Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?
12 by samuel_backend | 20 comments on Hacker News.
Saying the following feels like heresy and whenever I say it, fellow software engineers look at me as if I just asked them if there are GOTOs in Javascript. I used to love going to the office. Discussing our team's latest Python problems over a coffee. Looking over at their screen and then asking them why they look like they want to beat someone over the head with their keyboard repeatedly. Guessing people's emotions in a heated Retro from their body language. Grabbing dinner with a few colleagues after a long workshop meeting in the evening and then realizing that, aside from all the differences we might have about static typing in programming languages, we all like the same exotic progressive metal bands. Many of these things that made my job much more than slaving at a digital conveyor belt seem to be gone these days. And the worst thing for me is that I feel few people relate. On the contrary, many are screaming in outrage if asked to come to the office even for a single day a week and threaten to quit. To provide a bit of context, I have been working in the Berlin Tech Startup scene for almost a decade. I remember thinking after the first few weeks on my entry-level job that this couldn't possible be the horrible "working world" I have seen relatives complain about all their lives. It was fun, gratifying and stimulating to learn new things, meet new people and all the while be payed for doing so and building a career. Now, I am fully aware that there's a low of people for whom the horror of commute doesn't make up for the gains of socializing and others that just abhor having to talk to real-life people. Then there are people who work mainly to get paid and do not care to invest themselves beyond what is necessary. But are those really the majority? I always saw tech as the field where a disproportionally large amount of people truly love what they do. Mostly, because it takes so much grit and persistence to get good at it that most people wouldn't succeed unless they see something in it beyond putting food on the table. Have I been under some weird form of Stockholm Syndrom where I actually enjoyed something that was pure torture to most? Have a lot of people realized they don't actually like being among other people, apart from their closest friends and family? And finally, I feel no one else is realizing that they are happily hacking away at the amazingly well-paid branch they're sitting on. As soon as a company's IT department is practically fully remote, why should they page a German wage for someone who is a face on a screen, when they can pay a fraction for that same face broadcasted from a few hundred kilometers further east or south? German is hardly used in business context here anyway and lower-wage countries within ±3 hours timezones abound. All in all, there is a gnawing feeling in me that Covid made a significant dent on the once fun (Berlin Startup) tech working culture for good. And worse, I suspect there is gonna be more consequences down the road for the tech job market at large that few people seem to see. I know that "the office" is a bad place for a lot of people. There may be product managers that ignore the noise-cancelling headphone stop-sign and make you lose your stack of thoughts just to ask if the dev app URL is still the same it was yesterday. There can be bad managers and unpleasant situations all around. But shouldn't we rather work on fixing those things instead of making them bearable by just turning off a camera in a Zoom meeting? From talking to friends, I feel this is a very controversial opinion to have and I don't really get why. Any help to make me understand would be greatly appreciated! And just to be clear, I absolutely do get that for some people (fresh parents, people living at home to take care of their parents etc.) remote work is a real blessing. I am just wondering if that is really the case for the majority or what it is that I'm missing.
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