[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?
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Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?
I am pretty extroverted and derive a lot of meaning and enjoyment
from working with people IRL, not just across a Slack connection.
My previous job went from tolerable to intolerable as a result of
the pandemic caused 100% WFH. These days it's hard to find an in
office job, and even when you do, it feels like that would be s red
flag anyway, since WFH is seen as a perk by most, or realistically
I worry I'm going to go in to the office and be the only one there.
I just like being able to grab lunch with coworkers and shoot the
shit. I find i care more about my work when I feel more connected
to the other people who are affected by it. (BTW I don't mind
partial WFH, thats just obviously beneficial for everyone.) Are
those days just over? Am I doing / thinking about this wrong in
some way? Is it not as bad as I think? Are there places out there
for weirdos like me?
Author : throwawayfrmt
Score : 251 points
Date : 2021-12-28 08:20 UTC (14 hours ago)
| kjgkjhfkjf wrote:
| Apply to work at Google. They have never embraced WFH and
| probably never will.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| At our site (Google Waterloo) we're nowhere close to a return
| to office. In fact with numbers skyrocketing here we just
| rolled back a bunch. Most people are still fully remote. I was
| working hybrid coming in 2-3 days a week but nobody was ever
| there to collaborate with. People on the whole seem to want to
| return to office but not with the way things are. Many people
| seem fine with remote.
|
| I'm not. My motivation suffered. I need contact and engagement.
| And driving in 45 minutes to sit at a desk with nobody around
| didn't help. So I put in my notice and after 10 years at Google
| this week is my last and I'll be looking for a job where I can
| be more engaged again, which unfortunately also probably means
| compensation cut.
|
| Even the BigCorps are stuck in a remote morass. But even worse
| because they're not fully committed to it.
| ultrasounder wrote:
| If he'll bent on getting back to work checkout Excelitas I'm
| your neck of the woods. I am in conference call with them
| every week and they are in the office and so am I. Or why not
| come work for our company. Molecular diagnostics is hard, not
| adtech and we need all the xooglers that we can take. A guy
| just relocated from st.Louis.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Thanks. I'm not in a rush, have some savings. Might start
| my own thing, but even if I don't, I likely won't do
| anything until after ski season. Relocation is off the
| table.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| yeah but then you have to work for google.
|
| big companies have a _lot_ of baggage.
| alecbz wrote:
| Not denying this but 0.02: after working for Google and
| another "big" company (>5k employees) and two small (<50)
| companies, I was much happier at the big companies.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| sorry I should have specified how big is big. I'm talking
| >35k.
|
| even a 5k company, its perfectly possible to change the
| company in one specific way. (Even I managed it, by
| accident)
|
| at a 25k company, that's hard. 50k+ almost impossible,
| unless you have a posse of cheerleaders.
| alecbz wrote:
| I think at a certain size though a large enough company
| starts to approximate a conglomerate of smaller
| companies. Sure, maybe you can't change the entire
| company, but you could change your smaller org.
| aix1 wrote:
| I am not sure that's true anymore. Every single application to
| work remotely that I know of (including mine[*]) has been
| approved.
|
| That said, most people are choosing to continue being based at
| whatever office they were based pre-COVID and will return to
| office once the public health situation permits (some already
| have been choosing to come to the office, though the situation
| is obviously highly location-dependent and fluid).
|
| [*] In my case to relocate to an office of my choosing, though
| the outcome would have been the same had I applied to
| permanently WFH.
| janosett wrote:
| I hope we'll eventually be able to find a hybrid approach, where
| some teams at a company can be fully remote and others can
| require presence in the office. As long as this is all
| communicated up front, I think it would cater to folks with
| different preferences.
| ricc wrote:
| You can't...because it's almost 2022 already. :-D
| LightG wrote:
| I'd imagine that's an easy "swapsie" with someone equally skilled
| considering the demand for remote jobs.
|
| I think you'd be overwelmed by offers.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Tim Cook, is that you?
|
| Seriously, as an extrovert, have you actually talked to any of
| your fellow extroverts? All of them want to be in the office at
| least part time. You're in good company.
|
| However, many people want full remote. And we all want more
| flexibility than FAANG is currently willing to provide.
| jl2718 wrote:
| Even in-person jobs now have all the terrible aspects of remote
| work.
|
| You go to an office full of strangers that you don't work with,
| just to fight over a few private phone booths to take meetings at
| with your distributed team. There's still a JIRA sprint board
| where you have to write bloviated stories for everything that you
| do. And then weekly, monthly and quarterly status updates. You
| still get hundreds of emails a day from automated management
| tools. You still have to live on Slack or Teams or whatever. Your
| day is still consumed by pointless 100-person meetings.
|
| But now you're stuck in an office. Woohoo.
|
| There is no in-person work anymore for white-collar
| professionals. The good news is that blue-collar work now pays
| more, you get lots of people to talk to, as long as it's about
| athletes or exes or politicians, and you don't have to worry
| about getting fired for anything you do say.
|
| I've considered the possibility of a strict office-only policy.
| As in, common hours, in-person only, no laptops, no phones, no
| remote meetings, no chat rooms, no management tools other than
| maybe GitHub, no social media, no non-work at work. I realize
| that you'd probably have to do on-site daycare, and today that
| implies liability.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| You're conflating remote work with WFH. You could remotely work
| in a shared office space that isn't your company's. You would
| gain some of the benefits you seek from that. Meanwhile, WFH is
| defined as working at your actual domicile and that's definitely
| not a socially engaging time.
|
| Maybe you need more extroversion sources outside of 9-5. Places
| like gyms, classes, sports clubs, cycling clubs, hiking groups,
| hunting and fishing with others, I'm just spitballing some COVID-
| friendly solutions. It doesn't matter if you're bad or noob, just
| getting some shared time with others having fun, that's the rub.
|
| I'm no extrovert but I love leaving my home every day after work,
| either to buy groceries, play music with friends at a folk jam,
| go for a hike, see family, see friends, anything to get out of
| the house, really.
|
| Last point, ask your HR or managers to set up in person events.
| We meet IRL about once a month and it's just right for my job.
| JamesAdir wrote:
| It's really depend on where you live and want to work. I suppose
| that even in the US you'll find a vast difference between
| companies in different regions. There are many companies that are
| going hybrid and allow to workers to choose how much time to
| spend in the office. I'm sure it will be very useful to you.
| alecbz wrote:
| > Are there places out there for weirdos like me?
|
| I think the discourse is _heavily_ biased towards pro-remote. We
| 've been working from offices for years, so the pro-remote crowd
| has been vocal for a while, whereas most pro-office people are
| only just beginning to realize that they even prefer an office,
| let alone how much.
|
| But so basically I think it's a completely false notion that
| preferring remote work is the norm. That sense comes purely from
| noticing percent of talking.
|
| FWIW I'd generally described myself as pretty introverted, in the
| sense of finding that social interaction is draining, but I'm
| considering moving across the country to be closer to my
| teammates.
| caffeine wrote:
| It's fun to sit in the same room/office and brainstorm and
| actually build something together.
|
| Gives that sense of camaraderie, we're-in-this-together
| feeling, if it's with the right people.
|
| I also think it's about 20x more productive if in a high-
| stakes, high-uncertainty regime.
|
| But the median remote work is probably better than the median
| in person work, even if the very best work is in person.
|
| Try to imagine starting SpaceX or Apple as a remote company...
| I think that kind of magic just wouldn't happen.
| alecbz wrote:
| > the median remote work is probably better than the median
| in person work
|
| What makes you say that?
| amrox wrote:
| Find a company whose product is primarily physical. I work at a
| robotics company and much of our staff never went remote.
|
| My team is primarily remote but I'm actually hiring an on-site
| person for IT.
| benrogers wrote:
| Agreed. I am also at a robotics company (see profile) and most
| of our staff only had a brief time at home and have been
| working onsite for almost all of 2021. I joined half way
| through the pandemic and was surprised to find that I was very
| happy to return to the office.
|
| Our challenge, as I'm sure you've guessed, is finding smart,
| motivated people like yourself who would prefer to be in the
| office. We are finding that many people, even those local to
| our market, would prefer to WFH.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| This is the best answer. In the U.S., something over 2/3 of the
| populations works non-remote, and always has. The "everything
| is remote now" perspective is a very professional-class one.
| So, if you work for a place where most of the jobs by their
| nature cannot be remote, it will not be weird to want to be at
| work, it will be standard.
|
| One bonus is that a lot of these places need IT help, and you
| may be appreciated more. Plus, a greater diversity of
| backgrounds among the people you work with.
| pysxul wrote:
| Come to France, companies hate remote work. You have to negotiate
| pretty hard to work remotely 2/5 days a week
| alecbz wrote:
| Naively, this actually really surprises me. My sense of French
| working culture is that it's very much "live to work", very
| strong WLB. What's driving France to be more pro-office than
| more "work-focused" countries like the US?
| alecbz wrote:
| edit: Sorry, meant "work to live".
| vbo wrote:
| I too prefer the office. I also interview people and and tend to
| look for people willing to come to the office at least once or
| twice a week. It makes a world of difference when you can ask
| someone a question across the desk as opposed to scheduling a
| call (or two, or three) and forcing everyone on the call to drop
| what they're doing. I get why people want to WFH, but I feel a
| couple of days in the office works wonders for efficiency; maybe
| one week wfh/one week at the office or any other combo would
| work, but it depends on the stage of the project. The more
| technical/business unknowns, the more it makes sense to work in
| the same space, imho.
| whateveracct wrote:
| I've been fully remote for 5 years. For me, life feels more like
| retirement now than it ever did in the office. Despite having
| full income.
|
| I do various hobbies, take better care of my home, spend time
| with family and pets. Before the pandemic, I would go to events,
| happy hours, brunch, parks, etc all the time. Not to mention the
| extra time for side projects.
|
| I'm loving the cushy life remote work has afforded me - things
| really change when you spend < 3 workdays a week intensely
| working. Your week becomes majority yours again.
|
| So I guess my question is, why do you want your job to be such a
| big deal in your life?
