I understand and empathize with those that value face-to-face conversations in the office, but for those that don't, remote work is an incredible boon.
Don't get me wrong, there are some remote fanatics that do the same thing, but they seem far fewer.
I would argue that the reason "remote wins" is that to get the full benefit of working in person you really need 100% of your team to work in the same building on the same hours. As soon as one person goes remote, the in-person experience is significantly degraded for everyone else.
Thus, as soon as company allows "hybrid", the people who prefer remote go remote and the in-person experience quickly degrades. This starts a spiral where people on the margin -- who still prefer 100% in person! -- decide it's no-longer worth coming in, which in turn degrades the experience further and pushes more people to give up on the office, until there are very few people left coming in.
It doesn't take very many people to set off this spiral: in my anecdotal experience, once a team goes 10-20% remote, the office is pretty useless.
So what I see is there's a "tyranny of the minority" effect. I think the long-term response is going to be more sorting of companies into all-remote or all in-person, with fewer companies in the "hybrid" space that's so common today.
There is a difference between arguing that remote work is better and insisting everyone work remotely. I've seen lots of people say remote work should be an option. I have yet to see a single person, on Hacker News or elsewhere, insist that everyone be required to work remotely. On the opposite side of the argument, I've seen plenty of people argue that in-person work should be required for everyone on the other hand.
Honestly, I'm not one for laws about these sorts of things, but given the state of climate change, there should be legal requirements that if a job can be done in a WFH setting, it should be an option for employees to choose. By quantifying what roles don't require in person by defining eligibility, as opposed to allowing businesses to set the eligibility.
I think the details could be worked out reasonably.
What doesn't really change the picture. Those are a few people, with most disagreeing, and not in a position of authority. But some do exist.
Does the office fall apart when someone goes on vacation or is sick? If not, why then would one or two days away from the office have such a big impact?
The degradation I'm referencing is if you have one or more people permanently remote on your team. Then, just picking a few trivial examples, you can't take a notepad with you and make a team decision over lunch, or huddle around a whiteboard, etc., because those things don't work for the remote teammate. Even when you're in a conference room with a good video setup, it's still very common to have a lot of repeating things for the remote person, or having the remote person struggle to chime in etc., that make it a worse experience for both sides compared to the lowest common denominator of "everyone is on Zoom."
All I can say is true for me, but as an introvert in a creative role (is it fair to call programming a creative role? I think so) being in an office around other people, especially open floorplan offices where we're all able to glare at each other from across our desks, stymies my ability to be creative. I just feel the pressure of being watched all day, and sometimes it clams me up. And then after work I go home feeling exhausted, mentally, and defeated for not getting what I wanted to get done. And when I need help on something in a remote role, I'm able to articulate the problem statement very easily over text, which my coworkers (one or two in particular) are very helpful at pointing me to a solution asynchronously while I hack away at it. So to your argument about the reason that "remote wins", I'd argue there are more reasons that it wins. But that's just for me, and I imagine many other people that also prefer remote.
I don't think in-person work is going anywhere though. I do agree with your perspective that hybrid work seems likely to not be ideal for people that prefer in-person. In fact, I'd argue that hybrid work is not ideal for people that prefer remote either. In my experience you usually have managers questioning your motives for going remote in those hybrid environments, making you feel like you're an inconvenience to the team, and pressuring you to come in some days on a commute that may not be convenient. And then one day some upper management changes, and the new person just decides they prefer an all in-person workforce and tells all the remote people to come back in or be let go. For your sake, I hope you find an opportunity that is 100% in-person. And I also hope those hybrid environments become fewer and farther between.
I think the long-term is going to be a small percentage of fully-remote (mostly new co's), a small percentage of full office (mostly legacy co's) and a big plurality of hybrid companies where everyone is mandated to come to office on the same days of the week. I am seeing more and more SV companies taking that approach.
Started a poll here to get more data - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36868543
"Remote work" didn't start with "work from home" it started with offshoring and satellite offices.
Why is it acceptable to "significantly degrade the in office experience" when it benefits the company but not acceptable when it benefits the employees?
