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Comment by blackeyeblitzar | Hacker News Reader

Isn’t this illegal? Discussing work conditions and policies is protected by labor law.

Also something about Dimon’s aggression doesn’t sit well with me, considering the position of JP Morgan is entirely dependent on the public since banks rely on regulatory capture, are too big to fail, tied to the federal reserve, and so on. He pretends he and the company are above their employees in an undeserved way.

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There's been a resentment brewing in the leadership/ownership class for a few years about this. My theory is that the isolation of lock down kind of drove a wedge between these guys and their employees, and now they're majorly out of touch and fundamentally aren't interacting with the regular people who work for them, resulting in cruel policy like RTO and mass layoffs even at well functioning and profitable organizations. Just a lack of respect or knowledge of what their employees actually do.

I wonder if this is all just to protect Dimon’s ego. He was quoted saying he was unhappy that he was going to the office everyday and no one else was there. Or is it just to protect the value of their office buildings?

> Or is it just to protect the value of their office buildings?

I have a very strong belief it's the latter. Every corporate entity is doing wierd shit with Listed Property Trust investment on their own buildings, and if it can't rent refuse to rent below rate because it affects the asset value, and associated loan-to-value costs. Nobody wants to be the grown up admitting they bought at top of the peak and the office is worth 10x less. (fictional amount for illustrative purposes but I read that city buildings are selling way below buy cost)

That recently leaked memo where he go on a tirade is also just asinine. He's conflating bureaucracy with WFH, and talks about how there's 14 committees to accomplish something. He's the CEO. How much do you want to bet that complaining about the 14 committees even to Jamie will just result in 1. you being marked as a troublemaker, 2. resulting in 15 committees.

There's still zero evidence that WFH reduces productivity or that RTO increases productivity.

> There's still zero evidence that WFH reduces productivity or that RTO increases productivity.

Depends on the team and the job, which is what I appreciated about this employee's question. He brought up that for his team, there were 7 people scattered around the globe. RTO didn't make sense for them.

I manage two teams with 10 direct reports total. 9 of them are in NYC. Having some days in office absolutely has benefits. Personally, mandating 5 days in office doesn't make sense to me. People come in 3 or 4 days and that's great.

There isn't zero evidence that working in person has benefits. That's silly.

Complete anecdote, but my personal life experience is that offices only cause me to get more easily distracted and forget what I'm doing (which costs me time and productivity), whereas at home I can actually concentrate and not lose track of my own mental models, leading to better results.

It's kind of sadly become necessary after having some traumatic brain injury, since I wasn't quite like this a decade ago.

It really depends on what you're doing and what dynamics the task at hand requires.

Do you believe RTO leads to productivity increase? Why? Is there data to back that up?

I can’t imagine how I would have learned the programming trade if I hadn’t been in the office with more experienced engineers guiding me. I feel for all the young engineers out there today who have to deal with reluctant audio-only calls with senior team members or — worse yet — people who insist on all communication happening over text.

I also find it amazing how many people focus on “my productivity” and “my ability to focus” rather than on the team’s productivity. Professional software engineering is a team sport.

I don’t think 9-5 for five days a week is the right answer, but I also believe that frequent time in person is crucial for an excellent team.

How is learning to program from someone sitting next to you breathing down your neck better than learning to program via a Zoom code pairing session?

I’ve been writing software in and out of offices for 20 years, and I honestly don’t understand what do you mean.

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