| ianai wrote:
| Per Scott Galloway's latest slide deck (it's on YouTube), he's
| convinced me the WFH push is an opportunity for those willing to
| work from work to lap the WFH crowd. Companies actually do still
| need people to work from the office/place of business. A worker
| willing to work at the office/business is thus at a competitive
| advantage to the much larger population of WFH-ers.
|
| (However...I really would prefer a hybrid mode. But after having
| the economy jettison me in 2008/2009 it's definitely past time to
| exploit any competitive advantages for me...)
| twobitshifter wrote:
| I don't know who Scott Galloway is but I can see that being
| true where the executives are being dragged into wfh against
| their will. If you have a remote first command and strong
| support from the top I think that wfh employees can still
| succeed.
| exdsq wrote:
| I suggest looking at more traditional work environments that hire
| tech roles such as banking, they're conservative and more likely
| to be pro-office. I have a friend who works on the C# UI of a
| coffee machine for Costa Coffee in the UK and that's an in-person
| role because they need to interface with hardware.
| acwan93 wrote:
| I'll give you an anecdote for my company (we're a software firm
| with developers, support staff, and sales reps):
|
| We offered hybrid and remote options to all of our employees once
| lockdowns ended. All of them (except for one) wanted to come back
| full-time, with some notable exceptions for hybrid. Some
| employees have kids so they went hybrid, but once schools
| reopened they all went back full-time in the office. The lone
| person was extremely freaked out about COVID and still wants to
| do full-remote, and he's now working hybrid where when he's in
| the office he's in an isolated room away from us.
|
| All of them disliked the lack of communication while remote. We
| implemented Teams, had our daily/weekly standups over video chat,
| and talked a lot using remote tools. But that significantly
| slowed things down and it was hard to figure out what people were
| doing.
|
| Remote does have a place, but I think hybrid is the way to go.
| null_object wrote:
| > All of them (except for one) wanted to come back full-time,
| with some notable exceptions for hybrid. Some employees have
| kids so they went hybrid, but once schools reopened they all
| went back full-time in the office.
|
| We had the same opportunity to choose at my workplace (130+
| employees) and ALL BUT ONE of the tech-team chose _hybrid_.
| Most of us are effectively working full-time remotely still,
| but have the option to meet at the office when we want (this is
| currently discouraged until we see how omicron pans out).
|
| The sales and management teams were more in favor of working at
| the office, but even there many chose hybrid. Amazing that two
| companies can have such a totally different outcome - although
| I must say the company I work for is an exemplary example of a
| diverse workplace, with a great mixture of young and old,
| parents, and singles of all genders and from a variety of
| cultures and backgrounds.
| midjji wrote:
| Is it the lack of communication or the lack of spontaneous
| socializing with coworkers? Dont get me wrong, I think the
| latter is probably underrated, but I dont know if thats what
| you are missing?
| rsynnott wrote:
| I think there's also another aspect that gets missed; the
| lack of being around other humans, which is subtly different
| to socialising.
|
| Pre-covid, most people were around multiple other people for
| most of their waking life. I don't think it's at all
| surprising that a mode of working where you spend every
| working day without seeing another human is causing some
| people difficulty.
| rfurmani wrote:
| You're definitely not the only one! We [1] have been in-person in
| San Francisco predominantly, at first due to visa sponsorship
| rules, but also due to the energy you get at a fast moving early
| stage startup, allowing us to scale super fast. We've had to
| constantly evaluate whether we are making the right decision,
| especially as we say no to really talented people who are remote,
| but some of our early engineers put their foot down and let us
| know that they chose us /because/ we were in person. And time and
| again we've seen that there's plenty of people like you who want
| to be around people and feel connected to everything happening,
| especially those who are looking at series A/B startups. Frankly,
| it also just seems that you need to be a lot more rigid, focusing
| on specs, structure, documentation, when remote-first and that is
| not as fun when hacking. We of course are flexible about work
| from home, or traveling to see family or be in other places, but
| last time I was with family I definitely noticed that working
| over zoom and slack was way more exhausting.
|
| [1] https://parafin.com/
| https://www.linkedin.com/company/buildparafin
| nathias wrote:
| Don't worry, most of the adds that say 100% remote aren't remote
| at all.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I suspect it depends on where you live. I live in Massachusetts,
| but because I live too far away from Boston, I need to primarily
| work remote. (And, oh, I'd much rather be in the office 80-90% of
| the time.)
|
| Believe me, it's easier to get an in-person job than a remote
| job! Most positions that I see still want staff primarily in-
| house.
|
| Do you live in the Bay Area, or in a generally high cost of
| living area? I suspect the push towards remote in those locations
| is actually cost-saving, and not a "perk." When I lived in the
| Bay Area, _every_ job I worked involved working with a lot of
| remote people who lived in cheaper areas.
|
| If you're willing to move, there's a LOT of on-site work in
| Massachusetts in and near Boston!
| pc86 wrote:
| I've seen this for Boston specifically, and a bit for New York,
| but I don't think it generalizes. I live in a MCOL area and
| 90%+ of the jobs I see are remote. Controlling for the ones
| outright lying and the ones that think remote means coming into
| a main office every MWF, let's call it 75% are actually remote.
| However, most of the jobs I've seen posted from Boston
| companies seem to require in-person for some reason. And a
| large number (30-40% or more) of NYC ones I've seen have this
| weird "remote until COVID is over" nonsense.
|
| Maybe it's a northeastern thing? I saw it a bit in Philadelphia
| too but much smaller sample size there.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Many Boston companies work with physical items and high-cost
| assets and thus have a real reason for in-person work. Also,
| even though the cost of living is high, it's well-balanced
| with wages, so someone doesn't have to telecommute just to
| afford a decent home. (Unlike the Bay Area where your huge
| paycheck hardly covers a reasonable apartment.)
|
| But... There's also a weird "prep school" attitude where
| someone's thinks they're "the boss" instead of a manager.
| (These are usually people who micromanage and have bad
| leadership skills.) These are the managers who insist on no
| remote work, or put weird rules on it, because they just
| can't trust their team or won't hire people they can trust.
|
| Fortunately, the shift to remote work has made these kinds of
| bosses easier to weed out.
| severino wrote:
| Problem with this is that you don't want to just work in an
| office, but also have other people from the company work with you
| at the office. It's different from people who prefer WFH because
| they don't care if the other guys also work remote or not.
|
| Anyway, at this point of the pandemic, I'd still not feel
| comfortable having lunch with coworkers in a closed space. I just
| prefer to have lunch myself alone, or at home, than risking
| getting infected.
| tablespoonsruby wrote:
| > It's different from people who prefer WFH because they don't
| care if the other guys also work remote or not.
|
| But lots of remote-evangelists will say things like "If anybody
| is joining a meeting remotely, everybody needs to call in from
| their own separate computers". I might able to come in to the
| office but it still affects my experience.
| geekbird wrote:
| People can join a meeting from their own computer in the
| office. They can still get your social time around the water
| cooler/break room/foosball table. But I see no reason that
| _I_ should have to be miserable and come in to the office
| just because they want to see my face in person and yak at me
| when I 'm trying to work.
|
| I see no reason why I'm required to be miserable to enhance
| their "experience".
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| I worked at a "campus" where we all called in anyway. It
| wasn't that bad. Arguably better because if the meeting
| starts to suck you can read HN or play solitaire.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Aren't there numerous companies trying to force a return to the
| office? Filtering by "Remote" on LinkedIn wipes out a lot of
| positions.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Yes. OP has clearly not talked to any FAANG recruiters, for
| example. The default assumption is still that you're moving to
| the Bay Area for in-office work, like it or not.
| paulcole wrote:
| This isn't as effective as you'd think. There are a ton of
| positions listed as a physical location, like "Portland, OR."
| But then the job title has "(remote)" added to it and there's
| no mention of any on-site work.
|
| I think companies are doing this to just show up in more
| searches.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| For those saying there are many people working in office now
| (I've been remote for the last 2 years without an office to go
| into), are your offices requiring employees to wear masks in
| office? Are coworkers having lunch together?
|
| There are definitely some things I miss about having the option
| to go into an office, but I think any enjoyment I may have
| derived from that in the past would be negated if myself and
| coworkers were masked at all times, and ate lunch separately.
|
| I do think that's the responsible thing to do though. Unless
| working with a very small group of people, I imagine that would
| be the expectation for in-office workers now (especially with the
| Omicron variant spreading). Which makes me dislike the idea of
| working in-office even more.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| Yes we're required to wear masks, be fully vaccinated and we
| still have lunch together. This varies by company though.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Required to wear masks outside of your personal space or
| office. If anyone comes to your space you need to put a mask
| on. We had some company lunches where we all took masks off but
| then go back to wearing them back in the office. It's a bit of
| a show. I know some offices require a daily Covid test and
| temperature reading. We had been doing temperature readings but
| those stopped at some point. The bizarre thing about it is that
| for productivity and expressiveness, zoom/teams conversations
| are actually preferable to masked conversations, especially if
| you're trying to show someone something on your screen. Masked
| conversations in groups are still more free flowing than a
| video chat though.
| alecbz wrote:
| In NYC: until recently we didn't need masks in my office and
| you were allowed to eat lunch together normally (you were
| required to be vaccinated, though enforcement was just an
| attestation). With omicron my company (not the city) has
| decided to add back masking for now.
|
| At HQ in the Bay masking indoors was still required by the
| county, I believe. Though people are still able to eat lunch
| together.
| jstx1 wrote:
| Do you live in/near a big city? If you do, there should be enough
| in-office jobs there.
|
| I feel similarly about remote but with a couple of differences:
|
| - I'm not extroverted all, I still vastly prefer office over
| remote.
|
| - It's not about socialising, I find the work itself much better
| when I can meet my coworkers in person.
| alecbz wrote:
| > I find the work itself much better when I can meet my
| coworkers in person
|
| Yeah I think this is an important point. I would still kinda
| call this "socializing" I think, but there's a huge difference
| between "just having people to talk about random stuff with"
| socializing and "interacting with the people I'm spending most
| of my time working with, talking about the things we're working
| on" socializing.
