AT&T and Amazon have the right idea. Conference calls with offshore teams are far more effective when done in an open office environment, surrounded by people from unrelated teams doing the same thing.
The collaborative energy of hundreds of tightly-packed people trying to focus on different things together is amazing.
> The collaborative energy of hundreds of tightly-packed people trying to focus in different things together is amazing.
Imagine this. You are trying to write a Python script to produce another report for your manager. You can sit anywhere in the amazing open office. You accidentally sit next to the Anti-Money Laundering team, and have to listen to that.
The next day you choose a different floor. Your manager shows up wearing a mask and says she has a flu. The rest of the day, you listen to small talk, while trying to focus on implementing the report.
Whenever you walk to the coffee machine, people stare at you and wonder who you're sleeping with.
Finally, you revolt and refuse to come in to the office. Then you don't have a job.
The office where I work we have a whole section of one floor that is strictly no talking and phones must be on mute. If you want silence you can sit there. I cannot imagine that we are the only company that has come up with this idea.
That being said, I still work from home when I feel like it.
Personally I find home more distracting than the office. The office is a clean work space with a desk with only my work computer and work stuff and everybody around me is also working.
Home has chores and errands and 'fun' and all kinds of other Not Work stuff to tempt me away from working. Plus once my kids come home from school, quiet concentration time is effectively over.
But as I said, I'm not advocating for mandatory return to office, and I do work at home 1-2 days a week.
> Home has chores and errands and 'fun' and all kinds of other Not Work stuff to tempt me away from working. Plus once my kids come home from school, quiet concentration time is effectively over.
It's funny how serving one's employer has become the highest duty.
Work not done? After-hours issue? Then work overtime. Kids are home? Go to the office to avoid being distracted from work.
Or, I go to the office, focus for 6 hours uninterrupted, get done what needs to be done, and then go home and not think about work at all for the rest of the day.
> I cannot imagine that we are the only company that has come up with this idea.
In a company I used to work for, 2 floors were (completely) unoccupied but some were insufferable. 2 floors worth tens of thousands of dollars monthly were just completely unused whatsoever.
Last time I was in the amazon office, I got to see how absurd it is, especially since this has all, supposedly, been in the name of productivity.
The office my team is in is setup so there's a long hallway that has the security corridor, then a coffee shop, then a convenience store then the elevators. Anyone coming into the office has to walk through all of these to get to the elevators to go to their floor.
Last time I was there, they'd put desks in hallway between the coffee shop and the convenience store, and they were always full.
You'd think if they were doing this for productivity, they wouldn't be sticking desks in the hallway everyone has to walk through all the time.
Okay, I want to be super clear on this one: Do you have to pay for the coffee once you pass security / they know you work there? Or is that coffee shop not part of the company and just so happens to be onsite?
> Okay, I want to be super clear on this one: Do you have to pay for the coffee once you pass security / they know you work there? Or is that coffee shop not part of the company and just so happens to be onsite?
Don't know about Amazon, but there are two coffee options at my employer (past security):
1. A chain coffee shop you have to pay for. No discount that I can perceive.
2. Free coffee machines.
#1 used to be extremely popular when #2 consisted of Douwe Egberts machines that used some weird coffee concentrate that made terrible and weak coffee. Now I think #1 closes early and has low staffing because the #2 got upgraded to espresso machines that use decent beans and can also do basic espresso drinks (Americano, Latte, etc).
Ah, for context, to encourage people to RTO during the pandemic, coffee there was free. Once we started an RTO mandate it changed to one coffee a day was free. Now that we're moving to mandated 5 day RTO, even that is gone.
Things get shittier and shittier in a company known to be shitty to it's employees
Our metric shows that AIs productivity improved 20% compare to workers ever since return to office. The conclusion is inescapable, AI likes it when developers cluster together in glass towers and improves.
The right idea? These companies have no problem outsourcing American jobs -- outside of the US!
RTO my a$$, the strategy was and always will be displacement of American workers through attrition by hiring remote Asian workers -- 1 FTE = 4 Indian workers.
'Most' of these are American companies selling American products and services to Americans. If they like Asia so freaking much, leave the US and go sell your $hitty products and services over there!
The collaborative energy of hundreds of tightly-packed people trying to focus on different things together is amazing.