I call BS. I'm not commuting to an office just to be on calls with people in other timezones for a majority of my time there.
For me, just giving up commutes and being able to do some basic chores on breaks or lunch alone brings a ton of this balance back into check. I work 8h but i gained so much "me" time back that it's like working 6h with a commute.
I would give up WFH if needed, but i'd be pushing for 6h days as a trade off. I now feel the added time in my life by not commuting is a massive boon. One that i can't give up. Do i prefer WFH? Yes, i'm on ~8years of it now. But the life that i clawed back by simply not commuting is by far the most valuable thing. One i am never giving up in i have options.
I manage my teams by tasks accomplished. I really don't care if they were able to complete it in 2 hours and take the rest of the day off.
I simply acknowledge formally what happens in practice anyway. The average "8 hour workday" only contains about three productive hours [1].
For me, it varies wildly. Some days, I'll get in "the zone" and 12 hours / and thousands of lines of code will fly by. Then I'll spend the next day or two in a brain funk waiting to recharge.
I've learned to embrace my "bursty" productivity patterns and to structure my delivery expectations around them. If I get trapped into a X number of hours per day butt-in-seat situation, my overall productivity declines sharply.
[1] https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/in-an-8-hour-day-the-aver...
And like you say, not every company necessarily gets a benefit from having an 8 hour day. Depending on the nature of the job, the remaining hours of the day can be a diminished return, in which case one might as well give up on the game of charades and just allow their employees to go home.
“Believes” suggests faith-based decision making. Not sure if you meant to say that, but your weird choice aligns with the credibility of the justifications I see of in-office-only types.
reminds me of this meme that was going around Facebook during the last US election. It was an image of a line at a store like Target. The caption was something like "you stand in line at the store, you can stand in line to vote." You know, one of those absolutely stupid republican anti-mail-in-voting things. They apparently forgot that Amazon, one of the largest corporations in the world, exists. So no, I and the entire world do not stand in line at the store. And if you want to go stand in line all day to vote, you still can asshole. But I'll be dropping my ballot off at my mailbox.
The presence of a remote worker on a team means everyone is working remotely, in that all meetings have to be video conferences in order to include them. It's just that some might be working remotely from an office.
If you work in an office but your team is remote, you work remote.
The strategy applies collectively: will the team work face-to-face or not?
No one is justifying commutes because of the kitchen or the view.
Recall all the "phone-closets" we installed in many large corp tech environs (I wasa designer on many large scale offices (FB, Goog, Salesforce, NAMCO, Lucas - to name a few - aside from hospitals, I have millions of SqFt under my belt)...
If a company wanted to focus a remote workforce, while reducing realEstate facilities costs, maybe a deliverable cubicle (returnable cubicle) - that was a sound box with all the tech req'd for job, might be a thing - think of it like the "ON AIR" red-light sign... (IF PERSON IS IN THIS CUBE, THEY ARE FOCUSED ON WORKING - DO NOT TOUCH, FEED, OR OTHERWISE ENGAGE WITH SAID PERSON IN THIS BOX)
This argument doesn't work because it's not about being in aspecific physical location, it's about being in the same physical location as all the other workers.
When half the people you need to interact with are remote, there's no point going to the office.
Reasonableness has a pretty subjective definition in this context.
And even if we could all agree how reasonableness should be defined then it’s still a terrible metric to make a decision by.
This is an appeal to tradition. It can be the right choice, but you need to be to justify it rather than say "That's how we've always done it".
My biggest wish, or obstacle, is finding a team that truly values writing. So many times I've sat in meetings where the discussion largely focuses on everyone just clarifying their own ideas. Or status meetings. It's led me to believe that a lot of "in office is better" folks just value the instant gratification of face-to-face conversations.
I suspect HN's a community of early adopters, but I'd be curious how that actually plays out over time.
We've shifted our work discussions almost entirely to async threads on our ticketing system, we frequently hand tickets over between timezones and our manager types can find out what's going on to the nearest couple of hours in a few minutes any time they like. If we need sync conversations (which does happen of course) we record the outcome for async consumption.
