I scored most (if not all) of my career-defining opportunities from hallway convos after a meeting, or chatting while waiting for coffee to brew, so YMMV.
So we should require that everyone be in an office, so that people like you can get their career-defining opportunities? Maybe many of us would be fine making that trade-off: fewer opportunities for career-defining opportunities in exchange for the elimination of a commute, more-comfortable working arrangements, and a much more flexible work schedule.
Not everything in life is about career advancement.
I think people who wants to work from home should be able to. I'm doing hybrid personally as well now, it's great for keeping my chronic pain under control. And I enjoy coming in couple days a week to a quieter office (as lots are doing hybrid/mixed wfh as well).
Internet has conditioned us to think that people can only have extreme beliefs, and any disagreement means their opinion must be the polar extreme opposite of mine. I can simultaneously appreciate opportunities I've got from socializing with people in a fully-WFO setting while also appreciating benefits of WFH ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Why go off one example and pretend it's the whole topic? They were just saying it's easily possible to have meaningful conversations, as a counter to the previous comment.
The problem is that for all these alleged career-defining opportunities to happen, you need a bunch of people in an office. That means that people need to be required to go to an office.
I explicitly did not say "everyone should work from home", using words like "many of us", so right, "that's not what [I] said", and you're just making up an argument where none exists.
Yes, and when people going to the office get more opportunities, more advancement and higher compensation, he/she will be complaining for making "less money for the same work". Or they will start complaining about how unfair is that those opportunities only arise in the office and demand that there will be "procedures" for them to be available remotely.
Long ago I accepted that if I want better work-life balance and more flexible arrangements, there would be consequences. In my post above I explicitly called it out as a trade-off: I am totally fine with lower pay and fewer promotions if it means I get to live more of my life outside work.
If you're not ok with that, that's your choice to make: find jobs that give you those opportunities, and tilt your work-life balance toward work. Hell, you should be happy that I have more flexibility in my working arrangements and can make this trade-off: less competition for you to get what you want.
I commend you for having this approach. I'm biased from my experience from colleagues that got annoyed when they realized they couldn't have their cake and eat it too.
Not speaking for GP, but as far as I’m concerned I’m happy to stay far far far away from office politics games and getting paid less than those who do while having half or a quarter of their workloads.
> Not everything in life is about career advancement.
But you see, all the decision makers about the RTO are the sort of people who would be obsessed with career development. So they would be very biased against this sentiment. In an employer's market, they have all the power now.
This seems wild to me. It seems like the company and managers are doing something wrong if all your advancement is coming from random unofficial chats.
Beyond a certain level, career advancement happens only by doing work which is much more than just delivering technical projects. That level is typically attained in 4-6 years by a competent software engineer.
(Yes, I am aware of a few exceptions who attain "fellow" or equivalent levels, but they are the exceptions to my observation and such positions are anyway <1% of the technical workforce; not everyone can be a fellow).
If you’re not just a code monkey than those chats are great for coming up with new ideas and fleshing them out over time. But hey you can also just be a code monkey that completes projects assigned to them. To each their own I guess.
Maybe what you describe works at some places or for specific people. Many companies will ignore your ideas. Your title is code monkey and that's all you do - shut up and listen to us important people. Some managers are very threatened by their subordinates, or are unimaginative. The business side generally wants what they want. God forbid you suggest some new approach.
I think you're missing the point, this is not about the split between management and engineering. Code monkey is here somebody who accepts assignment and produces code, without having a lot of understanding for the larger whole.
And that's mostly what you get with this attitude that doesn't value any meetings / communication which doesn't relate directly to one's work.
But the organizations don't want to have code monkeys (typically), because to produce value, people can't just churn out code to complete assignments, they need to also understand the context, be able to identify made up problems, be able to design the most minimal solution covering the business needs etc. That requires understanding, certain alignment, communication.
Technical folks simply cannot do their jobs without solid working relationships, and those are not as well formed digitally.
Remote work will continue to reduce over the next couple of years. If you don’t have a real reason for being at home during the work day, expect to be back in the office soon.
"Technical folks simply cannot do their jobs without solid working relationships, and those are not as well formed digitally."
Any real data on this? All the data our company has shows increased performance during WFH, such as an increase in deliveries and decrease in cycle time. So even if it's not as well formed, it seems it's formed sufficiently.
I think you focusing on delivery and cycle time is kind of emblematic of my point; none of that matters if you ship the wrong thing, and don’t correct over time, but to you that’s where the conversation ends.
That’s not where it actually ends, however. How do you know what to work on? How do you know if you built a profitable thing? Being remote lets you ignore those things in ways that are harder to do in person.
Hybrid is probably here to stay, but “remote first” was a pandemic only thing.
I mean sure, but there’s no real way of knowing what you’ve left on the table by working remotely.
And I say this as someone who was also working remotely before the pandemic. I’m always wary of people who refuse to acknowledge the downsides of ideas they support…
Tell me again how long have you been working? For as long as human society has existed, advancements came from in-person connections which were fostered by these random unofficial chats.
If you expect anything else, you might expect humans to not be like humans.
Norwich Union (Aviva) the insurance company have a system called The Wall iirc (been over decade).
Its a free for all for asking questions, sending messages, making unofficial FYI notes, its an attempt to document those conversations that would have otherwise taken place between individuals. Everyone from the top down has read/write access. Main objective to document those conversations, so nothing gets missed, like people being otherwise engaged in meetings/phone calls. Self Censorship takes place because everyone can view it, reduces staff harassment problems.
Management doesn't have it together, but they do make suggestions about taking on certain projects etc that are good for your career and at least talk about plans to getting to the next level (sometimes).
How much of your working life was in person vs remote?
I agree most of my 'big breaks' were face to face, that was due to the point I was in my career at that time. I've still had some great progression during remote working times - sometimes you just need to make these things happen - contacting someone just for a chat if that is what you need, turning up to online meetings early to spend a little time chatting before the proper meeting, or asking specific people if they have time to stay on.
I really think half the problem is that we aren't yet used to the new rules of engagement, and are still figuring out what feels right. But opportunity is still there.
Not really. I'm very introverted and not good with strangers, actually in the process of getting an autism diagnosis right now.
But I really enjoy socializing with folks with similar interests (e.g., tech), and I work with a lot of neurodivergent colleagues which puts less of a strain on my social battery as I don't have to be "normal"---we're all weird and it's fine.
Still, my social battery drains quickly nonetheless, I tend to have to leave after hanging out for an hour or two.
Not everything in life is about career advancement.