[HN Gopher] Amazon postpones return to office until January 2022
___________________________________________________________________
Amazon postpones return to office until January 2022
Author : flowerlad
Score : 128 points
Date : 2021-08-05 18:00 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| I took bets with others on when we'd be allowed return to the
| office. This was in March 2020.
|
| Some said April, some stated June or July. One outrageous bet was
| January 2021 which we all took as a bit of a joke. No way would
| this last that long. "People will wear masks and isolate and
| we'll beat this".
|
| We made the same bet in March 2021, laughing at our previous bad
| estimates. The furthest out was again January next year. That was
| a ridiculous suggestion we thought. "The vaccine is here it
| should be over soon".
|
| I wonder how 2022 will go.
| spidersouris wrote:
| This is only my opinion, but really, we cannot afford to
| continue like this for months and months, or hell, even years.
| Once most of the population will be vaccinated, there will
| absolutely be no reason to keep facilities closed anymore. The
| reason lockdowns were decided was because the virus caused
| hospitals and medical facilities to struggle under the weight
| of critical cases. With the vaccine, and even if new variants
| appear, the number of people having to go to the hospital will
| plummet. We'll have to find one way or another to live with the
| virus as it will never be eradicated completely.
| danhak wrote:
| > Once most of the population will be vaccinated, there will
| absolutely be no reason to keep facilities closed anymore
|
| Most of the population _has_ been vaccinated.
|
| 50.4% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated:
|
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-
| trac...
| wayoutthere wrote:
| Why can't we keep going like this? Profit continues whether
| workers go back to the office or not. Companies are making
| money hand over fist right now.
|
| If this stretches past the end of 2021, WFH will simply be a
| feature of the white collar economy. Companies are already
| finding it hard to break inertia and get people back into the
| office; after another 6 months of this they're not even going
| to try.
| refulgentis wrote:
| There are people who are suffering greatly under these
| arrangements and it's not talked about much. It's much
| easier to understand how hard it is to have kids at home
| while juggling work than it is to understand the
| detrimental effect of Big Tech having you move somewhere,
| then shutting off any ability you have to form social
| connections
|
| There's a lot of ways to nerdsnipe that argument, ex. "just
| move back!"...it's too late, those social connections are
| gone
| wayoutthere wrote:
| Right, but this assumes that nobody was suffering under
| the pre-pandemic work culture. For many people I talk to,
| their lives have significantly improved under this
| dynamic. Yes, with kids.
|
| There are also a lot of places to make social connections
| that aren't work.
| spidersouris wrote:
| Sorry - my comment was more of a general "we can't keep
| everything closed and continue to impose lockdowns" rather
| than "we have to stop WFH and everyone should go back to
| the office," in spite of the article.
|
| Still, to expand on the issue of WFH, I absolutely see no
| problem with it and I even advocated for it before the
| pandemic. I just wish everyone who wants to go back to the
| office for legitimate reasons (because they like to see
| their co-workers, because they have bad working conditions
| at home and what not) were able to if vaccinated.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| Yeah I guess that's what I'm saying - whatever version of
| "lockdown" we're currently in (which is simply
| recommended but not required masking in my city) is
| probably the "new normal". The economy has proven it can
| function effectively and even grow GDP at this level. And
| covid is probably never going away given the
| intransigence.
|
| I don't think there's political appetite to lock down
| things again. The left won't go along with lockdowns this
| time; they're too bitter at the right for causing this to
| drag out.
| parrellel wrote:
| If "if" the holdouts can be convinced there won't be a reason
| anymore, right now though the resistance has become
| ideological so god only knows when this'll end.
| refulgentis wrote:
| I hope so. There's this unfortunate tendency, myself
| included, to treat going back to the office as not taking
| health seriously, and when that's combined with a lot of
| people having stable social structures like a family or roots
| in the area, group discussion centers around this as an
| endless snow day.
|
| But, it's not: if you moved from a smaller city to one of the
| expensive FAANG areas the past few years, you were trading
| remote work for getting to work with people. My mental state
| is...not great...with the isolation of leaving behind my
| social circle to move here, and now not having a social
| circle built up here. I almost feel cheated that I moved to
| work here, this is _exactly_ what I ran away from: remote
| work, coworkers with no incentive/forcing function to
| collaborate, and detached management "managing" problems by
| rote bon mots that don't actually fix anything.
| joshstrange wrote:
| > With the vaccine, and even if new variants appear, the
| number of people having to go to the hospital will plummet.
|
| I mean, I think Delta (at least in the US, I won't speak
| to/for other countries) has proven this incorrect since we
| have multiple instances of hospitals filling up right now
| even though (IIRC) we just hit the 70% first shot mark (for
| 18+).
|
| Also we haven't yet, and I hope we never, see a variant that
| not only causes lots of breakthrough cases but also results
| in higher rates of hospitalization/ICU/vent/death even for
| the vaccinated.
|
| What we can't afford is to continue to put up with the
| unvaccinated. My state, just a few hours ago, announced that
| 70%+ of our hospitals are now collectively going to require
| the vaccination to continue working there and it's my fervent
| hope that more and more private sector companies do the same
| (as have at least a few major manufactures in my state). I'd
| actually prefer to see something akin to what NY just did. I
| understand the privacy concerns with having to prove
| vaccination status but the alternative (what we did for the
| last 1.5 years+) is not something I'm willing to put up. I'm
| so incredibly tired of having the people who refuse to do the
| bare minimum drag the rest of us down.
| exegete wrote:
| The 70% with one shot is weighted to areas like Northeast
| and hospitals filling up is in Southern US. Averaging those
| stats over the entire US misses that aspect.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Yes, that is correct. I was trying to use the most
| favorable interpretation of the data in my reply but yes,
| it's closer to 50% (at least fully) in most places. My
| state included.
| ghaff wrote:
| The floodgates on private employer requirements seem to be
| opening pretty rapidly. Two in-person tech conferences I
| plan to attend in the fall are both requiring vaccinations
| to attend.
|
| It seems especially reasonable when going somewhere (like a
| conference or an office that allows continued WFH) is
| pretty much optional. Of course, it's more complicated if,
| say, you're in sales and it's customers who impose the
| requirement.
| palidanx wrote:
| In the book Apollo's Arrow (which came out in oct 2020), Dr.
