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> with modern, fast, Internet speeds, it's like you're in the same room as the other person.

I've been working remotely for nearly as long, and like anything else, it has its advantages and disadvantages. But this assertion is patently false, at least for me. I have a symmetric gigabit fiber connection at home, with 10GbE hardwired everything in my LAN. No tool I use, be it Zoom, Meet, Teams, whatever, comes even close to being in the same room as another person. The combination of latency (however slight) and imperfect duplex sound transmission between different equipment means that people are constantly inadvertently cutting each other off.

> The combination of latency (however slight) and imperfect duplex sound transmission between different equipment means that people are constantly inadvertently cutting each other off.

This is trivial compared to people purposefully cutting each other off or willfully misunderstanding the project or issue being worked on.

Minor inconveniences introduced by working virtually are just that: minor. It's not a good enough reason to force workers back into the office just so the c-levels can feel they're doing better at their jobs.

As much as I loathe Discord for it replacing forums, I will say that Discord’s audio mixing for multiple speaking members is literally perfect. Or at least closer to perfect than any other competitor. You can actually talk over each other to some extent.

Part of it I think is discord users wear headphones more. If you are using a mic and your laptop loud speaker, the app will kill your mic every time someone else is talking, otherwise you get a feedback loop.

If that is the case that’s a smart move on their part, not a month goes by without someone doing that on teams.

> people are constantly inadvertently cutting each other off

It's more an effect of not seeing faces / missing some very subtle social cues that help in having "rounds" in a conversation. But you get used to it and learn to counter it, and besides I know a handful of people who cut others off in real life as well.

I started working remotely from my team in 2011. By 2014 the people remaining in Hq had closed most meeting rooms and people were expected to dial in from their hot desks - nowhere near each other. It was all the downsides of being in the office with the downsides of video conferencing.

That sounds like a hilariously bad decision.

Now, just imagine it being done so they can:

- Have more space for their open office plan.

- Allow managers to have their own offices.

Morale? Who needs that.

Partly because most meetings waste time (moving around a large building, waiting for peoppe to get there from the previous meeting, etc), but generally to reduce the floor space used and reduce the property portfolio

The opportunity of covid to get rid of more desks was great, and we’ve closed two more buildings in central london thanks to it.

Zoom has a “studio/live audio” setting which can actually work decently well at removing latency. Give it a try! (Everyone will have to turn it on).

We've been using Teams for 3 years and I haven't seen really any problems with latency. I've only seen problems with the standard conference call issue if you have 6+ people on the call all trying to talk.

> it's like you're in the same room as the other person.

Even the biggest fans of remote work won't go that far. I think you've forgotten what it's like to work in person.

I’d go that far! Whatever’s present in a cramped meeting room (or, in modern big tech, some random chairs because all the meeting rooms are reserved) that isn’t in a zoom call, I don’t want ;).

Maybe you could clarify what you meant?

Latency. Body language. Eye contact.

It all leads to constant interruptions and people speaking over others because all of the natural cues we rely on are missing or time-shifted.

Not to mention the ability to "read the room". You're often trying to gauge what other people are thinking -- are they receptive, confused, afraid to ask a question, satisfied, etc. This is far, far more difficult over Zoom.

Presenting some idea to the team on Zoom when everyone has their cameras off is really bad. People speak but you can't tell when they're going to speak, or who looks confused and might have a question on the tip of their tongue.

Even with cameras on it's hard to tell this stuff.

In person it's easy. It's possible some people (e.g. me) rely on these cues more, or are just uncomfortable with everyone constantly speaking over eachother, or effectively having to interrupt and talk over others.

If two people start speaking at the same time on Zoom, the optimal strategy is probably to just keep speaking and the other person will stop.

One glaring example to me has always been talking over one another. There’s no clear indication of who should talk next and it’s very hard to interject something quickly.

When I was in high school I was in a class where we were on a panel with other classmates and asked questions. During the course of a question several of us would have a response, which we indicated to each other by moving our hands forward. The first person to do this spoke first.

Zoom does have a “raise hand” feature but few people use it. If for example there was a key you could hold down to actively raise your hand, this problem would be partially solved.

Does Alt+Y or Option+Y not work?

