Comment by jdbernard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jdbernard | Hacker News Reader

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> They are trying to get people to work with them who don't want to work with them. This is exactly the same thing as RTO does to WFH people.

This is not at all the same. There is a clear difference, again, between the RTO position which requires positive action from other people (travel in to work, come into a physical location) and the WFH position, which does not require anything of their RTO colleagues beyond what the job requires anyways. How can you not see the difference here?

"They are trying to get people to work with them who don't want to work with them." What is this supposed to mean, concretely? Are you saying that because Bob is not in the office you don't want to work with Bob, but Bob is forcing you to work with him? This is not the argument WFH people are making. It is management that has a vested interest in requiring people to work together. I've never heard a serious proponent of WFH arguing that you have to work with them.

Are you saying that having remote team members requires you to use tools and practices that you don't have to in an in-person setting? I would counter that Jira, Zoom, Slack/Teams, Email, etc., all of these "remote/async" tools are not unique to remote workers. And they pre-date the normalization of remote working. Even in a fully on-prem model the vast majority of companies are still using these tools because of the convenience and control they give management, because they have offices distributed geographically, and because they want to be able to communicate beyond the in-office hours of operation. Again, this is not something that the WFH people are pushing onto the RTO people, it is something management at large has decided for the company.

Really, it's hard to take you seriously and I'm sorry for my attitude, but I can't help but see this as an extremely entitled position that is requiring other people to go out of their way to accommodate your desires. If I'm misunderstanding, please correct me and name a single positive action that a WFH proponent is requiring an in-office proponent take that would not be part of their regular job responsibilities in an in-office setting. Not a "they are depriving me of my preference because they just won't do what I want," but something they are actually requiring you to do.

> How can you not see the difference here?

Each of the 2 groups wants to inconvenience the other group. You’re free to argue “positive action” (whatever that means) or make one group out as worse than the other though. I just happen to think that both are equally right/wrong (which is to say not at all).

> I can't help but see this as an extremely entitled position that is requiring other people to go out of their way to accommodate your desires

Oh, so like when a WFH person says, “I don’t want to ever come into the office”? They’re making anyone whose desires include not working with remote workers accommodate their desires.

Again, I can’t state this plainly enough: Nobody is right and nobody is wrong here.

We’re talking about groups of people with different preferences and unfortunately these preferences are at odds. Two of these groups include:

• People who would like to work in an office only with people who are also in that office – no remote work.

• People who strongly prefer remote work.

It is a question of which group does the company choose to upset. Of course there are other groups involved as well, but you get the idea. Somebody is going to be upset to some degree.

If they choose to upset the pro-office people, they are not wrong! If they choose to upset the WFH people, they are also not wrong! If they choose to upset everyone they are not wrong!

What I mean by positive action is, you are requiring me to actively do something. I agree that we all have preferences, and often we cannot satisfy everyone's preferences, particularly when they are at odds as you have pointed out. Fair.

However, I see a very big difference between a preference that requires other people to take specific action to satisfy, and one that does not, and that's exactly the dynamic I see here. It is that expectation that other people will do things that they prefer not to do in order to satisfy your preference that I see as entitled.

As an aside, I'm not arguing right or wrong. I actually see many benefits to a good office environment (see my sibling comment in this discussion for the problem I have, basically that the majority of office environments are not good). I'm arguing coercion vs. freedom. My argument is that the RTO position is coercive in a way that the WFH position is not, that it's not the same.

I will take several simple example to try and explain how I see this difference.

Consider a Christmas party. I want to wear red and green. I don't care what other people wear. I'm not putting any restriction or obligation on other people. I can satisfy my preference through my own actions alone.

Now consider that I wan everyone to wear red and green. I am not going to be happy unless everyone is wearing red and green. In this example I cannot satisfy my preference without convincing or coercing other people to respect my preference. I am expecting my preference to win out over everyone else. I can frame the argument as "why should their (individual) preference to wear white supercede my (collective) preference that we wear green and red?" It is not the same because my preference in this scenario requires other people to actively change what they are doing.

Now, as you have said, this is not necessarily right or wrong (maybe we're taking theme photos, who knows), and I'm not making the argument that WFH is morally superior or necessarily more productive/better in any way. All I am doing is pointing out that your position is coercive in a way that the opposite is not.

> All I am doing is pointing out that your position is coercive in a way that the opposite is not.

Mission accomplished I guess?

My point is that it doesn’t matter which is more coercive because each party doesn’t care about inconveniencing and upsetting the other as long as they get what they want.

It matters because I think that this coercive aspect does has moral implications. It is a core moral position for me to be as minimally coercive as possible in all actions. Or put differently, I believe all people are equal in value and should have equal access to self-determination and freedom of choice. At some level cooperation at the level of civilization and society requires that we surrender our individual freedom to some degree, but I believe one of the strongest lessons of history is that, as a general rule, nobody is a better judge of what is "right" for a person then that person themselves.

With that as a principle, coercive choices require, morally, a higher bar of justification.

If we truly throw concern for others our the window, I believe we ultimately lose the foundation for cooperation and polite society and eventually degenerate into some form of "might makes right," and I would argue we're already there to some degree.

As you can probably guess, I am doubtful that the value of RTO justifies the coercion required, at least as currently envisioned and with offices as they are currently designed. And the proof of this, to me, is the exodus of workers from companies making this mandate.

I recognize that company ownership has the ability to require this, but they have to recognize that this kind of coercive action is counter to a spirit of cooperation and "ownership."

From the employee POV, even if I was a RTO supporter, I would not be in favor of mandatory RTO because of this coercive aspect. I prefer not to force my preferences on others in any aspect of my life.

I recognize that this may be a point where we disagree, but that is why I was so passionate to point out that the two positions are not the same. They differ on a point that is critical from my point of view.

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