| Christakis said
|
| "Either way, we will be wearing masks, for example, and
| avoiding crowded places. I'll call this the immediate
| pandemic period. For a few years after we either reach herd
| immunity or have a widely distributed vaccine, people will
| still be recovering from the overall clinical, psychological,
| social, and economic shock of the pandemic and the
| adjustments it required, perhaps through 2024. I'll call this
| the intermediate pandemic period. Then, gradually, things
| will return to "normal"--albeit in a world with some
| persistent changes. Around 2024, the post-pandemic period
| will likely begin"
| laurent92 wrote:
| Didn't leaks in the WHO say we're in for 15 years of
| perturbations? I'm not sure Covid is the real target, I'm
| suspecting it's a way to reach carbon emission targets.
|
| It's our bill for emitting more carbon than Earth can absorb
| since the 0-neutral day of 1990.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| I've scoffed at covid skeptics since Winter 2020. There was
| already enough info out at the time about conditions in China
| and initial cases spreading globally to see that it was no
| joke. Then people continuously kick the can down the road
| saying after summer, no after winter, no after spring, no after
| summer again. It's not that hard to see that this isn't
| something we're going to overcome in a year or two.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Amazon Corporate. And Amazon's website people. But Amazon is not
| a website. It is a warehouse and delivery company. The vast
| majority of employees, those working in warehouses and delivering
| things to customers, will likely not ever be able to work from
| home.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Vaccine rollout went so smooth it turned around my pessimism for
| 3-6 months, but now the last 2-3 weeks have me quite pessimistic.
|
| The breakthrough cases (quantity, severity) plus ability of
| vaxxed to spread, anecdotes of everyone knowing people getting
| sick, where we are with cases vs last summer, plus % unvaxxed in
| certain demographics within cities makes RTO seem quite untenable
| now.
|
| Vax seems to protect against hospitalization & death from delta,
| but can very easily be laid up a week or two sick and have non-
| trivial respiratory issues.
|
| Went into office last week 1st time, stunned to see 2019 style
| maskless floor with full density occupancy of desks. Attendance
| is being centrally coordinate & desk reservations required, so
| this was no coincidence or accident...
|
| I go 18 months without eating indoors, shopping for groceries w/o
| mask, getting on a plane, etc and now I'm gonna sit on a crowded
| open office floor at 100% occupancy maskless 5 days/week? WTF.
|
| NY offices seem to be ignoring that even if 80% of white collar
| staff they employ are vaccinated, the outsourced/building
| services staff are not. Not to mention the place you pickup
| lunch, coffee, and the cross section of people on public transit.
|
| Some actual numbers from recent NYTimes/City official stats for
| even having 1 shot yet:
|
| * NYPD 45%
|
| * Black Bronx residents ~36%
|
| * South Williamsburg ~35%
|
| * MTA subway & bus staff ~45%
|
| * NYC teachers (whose union demanded to be front of line but
| refuse a mandate) ~60%
|
| * NYCHA ~38%
|
| NY seems to be dragging their heals on this, some combination of
| BdB - Cuomo feuding, Cuomo busy with impeachment defense, return
| of in-person schools, and the Commercial RE/Bank/Dining industry
| pressures. As soon as City/State put an indoor mask mandate in
| place, it puts indoor dining, schools and offices into question
| all over again. So the tail is wagging the dog, as they say.
| worker767424 wrote:
| At some point, we're going to have to make a call about whether
| we want to live with the risks or continue distancing.
| Considering how much more contagious delta is, I suspect masks
| won't be enough on their own, beyond signaling that it's not
| safe and scaring people away.
|
| Considering how not especially deadly covid is, I personally
| don't see masks and distancing as a long-term solution, but a
| lot of people disagree and seem perfectly happy spending the
| decade getting meals delivered and working from home.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| The issue is that companies are mandating return, so its not
| employees choice.
|
| What % chance of being sick for 1-2 weeks are you OK with?
|
| What % chance of permanent lung capacity loss are you OK
| with?
|
| What % chance of death are you OK with?
|
| Are you OK with your employer making that decision on your
| behalf?
| dbg31415 wrote:
| Much more reasonable than an employer mandating a vaccine to
| return to an office setting.
| vkou wrote:
| If you don't want to get vaccinated at work, it's perfectly
| reasonable to require you to wear a mask, and to produce two
| negative COVID tests a week, on your own time, at your own
| expense.
|
| Employers routinely ask blue collar workers to piss in a cup,
| or undergo medical examinations. I don't see why white collar
| workers should be treated much differently.
|
| Those of us who are vaccinated have done our part. Now, it's up
| to those that aren't to do theirs.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I disagree, and I'm surprised the White House isn't trying to
| work with big employers to try to get them to mandate the
| vaccine. That would get a huge chunk of the population. Not
| many are going to quit their job over a shot. Walmart, Kroger,
| Amazon, etc are some of the biggest employers in the US.
|
| You have to feel bad for Amazon Warehouse workers reading this
| headline though.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| What about those who want to return? They have no choice even
| if vaccinated.
|
| I feel that returning should be optional but only available for
| the vaccinated. That enables choice whereas no one allowed to
| return at all does not enable choice.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| My coworkers who do want to return (our offices are open on a
| voluntary basis) want to make everyone else return too
| because there's no reason for them to go in if there's only
| 10 people there.
|
| Personally I have friends outside of work, so I haven't been
| in.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| This is the worst thing about people who prefer working in
| the office: they aren't satisfied by going in, they need to
| force others to go into the office to keep them company. At
| least those of us who prefer permanent wfh don't impact
| other people's decisions. And worst of all are executives
| and managers who want people in chairs to make them feel
| important and noticed.
| ghaff wrote:
| >At least those of us who prefer permanent wfh don't
| impact other people's decisions.
|
| Sort of. Once you have a cohort back in the office, they
| probably should be meeting over video because having a
| group in a conference room and a group remote in their
| home offices doesn't work well. Of course people in the
| office mostly won't do that and communications will be
| worse than fully remote.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| As it doesn't solve what they hate about remote work,
| i.e. the Zoom and not getting to chat with people.
|
| This is why I don't think hybrid will work.
| sciprojguy wrote:
| I think you're right, and I think it will motivate those
| of us who want to work remotely to quit and find
| companies that have that as their culture and let the
| "back to the office" folks become more homogenized.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Currently at a hybrid company spread out across multiple
| offices. So all that happened was that we moved our
| meetings from our home offices to our open office desks.
| ghaff wrote:
| A lot of people come to the office vs. remote question
| from a place where "office" means that almost everyone
| you ever interact with is a few dozen steps away. For
| many of us, it's more like thousands of miles. In fact,
| if I go into either of the closest offices, I know almost
| no one there and even fewer who are likely to actually be
| in the office if I drop in.
| rolobio wrote:
| What, you don't think your employer should control your medical
| decisions?? /s
|
| Its amazing to me how people have thrown their bodily autonomy
| out the window when there is suddenly a new risk.
