[SoftTalker]

I mean this is all completely relative to the other options available.

If all/most employers start mandating a return to office then we'll find out where people really stand on the issue. Will they suck it up and work from the office to keep their generous paychecks? Will they stand on principle and try to find another employer who will let them work remote and who they like working for in other respects? Will they strike out on their own and become freelancers who work on their own terms? Have they already saved FU money and will just retire?

[irrational]

I'll just do what I do now. Go into the office (I am fortunate that I live maybe 15 minutes away), card in, spend 30 minutes there so it detects my computer use on the network, then go home and work from there. Or, I just won't go in and keep doing my work until they call me on it. My work can easily be done 100% remote and most of my coworkers are in other countries, so it is crazy that I need to go into an office.

[bboygravity]

It's also crazy that any office worker needs to go to an office (and waste time in traffic and pollute, unpaid, for work).

This could all be fixed within 1 day if government would mandate companies to pay you for the duration you're away from home for work (including travel time).

It would fix pollution, traffic jams, housing shortages, fake employee shortages, mental/stress issues and potentially even declining birth rates.

But I guess "because boss says so" is a more important argument to not fix all of those things.

[CydeWeys]

> This could all be fixed within 1 day if government would mandate companies to pay you for the duration you're away from home for work (including travel time).

Be careful what you wish for. The most likely result of this would be companies simply letting go any employees that had a commute longer than X minutes. And of course all the remaining employees would now say their commute takes X minutes too, to get the maximum subsidy. E.g. I currently bike, which takes 15 minutes, but I could easily walk and make it take 40 minutes instead, to get a nice bonus to my current pay.

[tuna74]

So if you walk to work you should get more pay than your neighbor that bikes to work if you work at the same location?

[arcticbull]

If an Uber Eats guy brings you food from down the street, they get some amount of money. If they bring you food from across town, they get much more money to cover the extra time they spend driving. In both cases they brought you McDonalds.

That said, I think it's more like if you're expected to work 40 hours per week, and your employer mandates you come into work an hour each way, then you should either be expected to work 32 productive hours -- or you should be compensated for 48 hours. But I guess this has always been the difference between exempt and non-exempt employees.

[nox101]

I had a friend who lived 90 minutes from work. He complained that the commute sucked and wanted something for it. I talked to a friend who pointed out he took the job. It was his decision to take a job 90 minutes away. It was not the company's responsibility to pay him more than others because he chose to live that far away.

[arcticbull]

As I replied to a peer comment, my employer moved my office from a 10m walk downtown near my house to a 45-60m multi-modal commute to an industrial office park. I didn't sign up for that, but I like my job. Now if they'd had to factor in reimbursements for actual distance traveled for employees maybe they'd be more motivated to stick closer -- and to only hire employees within a distance budget they're willing to pay.

[paulcole]

> if you're expected to work 40 hours per week, and your employer mandates you come into work an hour each way then you should either be expected to work 32 productive hours -- or you should be compensated for 48 hours.

That’s this person’s fault for choosing to live an hour from the office. I’ve always realized how stupid commuting is and the longest commute of my adult life (I’m currently 41) has been a 30-minute bicycle ride.

Now the people who live an hour from the office want less work or more pay than me? I say just fire them instead.

Or just let everybody negotiate the deal they want for themselves and let them price in their cost of commute or whatever into their ask. If somebody who lives an hour away wants to work 20% fewer hours or make 20% more money, let them shoot their shot and ask for it.

[arcticbull]

Where do you draw the line between "it's the employees fault for not wanting to live next to work in an industrial office park adjacent to a homeless encampment" and "it's the employers fault for insisting people commute in when they can achieve just as much from home without?"

Do you expect people who change jobs to only work at employers they're proximate to - or to sell their homes each time? What if moving means the kids have to change schools? Or a married couple, do they both have to change jobs?

My employer happened to move offices, so my 10 minute walk turned into 45-60 minutes multi-modal. Does that mean I should be fired for their decision to move to a lower cost jurisdiction when I can provide the same value? In that case am I just being fired for not asking "how high?"

