Comment by makingstuffs

That's because you are not impacted I assume. If you are from the DEI bucket then there is nothing more important. Every few years they come out with a study where all they do is change the name on resumes. Having a black sounding naming still, in modern day, greatly reduces your chances of getting an interview. Except, during the most current rendition of this study found that wasn't true at all at companies that had DEI policies. That is huge if people can determine your ethnicity based on your name.

All your "more important" issues are predicated on the idea that you can get a job. For those who are unfairly discriminated against, they don't even get to your point. Who cares about employer healthcare when you have no employer?

Applying those things equally to people regardless of skin colour, gender identity, sexuality or any other line along which people have historically been discriminated against isn't important?

It's definitely not more productive per hour than 40. And if you're moonlighting another 30 hrs that'll definitely decrease your productivity at work.

true for many creative and intellectual jobs too.

In Deep Work, Cal Newport posits that even the most disciplined, high performers can do work that requires really focused attention for a max of four hours per day. He's a computer science professor, not exactly "management."

And these days, for a lot of knowledge workers there's a pretty strong case that anything which isn't this "deep work" can probably be automated.

So yeah if I'm paying you a full time salary I want those four hours. Without necessarily rendering judgment on what a moonlighting clause should or shouldn't look like, if I'm not getting those four hours, I don't want you on my payroll.

I’ll attempt a steelman and say, no, employees are not doing deep work from 9–5, but I could see being in an office 9–5 setting the stage for a lot of deep work to be done. Moonlighting for another company I could especially see as detrimental to focus at work.

I don't expect someone to do deep focused work from 9am to 5pm.

But at the same time, I don't expect them to spend their 9-to-5 working for another company at the same time.

As a founder, who respects the 9-to-5 and supports WFH, if I'm paying for 8 hours of work, I want 8 hours of output. Not 4 hours of output, and then you working 4 hours for another job.

If multi-jobbing becomes a thing, then WFH becomes untenable because at least in the office you can be monitored.

I’m sorry management hurt you.

It’s not your fault.

> 5% above their requested pay with

Not enough to move the needle. 25% would move the needle.

> with mentions that I could double it in one year

They didn't believe you, or didn't after a short time working there. So it didn't move the needle.

More so if they're experienced. Similar mentions of prospects are common in interviews, and rarely followed through. You eventually learn to be skeptical of them, while rolling with it, just in case.

Also, if you might be willing to pay double their requested salary, they start realising their value on the open market is much higher than they'd previously thought, or could be with a little presentation and experience.

On the other hand, if you'd put it in the contract that their salary will double after 1 year, subject to well-defined criteria and a history of actually doing it with existing employees, then they'd believe you, and that would move the needle a lot.

From your story I speculate you were right to fire them, but you never figured our how to get the best out of them. In recent years it's possible you were subject to employment fraud, as clarity of analysis can disappear if it's a different person doing the work than the person answering interview questions.

Progress that's entirely stalled or negative can happen for many other reasons than moonlighting, and many other reasons than not putting enough time.

I've been fully remote for 5 years, partially remote for 15. Being remote removes many sources of stress for me. I don't moonlight.

The one thing that decreases my productivity, in some positions, is bad management. Of course, that was already the case when I was fully office-based.

You do know there are several productive companies that are entirely remote, right?

Exactly this, its great that the person next to me can stand and talk to someone 2 desks down, over my shoulder while I'm on a teams call with someone from the other side of the floor, as there are only 3 conference rooms, and managers have priority. If you want people back in the office, redesign the whole space to small working areas where people can actually focus. Open office environments are the worst office experience possible, but i guess it makes the C-suite feel powerful or something having all these people sitting outside their office.

Well yeah, and that's actually the point: if you don't like it, you're free to leave! Headcount reduction without severance payment and getting rid of an unmotivated employee, win-win! At least for federal employees they had the decency of spelling it out clearly: https://traumaawareamerica.org/2025/04/28/deliberate-strateg... - the rest of us have to keep listening to the "it's all for your best" BS...

So policy disagreements now deserve jail time. And this is why modern discourse is in the toilet.

Ah, the Efficient Market Hypothesis, applied to labor.

Your initial post was about there being choice. Now it appears that the upside of the office is the others being there.

