> proponents of remote work are loud and borderline toxic
i think that's a very unfavourable way to view it.
The reason they are so "toxic" is becauses this remote work privilege is very easy to remove by those who own the company (or have power within the company).
Employees are used to be abused - after all, they are mostly a commodity and cannot really command control over the operation of a company. The bargaining power is next to zero.
The remote work happenstance is luck - and grasping it hard doesn't seem illogical when they see the risk of it being removed without their consent. Loss aversion is real.
I think that makes a lot of sense, and explains the behavior I see. It doesn’t excuse it, though. It’s still shitty behavior, and the opposite of the kind of reasoned discourse I’d like to see on HN.
I think there’s an interesting debate to be had on the pros and cons of remote work, and even more interesting discussions to be had about how to compensate for its flaws. (Such as difficulty integrating new hires into the social fabric of the company, challenges experienced by junior devs, a slow burn of “othering” in interactions, lack of serendipitous conversations, challenges with creative group work, tendency towards long scheduled meetings over “pop your head into my office” moments.) Those are actually of intense interest to me, since I’m dealing with these challenges in my real-world work. I have solutions to some of them, but not all. I’d love to learn from other people’s experiences.
But that doesn’t seem to be possible on HN, where the barest hint that remote work isn’t perfect brings out the shouters.
> how to compensate for its flaws... brings out the shouters.
that's because the flaws are irrelevant to the employee. Those flaws are problems for the company (e.g., they are all related to extra value extraction from the work of the employee).
The simple answer is - pay more for working in the office, and you will get people to come. There's a monetary value associated with WFH, and you just need to the pay to exceed that value (as determined by the market of course).
It does. People's actual happiness is at stake. From being able to be with their family and loved ones more to being able to live closer to their families, the places they grew up in and the extremely-important social support networks that those create constitute a survival-level benefit for those people, and they naturally react harshly to sick sociopaths who want to control people and improve the percentage of the imaginary-value of companies that is tied to real estate.
There is absolutely no rational, justifiable reason for rto other than very, very ugly, sociopath-grade reasons. This includes those extroverts who want to force people to 'socialize' by forcing them to move away from their families, relatives, friends and places they were born and grew up in and forcing them to !waste! their lives commuting to and back from work. 'Waste' is emphasized here, because there is no taking back the time that is collectively lost in commuting. Its a gigantic loss for the commuters, the company they work in, the local economy and the society at large.
i think that's a very unfavourable way to view it.
The reason they are so "toxic" is becauses this remote work privilege is very easy to remove by those who own the company (or have power within the company).
Employees are used to be abused - after all, they are mostly a commodity and cannot really command control over the operation of a company. The bargaining power is next to zero.
The remote work happenstance is luck - and grasping it hard doesn't seem illogical when they see the risk of it being removed without their consent. Loss aversion is real.