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Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

I enjoyed the year I consulted at JPMC, they have some sharp people, and on the surface of it, who am I to criticise the boss of such a successful company? OTOH…

I can see the argument that young people aren’t being exposed to older peers the same way and their learning may be stunted.

But… I haven’t set foot in an office for five years now and I’m as productive as I ever was. Possibly more.

As for his “people are distracted during meetings”, perhaps there ought to be more focus on only holding necessary meetings, rather than dragging people in when there’s no reason for them to be there and nothing to hold their interest? In my experience that’s the cause of a lot of the snark and slacking.

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> I can see the argument that young people aren’t being exposed to older peers the same way and their learning may be stunted.

I agree with this, but I didn't grow up with a phone in my hand. I didn't have a mobile phone until I was about 30 years old and I didn't have a smartphone until I was in my 40s. I can't work well with people over remote calls, I hate Zoom and desktop sharing, don't like slack or teams. I find it so much more efficient to sit with another person or small group if there is a group task to be completed or a group decision to be made.

That said, unnecessary meetings are a real thing, have been a problem in large orgs forever, and Zoom doesn't fix that. Might make it worse, as invites are not limited by the physical size of the room.

I can, and so can many others. I guess it comes down to preference and personality.

I spent so many years in offices, in open plan offices where whole teams would sit with their headphones on loud, trying to ignore the presence of all other humans, that actually working in my own space has been a relief.

In my 40s now though, I work on stuff I’m interested in, and have a work ethic that doesn’t require oversight. 20 years ago I may not have been so good at it.

Counter-perspective, but largely in agreement: I did grow up with a mobile phone and instant messaging and whatnot, and so using Slack (and to some extent, Zoom, as much as I dislike video compared to text) feels very natural to me.

To me, as someone who has deep and meaningful friendships with certain people mediated almost entirely through Discord messaging, which is basically non-work Slack, asynchronous mentorship and collaboration don't seem strange at all. I do recognize not everyone's a fan, and that there is a certain learning curve involved if you're not used to it (gamers, for example, seem to fall into virtual work naturally), but it's absolutely doable and these C-levels who say it's not are behind the curve.

this is my story, growing up on MSN messenger and warezbb. simpler times, when my mum would shout at me for hogging the phone line.

I'm in my 40s. I prefer zoom meetings. I don't think mobile phone usage has all that much to do with it tbh. Some people just really seem to want other people to be in the room with them and at the same time are somewhat oblivious to the fact that we don't care or don't want to be there.

And realistically how many times is Jamie Dimon meeting with the entry level Zoomers? Here and there but the CEO spends his time meeting with exec and mid level management.

I issued an ultimatum to staff in 2023 that they either return to the office or would be let go, and we saw a dramatic increase in productivity

To anyone else coming across this: this is a lie.

their comment history is certainly… interesting.

What is your model? That is, how did you measure this? Productivity and the impacts to it are highly multivariate and most analysis thus far has failed to do show convincing effects in either direction from remote work.

Genuinely, there is too much appeal to emotion from both sides of the argument and not enough substance, so if you have something here I'd be interested to read about it.

Through the number of tasks on the board that staff were getting cleared per month. The results are so clear that we have actually gone further than just reversing the work from home policies enacted post Covid, to actually banning it entirely (pre-covid it was allowed with permission)

They don’t have anything because they’re lying. Even the sibling comment is a fabrication.

Yes, we're making you all come into the office just to annoy you all and cause you hassle. It has nothing at all to do with the effects it had on productivity, and people being discovered running their own side busineses at the same time, or watching television and countless other issues they can get away with without others being able to see their screens

> ultimatum

Yeah, I think there's a bigger issue with management here if this is how it was handled.

Oh there's no issues. I'm interested in making money and my business is very successful at doing that because of how I run it.

> people are distracted during meetings

It feels like he's just old and pining for days gone by - in person meetings have people staring at their laptops and phones too. I dislike that as well, but that's not a WFH issue.

Where I worked in the past, those people would get a private reprimand after that meeting.

> in person meetings have people staring at their laptops and phones too

I've worked at a variety of places with a variety of problems, but I've never seen that kind of rudeness be widespread or persistent. It was corrected in different ways depending on the company culture, but it was corrected.

I guess I'm unlucky, though the companies were full of young people which might be a factor

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