| ketzo wrote:
| I love that the conversation is always around personal
| "bodily autonomy" despite the fact that your decision to not
| get vaccinated affects every single other person with whom
| you come into contact.
|
| Freedom of speech doesn't cover shouting "fire" in a crowded
| movie theatre.
|
| Personal liberty at the expense of the liberty of others is a
| sick joke, and to pretend that the vaccine conversation is
| anything else is hysterically naive.
|
| People _do_ have an autonomous choice: get your shot, or find
| another way to stop endangering those around you.
| rolobio wrote:
| First, you can yell fire in a crowded theatre. What if
| there really is a fire?
|
| Alcohol kills plenty of people each year, and often it's
| not the drinker. Should we ban alcohol? (I hear you, but
| employers can ban drinking at work!) Sure, but the
| equivalent would be forcing someone to not drink outside of
| work. After all, can you turn the vaccine off when you
| leave the office?
|
| I'm fine with an employer mandating masks, they can be
| removed after your shift.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_th
| e...
| 0xEFF wrote:
| It's normal that most people prioritize the social
| responsibility to prevent the spread of a deadly virus.
| rolobio wrote:
| Ive already had covid. I am immune and don't spread it. I
| already meet your requirements. But why must I go further
| and modify my body unnecessarily?
| 0xEFF wrote:
| Because we don't know if you're immune. We do know
| vaccines help even for those who have contracted the
| virus. Therefore, it's necessary for you to get
| vaccinated.
| rolobio wrote:
| Do you mean, we don't know if I'm immune but spreading,
| or can't prove that I'm immune (no negative test)?
|
| Assuming the first, I guess we'll have to wait for the
| data. Assuming the second, I haven't ever been assumed
| sick until proven healthy. I've been sick many times in
| my life, and I voluntarily self-isolate to protect
| others. But suddenly this is considered selfish. I must
| prove health or be exiled until I conform.
|
| Are you not worried about losing your freedom? Or was
| this a freedom you never valued? The specific freedom I
| mean was choosing what goes in your body.
|
| Thank you for your honest response. Most people just
| downvote and scroll on.
| sgustard wrote:
| Once people are mandated to return to the office, they will not
| tolerate working alongside unvaccinated coworkers.
| timr wrote:
| Fully vaccinated, and I don't care in the slightest. The
| vaccines provide nearly perfect protection against serious
| outcomes.
|
| I am far more upset by the idea of continuing this
| indefinitely. Desperately want to be back in the office.
|
| People who want to return to work should be allowed to do so.
| Those who do not should be allowed to do so. May the most
| productive employees win.
| sciprojguy wrote:
| Already you sound adversarial, like this is a battle of
| work cultures and you want your side to win. You say things
| like "return to work", as if the people who are working
| from home _aren 't already_ working. Did you mean your
| comment to come across this way?
| timr wrote:
| No, you're reading into it.
|
| I think that both sides of this issue should be allowed
| to do whatever they want to do, and we'll find out what
| the result is.
| ghaff wrote:
| "Nearly perfect" is doing a lot of work there. I am
| perfectly fine with offices, conferences, etc. mandating
| vaccines for people. ADDED: People do have a choice,
| especially at companies not requiring people to come back
| to offices.
| ragona wrote:
| Not if you have children under 12.
| timr wrote:
| Children are at exceptionally low risk from Covid. The
| data is simply overwhelming.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28041775
| gregory144 wrote:
| "The vaccines provide nearly perfect protection against
| serious outcomes."
|
| I am vaccinated, however, my young child is not. If I get a
| breakthrough case, I don't want to spread it to my kid. I
| know this is anecdotal, but... my wife's office just closed
| because of a breakthrough case, and another friend was
| recently exposed to someone with a breakthrough case.
| timr wrote:
| Children are at exceptionally low risk from Covid. The
| data is simply overwhelming.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28041775
| scatters wrote:
| Nearly perfect protection for you, maybe. Catching it when
| vaccinated is still unpleasant for many, can wreck social
| plans if you have to isolate, and puts you at risk of
| passing it on to someone more vulnerable.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Can you sue your employer if you get covid from a colleague
| and they didn't mandate vaccinations (but did mandate return
| to office and your employment would be terminated otherwise)?
| IANAL.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| I think congress put in some protections for.. employers,
| on this lol
| [deleted]
| eu wrote:
| And that will be postponed till later in the spring.. I can't see
| things improving during the winter.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| We just had a voluntary return to office 2 weeks ago, which was
| canceled after 1 week with the rise of the delta variant. I'm
| pretty sure we will be in limbo until spring.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| Right. If things are already getting postponed during delta,
| there's no way anyone is going back during lambda.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Honestly, Gamma seemed like the most dangerous one to me on
| paper. I apparently am very wrong on that assumption though.
| (Gamma was the "P1" variant that was reinfecting cities that
| were previously infected with COVID19)
|
| Alpha of course was the problem (being the first COVID19
| variant that was "better" than the original). But only Delta
| was actually "better" than Alpha. Everyone has completely
| forgotten about Beta (aka: South Africa variant), despite it
| being hugely in the news a few months ago.
|
| Lambda isn't spreading very much. There's a "Delta-Plus"
| variant going around, but it seems like "Delta-Plus" is no
| "better" than the original Delta.
|
| --------
|
| We drew the short straw on this one. Back in the 1918
| pandemic, the flu evolved into a less-dangerous form. In this
| COVID19 situation, we got unlucky twice, and the virus
| evolved twice (first to Alpha, then again to Delta).
|
| There's no reason to assume that the virus will continue to
| "get better", so to speak. Aside from the fact that it did so
| twice in the past year... the next step it takes forward
| could be backwards. Evolution cuts both ways, its not always
| a straight path towards improvement.
|
| -----------
|
| EDIT: Looking at the list: Beta, Gamma, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta,
| Theta, Iota, and Kappa are all "variants of concern" but no
| one gives a care. Only Delta is giving us issues right now,
| and only Alpha gave us a major issue before Delta.
| samatman wrote:
| Random aside: I find it confusing that Alpha is the first
| variant, rather than the original SARS2 strain.
|
| Most 'Greek letter' conversations I've had just ignore this
| and say "Alpha" when they mean the original.
|
| For what it's worth, there is some evidence that Delta is
| less deadly than the original strain, although by how much
| is difficult to say, especially with vaccination as a
| confounding measure.
