[matchbok3]

I think these conspiracy theories about RTO are really unhelpful and actually harmful to the viability of hybrid work arrangements.

Please work in a day as a oil rig technician or a nurse. "I should be able to work anywhere and my employer must accommodate me" is an extremely privileged and elitist view of thinking.

A few of your notes are actually just wrong as well. Salaries jumped during covid due to over-hiring and software booming. "Productivity" is not a number, but a business-by-business decision. The vast, vast majority of people don't want politics at work, and it's exclusively the viewpoint of the laptop class who demand that stuff. (Again, people who work toiling jobs for 10 hours a day don't create petitions and demands like that)

At the end of the day, if you don't want to work in an office, you don't have to. But, believe it or not, many many people, including young people, like the office environment.

[000ooo000]

>Please work in a day as a oil rig technician or a nurse. "I should be able to work anywhere and my employer must accommodate me" is an extremely privileged and elitist view of thinking.

To highlight just how stupid this is, here it is from another angle:

"I have to work on site so everyone else must work on site"

What is the logical conclusion here? That the workforce should be equal in every sense? Come on

[matchbok3]

This point is directly aimed at those who view the RTO efforts as a class issue (owners vs workers). There is an entitled POV in many WFH debates.

[NeutralCrane]

“Someone has it worse than you” is always a stupid argument.

[matchbok3]

Solid contribution champ.

[NeutralCrane]

Poor in the US and around the world often don’t have access to the healthcare they need. If you get cancer, are you turning down chemotherapy so you don’t seem soft? Are you turning down your next raise because some teacher somewhere is getting underpaid?

If you want substantive rebuttals you should make a substantive argument first.

[asdff]

Do you understand how rig work or nursing is? These are very flexible jobs. There is demand for nursing everywhere. You can be a travel nurse and go find work in HI or CA or Las Vegas right now if you want. Temp agencies that place you so you don't even need to really hunt either.

Rig work it is weeks on weeks off sort of deal where you then get off that rig back to, quite literally, anywhere in the world where you live otherwise. You could live in the middle of the Amazon rainforest and make six figures a year on a rig in the middle of the ocean (well, maybe US jurisdiction is preferred from a tax perspective for employer payroll).

[matchbok3]

I'm not sure I understand the point. The vast, vast majority of jobs simply cannot be done remotely. So I have little patience for the entitlement of people thinking they "deserve" it or yell about conspiracy theories about why it is going away.

There is a reason YC is in person. There is a reason why the top companies are in person.

[toomuchtodo]

You say entitlement, but the reality is you have sour grapes about people who can have a flexible work arrangement. Some people pick jobs that are not able to be flexible, that’s a choice. Pick better. People work to live, not live to work, they should not tolerate how they should have to work because some manager or c-level is lucky to be in their position of power.

The UK provides by law the ability to seek and obtain flexible working arrangements on day one of a job [1]. Certainly, the US is behind as it always is, but it will catch up eventually, if only because of structural demographics and total fertility rate declines across the developed world creating perpetual labor shortages in various verticals. We’re just arguing window of time.

YC isn’t a good example, they simply sell lottery tickets to founders and early investors as a confidence play. You say top companies, but that’s an opinion without evidence. According to what metric?

[1] https://www.gov.uk/flexible-working

> As of March 2025, approximately 22.8% of U.S. employees worked remotely at least part of the time, equating to about 36 million individuals. This percentage has remained stable between 21% and 23% since early 2024, indicating that remote work has become a consistent component of the workforce.

> What this means: Remote work has stabilized at about one-fifth of the US workforce—this isn't a temporary trend but a permanent shift in how work gets done.

Source: https://wfhresearch.com/

> Approximately 90% of companies plan to maintain or increase remote work options moving forward, indicating a lasting shift despite some return-to-office mandates.

> What this means: The vast majority of companies recognize remote work as a permanent feature—even those mandating office returns are keeping some flexibility.

Source: https://www.gartner.com/en/human-resources/topics/future-of-...

https://www.breeze.pm/blog/remote-work-statistics

[matchbok3]

I work from home, champ. No sour grapes here. Try again, and please engage in the argument, don't throw personal attacks.

The UK? The UK has 0 innovative companies. No silicon valley. Nothing. If you want American to be like them, no thanks.

[asdff]

What say you to the fact that there are companies that work remote today and are competitive and doing fine? Anomalous? Or maybe your prior assumptions need adjustment?

[ahtihn]

I'd say they are outliers.

They have been setup like that from the start and have a management structure that is fully on board with remote work from top to bottom.

Most companies aren't setup like that and don't have the people to make it work.

[asdff]

Why can't they be? Chances are in 1989, most companies weren't set up to work well with computers either. 5 years later everyone had a desktop an email account.

[matchbok3]

Yes, they are outliers. Or they are coasting.

Again (and again). There is a reason why YC and the top, most innovative companies are in person.

[asdff]

A whole lot of outliers then. Top companies are in person? I only know a few people in FAANG but they all work remote. Maybe different for certain tasks like on site hpc work. They are in software engineering though.

YC in person doesn't mean anything to me. These bay area types often have a screw loose and do things like have people live on site maybe even in tents during sprints. Megalomaniac behavior, not a lesson to follow.

[matchbok3]

Again. If you think you can do your job remotely 100%, then there is no reason why someone in South America can do your job for 20% of your salary.

Think about it.

[defrost]

To expand upon a particular point; near as I understand WFH, or rather more broadly _not_ "RTO" (ie. endure office bound work) has a strong backbone of people wanting to maximise home/work life balance.

The point about rig work, FIFO mine work, nursing (again, FIFO) et al is these are jobs that are a priority choiice for many that are living that somewhat off-grid lives with a big home-life component dream .. and have been doing that for many decades now.

I'm over 60, have worked in a majority of countries across the globe (geophysical exploration field work), and have avoided offices like a plague for the entirity of my career - I enjoy 24/7 field work with weeks off at home to work projects there or to code / build for various projects from home.

We've even built up resource and energy intelligence services and sold them on to FinTech companies that way.

And met and talked to many people that way.

So, from some PoV's you chose the worst possible examples of jobs that supposedly tie people to an office grind.

[imcrs]

What's actually really unhelpful and actually harmful to the viability of hybrid work arrangements is RTO.

> "I should be able to work anywhere and my employer must accommodate me" is an extremely privileged and elitist view of thinking.

Nope! You totally missed the point. "You must accomodate me" is a demand, that you can place on your employer, when you have labor power, as an employee. The acceding is what we're talking about here. That is not cultural; it is a matter of market power.

> At the end of the day, if you don't want to work in an office, you don't have to.

What are you talking about? Did you read my post? Yes, I have to! Because of RTO!

[matchbok3]

You do, in fact, have the agency to get another job.

So no, you are not "forced" to RTO at all.

[Esophagus4]

Yes, these are some extreme beliefs in a grand, coordinated conspiracy.

As if a bunch of people in suits are sitting around a table in an evil villain’s lair shouting “we need more control over our workers” or needing to prop up commercial real estate prices.