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Comment by Jahkk | Hacker News Reader

When I interned at MS in 2021, I was forced to be remote. I sat in calls with heavily-accented people with crying babies in the background. It was unbelievably bad. I was catching every third word from my “mentor”.

That’s why I’m not there today. (I turned down a full time offer)

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Sounds like you would prefer a in person job.

The question is not “do some people prefer offices”, the problem is “some people prefer offices and then require everyone else to be there to support them as well”

Since the purpose of a company is to function as a whole, and not to accommodate individual employees, the actual question and issue at hand is whether companies and company teams function better working remotely or working in office. This is also a matter not simply of the state of being in office, but of office work. Coming to the office to only talk to remote employees is not office work, but remote work with more steps. Office work isn't possible unless the team is present.

Which means you are making the assumption that working in an office is better, so you need to be able to back that up.

I could just as easily ask why everyone is having to go to an office to accommodate people who can only work in office environments. Especially given the overwhelming evidence that office environments reduce productivity, morale, and employee health?

You're just repeating the "I can't do my job unless I'm in an office, therefore I need everyone else to spend hours every week coming into an office to coddle me". Me not spending hours of unpaid time coming to the office does not prevent you from going into an office. You requiring me to drive for hours to come to the office has a direct and measurable cost, that solely benefits you.

It does not benefit productivity. It does not benefit morale. It actively harms the health of everyone, including you.

> Office work isn't possible unless the team is present.

Well yes, you've just said "everyone being in the office is only possible if everyone is in the office". My job, and the job of most people in tech (or jobs where being in the office is not required to work), is not to heat a seat in an office.

The fact that you use work as a proxy for a social life, or find it necessary to interrupt other people who are working, does not mean that being in an office is necessary to do our jobs. It means it is necessary for you to do your job.

So please stop presenting your own requirements as if they (1) apply to everyone universally, and (2) supporting your requirements is free for everyone else. (1) is demonstrably false, (2) is just selfish - why do you get to demand your coworkers give up a significant fraction of their lives and a significant amount of money to support your requirements?

What I am saying is that going to the office is not up to you nor myself. If a company decides that it is better for the company, then that company may reason that they should mandate in office work, as I mentioned in the first sentence of the previous comment. I've known people, as has almost everyone, that has had this happen at their companies. If a company crosses a threshold of workers doing office work, but still has remote workers, then the company may decide that they want to facilitate full office work for everyone, and may implement measures to incentivize office work, or else punish those who remain remote. This will be simply a business decision, as despite all the talk of it, businesses are not family, and do not care about anyone's feelings.

Many people would counter the suggestion of back to office mandates with the idea that it will work if the people who want to come in can come in and the people who do not want to can stay remote. My previous comment was a response to this idea from a business's perspective, that in office work may not be possible for individuals, unless the rest of their team is also in the building. As I mentioned, it is up to the companies to decide what is best for the business. If they decide return to office is best for business then it will be return to office mandates, otherwise they may allow remote work indefinitely.

This other argument of the only point of people pushing office work due to being a proxy for "social life" as you put it is one of the most common things I hear get thrown around. Again, I'm not sure why you decided to attribute this to me, as I'm not in charge of the mandates and never implied I'm in office. I was just offering up the reasoning on the other side. However, from my perspective, I don't think that upper leadership in any company which is considering a return to office mandate, is going to find this criticism convincing in the least.

And now, people go back to the office and I hear other people in the background instead of babies because companies have mandatory office days when they have all employees there at the same time. I can tell you, it's easier to phase out baby than other people in the background :)

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