| outericky wrote:
| I am the same. Introvert, but prefer to work around people.
| When we started SimpleLegal, for 2 years we were just working
| from home. I ended up getting a desk at a coworking space just
| to be around other people. If for no other reason than to
| commiserate with others.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| You wrote: <<If for no other reason than to commiserate with
| others.>> I do not see this expressed enough, and thank you
| for your comment. Yes, I agree. Even when I am pissed off by
| the "sea of mediocrity" a couple of levels back, it really
| helps to halve(!) my blood pressure by agreeing with co-
| workers about the terribleness of X, Y, or Z!
| spookthesunset wrote:
| For what it's worth, you aren't alone. Not every role in software
| is amenable to WFH. In fact most roles aren't. Developers have it
| easy. They can do remote all day long... or at least they think
| they can but they still have to have high bandwidth interfaces
| with the rest of their team.
|
| It's very very hard to replace sitting with all your teammates
| and rapidly working through a problem. When everybody is remote
| everything has to be scheduled and calendared.
|
| I dunno where I'm going with this ramble but I strongly suspect
| two years from now will look a lot like it did back in 2019.
| People will still WFH some days like they did in 2019 but all
| these companies trying to go hybrid or whatever will discover
| that it just doesn't work.
| satisfice wrote:
| Become a medical worker.
| abinaya_rl wrote:
| There are still jobs that require physical presence. Find an
| IoT/Electronics company or any hardware company which provides
| that.
|
| Also, try to join the local library and start working from there.
| You will meet a lot of people and you will not feel alone or
| anything like that.
| donretag wrote:
| LinkedIn has made the process of finding an on-site position more
| difficult.
|
| They will list a position as being local to your search, but when
| you view the listing, it will actually be for a remote job. There
| is no way to really search for on-site jobs in LinkedIn.
| claudiulodro wrote:
| This is definitely a recent change they did, because I had a
| job alert that went from getting a new truly local listing
| every few weeks to 50+ listings a day with all of them being
| remote.
|
| In the "All Filters" section, there's a new On-Site/Remote
| section where you can exclude remote listings now in the job
| search tool.
| donretag wrote:
| Thanks, that appears to work. Although, LinkedIn will reset
| the filter if I change another part of the search in attempt
| to increase results.
|
| Offices are still closed, so many companies still do not know
| how they will truly operate once they will re-open.
| k__ wrote:
| There are plenty of jobs in the service industry that don't make
| sense to do remote.
|
| Might make sense to look there, because you can't be forced to
| work remote ever.
| chitowneats wrote:
| Quite hard to take this comment seriously given that this forum
| is dedicated to the software industry. Not to mention the
| significant pay cut.
| k__ wrote:
| Sorry, but for me it's the other way around.
|
| I always get an astro-turfing vibe when reading such posts.
| chitowneats wrote:
| Such as mine you mean? I'm actually not sure how to
| interpret your comment.
|
| Service work in my country is a 0.25x or 0.1x reduction in
| income compared to software. Americans are much better off
| working in tech from a financial perspective.
| alecbz wrote:
| I think the parent means that they work in the service
| industry?
| telesilla wrote:
| Could you find a large, fun coworking environment? The right
| place could quickly give you the same benefits.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > These days it's hard to find an in office job
|
| I'm not sure that's true; most companies do plan to re-open their
| offices if they're not already open.
|
| It probably is harder to find an in office job that is in-office
| today. Virtually impossible in some places, depending on
| government guidelines. But generally the intent is to go back.
|
| I'm in the same boat; can't stand working from home, and wouldn't
| take a remote job. I had eight days back in the office this year,
| after which the government advised offices to close again...
| (Ireland has been particularly aggressive about this). During the
| brief window we were allowed (though not required) to go in, lots
| of people do.
|
| I do hope and expect to be back in the office properly in 2022,
| though.
|
| My impression is that the average person would prefer part in
| office, part WFH. I'm an outlier, strongly preferring all in
| office. I think full WFH may also be outliers; most polls seem to
| have flexible as the preferred option.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > ...if they're not already open
|
| It's not the same when the office is "open," but only 5% of
| people are coming in.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I mean, I can only speak from personal experience, but when
| my office reopened (very briefly due to bad timing wrt
| government advise) it was about 25% full (the maximum then
| allowed in this country by government guidelines). I don't
| think, had the capacity limit not existed, that everyone
| would have come in, but I also think your 5% estimate is very
| much on the low side.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Join any of the companies attempting to force a return to office.
| When all of us who refuse this nonsense quit, the companies will
| be hungry to hire anyone.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| That's the truth. Any recruiters offering a half hearted
| "hybrid for now" approach will get quite a shock in the next
| six months.
| throwaway59553 wrote:
| computerfriend wrote:
| Are you willing to relocate?
| alecbz wrote:
| Is there a particular place you recommend moving to for being
| in-office? Or you just mean your options open up a lot in
| general when you're willing to move?
| fer wrote:
| Strangely enough, I can't find a remote job (EU). Since the
| pandemic started I had about 10 solid offers BUT they did bait-
| and-switch to 1-2 days a week on-site, and I just find a PITA to
| move my family to get crumbs of remoteness. The ones I'm sure are
| fully remote tend to only like candidates who are 100% match, as
| the pool for remote is much bigger.
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Similar happened to me with Stripe, an out of left field "by
| the way we need you in the office for 3/4 days per week when we
| return". Goodbye and good luck.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| To throw shade (probably will get some down votes here!), I
| would have nodded my head in agreement... but keep your
| samurai sword close at hand. When they start to push you to
| return to office can use all sorts of stalling tactics. At
| worst, make up some crazy situation where you "need" to WFH
| due to elder-care/illness-care/single-parent-child-care. As
| long as you are highly productive, it will be hard for them
| to fire you. If they are especially horrible and pressure-
| cooker-like, start looking for your next role. Plus, you'll
| have Stripe on your CV!
| iso1631 wrote:
| Or just get a better job, it's a workers market at the
| moment
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Strangely enough, I can't find a remote job (EU).
|
| If it's any consolation, that's not strange at all. Full remote
| jobs are actually very rare still, despite all of the headlines
| and comments suggesting that office work has been ended by
| COVID.
|
| In-office or partial in-office is still the norm for the vast
| majority of jobs.
| sokoloff wrote:
| The latter point makes some sense and is a benefit often
| pitched to employers considering going remote.
|
| On the general search, "EU" might not be specific enough, as
| different countries in EU still have wildly differing
| employment policies, some of which are uncompetitive when an
| employer can easily choose to avoid them. The Netherlands and
| France are both "EU" but worlds apart in terms of employment
| policies.
| burlesona wrote:
| You're not alone. My startup is specifically going against the
| trend and trying to hire in just two locations (Austin and SF),
| because our founding group feels the same as you. So far when
| we've been recruiting people we lead with "we have two offices
| and strongly prefer candidates work in one of them." It either
| ends the conversation or is our #1 selling point.
|
| I think over time the market will discover what percentage of
| people want remote and which percent want in-person, and then
| whatever that percentage is, the distribution of companies going
| remote or not will match.
| curious_cat_163 wrote:
| Indeed. You are not alone @OP.
|
| BTW, pretty neat trick to help with culture fit for a start-up.
| zavulon wrote:
| (shameless plug) I work at Yieldstreet. Our company is filled
| with people just like yourself. Our policy is 3 days a week from
| the office and 2 days remote, so obviously we tend to attract
| people who like working in an office - in person collaboration,
| grabbing lunch, etc.
|
| We have engineering offices in NYC, Miami, Boston, Malta, and
| Brazil (Porto Alegre and Florianopolis). Many open engineering
| roles (recently raised a $150 million Series C)
| https://www.yieldstreet.com/careers/
| tinyhouse wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. I really like this new wave of private
| investment startups. 13% annual return sounds really good. Is
| that guaranteed? How do you guys make money?
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Absolutely not a "shameless plug"! Thank you to share.
| ultrasounder wrote:
| Yes there are jobs that require you to be onsite but you might
| have to consider switching and I am hiring though for a
| relatively junior role. I work in the molecular diagnostic
| industry( COVID test) and you absolutely have to be at work if
| you want to interact with hardware. There are plenty of other
| companies out there in the medical/ biomedical/ space(astranis)/
| auto( Tesla/Ford) that require you to be present at least 50% of
| your time( hybrid). I can help you guide you in that regards if
| you would like. This is assuming your are a software engineer
| employed here in the us. All other cross functions(Marcom,
| accounting) is still remote. Also if you are in the Silicon
| Valley checkout Apple. Seems like they are hell bent on getting
| everyone back in to the office, though you won't be shooting the
| Breeze at work, won't have time to even breath.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| The last two satisfying jobs I got were acquired by going to see
| the CIO/head of department with no prior engagement.
| keraf wrote:
| I'm in the same boat. I found that becoming a regular in a coffee
| shop and working from there kinda works for me. I take my breaks
| with the baristas, have chats with other regulars, and I have
| access to good coffee. Sure, it's not the same as having
| colleagues but there's still human contact and you meet
| interesting people from different industries. Alternatively, I
| was thinking of joining a co-working space but for now the coffee
| shop works well.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| How do you take meetings? I'd love to work from a cafe. But I
| just have too many calls or people asking for help on a 1:1 to
| be comfortable being "that obnoxious guy" on the phone all the
| time.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| I've been working remotely for nearly two years now. Working
| form a caffe is the equivalent of passively reading emails
| whilst drinking coffee, anything beyond that requires proper
| work environment whether it's a room at home or the office.
| keraf wrote:
| That's one of the downsides of coffee shops. Luckily I only
| have a daily standup that lasts 5 minutes. For the rare
| longer meetings where I need to talk a lot, I tend to arrange
| them so I can take them from home. If they are mid-day, I
| take them outside if it's warm enough.
| drakonka wrote:
| I'm curious: how much do you end up spending on coffee while at
| the coffee shop, and in how many hours? I find sitting in a
| coffee shop with a laptop comes with the expectation that
| you'll keep buying coffee, food, _something_ at regular
| intervals (which of course makes sense). The accepted intervals
| tend to vary between coffee shops. I was also thinking of
| working from coffee shops more at some point, but then I wonder
| how much I'll end up paying for the privilege..