| dragontamer wrote:
| I personally found the B.1.1.7 or B.1.351 nomenclature to
| be more understandable. This "Alpha" or "Delta" thing is
| so arbitrary. I don't even know what constitutes a
| variant of concern (Okay, I know a collection of
| scientists are sitting around in a committee deciding
| which variants "deserve" a Greek name... but given all
| the Greek names that have come out, they seem to have
| given out too many)
|
| Ex: Why are we calling a variant "Delta-plus" ??
| Shouldn't it just take the next Greek letter?
| brewdad wrote:
| > We drew the short straw on this one. Back in the 1918
| pandemic, the flu evolved into a less-dangerous form. In
| this COVID19 situation, we got unlucky twice, and the virus
| evolved twice (first to Alpha, then again to Delta).
|
| Wasn't the second wave of the 1918 pandemic the most
| deadly?[1] To be sure, the current flu variants are much
| less dangerous than anything from that time though.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#Deadly_secon
| d_wave...
| babyshake wrote:
| Just wait until Omega.
| Cd00d wrote:
| Well, then we're at the end of this - reason to celebrate!
| brewdad wrote:
| Unless only the cockroaches survive.
| browningstreet wrote:
| I have presently have 3 gym memberships.. two of them I added
| during this last no-mask period.
|
| One is probably dropping off soon (technicalities about where I
| live, etc., create uncertainty about the duration of that).
|
| One is very expensive, but I love that gym, but it's less
| conducive to the workouts I want to do if I'm wearing a mask.
|
| The cheaper one is closest to my house and the easiest for me
| to program with a mask.
|
| I'm trying to figure out whether to pay the cancellation fees
| or hope for better times soon. It seems likely that I'll pay
| the break-up fees and keep the one gym membership because.. I
| agree with your prognosis. But I don't want to agree with that
| prognosis.
| echelon wrote:
| At some point paying for office space rent is just throwing
| good money after bad.
|
| How many tech companies will just let their offices go when the
| lease is up? Or begin the process of subletting?
|
| Many tech companies have started a full remote hiring swing,
| and they won't let these employees go when things return to
| "normal". It wouldn't make sense to lay them off if they're
| productive talent.
|
| I could see small WeWork-style hubs working for companies that
| want to support small clusters of remote workers, but not full
| offices.
|
| This will probably put a lot of downwards pressure on our
| $300-500k compensation packages as we begin to hire from middle
| and southern US states, where wages never reached west coast
| levels.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| > At some point paying for office space rent is just throwing
| good money after bad.
|
| To many companies, real estate is money parking or even
| speculation.
| dleslie wrote:
| > How many tech companies will just let their offices go when
| the lease is up?
|
| Any of them which have learned how to produce as much value
| working remotely as they did working in an office, less the
| cost of renting the office.
|
| Ha, who am I kidding? It won't be a rational choice.
|
| The companies that will continue demanding in-office work
| will be those driven by a company culture that _distrusts
| their employees_. I expect that if sufficiently many
| companies opt to remain fully WFH and abandon offices
| altogether that those which demand office presence will be
| viewed suspiciously by prospective employees.
|
| As suspiciously as one should view a potential employer who
| demands to install rootkit spyware on your personal computer
| when conducting an interview.
| gedy wrote:
| I suspect many companies are stringing dates along like this to
| avoid their teams moving away remote en masse.
| eli wrote:
| This seems overly cynical. The situation on the ground with
| regards to the virus is rapidly shifting.
| _jal wrote:
| We did the same thing a couple weeks ago. Predictions are hard,
| especially about the future, but I'd bet money that will slip,
| too.
|
| If you're waiting for 'normal', I think you're already soaking in
| it. At least for the next 18 months or so, which is effectively
| forever in terms of flexible change.
| gspr wrote:
| Kinda off-topic, but am I the only one who's experience brain rot
| from not being able to go poke a colleague on the shoulder and
| head off to a separate room and have a loose semi-relevant
| conversation about some work topic (with umpteen digressions) for
| half an hour?
|
| Seriously, I think 90% of every good idea I've ever had has come
| to me in situations like the above. I don't wanna _force_ people
| to come back to the office with me, but I 'm just surprised that
| more people aren't feeling like they've lost something important
| without it. Yes, I _can_ informally start off a chat with a
| colleague over Slack, but it just doesn 't work for me. People
| think too much before they write something. All the good ideas
| die if people weigh their words too much :-(
| lizknope wrote:
| We had layoffs a year ago and got moved into an existing team
| that none of us knew. Then they reassigned more people on and
| off the project.
|
| After 2 months our team lead realized that we were having
| problems so he organized 2 meetings a week but there is no
| status taking. It is all "What problems are you having and let
| us try to collectively debug it." Share your screen, other
| people draw on it, give control of your screen to a coworker
| and let them try a command.
|
| It has actually been great. I have gotten to know 4 of the
| remote people really well now. I hope to meet them in person
| some day and have a beer with them.
|
| I'm doing semiconductor design, not software in case anybody is
| wondering.
| ghaff wrote:
| Ask them if they have time for a 30 minute phone call later?
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Right. This feels like classic open floor plan extrovert "I
| could just grab & interrupt people whenever I needed them"
| lol.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Assumes everyone was in same office to start. No one said home
| means slack/written comms. Hours per day of ad-hocs & meetings
| in-person or zoom are similarly verbal. If your company is
| globally / nationally distributed, you were on zooms anyway
| pre-pandemic, not a huge difference.
|
| Extrovert vs introvert bias here as well. If you are
| introverted & trying to get focussed work done, open floor
| plans full of extroverts and shoulder tapping is the reason
| most of your commits happen after 7pm when the office is empty
| or you are coding at home after-work.
|
| Wife & I went into our offices for a partial week recently and
| had same experience - I got nothing done, spent hours on zoom
| anyway, am completely exhausted, and everyone just seemed to be
| there to socialize (hey lets get lunch! / hanging out by the
| coffee machine).
|
| Ideas vs implementation thing here too. Spitballing ideas is
| great, but actually having the time to implement them (not
| chopped up into 30min blocks between meetings & interruption)
| is another.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| Extremely grateful for tech giants like Amazon putting pressure
| on the rest of the industry. I wouldn't work for them but I
| definitely benefit from them in cases like this. Hopefully the
| rest of the industry follows suite.
| [deleted]
| ptudan wrote:
| The other giants put the tech pressure on Amazon, lol. Amazon
| was the last domino to fall for 2022
| H8crilA wrote:
| Why do you want everyone else to be back at the office?
| dannyphantom wrote:
| It sounds more like they are appreciative that Amazon is
| setting a precedent to have employees back by '22 which other
| companies will theoretically have to match.
