[martin_drapeau]

It's all about saving time. Musk got a private jet to save time travelling around. Employees WFH to save time too. That's the hack they found to avoid commuting to work. In such they improve the quality of their lives.

Musk, Jasys and Benioff should treat their employees like they do their customers. Adapt to their needs. Asking people to come back to the office is just like selling something a customer no longer wants.

As for Musk saying "it ain't fair for service employees" I reply those are different jobs. Poor excuse.

[whoodle]

I find the “it’s not fair to service workers” incredibly unconvincing. There’s lots of things that tech workers get that service workers don’t. Better pay, better flexibility with vacations, control over schedules, probably better insurance, the ability to sit all day, etc. The fact that WFH is the line for Musk is because he doesn’t like it. The same for other CEOs. But they know that isn’t an argument anyone will listen to.

[pg_1234]

A better counter is private jets (and other perks) are not fair to regular employees.

CEOs will cave fast rather than loose their toys.

[Gigachad]

Pretty much, from all the debate, its clear that the problem isn't the office. It's the commute. I hated going to the office when it was an hour drive away, often worse with traffic incidents. But for the last few years I've lived much closer so it's a quick train trip or bike ride to work and now I much prefer going to the office. It's so obviously better for communicating with people.

[danaris]

There's been plenty of discussion about how the problem is, in many cases, also the office. Right in the discussion on this very article, in fact. [0]

There are many reasons to dislike forced work-in-the-office policies. Not all of these reasons apply to all people, but they all apply to at least some.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39968652

[pwdisswordfishc]

> treat their employees like they do their customers

So, with disdainful indifference?

[lnxg33k1]

I was like w0t, like, have you seen what kind of garbage Musk sells his customers

[adamtaylor_13]

I actually hadn’t heard that excuse yet, but holy shit. It’s like once you’re a CEO you’re back in 3rd grade where everything should be “fair” again, unless it’s YOU getting ahead in which case you’re probably just REALLY talented.

[newsclues]

Does WFH save employees or companies time?

[alkonaut]

It's the same time. An employee effectively pays me for what I feel is the "cost" of working there, which is measured in hours lost of my day.

They don't pay me to work 24/7, they pay me to work 8h per day. But of course the cost measured by the employee isn't the time lost working, it's the time lost working or commuting. So someone who used to sell 10 hours of their day to their employer and now sells 8 hours of their day to their employer for the same pay, isn't going to be happy about going back to selling 10 hours.

The fact that we got those 2 hours as an hourly "raise" at the start of the pandemic doesn't change anything. Being forced to go to back to the office is effectively a cut in your hourly rate.

[anonymoushn]

Do you commute to work via teleporter?

[cladopa]

And money, lots of money. A small house in Silicon Valley costs millions of dollars, but companies demand people work there.

[whazor]

With more people working from home, we need less concentration of people living nearby their work. This would decrease housing pricing and allow service workers to live closer to their work.

[martin_drapeau]

Pulling on the thread of executives blaming WFH for poor productivity, it just points to their lack of adaptability and poor management.

WFH is a global trend and something you cannot fight. People will just go elsewhere.

Executives should indeed highlight there is a problem and fix it accordingly by changing how managers operate. Not by trying to wind back time.

[vouaobrasil]

> As for Musk saying "it ain't fair for service employees" I reply those are different jobs. Poor excuse.

Exactly. I had a service job and I didn't mind going into work at all because that's what the job is. And besides, interacting with customers is much preferable to being in a building surrounded by people typing on keyboards when no one actualy needs to be there.

Should we now say that executive jobs are unfair to employees because employees don't get to run the company?

[newsclues]

I worked a service job that required going to work for minimum wage and wasn’t happy that my wage didn’t increase when WFH employees got the benefit of WFH during COVID.

A class of workers benefited, but other classes didn’t.

[cladopa]

Musk was a terrible employee himself, he always wanted to do things his way. When Musk talks about WFH, it is something personal, you can see his face because he gets emotional.

I believe it is a good thing to meet colleagues from time to time in the same place, but for deep work I need to work alone. No distractions, on my place.

As an adult I can manage myself better than most people can.

[kkfx]

Managers do want people in the office to physically lock them: if you are a giant in a certain place most works for you or have to migrate elsewhere and moving homes scare many, it's not easy, family members might have issues moving their jobs together, eventual kids might suffer loosing friends and change schools and so on. People in the office means people more tied to their employers, more keen to accept not-so-nice things at work, not-so-nice changes and so on.

While remote workers can change employers potentially just changing some login screens, witch makes them less keen to accept bad work conditions or bag changes.

[piva00]

> As for Musk saying "it ain't fair for service employees" I reply those are different jobs. Poor excuse.

Of course it's poor excuse, solidarity amongst workers is something Musk actively fights against, using that as a rallying cry for this is more than a poor excuse, it's blatant weaponisation of empathy against workers themselves.

Fuck that noise.