Remote Work Is Failing Young Employees

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/opinion/remote-work-gen-z.html

by amrrs • 5 years ago

36 46 5 years ago

wyrm• 5 years ago

That was a really long way to say "Lots of people still use work as their only social engagement." and "Lots of people can't form a coherent thought long enough to write an email."

ahartmetz• 5 years ago

I suspect that it's easier to throw together a NY Times article than to write a completely coherent e-mail. /s

bloodyplonker22• 5 years ago

The NY Times has really gone downhill when compared to 20-30 years ago.

fivea2• 5 years ago

I suspect that it's easier to throw together a NY Times article than to write a completely coherent e-mail. /s

You're not refuting OP's point though.

The article includes the following quote:

“I was shocked at how all the skills I had learned on how to navigate this type of environment in person evaporated remotely,” Kiersten said.

And also:

“If I was sitting next to my manager, I could just have a quick chat and move on,” he said. “But I’m much less likely to Slack my manager and ask something because I don’t know what they’re up to at the moment. The amount of on-the-job learning has reduced dramatically.”

So the author managed to find the two 20 year olds who struggle with online communication and it's async nature. It seems clear that the OP makes a good point.

dang• 5 years ago

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

gravypod6• 5 years ago

Is there anyone who believes this on HN? If so, I'd love to have a discussion about why you feel this is the case. I'm young (24) and am performing very well in the workplace. I'm actually much more productive when remote than when I go to an office and waste a bunch of time on commuting.

A lot of this "people need to socialize" stuff feels very patronizing to me. I think socializing with coworkers used to be seen as a risky thing to do, now it's encouraged. I don't like the idea of building my entire friend group, or a majority of it, around who I work with.

missedthecue• 5 years ago

I'm young. Remote work is a lot more convenient for me, but it is essentially impossible to build meaningful relationships when all your coworkers are nothing more than a Slack pfp.

And being unable to build meaningful relationships makes it harder to grow a career.

sjg007• 5 years ago

Start having 1:1 zoom calls.

gravypod6• 5 years ago

is essentially impossible to build meaningful relationships when all your coworkers are nothing more than a Slack pfp

I grew up on irc, ventrilo, teamspeak, and now discord. Some of my best friends are just usernames (not even profile pics)! It is possible to build long standing relationships with people just through text and voice chat, let alone video.

And being unable to build meaningful relationships makes it harder to grow a career.

Harder or unfamiliar? No generation has had remote as an available option as ours has. In the same way we say "X is harder than Y" in technology when really we mean "I have used X but not Y" it might just be something we need to attempt.

rdtwo• 5 years ago

I mean it’s not a problem when you recruit the top 0.1% of candidates but when you pull even from the top 10-20% pool you get a lot of folks that aren’t very self motivated to learn without some guidance from coworkers.

totony• 5 years ago

I don't like the idea of building my entire friend group, or a majority of it, around who I work with.

I think you're seeing this in the wrong light; you interact with your teammates (even remotely) way more than most people. Isn't it healthy to have good relationships with them?

Wiseacre2• 5 years ago

Is that really the wrong light? If anything, spending 30 hours a week with coworkers instead of 40+ would allow you to build actual relationships with real life friends instead of relying on your work to be your social life too.

fivea2• 5 years ago

I think you're seeing this in the wrong light; you interact with your teammates (even remotely) way more than most people. Isn't it healthy to have good relationships with them?

There's a huge difference between having good relationships with your colleagues and being forced to build your social life around your job. One is a basic requirement and the other is a huge problem.

throwaway554219• 5 years ago

I'm 30 and quit the field indefinitely because working from home feels like an enormous backward step.

I spent most of my childhood in my bedroom grinding to make a better life and "get out" of the small town I grew up in.

I got there, and after a few short years the world decided to retreat to their bedrooms.

I enjoy riding the Tube, or cycling, or walking. I enjoy driving too. I enjoy seeing people on busy high streets, I enjoy chatting / playing card games over lunch at work, etc.

