Over 54 percent of surveyed Paradox employees stated that an unpopular return-to-office policy at the Crusader Kings III and Stellaris developer may make them leave the company.
I work in tech and it’s surprising how many people want to work in an office. When I ask the rank and file why the reasons are usually dumb things like “I like the commute”, “I like the social interaction”, and “I like getting away from my kids”. Which like…wtf. If you like driving for 2 hours a day then just go do that on your own time? If you hate your kids why did you have them and why do you think your partner wants to be stuck with them? If you like social interaction try getting friends? The reasons are so dumb.
Management of course always has the reason of “it fosters better collaboration” which I do sort of agree with. Meetings are easier to have in person. That said if your day is more than half full of meetings you’re almost definitely not working efficiently, and so if people work better outside of meetings at home then it makes much more sense to let people do their work where they are comfortable doing the majority of the work.
So really the only legit reason is “I want to police my people” and “I want my co workers to be policed.” Only one person in my life has ever said this and I respect them for the absolute honesty. And then I tried to cut them out of everything I do at work because holy shit fuck people like that.
Offices suck there’s no reason to spend 5 days a week in one so you can sit silently on your computer and clack away
The other half of this is also that 46% of the employees probably already live within a reasonable distance of the workplace and don’t feel unreasonably put out by traveling in.
It’s the employees at less reasonable distances that get the most upset by these RTO policies. I would wager that you could heatmap agreement/disagreement with the policy based on distance from the workplace.
As someone who works in an office and isn’t in charge of anyone, I’ll say that I strongly disagree with the idea that there are no legitimate reasons to prefer being in office.
I get cabin fever pretty badly if I don’t have a reason to get out. Finding motivation to do that can be difficult when I don’t actually have somewhere to be. I also do enjoy chatting to my coworkers. As an adult fostering friendships outside of work and family is incredibly difficult, and I imagine you know that?
Regardless I’d still work from home if permitted, due to COVID, but the idea that wanting to have a second location that you regularly spend time in is “dumb” is wrong I think.
To reiterate, I absolutely prefer work from home at this point, even though it’s undeniably worse for my mental well-being, due to the threat in office work poses to my physical well-being, but it’s absolutely a tradeoff.
Also, I just want to say I hope RTO kills Paradox because I’m still bitter that they killed off the Chronicles of Darkness TTRPGs.
I work in tech and it’s surprising how many people want to work in an office. When I ask the rank and file why the reasons are usually dumb things like “I like the commute”, “I like the social interaction”, and “I like getting away from my kids”. Which like…wtf. If you like driving for 2 hours a day then just go do that on your own time? If you hate your kids why did you have them and why do you think your partner wants to be stuck with them? If you like social interaction try getting friends? The reasons are so dumb.
Management of course always has the reason of “it fosters better collaboration” which I do sort of agree with. Meetings are easier to have in person. That said if your day is more than half full of meetings you’re almost definitely not working efficiently, and so if people work better outside of meetings at home then it makes much more sense to let people do their work where they are comfortable doing the majority of the work.
So really the only legit reason is “I want to police my people” and “I want my co workers to be policed.” Only one person in my life has ever said this and I respect them for the absolute honesty. And then I tried to cut them out of everything I do at work because holy shit fuck people like that.
Offices suck there’s no reason to spend 5 days a week in one so you can sit silently on your computer and clack away
It’s also because of the sunk cost fallacy of their investments in the expensive office, which cannot be justified if people are not working there.
The other half of this is also that 46% of the employees probably already live within a reasonable distance of the workplace and don’t feel unreasonably put out by traveling in.
It’s the employees at less reasonable distances that get the most upset by these RTO policies. I would wager that you could heatmap agreement/disagreement with the policy based on distance from the workplace.
As someone who works in an office and isn’t in charge of anyone, I’ll say that I strongly disagree with the idea that there are no legitimate reasons to prefer being in office.
I get cabin fever pretty badly if I don’t have a reason to get out. Finding motivation to do that can be difficult when I don’t actually have somewhere to be. I also do enjoy chatting to my coworkers. As an adult fostering friendships outside of work and family is incredibly difficult, and I imagine you know that?
Regardless I’d still work from home if permitted, due to COVID, but the idea that wanting to have a second location that you regularly spend time in is “dumb” is wrong I think.
To reiterate, I absolutely prefer work from home at this point, even though it’s undeniably worse for my mental well-being, due to the threat in office work poses to my physical well-being, but it’s absolutely a tradeoff.
Also, I just want to say I hope RTO kills Paradox because I’m still bitter that they killed off the Chronicles of Darkness TTRPGs.