Maybe, but it would also be good if more (tech) companies offered a decent working environment.

That's coming from personal experience btw, where most jobs / assignments I've had, it was usually open plan, flexible seat arrangements.

I have a new job now where I have a fixed desk with a set of drawers. It's a breath of fresh air and honestly it sounds so stupid and trivial. But employers don't have their employees' best interest in mind.

My cynical take on this move is that the company doesn't have to pay as much for office space + worker transport anymore.

I'm an ardent supporter of remote work, and I wouldn't go back to non-remote work without a hefty pay raise, but I think I probably would have considered office jobs during my last search if the offices I'd worked in previously had actually been pleasant.

Open office plans, low cubicle walls, cubicle sharing, frequent noise and disrespect of focus, flimsy banged up office chairs and equipment, no budget for standing desks, the lack of real employee lounges and couches to both work and chill out at, strict clocking in and out, and insufficient meeting space are chasing away good employees, especially now that we're all forced to work remotely. More people won't be willing to go back if they can help it.

Notice I mentioned nothing about free snacks, foosball tables, beer on tap, etc. I'd trade all of that for some semblance of serenity in the office.

>Notice I mentioned nothing about free snacks, foosball tables, beer on tap, etc. I'd trade all of that for some semblance of serenity in the office.

Amen

Free snacks & beer are an anti-perk if you want to maintain a healthy BMI, and a healthy body. Alcohol is a drug with side effects (even if you don't have a hangover), but most people don't think of it that way.

It always bugs me that "Free snacks" rarely includes fruit, nuts or other things that aren't processed.

Yes, almost always corporate carbs, which I like to call carbage.

That's strange. The offices at Bloomberg, Microsoft, Walmart Labs, etc., all had healthy options when I've been there.

Define healthy... For me, fresh fruit, nuts, even low sugar jerky are healthy. Anything with modern wheat and refined carbs tends to be problematic.

>Free snacks & beer are an anti-perk if you want to maintain a healthy BMI, and a healthy body.

or it turns into a perk again if you think of it as a way to train yourself against temptation.

This mentality is weird to me.

"employee stock options are an anti-perk if you want to maintain a gambling-free lifestyle."

"airbnb travel stipends are an anti-perk if you want to maintain a body free of traveler's diseases."

"free on-site dry-cleaning is an anti-perk when they lose a button on your jacket."

everything good in life can be viewed from a dark angle, but it gets pretty tiring to do so.

false equivalency - there aren't slot machines in the office kitchen.

> disrespect of focus

This right here is my beef in a nutshell. My attention should be under my control. For example, I can't believe that leaving audible cell phone notifications on is becoming normalized.

Yeah, that's the worst thing for me. Whenever I've brought this issue up to employers, I usually get a blank stare. To me, it's just self evident that I can get more done with fewer distractions, but a lot of people seem unwilling to imagine a workplace without chaos.

Granted, remote work isn't free from distraction. Far from it, in fact. At least I can control the noise level and close Slack and email, if need be.

Nothing makes me rage more than people who leave audible cell phone notifications and ring tones on in places that are supposed to be quiet (offices, library). It's one of the most selfish and disrespectful things I can think of. Especially if you are getting 20 messages in a row...the phone is right there you don't need the sound!

The people who I’ve seen leave their ringtones on are usually the most self-centered people I’ve known.

> My cynical take on this move is that the company doesn't have to pay as much for office space + worker transport anymore.

Don't forget it removes the work/home barrier. Now you are at work 24/7 and on call at all hours. Work and productivity has consumed most of modern life. The last bastion of freedom from work/productivity was the home. Now people are celebrating the loss of that precious personal space. Strange.

Hmmm. I work a little less than before due to fewer distractions. I shut my laptop and don't keep any work apps on my phone. Take a stand and hold it.

If you’re working enough extra hours to overcome commute and prep time, you’re doing it wrong. :D Step away when shift over.

I won't go near an open office after COVID19 and I doubt I'm alone, I think things will change greatly.

with an outlook like this why would you go anywhere? an office you have at least a chance of professionalism which is far different than what you can encounter in the open

Offices are great places to spread infection. I'm not sure how to quantify how much it matters to me that I become diseased in a respectful manner, but it isn't very much.

Here is an well-documented analysis of a specific outbreak in an office:

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/8/20-1274_article

"We described the epidemiologic characteristics of a COVID-19 outbreak centered in a call center in South Korea. We identified 97 confirmed COVID-19 case-patients in building X, indicating an attack rate of 8.5%. However, if we restrict our results the 11th floor, the attack rate was as high as 43.5%."

I'm not sure that I understand this sentiment. Is the worry about COVID specifically (and hence would be abated by a vaccine or herd immunity), or is it about increased awareness of all infectious diseases? My lack of understanding stems from a (perhaps naive) assumption that social distancing will eventually go away along with the threat. I'd be glad to hear others' opinions on the matter.

