It’s not that simple, there’s also esprit de corps and discipline and networking.
Yes, for work productivity right now right here it makes sense that working remotely is good.
That has always been known and normal for people who can work remotely. Writers, or anyone who can synchronize their work through runners with envelopes or, later, fax and telephone.
But also people who can work remotely would always have situations where they’d prefer not to.
My sympathies with remote work are because I’m spoiled and because of retrofuturistic promises of (almost) everyone working like that, my concerns are because you’d want sometimes to see people you’re working with, and if many people work in one place and some work remotely, then even if the latter work well, they are ruining discipline.
You’re talking different neurotypes here. Why should we prioritize the neurotype that prefers in-office vs the neurotype that prefers out-of-office? If anything, shouldn’t we prefer the working style that saves the company money and is more productive on average?
“Ruining discipline”, ha! What idiocy.
Suggesting that working from office is the right way and anything that deviates from it is “ruining” something.
How about the people working from the office are “ruining discipline” of the remote workers by taking decisions behind closed doors? No? Seems unfair?
Maybe let people work the way they work their best except for very specific circumstances instead, and stop blaming structural failures within companies against remote workers.
I worked in a traditional office environment for the full decade before the pandemic, and I was constantly being distracted by “undisciplined” people. There was always someone having a loud conversation in a quiet workspace or coming to my cubical to interrupt me with pointless bullshit.
Going full remote has finally isolated me from the lack of discipline in office environments.
Yeah, we were all sitting in the office with headphones to isolate from the office noise and distractions so we could concentrate and getting work done.
Can confirm. Was stuck in an “open office”. It was hell on earth until they decided to build brand new offices for the sales team… Because why the fuck not
we had a massive no wall cubical farm. To get rid of noise they hung active noise canceling speakers above our cubes. There were times you couldn’t even hear yourself breathing. Was TOO quiet.
I like the way my office does it. All the engineers and drafters are on the ground floor. The sales guys work in a loft at the back of the building. We keep them in the attic like they would keep dementia patients in the attic back in the olden days.
Yes, convenience is often ruining discipline, not for me (ASD) and perhaps not for you, but social ties form between coworkers. That part about behind closed doors - see, they always will.
I mean, we live in a society. Not seeing the faces of the others is a weakness. It’s not all about work.
Important meetings and decisions should be made with remote workers present and with their full participation. If your team frequently cuts people out and is prone to forming cliques of in-groups and out-groups, return to office won’t help you. Those same middle school politics happen in entirely in-person offices. People get cut out and isolated whether remote or in person when management decides their input isn’t valuable.
How is it a weakness? If anything it seems like it would help address inequity in how people are treated based on race, age, gender if people are interacting more anonymously, and maybe we could also dispense with this whole coworkers are a family bs that is meant to instil loyalty to a company that doesn’t care about you and offset a lack of work life balance
I have never found that face to face interaction caused people to act nicer. If anything all of my face to face jobs I have had coworkers drop the ball countless times where the next person in the chain gets screwed over. It was more demoralizing when you confronted them because they don’t give a shit unless THEY are geting screwed.
I’ve described a situation - where you’d want to talk something over a cigarette or a cup of tea with your coworker, for example. Or participate in sporadic conversations while walking around the office, help some colleague, get help from some other colleague.
You are saying this as if you were flexing your old age to me, while so am I.
No. You can’t see their face.
Chat rooms and web forums were in some sense safe spaces. There would be intrigue, but somewhat limited by what concerns a specific forum, or even a specific part of it, or a specific chat. Even conflicts in one place between two people would often not extend to some other place.
And also, believe it or not, people frequenting same spaces would sometimes have offline meetings and know each other personally. Especially moderators and such.
But I agree that what you mentioned was like halfway there from today’s online communication which sometimes seems just useless.
You are commiting a category error: Work is not recreation.
I want to get to know people in similar hobbies so yes I would want to see them face to face. I don’t care to interact with my coworkers beyond what I am paid for. For the coworkers I do want to interact with socially, can do that outside of work.
You can do all these things remotely. You are not sharing the ciggarette or tea.
Sporadic conversations around the office, set up water cooler or drop in chats. Hard to get going, sure but not impossible. Or side channels for conversations with people you like.
Surely you can get help from anyone anyways right?
Holy shit this is big!
Are you telling me that giving better work conditions to your workers (and therefore making them happier) INCREASES PRODUCTIVITY?!?!
I
AM
SHOCKED.
Giving everyone an office is too costly.
I’ve got an idea, since cubicle went so well, lets shorten the walls to half walls.
Since half wall cubicles went so well, lets take the walls down complete.
Since the fully open design worked so well, lets squish all the desks together as closely as possible.
Since bench desking worked so well, lets take away personal desks all together and go to a hot desking system.
Since hot desking went so well, lets replace the desks with side tables, and benches with empty cat littler buckets.
Excerpt from “Leadership’s Guide to Call Centers”
It’s not that simple, there’s also esprit de corps and discipline and networking.
