<story><title>It Is Time to End the War on Remote Work</title><url>https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2023-10-03/it-is-time-to-end-the-war-on-remote-work</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>baron816</author><text>I bet the real story is one of retention, which is not always what companies want to advertise. If you’re going into the office, it’s harder to find time to schedule interview.&lt;p&gt;But on top of that, going into the office and talking to real people and building relationships is going to result in you wanting to stay with the company for longer. This is what I like about going into the office. I don’t know if I work any more effectively, but I do like getting lunch with people and just hanging out, and I do feel a greater attachment to the team as a result. If I were totally remote, I surely would just be working for the highest bidder.</text></item><item><author>mullingitover</author><text>I get the sense that the large corporations taking an authoritarian stance toward RTO is not happening because they have data showing that RTO is the most efficient way to operate. If they had the data, they&amp;#x27;d pound on the data rather than pounding on the table.&lt;p&gt;Instead I suspect that there&amp;#x27;s immense political pressure to bring warm bodies to offices because the waste of resources is &lt;i&gt;load bearing&lt;/i&gt; for the macro economy. It&amp;#x27;s a paradox of thrift situation: if we actually become efficient then a lot of people are going to need to take a substantial writedown. These people aren&amp;#x27;t going to take that writedown without putting up a fight.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>destroy-2A</author><text>I can tell you with certainty it&amp;#x27;s the opposite of retention. Point #3 on prakhar897 comment is pretty much everything, nobody is hiring, firing is happening across all F500 just slowly enough to fly under the radar.&lt;p&gt;Avoid IRL meetings, even if the other person is sitting 5 meters away, why? because productivity measuring software gets no data points if you meet IRL, you are instead measured as AFK. If you VC, the productivity software measures your attendance, how much time you spent talking versus others, is your video on, your adherence to the calls schedule, and depending on the VC software, it can even analyze the transcript and decide if your input &amp;#x2F; the entire meeting was valuable. Managers can get an aggregate roll up of all this data and great insights into which departments, team members an individual most interacted with... it goes on and on.&lt;p&gt;At most mega corps you may not be informed yet, but you are already living in a corporate Orwellian dystopia.&lt;p&gt;In all your corporate comms, on chat or on VC, Make no jokes, speak no niceties reduce small talk, use positive words but not too much, since the machine is bad at understanding, humor, cynicism or sarcasm. Don&amp;#x27;t ramble, the machine is good at boiling down emotional or spirited ramblings about directions are very bad, they are boiled down to, &amp;quot;not a fit&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>It Is Time to End the War on Remote Work</title><url>https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2023-10-03/it-is-time-to-end-the-war-on-remote-work</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>baron816</author><text>I bet the real story is one of retention, which is not always what companies want to advertise. If you’re going into the office, it’s harder to find time to schedule interview.&lt;p&gt;But on top of that, going into the office and talking to real people and building relationships is going to result in you wanting to stay with the company for longer. This is what I like about going into the office. I don’t know if I work any more effectively, but I do like getting lunch with people and just hanging out, and I do feel a greater attachment to the team as a result. If I were totally remote, I surely would just be working for the highest bidder.</text></item><item><author>mullingitover</author><text>I get the sense that the large corporations taking an authoritarian stance toward RTO is not happening because they have data showing that RTO is the most efficient way to operate. If they had the data, they&amp;#x27;d pound on the data rather than pounding on the table.&lt;p&gt;Instead I suspect that there&amp;#x27;s immense political pressure to bring warm bodies to offices because the waste of resources is &lt;i&gt;load bearing&lt;/i&gt; for the macro economy. It&amp;#x27;s a paradox of thrift situation: if we actually become efficient then a lot of people are going to need to take a substantial writedown. These people aren&amp;#x27;t going to take that writedown without putting up a fight.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mullingitover</author><text>Retention doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to be a real focus - there are still layoffs happening. If anything, the other angle for RTO is a form of constructive dismissal to augment the RIFs without taking the hit for severance.</text></comment>