I was already sick of getting sick 3-5 times a year just being in an open office, the fact that I'm more aware now that I can get something that will do more than knock me out of being able to code for a week is a huge deterrent to me ever wanting to work in a hamster cage surrounded by hundreds of other people with hundreds interactions with whoever.

I mean, I'm not a germophobe or something but I already thought it was gross how often I got sick and I'm 100% certain it was from my office environment, now I have a real reason that "suck it up stupid" doesn't just brush away. Every winter someones kid gets sick then it just blasts through the open office. Then it happens 3 weeks later, then again, then again..I'm pretty sure I got sick 3 times earlier this year, maybe 4.

Sounds like you’re vitamin D deficient. After a good workout, your immune system should be getting stronger, not weaker.

I take 5k a day or so, Trader Joe’s has for $5.

Wait, do people in your office not take sick days when they get ill or something?

Do they in yours? Every office I've ever worked in has offered unlimited sick days, and in every one there was a segment of people who just insisted on coming in sick anyway. When coronavirus was ramping up, the executives at my current place sent out series of increasingly severe messages that you must not come into work sick.

And if you don't have unlimited sick days, it's much worse because people refuse to stay home so as not to use up their allotted time off. My wife used to work at a place that lumped PTO and sick days together, and it definitely created a culture of coming into work no matter how sick you are (especially if you already have plans to use your PTO).

What difference does it make if you did the "right" thing by using up all of your sick days by September and then have to go into work with a cold in November?

You don't know if you will or won't use sick days in the future, so IMO, you should use them as soon as you get sick, instead of "banking" them and hoping you need them later. But either way, I was arguing more against companies that don't offer unlimited sick days than employees who don't take them. I think having a limited number (or worse, lumping them in with PTO) actively encourages people to come into work sick.

Sick days aren't a real solution because people only take the days that they are the most sick off. But will happily work while contagious and 'just starting' to feel sick.

That's a culture and policy thing. A business could easily say "if you're feeling a bit under the weather and not sure, you are instructed for the good of the people around you to work from home those days just in case". In fact, I would be intensely surprised if businesses did not, in the present situation. It'll take a long time for people to stop being "evacuate the room" level jumpy about even minor symptoms.

>A business could easily say "if you're feeling a bit under the weather and not sure, you are instructed for the good of the people around you to work from home those days just in case".

In my personal experience companies have always said something like that, in particular in email or other forms of recordable communications, but then don't really back it up. Employees come in obviously sick their boss says "are you sure you should be here today?" but subtly indicates their approval for being in the office.

Companies need to move to actively disciplining employees who come in sick instead of either working from home or taking paid sick days.

I'm going to make a guess that the attitude is going to change when "someone came in with a temperature" means everyone gets sent to quarantine and the office gets deep cleaned by a team in hazmat suits.

In my 20+ year career I only recall working at one place that provided paid sick leave, and that company only provided two weeks of annual vacation. Even if everyone worked from home the full 2-3 weeks they were feeling the least bit off from a cold, the office would be a ghost town for at least 2-3 months out of the year. Which maybe it should be, but that would clearly defy the common expectations of the world pre-COVID.

Few jobs ago I had "desk neighbour" that no matter how sick he was (seasonal flu and so on), he was coming to work. One time I've asked him why he wouldn't take sick leave (which is paid leave, 80% but still) and he said, that he's not staying home so he wouldn't infect his kids... Of course every time he was sick, I was getting sick. Which is natural consequence of sitting 1.5m from someone sneezing/coughing for a week.

I could take off about three months of vacation right now, but I don’t because I’m so busy that I know that taking time off and then playing catch up is worse than not taking time off at all.

It will go away. I'm in Europe where things are closer to normal already. I meet friends, people go shopping (with hygiene measures and masks), schools and gyms are opening.

Also keep in mind that there was always a threat of infectious diseases. And it will persist until we find a universal cure for all viruses. Being somewhat of a germophobe myself, I was always aware of it.

Hopefully, people will stay at home when they are sick, though.

Europe tech has always been different than US tech scene.

The societies are very different. Here, the armed protesters demand haircuts and tattoos. In Europe, the French are flooding Spanish border towns in search of cheaper booze and smokes.

Yes, hyperbole, but a lot of Americans have legit apprehension about cramming into elevators to ride up office towers to work. It's seen as glamourous in the UK to work in a Canary Wharf office tower with a view. In the US, notsomuch.

Edit: I know people who still won't go into tall buildings post 9/11. Something that Europeans don't have in their psyche.

It is unlikely the vaccine will be perfect. Strains mutate. Plenty of people still get the flu despite a flu vaccine.

My even more cynical take is that companies are finding employees are way more productive working from home. I think part of it could be that with COVID-19, a lot of us are looking for an outlet for our energies, and so are working harder than normal.