I suppose they do, but people don’t use them unfortunately.

The bandwidth for communication in person is orders of magnitude higher.

It is obviously possible to waste or reduce that bandwidth to the point that you would be as efficient online but it is also possible to utilize that higher capacity effectively.

> Bandwidth for communication in person is orders of magnitude higher.

Not even a single order of magnitude (10x) higher, much less orders (100x or more) higher. No evidence of anything close to that assertion.

Remote collab is a skill like any other, it can be mastered, and it can be taught.

Try "10,000 hours of practice" at collaborating remotely, then teach it to others to scale out.

You'll find these remote friendly skills increase day-over-day bandwidth for teams larger than a single table.

You're getting at-least 10x more information in person. I don't know if I'd go 100x but it's probably closer to 100x then just 10x.

The statistic folks are citing for the 90% or 10x is based on a study of how much attitude information is conveyed non-verbally during a negotiation.

Engineering should be more about meaning content than attitude content, and engineering workshopping should not be a poker game.

The stat is not about conversation content, but conveying attitude. The study found attitude was conveyed 55% nonverbal, 38% vocal, and 7% words only.

By that study, using the telephone would be 55% info loss about attitude (tone and words convey 45%), and using video chat adds facial expression (majority of non-verbal attitude). Attitude info, not meaning info.

So no, it's not 10x more info in person, even for the narrow case of conveying negotiation attitude blind over telephone, plus most non-verbal attitude is conveyed by facial expression which comes through on video chat.

We aren't robots dude. Pitching ideas, getting buy in, debating possible implementations, etc all require "attitude content".

> video chat adds facial expression

Delayed and with significantly less detail.

> I think this is all bullshit. It most likely has to do with rental contracts the company signed and not wanting it to go to waste.

This is the sunk cost fallacy. While you've overlooked it, I promise you they haven't. If they already have the lease, they'd be happy to let the building sit empty without paying for utilities, security, etc. They'd be happy to offload facilities costs to employees.

I don't buy that for a second. To C-level executives and the members of a board, if we're paying for an office, 99% of the time they're gonna say "use it". They're not thinking about sunk costs.

Nobody thinks that way.

If they could save money right now by not paying for utilities and support staff without sacrificing productivity, they absolutely would do it.

And eventually that lease is going to come up for renewal, and they'd love to be able to cut costs then too. Bringing everyone back to the office makes that impossible, but they've decided it's worth it.

Just not true. I literally know of business owners/C-levels who think this way. "We're not just gonna leave this space here empty when we're already paying for it".

Things like utilities and support staff on large business park leases are often included or heavily discounted, not to mention that they're usually tax-deductible. Where are you getting your info?

"Sunk cost fallacy" is a phrase precisely because it's something that people often do. No one would have bothered making up a name for it if people consistently avoided making that mistake.

What is the job of a chief executive? Optimists say “make the company more profitable”, pessimists say “grow personal wealth and prestige“. Given the widely reported cases of decision makers in big tech also holding massive investments in commercial real estate, along with general “damn kids are lazy and want to WFH so that I can’t watch them” dogma, makes me a pessimist.

I remember reading arguments that executive should try to maximize the value of their shareholders' portfolios rather than just the firm itself. Which leads to interesting incentives that don't exactly align with the benefits you would want to get out of a market economy, such as firm A not entering firm B's market to avoid driving down retail prices, even if it would be beneficial for firm A on its own. So, the argument would be that if a lot of a firm's shareholders also own commercial real estate, it would be in the firm's shareholders interest for RTO, even if it wouldn't be in the individual firm's best interest.

TFA suggests these companies hold large amounts of commercial real estate as long-term investments, so “let the lease expire” is likely not an option.

Maybe I'm misinformed but if they are leasing the space doesn't that mean they don't own it?

EDIT: And if they DO own it, it they would probably prefer to pay some rental management company to rent it out as office space for passive income rather than fill it with their own expensive employees.

I think you’re right, and there are multiple reasons executives don’t see office space as a “sunk cost.”

A small part may even be that they value work done in-office more than work done remotely. But just pointing out it’s not the most plausible objection to remote work.