| dekhn wrote:
| I bet we'll see PR from Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft
| soon, with roughly the same timeline.
| babelfish wrote:
| My company announced a couple of months ago that they are
| planning on having everyone come back into office starting on
| September 1st. I request a "full remote exception" three times,
| and was rejected each time, one of which coming straight from the
| CTO. So I found a new job and put in my two weeks - somehow,
| everyone up the chain from me was incredibly surprised and
| disappointed, and even offered me a "full remote exception" if I
| stayed (I declined). How long are companies going to pretend that
| Pandora's Box hasn't been opened with regards to remote work? Why
| are we pretending that employees aren't as productive when at
| home? This last year and a half have shown tech companies posting
| record profits, so it's clear that employees are just as
| productive from their homes as from the office. Those who can
| adapt to this new world will be able to hire the best talent, and
| those who can't are going to really struggle and lost talent.
| throw149102 wrote:
| As a new grad, onboarding during covid sucked so extremely
| hard. It started off with a lack of productivity, a lack of
| understanding, and an extreme amount of anxiety from being
| unable to tell what is expected of me and how to achieve that.
|
| Going to office has been the best possible thing for me. I can
| see my coworkers, understand the expectations set for me, get
| instant help from coworkers (and often provide instant help).
| My anxiety is better and my health is better. I'm not
| distracted by the 10,000 things around my house that I either
| want to do or need to do.
|
| That being said, that's only my experience. I think the
| research shows that remote work is just as productive, if not
| better. It's better for people who really need to take care of
| personal things during work hours. The opposition to remote
| work is far too forceful, especially when companies don't even
| intend to back up their threats (like in your case). Leadership
| in many companies seems against the idea for WFH for all the
| wrong reasons. They need to understand it's a real risk trying
| to force employees to come back to the office, and you can
| certainly lose some very important talent by doing that.
| brsaunders wrote:
| Hmm ... I hear what you're saying. At the same time, I
| recognize some of the new-kid-on-the-block problems you
| describe here.
|
| I was a new grad in the analog world. The same kind of
| uncertainty existed for me. Sometimes a coworker who was
| supposed to help me just didn't talk to me. Many managers
| were just as poor then as they are now, in person or online,
| at setting and communicating expectations.
|
| And there were additional problems in person that don't exist
| in the same way online. Particularly for women ... bullying
| and inappropriate attention from the men; envy and criticism
| from the women.
|
| Also, early on in this pandemic, people and companies were
| scrambling in general. So, the chaos of onboarding may not
| have been a problem with onboarding per se, or even with
| companies not handling it "well" but just a shared
| difficulty.
| nodejs_rulez_1 wrote:
| _> get instant help from coworkers_
|
| You helped your company by saving senior engineers' precious
| time.
| ghaff wrote:
| Unless maybe the primary value of a lot of senior engineers
| is onboarding and coaching.
| mackmgg wrote:
| I'm no longer a new grad, and was onboarded long before
| COVID. I think those same problems, lack of productivity,
| understanding unable to tell expectations all applied even
| in-person. It seems to be more of a supervisor problem than a
| remote work problem. And as dcolkitt said, unrealistic
| expectations on how fast that's supposed to take. A lot of
| new grads are used to an internship which is only ~10 weeks,
| or a 16 week semester as a timeframe when you should be able
| to get entirely up to speed and done producing what's needed.
| But that's not necessarily long enough to truly learn how a
| team works and what the expectations are at a lot of
| companies.
| ghaff wrote:
| I can absolutely empathize why graduating into this could be
| a really bad experience for people. Was just talking with
| someone about this earlier in the week. I admittedly started
| work in a very different time with very different and more
| limited tools but it's hard for me to imagine.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| I mean, here's the thing. Most new grads are drastically
| overestimating the importance that they're onboarded quickly.
| The median productivity of a new grad is approximately zero
| for the first year. Maybe even negative. Nobody really
| expects much of you anyway. So just, chill and focus on
| improving at a slow and steady rate.
|
| The whole reason FANG companies hire new grades is because a
| small fraction will become superstars in a few years. And a
| small handful of those superstars will stay out of
| loyalty/comfort/inertia. New grads are basically deep out of
| the money, long-dated call options. Companies aren't going to
| care whether it takes them 3 months or 6 months to get
| acclimated to the org's culture.
| leetcrew wrote:
| I think your advice to relax and focus on slow, steady
| improvement is on point, but imo you are really overstating
| the bit about low expectations for new grads. no reasonable
| company will make a new grad solely responsible for some
| critical part of their product, but most will be
| disappointed if your main accomplishment in your first year
| on the job was "got onboarded". the expectation is that you
| may need some hand-holding, but ultimately you will get
| stuff done. at my company, the people that assumed the
| expectation for their productivity was "approximately zero"
| were quite surprised to see the difference in second-year
| raises between them and their new grad peers.
| macintux wrote:
| That's easy to say as an experienced employee, but when
| you're a new hire and you have no clue what's going on
| around you because there are no conversations to
| accidentally overhear, no one sitting 3 feet away to ask
| random questions of, and no way to interpret your boss's
| apathy about your existence...
|
| Plus reading here about certain companies' interest in
| pruning people ruthlessly...
|
| I could see why morale among new hires would be problematic
| in this rather chaotic time.
| majormajor wrote:
| If you turn that 1 year into 2 years, though, you HAVE
| changed things dramatically in terms of the value of what
| you're paying for.
|
| So if today's new grads are telling you "I'm drowning" and
| two years ago they weren't... maybe you should listen.
|
| And measured productivity is only half of it if a sizable
| fraction of those frustrated new grads leave much sooner
| than they would otherwise.
|
| Or if "new grad" experiences also tend to match "new hire"
| experiences even for experienced folks...
| KittenInABox wrote:
| IMO this is an institutional problem at your workplace. I
| know my company's grown a ton and I've actually put in more
| hours ensuring one-on-one, high-touch onboarding time with
| all our new engineers so that they never feel unsupported and
| unknowing what the expectations are.
|
| It's absolutely vital to recreate the same onboarding
| experience (seeing someone all day, being there whenever a
| question is asked, etc) virtually, and that means putting in
| the extra effort in making onesself available, checking in,
| and being proactive.
| stevehawk wrote:
| honestly, because some of us aren't nearly as productive at
| home as we are in the office. I'm glad you are, and I'm glad
| you found a remote job, and I wish you success in it. But I'd
| like to get back into the office where I don't hear my dogs
| bark at every bird that lands in the back yard, or constant
| interruption by my retired neighbors, UPS/FedEx/USPS, etc etc
| etc.
