[HN Gopher] Remote work is killing big offices. Cities must chan...
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Remote work is killing big offices. Cities must change to survive
Author : ingve
Score : 16 points
Date : 2022-06-06 16:51 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (stackoverflow.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (stackoverflow.blog)
| krasicki wrote:
| There's no there, there.
|
| Executive summary: Cities must change. Sherlock.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| Well, yes. Cities must change. How? This article is way over-
| thinking it though.
|
| Every single one of these office towers has an owner that wants
| to make a profit. They'll do it if they can. Class A office
| buildings will take tenants from Class B towers, who in turn
| will take tenants from Class C towers. And if the zoning allows
| it, the Class C buildings will convert to residential. Because
| people really do like living downtown (even if you or me don't
| want to). This is actually what the NYC mayor was talking about
| as an option but the article either didn't realize it or
| decided not to engage with that idea.
| thirtyfivecent wrote:
| elzbardico wrote:
| I like cities, even somewhat big cities, but the megalopolises, I
| hope all of them to be forgotten in the dustbin of history.
| There's such a thing as too big IMHO.
| me_me_mu_mu wrote:
| I wouldn't mind going to the office if the whole team I worked
| with was on site as well.
|
| Maybe it's just me but I don't really give much of a shit when
| I'm the only one in this office while the rest of my team is all
| over the world. And no I'm not going to cater to their needs when
| it's outside of my normal hours. Deal with it, else I will (and
| have).
|
| Why don't companies just have local teams that are nodes in the
| broader graph?
|
| A fully local team in California that works on X, and interacts
| with team Y that's based in Singapore, and team Z in Europe.
|
| Each team is self sufficient and works on a piece of the work
| that can be done by them. In conjunction with the other teams, we
| get global coverage without having some dumb working hours or
| waste of an office.
|
| I don't mind going to the office, and having worked as mainly a
| product engineer I like whiteboarding with our Product manager
| and other stakeholders, or getting on calls with customers to
| demo something (team in the same room, read body language).
|
| Product teams benefit the most being local and all together. It's
| hard to build a great product when everyone is not in the same
| room. Remote might work to make a decent product, but I don't
| think you can build something great.
| ipaddr wrote:
| You are describing a typical large global company pre-covid
| era. Usually your expensive US teams get smaller while
| Singapore gets larger as you transfer knowledge and move on to
| another role only to get a call 6 months later when they decide
| to rehire the US team.
|
| What we have now with a global workforce working together from
| different timezones has a lot of benefits and some downsides
| PraetorianGourd wrote:
| I find a huge disconnect between the main assertion of this
| article, and the lip-service paid to most workers. In the
| article, the author states:
|
| > While a lot of ink has been spilled on the future of work, the
| majority of Americans, and most people around the world, can't
| actually do their jobs remotely.
|
| Ok, so a majority of workers can't do their jobs remotely.
| Granted, many of these are not anchored to a city (medical
| offices are in the suburbs, truckers are mobile etc.) but a huge
| swath of people will still work in cities, at least part time. So
| this strikes me as another example of tech's myopia and why the
| tech world is increasingly disconnected from the majority of the
| country.
|
| Simply put, most people can't work from home. Most people can't
| afford to buy a house 2 hours away from their office and hope to
| have the leverage to stay employed. Most people don't make six-
| figure salaries. Most people are afraid of lay-offs, are afraid
| of offshoring, are afraid of being antiquated.
|
| And as I have said elsewhere, this almost obsessive focus on
| remote work could very well be very detrimental to those six-
| figure salaries and signing bonuses. Why pay USA wages when you
| can hire a Canadian or Mexican at 75% the cost? We are writing
| our own obituary and everyone seems to be cheering.
