[999900000999]

I dislike RTO for one simple reason .

I'm not at work to make friends, I'm not at work to chit chat. I'm not at work so we can talk about who won the last football game .

I go to work in exchange for currency, which is required to acquire goods and services. All this other crap, all these holiday parties, all of this let's dance in diversity videos, no that's not what I'm here for .

Most of the time coming to the office actually adds a bunch of unnecessary crap that is completely unneeded. If you can't get your job done remotely, what's the stop you from also slacking off in the office. I have to go back to the office for a while last year times were hard and I didn't have another option .

We're just talking to each other, shooting the s**, and it was cool to meet some Junior Devs who were just starting their career. But none of that made me a more productive worker.

If I had to think, I imagine the entire point of RTO mandates is to keep cities sustainable.

If every single office job went remote, what's the point of a city like New York. Who's going to willingly pay $6,000 for an apartment, ride the trains for over an hour a day, if you can just sit at home in a much cheaper city .

However, to quote a famous philosopher, it's a big club and you ain't in it. The powers that be one as many people in office chairs as possible, so they're real estate holdings appreciate in value.

Billy Bob's bagels also benefits from this, although I'd imagine he's not able to have the same amount of pool as the real estate titans

[kccqzy]

> If you can't get your job done remotely, what's the stop you from also slacking off in the office.

I find slacking off in the office so much easier than slacking off at home, mainly because people (like CEOs of companies with RTO mandates) automatically assume people in the office == people being productive. You could leave your seat and go to a meeting room, and people won't know if you are having a genuine meeting or if you are just talking to yourself. Or you could bring your laptop to a meeting room and people won't know if you focusing or if you are slacking off. You could even stay in your seat, and people won't easily notice that the GitHub page you have open on your monitor is actually for your side project. You could open a long and useless company email on your monitor and daydream for a few minutes. In contrast, when people know you are at home, they default to thinking you are slacking off. You need to actively work to prove you are working.

> If every single office job went remote, what's the point of a city like New York.

The point is to enjoy the city (whether museums or bars) after work hours.

[ethbr1]

> I find slacking off in the office so much easier than slacking off at home

1999 had it nailed https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=veoXCgwyZq8

[lenerdenator]

> If I had to think, I imagine the entire point of RTO mandates is to keep cities sustainable.

In a few cases (certainly not all), it's to keep the c-suite's reputation sustainable.

If you're a CEO that signed a lease or construction contract on any piece of property since, idk, 2015, you have, in some way, burned a lot of money on a piece of ground that could have, in many cases, been replaced with a far cheaper internet connection and suite of remote work applications.

You have two options at this point:

1) explain this bonfire of cash to the board and possibly to shareholders, which is a pretty good way to see yourself shown the door

or

2) justify your expense by telling the rank-and-file to get back in the office and make use of the capital you are now locked into having.

[gruez]

>If you're a CEO that signed a lease or construction contract on any piece of property since, idk, 2015, you have, in some way, burned a lot of money on a piece of ground that could have, in many cases, been replaced with a far cheaper internet connection and suite of remote work applications.

>1) explain this bonfire of cash to the board and possibly to shareholders, which is a pretty good way to see yourself shown the door"

I don't get it? Is this supposed to be bad look for the CEO because he wasn't prescient enough to predict the covid pandemic and the wfh revolution 5 years before it happened? Given how frequent next quarters' forecasts get revised, I don't think the board expects CEOs to be that prescient.

[lenerdenator]

They're not expected to have predicted the next pandemic; rather, they're expected to come up with novel ideas of how to do business. That's the point, or, rather, the justification for why just one year of one job can have them set for life. You get paid an insane amount of money - many multiples of the median lifetime income of Americans - because you make the right bets that either save the company massive sums of money, create new revenue streams, or both.

We were having "disaster recovery" days at my old employer in 2015. You found a place outside the office to attempt to do your work from, and made adjustments to make your various pieces of technology work. It worked, and the implications of it working should have been obvious to our betters.

[gruez]

>They're not expected to have predicted the next pandemic; rather, they're expected to come up with novel ideas of how to do business. That's the point, or, rather, the justification for why just one year of one job can have them set for life. You get paid an insane amount of money - many multiples of the median lifetime income of Americans - because you make the right bets that either save the company massive sums of money, create new revenue streams, or both.

Taking this at face value, what does that have to do with getting an office in 2015? It seems like the same "hindsight is 20/20" problem as before. Maybe the CEO was busy transforming the company to use blockchain or something. You can't expect a CEO to nail every bet. Microstrategy is (was?) doing great because of their bitcoin treasury strategy, but I doubt many boards are getting upset that their CEOs didn't buy bitcoin, even though that would arguably be a better return than not leasing an office.

[lenerdenator]

> Taking this at face value, what does that have to do with getting an office in 2015? It seems like the same "hindsight is 20/20" problem as before. Maybe the CEO was busy transforming the company to use blockchain or something. You can't expect a CEO to nail every bet.

Odds are, if they were "busy transforming the company to use blockchain" they blew absolutely massive amounts of money.

[philipov]

Someone being payed 100 million dollars is expected to have 20/20 foresight. Ludicrous sums of money come with ludicrous expectations.

The presumption that we're all rational actors with access to reliable information is not borne out by history. Anxiety and ego trump reason every time, and those at the top are often trapped in misinformation bubbles that make them think a fire is nothing but smoke.