Where I work we have been moving at 150% pace over the last month. I suspect its related to working from home not actually slowing anyone down and everyone not wanting to look like they are slacking while not in the office. Personally I have been starting work 40 minutes sooner than I normally do since it just takes me 40 less minutes to get to my desk.

With COVID-19 it depends on your family situation though. People without kids are probably working more, but people with kids (and who don't have a live-in nanny) are really struggling to juggle their work with child care. I imagine many people in that situation are less productive.

It doesn't depend only on your family situation. I am a PhD student working for the last 6 weeks from home without kids. And and also without a good income. I never expected my makeshift desk with the cheapest IKEA chair to become my work environment for 8+ hours per day, and I seriously worry about long-term injury resulting from this.

This isn't meant to diminish the difficulties of people who need to look after their children. But I work in a laboratory where the senior people blithely complain about how hard it is to manage shared child-raring duties in a well-equipped home office, while junior employees are more or less expected to magically have a productive home office in a shared flats, often in less-than-ideal environment (e.g. with noisy room-mates or building sites next door), with RSI staring us down.

The second-hand market for office items might help.

Right, good point there. People without kids definitely have way more time and energy to devote to work than those with.

> Right, good point there. People without kids definitely have way more time and energy to devote to work than those with.

Definitely? I have no kids and live with and fully support my father who had a brain tumor the size of a walnut in his head a couple years ago. Just because someone doesn't have kids doesn't mean they don't have responsibilities (goodness so many negatives in one sentence!).

I feel your pain, currently taking care of both parents I'm fortunate to still have around in mid 70's, one had a bad hemorrhagic stroke and is still recovering and can't walk, other has cancer and is completing chemo with a positive outlook after radiation. We have aides but with Covid-19, I am beyond paranoid they will infect my parents and send them to an early grave so I run this place like a high security compound and check temp and have a scrub in protocol I'm enforcing. I'm in my late 20's, no kids, no siblings. I feel blessed to have my parents around who had their mobility and independence snatched away from illness in the span of a year and I will never put them in a nursing home to die.

Dependents is the more general word.

Maybe it's different for me because my organization is one of the last holdouts where everyone at least has there own assigned cubicle and many have full offices, but every single person in my team has complained about getting far less done than normal. Most of us had a tremendous amount of time and money invested in making our workspace productive, and it's very hard to replicate that at home.

I think it is safe to say that a proper office is always best. It can be at home of course, but it need to be proper. (Desk, chair, shelf, door, flower).

If my office was 10 min walk away I would not want to work at home, but it is 1h by car ...

The evidence is not in favor of long term WFH though.

The evidence shows that WFH work creep is a thing - you get people who dont know how to turn off, and bosses who think they can get more out of you since you are a few feet away from your laptop.

There is also a decrease in creativity and networking - evidence again shows that a good team has someone who is very tuned to the emotional and mental states of the people around them doing a lot of bridging.

Finally - the people who work at office get more money over time, unless the firm takes active measures to combat these biases.

As an executive (Product and Technology specifically) at a mostly work from home company: I find that engineers can do a pretty good job of effectively collaborating thanks to PR's, Slack, JIRA, and a host of other asynchronous tools.

It's on the product side that things are tougher. Great product work is often about finding meaningful insights in the data available to you, and that often involves long conversations between people with lots of different viewpoints. There's something about doing that in person that is just really hard to replicate remotely.

Even getting the environment exactly right only goes so far. I find that over Zoom people are just a little bit less engaged and that means getting to those really important insights takes a lot longer.

Previous to covid we had solved this by colocating our product team and then bringing the engineering team together once a quarter with product folks to engage them in those conversations. Now we're just sort of feeling our way though it...

It sounds like the product people are sitting in long meetings. Have you considered the idea that people were already disengaged in those meetings, they were just putting up a better front because they could tell everyone was watching them closely in person?

And now that they are at home, they are not trying as hard to pretend they are listening closely, and since they are more comfortable, they are staying in the meetings and saying what they want? Whereas before they would let the most assertive person talk, and after a few minutes could not tolerate the in person meeting anymore and so pretended that they were all in agreement so you would let them go, knowing they would work out the actual details amongst themselves later?

And now they don't have the option of working things out after the meeting, which is another reason the meetings are taking longer.

The biggest issue for you is probably that you have a lot of wasted time where only a part of the team is working together in the meeting but other people who are not involved in that part are just waiting for them to finish.

Do some research on the tools that engineers use to work asynchronously and train your product team. Also consider smaller video chat meetings, and chat rooms, etc.

He is correct - the evidence overlaps with his experience.

Creativity is better face to face.

WFH works perfectly for routine non random event related work.

When you need to communicate fast, need to come up with insights - essentially when you need that high bandwidth node to node interaction of working together - then face to face is significantly superior.

We are designed to work with other humans - chunks of grey matter exist only to interpret non verbal cues. Heck we actually suck at symbol manipulation and math, those are learned skills we force our species to pick up.

