BenFiasco14 said:

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FL_Ag1998 said:

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BenFiasco14 said:

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FL_Ag1998 said:

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Bottom line

1) WFH works fine for some, not for all. Not every situation is the same and it doesn't come down to just age and fear driving the back to work push, despite what Infinity Ag says.

2) if there is constant grab-assing and screwing around in your office that's just a plain and simple lack of leadership in your branch. Totally different issue.

3) yes IT nerds, there is tremendous value in actual face to face social time amongst team members. I don't mean hours long chit chats and it doesn't need to be every day. But yes it is important for a functioning team.

4) no one forces you to live where you live nor take a job hours from there. Your choice in both of those. Live with your choice.

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On Point 4, I find this attitude odd coming from this board that generally and rightfully so warns against the dangers of living in the city. It's considered virtue around here to live "in the country" away from all the liberals and failed democrats policies. Yet at the same time we want to discourage this and force normal people to live in some blue hellscape so they can be closer to their desk?

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Not at all. I've said the whole time that there are plenty of jobs which can be done remotely. But if you don't have one of those jobs, and you need to be in the office for your job to be done effectively, then you have a choice. If you value living remotely, that may require a long commute to work. That's a choice, a sacrifice that you choose to make. And if you value living remotely enough then it'll be a worthwhile sacrifice.

But some people want their cake and wanna eat it too. They want to perform jobs which by their nature require an office presence, but they also want to live remotely an hour and a half from the office and reserve the right to complain about the commute.

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I agree with you and should've clarified my response wasn't necessarily directed at you, but more just a general statement to "the board". These threads are always interesting because there's a lot of folks here I agree with on most issues yet they are vehemently anti work from home.

I would like to provide a counter point to the statements in here talking about the impact WFH can have on economies where work centers are (restaurants etc). Couldn't WFH be a blessing in disguise that can maybe decentralize where we have all the activity? In other words, if people aren't coming into Dallas or Houston as often, why not focus more on placing amenities farther away from the city core instead of focusing on high rises and the like? What if this could resurrect formerly dead small towns with small businesses - coffee shops for remote workers to work at and a way to reinvigorate formerly dead local economies.

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All very valid points and thoughts worth considering. I just push back on the posters who want to treat every job the same and act like work from home can work for every scenario. I also tend to find from personal experience that the younger and more inexperienced the employee the less likely WFH is appropriate for them. Most want to feel some sort of connection to the team members they're working with and most don't have the personal accountability to be productive working from home.

Bird Poo said:

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My son recieved an offer for a full time accounting gig with one of the big 4 after he graduates this May. A lot of his internship was remote and I assume a lot of his job will also be remote, but I think it's a tough ask for big corporations force talented professionals to commute to a hell-hole, live with reasonable proximity to that hell-hole, and pay rent out the rear.

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Hell-hole? Do you mean not a suburb? Big 4 firms are not in hell-holes.

Ed Harley said:

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Bird Poo said:

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My son recieved an offer for a full time accounting gig with one of the big 4 after he graduates this May. A lot of his internship was remote and I assume a lot of his job will also be remote, but I think it's a tough ask for big corporations force talented professionals to commute to a hell-hole, live with reasonable proximity to that hell-hole, and pay rent out the rear.

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Hell-hole? Do you mean not a suburb? Big 4 firms are not in hell-holes.

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I mean hellhole is a little much. But I'm a former Big 4 employee and parking ain't cheap. For the salary you are making when you start, you are parking in some rough spots.

BoydCrowder13 said:

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Ed Harley said:

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Bird Poo said:

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My son recieved an offer for a full time accounting gig with one of the big 4 after he graduates this May. A lot of his internship was remote and I assume a lot of his job will also be remote, but I think it's a tough ask for big corporations force talented professionals to commute to a hell-hole, live with reasonable proximity to that hell-hole, and pay rent out the rear.

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Hell-hole? Do you mean not a suburb? Big 4 firms are not in hell-holes.