[gruez]

>Someone being payed 100 million dollars is expected to have 20/20 foresight. Ludicrous sums of money come with ludicrous expectations.

Sounds like you're more upset about CEO compensation than anything else.

>The presumption that we're all rational actors with access to reliable information is not borne out by history. Anxiety and ego trump reason every time, and those at the top are often trapped in misinformation bubbles that make them think a fire is nothing but smoke.

Except in this case, you don't even have to invoke "Anxiety and ego trump reason every time", because even someone who was perfectly rational couldn't have predicted covid 19 and the wfh revolution.

[JumpCrisscross]

> They're not expected to have predicted the next pandemic; rather, they're expected to come up with novel ideas of how to do business

Do you have a single example of a CEO being fired or even chastised for this?

[brookst]

Especially since board members are typically execs at other companies. Anyone remotely competent knows that the macro changes leading to remote work surprised everyone. I just don't find it credible that RTO is about CEO's wanting to keep office leases looking like smart decisions.

If anything, it's exactly the opposite. If remote work is genuinely good for the company, a good CEO will acknowledge that and work to minimize downside from unnecessary leases.

IMO execs are often wrong about RTO, but for simple cause/effect reasons, not elaborate conspiracies to retroactively justify office leases.

[phil21]

> I just don't find it credible that RTO is about CEO's wanting to keep office leases looking like smart decisions.

It's not credible. It's stuff folks make up from a myopic view of the situation. I have had more than a few intimate very open conversations with executives on the topic and not a single one has stated this as a reason. In fact, many are happy to be able to cancel expensive office leases when able.

The executives may be wrong, but as a group they certainly understand sunk cost theory. Most of them are even smart enough to not to fall for the fallacy by the time they reach that point in their careers. Of course lots of self-serving myopic behavior in that group as well.

It's difficult for some to empathize that there is genuine disagreement on what makes for a more productive workforce. That an individual's performance is irrelevant - group and team performance is the metric that actually matters. One does not necessarily correlate with the other.

It's very interesting to me that folks can hold the opinion remote learning is far deficient to on-campus classrooms, but simultaneously state that WFH is good for everyone. I think it's far more nuanced - and certain types of personalities and life stages will do better in one or the other.

I've worked remote most of my career since the late 90's - I have hired dozens if not hundreds of remote employees over this time. There is absolutely a group of workers who do quite well under such conditions, and some who do horribly. And it doesn't mean the latter can't be productive anywhere - or that these groups are static over an individual's entire career. This was not a controversial opinion prior to the pandemic.

You can go further into company/team structure and communication methods as well. Some have the culture to do remote well, some do not.

In the end I'm confident the market will figure out the right mix. Companies will be punished for making the wrong choices for themselves here.

[lenerdenator]

> I have had more than a few intimate very open conversations with executives on the topic and not a single one has stated this as a reason. In fact, many are happy to be able to cancel expensive office leases when able.

And that's just it: a lot of them aren't able.

Especially if they own the facility.

[hn72774]

I'd love to see data on RTO mandates vs real estate lease/own status.

For companies that own, Low occupancy = asset write downs = higher cost of capital.

[JumpCrisscross]

Control for overhiring during the pandemic. Almost every RTO whiplash I've seen is a shadow restructuring.

[PoppinFreshDo]

I think you're right, but it's a non optimal way to reduce headcount.

What are managers doing if they're only measure for who stays is "who is willing to drive or train to work?"

That's not management imho.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

<< That's not management imho.

It isn't. I made this point on this forum before, but I personally think management class has been largely skating by for multiple decades now with covid ( and maybe very briefly OWS ) being the only few things remotely changing the balance of power in a way that forced them to re-asses the situation.

The amusing complaint that I heard was that remote management is harder ( it is likely true ) when compared to in-person.

<< "who is willing to drive or train to work?"

This is the part that is interesting to me for several different reasons. I don't consider myself a top player ( and I objectively am not ), but I know people who are. Those people tend to be capable enough to go on their own if needed, but are sufficiently comfortable that they won't unless pushed too far. In simple terms, either companies find ways to make exceptions undermining the whole spirit of this exercise ( because that is all it is -- show of power ) losing the few people that make things happen or stick to their guns to ease managerial discomfort and keep commercial property values in place.

I don't have to make those decisions, but having seen some recent projects lately, I don't think management can afford to lose those key individuals, because I can say with all certainty that throwing a bunch of contractors on it will not work; I will even go a little further, throwing contractors on it will only make things worse.

edit: Removed last line. It sounded better in my head.

[JohnMakin]

> I go to work in exchange for currency, which is required to acquire goods and services

Social currency is also a thing, which is much more difficult to gain in a remote setting - if not impossible. I don't go to work to socialize either, but I'm not naive enough to think that without an extremely established career and reputation at an org that I'll be promoted or employed strictly on merit. there is always some degree of social-ness involved in those kinds of decisions. I'm not saying that's how things should be, it's just how they are.

[benreesman]

There will always be some social-ness, but let’s be real that it’s out of fucking control right now. I’ve been doing this professionally for more than 20 years and “who you know not what you know” hasn’t run this badly amok in that entire time.

The industry is very unsettled right now: credible (or at least loud) opinions on AI range from “fancy autocomplete nothingburger” to “programmers are obsolete starting now”, RTO is in some weird ass place where it’s really unclear the merits or lack thereof, consolidation of half the S&P into ~7 companies and the whole startup pipeline running through guys who fit in a banquet room is uh, not highly not a working free market.

