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Comment by tristor | Hacker News Reader

>> you are incredibly lucky

> Says who?

Says anyone who has spent more than a decade in the workforce.

> There's no more reason for an office space to be bad rather than good. And there's no reason to think that having a good one is based on luck.

By “no reason”, you mean no logical reason. That might be true. Unfortunately a crafted reality controlled by sociopaths isn’t required to be logically consistent at every layer. Hence our current reality, where this is very much a case of luck.

> If office space dynamics and setup are important to you, then put it in your job search mental list and find a job that matches that.

Thanks for the advice. That’s /exactly/ what all the folks working remotely have done. That’s also why we are agitated by shitty management trying to take it away.

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Yea I can’t help but realize after my career in offices then seeing mass wfh, the sociopath layer depended deeply on a perceived panopticon of working in the office. The panopticon was a negative motivator for workers, but also a common experience that standardized the culture and expectations.

WFH was like setting rats in a maze to free range and noticing they can be more productive but at the expense of common purpose. This brings a new dimension to the notion of “productive” that the sociopath layer is uncomfortable with. I think because it implies workforce instability.

Even Google, a company that purported to be about worker freedom to harvest productivity if top workers, has retreated to this position.

It’s a bit shocking to me still nearly 4 years later.

> Even Google, a company that purported to be about worker freedom to harvest productivity if top workers, has retreated to this position.

If you take the approach of "watch what they do, not what they say", Google is one of the clearest examples of pro-RTO: they invest in so many perks because they want to make the panopticon feel comfy.

There are other companies that don't give you a darn thing and just dangle the loss of one's job as a threat (Amazon), but I think top performers are more swayed by the "free food" approach than the "let's have a big public dashboard with the entire team's attendance" approach (again, Amazon).

Amazon has always been the “by idiots for idiots” of tech companies.

Sorry this is patently elitist but I think it’s true.

> Says anyone who has spent more than a decade in the workforce.

Well, no. I have worked almost double that, and I don't feel that way.

I tend to think there is mainly an echo chamber of somewhat entitled young north americans incorrectly correlating high compensation in a decade long hyped industry (tech) with social status.

> a crafted reality controlled by sociopaths

Well if that is your definition of reality, maybe you should consider whether you could be part of your issue with office spaces...

> shitty management trying to take it away

Definitely, that kind of remark reinforces my opinion that you should reflect on whether your look at the situation is biased.

> I tend to think there is mainly an echo chamber of somewhat entitled young north americans

> you should reflect on whether your look at the situation is biased

LOL this is a troll right?

... right?

Anecdotally, I am aware of people who seem to truly believe that. I used to think it is a question of age, but even that quickly got corrected as from within my professional circle there was no clear way to determine a good predictor for office/no office preference. It seems oddly almost evenly split, which seems very weird to me.

That said, the 'entitled young Americans' thing appears to be a common talking point I see on linkedin and other corporate safe spaces.

Haha this is like a really poor attempt at PowerTalk and sociopathy from a wannabe executive.

"Have you considered the increased opportunities for synergies in the office? We should punt on this until next quarter's all hands when we can utilize our increased office presence to actualize our OKRs."

Even more “this is a problem with your perception of reality not mine”

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