| keraf wrote:
| I would say I usually spend around 7EUR for an entire day.
| But there's a mix of common sense and also agreement with the
| barista. I will generally consume more or leave if the coffee
| shop gets really busy, or change my seat to the least used
| one (next to the noisy coffee machine). The baristas also
| think I'm good company, so that also plays in favour of me
| staying longer without consuming excessively. And from time
| to time I help them out if there's something they can't do
| alone.
|
| I also found other coffee shop that are more work focused.
| They are usually more spacious and with big shared tables.
| They mind less if you don't consume regularly. Of course,
| that's always as long as they don't get overly busy. In
| general you will notice if your presence is a "problem", you
| will be asked if you want to consume more.
|
| Edit: I'm located in Prague, CZ.
| emteycz wrote:
| Also in Prague, which cafes do you like?
| keraf wrote:
| My regular one is Republica Coffee, but I also go a lot
| to the cafe in Kasarna Karlin (my favourite spot but a
| bit further from home). Occasionally, I also like to work
| from Mama Coffee, Miners and Super Tramp (in summer, the
| outside area is cool).
| tinyhouse wrote:
| That's why Starbucks is so popular for work and some
| locations redesigned their sitting area to fit remote workers
| better. At Starbucks no one cares how much money you spend vs
| how long you're sitting there. I like working from coffee
| shops but it's more for a change of scenery for a few hours
| when I don't have meetings. Besides the meeting issue, it's
| not the most comfortable setup.
| antoinealb wrote:
| When I visited Paris a few months ago, I found a coffee shop
| that was specifically targeting people who wanted a place to
| work, and turned the business model upside down: instead of
| selling you drinks, and you getting the place for free, they
| would bill you by the hour, and the drinks were free (and
| good!). Of course, that means you get to stay as long as you
| want, no questions asked. The prices were 5EUR/h or
| 24EUR/day, which was totally OK for me as I just needed to
| work for one day.
| rzzzt wrote:
| With an average price of 2.5EUR/coffee (just DDG-d it)... I
| couldn't drink that much coffee over the course of a day.
| j4hdufd8 wrote:
| What's the name of the coffee shop? :)
| ever1 wrote:
| I think I know the place he is talking about: HUBSY cafe
| & coworking | Saint-Lazare. Been there several times, you
| pay by the hour with unlimited drinks and some snacks.
| It's a small place but it is nice and was life-saving for
| me.
| y7 wrote:
| There's also l'Anticafe.
| Raed667 wrote:
| There is a similar space in Nice: https://www.canafe.fr
|
| But it could be kind of expensive if you're an entry level
| developer at Paris or Nice salaries.
| peignoir wrote:
| Yep these are anti cafe models (HUBSY is one) you can find
| them on google maps. On my side I find paris too expensive
| I moved to Estonia where any normal cafe is cool to hang
| out at or co working are at a descent price too (aorund
| 250$ a month) including free coffee (Palo Alto labs is one)
| itsthejb wrote:
| It doesn't really suit me either, but the long term massive
| benefits of earning a big city salary, without having to live in
| a big city, seem to be the solution to the urbanisation that's
| been forced upon us in recent decades
| bfung wrote:
| > Are those days just over?
|
| Depending on your job function and industry. For tech, yes, those
| days are over for at least for another 5 to 10 years, is my
| guess. COVID has generally proven to both employers and employees
| that productivity doesn't drop that much. It will also weed out
| bad people managers who need to "see" people physically who need
| to "get a feel" as a management metric.
|
| The only major factor that would swing the pendulum back into
| offices, is when future diseases get under control much more
| quickly - whether that's corona virus or the next version of it,
| H1N1, avian flu, MERS, covid-19, etc. When the population is
| smart enough to win those battles quickly, and that there's a
| company where in-person teams outperform remote teams by a large
| margin, that's when in-person will be back and the pendulum swing
| again.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > COVID has generally proven to both employers and employees
| that productivity doesn't drop that much.
|
| I know this is the popular sentiment pushed by remote work
| fans, but in offline contexts I hear the polar opposite:
| Productivity struggles are ubiquitous during COVID WFH.
|
| Even the most pro-remote people are quick to admit that COVID
| WFH is not like normal WFH. Some places even had school
| closures which meant parents were juggling kids schooling and
| their jobs. Maybe you worked in a company that didn't have a
| lot of employees with these problems, but it has been a
| significant challenge for many people and companies in the past
| year and a half.
|
| I managed remote teams long before COVID and even I wouldn't
| ever suggest that remote has no effect on productivity. Remote
| is hard and I'd even say that most people aren't cut out for
| it, at least not without significant mentoring and additional
| management attention.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| I completely agree with this.
|
| Certain phases of work and types of teams do alright remotely
| - typically a team with a lot of senior engineers in mid-
| project flow with few external dependencies. But a team with
| a significant number of juniors, faced with multiple blockers
| or external dependencies will underperform badly compared to
| in-person working.
|
| Whole days will go missing because of a lack of effective
| communication - the simple ability to lean over and check or
| ask how someone is doing. Not to mention the inability of
| learners to just pick up information through incidental
| conversation and overhearing other people talking.
| chrsig wrote:
| This doesn't seem like it's a matter of being WFH as much
| as not using chat tools effectively.
|
| It's very possible to just shoot the juniors a DM asking
| how they're doing. or having an active team channel where
| people can ask for help or offer direction.
| bencollier49 wrote:
| Isn't the same as being sat next to them and being able
| to lean over or just ask though is it? You can keep your
| code on your own screen and just nod in.
|
| The screen context switching is a killer.
| chrsig wrote:
| leaning over is just as much a context switch. "just
| being asked" something is often a rude interruption of
| concentration.
|
| over chat i have the opportunity to take a minute to wrap
| up what i'm doing. I also walk away with a written
| record, so if ive asked for help, i have reference to go
| back to. which can then serve as a starting point for
| documentation. or others in the chat can read and
| passively absorb information. or contribute to the
| conversation.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Not everybody's brain is wired to monitor chat tools,
| streams of jira tickets, and piles of email. Many are
| much more effective when they can just roll their chair
| over to their colleagues desk and work something out.
| datavirtue wrote:
| "But a team with a significant number of juniors, faced
| with multiple blockers or external dependencies will
| underperform badly compared to in-person working."
|
| So, like every corporation.
| bfung wrote:
| That really falls on management and having the right docs
| and communications written ready before the juniors need
| it.
| datavirtue wrote:
| All the good docs I have seen were written by an engineer
| who captured their own knowledge for themselves or
| others. I have been at several corporations where I was
| able to onboard myself or resolve specific issues by
| searching confluence or whatever wiki was available.
| Totally different teams/divisions/departments.
|
| Juniors need seniors more than they need docs.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Whole days will go missing because of a lack of effective
| communication
|
| A friend in the construction industry has been dealing with
| this since COVID WFH started. He works with a lot of
| different architects, designers, suppliers, and so on that
| have to coordinate work. He also has to track the costs of
| mistakes and extra time lost due to drawing issues, errors,
| missed change orders and so on.
|
| As soon as COVID WFH started, the rate of errors spiked
| upward. It didn't decline until companies brought their
| employees back into the office. He now goes out of his way
| to work with companies that have gone back to in-office
| work because it's the simplest and most predictable way to
| reduce the amount of money he loses to simple errors.
| bfung wrote:
| Sounds ripe for disruption for a coordination app of some
| sort to track different progress of things...
| spookthesunset wrote:
| Not all problems can be solved by technology. Not all
| "problems" are actually problems either.
| huntertwo wrote:
| > When the population is smart enough to win those battles
| quickly
|
| Don't hold your breath.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > For tech, yes, those days are over for at least for another 5
| to 10 years, is my guess.
|
| I'm kind of wondering are half of these comments from an
| alternate universe. Most tech companies either are planning to
| reopen their offices or have already reopened their offices.
| There are a few companies going remote-only, which I suppose is
| nice if you like that sort of thing (I would quit immediately)
| but most companies do plan to go back to the office, albeit
| likely with more flexibility and some permanent-remote
| employees.
| jspash wrote:
| "COVID has generally proven to both employers and employees
| that productivity doesn't drop that much"
|
| Is that a personal observation of yours, or has this now become
| "fact"? The reason I ask is that I would like to find studies -
| not just surveys or anecdotal evidence - that attempt to
| quantify the quality and productivity of WFH since the recently
| pandemic changes.
|
| At work, we've had countless discussions about this and the
| jury is still out. The introverts claim to be no less than
| twice as productive, the extroverts claim they are lying and
| they really miss leaving work early on Fridays to go to the pub
| - somehow that makes them better employees. Management hate not
| being able to peer over your shoulder (although they have
| recently installed "security" software on everyone's laptops
| for "security purposes"). But I have nothing to point to other
| than my own experience managing a remote team of devs.
|
| I've yet to come to a solid conclusion as to how it works for
| others. I only know that my productivity and depth of work has
| never been greater. So if there are any resources you could
| point me to I'd be grateful.
| bfung wrote:
| Anecdotally - again, at least for tech and not the whole
| market.
|
| It does really boil down to if your company has a culture of
| documentation, reading and writing, before needing to
| interface with someone in real-time.
|
| Anyone who's contributed to open source software understands
| this style of "remote" working, as that's the default.
| midjji wrote:
| I too am curious, but its going to be very difficult to
| measure, and as you say, it it absolutely not a fact.
|
| Lockdown has certainly damaged some industries, but it has
| also taught a generation of people tech things they probably
| would have retired without learning, and the value of that
| may exceed everything else long term. It is very difficult to
| isolate things like this, and we wont get another sample,
| even if we get another pandemic later. I totally get its been
| good for some, but it was bad time for me, though people are
| terrible at self evaluating stuff like this.
|
| I know that students at my university did worse the past two
| years than they did the year before. And by worse I mean
| substantially beyond the typical variance. This is in terms
| of student results like course completion and grades. As well
| as mental health metrics such as surveys on stress etc, and
| in terms of the number who seek aid through uni services. But
| there are confounders everywhere. The way they did worse
| differs in character more than magnituide as well. It looks
| like the majority did just about normal, with what looks like
| a small minority doing very badly. However, this is just one
| uni and it will be another few years before it gets collated,
| anonymized further, and published. It also may not apply to
| real work.
|
| Leadership overall seem to be somewhere between cautiously
| neutral and rather pessimistic in the organisations where I
| have insight which is a bad sign, as except for the ones who
| personally wanted to work from home, no one seems to be happy
| with it, including showing up in management stress level
| surveys. The snooping management meme does not apply. Most of
| us researchers had permission to work from home before we
| started too.
| bfung wrote:
| Schools and learning social interactions for young people
| def. is taking a significant hit.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"really miss leaving work early on Fridays to go to the pub"
|
| I used to have this when I was employed (about 20 years ago).
| Somehow my personal take was that it gets tiring pretty fast.
| I've had enough friends outside of employment and wit the
| very rare exception would very much prefer to socialize with
| them rather than coworkers.
|
| I then went on my own and have never looked back. The fact
| that I am doing quite ok means that I am productive. I design
| and implement new software products for my own company or for
| clients.
| lexapro wrote:
| A lot of people don't have enough friends outside of
| employment.