This is how you get a chorus of “talent shortage” on one side and a chorus of “CS is cooked fam” on the other: software engineering jobs are experiencing a market failure, price discovery isn’t happening, and shit is going to be weird until the market starts working again.

[CptFribble]

Megacorps being naturally risk-averse, and the lion's share of the rest of the capital being held by that banquet room, it's going to take one or a few scrappy startups hitting it big while also committing to WFH/etc to get the banquet to loosen the purse strings a bit and kick off a new wave of investment a la Web 2.0 post-dotcom-crash (which was coincidentally also post-oh-noes-outsourcing-1.0)

That plus a few years of new successes might get the megacorps to start hiring en masse and possibly see the value in WFH again, but it'll take a lot of these stars aligning to produce several new unicorns that can eat a few lunches to get there, which will probably take the rest of the 2020s and possibly part of the 2030s (based on the last time this happened, going from 1999 crash to the 2010/2011 renaissance)

If I was a betting man, I'd guess the first wave of new startups will be unifying a huge dataset of local info with AI into like the AirBNB-of-local-whatever personal concierge sort of thing, like OpenTable on steroids. but I'm frequently wrong, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[intended]

RTO is studied and found to be equal to, or less efficient and profitable than, hybrid.

My guess is that RTO mandates act as a lay off.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

But even if that is true, why would the companies feel comfortable losing their most competent workforce ( because those are the ones, who can pick up their toys and leave in US )? I was in corporate way too long and I know a lot can be done with warm bodies, but some of the stuff on the horizon will require people with at least some institutional knowledge that this lay off would generate.

Unless, and I do mean unless, because I did not work at JPM, JPM is so well run, that it truly does not matter.

[intended]

there was an article shared here on HN which was great about this. It talked about how we often reverse logic behavior, and assume firms will be making the optimal choices.

We dont know. Ive gone through at least 3 research papers, all of which come to the same conclusion, hybrid outperforms RTO. Whatever decision is being made, its not based on the economic evidence. We will find out eventually.

[nielsbot]

It pains me to say this, but I find in-person discussions more productive than online ones. It's not just shooting the shit--for me, spontaneous social chats often lead to work-related brainstorming. Being in the office next to co-workers leads to more spontaneous discussions.

[intended]

Have you ever thought of why? Just ‘magic’, is an open doorway for bias and unreliable memory to enter and influence the conversation.

Is it perhaps that there are specific people, who are doing the ideation, or are particularly good at helping you think? Or is it anyone and everyone? If it’s anyone, then is it a social / biological quirk? Is it something else?

For everyone reading, this is worth reflecting upon, if only to move our regular WFH / RTO discussions on HN forward.

[nunez]

I'm a sales engineer. Given that a big chunk of our job is face-to-face, I can answer this.

We are a social species. Body language, eye contact and facial expressions are more important than the spoken word during a conversation. They're also extremely subtle. You don't think about someone leaning in or mimicking your position (that's a thing!) when you're saying something interesting, but we instinctively pick up on these cues and use them to steer conversations (or, in this case, know to double-down on whatever we're talking about).

None of these transmit well over VC.

Consider eye contact, for example. Maintaining eye contact with someone means that you're staring almost directly at your webcam's lens, which is at best unideal (if you're use to being on camera) and, at worst, impossible (since you're, naturally, staring at the facsimile of a person in the box on the lower-left-hand corner of your Zoom window). Webcams are AWKWARD.

Furthermore, a Zoom meeting has to compete with the billions of other things that you're doing on your computer. A face-to-face meeting competes with your calendar and your inner thoughts. This matters a lot for key conversations.

[intended]

The point we branched from was to ask what specifically generated the new ideas, out of spontaneous social situations in work places.

There’s definitely roles which have to be in person, and those people should come to office.

Everyone else - they don’t need to in the same way sales people would.

Not all conversations lead to insights, what’s going on then?

There’s some specific things happening to lead to the productivity benefit. Because this is what it is in the end, it’s productivity we care about, not socializing.

[RestlessMind]

> There’s definitely roles which have to be in person, and those people should come to office.

For Eng Mangers to do their job effectively, they need engineers in office too. I discussed that in detail in a sibling comment to your parent one.

[com2kid]

Don't overcomplicate things. Whiteboards are way better than even the best of online tools and drawing with a mouse.

For that matter, post-it notes on a wall are better than JIRA.

At one workplace everyone had glass table so they could draw on with markers. People could literally come up to your desk and you could work through problems together on one end of the table.

The best online tools are garbage compared to physicality.

[surgical_fire]

> Don't overcomplicate things. Whiteboards are way better than even the best of online tools and drawing with a mouse.

I'll never understand this. All my whiteboard diagrams look like shit. My drawing skills suck, my writing is nearly illegible.

Most online tools have excellent diagram shapes, nice and customizable arrows, good templates, etc.

I can make nice diagrams much faster on any of those than in a real whiteboard. A lot less messy as well.

I also worked in a place where we could draw on desks. I fucking hated it, it was the worst possible place to brainstorm anything, and made the place very noisy because people were invited to have those discussions on desks, and it was an open office plan where others were trying to work.

It is small wonder that I became extremely more productive at home. I don't need to wear headphones all day long, meetings tend to be more focused (since people don't like sitting on online meetings as long), online tooling for communication ia top notch these days.

I can't think of a single upside of being in the office.

[com2kid]

My whiteboard diagrams are also ugly, but I can draw ugly diagrams on a real whiteboard without cognitive overhead. Meanwhile diagraming tools have friction that a pen doesn't.