|
| I miss the delineation between work and home. I've lost it.
| brsaunders wrote:
| Few people (some, but few) are asking for companies to
| eliminate the office for people who want to be there. From
| what I've read, there are even more people who prefer 2-3
| days in the office to a fully remote lifestyle.
|
| The real sticking point seems to be attendance requirements.
|
| Having to go somewhere every day even if it takes 3 hours to
| get there and back, whether you're more productive there or
| not.
|
| Having to be there certain hours, even if a slight shift in
| hours would save you thousands of dollars a year in childcare
| expenses.
|
| Having to sit at the desk until 5 pm (or longer) for show,
| even if you're a salaried employee, are fried from numerous
| meetings or an intense thinking job, and spent other time --
| not at the desk -- thinking about work problems.
|
| Having to work all of your 8-10 hours in a row, even if you
| would be more productive if you broke it up into 1-4 hour
| bursts spread throughout the day.
| jedberg wrote:
| What if your employer agreed to rent you an office space? Or
| converted your office to more of a WeWork style space where
| you can reserve a desk?
|
| I'm thinking this is where companies will be headed. For
| employees who want to work remotely, let them. For everyone
| else, either rent them small offices or allow them to come to
| the office as they choose.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| I'd rather be in a space with other coworkers at that
| point.
|
| Let's be honest, most of us didn't have a problem with the
| office, most of us had a problem with the open office and
| the commute, both of which are solvable. This remote work
| trend will peak (I don't know when, but it will), and we
| will come full circle back to offices again, and the ones
| that offer an office with a door will reap the rewards.
| Hopefully by then America has also figured out the
| infrastructure issue.
| leetcrew wrote:
| > Let's be honest, most of us didn't have a problem with
| the office, most of us had a problem with the open office
| and the commute, both of which are solvable.
|
| I kinda agree with this. at least, I wouldn't mind going
| to the office if it was a pleasant ten minute walk from
| my home. but how is the commute a solvable problem? many
| offices are located in suburban office parks. no one
| wants to live there. and desirable neighborhoods within
| walking distance of good employers are, well, desirable.
| you can't pay everyone enough money to live in the same
| nice places where everyone else also wants to live.
| lizknope wrote:
| I had an office with a door for 11 years at 2 different
| companies. It was great. Then I had to switch jobs where
| we had cubicles but we worked from home half the time. My
| current job is all cubicles even for managers. People are
| always talking on conference calls the entire day. I have
| been work from home since March 2020 and I get so much
| more done.
|
| We are planning to start 2 days in the office in
| September. I'm hoping it gets delayed. I would love to
| have an office with a door again but I'm just happy we
| don't have a giant table with an open floorplan like some
| of my friends.
| slg wrote:
| OP isn't demanding the company become all remote. They aren't
| dictating how you work. They want everyone to have an option
| to work in the manner that is best for them.
| babelfish wrote:
| Yes, thank you for clarifying this. Let everyone work in
| the way that's best for them.
| rdgthree wrote:
| An interesting question that's still TBD is how well
| companies can operate with a significant in-office team and
| remote team. I think this past 18 months has proven that
| fully remote can work, but it may be the case that a 50/50
| remote/office split is significantly harder to manage.
|
| Anecdotally, my company had an office team and a remote
| team split about 50/50 before and unrelated to COVID, and
| it was tricky. We don't have a lot of meetings, but when we
| did, it was hard to have a physical group in a conference
| room with a remote group on a screen. We solved that by
| effectively going fully remote for meetings that involved
| remote employees - everyone who was physically in the
| office would connect to a video call at their individual
| desks. I was personally fine with it, but some people
| definitely prefer (and work better in) that physical
| conference room setting.
|
| All of that to say, the way one person works might be a
| forcing factor for others, even if they don't intend for it
| to be. Tricky problem.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| I've been in physical/remote meeting splits. It's not
| really that hard. The trick is having everyone sign into
| the meeting with their own PC.
| ghaff wrote:
| If I'm in a meeting of any size, I'm dealing with people
| spread over offices and remote across North America and
| Europe anyway.
|
| >We solved that by effectively going fully remote for
| meetings that involved remote employees
|
| Yes, this is the process that teams within my extended
| team mostly follow.
| notyourwork wrote:
| And this creates a bad dichotomy. If half team is remote
| and other has is in office it creates a really unbalanced
| interaction pattern.
|
| I agree with both perspectives and not sure what I prefer
| but do think the team should be consistent (all remote or
| all in person). I don't want to have standup with 8
| engineers in person and 1 engineer remote on VC.
| tastyminerals2 wrote:
| Can you imagine a football team half remote / half on the
| field? It can be only one or the other (when they all
| play it coop via a game console). And yes, the specifics
| of our work is different (software development happens in
| the mind) but the underlying principles of human
| communication are the same. Fully remote communication
| works but worse than on-site unless you are outsourced or
| one of the 1k employees where they measure your
| productivity by the lines of committed code. Seriously,
| this road of thinking popularised by the latter type of
| employees because they are the majority I am afraid.
| macintux wrote:
| Yes, working for a remote-only environment is vastly
| different from mixed. I don't know how companies are
| going to handle this without committing significant
| effort to making sure remote workers are kept in the
| loop.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I take it you do not work in an open office.
| djxfade wrote:
| I'm not the person you replied to. But I do work in an open
| office for a small startup. My productive went straight
| down the drain when working from home. I much prefer
| working at the office. I guess people are just different.
| cmclaughlin wrote:
| > I'd like to get back into the office where I don't hear my
| dogs bark at every bird that lands in the back yard
|
| I'm enjoying working from home along with the sights and
| sounds, except for leaf blowers. I can look out my window and
| watch squirrels play. Luckily I only have one neighbor with a
| dog and it doesn't bark much. But this comment makes me
| wonder why you bother having a dog if you don't even like the
| sounds they make.
| mindslight wrote:
| Leaf blowers should be outright banned in cities as their
| main effect is to blow dirt onto everyone else. Maybe now
| that so many people are working from home, we'll get some
| pushback on such "affluenza" that otherwise went unnoticed
| by commuters.
| pnutjam wrote:
| Improve your home, you can control that. You have almost zero
| control at the office.
| deckard1 wrote:
| it's great that you have a private office. But most of the
| tech world are in open office floorplans now where the
| distractions are vastly greater than any at home.
|
| And I'm not ready for spending 3 hours in a car everyday.
| That's a slow suicide
| mint2 wrote:
| I'm personally on the hybrid boat, but one thing I'm worried
| about is whether full remote just leads to more outsourcing.