My company has been fully remote since 2020, I agree that collaboration is still easy. The sort of meetings where we used to sit in a conference room and brainstorm on a whiteboard just now happen over Teams with screen sharing.

I do think it's much easier when everyone is remote though. It sucks when half the people in a meeting are in a conference room and the rest are remote. You end up dealing with dumb technical difficulties and its too easy to exclude virtual folks from the conversation.

If that's true, we should expect office work to blow over in <=10 years when the leases expire.

On the contrary, it’ll happen much sooner. About $626B in debt is coming due for debt collateralized by office buildings in the near term (my note: refinancing? at these interest rates? hooboy). I'd expect much more rapid consolidation, office demos, and conversions to residential considering the financial pain.

> Landlords who try to hang on and weather the storm are likely to take a bigger hit than those who cut their losses more quickly, according to Bitner.

> “There’s going to be a reckoning,” he said, “and everybody that waited to deal with the problem is going to regret they did.”

With my apologies to Marie-Antoinette, "Let them take haircuts."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-23/landlords... | https://archive.is/2oRH8 (Landlords With $1.2 Trillion of Debt Face Rising Default Risks)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36901012 | https://archive.is/ELJET (US Office Space Is on Track to Shrink for First Time on Record)

>> On the contrary, it’ll happen much sooner. About $626B in debt is coming due for debt collateralized by office buildings in the near term

Not quite, I dont think. If defaults happen, the new owners get the building at lower prices and thus will be willing to lease at lower prices...making RTO more feasible for companies.

> the new owners get the building at lower prices

Who will make these loans? Lending has dried up for office space, and mid sized banks are in distress over these debts. Maybe PE or hedge funds can piece financing together, but without easy loans from banks, financing will be costly, impairing what purchase price you offer.

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/us-banks-sink-conce...

https://www.costar.com/article/328997282/big-us-banks-pull-b...

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2023/06/27/fifth...

https://www.axios.com/2023/03/21/small-bank-struggles-could-...

https://www.ft.com/content/a77695ac-a516-4654-8e0f-5aeb4f4ff...

>> Who will make these loans? Lending has dried up for office space

Once the current owners default, the banks own the buildings. They dont have the capital to carry the buildings, so they will fire-sell the buildings. someone will buy the buildings for sure, because if you fire-sell it inexpensively enough there will be buyers. There are numerous buyers, especially sovereign funds who would buy at a sufficient haircut of peak value.

Just like the 2008 resi crisis, there were fire sales at 10% of original value. It isnt clear what the "recovery value" is for Commercial Real Estate, esp office buildings, but it may be so low that lenders are willing to lend. Also, it may be so low that syndicates buy outright.

Sucks for CRE investors but if offices become cheap, won’t employers be even more inclined to keep them?

>conversions to residential

There's going to be a rude awakening if they think that's a good solution

Cost is $100-$500/sq ft. Sometimes the math pencils out better than demoing the building or eating a loss keeping it in service as office, especially if local govs are giving incentives to keep the potential economic benefits in the area. No emotions, build a model, execute on the most favorable scenario. It's just an asset.

EDIT: @bbor Absolutely. I believe the challenge is everyone's incentive is inertia. Cities don't want to lose tax dollars and economic activity, even though they will. Asset owners don't want to take haircuts, even though they will. I'm a strong union supporter so workers have agency over their working arrangements, versus being dragged back to the office because some bro who lucked into leadership says "because I say so." Rarely does anyone include happiness and quality of life in these metrics and models, which is unfortunate. Hope this helps.

Do you think there’s any room here to add a “what would be best for society” metric to this analysis, beyond just “what earns me the most money”? Obviously this realistically doesn’t happen, just curious on your stance, given your matter-of-fact take

I think certain kinds of work lend themselves to 100% remote being OK. I have worked remotely for about 10-11 years total out of my career. I just had to fly to client sites every once in a while, or drive in to the city to attend meetings.

The best thing about covid is that I haven't had to do either for a couple of years and the time saved (I don't work in airports or on planes, or obviously not while driving) has made me _more_ productive while spending less time on work (getting to and from client offices).

Face time now and then is a good thing, but, like I said, it depends on the type of work one is doing.