It should not be surprising that when working face to face, we end up using those default programs installed in us to get more work done.

Just being able to clarify something is faster if done in person because you have access to body language, eye direction, and tone.

Video goes only so far, and is still not as immediate and in person as physical presence.

https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/march-april-2014/h...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/when-wo...

There's some kind of work that's best done by individuals (writing a novel). There's some kind of work that's best done by teams (planning an invasion). The work that's best done by teams is currently much better performed in meatspace than over any kind of digital communications channel.

Yes, Engineering especially coding could work whether you it is Remote, WFH or anything else.

Product and Design so far doesn't seems work well without close face to face collaboration.

As you move up the chain in global companies such as Twitter, it becomes more likely that you'll have a superior or direct report based in a different location than you, and this has been true for years. The "people person" executive theory only holds for companies that do not already have a substantial number of teams that are not all located in the same place.

I'm not sure how your conclusion follows - it's undoubtedly true that more and more folks are involved in teams that at least partly remote. However, the skills needed to manage these effectively are mostly the same as co-located teams. To whatever degree "people person" was needed, it seems mostly the same to me.

If a coworker or employee comes in to work distraught for some reason, it's far easier to reach out in person and find out that their dog got ran over/relationship broke up/parent is in the hospital. It's not impossible remote, but it's harder, on all levels. A manager that has strong in-person skills but is weaker on digital communication skills may result in poorer outcomes all around.

(I'm pro WFH but pretending it's the same just seems foolish to me.)

I guess I don't buy the idea that there is such a strong dichotomy between in-person communication skills and digital communication skills.

Sure, there are adjustments to new needs and technologies. But fundamentally, that's the easy part, I think. Communication skills are needed, and they mostly transition well. I find it plausible there are some people who don't make the transition well (in either direction) but that hardly points to a paradigm change.

Do you really think there is a big pool of people who would be effective at these roles if they just didn't need to communicate in person? Doesn't match my experience at all. Certainly agree that people are stronger or weaker on various types of communication, but in my experience that is definitely a 2nd order effect, compared to whether or not they are skilled communicators at all.

I totally agree that all of this stuff is harder remote, but if anything that leans harder on communication skills.

We are an adaptive species ... just because some folks are strong in-person (due to years of experience at it), doesn't mean they won't adapt to have better digital communication skills when it becomes a more prevalent practice. I think people will be fine ... even if there's an adjustment period :)

you have to fly a lot though, live in hotels for weeks here and there. and compensation is aligned to performance in a much deeper way than at IC level

We are a small SAAS startup that is funded by a slightly larger architectural services firm. My partner was staunchly against WFH until he saw productivity rise and employee satisfaction go through the roof when the business was forced into WFH. While he will continue to come to the office (because he is an old dog), everyone else is WFH forever. He owns the building so i'm sure he'll attempt to rent out the vacated office space. When he realizes nobody is going to want his office space due to severe oversupply, I wouldn't be surprised if he sells the building or converts the land into something more profitable. You might ask, what changed? He assumed that people who work from home won't be effective. He lacked trust. The employees proved to be trustworthy.

Frankly, I dread the situation where working from home is the norm and suddenly a core part of my job is building remote working relationships that I find easy to build in person.

People are underestimating the issues which need to be overcome with WFH

Infrastructure: Do homes have chargers, desks, screens? If not people will soon get carpal tunnel or lose productivity.

Internet/VPN security costs are real.

Productivity creep : Some of the main issues with WFH have been work hour creep. Managers and other employees feel its easier to make requests for more time given that you are now a few feet from your laptop. Lack of discipline also means that people now work longer.

Rewards and promotions I can't find it right now, but I recall WFH resulting in lower pay relative to people with the same qualifications who went to office.

Mental costs: One of the main issues with WFH has been loneliness. Fixing this requires immense effort to recreate physical proximity.

Creativity is also lost when you cant engage in banter and catching up with people.

I work from home as a software engineer at a major tech company.

Infrastructure: my company provides money to setup your workspace. Buying a desk is the most expensive part here but really you can get a solid setup for < $500.

Internet costs: I was already paying ~$120/mo and I get some of that reimbursed. This seems like a standard living cost though, not something unique to working remotely.

Productivity creep: I define my schedule based on my deliverables. At least with my team, no one expects me to be available 24/7. I work a full day but if I need to run an errand or take care of something during work hours it is no big deal. As long as I am getting my work done, everyone is happy.

Rewards/promotions: who knows - anecdotal evidence doesn't mean much here.

Mental costs: if you live alone, this could definitely be very lonely. I am lucky enough to have a wife, kid, and dog so loneliness isn't an issue. But this really depends on a case-by-case basis.

Personally I love working from home. It is more comfortable, I am paid incredibly well despite be scaled for a low COL area, and the work is super interesting. The most important part of this is now we can move wherever we need to for my wife's career. This flexibility is hard to put a price on.