| Out sourcing has a lot of issues, but the actual differences
| between an onsite employee versus a remote employee in Prague
| are bigger than a remote employee in Montana versus Prague. And
| the perceived difference to a cfo may be even lower, so maybe
| they'll go with wherever is cheaper.
|
| Are these concerns of being careful of what we wish for too
| premature?
| the-dude wrote:
| You might be very well right that the colleague from Prague
| outclasses your Montana colleague.
|
| Does that worry you?
| mint2 wrote:
| No, that's my point. If they're already remote then the
| difference is diminished between someone who wanted offices
| remote so they could move out of a high cost of living area
| and the remote person in another lower cost of living
| country. There is value in having people onsite, but
| without that consideration then the supply of workers is
| higher.
|
| Is this necessarily bad? No, but be prepared for more
| competition and maybe needing to move to an even lower cost
| area than you'd imagined.
| majormajor wrote:
| The folks who consider themselves un-outsourcable who have to
| interact with the devteam often won't consider someone in
| Prague to be a substitute for someone in Montana since it
| will fuck their schedule up timezone-wise and/or result in
| tanked productivity through massively harder coordination
| challenges.
|
| Canada or Central or South America, on the other hand...
| could be a lot of opportunity for people there.
| tastyminerals2 wrote:
| Because not everyone is productive? Also, I want statistically
| significant proof of the correlation between working from home
| and company profits. I doubt there here is such research
| because it is nearly impossible to prove due to many other
| factors. For example, my company profits also increased but not
| because of home office but because of ppl doing more stuff
| online. Why? Because 2 out of 3 colleagues complained being
| unproductive and demotivated at home.
| babelfish wrote:
| So "because not everyone is productive", everyone should be
| mandated to go back into the office?
| tastyminerals2 wrote:
| No, but I am in favour of communication this beforehand
| during the interview. There are on-site companies and
| companies who allow remote as well as companies working
| only remote. Also, I am in favour of making exceptions if
| you can prove that you are more productive within the
| course of several months and afterwards while being
| completely remote. You can tell that I am suspicious to the
| remote == productivity mantra. Because we are working in a
| team unless you're a freelancer or a one man project guy
| (which in a well managed company is a rare thing) and as
| human beings need eye to eye communication to work
| efficiently.
| babelfish wrote:
| Why is the past year and a half of ratings while working
| remotely enough "proof" of productivity? Really, why is
| my opinion as an employee about how I work best not
| enough? You are exhibiting the same issue described
| elsewhere in this thread - you do not have enough trust
| for your employees to allow remote work.
| tastyminerals2 wrote:
| Because it is always always more about the team dynamics
| and chemistry than about you as an individual. If you're
| a lone wolf and do-all guy this doesn't mean you will be
| valuable in a team, well connected with your colleagues
| OR on the other hand, outperform several people. In the
| end of the day, the company size, business domain, etc.
| has more impact to whether you work remote or not and
| have to be evaluated and assessed. We allow remote but
| these are exceptions for those who cannot move easily.
| irrational wrote:
| What about letting each person choose for themselves. If I
| want to work remote 100% of the time, I can. If I want to
| work only in the office, I can. If I want to work remote 3
| days and in the office 2 days, I can. If I want to work 10
| hours 4 days and take the 5th off, I can.
| jjav wrote:
| > I want statistically significant proof of the correlation
| between working from home and company profits.
|
| Let's start with statistically significant proof of the
| correlation between working from the open office and company
| profits. That game cuts both ways.
|
| Or, simply let everyone work as and where they wish and apply
| the same evaluation and retention criteria to everyone. No
| need to discrimiante against one group.
| rado wrote:
| Maintaining productivity while WFH comes at a huge personal
| cost for some people: family, lack of space, destroyed
| life/work balance etc.
| pvarangot wrote:
| Honestly, yes, thanks for saying this. I literally had to
| move, I lost roommates that are now close friends but it's
| not the same. My monthly expenses are up even considering I
| don't commute, and I'm cooking/blending so it's not that,
| just the rent and stuff I had to buy. I held up for a year
| but when I saw it was going to be another year I had to pull
| the trigger and move to a bigger place.
|
| I'm chill and think I respect the "WFH forever" crowd a lot.
| I just would love to be able to have my home office be for my
| hobbies again and it was hard to even mention this at work
| without someone aggressively jumping on me because I'm a
| shill for the big tech executive caste that wants us all
| "trapped" in the office again. I changed employers recently
| because of this to a company that has more of an office
| culture.
| blandflakes wrote:
| Maintaining productivity in the typical office comes at huge
| personal and professional costs for others, and I'm kinda
| frustrated that this situation hasn't resulted in more
| empathy from fans of the office (because, you would think
| that having been forced into a suboptimal work situation,
| they'd understand more how much that sucks).
| jcims wrote:
| There should be some colloqualisms around this to recognize
| that there are valid positions across the spectrum. I'm a
| hardcore WFH'er, an introvert with a dedicated office in a
| beautiful spot in the woods and no colleagues at my work
| location which is a 45 minute commute each way.
|
| On the other hand I work with extroverted young folks that
| are sitting on the edge of their bed all day in a stuffy
| bedroom with one window so they can work from the top of
| their dresser in an apartment with three other roommates.
| trangus_1985 wrote:
| Not to mention that some roles requiring tight focused
| interaction (such as mine) benefit greatly from in person
| meeting.
|
| Ideally, for me, I'd be in office two days a week (and no
| more). I'm much more productive on my technical tasks at
| home.
| brandon272 wrote:
| I like to think that different places serve different
| purposes for me. When I think of the woods I think of a
| place to relax, connect with nature and to take my mind off
| of work. To make that my workplace where I am introducing
| the stresses of workplace challenges or even the occasional
| work crisis, only serves to corrupt that space and my
| connection to it.
|
| Disclaimer: I realize not everyone would share that point
| of view (and clearly having an office in the woods is
| working well for you), but that's my perspective on it.
| asdfasdfasf3234 wrote:
| >> destroyed life/work balance etc.
|
| This is what the 75min/direction commute to SF would do to me
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Remote work doesn't mean you have to literally work from
| home. Before the pandemic, I worked remotely, but rarely from
| my actual home.
| spoonjim wrote:
| There is no doubt that some people are more productive
| remotely. But employees should also realize that the company's
| definition of "productivity" is different from their own. For
| example, some engineers are happy to avoid random interruptions
| by working remotely, but the company might see those
| interruptions as how junior engineers learn the build and dev
| toolchains. That doesn't show up in your peformance review, so
| it might not be worth anything to you, but it is worth
| something to the company.