We do frequent pairing, it can be quite pleasant to spend quite a while on the phone doing work when you don't need to sit in 15 hours of meetings a week!
Honestly I'm not sure I could go back. Standups for sure would be a huge turnoff for me at any new job.
Any tricks or issues you've had to figure out while pairing? My thought was just "assign a couple of people to a non-trivial ticket and see what happens". But I'm curious if that's really naive.
We update assignees to reflect when more than one person is working on something but we never assign work to individuals or pairs. We use an aggressive WIP limit of engineers/2+1 to prevent a ton of in flight tickets but other than that we're quite free to move around as long as we're moving the stuff on the board right-wards.
I think that's a thing that contributes to our success at pairing actually. Since we all value schedule flexibility quite highly we get on well with pairing a bit when we happen to have synchronized working time and working on independent subtasks when that is more convenient for us.
https://tuple.app/ - this tooling helped a ton, it's expensive but worth it to reduce the friction to start a pairing call to 0. Pairing on zoom, slack, meets, etc. is all much more painful. VS Code LiveShare esque things are free and can probably work as well with some discipline.
It's not uncommon for me to interview him on almost every ticket, writing extensive notes with clarifications on his instructions and to fill in gaps.
I don't see anything necessarily wrong with having to write notes. I think that's part of a healthy work process. I just think it happens too often.
It's partly due to the fact we do not have a very organized system, but also due to him not valuing writing as a tool to enhance his work.
Since COVID I've felt like the dynamic of my remote work experience has changed. I've worked with two remote companies since then and both were struggling with a lot of inexperienced or absent remote workers. Dealing with them on a case-by-case basis is the right call, of course, but it takes a toll on management's trust of remote workers in general.
Fortunately I haven't had to install any overly intrusive monitoring software, but I did learn that my company now dedicates a significant amount of business analyst time to analyzing activity of remote employees now. Apparently they had so many problems with remote employees (and their managers!) barely getting any work done that management has soured on remote work in general, so new hires have to be on site unless someone can vouch for them being excellent remote workers.
The competition for remote work has also gone way up. Every remote job opening we posted would get literally thousands of applications.
The combination of increasing competition for remote jobs and declining sentiment toward remote work (see: Amazon and other big companies) does not bode well for those of us who were successfully working remote for many years, IMO.
This was most likely also happening in the office, it was just masked with the appearance of work in the form of in-person meetings and people zoning out at their desks. When you have a bunch of people in a room together progress grinds to a halt because it becomes completely about performance.
Not in this case. They even had a chart showing the sharp decline in several different metrics when they let people go remote.
If you subtracted out the outliers, most of the company was fine going remote. About 20% of people dropped their productivity to a fraction of before, though.
Some people can't handle remote work. I think it's time we stopped pretending like everyone handles remote work just fine. That lie is making it harder to get companies to admit that they need to differentiate between employees who can and cannot successfully work remote.
Productivity was ultimately measured by talking to the people and asking what they've been working on, what the challenges were, and why it was taking so long. When we'd talk to some of these people, they could barely come up with a story for what they had been doing all week.
The metrics were used as an indicator of where to investigate, not as an ultimate measure of productivity. The key metrics were actually entirely in control of the teams themselves: We would estimate our own story points and could even close our own tickets as completed if we wanted.
When some employees go from doing 20-25 story points per week down to 3-5 and the only change was that they started working remotely, something is wrong.
Remember, these were people rating their own story points!
IMO, they could have gamed the system if they wanted to by inflating story points and churning tickets (though this would only delay their managers catching on, not avoid it). These people weren't even doing that. They just... stopped working more than a couple hours per week and assumed nobody would notice.
I know this cuts against the Reddit, Twitter, and Hacker News narrative that everyone is more productive remote, but I watched it happen in real time. It wasn't just a few people, it was a significant number of people who couldn't handle it.
Not everyone can handle remote and the number of people in this category is a lot higher than the internet suggests. I don't know why that's controversial for some people.
Was your profit negatively impacted? Because if it wasn't and people shipped less story points, it should tell you that metric has no value.