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I mean hellhole is a little much. But I'm a former Big 4 employee and parking ain't cheap. For the salary you are making when you start, you are parking in some rough spots.

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I've worked in the CBD for 20 years and never once heard complaining about the neighborhood until post-Covid. It's manufactured rage. People telling their kids it's a hell-hole is doing them a disservice.

Logos Stick said:

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Looks like they will be losing major talent.

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What a clown comment. No they won't.

Burnsey said:

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Logos Stick said:

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Looks like they will be losing major talent.

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What a clown comment. No they won't.

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What logos stick doesn't understand, if you die today, your job will be filled tomorrow.

Even the CEO can be replaced. No one is unreplaceable, not even the 50 million dollar a year pitcher.

It's called next man up.

FL_Ag1998 said:

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Bottom line



3) yes IT nerds, there is tremendous value in actual face to face social time amongst team members. I don't mean hours long chit chats and it doesn't need to be every day. But yes it is important for a functioning team.

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How many companies have their Tech team co-located? Almost none. They have their tech teams literally spread around the world either though off-shoring, managed services, or other low-cost strategies.

There is no doubt that co-located teams are the MOST effective way, but the moment companies trade that in for low-cost on the one hand, and then claim others need to RTO for the benefits of togetherness, they are 100% talking out of both sides of their mouth. Said another way - they are lying.

My earlier point is that the hybrid approach most companies are taking (3 days in office, 2 days at home) is STILL better than offshoring in terms of team effectiveness. They however aren't canning offshoring, they however canning hybrid... ergo, it has nothing to do with effectiveness as their motivation. it has to do with control issues by the c-suite and the fact that they don't like having empty space they are paying for. Effectiveness is a red-herring until they start truly co-locating teams.

Hybrid makes sense, but 5 days a week at this point is pointless.

100% agree, it doesn't work for everything.

I'm somewhat fortunate in that my graded work has to be billed directly to clients, so there's no running away from that. They truly do not care what you are doing with your time if you aren't billing.

ETA this is the first time I've ever given props to the billable hour model, lol

I can't imagine ever going back to a full time 5 days a week job.


My company (headquartered in Manhattan) only has fully Remote and Hybrid roles now. Hybrid is 1-3 days a week/6 days a month in the office.


Off the top benefits

-no time spent in traffic
-no interruptions in my home office (unless one of my cats hasn't been fed yet)
-I can dress comfortably
-I eat my lunch at home
-If I have to meet with someone on the west coast, Hawaii, or the UK, it's easy to do outside of normal office hours.


Benefits for my company
-my company doesn't pay me as much as hybrid employees because I don't live in NY
-They no longer have a gym or health clinic at the office as it was severely under utilized post covid
-They were able to cut back on staffing for security
-The cafe and coffee shop is no longer open on Fridays because no one comes in on Fridays
-Reduced utility expenses
-My company owns their building so they aren't trying to justify a hefty rent payment every month. That means they are also able to rent out the bottom floor to a retailer to bring in additional revenue

I still work my full 7 hour day from home with out any issues. My reviews have been stellar and generally my company is pretty pleased with the WFH set up. They just announced a big reorganization of the office to group hybrid employees closer together and free up floor space. The goal is to use the new space for project rooms, meeting area, sound proof call/meeting rooms, etc. will allowing those in the office to interact with more people.

There are only a handful of people I work with that I haven't met in person as I typically go into the office twice a year for work and once for the Holiday party.


Obviously WFH doesn't work for everyone or every job. But its not an automatic bull **** arrangement that some many people seem to think it is.

Yeah, you touched on something I forgot to mention.

When you and your team are remote and spread out around the country, when you DO get together in person, it's actually super exciting and fun (if you like who you work with I suppose lol).

Burnsey said:

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Logos Stick said:

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Looks like they will be losing major talent.

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What a clown comment. No they won't.