Yes, for work productivity right now right here it makes sense that working remotely is good.
That has always been known and normal for people who can work remotely. Writers, or anyone who can synchronize their work through runners with envelopes or, later, fax and telephone.
But also people who can work remotely would always have situations where they’d prefer not to.
My sympathies with remote work are because I’m spoiled and because of retrofuturistic promises of (almost) everyone working like that, my concerns are because you’d want sometimes to see people you’re working with, and if many people work in one place and some work remotely, then even if the latter work well, they are ruining discipline.
You’re talking different neurotypes here. Why should we prioritize the neurotype that prefers in-office vs the neurotype that prefers out-of-office? If anything, shouldn’t we prefer the working style that saves the company money and is more productive on average?
I dunno if I’m more productive on average
“Ruining discipline”, ha! What idiocy. Suggesting that working from office is the right way and anything that deviates from it is “ruining” something.
How about the people working from the office are “ruining discipline” of the remote workers by taking decisions behind closed doors? No? Seems unfair?
Maybe let people work the way they work their best except for very specific circumstances instead, and stop blaming structural failures within companies against remote workers.
I worked in a traditional office environment for the full decade before the pandemic, and I was constantly being distracted by “undisciplined” people. There was always someone having a loud conversation in a quiet workspace or coming to my cubical to interrupt me with pointless bullshit.
Going full remote has finally isolated me from the lack of discipline in office environments.
Yeah, we were all sitting in the office with headphones to isolate from the office noise and distractions so we could concentrate and getting work done.
Can confirm. Was stuck in an “open office”. It was hell on earth until they decided to build brand new offices for the sales team… Because why the fuck not
we had a massive no wall cubical farm. To get rid of noise they hung active noise canceling speakers above our cubes. There were times you couldn’t even hear yourself breathing. Was TOO quiet.
I like the way my office does it. All the engineers and drafters are on the ground floor. The sales guys work in a loft at the back of the building. We keep them in the attic like they would keep dementia patients in the attic back in the olden days.
Yes, convenience is often ruining discipline, not for me (ASD) and perhaps not for you, but social ties form between coworkers. That part about behind closed doors - see, they always will.
I mean, we live in a society. Not seeing the faces of the others is a weakness. It’s not all about work.
Important meetings and decisions should be made with remote workers present and with their full participation. If your team frequently cuts people out and is prone to forming cliques of in-groups and out-groups, return to office won’t help you. Those same middle school politics happen in entirely in-person offices. People get cut out and isolated whether remote or in person when management decides their input isn’t valuable.
Sorry, but as far as I have seen, not having what you called that at all is a precious rarity.
How is it a weakness? If anything it seems like it would help address inequity in how people are treated based on race, age, gender if people are interacting more anonymously, and maybe we could also dispense with this whole coworkers are a family bs that is meant to instil loyalty to a company that doesn’t care about you and offset a lack of work life balance
Because those who see each other’s faces coordinate closer socially and might eat you. We live in a society, not a friendly place sometimes.
I have never found that face to face interaction caused people to act nicer. If anything all of my face to face jobs I have had coworkers drop the ball countless times where the next person in the chain gets screwed over. It was more demoralizing when you confronted them because they don’t give a shit unless THEY are geting screwed.
Not nicer. Just you’d be more likely to see those going to backstab you deliberately. OK, everyone has their own opinion
An it sounds like it might be part of this so called problem in society. You can’t make the world a better place without starting.
fuck that, not having to commute for over 2h every day beats anything you could list as being good in pro-return-to-office
I get depressed after long periods of remote work, go to office, then remember why I didn’t particularly value the experience, get back to remote.
[citation needed]
I’ve described a situation - where you’d want to talk something over a cigarette or a cup of tea with your coworker, for example. Or participate in sporadic conversations while walking around the office, help some colleague, get help from some other colleague.
I’m a millennial, I grew up in chat rooms and web forums. There is nothing unique to in-person interaction in what you just described.
You are saying this as if you were flexing your old age to me, while so am I.
No. You can’t see their face.
Chat rooms and web forums were in some sense safe spaces. There would be intrigue, but somewhat limited by what concerns a specific forum, or even a specific part of it, or a specific chat. Even conflicts in one place between two people would often not extend to some other place.
And also, believe it or not, people frequenting same spaces would sometimes have offline meetings and know each other personally. Especially moderators and such.
But I agree that what you mentioned was like halfway there from today’s online communication which sometimes seems just useless.
You are commiting a category error: Work is not recreation.
I want to get to know people in similar hobbies so yes I would want to see them face to face. I don’t care to interact with my coworkers beyond what I am paid for. For the coworkers I do want to interact with socially, can do that outside of work.
You can do all these things remotely. You are not sharing the ciggarette or tea.
Sporadic conversations around the office, set up water cooler or drop in chats. Hard to get going, sure but not impossible. Or side channels for conversations with people you like.
Surely you can get help from anyone anyways right?