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Comment by monkmartinez | Hacker News Reader

The "well-known" fact you speak of is what my wife's boss uses to justify return to office. It's definitely not the massive investment in office furniture, office remodel, and meeting spaces that have been gussied up for impressions of success. No way it's that! /s

The fact that senior employees are leaving for remote work ensures junior people are all they have left! Junior people are, shockingly, not as productive as senior people... who would have thought?

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Those investments in office furniture, remodels, etc. are already sunk costs though. Why would they be used to justify RTO? If anything, it's more expensive to have people come in and use (read: destroy) furniture and equipment.

This is a genuine question. The RTO push has befuddled me for awhile because the money that's already gone into the offices (like the leases) were decided on awhile ago and will be paid out regardless if people come in or not. Perks like free lunch and snacks also cost more when you force people to come in. So I don't really understand the financial aspect of it.

Maybe it's management needing people in office to justify their jobs for some reason? I don't know.

Edit: I'm staff-level for what it's worth. I've also noticed that this article doesn't actually reflect reality; nearly every job listing I saw this year said that the applicant will have to be in the office 1-5 days a week.

Those investments in office furniture, remodels, etc. are already sunk costs though. Why would they be used to justify RTO?

you answered your own question. sunk costs fallacy.

Industry-wide? I guess I'm naive for thinking that some companies must have some smart people in the room and point out the fallacy

I know a lot of people here think executives are idiots but I really have trouble believing that any CEO is sitting there thinking "Damn. If I don't get people back into the office, all these office chairs we spent good money on will go to waste."

Exactly. Same with "Damn. We have to drive away our best talent to fill occupancy in the office we already signed a lease on despite rent being a fixed cost that isn't impacted by occupancy." Like, it just doesn't make sense to me.

I do understand to the degree tax incentives get involved. But, whether having deluded themselves or not, I do believe most execs pushing RTO are doing so for reasons they think are sound for collaboration, cultural, or other rational reasons.

I moved to a new role in my company a year and a half ago, and it's taken me this long to be confident enough to take responsibility for things that I'm not told explicitly to do. That's really the line between junior and senior in my opinion, both feeling like you have the power to make changes in addition to permission to do so. That transition is hard no matter if you are in the office or not (in the office, for my example) but it really can't happen if a junior is suddenly the senior tech because the real seniors all left.

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