Also I've been to plenty of meetings where engineers split off into multiple sub groups and diagramed different ideas on parts of the board and then everyone joined back up to discuss. Can zoom technically do that? Sure but it sucks.

[wink]

I'll go one further - whiteboards rock and post-its on a wall can go die in a fire. Unless they actually stick (they won't) and don't curl up (they won't) and you have coworker with a perfectly legible handwritign (you won't) and a good pen (you won't) and standing close ot it (you won't) - you won't see anything.

[intended]

These are your > spontaneous social chats often lead to work-related brainstorming. Being in the office next to co-workers leads to more spontaneous discussions.

I submit that this isn’t my reality.I never spontaneously break out a whiteboard., the same way I dont spontaneously break out into a dance routine.

I do hope I’m in the majority, otherwise I’m really unsure of what to make of all the work places I’ve been at.

[com2kid]

> I submit that this isn’t my reality.I never spontaneously break out a whiteboard., the same way I dont spontaneously break out into a dance routine.

Countless times I've walked up to someone and asked "hey can I work through this problem on a whiteboard with you."

And while I haven't done so myself, I have had coworkers spontaneously break into dance routines before. (Ok that has only happened once...)

[intended]

Do you have visas for your timeline ? I’ll immigrate.

You have infinity times more dance routines in your time line than in mine.

To the point - they’re talking about having water cooler conversations, which spontaneously lead to ideas.

If all we really need is better white board tech, people can simply meet twice a week and white board, I.e. hybrid.

[nunez]

It's much more difficult to save and revisit state with whiteboards and post-its, but when an entire team is colo'ed and able to work together on something, I agree; nothing comes close.

[gilbetron]

This is utterly untrue. I work remotely for a large (8000+) company and when I go into the office, and I've been paying close attention, I've seen precisely zero white-boarding happening in the past 3 years. In fact, when people need to white board they reach for their laptop because they can save the information in a bette format, and others can add to it in the future. Excalidraw is a fantastic whiteboarding tool that has taken over the majority of diagramming where I work.

Post-it notes are not something I've seen used except for random sessions usually run by a consultant. JIRA sucks except for support issues, but most everyone just uses a google doc or spreadsheet and moves on with life.

Beyond that, we are just getting started with remote work, the tools will improve, not so with physical space tools.

[RestlessMind]

> Have you ever thought of why?

I have. Here is why in person interaction works better for me. I learn a lot from someone's body language and multiple subtle cues - eye contact, fidgeting, arms and hands, direction in which toes are pointing etc.

They tell me if someone is not telling the truth, or under stress, or is uncomfortable. Then I can coax further details out of them using appropriate means. And most of the times, people want to share a lot of uncomfortable details but have a big mental block preventing them. As a manager, I can also observe the body language of my team members when they interact with each other and identify the dynamics. Whether they are getting along well or whether they have issues with each other.

None of this is available on Zoom. "Hey how is it going?" "Good" is not going to tell me really if you are struggling with something and are not able to share your problems. "What do you think about the new guy on our team?" "He is good" doesn't tell me what you really think of the new guy.

After talking about this to dozens of people, whose job it is to deal with other people, I have realized that this is a widely shared problem. Luckily, the decision makers about RTO are also the ones whose job involves dealing with people.

[mmcconnell1618]

Virtual video sound is rarely full duplex meaning the first person to speak blocks others and you have these really awkward pauses and latency that interrupt natural communication. Then, add in the lack of body language cues that are difficult to see over video and the pace of communication becomes slower. Ideas don't easily bounce around a team because the technology creates a one-person-at-a-time framework.

[jppope]

I find the opposite. People frequently show up to meetings in person unprepared. They are also way less likely to document the discussion - which can now be done with AI transcribing the discussion... which is even more productive. There is way more shooting the shit in person.

[badgersnake]

I’m not sure about AI transcribing the discussion, is a great idea generally, as I’m not sure I want all the company secrets sent off to some random AI startup, but I also don’t see what precludes you from using it to transcribe an in person meeting.

[nielsbot]

i am making a distinction between meetings in a conference room (those are fine remote, generally IMO) vs having conversations

[patmorgan23]

Yep. Also in person mentoring and spontaneous collaboration.

In person and remote both have advantages and will work better or worse for different people, organizations, or situations.

[com2kid]

The number of times, early in my career, I had senior engineers come and hold impromptu learning sessions is one of the reasons why I'm such a good engineer today.

Being able to have robust discussions about software engineering, best practices and design patterns and all that good stuff and have other engineers hear that discussions happening and stop by to give their input is incredibly valuable to both personal growth and oftentimes the success of a product.

[ajdude]

Spontaneous collaboration is a big one for me. I am in a niche department and by simply having an office in an accessible hallway with my door open, people suddenly remember that my department exists and they are constantly popping in my door to chat about ideas. Usually those chats result in new projects

[PoppinFreshDo]

Absolutely. I'm available on slack for anything, and when I'm in the office I get one after another of people coming to me for issues.

There is some hesitancy people have to contact others remotely.

[nickff]

Maybe JPMorgan doesn't want employees like you; maybe they want employees who chit-chat, and become attached to their company, for various (non-kLoC) reasons. Not every workplace is for everyone.

[reidbk]

Totally true. A company and its leadership are free to set the rules and expectations. It’s their company, not yours. You (we) might not fit in a new iteration of “their” company Also, in exchange for the strong compensation and benefits that I believe lots of us in finance, tech, etc enjoy - we might have to give acquiesce back on some things.

