I’m 47. I’m not a boomer (although I’m probably hella-old compared to most here) and I’d just like to say: What a bloody bunch of boomer-bosses.
“Have you tried disagreeing on a call! It’s hard!”
Grow up man, use the hand up feature and state your case. I work in a fully remote business and we have better meetings here than any office based meeting I’ve ever been in. Calendars are public, confluence is prevalent, slack is the lifeline (thankfully very little email) for everything; with a bunch of “banter”, hobby channels etc. We start every large meeting with a “one personal and one professional highlight” before we commence. I know the people here better than I’ve ever done my office based colleagues.
They are going to regret this. I do not know any developer who would prefer 5 days in the office. None. It’s not like Amazon’s compensation was that high. I really genuinely don’t understand how they expect to recruit.
Ironically I’ve found it’s harder for people to run away in remote, people don’t disappear from their desks and you don’t have to chase them down. If they don’t message back and it’s urgent, you call and if they don’t pick up a call and haven’t marked themselves as such something’s up. People are extremely dilligent about making sure they use status’ due to the knowledge that people will assume that way.
An office is also a great place to hide away as “busy”; shuffling around, a bit of time at desk, join a meeting and say nothing, coffee, lunch, shuffling, another meeting with low contribution and you’re gone. Doing nothing is just as easy, and less assailable, in an office.
A company doesn’t remember, and the people who are actually responsible don’t have regrets cuz the other option was to hand over control to someone else (hopefully more qualified).
Myeah I know what you mean, but the people that get associated with a bad decision at the highest level will usually end up being told by the board before they’re let go. It’s all in private, but in my experience those discussions are reasonably frank.
The board doesn’t “let go” of people willing to do a hatchet job, they hire them into their other companies to do the same. “Failing upwards” is a term that comes to mind.
I think you might be surprised. There’s literally dozens of us gen-x’ers on here. (I’m 53).
Luckily I work for a university and the hybrid thing is still going strong. Honestly I tend to get more done when I’m at home because the social aspect of being at work is very distracting for someone with ADHD like me.
And I hope they do regret it. The only managers I’ve seen that push for the RTO thing are the micromanagers who think they are necessary for productivity. News flash, they aren’t. The best managers set expectations, shield their employees from the bullshit above them, give them the appropriate tools and work environments to be successful, and trust them to do what is necessary.
And yes I’d never work for a Google or an Amazon. You’re a cog, a disposable piece of machinery.
I really hope they do. But now is a good time to put the squeeze on devs. Lots of people are having a hard time finding a software job and they’ll be extra reluctant to do a mass exodus.
Yup. We recently had a complaint that a collaborative meeting was difficult for people on call, so our solution was to make it 100% remote. The meeting is still collaborative, but now everyone has an equal opportunity to participate.
We do 2x in office, 3x WFH, and it’s the perfect ratio IMO. Value of in-person time:
questions get answered quickly - easy to tell if someone is available for a quick question, and faster response than Slack
in-person collaboration - screen sharing works, but actually being able to point and type has a ton of value
casual discussions - chat about upcoming projects over lunch or a coffee break long before they’re actually important, which can make future meetings smoother
All of that can be done remotely, and we certainly do a fair amount of that, but it’s nice to have a little in-person time. That said, my WFH days are sacred because that’s when I actually get work done.
Yep the 2 in 3 out is what we do. We do have one day where we all try to be in (Tuesday) to just get the face to face time. Seems to working for us. Plus since most of the conversations are on slack, I can go back and verify what I thought was said. That’s SO convenient.
We do TW in office, MThF WFH. I don’t see a point in coming in on different days, so if you have to miss Tuesday or Wednesday for some reason, you don’t have to make it up later. We occasionally have a company meeting on one of the other days, in which case we’ll often agree on which other day is optional (or we just come in 3 days that week).
These people aren’t interested in hearing dissenting opinions. I’m sure they’ve already heard arguments for it. They just don’t care. They’d rather cut costs by doing something many people won’t tolerate so that they leave and then figuring it out after the fact.
Absolutely right. But the thing is that many so-called leaders will no longer have a raison d’être if there are no more unnecessary meetings and all that fuss. Many of them do nothing all day but sit in meetings, achieve nothing and still feel very important. That’s the misery of the world of work: it’s not usually the best who get into management positions, it’s not the most qualified and certainly not the ones who work the hardest. It’s the most unscrupulous, those who pass off the work of others as their own, people who would never achieve anything on their own or in a small company that can’t afford to waste salaries on froth-mongers. LinkedIn makes it clear how this all works, I think: there, too, it is not the competent people who really understand their work who have the most success, it is the busybodies, the networkers and narcissists. If the competent people set the tone, there would be no discussion about office duties in an IT company. It’s only held on to so that managers can live out their fantasies of omnipotence and post nonsense on LinkedIn.
I’m 47. I’m not a boomer (although I’m probably hella-old compared to most here) and I’d just like to say: What a bloody bunch of boomer-bosses.
“Have you tried disagreeing on a call! It’s hard!”
