[yedava]

The framing around productivity misses a huge area - productivity of life. The less time that is wasted in office, the more time is available to do things that make life worth living. Any argument for return to office should justify why people are expected to waste away their lives.

[earnesti]

The whole point of work is that someone pays you money, so you donate your time. How exactly and what amount of time, that is the contract you negotiate with your employer. Office time is just one negotiation point.

Personally I would never work as an employee to begin with, unless I were in serious financial distress. I would rather be a poor entrepreneur/freelancer than wealthy salaried employee. And office isn't really the factor, but other things, like freedom. But people have different preferences.

[q7xvh97o2pDhNrh]

> I would rather be a poor entrepreneur/freelancer than wealthy salaried employee. And office isn't really the factor, but other things, like freedom.

To add a data point that will sound snarkier than it is:

I used to say very similar things. It is a really wonderful sound bite, and you can get together with all the other starving founders to say things like this to each other.

Looking back on it, I think this philosophy is actually a really important part of the startup-industrial complex. If you can just make it "not cool" to go get a job, and starting a startup is all about "freedom and adventure," then it becomes really easy for VCs to normalize things like "founders paying themselves subsistence salaries." That means the pipeline of new startups will increase in quantity and decrease in unit-cost -- which is exactly what the VCs want.

What they won't tell you about, if you want to chase the founder dream, is the opportunity cost. It turns out that maxing out your 401(k) is pretty great, as is having an infinite supply of sparkling water and spending your days building software with a whole bunch of other brilliant people.

I'm still not going to RTO, though. That part is just dumb, and I think every serious company that truly values engineering productivity will agree.

[danjl]

The best things about WFH are hard to quantify, like the best things in life. You are more relaxed, with lower stress, more control of your time, less probability of auto accidents commuting, ... These are rarely mentioned because they're hard to quantify, but as someone who's been working from home for multiple decades, they are far more important for my happiness and productivity.

[earnesti]

Different people value different things, believe me or not, there are people who don't care about WFH.

When applying for jobs, you should negotiate for the things that you value. It doesn't make sense to require all employers to offer WFH when it is only your personal employer in the end who matters. There was WFH jobs before COVID, like there are onsite jobs now, and there will be always jobs for both purposes.

[stevenAthompson]

You're completely right. If a job expects 8 hours a day, plus an hour of prep time every morning and two hours worth of commute then they actually want 11 hours a day. They also need to pay for the fuel, clothing, food and other incidental costs that commute entails.

In office jobs should pay at least 30% more than WFH jobs to even be competitive.

[jedberg]

FWIW, in a lot of cases Amazon (and Google and Meta and all of those top tier companies requiring RTO) do in fact pay at least 30% more. And in the case of Google and Meta, they provide food and other things too.

People are really upset at Amazon because the office doesn't provide anything more than what they can get at home (and in a lot of cases provides less). At least at the others you can get some extra stuff you can't get at home.

[earnesti]

Office jobs paying 30% more on average sounds believable.

[hypeatei]

Commutes usually aren't paid.

[taytus]

They are priced in.

Co A offers $X Co B offers $Y

You take whatever makes sense to you.

[benterix]

> The whole point of work is that someone pays you money, so you donate your time. How exactly and what amount of time, that is the contract you negotiate with your employer.

That's the point. The pandemic give employers worldwide an enormous advantage in these negotiations. Personally I would never work for any company that requires RTO.

[antisthenes]

> The whole point of work is that someone pays you money, so you donate your time. How exactly and what amount of time, that is the contract you negotiate with your employer. Office time is just one negotiation point.

All these statements are missing the point, which is that commute time is unpaid 99% of the time, and is a complete waste from the employee's standpoint.

So whenever I negotiate with the employer, I have to take that into account, regardless of it being specified in the contract. It's an unstated consideration - an externality.

Past 2024, we should be considering commute time (or at least a portion of it) as a cost to the employee. This should be a firm stance, or worker rights will continue to be eroded.

[nunez]

Work is more than that for many people.

[thefz]

Shareholders do not care about workers' lives. Make stock price go up.