[dowager_dan99]

Have you noticed that those who come out hardest against RTO - or any change/revision that doesn't fit their desires - use the same, unbending absolute arguments they claim to be fighting? Like anyone who (gasp!) might want to work in the office is a slacker, there to shoot the shit and at the whim of useless managers and executives who just count asses in seats?

[JumpCrisscross]

> the same, unbending absolute arguments they claim to be fighting

Both sides are absolutely doing this. It's like the concept of multiple equilibria has temporarily left the zeitgeist.

[intended]

If you select the people who come out hardest against RTO, as opposed to the median, or mean, then … you would expect this behavior, no?

You sure you picked the right example category to service your point?

[tombert]

I don't think that's what they're saying, they're saying that they don't want to be forced to come back to the office because they don't like it because some percentage of the people there are there just to shoot the shit. That doesn't imply that everyone who comes to the office is there to slack off.

[999900000999]

Hell yeah, we can be a family up until the moment their automated performance tracking software flags me and I get let go!

[onlyrealcuzzo]

> If I had to think, I imagine the entire point of RTO mandates is to keep cities sustainable.

The entire point is to get you to quit because firing people is hard, and they don't care if their best talent leaves.

[craftkiller]

> what's the point of a city like New York

Pizza and Bagels. If the rest of the country got their shit together and figured out how to make acceptable pizza and bagels then I could leave this city.

[neilv]

Cambridge, MA, has Bagelsaurus, but unfortunately almost as expensive cost of living.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xup2Lcd4Ers&t=1m40s

[com2kid]

> We're just talking to each other, shooting the s*, and it was cool to meet some Junior Devs who were just starting their career. But none of that made me a more productive worker.

I solved an incredibly difficult technical problem while grabbing lunch during PAX with fellow co-workers.

Spending time face-to-face with team members as a lead help me keep track of who needed some extra time off, who was at risk of burn out, and who was being harassed out of band by PMs.

One of the most powerful things my team did was have cookies out in front of her desks everyday. Other devs would stop by the chit chat and it let us keep a pulse on how the entire war was doing. My team was able to get a lot more done and hope everyone succeed because we had not just technical connections but personal connections throughout the building.

Those personal connections also let me transfer top performers onto my team, people who would otherwise have left the org due to dissatisfaction with their current team.

Knowing individual developers one-on-one also helps me know what problems they're going to have with their code and blind spots in their technical knowledge.

Finally, there's a fact that trust is earned through time spent together. As a junior member of a team, I was able to propose some radical alternative solutions to problems because of how much time I'd spent talking to the tech leads above me.

That said, the working conditions in most offices are so bad, I see what people want to stay home myself included.

Even Microsoft, who years ago commissioned studies showing the massive productivity gains from individual offices, has gone against their own best practices and resorted to loud open office nightmare environments.

I think part of this is because corporations no longer expect individual engineers to come up with radical solutions to hard problems and are okay with mediocre solutions to everyday problems instead.

In my opinion, this results in massive numbers of employees being hired to create complex solutions. When one quarter of the employees could have got the job done if they were treated well.

Another aspect of everything going wrong is that American cities are so poorly designed with constrained housing that commute times have gotten way out of hand. Even in the early to mid 2000s when I started my career it was possible for people to live 15 minutes from work or buy a house 20 minutes away. I used to have a round-trip commute time of under 10 minutes so of course I didn't mind coming into the office.

[linotype]

> If every single office job went remote, what's the point of a city like New York

Yikes, if the only reason you’re in NYC is a job and you don’t go out I highly recommend you find a new job/city.

[awkward]

Development work at all of these major financial companies is likely distributed across three continents and 6 time zones, nevermind the network of offices in multiple major cities. Even "Hub" models likely have cleave points like design in NY, frontend development in LA, testing in Mumbai.

The end effect is employees schlepping to the office to sit down and hop on a zoom call.

[devmunchies]

> I imagine the entire point of RTO mandates is to keep cities sustainable.

The main important factor IMO is mentorship of junior talent. (I'm speaking for technical orgs)

Viewing the organization as a living organism where an employee is a "cell", then there are material benefits in the "cellular replication" of talent and rejuvenation of the next generation.

It can definitely be true that RTO is worse for an individual engineer but better for the health of the organization long-term. Both can be true.

In my experience, remote only companies tend to prefer a higher ratio of senior employees for this reason. It's plug-an-play.

[badgersnake]

Completely, agree. I think am lot of senior engineers work well independently and feel more productive at home. They miss that this isn’t always the case for more junior ones.

[JumpCrisscross]

There is no universal answer to RTO vs WFH.

What is abhorrent is employers changing these terms as if they're trivial. We probably need legal protections treating swapping workplace requirements as requiring someone to relocate or accept lower pay.

> If every single office job went remote, what's the point of a city like New York

You really don't see the value of New York beyond its office buildings?

> it's a big club and you ain't in it. The powers that be one as many people in office chairs as possible, so they're real estate holdings appreciate in value

This is a Bay Area conspiracy theory that doesn't make a lot of sense, particularly when the cost and need for layoffs explains the effect more parsimoniously.

[anthonygd]

I agree with most of what you wrote, but not the implication that NYC value is obvious.

>You really don't see the value of New York beyond its office buildings?

I like to visit NYC a couple times a year, but absolutely don't want to live there. If the number of people who physically work there goes down, so will the reasons it's nice to visit.