All of the points are taken from research and surveys.

https://smallbiztrends.com/2020/02/remote-workers-are-lonely...

https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/march-april-2014/h...

Anecdotally I'm not really sure how much of people persons higher ups are, at least in engineering. Pretty much all of the SVPs / CTOs at the medium to large (but not huge) companies I've worked were not really people people. They've been somewhat socially awkward and naturally introverted. They can stand in front of a crowd and speak of course, and present in relatively high pressure situations, but I don't think they actually enjoy dealing with people all that much.

> I guess most top executives are people persons so not seeing things like body language or using body language takes away an important skill set of theirs.

This might also be a trust thing. Studies have found that in-person social interaction leads to increased levels of trust among the group, but remote social interaction doesn't have this affect. The higher you go up the management chain, the more trust is required to perform your job effectively. ICs usually work under well-defined, measurable conditions: you can determine from their work product whether an engineer, salesperson, or designer is being productive. Executives do not work under these conditions, and arguably the job of an executive is to define those metrics. To get everyone rowing in the same direction requires an immense amount of trust and collaboration amongst the high-level leadership of the company, and it seems like it'd be challenging to achieve that virtually.

A potential compromise I am hoping for would be an increased willingness of companies to open satellite or smaller offices in secondary or tertiary real estate markets.

That would be great and healthy for the whole country if things were more spread out.

Maybe even for the whole world. There surely is talent some places you dont expect, that cannot move to bay area but would love (and could do) a top it job and cannot move out. In ok countries, with few salary differences from USA, even.

I live in Wyoming. A few years ago, I was debating about trying to build up some decent 'tech spaces/small campuses' in some of the more remote/less populated and desirable area's.

Some of my thoughts were: - Make sure there is good high speed internet - Good conferencing - Good office / working conditions - Great outdoor activities nearby

For a flat rate per month, a person could have a furnished apartment, a working space nearby, and access to the great outdoors. If I had multiple locations, you could switch locations after a week or two.

Why wouldn't someone in the Bay area want to go live in Sheridan, wyo for a few weeks, then possibly Laramie, Wyo. Maybe some Zion in Utah for a bit. Royal Gorge in Colorado.

Every few weeks, you just pack up your laptop, clothes, bikes, and go to the next spot.

I guess its office/lifestyle timeshare space.

I never pursued it beyond thinking about it.

That sounds like what WeWork should have promised.

The pressure to use energy less and thus drive less may be another factor for this. No more megapoles.. more distribution (git cities)

I would love for more companies to embrace this just to open up the candidate pool for positions.

There are so many positions at Microsoft, for example, that I would have loved to apply for, but they require you to be in Redmond, and I'm just not in a position to relocate.

Just so you're aware, it is possible in Microsoft to some extent, just not very publicly visible (the careers site doesn't help you find these jobs).

I started working in one team and switched to another team internally because they are pro-remote and I plan on moving back to Australia. Broadly across Microsoft there are also about ~30 other engineers already working from Australia for Redmond-based teams.

> switched to another team internally because they are pro-remote and I plan on moving back to Australia

I don't know about Microsoft in particular, but from what I've seen it's much easier to find a remote position while you're already at a company working onsite than it is before you get hired.

Completely agree - I've tried and failed many times to move from Orlando to Bay area. FAANG (finance work) wasnt willing to pay to relocate so they always went with local candidates over me. There are little to no interesting companies in my area. I want to work and help build the future. I was willing to take a paycut from MCOL to HCOL area for jobs and willing to go down in seniority for a chance to work at a big company in the Bay area. It would be nice if they finally start opening the applicant pool to those in other cities.

If you are willing to take a pay and level cut, why not just pay your relocation yourself? It's not expensive long term if you think you will do well and be rewarded at the new company.

If you can relocate temporarily, most of Microsoft will let you go remote if you're a top performer (Top 10% roughly) after about 2 years.

It's more about being effective managers. There's tons of writing and proper follow up and prep work necessary to make remote work happen and most people aren't just that diligent to do it regularly.

Most managers especially at the top are also not the most diligent people, they have employees to do the stuff that they dislike doing so when they are faced with having to do more prep work and move at what they consider a slower speed (they are wrong, all that prep work and due diligence pays off, Bezos and Amazon are a great example of that) they recoil.

Collaboration tools are already pretty solid. What else do you really need other than a remote desktop + video conferencing?

I think the biggest use case will be helping recreate the virtual water cooler.

There's lots of communication which is hard to do remote. The water cooler is o e thing. But even in a meeting when presenting something the feedback is limited. When sitting in a room it's simpler to see whether people are following and one should go faster or iterate on a point. Also one can simpler intercept with a question or comment. The text based back channel is limited for that.

(I WFH exclusively for 10+ years and still regularly miss the office for anything which isn't deep down coding, but requires communication)

Presentations always seemed to me like one of those things that can be done without a meeting at all.

