<story><title>Workers quitting over return-to-office policies</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220523-the-workers-quitting-over-return-to-office-policies</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spookthesunset</author><text>I am beginning to think that many remote developers will eventually become 1099 contractors who can pick up random gigs.&lt;p&gt;Because let’s be honest, the reason most of these folks are doing this is because they don’t give a crap about the specific company or anything like that.  They just want to build cool shit that other people spec out. As long as the pay is competitive one day they might be building a healthcare mobile app, another day an online car dealership portal.&lt;p&gt;Honestly, I think that is where it’s headed. I know if I went back to being a dev who did 95% of my shit remote, I would much rather be a 1099 “arms length” contractor then I’d be W2 “real employee”. If you are going for the flexibility that remote brings, you might as well make it fully flexible and just be a contract developer… after all you already decided you didn’t give a shit about company politics or culture… you just want to write code! So just become a contractor!</text></item><item><author>axg11</author><text>I like the concept of async work but I’m also scared of how transactional that would make work. Most companies that preach async now have a very strong, “friendly” culture. If async catches on more widely I’m worried it would be the final push to make software development purely transactional and performance&amp;#x2F;pay would be directly tied to metrics.&lt;p&gt;I enjoy the human component of work. I don’t like _all_ of my coworkers, but it’s still a net positive to interact with them.&lt;p&gt;When I think about the ideal software job, a lot of the aspects of day-to-day work informally become async. Especially as you work with people for longer periods of time and gain mutual trust, a good workplace allows both managers and individual contributors to structure their own time.</text></item><item><author>ryanSrich</author><text>Of course this is happening.&lt;p&gt;I’m coming up on year 10 of working remotely, and year 2 of completely async. The only forced-commute job I ever had was for 6 months right out of college.&lt;p&gt;I’ve been preaching remote work for almost the entire time I’ve been doing it. I thought it would catch on much sooner, but it’s here now.&lt;p&gt;I think async is the next thing that will happen. If you’re building software there’s really no reason you have to share working hours with anyone. It’s convenient at times, but it’s by no means required.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rewgs</author><text>Totally agree, and I wouldn&amp;#x27;t have it any other way. I suppose I&amp;#x27;m a bit of a strange case on HN, in that I&amp;#x27;m coming to programming from being a film composer, i.e. I&amp;#x27;ve pretty much always been freelance, and so working as a &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; employee is infinitely weird to me even at the best of times. I worked at a large corporation one time, and while I loved the work and my co-workers, the subtle office politics, the whole idea of a &amp;quot;culture,&amp;quot; the routine day in and day out...it just did &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; vibe with me. I&amp;#x27;m not totally against going back to being a W2 employee, but it would take an awful lot to convince me.&lt;p&gt;Like others in this thread, the reality that work is primarily a simple transaction of time for money, coupled with my experience being a &amp;quot;real&amp;quot; employee, has ingrained in me the understanding that, if you want to protect yourself as a worker, being at &amp;quot;arms length&amp;quot; as you put it is the way. At least for me.&lt;p&gt;I am a company of one (literally and figuratively). Unfortunately that&amp;#x27;s the logical endpoint of companies not feeling any loyalty towards their employees. So be it, I embrace it, because what else is there to do?</text></comment>
<story><title>Workers quitting over return-to-office policies</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220523-the-workers-quitting-over-return-to-office-policies</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spookthesunset</author><text>I am beginning to think that many remote developers will eventually become 1099 contractors who can pick up random gigs.&lt;p&gt;Because let’s be honest, the reason most of these folks are doing this is because they don’t give a crap about the specific company or anything like that.  They just want to build cool shit that other people spec out. As long as the pay is competitive one day they might be building a healthcare mobile app, another day an online car dealership portal.&lt;p&gt;Honestly, I think that is where it’s headed. I know if I went back to being a dev who did 95% of my shit remote, I would much rather be a 1099 “arms length” contractor then I’d be W2 “real employee”. If you are going for the flexibility that remote brings, you might as well make it fully flexible and just be a contract developer… after all you already decided you didn’t give a shit about company politics or culture… you just want to write code! So just become a contractor!</text></item><item><author>axg11</author><text>I like the concept of async work but I’m also scared of how transactional that would make work. Most companies that preach async now have a very strong, “friendly” culture. If async catches on more widely I’m worried it would be the final push to make software development purely transactional and performance&amp;#x2F;pay would be directly tied to metrics.&lt;p&gt;I enjoy the human component of work. I don’t like _all_ of my coworkers, but it’s still a net positive to interact with them.&lt;p&gt;When I think about the ideal software job, a lot of the aspects of day-to-day work informally become async. Especially as you work with people for longer periods of time and gain mutual trust, a good workplace allows both managers and individual contributors to structure their own time.</text></item><item><author>ryanSrich</author><text>Of course this is happening.&lt;p&gt;I’m coming up on year 10 of working remotely, and year 2 of completely async. The only forced-commute job I ever had was for 6 months right out of college.&lt;p&gt;I’ve been preaching remote work for almost the entire time I’ve been doing it. I thought it would catch on much sooner, but it’s here now.&lt;p&gt;I think async is the next thing that will happen. If you’re building software there’s really no reason you have to share working hours with anyone. It’s convenient at times, but it’s by no means required.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zdragnar</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve been working remotely for years, and for companies that literally didn&amp;#x27;t have offices to work from. Everyone was 100% remote, and I can assure you that didn&amp;#x27;t have any impact whatsoever on people&amp;#x27;s passion for their work or the company they worked for.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve seen people in an office not give a damn (literally doing a phone interview for a position at a different company at his desk), and totally remote people probably care a little too much, and everything in-between.</text></comment>