I don't think I can properly explain my thought process here, but I do think of big cities as anachronistic and little inhuman. All those nice things in a city depend on a large number of lower income people being forced to live there by economic opportunity. That's not necessarily bad but frequently lower income residents don't get to enjoy the services they provide.

I say anachronistic because as people increase in economic freedom, their desires adjust and they frequently move, e.g. everything else being equal people will choose a 700 sq.ft. apartment over a 180 sq.ft. apartment. If the ratio of high income to low income residents shifts too far in either direction, cities go through a painful re-balancing process that may or may not land on it being good or pleasant (by some subjective standards) place afterwards.

[hammock]

>I dislike RTO for one simple reason . I'm not at work to make friends, I'm not at work to chit chat. I'm not at work so we can talk about who won the last football game . I go to work in exchange for currency, which is required to acquire goods and services. All this other crap, all these holiday parties, all of this let's dance in diversity videos, no that's not what I'm here for .

Oldhead here. This was a common thought pattern before lockdowns, but only among the ~5% of people who personally negotiated for a work-from-home/telecommuting arrangement. And it was not normal. It was vaguely looked down upon by superiors, unless you had been with the company for a long time and had proven your value. And among peers it was a little "weird."

"Return to office" post-lockdown is not the same thing as "Work from home" pre-lockdown. The RTO thought pattern is similar, but the social feeling around it has flipped - is normal and not weird. (Yet still vaguely looked down on by some management)

[screye]

I dislike RTO because none of that happens anymore. The economic landscape is too paranoid (despite positive macro indicators) for employees to enjoy work.

People don't want to chit chat, just clock in clock out. Layoffs threat is ever present. Remote & odd-time zone meetings are still here. Can't turn off my computer after 5pm. In office benefits are limited. Mentoring, learning-seminars and after-work activities are soft discouraged.

Why even come in ? _____________

> what's the point of a city like New York

I agree that RTO mandates have to do with keeping downtown office space prices high. But, if you could work from anywhere, why wouldn't you want to be in the coolest city in the world? You don't need to be in Manhattan. But you can get some pretty great apartments while still being a 30 minutes subway ride from downtown.

I visited NYC regularly through Covid, and it seemed quite lively.

Remember, us programmers are a famously introverted & indoor bunch. Most people want to be in places with rich social lives apart from their smaller intimate communities.

[tharne]

> But, if you could work from anywhere, why wouldn't you want to be in the coolest city in the world?

Large cities are like black licorice. The people who like them, really like them, but most of us think they're kind of gross.

[999900000999]

Big cities are okay, it's just New York and San Francisco and particular are so wildly expensive I'd have to make another 70 to $80,000 a year for it to make sense .

But that's not what I'm seeing in the market, I'm seeing recruiters tell me for another 10k I can have the privilege of moving to the NYC or The Bay.

[screye]

It's more like eating meat. You need to get past major mental blocks before getting used to it.

Americans start conversations with assumptions like:

* We need space because all amenities must be privately owned at home

* You should be able to drive everywhere

* 30 minutes driving is the same as 30 minutes on transit

* Street walking & biking are unsafe hobbies, not modes of transport

* The average American city is a representative city.

It's impossible to have conversations with someone who starts from these base assumptions.

Given that cities are uniformly more desired in the rest of the world, the American city hate has to do with deliberate actions that stripped-out cities from 1950s-2000s. In other countries and cities insulated from these changes, the criticisms fall flat.

[tharne]

> In other countries and cities insulated from these changes, the criticisms fall flat.

Yes and no. Much of the world does a better job with their cities than the U.S., and as a result there is a little more demand for that type of development.

But overall, preferences are shockingly similar across cultures.

Anywhere people have the means to afford automobiles, they tend to buy them and increasingly embrace a suburban life style, at least at an aggregate level. If you look at new construction in places like Western Europe or China, a lot of new development is very similar to what you see in the U.S., with a bit of local flavor thrown in.

[screye]

This doesn't match my experiences with India, SEA or mainland Europe.

Suburban lifestyle can only exist in a world where urban areas already exist. They rely on the city-dwellers to create the experiences, entertainment & economic hubs. Then suburbanites separate themselves from the city, reducing geographic inflow and tax outflow, while demanding equal access to all of those amenities. It's a one-way street.

Cities around the world are becoming wise to it. Can't have your cake and eat it too.

Amenities like free parking for all, wide streets, downtown interstates & property taxes based sequestering defined the 1950s-2000s suburban chokehold. As a result, city dwellers experienced suburbanite imposed forced misery. With the return of bike lanes, traffic calming, interstate removal and congestion pricing, city dwellers are beginning to reclaim the city for themselves. Or so I hope.

[surgical_fire]

A lot of people actually despise living in major cities. I was born in one, a huge metropolis, and lived in it for the most of my life. For a long time I was forced to live there, because the jobs were there too.

In may ways, the pandemic was a blessing for me. Remote work allowed me to move to a small city, closer to a rural area. If depends solely on my desire, I will never again live in a major city.

[bdangubic]

I am not sure if “a lot” is correct assessment. I live in urban area and most of my friends have either been fully remote before C19 or after. no one wants to move anywhere even though we could all live wherever. urban areas have numerous other advantages besides better job markets, especially if you have kids. schools, sports, theatre, etc etc.

[surgical_fire]

If we qre exchanging anecdotes, I do know plenty of people that either moved out to the countryside, or would be willing to move if they were sure they could work remote indefinitely.