I can understand that some people like the physical distinction between "work" and "home". My boss is like that, and he would actually go to the office during covid when no one else would be there. He lived alone in a comfortable apartment, so there wasn't even a question of loud kids / no space for a desk. It obviously never came up that we should also show up. He sometimes wants us to come in the office, all the at the same time, for some form of all-hands meetings, but he doesn't just drop them out of the blue: we plan these together, and they don't happen on a fixed, tight schedule.

The company has now moved to a "flex office" scheme. I was already not very happy having to go in, but you can imagine I now abhor it. Having to share desks with people who don't give a shit about office equipment, having to clean up the screens because they figure it's fine to stick their fingers on them and having to use shoddy peripherals... And it goes on and on, you've read it on every HN post on the subject.

Luckily for me, they don't really enforce this, and I can still spend most of my days WFH and still have a semi-dedicated desk.

But your post is the reason why many people are up in arms against this whole "the office is better". Apparently, it's only better if you force everybody back in. So it's not really about "choice", but about having one's preferences be the "right" ones.

I feel what you are proposing is the worst of both worlds.

The company still needs to pay a full office (decreasing chances that money will be used for home office benefit or raises), people are still forced to live somewhat close to the office, not realizing the biggest benefit of remote work: living where you want, close to the people you care and freeing up money and time.

If working together really helps, it's enough that those who think that coordinate and agree on days to go to the office. If nobody agrees, than maybe the benefits are only perceived or subjective?

I will be honest, I believe that lots of people go to the office because their 9-5 (+ commute) job made it impossible for them to maintain and cultivate social relationships outside work, which means they see the office as their attempt to escape loneliness. I am not saying that's everyone, but that for many people is the case and that explains people non-stop interrupting, walking in on others, chatting etc., which is quite common in office environments.

That said, I think that remote work needs also a few key elements to succeed:

- a remote culture in the company (e.g., everyone understands flexibility in terms of working time, meetings are online-first, documentation and async work culture, etc.) - a good space to work at home. I can't imagine working on a stool and a laptop like some people were forced to do during covid. - discipline (e.g., not let work time bleed into personal time, blocking time etc.) - good social relationships with friends/family. It can be very alienating otherwise.

My current job used to be fully in the office before covid. That was some 5 years, so yeah, I was pretty "used" to it. After covid, it stayed "flexible", where I mostly WFH. Before this job, I also used to work one where it was "flexible", with multiple WFH days.

Sure, I didn't do "nothing" while in the office, there was some productivity. I still manage to get stuff done when I go there. But the difference in productivity between when I'm home and when I'm in the office is abysmal.

I don't have to put up with my colleagues being on the phone all the time. I don't have to put up with a chair that gives me back pain, or with contorting myself to reduce the glare on my screens. I don't have to endure being squished in the metro for half an hour each way or get up at absurd hours to avoid that. I don't have to eat at random times or in front of my computer because the lunch corner is already full.

Could I "get used to that" all over again? I guess. People who need to take the local public transit "get used" to it being unreliable and a general PITA. Do they enjoy it? Would they be happier if they wouldn't have to put up with that? What do you think?

I think the general issue, as I alluded in an answer to another of your posts, is that there indeed are people with differing preferences. And we could have people do what they prefer. But problems arise when we each try to impose our approach to others. Want to go to the office because for some reason you prefer that? Enjoy! But then, don't turn around and say "yeah, but going at the office and being alone (presumably because the others hate going) is all downside without any upside, so everybody should come in".

I go to the office around one week out of every four, it's not that rare. Sure, there's some catching up, but not that much. Mostly it's the continuous interruptions that are never time boxed, the way they are when remote.

Then they are also not responsible enough to work at the office, you can't pay a nanny who sith with them and tells them to keep working 8 hours a day at the office anyway. Those people need to be let go because you can't trust them.

You forgot the IMHO.

I can make unfair generalizations too.

A lot of people who prefer remote work have a superiority complex over their peers. They’re usually hard to work with and unreliable, and think that as long as they’re performing their individual tasks they’re allowed to be awful communicators.

My last office job was in an old converted garment factory. Lots of space, we had our own desks. It was really nice. Sharing a table with someone is not as nice, and office mates are rarely tolerant of my model M keyboard.