[kcplate]

I post this every time this topic comes up. But WFH and remote work ability are an exception to the rule in almost every industry/job type other than tech (and sales). Effectively everybody else goes someplace other than home to do their job.

I love it, I prefer it, but I recognize that I am lucky to have a career that can offer it. If my company demanded RTO, I would have to weigh the option and perhaps choose to separate from the organization if I couldn’t make the pros/cons work for me.

In the US employment is effectively always “at will” for the employee. The employer has some regulation that protects the employee, but if they are essentially willing to pay you, and are providing a safe environment to you, what is so wrong with that? They aren’t torturing you.

Tech workers who complain and demand some sort of regulation/intervention against RTO need to realize that those complaints fall on deaf ears to literally everybody other than that tech worker audience. If you want to effect change, quit and deprive the company of your labor.

[EnergyAmy]

That's the wrong way to look at it IMO. It's a way that spreads divisiveness and has an unstated pro-business bias.

I think of it as tech workers tend to get treated as people in some ways instead of cattle, and we should work to ensure that everyone gets those benefits. In other words, it's not a privilege that should be shamed or guilted, it's that tech workers are able to demand basic respect on some things.

[kcplate]

No, it’s reality. Outside of a pure tech audience, literally no one gives a shit that your company wants you to RTO. I work from home but visit customers in all sorts of industries—manufacturing, finance, healthcare, insurance, retail. All of them are in office now or at a bare minimum hybrid, but with at least 3 days a week in office. So if the standard for most people who work is some portion of their time away from home for their job, then you are treating tech workers like people if you want them to RTO.

It’s divisive to demand WFH for a single class of worker.

[lazystar]

> Outside of a pure tech audience, literally no one gives a shit that your company wants you to RTO.

good point, with the exception of seattle as a whole. eastside light rail is not complete yet, and the DoT is closing all but 2 lanes of I5 in the middle of seattle for 10 months in 2025. The traffic is going to be horrific, and it will offset any potential short term gains that would otherwise have been had from increased real estate prices in downtown. they should have stayed 3 day until the transportation infrastructure was complete.

[consteval]

> It’s divisive to demand WFH for a single class of worker

... which nobody does. Rather people simply imagine they do, because they're intellectually lazy.

We go through this same conversation again and again and again. "Oh Starbucks workers make 15 an hour now?? Who do they think they are! I work construction and only make 12!"

"Oh Bucees gives three weeks vacation? Well I work much harder and I don't get any!"

"Wait California gets salary disclosure?? They're such wusses, I don't need that!!1!"

Of course we can go even further back, hundreds of years, and just replay those advancements but I'm tired. The point is that if you want improvement you PULL UP, not PUSH DOWN.

Shitting on yourself with the intention of making other's already shitty situations look not-that-shitty isn't valiant. It's pathetic, across the board. We should PULL UP each other, not PUSH DOWN each other. Then we all end up higher. You want to be fair BUT better - not fair but worse.

[kcplate]

You are never going convince someone whose job will never be able to shift to remote that you are pulling up anyone but yourself with a crusade for WFH. You just won’t get the sympathy because having to write code in an office is not equivalent to working in a sweatshop and frankly everyone seems to know this with the exception of the opinionated tech class.

So you should realize that you are your only advocate in this fight and if you can’t convince your organization why RTO isn’t in their best interest, your option is to find a company that is friendly to your remote working needs or settle in to your new normal…which was the old normal for most tech workers until March of 2020.

[consteval]

> You just won’t get the sympathy

You absolutely will, you guys are just incredibly short-sighted.

I know because I worked food service for a decade. I've worked hard jobs where I'm on my feet 9+ hours a day. People in those positions are shockingly class-conscious. In my experience, much more so than software engineers.

Software engineers have a tendency to fall into Delusions of Grandeur, IMO. They might convince themselves they're not working class because instead of making 60,000 they make 100,000. So, then they justify a ton of different mistreatment because they think they're unique.

It's self-destructive, of course. You gain nothing by being content with RTO. You also gain nothing by exhibiting company loyalty. You gain very little by moving up. The waiters, cooks, and bathroom attendants understand this. The software engineers are still working on it.

I agree the best INDIVIDUAL option is to find a different company. But if everyone shared my mentality this would be fixed on an industry level. But they don't, a lot share your mindset, wherein they are weak, and they are subordinate. At one of my previous jobs, we fought for breaks. If people such as yourself were around, we probably would've never gotten the right to eat at work.

[kcplate]

> I've worked hard jobs where I'm on my feet 9+ hours a day.

So have I and in an industrial laundry no less—picture a big steaming hot and humid warehouse loading dirty shop rags and food service mats into giant washing vats. I can assure you that no point in time was I ever worried about the working conditions of the accounting clerks in the air conditioned offices in their comfortable chairs on their ass all day. Frankly back then, if I heard them complaining about actually having to show up at the office, I would probably grab a handful of greasy and chemical soaked rags with machine shop shards stuck to them and pelt them with them.

[stvltvs]

Or, you know, unionize.

[kcplate]

Folks sometimes think that unions operate by threat of work stoppage and they dictate all terms to the company’s chagrin. However, people who have been at those tables realize that unions operate by compromise. If you unionize with the hope that this will get you 100% WFH, don’t be surprised if you end up with hybrid and your union is telling you it’s a win. And the next time your contract is renewed your union might be trading WFH days for a greater employer paid portion of your medical insurance when it skyrockets.

I am not saying don’t unionize to get WFH, but realize all you are doing is giving them one more item as currency for the next time contract negotiations come around.