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Yes they will. There are 500k software companies in the US. Engineers have options. If the top 10% of those companies, which is 50k companies, potentially hired only a single engineer from Amazon with a remote work offer, that's a lot of engineers that could be gone. Thinking otherwise is moronic. We lost a top engineer to Amazon a few years back because they offered full-time remote work which we would not do, we allow hybrid only. So my company loses an engineer to another tech company because they offered same salary and remote work, but Amazon won't. They are safe. Laughably stupid.

Psycho Bunny said:

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Burnsey said:

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Logos Stick said:

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Looks like they will be losing major talent.

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What a clown comment. No they won't.

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What logos stick doesn't understand, if you die today, your job will be filled tomorrow.

Even the CEO can be replaced. No one is unreplaceable, not even the 50 million dollar a year pitcher.

It's called next man up.

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LoL, it's not plug and play in high tech my friend. Not for the top dogs. You sound like Biden. Just learn to code.

Icecream_Ag said:

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We have 1 person that is basically wfh. His work is noticeably worse than everyone in the office and getting in touch with him if we have questions about what he did is also difficult.

All in all, if you can be good working from home all power to you, but personally and noticing diminished quality at my office when others do it's not the norm

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So fire him and find someone that won't abuse the privilege of working from home!

WFH flexibility has allowed me to hire some really solid people around the country. It allows me to work 2+ months in the summer from my preferred location.

Do I miss being in the office every day? Yup. Do I appreciate the flexibility? Yup.

I work from home when I'm not traveling, and have an option to drive into the office whenever I want. It's perfect. Most weeks I go in at least a day or two, not because I'm more productive, just because I feel I need to get out of the house, catch up with some people, and just get a change of scenery.

The people who excel while working from home are generally the same ones who would excel in the office. Same thing is true of the shi*t bags

Logos Stick said:

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Looks like they will be losing major talent.

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Going where? Most corporations are going back to in office work. There are few jobs that increase effectiveness by working at home.

You know what is ironic here that someone mentioned on LinkedIn?

1994
To buy a book, you had to go to a bookstore like Barnes & Noble. Then Amazon came in and disrupted everything and say "Check this out! You can now buy books over the internet and not even have to drive to a store, we will ship it to you! It's also cheaper!". Amazon used new technology (the internet) to create a whole new way of doing things that people found useful. They extended it to other items also over the years.

2024
The same Amazon rejects the new way of doing work using the same internet. Now you can work with people from all around the world, hold meetings, talk to them, see them, share documents with them, all in real time. Amazon is taking us back to the old days where work was done only with people surrounding you. In my current job, I have to work in an office 3 days a week so I commute 1.5 hours each way and spend 6 hours a day talking to people on Teams/Zoom in different cities who are doing the same thing. I don't work with anyone sitting at desks near me.

Well done, Amazon. Short sighted arrogant leadership will bring you down.

Quote:

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In my current job, I have to work in an office 3 days a week so I commute 1.5 hours each way and spend 6 hours a day talking to people on Teams/Zoom in different cities who are doing the same thing. I don't work with anyone sitting at desks near me.

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I'm former Amazon and that is exactly how it was for me. They have to use badging data to enforce the policy b/c your boss or co-workers have no idea if you were in the office....because they're all spread out around the country.

It would've made more sense if they just restricted new hires to a single location so the team could collaborate in person.

My wife works remotely, but at some point last year they were pushing her to go back to and work from their Plano office. She did for a couple weeks, but the team she solely works and communicates with is based in Chicago.

So she was commuting to an office desk where she still had to get on Zoom calls/meetings with people who weren't even there. Thankfully her immediate manager thought it wasn't necessary, and let her go back to remote. But had she went along with the overall company policy of RTO that would have drove her insane until she found another position. It just doesn't make sense in so many situations.

I knew multiple people that hacked the system by getting assigned to a building that doesn't have card readers (corporate person got themselves assigned to a delivery station that doesn't even have desks). So they never went to the office and did whatever they wanted while those assigned to big corporate buildings were getting written up and threatened with termination for failing to meet the policy.

It's a complete mess.

