Like children, make sure you can see them at all times.

We have to face realities. It's obvious that companies have found that working from home negatively affects productivity. Companies are all about saving money and maximizing productivity. If working from home had been at an even level, or even a bit less, to working from the office then they would had chosen it over having people go into the office since maintaining an office, and all that goes with it, is very expensive.

Yes, some of us tried hard to make it work but like always there was a minority that probably did not and now we all have to pay for it.

At this point, the best we can hope for is a hybrid work schedule. It's not what we want or wish for but, if we are lucky, it's what we can get.

> It's obvious that companies have found that working from home negatively affects productivity. Companies are all about saving money and maximizing productivity. If working from home had been at an even level, or even a bit less, to working from the office then they would had chosen it over having people go into the office since maintaining an office, and all that goes with it, is very expensive.

Or middle management forces this on everyone so they can keep pretending they're useful, while most of middle management is absolutely useless. Most managers are there to ask something one person and forward the answer to another person, or gather multiple ones to sum them up in a single sentence. That's literally the job. People who have actual business influence sit at 'the top', people who have technical influence sit near 'the bottom', most people in between are just... there. I know, I worked with middle management heavily in my last corporate gig, those people usually barely even know what we do, they are incapable of making any decision without 'running it through upper management', most of them are not even trained properly to resolve interpersonal issues or work with people in general. Going to the office just so you can sit in your cubicle or on a random desk in the open space and spend whole day on calls with other people is just... pointless.

> It's not what we want or wish for but, if we are lucky, it's what we can get.

This sentence reads like corporate management is your overlord and you're happy if they let you do something. Working in IT you're privileged enough to be able to actually choose who you work for, thinking you're 'lucky' because you can work 2 days from home, is kind of... sad really.

> Companies are all about saving money and maximizing productivity.

I have yet to hear any company even robustly define productivity for tech workers.

Characters per minute (CPM) according to the guy that tried to convert me to VI.

I kid you not.

Assuming your employees are not charlatans, WFH normally means a bit more work for the manager in exchange for somewhat improved productivity.

Maybe your managers are lazy or incompetent?

By realities, do you mean middle management neuroses driven anecdotes, or actually statistics and study? Because the latter shows that it's more productive to wfh

Your list of first-world grievances also describes: healthcare workers, literally anyone in the trades, grocery store employees, retail, etc. At some point tech employees have convinced themselves that they are likewise "essential" employees and deserving of special exceptions. But the fact of the matter is most tech jobs, apps, etc. could go away tomorrow and life would continue unabated (in contrast to the list above). Sure, with mild inconveniences, but society will find a way. It also proves how easily replaceable you are by employees in developing countries who are glad to show up in person to the office (for 1/6th the pay).

Also, who doesn't bring their own coffee from home vs. drinking the three-day-old moldy diarrhea at the office?

My old offices had two espresso machines and a drip machine, all cleaned on a bi weekly cadence by professionals. Fresh coffee arrived from a local roasters every Monday morning. Seven different varieties of milk are provided for the frother. Much better than my home setup... And yet here I am, still working from home.

I hope this serves as an example of why tethering your understanding of working needs to your extremely limited experience - as it is for all of us - makes your argument a bunch of weak anecdotes that add little to the debate.

Talking of limited experience - you think that the tech industry can disappear overnight and life will just "continue unabated"? Yikes.

"We can always go back to the stone ages", sure, sure we can.

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