And then non-developers are shocked/confused when things don't pan out as exactly how they were written on Jira because we were spending all our time trying to guess our way through how to task things out and how long they'll take instead of just doing the work to figure out what needs to be done. And then we have to go back and fix up the Jira board later, causing even more work. It's insane.
Right, and who knows if their metrics were actually measuring meaningful work? If they are measuring in-office rituals like this that changed during the remote transition but they ultimately didn't lead to more tangible work being completed, then their metrics are worthless.
Using profit to measure developer productivity on the other hand is utter nonsense; not even the most clueless manager would come up with such an idea.
That was my point: Remote work was a unique benefit given to those who could handle it.
During COVID everyone started pretending that remote work was for everyone. Companies shifted a lot of people remote and then learned the hard way that many people can't be productive remote.
Now the pendulum swings back, with companies pretending that nobody can work remote because they let the bad apples spoil the whole batch.
I think this is the one place AR/VR is almost ready to really help out. "Teleport" your chair to someone else's space while they "draw" on the "whiteboard" to show you things—with their actual body and hands.
Rigs anywhere near good enough to make this non-terrible are gonna be expensive for some time, and maybe don't quite exist yet (but are the one valuable use-case within striking distance of current hardware, I think), sure—but isn't the claim that this kind of interaction is incredibly valuable? Four-figure cost per six-figure worker should be a no brainer, then (unless companies/managers are just bullshitting about that...). And meeting rooms ain't cheap.
Given Google's history, my guess is that Starline is on the chopping block even if showcased at I/O with a scaled back price tag. I hope I'm wrong.
Same with my kid. Another big win of remote for me is that I can go where I'm treated best. I can pick a country (anyone could pick my country and I had to welcome them with open hands, so it's only fair game that in exchange I'm allowed to go wherever I feel like going) which welcomes me and my family and where the taxes are reasonable and where the people are nice.
I'm at my fourth country in seven years and this time I think the family shall stay for quite a while.
1. The quality of remote workers seems to have dropped significantly post pandemic. I think this is because, in the past to work remote at an in-office company you need to be pretty valuable. Now people who can't work well without the structure of an office are able to get remote work and coast. This means the good people are carrying a lot more dead weight.
2. Juniors simply don't learn as much or as quickly in a remote environment. Many of them just go dark when they can't figure something out.
3. Perhaps you save money by not commuting, but my wife and I both work remote. That means our companies have basically colonized 200 square feet of our house rent free. We could be using these rooms for something else. It almost feels like a 3rd amendment violation sometimes.
Further, my new boss is an extrovert and has found that she can’t stand working from home and prefers the office. I was hired fully remote, but there’s more and more in-office meetings held, where I might be the only person on a giant 96” conference room screen. This really makes remote feel like being an outsider and I feel less involved with the team. My role was supposed to be managing and strategy but it’s more of a taskmaster at this point. I can have one-on-one discussions with leaders, but the decisions are not made in a video call, they’re being made in an office face-to-face.
I think if I were a remote contractor this would be fine and I wouldn’t care so much about the dynamic. However, trying to be a genuine employee in a non-remote first and locally focused company is proving difficult.
It's not even that I don't value the face-to-face conversations and human interaction, I absolutely do. It just doesn't come close to the immense value I gain by WFH.
A side benefit: I was able to move closer to my church community, so my "human interaction" need is being fulfilled richer than ever now.
(One of the most frustrating things in all the WFH vs RTO discourse is that there is this false dichotomy being presented. It's either extroverted people who are energized by others, or introverts who'd rather be in the dark closet by themselves. I am as extroverted as they come, and I thrived in the office environment. Still wouldn't trade WFH for the world.)
This is what the "but you need human interaction" return-to-office crowd doesn't understand.
WFH !== Being alone
WFH means surrounding yourself with the people you choose to be around.
Whether that's your church community, fellow hobbyists, intramural sports teams, the local co-working space, etc.
Plus, that can include "my coworkers" for anyone that wants to make work a bigger part of their life, like those working in startups. However, this should be the exception, not the rule like it has been.
It should be your choice...