If it's unidirectional, true. If it's supposed to be a discussion it's different.

Why do I need either of those things? If I'm going to work from home permanently then whatever computers I need can come with me. Face-to-face meetings are a justification for middle management to exist; remote work due to pandemic is going to lay bare the stupidity of managers and their ranks will be greatly reduced. I predict that the written word is going to make a big comeback.

Yes, in my experience the key to a highly functional remote environment is async collaboration.

By this I mean written roundtables/stand-ups (with a focus on putting the detail in the tickets and just bringing up blockers), written RFCs and review periods for larger initiatives, comprehensive action logs (admin logs, etc), detailed documentation, detailed commit messages, etc etc.

Deadlines are fine, but people need to be able to be aware of the timeline up front and have autonomy to work within their own schedule to meet it.

This becomes especially important when multiple time zones come into play.

Essentially it's a matter of replacing as many meetings as possible with recored (written and/or multimedia) versions that convey the same content, focusing on maximizing transparency and collaboration.

The hostility that many programmers have towards managers is short-sighted.

If you’ve ever worked somewhere where the manager has way too many direct reports, you know it’s usually a shitshow.

Can you name some companies of more than a few people that don’t have managers? If you think they’re all a waste and a drag, what’s your explanation for why manager-less competitors don’t rise up and eat their lunch? Better yet, why don’t you start your own company staffed with only ICs and take over the world?

I hate to tell you but one of the reasons why google ate the world was their hands-off management and peer-to-peer project management and feedback schemes, which are efficient and effective. I know experiences at large organizations can vary, but for years at that company I had managers who existed, yes, but never showed their faces and were there chiefly to make sure that everybody had desks and chairs and computers. This style scales extremely well. I also had managers who were just other ICs to whom I reported, because there had to be a path from Larry to everyone in the org chart, but who were otherwise peers. Not every large organization is choked with weekly/daily meetings and org charts full of useless functionaries.

I hate to tell you, but the only reason Google “ate the world” during the times you describe (which I’m skeptical of, but that’s a separate discussion) was that they figured out they could sell ads against their search results. Almost everything else seemed exactly like what you’re describing: a bunch of ICs with no managers building cool stuff that didn’t affect the bottom line, had bad usability, didn’t have a clear use case, overlapped the work of other teams, or all of the above.

The Google of today is different: multiple billion dollar business units, all well-staffed with managers.

"Face-to-face meetings are a justification for middle management to exist; "

Communicating is 1/2 of business; it's really odd that so many people have difficulty with this.

I think because as Engineers, we measure value in 'code' then we tend to diminish all the other aspects of the business or process.

Meetings can obviously be a waste but they are also critically important.

Meaningful communication happens between your ICs. The weekly hour-long team meeting where the manager polls the room and nobody has anything to say is just a waste of everyone's time. Reducing what you have to say to an email has the effect of distilling and refining it, and in many cases leads to the realization that it was wrong to begin with, or doesn't warrant saying.

Sounds like you need a new manager.

Judging by the sheer level of resentment the poster holds for management, as a whole, it sounds more like it could easily be a case of their manager needing to replace a report.

ICs?

IC = Individual Contributor (worker who does not have a team under them)

Individual Contributors. In this case, the engineers.

I actually think the ranks of middle managers will increase as more people work from home. Especially on the engineering side. The whole point of managers is to facilitate communication between people and teams. WFH certainly doesn't help communication problems. HR should pretty much drop to 0 though.

How exactly does it help to pass communications through a person (the manager) that, for the most part, does not understand the technical details of which they are speaking? We literally pay for slack for communication. No one needs an arbitrary human to act as a gatekeeping communication conduit.

Maybe at tiny companies. At larger companies, you can't scale communication as a fully connected graph.

I guess that's why you have multiple slack channels instead of one. You're trying to justify paying someone over 100 grand a year to be a worse form of communication than the software you're already paying for to communicate.

I don't think I'm trying to justify any San Francisco salaries, lol. The point I'm trying to make is that a single person can only have so much organizational knowledge overhead. Facilitating communication between the right people without spamming the wrong people is tough.

The github corporate move from a flat structure to a hierarchical is probably a good case study to read if you're interested: https://github.com/holman/ama/issues/800

What are the functions of HR that you imagine them doing such that they’ll all be made obsolete by WFH?

Pretty much anything related to the work environment. This can include maintaining a safe work environment, accommodations for specific employee needs, handling employee disputes.

That's a fraction of what HR does. Compensation, benefits, hiring, wellness, training, performance reviews, etc, etc. I doubt that even 10% of what HR does is tightly related to a physical space.

I don't see how this isn't still necessary.

Do you see how these problems greatly diminish if people cannot interact physically?

You don't see why maintaining a work environment wouldn't be necessary if the entire company were allowed to work from home?