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| True enough. But is this a problem with WFH vs in-office?
| Or this just an issue of people not prioritizing having a
| life outside of work? For most of us, it won't happen
| unless we actively commit energy to the process.
|
| (I am commenting outside of the constraints of the
| pandemic. Covid obviously makes it much harder.)
| WJW wrote:
| Surely OP, who is "very extraverted" in their own words,
| would not lack friends outside of employment. Even if
| they did, they could always go out and make new ones.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| People have become much more insular since the pandemic.
| I live in the night life district. Nearly two years in,
| the neighborhood is still clearly far less lively than in
| 2019, despite the fact that at least the businesses that
| didn't go bankrupt have all reopened at 100% capacity,
| and our neighborhood has a 95%+ vaccination rate (meaning
| vax mandates aren't keeping people in, and vaxxed folks
| should feel safe going out).
| sokoloff wrote:
| > vaxxed folks should feel safe going out
|
| This might be over-estimating the numeracy and relative
| risk-judgment of people.
| cybertronic wrote:
| Even "extroverts"?
| lumost wrote:
| Anecdotally, this has been coming in waves.
|
| Early in the pandemic ( Mar 2020 ) -> no one knows how to WFH
| as a team. There is insanity in the world and work takes a
| backburner for most people.
|
| Mid-Pandemic (Fall 2020) -> Companies push workers to get
| back to productivity and deliver. Workers are used to the
| remote world and productivity returns to normal.
|
| Current ( Fall 2021) -> Workers just seem _tired_. Retention
| is through the floor, leadership is skiddish of pushing new
| projects in case people leave.
|
| I'm not sure where we'll be in Summer 2022, but my suspicion
| is that workers aren't getting something they used to have in
| the office. Personally, I'm probably signing up for a co-
| working space in the new year to have something vibrant to
| look forward too and hopefully some other engineers to chat
| tech with on occasion.
|
| I do miss the whiteboard and "bouncing idea" conversations.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| It's close to two years. If WFH increased productivity, the
| entire front page of HN should be blitzed with studies and
| metrics proving that. But all we have anecdata from a
| population highly biased to lean introvert.
| alecbz wrote:
| Tangent: I guess this is maybe just the term "introvert"
| being overloaded, but I don't see the introversion => likes
| being alone connection. I'm absolutely an introvert in the
| sense of finding that social interaction requires energy,
| but the past two years have proved beyond a doubt that I'm
| absolutely miserable being alone for long periods of time.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| As someone once said, I hate people, but I don't mind
| working with other people who hate people.
| alecbz wrote:
| I mean I also wouldn't say I hate people though. Just
| because something requires energy from me doesn't mean I
| hate it.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"Depending on your job function and industry. For tech, yes,
| those days are over for at least for another 5 to 10 years"
|
| I think for a good percentage the option might be forever
| except some once in a while gathering in some local bar / event
| place / rent a temp workspace / whatever else can substitute
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I'd say it also depends a lot on location and its prevalent
| culture.
|
| Over here in France, most French companies (as opposed to US
| companies operating here) have to be dragged kicking and
| screaming into WfH arrangements.
|
| Ever since the pandemic started picking back up steam this
| autumn, the government was "encouraging" companies to allow
| people to work from home, but there were no firm directives.
|
| Most companies figured having their employees pile up in the
| metro (yay covid!) and congest the highways (yay pollution!)
| wasn't that big of an issue.
|
| They also asked companies to try to stagger arrival / departure
| times to reduce the number of people in the metro. Didn't work
| any better.
|
| In my opinion, if OP is living in France (or willing to
| relocate here), it should be extremely easy to find in-office
| jobs.
| Jiejeing wrote:
| I can confirm this testimony. Managers and directors are
| doing everything they can to keep people in the building,
| despite more than 10% of employees testing positive for covid
| last week.
| _Wintermute wrote:
| I was working in France at the start of the pandemic, only
| managers had access to the corporate VPN. When we were forced
| to WFH in the first lockdown we had to email our manager (who
| had VPN access) each time we wanted to access or save a file
| and send it as an attachment. This worked about as well you
| as would expect, and they were in the process of trying to
| drag everyone back into the office as an essential worker
| when I left.
| ever1 wrote:
| Looks like a company with poor tech culture, I am not sure
| it is specific to France and could be seen in any other
| places.
| _Wintermute wrote:
| True, but in my experience many French companies were
| perhaps old-fashioned and extremely hierarchical, which
| doesn't really mix well with WFH.
| xwolfi wrote:
| Yeah but then you have to work with French people, which is a
| tradeoff I wouldnt do anymore, as a French myself :p
| cosmodisk wrote:
| I was finding it quite ok to work with French,some were
| even fanatic about their work. What I liked most about them
| was that none of them drank cool-aid and could easily spot
| corporate BS.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > What I liked most about them was that none of them
| drank cool-aid and could easily spot corporate BS.
|
| This may be true, but the issue I usually have is that
| they seem to not do anything about it. Not "rocking the
| boat" and "yessir" are quite common approaches here, to
| the point that a lot of people are under very high
| amounts of stress.
|
| Disclaimer: I've never worked outside of France, so I
| don't know how people here actually compare to other
| places.
| ever1 wrote:
| Why is that ?
| smugglerFlynn wrote:
| I don't see any solution, just want to mention you are not a
| "weirdo", and it is _not_ weird to feel that way.
| Raed667 wrote:
| I have accepted a (slightly) lower pay for a job where I can walk
| to the office (5-10 minutes) instead of being full remote and
| monthly fly-ins, or +1 hour of commute each way.
|
| I have to say, this setup has set the bar pretty high. I manage
| to go the gym before work, have lunch outside with coworkers or
| have a beer after without being too tired from the commute or too
| isolated in my own apartment.
|
| It helps a lot when you're living in the center of a city.
| crisdux wrote:
| I feel the exact same way as you. This wfh life is not for me. I
| think it's cruel to force it on young and single employees.
|
| I'm having trouble finding a new job that has employees on site.
| I appreciate you posting this.
| s0rce wrote:
| Are you a software developer? I'm in an engineering role that
| requires lab work and work mostly onsite from the
| office/lab/factory.
| hacful-tonteg wrote:
| Anything requiring a security clearance
| runako wrote:
| In 3 days, the monthly HN "Who's Hiring" thread will have job
| postings where the vast majority will be for predominately in-
| person jobs.
|
| If you have trouble beyond that, look at any big company not in
| tech, where they returned to the office in 2020.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I think there will be plenty of traditional "come to the office
| 200+ days a year" tech jobs once COVID is endemic. I wouldn't be
| at all surprised if over half of tech jobs offer an in-office
| experience for employees who want it. For those companies that
| do, I'd expect over half of employees will choose 100+ days a
| year in office.
|
| If you want a 5 days/week mandated in-office in Jan 2022, you're
| going to have slim pickings. If you want that in Jan 2023, I sure
| hope that's fairly common again (just for the implications on C19
| endemic status, not because I want to go to an office).
| DylanBohlender wrote:
| This depends on broader society accepting that COVID is endemic
| though, and the cessation of all sorts of regulations. I don't
| doubt it will happen eventually, but I'm not sure if another
| year is enough time. There has to be some sort of common
| knowledge catalyst that changes the general approach; as long
| as events are still being cancelled due to COVID cases, we're
| not out of the woods and "living with the disease" quite yet.
|
| Additionally, I think "undoing" the remote workforce transition
| is going to be nigh impossible for many companies. How do you
| get your employees back to the office? You probably tell them
| their employment is contingent on being in the office; that's
| the only leverage you really have as an employer. Many people
| have moved since the onset of the pandemic, and with the labor
| market as tight as it is, few companies are going to be able to
| stomach laying off employees who moved away and don't want to
| move somewhere near a physical office location.
|
| So companies have a Hobson's choice: declare an "on-site"
| culture and axe all the people who no longer wish to be on-site
| (with no guarantee that you'll be able to hire replacements in
| a timely manner), or declare a "hybrid" culture and allow
| people to opt into coming into the office instead of having it
| mandated (with no guarantee that people will actually show up
| to the office and make your real estate expenses worthwhile).
|
| I think a lot of companies are going to choose option #2 now,
| and a lot of those who choose #2 are going to reevaluate that
| gargantuan office lease expense in a few years' time when
| comparing the cost with the actual utilization of the space. I
| think a not-insignificant portion of the option #2 companies
| will end up being "full remote" companies as a result, it'll
| just take them a few years to get there. I think the option #1
| companies will probably be fine if they're in cities where
| there's enough talent, but their long-term success is kind of a
| toss-up in my opinion. It truly depends on whether the social
| benefits of in-person interaction gives them a competitive
| advantage versus world-spanning remote companies who can be
| more selective with their talent.