Noble07 said:

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Quote:

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In my current job, I have to work in an office 3 days a week so I commute 1.5 hours each way and spend 6 hours a day talking to people on Teams/Zoom in different cities who are doing the same thing. I don't work with anyone sitting at desks near me.

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I'm former Amazon and that is exactly how it was for me. They have to use badging data to enforce the policy b/c your boss or co-workers have no idea if you were in the office....because they're all spread out around the country.

It would've made more sense if they just restricted new hires to a single location so the team could collaborate in person.

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In my case, they don't track because the company isn't very high tech but Amazon is so I can very well see them spending time money and energy to track employees instead of treating them like adults.

I just have 10 more years to spend in this mess that is Corporate America and I am done.

FL_Ag1998 said:

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3) yes IT nerds, there is tremendous value in actual face to face social time amongst team members. I don't mean hours long chit chats and it doesn't need to be every day. But yes it is important for a functioning team.

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Several people have posted on here how much they love working from home, and how they are thriving both professionally and personally. And I have no doubt that they are. I've said before that people who are thriving with WFH are probably benefiting from personal contacts they developed from before the pandemic or WFH.

And I'm sure someone will post up that they started a new gig that was exclusively WFH, they've hired a whole team that is WFH, none of them have ever met in-person, and everything's going great. And I'm happy for them.

However, I still feel in most situations there needs to be SOME face-to-face time to build a team with a good working relationship.

BenFiasco14 said:

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FL_Ag1998 said:

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BenFiasco14 said:

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FL_Ag1998 said:

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Bottom line

1) WFH works fine for some, not for all. Not every situation is the same and it doesn't come down to just age and fear driving the back to work push, despite what Infinity Ag says.

2) if there is constant grab-assing and screwing around in your office that's just a plain and simple lack of leadership in your branch. Totally different issue.

3) yes IT nerds, there is tremendous value in actual face to face social time amongst team members. I don't mean hours long chit chats and it doesn't need to be every day. But yes it is important for a functioning team.

4) no one forces you to live where you live nor take a job hours from there. Your choice in both of those. Live with your choice.

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On Point 4, I find this attitude odd coming from this board that generally and rightfully so warns against the dangers of living in the city. It's considered virtue around here to live "in the country" away from all the liberals and failed democrats policies. Yet at the same time we want to discourage this and force normal people to live in some blue hellscape so they can be closer to their desk?

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Not at all. I've said the whole time that there are plenty of jobs which can be done remotely. But if you don't have one of those jobs, and you need to be in the office for your job to be done effectively, then you have a choice. If you value living remotely, that may require a long commute to work. That's a choice, a sacrifice that you choose to make. And if you value living remotely enough then it'll be a worthwhile sacrifice.

But some people want their cake and wanna eat it too. They want to perform jobs which by their nature require an office presence, but they also want to live remotely an hour and a half from the office and reserve the right to complain about the commute.

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I agree with you and should've clarified my response wasn't necessarily directed at you, but more just a general statement to "the board". These threads are always interesting because there's a lot of folks here I agree with on most issues yet they are vehemently anti work from home.

I would like to provide a counter point to the statements in here talking about the impact WFH can have on economies where work centers are (restaurants etc). Couldn't WFH be a blessing in disguise that can maybe decentralize where we have all the activity? In other words, if people aren't coming into Dallas or Houston as often, why not focus more on placing amenities farther away from the city core instead of focusing on high rises and the like? What if this could resurrect formerly dead small towns with small businesses - coffee shops for remote workers to work at and a way to reinvigorate formerly dead local economies.

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I agree, this could be a boom financially for small towns near big cities with remote workers moving further and further out. However, there are so many people in limbo right now, "will my company ever make me go back to the office or not?" That is keeping a lot of people like me from moving out of the city, even though I would love to get away from here and move back to my roots.

Our company went back to hybrid work in Q2 this year. Very unpopular decision and IMO, was a silent layoff. We knew several people that had moved across teh country and they ended up resigning when called back. I will say that several groups got worse over time when remote like our supply chain and AP groups. It was a bloody nightmare, but its better now that they are in the office, for whatever reason. This is not to say remote is good or bad, I am very PRO remote work.