I don't want to be working longer hours, or make work a larger part of my life. I don't particularly care if I have "real" friendships with my colleagues outside of work. I have plenty of friends and family that I already have trouble juggling.
What I want is the camaraderie, greater trust, mentorship, professional networks, etc. that comes from working with people during the day in a shared space.
I'm not sitting with a church community or sports team during my 9-5. I've had a couple co-working memberships during the last couple years - most people just go there to sit and work quietly. Maybe you make some small talk here and there. Except for the people working with their colleagues who are also in the co-working space.
I've worked remotely for 7 years and haven't missed anything you've listed as a benefit of in-person work. In fact, compared to prior in-person experiences, I have more personal interaction with colleagues than before (largely because my startup is quite conscious about it).
We also miss the fact that you can be traveling to an office for years and not actually know anybody. This is especially true of this big large tech campuses.
Of all the animosity in the discussions regarding Remote vs Office, this is the one that genuinely bothers me. Saying that I prefer the human interactions of working in office does not imply that I struggle to find or make friends outside of work. You've put it brilliantly.
I totally get being social with your coworkers as a bonus, but it's a little sad to me that people need to rely on that one source. I can count on one hand the percentage of coworkers whom I've actually kept in contact with after either one left the company. Most coworker relationships are a matter of convenience. If that's what people prefer, then cool, but don't act like there's no such thing as human interaction outside the office.
Perfectly stated. I can be quite outgoing when I want to be, and in many of my previous jobs I enjoyed many of my colleagues, but now I can devote my energy to the relationships I value most.
I have four kids, time is undoubtedly my most valuable commodity. I don't think I'd be able to foster as many friendships if I was working in an office. I'm sure I'd have friendships with a few colleagues, but WFH enables me to devote myself to friendships as I see fit.
So I find myself longing for office time, not because I like office time, but rather because I feel like it might bring back some sanity to the relationship.
Am I the only one in that situation? What do you do? It's not like I can structure another individual, it would only work if they themselves recognize that they need structure, which they don't.
What I did (decades ago) was realize that when I was working from home, I needed to treat it the same as working in an office. What that meant was: I need a room that is exclusively "the office". When I'm in there, I'm working. When I'm not working, I'm not in there. And everyone else in the household has to adhere to one rule -- if my office door is closed, they cannot disturb me for any reason other than an actual emergency, just like if I were in an office outside of out home.
It also helps that I majorly soundproofed my home office. Even well-intentioned kids will won't be silent for the entire work day.
I did acquiesce and allow interruptions when the door is open, for times I'm checking email or other administrative tasks. That same son has high-functioning autism so I do find myself bringing him in to calm him down on occasion.
I've found my wife is the one who refuses to follow these guidelines most often, lol.
Oh. Solving that one is way beyond the pay grade of all HN users combined, I'm afraid :)
(Just kidding. But it would probably require a discussion with marital-counseling-level candor. So maaaybe not one to have in a public forum.)
We have 3 kids (5, 5, 8) and they can actually manage themselves for hours at a time. And I don't mean youtube, TV, or tablets. Just regular playing. My wife works part time so in the summer they don't have constant supervision in the morning.
This is where having more kids can be easier. 1 kid can be lonely, or be unable to get help if they hurt themselves. 2 can be a problem if a fight breaks out. With 3 you have someone who can come get you if there's a problem.
I'm curious what the actual statistics are though.
I did put a keyed locking door knob on in a previous house but for some reason haven't done it to the new house/office.
Did you have a hard time finding one that would fit an interior door? I had to hunt for awhile to find a keyed lock that would fit since they're all designed for exterior doors.
To be honest we never "solved" it. Eventually the younger reached kindergarten age and my wife returned to full time work. I wish I had better advice. The suggestion to have a dedicated office space with a door is a good one, but if your partner does not respect boundaries that won't be enough. If finances allow, you could look at leasing a part time desk in a coworking space or even a dedicated office. I know it feels silly to pay for office space when you can do the job from home, but if it's damaging your relationship, it may be worthwhile. Some employers might even offer a stipend for remote workers to help offset costs. The fact that you refer to your partner as a nagging micromanager tells me something has to change.