| tehjoker wrote:
| All you guys living with the virus are going to enjoy the
| decreased life bars of everyone in the office thanks to long
| COVID. Enjoy having 20% of your friends disabled and early
| onset dementia with sporadic large outbreaks of system
| overwhelming disease.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| What the heck are you even talking about? Dude. Covid is
| here forever. You are vaccinated and possibly boosted. You
| are as safe as it is ever gonna get. Move on!
| tehjoker wrote:
| Omicron has already demonstrated that vaccine evasion is
| inevitable, we are vaccinating against the extinct Wuhan
| virus. Global human elimination of SARS2 is necessary or
| you will see in both your personal life and in the
| broader economy continued disability, death, and drags on
| productivity.
|
| There is some speculation that the "worker shortage" is
| due in part to workers with long COVID who want to return
| to work but can't. I do not know how large of an effect
| it is, but I can promise you it is real.
|
| My perspective is we are living in a time of crisis and
| we must muster the reserves to forcefully challenge the
| problems of our time. Furthermore, COVID-19, a mass
| disabling event, may take years to resolve. If it takes 5
| years to avoid catching it, I will have decades of
| healthy life remaining.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| >Global human elimination of SARS2
|
| Yawn. This will never happen, and no one even cares. Long
| covid is just 1% of 1% cases that are psychosomatic and
| way overblown.
| tehjoker wrote:
| In unvaccinated cases, persistent symptoms appear in ~20%
| of mild cases, 50% for hospitalized [0]. Vaccines prevent
| contracting the virus, but afaik similar rates for those
| that contract it.
|
| Long COVID symptoms range across many body systems
| including pain, fatigue, brain fog, inability to stand,
| heart damage, tinnitus (one CEO to the point they
| committed suicide [1]), kidney, and pancreatic damage.
| More results are being found routinely.
|
| Your attitude is quite callous. I hope that if you were
| on the receiving end of the stick, other people will not
| dismiss you the same way you've dismissed them.
|
| [0] https://s3.amazonaws.com/media2.fairhealth.org/whitep
| aper/as...
|
| [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninashapiro/2021/03/21/t
| exas-ro...
| robbintt wrote:
| Endemic is not a social condition that people "accept".
|
| It means the virus is found at a baseline level without
| external inputs (wikipedia).
| dj_mc_merlin wrote:
| As someone who _loves_ remote working, the fact that this
| question exists makes me incredibly happy. Also as someone who
| enjoys not starving while all in-person locations close.
| niemenmaa wrote:
| Before pandemic I started working remotely and soon noticed that,
| like OP, working alone doesn't suit me.
|
| I solved this by joining a co-working hub that offers offices to
| remote workers / entrepreneurs. My employer pays for the hub
| membership.
|
| I drive to our offices around once a month, but rest of the time
| I sit in a room with an accountant and gym owner. They are fun to
| chat and go to lunch with but they don't interrupt me with work
| related things.
|
| As a bonus I get to meet and hang with professionals in many
| different areas and I find that really satisfying.
|
| If I change company I work for, I just get the new employer to
| pay for the office. If I need to move, I prefer cities that have
| this kind of co-working place.
|
| This is quite doable, here in Finland at least and while it has
| some downsides, it has worked for me!
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I am glad to hear I'm not the only person with this idea. I
| just walked away from 10 years at Google in part because the
| last almost-2 years of remote just killed my productivity and
| motivation completely and I need to reset and find something
| smaller with a higher velocity and creativity and without the
| 45 minute (one way) commute I had to Google. I didn't like
| remote, but commuting in also sucked. And even when I went into
| the office for hybrid, 90% of my coworkers were never there to
| collaborate with anyways.
|
| So my thought is that in my job hunt even if I find something
| that's remote (likely given where I live) that I will rent
| myself an office space nearby where there's other humans,
| better Internet, and no distractions from wife, kids, dog,
| garden, skis, bed, living room, TV, etc.
| Arubis wrote:
| +10000%. Coworking is, for me, remote working done right: you
| get to separate your "work family" from your
| employer/clientele, which means you can change one without
| changing the other at your discretion.
| cprayingmantis wrote:
| If you or anyone else has the time I'd love to talk about what
| in your opinion makes a great co-working space. Looking into
| setting up one in the rural region I'm in.
| niemenmaa wrote:
| IMHO greatness comes from the community.
|
| A mental checklist when looking for one (not necessarily in
| this order) Need: - good internet
| - own desk - place to securely store laptop after hours
| - fridge - phone booth / meeting room Plus:
| - coffee, tee etc. - tableware, washing machine,
| someone to operate it - 24/7 access - printing
| Demcox wrote:
| What a great solution - will keep this in mind!
| pawelwentpawel wrote:
| This is an excellent example of the difference between "working
| from home" and "working remotely". Those two terms
| unfortunately are used interchangeably as synonyms.
| terminalcommand wrote:
| Yeah this is true. When I say people I'm working from home,
| they look with pitty. When I say, I'm working remotely,
| people's impression change.
|
| I don't know why this is like this, but it is true for me.
| jader201 wrote:
| > When I say people I'm working from home, they look with
| pitty.
|
| That sounds odd. Pity is usually expressed when you're in
| an unfortunate position you had/have no control over. Most
| people (should) understand that most people work from home
| not out of force, but out of choice.
| Izkata wrote:
| When work and home become one, it gives the impression
| you're always on call / aren't able to separate the two.
| Could be an issue the other people have, so they imagine
| you being the same.
|
| I do remember when enforced work-from-home started almost
| two years ago, a lot of people didn't have a ready-made
| space like a home office and complained about exactly
| that problem.
| xwolfi wrote:
| But then what s the point ? We re forced to work from home
| to avoid contaminating our colleagues but it s fine to
| crowd a coworking space ?
|
| Sounds very inefficient to me but I guess people like us
| are a minority.
|
| Gladly in my country we have 0 case (Hong Kong) so we work
| at the office now, thank God.
| OJFord wrote:
| I assume the suggestion is that the co-working space will
| be used when the rules/conditions allow; which is no
| different to the prospective employer's own office OP
| presumes to look for anyway.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Good luck with that approach, I hope you enjoy your
| office.
|
| Yet the [zero covid] approach has largely cut off Hong
| Kong from both China and the world - a severe blow for a
| place that built its success on global connections. Even
| more than recent political changes, the authorities'
| refusal to adapt to living with the virus is eroding Hong
| Kong's viability as an international city, according to
| almost two dozen diplomats, chambers of commerce,
| recruiters, pilots and other expatriates. ....
|
| In a survey released this month, the British Chamber of
| Commerce found that 70 percent of respondents hoping to
| add staff in Hong Kong had encountered difficulties, with
| many citing quarantine restrictions. ....
|
| Jan Willem Moller, chairman of the Dutch Chamber of
| Commerce, said that about a quarter of Dutch
| businesspeople have left this year, and that the
| departures would "increase significantly" if the
| quarantine rules stay in place ....
|
| At least 240 Cathay pilots have quit since May, according
| to employees who reviewed internal numbers. The carrier
| is reeling, with staff morale at "rock bottom" after
| hefty pay cuts last year and more departures imminent,
| several pilots said ....
|
| Resentment spilled over last month when more than 120
| students were ordered to a government quarantine camp
| known as Penny's Bay after they were deemed to be
| contacts of a pilot who was among three who tested
| positive on return from Germany
|
| https://www.yahoo.com/news/hong-kong-clinging-zero-
| covid-132...
| cma wrote:
| > Yet the [zero covid] approach has largely cut off Hong
| Kong from both China and the world
|
| Through most of things China itself had a zero covid
| approach too.
| techcode wrote:
| The point of co-working space combo with "WFH/Remote" is
| that you potentially get benefits of both WFH/Remote and
| Office.
|
| Being in co-working space/office gives you some social
| interaction, less chance teenage neighbor is blasting
| latest trance tunes on really loud speakers on one side
| and another neighbor is tearing down/renovating his
| apartment with loads of jack-hammer action, perhaps you
| just don't have enough desk space at home, maybe it's
| easier to switch between work and personal life by having
| some (short) commute ...etc. Some of those might be all
| the time - and some might be every now and then.
|
| Meanwhile not being in same "central" office with
| colleagues give you more independence/autonomy. Beyond
| having less interruptions (e.g: it's easier to
| avoid/ignore a chat/email than a physical shoulder poke),
| some people prefer (or actually perform better) when
| interactions are less "real time" and more async, or
| perhaps they just concentrate better at 4am or 10pm
| ...etc.
|
| And in general idea is that co-working offices don't need
| to be as big/crowded nor as far as big company offices.
|
| Though I'm not sure how much last part applies to places
| like Hong Kong (many people, relatively short distances)
| agumonkey wrote:
| Maybe 'working anywhere' would be simpler than 'remote' to
| the average person.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| It's because 99% or more of remote workers are working from
| home.
|
| Coworkers spaces are basically micro remote offices for 1.
| Much of the remote discourse has been about avoiding offices
| and commutes altogether, not replacing it with a different
| micro office that you commute to alone.
|
| It's reasonable to assume that remote and work from home are
| the same thing unless someone explicitly says they're working
| in a satellite coworking soave.
| pawelwentpawel wrote:
| Touching on your points:
|
| 1. "99% of remote workers are working from home" - we're in
| the middle of a massive pandemic so it's hard not to.
|
| 2. "(...) avoiding offices and commutes altogether, not
| replacing it with a different micro office (...)" - if you
| happen to cowork, there is a massive difference between
| being able to choose the location of your office (or
| whatever we'd like to call the place where the work
| happens) vs being dictated one by your employer. You're in
| charge of your physical location and you have the freedom
| to optimise your commute and context that works best for
| you. Cutting your commute by 1 hour a day and assuming that
| you do 260, 8 hour working days a year yields over a month
| of work freed up (~32 full-time working days).
|
| 3. "It's reasonable to assume that remote and work from
| home are the same thing" - I think that this way of
| thinking is not only grossly inaccurate but will also hurt
| remote work trends in the future. WFH and remote work are
| two sets that sometimes intersect but are not equal.