Grow up man, use the hand up feature and state your case. I work in a fully remote business and we have better meetings here than any office based meeting I’ve ever been in. Calendars are public, confluence is prevalent, slack is the lifeline (thankfully very little email) for everything; with a bunch of “banter”, hobby channels etc. We start every large meeting with a “one personal and one professional highlight” before we commence. I know the people here better than I’ve ever done my office based colleagues.
They are going to regret this. I do not know any developer who would prefer 5 days in the office. None. It’s not like Amazon’s compensation was that high. I really genuinely don’t understand how they expect to recruit.
I do know a few devs who prefer 5 days in the office. But they’re absolutely the minority.
Personally, I try to go once a week, but I usually don’t because I dread having a day with 50% my normal productivity.
It’s just so noisy all the time in there. Open space and really high ceilings for “collaboration”…
Ironically I’ve found it’s harder for people to run away in remote, people don’t disappear from their desks and you don’t have to chase them down. If they don’t message back and it’s urgent, you call and if they don’t pick up a call and haven’t marked themselves as such something’s up. People are extremely dilligent about making sure they use status’ due to the knowledge that people will assume that way.
An office is also a great place to hide away as “busy”; shuffling around, a bit of time at desk, join a meeting and say nothing, coffee, lunch, shuffling, another meeting with low contribution and you’re gone. Doing nothing is just as easy, and less assailable, in an office.
Almost as if there’s a reason that C-suite level people are so adamant about returning to office…
They are going to regret this?
A company doesn’t remember, and the people who are actually responsible don’t have regrets cuz the other option was to hand over control to someone else (hopefully more qualified).
Myeah I know what you mean, but the people that get associated with a bad decision at the highest level will usually end up being told by the board before they’re let go. It’s all in private, but in my experience those discussions are reasonably frank.
The board doesn’t “let go” of people willing to do a hatchet job, they hire them into their other companies to do the same. “Failing upwards” is a term that comes to mind.
Is that an opinion or backed by facts? I’ve never seen someone fired from a C-level role only to be hired into an investor’s other investment.
The point is they don’t get fired for laying off staff.
I think you might be surprised. There’s literally dozens of us gen-x’ers on here. (I’m 53).
Luckily I work for a university and the hybrid thing is still going strong. Honestly I tend to get more done when I’m at home because the social aspect of being at work is very distracting for someone with ADHD like me.
And I hope they do regret it. The only managers I’ve seen that push for the RTO thing are the micromanagers who think they are necessary for productivity. News flash, they aren’t. The best managers set expectations, shield their employees from the bullshit above them, give them the appropriate tools and work environments to be successful, and trust them to do what is necessary.
And yes I’d never work for a Google or an Amazon. You’re a cog, a disposable piece of machinery.
It’s tripping me up you had to point out you’re not a boomer instead of just saying you’re from Gen X.
On Lemmy, anything above 30 is a boomer, so I thought I’d start by pointing it out :)
I really hope they do. But now is a good time to put the squeeze on devs. Lots of people are having a hard time finding a software job and they’ll be extra reluctant to do a mass exodus.
Yup. We recently had a complaint that a collaborative meeting was difficult for people on call, so our solution was to make it 100% remote. The meeting is still collaborative, but now everyone has an equal opportunity to participate.
We do 2x in office, 3x WFH, and it’s the perfect ratio IMO. Value of in-person time:
All of that can be done remotely, and we certainly do a fair amount of that, but it’s nice to have a little in-person time. That said, my WFH days are sacred because that’s when I actually get work done.
The worst meetings are the ones with people in a meeting room and people online. All in person or all dialled in (even if from an office desk).
Yep the 2 in 3 out is what we do. We do have one day where we all try to be in (Tuesday) to just get the face to face time. Seems to working for us. Plus since most of the conversations are on slack, I can go back and verify what I thought was said. That’s SO convenient.
We do TW in office, MThF WFH. I don’t see a point in coming in on different days, so if you have to miss Tuesday or Wednesday for some reason, you don’t have to make it up later. We occasionally have a company meeting on one of the other days, in which case we’ll often agree on which other day is optional (or we just come in 3 days that week).
And yeah, it is super nice.
These people aren’t interested in hearing dissenting opinions. I’m sure they’ve already heard arguments for it. They just don’t care. They’d rather cut costs by doing something many people won’t tolerate so that they leave and then figuring it out after the fact.
This line of reasoning is baffling anyway. Amazon is spread out over multiple geographical locations, it’s not like remote meeting will go away
Absolutely right. But the thing is that many so-called leaders will no longer have a raison d’être if there are no more unnecessary meetings and all that fuss. Many of them do nothing all day but sit in meetings, achieve nothing and still feel very important. That’s the misery of the world of work: it’s not usually the best who get into management positions, it’s not the most qualified and certainly not the ones who work the hardest. It’s the most unscrupulous, those who pass off the work of others as their own, people who would never achieve anything on their own or in a small company that can’t afford to waste salaries on froth-mongers. LinkedIn makes it clear how this all works, I think: there, too, it is not the competent people who really understand their work who have the most success, it is the busybodies, the networkers and narcissists. If the competent people set the tone, there would be no discussion about office duties in an IT company. It’s only held on to so that managers can live out their fantasies of omnipotence and post nonsense on LinkedIn.