I think in practice it ends up being "is this a hot job market or not" and if yes, then the employee gets to dictate, and if not the employer does. This doesn't really resolve the underlying issue though.

I think a simpler model is just to allow employees to expense commute costs at the ~IRS rate. If the employer doesn't want that they can choose to hire only people nearby. If they move offices they should factor that into their cost estimates. But what do I know, maybe they should just fire everyone ;)

[_gabe_]

I live a 15 minute drive from my city, but it took me an hour and a half to get home in rush hour a couple weeks ago. I guess it’s my fault though for being stupid and not paying even more of a premium to live within a block of my office.

[nimih]

The logistics of having that level of granularity are probably a little unrealistic, but employers already follow a similar principle when adjusting pay scales based on cost-of-living for a given metropolitan area.

[moomin]

Honestly they should pay me for the use of my home as office space. It’s not free to maintain.

[SoftTalker]

You can deduct your home office if you use it only as an office for work. If it's also your bedroom, you can't.

[arcticbull]

This has come to be known as "coffee badging" where I work, heh.

I usually schedule my in-person meetings in a block, come in for that, then go back home to do my coding. It's nice to get a change of scenery.

I am far less efficient this way of course since I lose 90-120 minutes a day, but if that's how my employer wants me to spend my time... I guess that's why they call it "compensation."

[vikingerik]

Well, the other outcome: it's moot because the employers don't have enough teeth to enforce the mandates.

They're not firing workers who simply ignore the mandates and continue to work remotely anyway. Cutting workers with institutional knowledge and experience is a bigger loss than whatever lesser productivity there might be from not being in-person. Workers actually have the upper hand here and they're using it.

It's like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy - the companies are saying "I declare RTO" but nothing happens.

[ryandrake]

I seem to remember quite a few examples posted to HN over the past few years of companies "declaring RTO" and then finding that rank-and-file employees largely just ignored it, and the companies never did anything about it because they can't fire everyone.

"I declare RTO" can only work if you have critical enough mass of employees who believe the bluff and actually come into the office. This is definitely an area where a workforce that is organized and works together could hold out forever, but the tech worker mantra is "unions bad" so collective action is difficult.

[Ferret7446]

> They're not firing workers who simply ignore the mandates

Citation needed. They may not be literally firing people for simply ignoring the mandates, but they sure as hell putting a mark on your performance record (at least at one big tech company).

IIUC one of the reasons for the original RTO mandates was to get people to leave (either willingly or through perf review pressure).

[moomin]

The joke is, this is what it comes down to: a question of who has the most negotiating power. It’s not a question of what’s best for the employees. It’s not even a question of what’s best for the company. It’s all about who has coercive power.

[CamperBob2]

Market competition will decide which school of thought is right. IMHO, technology companies with stockholders will eventually have to explain why they spend so much money renting huge-ass random buildings for no good reason, and why their asses are being kicked by other companies that don't encumber themselves similarly.

[geodel]

The problem here is with multiple tens of thousands employees in IT/Software field in Amazon and their pay pretty close to top among employers at that scale, executives remain absolutely convinced no significant churn is expected.

Further to that point people who are indispensable and absolutely want/need remote work have their managers and even 1-2 level above in confidence to get their demand fulfilled like always before.

This leaves majority of employees who hate these rules but no leverage or wherewithal to get what they want from management which has no reason to listen.

> Will they strike out on their own and become freelancers who work on their own terms

A few of course can but to most no one including Amazon will pay that kind of money for writing API which calls API which calls API.. This is what most people do at the end of day.

Retirement sounds most reasonable for people who have earned and saved enough and not trying to reach or compare to earnings of directors, VPs and above.

[A4ET8a8uTh0]

I will two additional points. Executives assume that the upcoming recession ( assuming it is a recession ) will make most people hesitate. It is a rational, if an annoying calculation. Separate issue that is semi-related to the timing, is the benefit of not having to lay people off -- some will quit.

Naturally, some would question the wisdom of making people, who can quit, quit, but I get the feeling that the management,as a group, is pissed off about the whole WFH.

[geodel]

Indeed. Both points make total sense. Though on quitting part I am not sure if numbers would significant enough to meet any internal target.