| They're not the same thing. To clarify that, a couple
| examples:
|
| - Most of my family are artists (painters) working from
| home. They're not working remotely because there is no
| remote entity that they are answering to. They have their
| art studios where they live. It's WFH, not remote.
|
| - Let's say I have a client, employer or any entity that I
| answer to that's in a different location. I have a
| contractual agreement which states I don't need to appear
| in their place of work and everything happens over the
| internet. I choose to work from an office that I have
| rented. I am working remotely but not working from where I
| sleep. It's remote without the WFH.
|
| - I got stuck at home working remotely for my employer
| because we're in a nasty lockdown or I simply chose to do
| so. In this case, those sets intersect. It's WFH and
| Remote.
| alecbz wrote:
| Not knocking what works for anyone else, but for me this really
| doesn't at all address the "working remotely" issue.
|
| Working around a bunch of strangers is better than being alone
| in my apartment all day, a bit better still if we're in similar
| industries, but the real thing I want is being physically
| present with the actual people on my team that I'm working
| with.
|
| Right now I'm working from my company's local office, but my
| team is located elsewhere/working remote. It's definitely
| better than a coworking space IMO, but after one week of flying
| out to HQ and working with my actual team in person, even just
| 1-2 of them for most of the week, I realized working from my
| local office doesn't even come _close_ to how much I enjoy
| actually being physically present with the people I work with.
| niemenmaa wrote:
| This is definitely one of the bigger downsides of remote
| work, so I fully agree.
| F30 wrote:
| How many (online) meetings do you (and the others) typically
| have? How do you manage the resulting conflicts around
| quietness, background noise, or even confidentiality of meeting
| contents?
|
| While I like the idea of shared co-working, the reality is that
| my current job works best in a room on my own. And it doesn't
| even involve more than 10 % meetings plus some ad-hoc calls
| with coworkers.
| niemenmaa wrote:
| My work consists of ~30% of meetings and ~5% of phone calls.
| We have a rule with my "roommates" that short calls (< 30
| min) can be made without leaving the room. Luckily for me
| these are mostly internal (and non-confidential) ones.
|
| If it is a customer meeting, then I go to a phone booth that
| has a standing desk, and for longer ones I book a meeting
| room where the setup is little bit better.
|
| In previous co-working space was this big hall and distance
| between tables was something like 5 to 10 meters (15-30 ft.)
| and almost everyone made their calls on their desks, even
| though phone booths and meeting rooms were available.
|
| One's mileage may of course greatly vary :)
| fy20 wrote:
| I'm also in a co-working space. Mine has two main rooms, one
| is a free for all and the other is a silent area. I'm in the
| silent area, and if I need to take make a call I take my
| laptop to the other side so as not to disturb anyone. I get
| very irritated by office noises, and this works pretty well
| for me.
| 65 wrote:
| Just want to say you are not alone. I too want to have a place to
| go. Whether it's a co-working space or an office for the company
| I work for, waking up and working in the same place every day is
| slowly driving me crazy.
|
| The WFH people are probably the most vocal online (especially on
| Reddit as subreddits tend to create echo-chambers), so it feels
| as though _everyone_ wants to work from home, but ultimately I
| think/hope most people understand the social benefits of working
| in an office.
| abyssin wrote:
| I've decided to switch career because WFH has made me
| depressed. I simply can't stand looking at a computer anymore.
| Working for a company was bearable when I used to be able to
| get human connections in exchange. I haven't tried joining a
| coworking place because I didn't really have the opportunity,
| but I think I wouldn't get the same connection with people who
| don't work for the same company as I do.
| alecbz wrote:
| > I think I wouldn't get the same connection with people who
| don't work for the same company as I do.
|
| Mentioned this in another comment, but I'm working from my
| company's local office while my team is mostly
| elsewhere/remote. We had an in-person onsite at HQ recently
| though, and I realized even working with other people at my
| company is _peanuts_ compared to working physically with the
| actual people on my team I work with day-to-day. (Obviously
| this distinction is only meaningful at larger companies).
| g051051 wrote:
| > ultimately I think/hope most people understand the social
| benefits of working in an office.
|
| As far as I'm concerned, there aren't any.
|
| But you know what? At the end of the day I don't care where
| someone works, as long as they extend me the same courtesy. The
| last place I worked at (before the lockdowns) gradually
| eliminated WFH, converted to an open plan office, and generally
| made life miserable for software devs who prefer peace and
| quiet over socializing at work. I'm much happier working from
| home, although I have some uncommon advantages there: no kids
| and amazing internet.
| geekbird wrote:
| This. I hate open plan offices, I hate commuting, I don't
| feel the need to socialize in my job.
|
| If an extrovert gets energized and inspired by working in an
| office, great. But don't expect me to do it just because they
| want company to talk at. There are plenty of extroverts that
| can share the office with you.
|
| IMO, all the extroverts can drive over an hour a day to yak
| at each other in open plan petri dishes, but count me out.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > But you know what? At the end of the day I don't care where
| someone works
|
| I think this is the most pragmatic way forward.
|
| Given my own company, I suspect that there are about 10-25%
| of tech that want to work fully remote. That is, never work
| in the office again, save for specific times (internal
| conferences, and the like) equally there are 10-25% who hate
| working remotely and want to be in the work office.
|
| The rest are either ambivalent or want something truely (ie
| 1-3 days a week, but with the autonomy to choose)
|
| However for that to work, there needs to be a revolution in
| how we share knowledge, spread ideas, and plan. At the moment
| none of the tools we use appear to be particularly efficient.
| VC is largely half duplex, slow and draining. 1:1 video calls
| feel invasive, so you don't want to start them unless you
| really have to. Where I work we have "workplace" but the
| signal to noise ratio is really quite terrible. I suspect
| that half of that is down to culture of present $company.
|
| Slack is a much better at instant chat, but workplace has
| better layout for semi ephemeral messaging. None of them are
| good for longterm documentation.
| fouc wrote:
| To me, "social benefit" implies being able to make friends,
| real friends not token friends. In which case, then it would
| be worth going to the office. Granted, not all companies are
| good for that unfortunately.
| dbbk wrote:
| Presumably you're an introvert then? As OP said, they're
| extrovert, and hate being on their own.
| g051051 wrote:
| And as I said, if OP wants to hang out and work with other
| people, I'm fine with it. Medical reasons aside, I wouldn't
| force someone to WFH any more than I'd want someone to
| force me into an office. However, work culture (until
| recently) has catered exclusively to "extroverts".
| RandomWorker wrote:
| Go into nursing
| mrkentutbabi wrote:
| That's strange, because what I've seen all the time is companies
| don't prefer remote. Both big ones and startups. I thought I am
| the minority to want forever remote.
| pbmango wrote:
| We pulled together several lists of recently posted roles at mid
| size tech cos. While many of these (most?) include remote option
| - my guess is reaching out to the team to see if folks have an in
| person option could be a good signal on being serious about to
| role etc. For companies that are building their culture around
| remote they may be turned off by such a questions but you aren't
| looking for those anyway.
|
| https://www.kiter.app/lists
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > These days it's hard to find an in office job, and even when
| you do, it feels like that would be s red flag anyway, since WFH
| is seen as a perk by most, or realistically I worry I'm going to
| go in to the office and be the only one there.
|
| > Is it not as bad as I think? Are there places out there for
| weirdos like me?
|
| Preferring in-office work is actually very common.
|
| Take the news headlines and internet comments with a grain of
| salt. Even many of the big companies that have temporary WFH are
| still moving back toward in-office work.
|
| The internet comments and anecdote-filled news articles would
| have you believe that office work is dead and everybody loves
| WFH, but my actual experience with companies suggests that a lot
| of people are realizing they aren't cut out for WFH or they
| prefer being in the office. It's just unpopular to say as much
| online these days because the people who _do_ prefer WFH are
| sensitive about any suggestions that it isn't universally
| superior.
|
| Frankly, looking at job listings lately I still see far more
| office jobs than full remote jobs. If you're looking for a normal
| office job it shouldn't be hard to find. However, if you've been
| convinced that non-remote jobs are "red flags" by some of the
| recent internet hyperbole, this could be clouding your search.
| severino wrote:
| > It's just unpopular to say as much online these days because
| the people who do prefer WFH are sensitive about any
| suggestions that it isn't universally superior.
|
| Maybe it's because people WFH don't care at all if you want to
| spend 2 hours commuting, or that you don't mind getting covid
| by staying 8h a day in a closed office with tons of people. But
| people who doesn't want WFH, not only want to be in a office,
| they also want the other people in the company at the office
| too, because otherwise "I worry I'm going to go in to the
| office and be the only one there".
| [deleted]
| chrsig wrote:
| This is the real crux. It's not that people who hate wfh want
| to be in the office, it's that people that hate wfh want _me_
| to be in the office.
|
| It's not that one's superior to the other, it's that one
| wants to force itself on the other.
| geekbird wrote:
| That's what I've found: People who like being in the office
| and socializing want to force me to commute for several
| hours a day just so they can yak at me, disrupt my
| concentration, and "see" me work. No thank you.
|
| If the in-office people would just go into the office
| together and then deal with the remote people as we are,
| things would be fine. But no, the in-office extroverts want
| to force us all into their mold.
| titanomachy wrote:
| I don't want to force anyone to do anything. I want to
| _find_ a team that has the same primary work mode that I
| do: in-person collaboration. My current team has a loose
| agreement that this is how we'll work after covid, but I
| just joined in the last year so we'll see. If there are
| also teams (or whole companies) of people who work best
| over Zoom, then that's great.
|
| Of course I can be flexible about things like covid variant
| surges or natural disasters.
| tablespoonsruby wrote:
| > I don't want to force anyone to do anything. I want to
| find a team that has the same primary work mode that I
| do: in-person collaboration.
|
| I think of this the way I think of full-time pair
| programming: nobody should be forced to do it, but it's
| perfectly fine to form a team where it's a key part of
| the culture, as long as it's made abundantly clear to new
| hires before they join that it will be expected of them.