|
| I don't think the solution here is for every company to become
| "remote-friendly." I think it's for remote companies like
| Automattic, Gitlab, and Invision to exist, and for remote-
| desiring engineers to get jobs there.
| aerosmile wrote:
| The real amateur move here was to have the CTO decline and then
| change position. Of course you already lined up a new job, have
| no loyalty to your current employer, and will tell anyone who
| is willing to listen. They are now going to have others
| shopping for remote offers and giving their 2 weeks notice just
| to get the exception.
| irateswami wrote:
| > Of course you already lined up a new job, have no loyalty
| to your current employer, and will tell anyone who is willing
| to listen.
|
| God. Damn. Right.
| OminousWeapons wrote:
| It literally astounds me that managers don't understand
| that if you force people to shop around to get any
| improvement in their situations they will resent you for
| it. It costs time to secure another position, and if you
| only needed to pay me or give me X + Y initially to retain
| my employment, if you make me get an offer to negotiate it
| is going to cost you X + Y + Z because you wasted my time.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Taking a step back, I've dropped hints a few different ways at
| previous positions, "I need X to happen to be happy", "Y really
| hurts my jobs satisfaction", etc. Yet they always seem
| surprised when I eventually try for something better, or at
| least a change, and leave. My last job I dropped what I thought
| were clear hints at 6, 3, and 1 month before leaving (I had my
| own private ultimatum timeline).
|
| It's not very professional, but I feel like I have to say, "do
| X or I'm going to quit". Not very professional, and probably
| wouldn't go over well, but saying it politely doesn't seem to
| get the message across.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| It's going to be tricky. I personally can't wait to go back to
| the office, and reclaim some space in my apartment by tearing
| down my WFH setup. Plus all the free Diet Coke I can drink,
| overhearing coworker's conversations and never being "out of
| the loop", etc. I think that people who feel as I do will
| simply go back to the office, and we'll incidentally enjoy the
| benefits of faster communication, which will make WFH employees
| feel left out, so they'll come in or go hybrid. Sorry about
| this in advance.
| nojito wrote:
| The vast majority people at my org enjoy hybrid over full
| remote.
| awscherb wrote:
| I feel like I'm in the minority here as a tech worker, I can't
| wait to return to office full time and hopefully will be able to
| work in the office 5 days a week. WFH has just never worked well
| for me personally. I enjoy the physical separation between work
| and home, and even given the opportunity to work from anywhere in
| the world, I would still choose to live where I currently do
| (nyc).
| flowerlad wrote:
| It is a race between variants and vaccines... and the variants
| are winning.
|
| I think the only solution is to engineer a benign variant of the
| virus... one that spreads easily but doesn't make people sick,
| and yet gives full immunity to those who are infected with it.
| Then gather all the anti-vaxxers by offering them free concert,
| pizza and beer, and secretly release the benign variant on them!
|
| This is the only way to immunize the entire country. Once
| infected with the benign variant, the anti-vaxxers can be
| encouraged to go to concerts, crowded places, not wear masks, and
| so on. The benign variant will soon be the dominant variant,
| displacing all other variants!
| [deleted]
| programmarchy wrote:
| Not endorsing your rudeness, but there's actually a technique
| called variolation that does something similar by purposely
| exposing people to low loads of a wild virus so their immune
| system has an advantage. Variolation could be a good argument
| for masking in public.
| flowerlad wrote:
| But variolation requires manually treating people one by one.
|
| We need a better way -- which is to convert the virus itself
| into a vaccine, which will then spread automatically in a
| community.
| hartator wrote:
| > secretly release the benign variant on them
|
| Well, no. No need to hate on each other.
| [deleted]
| karagenit wrote:
| This actually isn't the first time I've heard of this being
| suggested. A post with more details of how this could be
| implemented got pretty popular on here about a year and a half
| ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22830320
| flowerlad wrote:
| Wow, that's cool! It is interesting that actual scientists
| have thought of the same idea. The idea may still be relevant
| given how long it is taking the entire world to be
| vaccinated. There is a serious risk of new even more
| dangerous variants emerging as long as the entire world is
| not vaccinated. Releasing an "attenuated variant" into
| communities that cannot be vaccinated quickly may still be
| necessary.
| jerf wrote:
| Currently on HN's front page:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28077258
| irrational wrote:
| I don't want everyone to work remote or everyone work in the
| office or everyone work remote 2 days and in the office 3 days.
| What I do want is every person can decide for themselves what is
| best for themselves without any repercussions. We need to learn
| that even if we are in the office that not everyone will be so
| every meeting will have people calling in on zoom - and that is
| okay.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I think the problem many people have is they hate interacting
| over Zoom.
| irrational wrote:
| Well, I hate working in an office. So, I guess we all have to
| suffer a bit so that everyone can work in their optimal
| environment.
| mjlee wrote:
| I wonder if this will affect AWS re:Invent - meant to be kicking
| off end of November in person. I expect it would flop if it was
| just customers and no engineers.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm currently planning to attend a couple of scaled-back in-
| person events in the fall. Hard to say about re:Invent. It's
| normally such a big event. And Vegas? I'd probably bet on it
| being virtual in some form. Maybe some scaled-down in-person
| component.
| mjlee wrote:
| They're already selling tickets for the in person event, as
| well as making some of it available online for free.
| ghaff wrote:
| AWS was good with video for re:Invent well before COVID.
| We'll see what happens in the fall. Certainly some
| organizations are betting that events can happen with
| whatever scaling back and requirements for attendees. But
| things can change even if people register.
| jedberg wrote:
| This is a good question. I was planning on attending when they
| asked me a few months ago, but now with delta I'm
| reconsidering.
| WYepQ4dNnG wrote:
| Surprise surprise! no one really believed that 2021 would have
| been the go back to the office, business as usual year right?
|
| COVID-19, unfortunately, is here to stay, and by looking at all
| the people that could get vaccinated and decide not to, and
| unfortunately all the people around the world that would like to
| get vaccinated but can't, I have hard time seeing a "going back
| to normal" anytime soon.
|
| Also, we have to hope that the virus does not mutate in more
| aggressive forms that could defeat the efficacy of current
| vaccines.
|
| Companies small/medium/big should make piece with their mind and
| accept the fact that remote working is here to stay, it is a
| viable option and they should stop expecting people to work from
| an office just for the sake of having people around.
| drstewart wrote:
| Just like you say companies have to accept remote because it's
| hear to stay, some people are going to have to accept normal is
| going to return because, like you say, covid is hear to stay.
| Sorry, but if every day is anm state of emergency then no days
| are.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-08-05 23:03 UTC)