The work environment remains, it just shifts location.

Reminds of that Office Space clip, "What is it exactly, that you DO here?".

I think there is still a lack of things like white boarding tools. I haven’t seen anything that could replace a big whiteboard.

Also webcam images generally look horrible. I am sure something could be done about that.

Better microphones and speakers in laptops would help. Better suppression of background noises like kids would help.

I think there are a lot of little things that could improve tools a lot.

If you plan on working from home full time then invest in a decent camera/microphone. I already had focusrite audio interface for guitar, an XLR mic gives amazing sound, decent interface and will probably get a usb camera (is there an action cam like GoPro that can double as a webcam ?)

You can buy a video capture device that lets you plug a GoPro or DSLR 's esque HDMI output to your computer.

How are you using the xlr mic? I have one but am using the USB output because I don't have a xlr port on my laptop.

I have Focusrite Solo [1] audio interface - I got it for guitar capture initially - then I plugged in my headphones in it and the DAC/AMP in it is amazing - this motivated me to go for studio headphones (beyerdynamic dt 990 pro) and now because of this crisis I went for AT 2020 condenser mic

[1] https://focusrite.com/en/usb-audio-interface/scarlett/scarle...

This setup costs ~400$ so if you are just in to calls I'm not sure if it's worth it - but for me it was just getting a mic and now I sound like a radio host on calls :D

I don't own a GoPro so if there is a clone that has this functionality out-of-the-box it would be ideal.

Problem is the camera has to be sitting in the middle of your screen or it will be looking like you are looking away. Even the built in camera on the bottom left of my dell xps looks stupid. And then video conferencing tools compress the video to shit anyway. Also most of us don't have fancy looking home offices. I'm currently working from a desk in my bedroom so a video call would have my bed and an unpainted drywall covered in plaster lines/patches.

My setup is a Shure SM7B, Cloudlifter (necessary for SM7B), and Focusrite Scarlett. It sounds really good.

Do you also commute by Ferrari? :)

USB mics like Rode NT-USB (or NT-USB mini) or Blue Yeti are fine, too. They are the equivalent of a very nice sedan.

The scarlet focusrites entry level are pretty cheap you can get the solo for £100 less than a nice mechanical keyboard and a decent mouse.

I went for the next level up the Clarret 2pre but I do use that for my dnd streams and want to process my voice and to mix in audio.

Main problem with entry level class compliant usb is your at the mercy of Apple and Microsoft making your interface obsolete and you cant change your microphone to suit.

It is not just the soundcard; but the entire solution.

When I looked it, it was for the microphone (400 EUR) + focusrite 2i2 (150, yeah, I looked at dual) + cloudlifter (150) + boom arm (75) + cables (let's say 25) => 800 EUR. I tried not to think about GoXLR...

Compared to that, NT-USB + boom arm (PSA1) was only 200. Plus the space saved on the desk.

I don't really understand, what you mean with being at mercy of Apple and Microsoft. The only problem with USB mics that I'm aware of might be timing/lag, if you need it to be precise. That could be problem for singers singing to instruments, but not for spoken word.

MS depreciated something in a fall update that stopped my £50 alesis core 1 working and both apple and mac no longer support my TASCAM which is why I needed a new sound card

If your in the uk the SZ-MB1 was only 17.99 compared to 150 for a cloud lifter and for mics I use some 10 year old entry level sure dynamics which where £25.

Depending upon your needs you plug the XLR mic into a converter with USB out or into a mixer.

You cant find good video capture adapters anywhere. Ie, any elgato camlink

Doesn't even need to be that complex.

There are really good USB mics these days that are just plug and play. The Blue series for instance (Yeti, etc).

It seems silly, but I think one of the biggest reasons to have an all-MacBook shop is the microphones built into the laptops. Their far-field noise cancelling just beats the pants off of any alternative I’ve tried.

You can also just issue $200 AirPods to each user that doesn't already have them (which will pair to anything that speaks Bluetooth), which may be a simpler/cheaper solution to this problem.

A $20 USB gaming headset with a mouth mic arm might work, too.

Still doesn't come close to a dedicated microphone

Dialing in a iPad to the zoom w/ the notes/whiteboard app is a good substitute I think a lot about for this.

I love this online free self-hostable open source collaborative whiteboard: https://wbo.ophir.dev/ Unlike many others, this one is nice and lean and hence works smoothly even on old hardware.

If you have an nVidia GPU, look into RTX voice- you can install it on any CUDA-enabled GPU with a simple tweak, and it's good enough to kill dryer noise and keep your screaming children from being heard.

Video conferencing is pretty bad IME. I think that all too many companies view Slack as an acceptable option for communication most of the time, and I think that's an extremely inhibiting factor for most remote work. I think some innovation around the tools we use for remote work would be great, fwiw.

