Comment by SoftTalker

Comment by SoftTalker 4 days ago

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 4 days ago

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.

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bboygravity 4 days ago

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.

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- CydeWeys 3 days ago
  
  > 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.
  
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- tuna74 4 days ago
  
  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?
  
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  arcticbull 4 days ago
  
  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.
  
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  nimih 4 days ago
  
  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.
  
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  moomin 4 days ago
  
  Honestly they should pay me for the use of my home as office space. It’s not free to maintain.
  
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  SoftTalker 4 days ago
  
  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.
  
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arcticbull 4 days ago

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."

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vikingerik 4 days ago

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.

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ryandrake 4 days ago

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.

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Ferret7446 4 days ago

> 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).

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moomin 4 days ago

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.

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CamperBob2 4 days ago

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.

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geodel 4 days ago

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.

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A4ET8a8uTh0 4 days ago

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.

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- geodel 4 days ago
  
  Indeed. Both points make total sense. Though on quitting part I am not sure if numbers would significant enough to meet any internal target.
  
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