I'd even say that having kids is one major factor in wanting to move out of big cities.

[SirMaster]

Then maybe you aren't a culture fit for that employer / office?

My experience is just so different. I love the vibe and the camaraderie of my office. It makes it fun to work there.

Just sitting at home working, never interacting with people in person sounds really dull and boring and cold to me. I had to do that in 2020 and I hated it.

Productivity is nice, but IMO it's not all about productivity. As a worker I value my enjoyment of the job, and just being a robotic super productive worker is not as enjoyable as actually feeling like you are part of a team or community and having fun with your fellow coworkers.

We spend so much of our lives on the clock, I would hate to have it all just be serious productive work 100% of the time.

[spokaneplumb]

> My experience is just so different. I love the vibe and the camaraderie of my office. It makes it fun to work there.

Me too! If we had free teleporters I'd probably go into the office for at least half my work day, just about every day, voluntarily.

... I don't like it enough to pay about 15 days per year, every year (5 hours commuting per week, times 50 weeks, divided by 16 waking hours per day[1]), hundreds of dollars a month commuting (gas, plus insurance and depreciation on a car), and make every single thing that happens at home and requires my attention less convenient and more disruptive in ways that probably also amount to at least several hundred dollars per year, one way or another, and quite a few extra micromorts/micro-chances-of-crippling-injury per year (risk of that ~250 hours of extra driving). Plus increased restrictions on where you can live, which can come with significant (tens of thousands per year) costs in many ways, including in raw dollar terms.

It's nice, but the cost is really high. I'd also probably really have fun with a supercar, but I'd rather not buy one just the same. Far too pricey for the benefit, to me.

[1] Perhaps more to the point, that means over six entire work-weeks of extra work time per year, uncompensated, just to get to and from work. A month and a half of extra work every year. And that's with an hour a day spent, lots of people have more than 30 minutes lost per day (nb you'd need to include extra gassing-up stops, and extra car maintenance visits, divided by commute days per year, to properly account for this—so your commute time would need to average somewhat under 30 minutes each way to hit only an hour lost each day, probably closer to 25 minutes than 30).

[999900000999]

My points exactly.

For example, if you want a good amount of space in NYC you're in Brooklyn or Queens.

Your spending 45 minutes to an hour each way just getting to your Manhattan office.

Or you live in Manhattan and spend 6k a month.

Just from a raw math perspective, assuming I make 100$ an hour in NYC, and my Brooklyn apartment is 3k.

That's 1000$ a week for the 2 hour commute if I value my time and apply the same rate.

Let's just say a Manhattan apartment is 6k, but it's right across the street from the office.

To make the math easy, let's estimate your BK to Manhattan commute time to be worth 3k a month.

Vs 2K for an apartment in Philly or Chicago with a remote job.

4k extra a month to work in Manhattan, meaning 48k per year. Once you factor in taxes, you have to make about 70k more to make the in person NYC make sense.

If the option is 150k remote or 200k in NYC you *lose* money going to NYC. Plus, you don't need to live in a city at all .

If I want to I can move out to some small town in Ohio and buy myself a ranch. As long as I have stable internet I'm fine .

Of course this is a moot point if RTO becomes industry standard which it quickly is. With my luck the options are probably going to be have no job or go to New York or San Francisco and make 170 meaning I get the worst of both worlds.

[SirMaster]

I mean, I am biased because my commute by car is 10 minutes and there's barely any traffic. But that was also by choice. I chose to locate myself close to the office like that, because I like working in the office at least a lot of the time, and I hate long commutes too. So I sought out and made happen a situation that was to my preferences.

I live in a suburb and work at a company that is in the suburbs. It's a manufacturing company, but they need software developers all the same.

I don't know, sometimes I feel like a bit of an outlier. I arrange my life for fun and convenience and joy. I don't try to maximize money at the expense of those things. Making say 20% more but having a long commute or working in an office that I don't enjoy being in is not worth it to me because time is money, and my day to day joy and happiness are more important to me than a little more money as well.

People seem so unhappy all the time. I just don't get it. I go for what makes me happy and it seems to work great for me.

[spokaneplumb]

Tensions arise for most folks that can’t easily be resolved by just moving close to work (what if you change jobs, though? Laid off, or too-slow wage increases? Even this is only a partial solution)

It’s not usually a choice to be unhappy, as you seem to be framing it. You live ten minutes from work, but you get a partner, and how far away is your place from their employer? You have kids and all the schools within 20 minutes of your employer are fairly bad, plus the above issue of conflicting partner commutes, and also you can’t just move them between school districts frequently to move around near your current employer.

So yes, lots of people end up with shitty commutes because the alternatives are worse. They’re not choosing that because they’re dumb or choosing to be unhappy, but because of conflicting interests. WFH for one or both adults in a household removes a ton of that tension in ways that basically nothing else can (short of “stay single and never have kids”)

[nunez]

I'm with you. WFH is insanely isolating, and interacting via Slack/Zoom doesn't cut it for me.

I hate that it's either full RTO or full WFH at so many places.

[SirMaster]

Yes, I would agree a hybrid approach is ideal too.

[dennis_jeeves2]

> I'm not at work so we can talk about who won the last football game

You average Joe/manager in the office judges you based on this.