For example Teams and Outlook have terrible search. Documents basically go into a black hole to never be seen again. We need the same search quality we have for web searches.

that's why you shouldn't use _either_ of those as repositories of information ... they're great for the ephemeral discussions, but once consensus is reached, you should have other ways of tracking that, whether it's: github/devops/jira issues and tickets, or some kanban board somewhere, or design documents, or a wiki. The discussion itself shouldn't be the artifact that records the decision.

Debian uses something called Meetbot. It seems like it would be sort of be what you are asking for.

https://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot

Good suggestions for improvement, but I don't think they fit this context. Face-to-face communications are extremely unsearchable.

Interesting

[edit: lost context after parent edited]

What I can think of is a smartphone app that's always listening and transcribing, best-effort, all it listens. This can capture in person speech and make it searchable.

Also, are any of the current videoconferencing options offering machine transcribing out of the box? I know users could always hand-feed recorded video to a separate tool, but ease-of-use matters.

Emulating face-to-face-ness remotely is precisely the hard problem. As pg once said, the real world is incredibly high-bandwidth.

There are tools like automatic captions + manual tagging that can make search much better. The tools are out there, just not well adopted at this point.

Training people, both workers and management, how to work in such environments. Plus for many companies expanding the bandwidth and security for their entry points for the corporate network. This can include locking down connected equipment to block high data volume sites and activities; you cannot believe the number of people who try to stream across their vpn connection.

Not everyone wants to be remote, where I work they asked for volunteers for the first wave and had to turn people down for some groups. For these the separation of work and home is line they don't like to cross.

>>I think the biggest use case will be helping recreate the virtual water cooler.

I dont think that is hard to replicate. Group chat / slack / teams is a common feature and can easily be used to fill this void.

It's hard to force WFH people to create non-job related relationships. Like if your jobs don't overlap, you'll probably never talk in a WFH setting. In an office setting, forming relationships is both personal and functional. Maybe some of this communication isn't efficient but it probably has value.

That's recreating a water cooler with an HR drone sitting there spying.

There are ways to do it with out "HR Drone" spying

and further if you are saying things that would get you in hot water with HR then it is unlikely that a verbal conversation is better, in fact in many of these instances having a record of the conversation can be helpful....

Yeah, it is harder to be friends with your coworkers when you are remote. You do end up developing relationships though. My mom, for 30 years, spent so many years on the phone with other people, when they finally met up, it always ended up in friendship.

I work from home exclusively. I am in the same boat.

Earlier in my career, it was easy to make friends at work. I miss that. Lets go golf! Lets go drink! Lets go do this... etc.

I do think that ended up creating 'cliques' inside the groups though. Its probably better in the long run to try to establish a more professional relationship with coworkers. Just my opinion - and i'm likely wrong.

I've always wondered if that was a side effect of them being slow/bad at typing. Higher ups usually don't end up having to type a lot themselves, and many are bad at it.

That’s mainly because they have better things to do. Where do you think more money is to be made? Worry about your typing or be very good at meeting people?

It is generally an oversight to assume that people have ideal work conditions at home and could be more productive. Going to a reliable and steady office is absolutely salutary for many people. There are trade-offs, yes, but no one-size-fits-all. Physical work location and conditions is one potential issue, and emotional/relational conditions are another. Would we want to overlook these issues while still searching for the best talent for our companies?

The body language thing is important. I think it helps to position the camera and your hands in a way that lets people see your gestures.

The higher you go up the older they get. It is a culture shift and lets be honest no one wants to leave their comfort zone.

Lots of companies are followers. I appreciate Twitter taking the lead here.

It would be good if AWS and GCE were leveraged by workers at home as generic data centers to store their private data

Working on a UI and server for just that. Plug an API key for a cloud provider into the UI which will help users move data from their laptop to a private bucket for example, or spinup basic infra, enable sharing with other users accounts for opt-in data collection

Sell or donate access to specific data in your account on your terms.

The web is dead. With the right tools anyone can leverage the cloud to regain a ton of privacy and control of their data. Maybe we can dismantle through free market effort, the technocracy middleman now that building such software is trivial

Yeah, I get what you mean. Native applications store your data locally, which is privacy-friendly, but sharing is hard. SaaS brought easy sharing of data, but it also brought data mining. So the goal is to have data in the cloud, but isolated, rather than in a big shared database in some SaaS provider.

If you trust the privacy of cloud providers, you can spin up a server and use https://sandstorm.io/, which is designed around that: private infra, with granular sharing of data.

If you don't, you need local compute and encryption. Keybase would be a decent example - while you can't use your own cloud account, they only see encrypted data.

That said, there's a reason a lot of people deleted their Keybase accounts when they got acquired by Zoom. Data mining is very enticing, so outside of projects ran by idealist volunteers - which will always have a hard time competing with funded companies -, how do you keep developers from adding mining abilities even to the native/self-hosted applications?

What about https://blockstack.org/? With this approach you own the data

Wasm and weed is a powerful drug.