I wish my job was remote, but that is impossible. I drive 68mi one way for my job, but I imagine I have one of the highest paying jobs around, so the drive is worth it. I love where I live though, a quiet small mountain town in CO with less than 2000ppl. Probably one of the safest places you could live. We have a group of software folks that work remote here, I cannot imagine a better setup than what they have here. Once our facility closes in 4 years, I am not sure what I will do, but I plan on finding a remote role or a travelling consultant role so I can stay where I am.

Def not for everyone, and def not for all roles, but for tech, if you can't run a multinational distributed team, you're doing it wrong and losing out on so many advantages.

Some:
* Attracting Higher value talent- more motivated, innovative, energized, healthy
* 2 hours per day saved from travel
* You're going to be distributed anyway, bc no tech is all onsite. (Cloud engineers, data centers, contractors, acquisitions, etc.)
* can recruit globally
* can pay less

Others:
Better families
Better communities
Less reliance on urban centers
Less traffic
Less pollution
Better healthy eating

Hoyt Ag said:

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Our company went back to hybrid work in Q2 this year. Very unpopular decision and IMO, was a silent layoff. We knew several people that had moved across teh country and they ended up resigning when called back. I will say that several groups got worse over time when remote like our supply chain and AP groups. It was a bloody nightmare, but its better now that they are in the office, for whatever reason. This is not to say remote is good or bad, I am very PRO remote work.

I wish my job was remote, but that is impossible. I drive 68mi one way for my job, but I imagine I have one of the highest paying jobs around, so the drive is worth it. I love where I live though, a quiet small mountain town in CO with less than 2000ppl. Probably one of the safest places you could live. We have a group of software folks that work remote here, I cannot imagine a better setup than what they have here. Once our facility closes in 4 years, I am not sure what I will do, but I plan on finding a remote role or a travelling consultant role so I can stay where I am.

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That sounds awesome. I would love to work remote full time in Colorado. Growing up my parents had a cabin in Pagosa Springs. Used to travel their a lot and got to know quite a few people in the area..I'm just too scared to take the plunge and move somewhere remote like that because my company is always changing upper management, and never know when one of them will want us to Return to the office. Have thought about getting a camper though once my kids are out of high school and just travel to places like that temporarily and work. My wife is a mammo Xray tech and can get wotk just about anywhere also. She gets a lot of job offers where they will pay her extra to travel to different states to work for just a couple of weeks to a month.

Yeah, you can't risk it unless you get some sort of contract in writing that designates you a remote worker.

After I left my first company, they contacted me a few years later and asked if I would come back. They offered me a remote position at a satellite office. I turned them down. A couple months later I had a change of mind. I approached them about coming back and working remote like they had offered. The manager who was there before had moved to another group. New manager said "no, we don't want anyone who is remote". LoL.

Glad I didn't go back. Company was full of idiots to be honest.

Most of wife's company is remote but they do have some offices. She and her manager both fully remote.

I'm fully remote and my company is about 20% fully remote workers.

I literally just closed a candidate today I'm hiring over this issue. Truly exceptional guy (PhD from Oxford and AI expert) who was leaning towards Amazon but going in the office 5 days a week was a no go for him as he has worked from home for a long time. My company is fine with WFH.

aggie93 said:

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I literally just closed a candidate today I'm hiring over this issue. Truly exceptional guy (PhD from Oxford and AI expert) who was leaning towards Amazon but going in the office 5 days a week was a no go for him as he has worked from home for a long time. My company is fine with WFH.

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If you hire the right people wfh is about a 100% productivity increase


When I think back to how much time I wasted commuting & sitting in an office listening to people who stopped by office to babble it's truly mind numbing

aggie93 said:

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I literally just closed a candidate today I'm hiring over this issue. Truly exceptional guy (PhD from Oxford and AI expert) who was leaning towards Amazon but going in the office 5 days a week was a no go for him as he has worked from home for a long time. My company is fine with WFH.

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Nice!