> the number of people who work as well (or even better!) from the home is not zero, but the number of people who claim there's no difference and then end up doing significantly worse work, become a massive pain to get a hold of, become less motivated, etc. is way way higher

For me the reverse thought always comes into mind: "The amount of tangible work achieved when in the office is close to zero". Countless chats, interruptions, distractions, meetings you can't easily get out of, getting in late due to traffic, having to leave early due to childcare, etc. Even if a person spends half a day WFH not doing any work, it will still be more productive than being in the office.

When I say work, I mean actually producing tangible assets.

Brainstorming, design, anything that requires high collaboration, works much better in the office when everyone is in attendance.

The end result of this is that the most productive environment for software engineers is a mostly WFH schedule with anchor days in the office to hash out the collaborative tasks in big blocks. This translates into 1-2 days in the office depending on the team and the current phase of the development lifecycle they are in.

If you have a person in your team who consistently does not perform any work when working from home, then that is a performance management issue that should be dealt with like every other performance management issue. I do not really see why 'wfh' makes this special.

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BoorishBears 4 days ago | parent [-]

I should have realized that my comment relies on too much nuance for the average person who's crying themselves sick over RTO to engage with in any reasonable semblance of what it actually says.

If you want to try reading it again with a clear head and not engage with the strawman you're building, you'll notice it doesn't make any claims to the effect of:

- why offices work

- that offices work for everyone (it claims the opposite)

- that no one does better at home (it claims the opposite)

- that no org can make WFH work (it claims the opposite)

- that performance issues shouldn't be dealt with

All it says it that empirically (and of course, limited to my experience and experiences shared with me), a lot of people, specifically in large companies, perform worse with significant WFH.

"WFH" makes this special because it's organization wide, in massive orgs: like I specifically mentioned "significant WFH" and "large headcount" in the same sentence, can I really spoon feed this any harder?

I think WFH can work for some people, but when it's significant amounts in large headcount companies, it starts to fall apart.

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barnabee 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> a lot of people, specifically in large companies, perform worse with significant WFH.

Better to give them the choice to start coming to the office more and see if it helps their performance, and fire them if not, than force everyone else to suffer, no?

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nixosbestos 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> who's crying themselves sick over RTO to engage with in any reasonable semblance

Wow, please let me go ahead and double down on thinking your stance is some middle managers hand-wavey (almost surely unjustified) smug attitude towards IC devs.

> think WFH can work for some people, but when it's significant amounts in large headcount companies, it starts to fall apart.

And I think you're a blowhard with your head up your quester and I'm going to justify it the same way you justified your conclusion: (space left intentionally blank).

No seriously, have you even ever worked at a big and or small companies? (I've worked at, well, the biggest, and the damn near the smallest possible, and your conclusion is 1000% just you handwaving and asserting an assumption)

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BoorishBears 4 days ago | parent [-]

Immigrant who started programming in middle school, self-taught without a degree and started at a <20 person company by emailing my code samples to their support email address.

Made it to FAANG within a decade of that, and worked at companies the entire range of between those two sizes across the 14? 15? years since I first got paid to code?

I left my most recent role specifically because I was getting increasing amounts of pressure to play manager vs focus on mixed TL+IC priorities (and I had already communicated I was joining on primarily as an IC vs a TL to start).

tl;dr: another swing and a miss

It's funny that this is the 2nd comment to imply I'm not an IC because I'm bluntly stating not all ICs can handle WFH.

It's like some people can't fathom you'd be invested in how well your team or larger organization executes unless you're a manager.

Maybe I can't relate because I wouldn't have learned anything or gotten anywhere with that mentality coming from the start I had.

And frankly if others around me at the start of my career had that mentality, it would have been lethal to my own opportunity: so I certainly won't ever adopt it.

People act like working hard at things only gets your boss a bigger boat... and for most of the population it's true.

But we're knowledge workers in one of the highest paid industries with the closest thing to a meritocracy as society/capitalism will allow: you're plain doing it wrong if you can't convert hard work into any sort of personal enrichment.

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nixosbestos 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> It's like some people can't fathom you'd be invested in how well your team or larger organization executes unless you're a manager.

Bro it's not that complicated. You hand waved ("wfh is somehow fine for small companies but breaks down for large companies") and *offer zero explanation for why that would be the case, or how that makes any sense*. For what size does it break down? What org structure? Is it 20 people? 200? 2000? 20000?

And no, me saying that you can manage employees, remote or not, is certainly fking not me being "unable" to "fathom you'd be invested in how well your team or larger organization executes unless you're a manager". It's actually what I said in my comment, it's me calling out a made-up, unsubstantiated, hand-wavey claim, that you sure keep dancing around to reassert that devs are lazy and stealing and need to be babysat in an office.

Whatever. Idgaf, I'll never work in an office again, and anyone that you ever manage will leave soon enough anyway before that's even the issue.

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BoorishBears 4 days ago | parent [-]

I think you're not doing so ok, and I hope you get better.

And that's not an insult. I mean it.

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christhecaribou 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

I hope you leave the workforce so some younger, less brainwashed folk can clean up the crock of shit you left behind.

	▲	BoorishBears 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I started freelancing at 16, graduated high school at 17, started my first "real job" later that year. If you graduated at 18, went to college for at least 4 years, and have already spent 7 years at AWS... you odds are you're pretty much my age if not older lol (31) Big yikes

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nixosbestos 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I asked you to clarify your bullshit condescending handwaving and you reply with "u mad bro?", actually, an even more condescending version of it. You're exactly the piece of shit I clocked you for.

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nixosbestos 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> People act like working hard at things only gets your boss a bigger boat... and for most of the population it's true.

> But we're knowledge workers in one of the highest paid industries with the closest thing to a meritocracy as society/capitalism will allow: you're plain doing it wrong if you can't convert hard work into any sort of personal enrichment.

Haha oh my god, what? Whatever bro, you go for it. Lick That Boot!

Also what in the actual universe are you even talking about? I guarantee my net worth is more than yours was at my age. Also tech workers have been serially conspired against from a wages standpoint. Again, effectively you saying ~"ICs should kiss our asses they have it so good salary wise". One of the most obnoxious people I've ever talked to.

	▲	4 days ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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OfficeChad 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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