[hnlmorg]

I'm getting downvoted again but it's quite true.

Flexible working is the approach we should be striving for. Those who can work remotely can continue to do so. And those who want to come in to the office can do so. We shouldn't assume that remote work is a one size fits all and that's exactly what comments like the GPs does. Furthermore we should assume that those who do like office work are the unreasonable ones. We're not. We're still happy for you to work from home. We just don't personally want to do that every day ourselves.

This isn't just theoretical. I run 3 teams of engineers and push this rule onto them. Thus far it has been very successful.

[mullingitover]

The problem with flexibility with mixed on-prem and remote is the open plan offices. Open plan and mixed remote/on-prem are a nightmare combination.

I'd get to work, and right off the bat I'd be on calls with people who weren't working on prem. So I'm either that jerk on a call in the open plan office while everyone's trying to do heads-down work, or I'm scrambling to find a phone booth.

So I'd end up spending half my days crammed into a phone booth at the office so I could meet with people who weren't there. The office contributed zero to my productivity, it was just a miserable time hoping I could even find an available phone booth because there were a dozen other people on the office vying for one.

If we're going back to on-prem, even as an option, we should combine it with admitting that open plan was a mistake and doesn't work with the mixed remote/on-prem model.

[hnlmorg]

> The problem with flexibility with mixed on-prem and remote is the open plan offices. Open plan and mixed remote/on-prem are a nightmare combination.

It's not that hard of a problem to solve. Easily more of a solvable problem than telling everyone they either have to come into the office or work fully remote without giving a crap about the employees personal circumstances.

> I'd get to work, and right off the bat I'd be on calls with people who weren't working on prem. So I'm either that jerk on a call in the open plan office while everyone's trying to do heads-down work, or I'm scrambling to find a phone booth.

Sounds like your office needs more meeting spaces. That's as true a problem when you have everyone in the office as it is when you have teams of mixed office and remote working.

> So I'd end up spending half my days crammed into a phone booth at the office so I could meet with people who weren't there.

Why are you in so many meetings in the first place? Are you not an engineer? That sounds like a bigger problem than your office space.

> The office contributed zero to my productivity, it was just a miserable time hoping I could even find an available phone booth because there were a dozen other people on the office vying for one.

Oh right. So you're just making up bullshit exaggerations to justify why your preference of working from home should be FORCED on everyone regardless of their preference or personal circumstances. That's a real dick move imo. Why not let other people chose how they work best for themselves just like you have done for yourself?

> If we're going back to on-prem, even as an option, we should combine it with admitting that open plan was a mistake and doesn't work with the mixed remote/on-prem model.

It sounds like your office specifically might be a nightmare to work in. However not everyone's company office is a large open plan space with people from different teams mixed in together. In that I don't work in an open plan office (there's just ~15 engineers in the same office. The sales people have their own office, and so on and so forth).

I think the real problem here is that you specifically just want your own space and you want it at home. So anything that doesn't match that is going to be a point of complaint with you. That's fine for you but please don't assume your preferences should be enshrined as company policy for every Tom, Dick and Sally and in every other company. Please don't assume that what works for you should work for everyone.

[mullingitover]

> So you're just making up bullshit exaggerations to justify why your preference of working from home should be FORCED on everyone regardless of their preference or personal circumstances.

I'm actually not completely against on-prem, or open plan, just against them as they've been done in 100% of my experience. Bullpen, team-focused open plan is fine, but that's not how open plan is done typically because it's not any cheaper than cubicle.

> However not everyone's company office is a large open plan space with people from different teams mixed in together.

There might be open plan offices where this is true, but I've never seen one. The general pattern of open plan has been to tell everyone that open plan is a wonderful enhancement that increases "organic interactions" or whatever, when in reality it's to shave 20% off seating costs. I get the allure, but this has been studied to death decades ago (see: Peopleware) and the finding (which tracks with my personal experience) was that the 20% savings in seating costs came with a 30% drop in productivity.

[hnlmorg]

> There might be open plan offices where this is true, but I've never seen one.

Most of the companies I've worked for has been set up like that. So they do exist. Not saying it's universal or even the norm. But it's certainly not something I've made up :)

I wonder if some of this is down to the American vs European cultures.

[pengaru]

Open plan doesn't work PERIOD, it's not a mixed-only problem. You'll have sales/marketing/bizdev types on the phone constantly while folks are trying to be head-down, mixed not required.