( I too don't like it)

[blackeyeblitzar]

I think we’re all getting the reasons for RTO wrong. It’s not just executives liking a certain work environment or a way to hold employees accountable. It’s a core part of their business. If real estate in overpriced cities is worth a lot less, JPMC’s own property, its assets, and so on are all worth less. What happens to JPMC if people with loans decide to stop making payments and just default because their property is worth a lot less than the loan? To prevent this, they’re trying to strengthen the RTO trend.

[dygd]

For those who don't know the famous philosopher - it's George Carlin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyvxt1svxso

[parineum]

> We're just talking to each other, shooting the s*, and it was cool to meet some Junior Devs who were just starting their career. But none of that made me a more productive worker.

You're not the only employee of the company. They aren't trying to maximize _your_ output, they're trying to maximize the company's output. You being present for a junior dev to ask quick questions to (the type that don't get asked if they have to message you) will increase their productivity much more than your productivity loss. It isn't all about you.

> If I had to think, I imagine the entire point of RTO mandates is to keep cities sustainable.

This is, essentially, a conspiracy theory. RTO is happening because management thinks it will increase productivity. Right or wrong, it's crazy to assume the are all working together to keep cities alive.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

<<This is, essentially, a conspiracy theory. RTO is happening because management thinks it will increase productivity. Right or wrong, it's crazy to assume the are all working together to keep cities alive.

Eh, I will be honest. At this point, one has to be willfully unwilling to read the news[1] to state something like this. There absolutely are interests intent on keeping cities alive. I almost wonder if we finally reached a point where 'conspiracy theory' is automatically not only not 'a way to diminish a view', but 'a way to enhance it'.

[1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/02/17/new-york-c...

[freejazz]

> I almost wonder if we finally reached a point where 'conspiracy theory' is automatically not only not 'a way to diminish a view', but 'a way to enhance it'.

Uhm, yeah, Trump is president.

Do you live in a city?

[iugtmkbdfil834]

Work in a city; live in the suburbs.

[freejazz]

I don't know what it's like where you are, but I'm in NYC and the thought that the city is so destitute because of WFH policies such that there must be a conspiracy to bring people back is probably the most ridiculous thing I've seen this week.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

I know what I think. I also think I know what you are trying to say.

That said, before I address what I think you mean, could you elaborate a little? I want to give you a chance to explain your point further.

[nunez]

Fun fact: We have a place called Billy Bob's Bagels in Houston, and it's actually fantastic!

[tharne]

> If I had to think, I imagine the entire point of RTO mandates is to keep cities sustainable.

Bingo

[freejazz]

You really misunderstand why the jobs are in NYC, if you think that people only come to NYC for the jobs.

On the same point, gosh you sound like a fun person! I know, I'm sure it's not part of your job to be personable. Though, I do wonder how an approach like that will work for most people.

[nunez]

> If every single office job went remote, what's the point of a city like New York. Who's going to willingly pay $6,000 for an apartment, ride the trains for over an hour a day, if you can just sit at home in a much cheaper city .

Yeah, but that's the heart of the problem here. The suburbs that many flocked to when WFH became acceptable are largely subsidized by city income. Cities are largely funded by employers paying hefty taxes to operate within them. Non-negligible portions of municipal budgets are also funded by small businesses that cannot exist without people working centrally somewhere.

Until municipal governments figure out a different operating model, I don't think any major city can survive big companies pulling out en masse unless your desired end state looks like Detroit circa 2000.

> I go to work in exchange for currency, which is required to acquire goods and services. All this other crap, all these holiday parties, all of this let's dance in diversity videos, no that's not what I'm here for .

What of the people whose jobs aren't WFH compatible? "They get what they get?"

[anthonygd]

> What of the people whose jobs aren't WFH compatible? "They get what they get?"

What's your proposal here? Should I be forced into the office because it increases the chances I'll buy coffee instead of making it at home?

Macro economic changes are always painful. This is a gross simplification, but cities exist because of an economic network effect based on proximity. Network effects tend to be somewhat stable because they tend to change slowly, but they do change.

[oldpersonintx]

> I'm not at work to make friends,

Most of my great friends I met at work

[redserk]

And my friends are from a sports group that meets up every Sunday, who aren’t any bit related to work.

Some people prefer meeting others outside of work and there’s nothing wrong with it. My coworkers are wonderful folks but, frankly, won’t become beer-buddies.

[PoppinFreshDo]

Socializing with coworkers is valuable, and encouraging.

Professionalism is learned largely or even exclusively by socialization.

[jltsiren]

> If I had to think, I imagine the entire point of RTO mandates is to keep cities sustainable.

More like to keep cities unsustainable. If a few major real estate companies went bankrupt, forcing the rest to lower the rents, a lot of wealth would be destroyed. At the same time, cities like New York would become even more desirable due to being more affordable.

NYC is still the #1 city in the world. There are plenty of things you can't find anywhere else. Cities like that – cities that offer something unique – would benefit from being more affordable. Mid-tier cities that exist primarily for economic reasons would probably suffer from a real estate crash.

[999900000999]

Agreed, NYC is awesome.

Let me take the $4,000 a month I save by not living there, I'll spend 90$ on a flight, see a concert and eat some pizza.

Then I can fly back home the next day and enjoy my mid tier city with my giant apartment. My mid-tier City where we have this newfangled invention called trash cans behind the apartment, unlike New York where there's no space so trash is just overflowing everywhere.

I actually tried New York for relatively short time, it's an amazing city to visit. But living there sucks. I don't want to go back, but of the way things are going, I'm probably going to end up back there or having to go to Seattle or something which I don't really want to do.