| scaryclam wrote:
| To be fair, both want to force themselves on the other.
| Compromise is really important when considering how people
| work. The all-or-nothing attitude is unproductive and
| doesn't help either acheive their goals.
| [deleted]
| rsynnott wrote:
| I'm not sure that's true; some people do get weirdly
| evangelical about WFH.
|
| Personally, I'm glad that people who like WFH have increased
| opportunities to do it now, so long as I never have to do it
| again myself. Worst two years of my life.
| thowaway202107 wrote:
| > I'm not sure that's true; some people do get weirdly
| evangelical about WFH.
|
| I don't think its evangelical as much as protective.
|
| I for one have had to endure grueling years of working in
| open office environments. I've got pretty severe adhd and
| anxiety, that's not a good place for me.
|
| With covid, the world shifted to working how I prefer. I'm
| terrified it'll go back to how it was.
|
| So I'm sorry it's been a rough couple years for you, but
| please understand that it's been a rough lifetime for
| people like me.
|
| Because office work is still the default mentality for most
| people, this new world that's aligned to my needs is in
| constant jeopardy.
| geekbird wrote:
| Amen.
|
| If people like being in the office, fine. I don't
| understand it, but that's okay. I have ADHD and have a
| large startle reflex - I hate open plan offices, I
| dislike commuting, and I get more done from home.
|
| If the office people stop trying to force me into the
| office with them, we can get along. Otherwise, no. For
| once in my life I can work in an environment that works
| for me. I'm not going to let some extrovert ruin it if I
| can avoid it.
| bryguy32403 wrote:
| > the people who do prefer WFH are sensitive about any
| suggestions that it isn't universally superior.
| severino wrote:
| But I don't prefer WFH.
| caffeine wrote:
| HFT and finance are still mostly in-office. If you join as a
| front-office dev on a trading team, chances are you will not be
| remote much and people will be in the office trading.
| conformist wrote:
| Generally true, but working from home is also becoming
| increasingly common even for front office roles (at least in
| the UK, not sure how that generalises).
| aix1 wrote:
| And also front-office dev isn't everybody's cup of tea
| (though I am sure this can be said of any type of role).
|
| (Source: worked in finance/trading for 10+ years before
| jumping ship.)
| alecbz wrote:
| I've never been too interested in working for HFT/traditional
| finance, but depending on how office trends continue I might
| change my mind (especially living in NYC, though I'm also
| considering moving).
| caffeine wrote:
| Chicago, London and Singapore are also good places, although
| nowadays there are funds everywhere (Boston, SF, Miami).
|
| This is a wild overgeneralisation but in descending order of
| fun levels/friendliness of HFT teams it goes Chicago, London,
| Singapore, NYC.
|
| Seems to hold across most HFTs I have met/worked at. Not sure
| about hedge funds or other finance roles.
|
| Edit: Crypto HFT firms also abound but they are generally
| more remote-friendly than TradFi (the latter have regulators
| that need you to have an office and stuff).
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Some people have to spend 1 hour in a vehicle to get to work,
| plus extra time to get ready for work. You can rather spend that
| same time with your family, or exercise, or learn something new,
| or sleep, or whatever.
|
| Going to work every day is such an spectacularly awful way of
| spending resources just so that you can be in an office sitting
| in a workstation that is inferior to what you have at home.
| someelephant wrote:
| So funny to read this. I'm thrilled that I have more free time
| and have been able to meet so many more people outside of work.
| The last thing I want is to feel more tied to my employer.
| nomadiccoder wrote:
| If you are in the US and willing to relocate, the national labs
| are not remote. Other government jobs too.
| the_real_sparky wrote:
| Electric utilities are fairly old-school as well and will lean
| towards in-person and hybrid work. They will have a few dev /
| architect / web jobs on the IT side, but definitely not top-
| tier pay (although an actual 40 hours a week would be typical
| in the industry).
| arjie wrote:
| Join a company that is intentionally in-office. I work at
| Dexterity Capital. We have an intentionally in-office culture
| with our offices in Seattle and San Francisco.
|
| If you're in San Francisco, we work down by the Salesforce tower.
| If you'd like to grab a coffee or say hi, e-mail me (address in
| profile).
| sesuximo wrote:
| Many banking jobs have been vocal about trying to keep offices
| open despite Covid. I'd expect adjacent industries to be similar
| sdevonoes wrote:
| Don't get it. Even if remote is becoming more common, the vast
| majority of tech jobs out there are not 100% remote.
|
| Note: a lot of companies are advertising themselves as "100%
| remote while corona lasts" though.
| chrsig wrote:
| > Note: a lot of companies are advertising themselves as "100%
| remote while corona lasts" though.
|
| This is the thing that gets me...Haven't people in tech figured
| out how exponential growth works? Covid isn't going away, ever.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| > Haven't people in tech figured out how exponential growth
| works?
|
| What are you even taking about? We have marvelous vaccines
| that knock Covid to the level of a cold or mild flu for most
| people in the "office worker" demographic.
|
| Did you worry about "exponential growth" of the 2019 flu
| season?
|
| Because part of saying "Covid isn't going away ever" means
| "get on with your damn life". If Covid is here forever it
| becomes just another minor risk in your life like driving,
| swimming, or catching the cold.
| chrsig wrote:
| Do you understand the difference between a novel virus and
| the flu?
|
| > We have marvelous vaccines that knock Covid to the level
| of a cold or mild flu for most people in the "office
| worker" demographic.
|
| And now we have omicron, which is still quite infectious in
| spite of the vaccines. Thankfully it seems less dangerous
| than delta. Who knows what the next variant will bring.
|
| > Because part of saying "Covid isn't going away ever"
| means "get on with your damn life".
|
| Part of "getting on with your damn life" includes accepting
| that there's a new endemic virus that the population has no
| natural immunity to, and changing behavior appropriately.
|
| Sorry, but time marches forward -- 2019 is a thing of the
| past.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Haven't people in tech figured out how exponential growth
| works?
|
| Mostly, it doesn't. Pretty much all initially-apparent
| exponential growth in things that aren't human-created
| abstractions is, at best, logistic if conditions are
| constant, and usually is just the net of a large number of
| Ransome events that averages to that growth curve, but
| features gambler's ruin and collapse to zero eventually, or
| collapse to zero due to changing external conditions before
| it hits gambler's ruin.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I think you're taking that a bit too literally. "While COVID
| is a massive office-closing problem" might be closer to the
| mark. Before Omicron showed up, a lot of places were moving
| to re-open everything mode. Omicron will slow that, but
| probably not by much.
| chrsig wrote:
| Conversely, I think others are taking it too loosely.
|
| There's going to be a continual stream of new variants, and
| vaccines will always lag behind them. Reopening everything
| will always accelerate this.
|
| Gathering is always going to be a mortal risk for the rest
| of our lives. I just wish the world would accept that and
| adapt rather than resign to it and downplay it.
| spookthesunset wrote:
| I dunno how to put this but consider seeking therapy. 2
| years of constant fear being cranked out by public health
| "experts" and the media have done a number on people.
| Fretting over Covid forever and trying to usher in some
| "new normal" is not rational thinking at all. I know
| plenty of smart people whose brains have been seriously
| messed up by all this Covid crap.
|
| Learning to live with Covid doesn't mean accepting some
| crazy dystopian "new normal". It means accepting the
| small risk of Covid and going back to 2019 living. The
| one where you didn't spend all your brainpower on
| "slowing the spread" of other viral diseases like the flu
| or the common cold.
|
| We have vaccines for Covid now. It's time to move on.
| chrsig wrote:
| > I dunno how to put this but consider seeking therapy. 2
| years of constant fear being cranked out by public health
| "experts" and the media have done a number on people
|
| No, two years of half the population refusing to wear a
| fucking mask did a number on people. "Some crazy
| dystopian new normal" would actually be an improvement.
| rsynnott wrote:
| ... Eh? No, that seems highly unlikely. Decent
| therapeutic drugs will be available from next year (in
| quantity; homeopathic quantities are already available
| but not to the point where they're particularly useful).
| Increasingly few people are totally naive to the virus.
| Over the next period of time there'll be precautions to
| keep the hospitals operating and the death rate down, but
| that will tend to get easier and easier.
|
| If you look at hospitalisation and death figures from
| heavily vaccinated countries, each wave has generally
| been less severe even as variants get nastier and
| restrictions are eased (you're not seeing March 2020
| restrictions pretty much anywhere today). It remains
| early for omicron, but initial signs show the same
| pattern.
|
| I do think that places with this kind of politico-
| cultural objection to vaccines (parts of the US and
| Eastern Europe, for instance) may struggle.
| tablespoonsruby wrote:
| I prefer office-based work but it's not the top thing on my
| list of priorities. I've found that a really high number of
| companies that otherwise have what I'm looking for are remote,
| so I've had to compromise.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Agreed. I think the OP might be reading too much into HN
| comments and headlines. Remote work is nowhere near as
| ubiquitous as HN likes to suggest.
| Thristle wrote:
| It really depends on the country, trend of number of corona cases
| and progress of vaccinations
|
| if you are in the US, we already start to see some of the big
| corps (not only FAANG) start to talk about return to office and
| sanctions vs non vaccinated workers (probably "prep work" for
| return to office)
|
| optimistic POV - more and more companies will open their offices
| on non-mandatory basis in H1. Every new variant and every new
| case in some office will delays/pause this but it will happen
| lmeyerov wrote:
| Conversely, I was just visiting one of the biggest fintechs (so
| not California culture), and after Omicron hit, they nixed
| their return to work plans. We were almost the only people on
| the entire floor.
| pydry wrote:
| I feel somewhat similar. Ironically before COVID I really wanted
| to go remote but was reluctant because it seemed few of the
| "good" jobs in my time zone were remote. They were lower
| pay/lower impact.
|
| Now the job market appears to be reversed and the in person jobs
| are not the best. And, after a year and a half it seems evident
| that I don't really like remote work as much as I thought I
| would.
| hda111 wrote:
| Try at companies developing military devices. You can't do this
| from home (I hope).
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