Maybe, just maybe the issue is that middle managers have actual, legitimate reasons that WFH isn't a universally good thing. Contrary to what you may think, not every worker in tech is a high-performing star that produces flawless code if you just leave them alone in their home office. A lot of employees are lazy and will take advantage of the reduced oversight to slack off, a lot of employees are people who need constant hands-on mentoring or direction, and a lot of employees are just simply more productive when there's someone to impress nearby.
So while I respect that you might be the perfect worker bee who does whatever work is assigned with no oversight or hand-holding required, most employees are not that, and in-person oversight/mentoring (and if in-person oversight can't happen, get ready for increase monitoring on your work laptop usage) legitimately is necessary.
Most of my job is not coding. My job isn't assembly line work. It is solving problems in coordination with my peers, which yields small amounts of code and configuration.
If I had straight-ahead clear as day coding to do, and I was motivated -- then, yes, being at home in my own environment in the quiet would be great. But that's not my job, nor the job of many other people.
Working from home is not for everyone. I'm looking forward to returning.
If the task hasn't been done on time, it might be because the task underestimated the difficulty, or that the person had other tasks which interrupted this one. If the person tried their best and they are competent, the output doesn't matter so much since likely it would have taken an equal amount of time for anyone else to get it done. You can't ask people to do more than they are capable of.
When everyone is honest and trying their best there are no problems but its pretty hard to work out when they aren't.
Maybe it makes them try harder to appear busy with real work when people are around to hover over their cubes, but I'm unconvinced that you can really wring blood from a stone.
Maybe around the edges the "personal touch" is enough to inspire (or frighten) an employee in a way that remote communication does not allow, but I've not seen many poor performers actually improve unless they were already personally motivated to do better themselves.
But... maybe that is the point.. there should be a way to get those who can do WFH to keep doing it.
I don't _think_ I get high from controlling an office environment (not sure what that means) but I sure miss white boards and in-person collaboration.
I guess my ideal would be 2 or 3 days remote and the rest in office.
There really is no remote alternative that isn't super expensive or lacks the responsiveness of in-person.
If they're more efficient, then it just sucks for you.
If they're not more efficient, then there's a business case for bringing the worker bees back to the hive.
Umm, what? Having been a manager and an IC I don't see a white board as a crutch at all, I see it as a highly effective tool for a specific set of problems.
I definitely prefer working at home when I'm heads down, I know what the problem is and I just need to crank out a solution. When I'm designing the solution to a problem with a group of people, or heck even just trying to fully clarify the problem, having an in-person session is just much more productive and efficient. What's more, having now done lots of remote design/problem solving sessions, both as the leader of the meeting and the participant, I find them always less effective in every way when there are at least 3 people in the meeting.
Actually, I don't have anyone who is physically in California (I am the only one on my team who is physically there).
EDIT: list of WFH benefits (not complete): no commute (this is huge for some), ICs tend to do more focused work, ability to hire talent globally, giving option to people to live where they want to live (vs work), less seasonal colds, etc.
Of course, summer interns are a slightly odd population as the choice they're making is probably between doing their internship remotely from their bedroom at their parents house or spending ten weeks in the big city so there is that.
I have never interned. Maybe you expect that. I usually get thrown into the deepend of some codebase and asked to figure it out. My advise would be to get use to it and get good at it.
> "Zuckerberg said employees who want to work in an office will be asked to come in at least half the time."
I agree - part time remote work will be bad for micromanagers.
Engineers are some of the worst middle-managers you can encounter. Never work for an engineer middle-manager if you can avoid it unless you're an engineer yourself. They tend to come with huge egos and entitlement due to their degree and don't have the people skills to allow them to manage or run a team successfully. They only care about themselves and wearing their ring to make sure all of you know they have one.
I realize a lot of the HN audience are engineers. I don't care. Just because you're an engineer doesn't make you a project manager or even good at managing a project or a team of non-engineers. This is a self-delusion that many of them have.
I have been a middle manager, and can say pretty confidently that it is a very difficult and a very shitty job. This is one reason that it tends to pay quite well is that there are fewer people who want to go into it (as opposed to, say, high level IC).
A middle manager gets to make very few decisions but gets to be the messenger for the majority of them.
Middle management is not always useful, they mostly have the role of herding dogs, but if the work is not dumb and soul-crushing I don't think most people need to be herded.
(and I am talking as someone who built companies and led teams)
But that's an other story.
Middle managers are famous for feeding off of email directives, I guess. Not control over the office environment to which they may not be local.