I hope this post doesn't make me sound like a dick. I have immense respect for my wife for choosing to pause her career to care for our children. Raising kids is HARD, harder than the work I get paid for to be honest. We're partners in life and parenthood. But my role in the partnership at that time was to hold down a job and that's a lot harder to do when you're being interrupted 10 times a day. Hope you are able to work something out.
When my office door is closed, I am not home (except for emergency, say broken limb or something). It takes some training, but they become accustomed to it.
You need to stress to your partner the importance of focus during work. This took an exceptional amount of effort for us because my wife is bipolar and when things are bad, her contributions become a trickle. Summer is always a trying time, because all the kids are home and she gets overwhelmed easily. Thankfully my employer is incredibly accommodating, so if I need to step away and resolve anything at home, they have faith that I'll see to my obligations.
There's certainly value in having a dedicated work area if possible. Your brain really likes having demarcation lines between work and home, so emulating that can help immensely.
It is important to note that WFH is NOT a silver bullet. It is not a solution for every employer/employee. It works incredibly well in many technological scenarios because of remote access and whatnot, but there are limiting factors. Both in bureaucratic requirements, "culture" fits, and domestic situations. What works for me in the Great Plains due to cheap(er) housing may not work in metro areas where some families are living in small apartments.
Don't feel obligated to make WFH succeed in your situation if you don't want to simply because its en vogue. I have dear friends that tried WFH and _hated_ it. Another option is co-working space or otherwise getting out of the house to focus on work. I find myself going to a local hiking trail area during spring/autumn to work outdoors, and it is refreshing.
Also, what’s your workspace? It helps if you work in a separate room with a door. Working in a central open spot like the kitchen table invites more interruption. Of course this is hard to do if you’re in a small apartment.
Some people who we love deeply, just cannot do this. If we're physically there, a reason to interrupt will always be found. IMHO it's not worth damaging the relationship.
While returning to the office as an escape may alleviate some symptoms, I would still recommend that you work on your relationship.
Edit: your partner may also have needs too, this isn't just about you getting what you want. It's about communicating better and respecting each others needs.
Are you in Tonga or something?
Only wondering because ~3 years versus a little less than 2 years seems like a potentially big difference, so wondering if that feeling of fulfillment has is still going strong that long
Curious what country you live in that Sept 2020 was "pre-pandemic" for you? It was already hitting hard in many countries by then.
They almost certainly meant September 2019.
I believe the extrovert vs. introvert division is a false dichotomy in the first place.
Commute time, environment at home, career seniority - these are the most important factors in this discussion
I value face-to-face time in the office but still prefer remote work and its not even close.
It would be nice to have an office very close by and be able to go when I want. But there is nothing good nearby and im not moving.
Being successful at remote work as a developer and creative is using the right tools when it comes to collaboration. This means having a good A/V setup that doesn't need regular futzing with to work. Know your OS's sound and camera settings. Know your team tools inside and out. Another thing that I work on daily is better written communication skills, specifically, better commit message, taking that extra 5 minutes to write up a concise PR.
Screen capture is another tool I regularly use, and have refined my skills in. I often screenshot things and add drawn and text annotations to highlight important information and supplement with a chat message. That can often help solve problems much faster. I have us all using more digital whiteboarding tools. We're learning what too much or too little Kanban board granularity is. Adjusting workflows both in project management and remote communication is super important. Finding the inefficiencies and efficiencies requires a lot of open-mindedness and humility.
We had an employee who wasn't finding success in remote work and I realized a lot of his struggles were with not knowing how to use core desktop publishing and digital communication tools. He was from the save it on your hard drive and email-it-to-me generation. He missed standing at the coffee machine and chatting. He didn't care to learn advanced features of the Google Suite, or get OBS up and running. Those factors combined didn't help him succeed in remote work. It was unfortunate to see.
One thing that can be done to positively influence opponents of remote work, in your organization or in the industry in general is emphasizing the importance of core modern computer literacy. I think that being a highly productive remote employee requires one to develop and maintain a high degree of core computer literacy (using office productivity tools, communication software, and managing A/V hardware).