
Respawn point: The inevitable reincarnation of the corporate office - pabo
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/work-from-home-03-the-office/
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cbdumas
I can't wait to go back to the office. Everything about my job is harder from
home. Harder for me to focus on work, harder for me to separate work and life,
so so so much harder to forge the actual human connections that make tech work
feel at all worth doing.

ETA: Interesting that the above has resulted in high controversy in both
up/down votes and replies. I can tell this is a very emotional issue for
people. To be clear I'm not interested in forcing people to do anything, just
trying to share my experiences. I would be disappointed if my job went
permanently remote, and would probably start looking for a new one.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Conversely, there are others who feel the opposite and love working from home
(no shared workspace with coworkers, the freedom to work in their home
environment how they want) and don’t have the need for human connection
(because they get that from their family and friends) from their job, only a
paycheck.

Lots more remote work now for remote folks (with businesses required to have a
go at it, and learning it’s easier than expected), and I’m sure office folks
will still find businesses that will offer that model.

~~~
ska
I agree with your general contention that others may love the idea of
indefinite work-from-home, but I don't think the poster was claiming work as
the source of your life's human connections.

I read it as work _without_ those connections lost meaning (for them). I can
see that point - many of my best experiences doing difficult technical work
have been with very tight knit teams that are difficult to maintain working
remotely, let alone create.

Which isn't to say its-just-a-paycheck jobs are wrong in any sense, just that
it's not enough for everyone.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I’ve worked remote for the last ~10 years and have had such moments with a
team, so I’m skeptical that this requires in person collaboration to achieve
these shared flow states (for lack of a better description).

Please forgive the bluntness of my opinion. First the business world made
excuses that remote work just wasn’t as productive as in person work, and then
a pandemic forced an experiment that proved that assertion to be untrue. Now
the excuse is, “well, remote just isn’t as good as in person for building team
bonds and collaboration” even when teams at billion dollar orgs (both young
and old) are able to do so.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but facts and data are not negotiable,
and this is important distinction when large scale presence decisions are
being made for workforces.

~~~
ISL
The tightest professional relationships I've made in many moons were made
entirely remote during some Covid-19 relief work. I still haven't met any of
them in person, but there was as much humanity in that project as we ever get
working-from-work.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Shared struggle can generate cohesion regardless of locality. Happy to hear
this anecdote.

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arbuge
Offices are going to make it. The day will come when they're close to full
occupancy again in my opinion.

Until then, the demand for square feet paradoxically won't be any less. If
you're rotating in half the workforce at a time, but require them to space 2x
apart, you end up needing the same amount of floor space.

~~~
xenonite
I know I shouldn't find that funny, but I actually wondered why you see demand
for "square feet", like literally, feet with a square shape (I am German, used
to the metric system).

On top of that: In German there is the expression "Quadratlatschen" ("square
shoes") for shoes of very large size. I guess these are for humans with square
feet. I guess such shoes are soon in demand, then.

~~~
rad_gruchalski
> I know I shouldn't find that funny, but I actually wondered why you see
> demand for "square feet", like literally, feet with a square shape (I am
> German, used to the metric system).

Because that’s what it is in imperial system? Metric has square meters,
imperial uses square feet (sq ft). Maybe the poster could have used square
yards. What’s so funny about it?

~~~
zdragnar
> What’s so funny about it?

Well, the person had explained that they juxtaposed a different image based
upon a more literal / different interpretation of the phrase, perhaps
triggered by the similar phrase in their native German. That is basically the
root of all humor.

As an aside, I would think the phrase "demand for square footage" more
appropriate and common. "Square feet" isn't often used in the more generalized
context, but rather for specific measurements (i.e. 1900 square feet), at
least in my neck of the woods.

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akeck
I used to have three "spaces": work, home, and a non-work place (exercise club
in my case). Now I have one, home. It was fine for awhile, but I'm finding I
really need the three spaces back.

~~~
at_a_remove
Being a "third space" was a core component of Starbucks' strategy. Now their
locales have most, if not all, of the chairs removed and it will be
interesting to see if people will migrate back.

I will confess that I set aside a particular afternoon a week to read in a
corner of my local Starbucks, just as a way to get out of the house.

~~~
brokenmachine
Are there no parks or green space anywhere near you?

Personally I'd much rather be outside than in a loud cafe. I might even get
the chance to see a tree or hear a bird.

~~~
at_a_remove
I have a photosensitivity disorder, so while those places do exist, inhabiting
them during the day would cause pain and permanent skin damage.

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harlanji
As a homeless former professional, I feel that getting back to work is
vanishingly far away. 11 year old laptop, broken smart phone, no libraries or
cafes or gym showers left... I just had a pretty profoundly failed onboarding
for a minimum wage job due to lack of personal IT and the minimum wage pay +
catching up on way-past-due urgent+important bills. And that's sober and
barely homeless-looking except the 2 year old well maintained clothes (worn
and washed weekly once, all bought while I had a good income and of good
quality). My last in-person interview in November was rough enough to
coordinate with a working but intermittently disconnected phone and old
laptop. One must start to believe in a higher power at some point of
destitution. I know that ended up on a pretty wild tangent, but this is real.

~~~
loopz
Yet, with job you'd still vote for more income to go to corporations instead
of social security net.

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holstvoogd
I will never go back to the Office beyond a few days a month max. Offices are
my personal hell and I’d rather find another career than go back.

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gumby
I’m surprised Ronald Coase is not brought up in these discussions. His work
(for which he won a Nobel focused on why firms exist at all (as opposed to a
workforce of 160 million independent contractors). It comes down do
efficiencies of various sorts (the same reason we aren’t merely unicellular
organisms).

I think this pandemic will be an opportunity and driver of a reshuffling:
mostly back the way it was before but with some visible structural changes.
For example perhaps increased use of management consultants as proposed in
this article). Maybe hiring _more_ people than before due to a more efficient
model that can take advantage of having more people.

The companies that make these changes the soonest, and make the changes that
turn out to be the good ones (hard to tell except in retrospect) will of
course be by definition the winners.

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x87678r
I used to think open plan offices were full of noisy distractions. Now I yearn
for the relative peace of a child-free zone. I'll miss the 4pm beers and
sneaky trips to the beach though.

~~~
sologoub
Childcare (and other “cares”) are being conflated with remote work. Remote
work is still work - when you are forced to also handle childcare, you are
basically working two jobs, at the same time. No wonder that’s at very least
suboptimal.

Long term, I really hope we arrive at a scenario where people can focus on one
job at a time and choose the most productive environment for them/their team.

The narrative that remote work == work + childcare is just false though.
Current pandemic situation is not normal in any sense and the loss of general
services is very painful for everyone.

~~~
x87678r
> remote work == work + childcare is just false

Have you tried it yourself? Technically you're correct, in reality just being
in the house means you can be available.

~~~
sologoub
That’s just it, it doesn’t. To compare apples to apples between office and
wfh, there has to be child care arranged and it can’t be the same person as
the one working. You usually don’t take kids into the office. Work is still
work, regardless of location.

The current situation with child care effectively closed has created the
situation where you have to do both work and care for the kids. If you move
that same situation into the office, it’s not going to be pretty.