|
| Finally, this is also a step _backwards_ for the environment. In
| cities like Boston, NYC, SFO etc. most workers commuted on public
| transit, at least part of the way or lived in dense neighborhoods
| not owning a car. Now they live in the exurbs and need a car to
| do anything. Now when they do go into the city they don't take
| public transit. People didn't stop living, they just moved out of
| the density and thus became more reliant on ICE vehicles to move
| about.
|
| Much like the long-term damage of education loss was hard to
| quantify against the immediate risks of COVID, we will be paying
| the debt incurred by this almost cultish movement to make remote
| work the norm.
| thow34wqway wrote:
| When companies are losing top talent they are forced to allow
| work from home ? Company ask people to leave who don't like
| their in office policy. Sure many people will stay but not the
| talented ones. They just quit to companies who allows Work From
| Home. Its just a matter of time company which does not allow
| WFH is filled with mediocre people.
| PraetorianGourd wrote:
| I would argue that you are over-estimating the impact of "raw
| talent" and under-estimating the impact of team cohesion.
| lumost wrote:
| Different people work different ways. While I miss the
| ability to motivate a sense of urgency while in the office,
| there were also many tasks that were purely performative.
|
| When in the office, I had discussions, meetings, and
| presentations which were all geared mainly to support the
| idea of the office culture over it's deliverable results.
| While I see people slacking more while remote, they also
| aren't creating busy work.
|
| We'll see how it shakes out over the next few years. I
| suspect that remote teams will have an easier time with
| recruitment and retention, while being slightly more
| productive than in-office teams. In-office teams will
| probably be slightly more innovative by virtue of
| colocation with non-remote teams and a semi-forced need to
| do "something" with the time.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I would argue you're ignoring tens of billions of dollars
| in value at remote first orgs. Team cohesion in person has
| been demonstrated to be overrated, not just at remote first
| orgs, but economy wide with record productivity during a
| 2.5 year pandemic. The data is pretty clear on this imho.
| lazide wrote:
| Record productivity followed by record burnout, near as I
| can tell.
| demouser345 wrote:
| I am not ready to spend 1.5-2 hours getting tired in a commute
| every day. Waiting for an unreliable trainline. I haven't
| gotten flu or seasonal sickness since I started WFH. I have
| more time to spend with family. I cook for the family of 4. I
| have time to do hobbies. I have time to workout. I have time
| for leisure. I have time for housework. I am not tired all the
| time. My car is used for errands.
|
| Have you tried lugging in a whole truckload of items on the
| train? A train/public transit works for work commute, but not
| for when need to get stuff done. Even in the densest city, I
| had a car for 10 years. Paid for parking and had a monthly
| active transit pass. Different things for different purposes.
| Not to mention, that I walked everywhere I can.
|
| When you can hire someone on the cheap, it becomes a skills
| market. You get what you pay for.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| > Even in the densest city, I had a car for 10 years.
|
| Yeah, that totally makes sense. I live in the dense downtown
| of a sprawling urban area and own a car, but it's simply only
| used for going out on nights and weekends. For most everyday
| trips I walk or take transit.
|
| OP's point is not that living in a city means you get to or
| have to give up your car. It's that in many American suburbs,
| any other mode of getting around for everyday trips -
| including walking - is simply untenable. Living in a walkable
| neighborhood with access to good transit gives you the best
| thing - the option of either public or private
| transportation. Most of these places, in the US, aren't in
| the suburbs.
| plasticchris wrote:
| I found this funny, after moving out to the country and
| working from home I only take my car out on nights and
| weekends too :)
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Why pay USA wages when you can hire a Canadian or Mexican at
| 75% the cost?
|
| Where are these mythical cheap Canadians and Mexicans just as
| good as six-figure American talent? Where can I meet them?
|
| We acquired something a while back in Montreal, Canada and it
| sure wasn't cheap. We actually got most of the team to relocate
| in the valley on O-1s but still have some guys over there but
| it's definitely not at 75%!
|
| I mean, it might be different for devs who can't pass the
| stricter bar for US immigrations, but then you aren't hiring
| for the same positions anyways...
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