I never made work my entire social circle, my colleagues were always colleagues, I have other avenues for that.

There's also the whole "corona theater" element, with people pretending that they don't want to come in because they'll die or whatever, which might have made sense for a month or two in March last year but now is just a sign that you're dealing with someone who is either deliberately lying or just has no understanding of the situation.

I genuinely think that WFH for the vast majority is just a step towards the dystopia of having people live in endless tower blocks somewhere, plugged into a wall with a VR headset and a nutrition drip. It'd be more efficient and convenient.

But I don't want to be efficient. I could maximize my efficiency by jumping off a bridge.

That ain't life.

derekjdanserl• 5 years ago

Very well said. Same age here and I could not agree more. I don’t like traffic, but for that we need a base level of public transportation infrastructure, not this WFH nightmare dystopia.

syvolt• 5 years ago

It sounds like you just want to live downtown. Commuting and all it entails is a side of humanity I'd rather not see again. Waking up and seeing people in terrible moods going to jobs they hate. Micromanagement, pestering, time wasted on useless conversations.

I think if you look at it at just the surface level it does seem like a step backwards. In really there's a reason so many companies switched to it, it wasn't because they're secret operatives trying to plug us up to nutritus-3000 to maximize our LOC, it's because of reduced friction for the worker.

I think a lot of people forget about terrible managers as well, with WFH the surface area of harm a bad manager can cause you is limited which can immediately make a terrible office job into a tolerable remote one.

gravypod6• 5 years ago

I enjoy riding the Tube, or cycling, or walking. I enjoy driving too. I enjoy seeing people on busy high streets, I enjoy chatting / playing card games over lunch at work, etc.

Is there anything preventing from you doing a "commute" before work each day when working from home or renting an office space like a WeWork? If you like it, nothing is stopping you from doing a commute.

There's also the whole "corona theater" element, with people pretending that they don't want to come in because they'll die or whatever, which might have made sense for a month or two in March last year but now is just a sign that you're dealing with someone who is either deliberately lying or just has no understanding of the situation.

I don't know if that's a fair characterization. Everyone has their own risk tolerance and for different people that's a different value. Maybe someone lives with someone older, like a parent or close relative, and doesn't want to be a vector to transmit to them?

I genuinely think that WFH for the vast majority is just a step towards the dystopia of having people live in endless tower blocks somewhere, plugged into a wall with a VR headset and a nutrition drip. It'd be more efficient and convenient.

I see requiring people to come into an office leads to the same thing. I want WFH so I can move out of a city central area and live in a cheaper community where I can walk around without fear of getting mugged, know local business owners, etc.

penjelly4• 5 years ago

Comment is dripping with hyperbole

here's also the whole "corona theater" element, with people pretending that they don't want to come in because they'll die or whatever

if people are forced to vaccinate and wear masks by their own government why is it theater when they just want to expose themselves to 25-100 less people everyday? Cant have it both ways

mk812• 5 years ago

There's also the whole "corona theater" element, with people pretending that they don't want to come in because they'll die or whatever, which might have made sense for a month or two in March last year but now is just a sign that you're dealing with someone who is either deliberately lying or just has no understanding of the situation.

"Sure, I went to a packed restaurant with friends this weekend but I feel uncomfortable coming into the office."

penjelly4• 5 years ago

29 here (still young). i am also way more productive from home, particularly because my job involves external devices which cant easily be ferried back and forth. The company i work for would see a drop in income i generate if i was forced back, 1 hour commute both ways, no lunchtime fitness habit, no time for morning wellness habits, and i wouldnt be able to put in an extra hour comfortably while i make food or wait for CI builds. All these would negatively affect my performance.

agreed to socialization, i dont need daily face to face socialization with those i work with, we already slack and chat while we work.

im against full/part time return to office, the only thing i would consider is optional social event days once a month or so (previously we had work events for all sorts of seasonal events) id go in for those sometimes, just to socialize with my fellows.

FooBarBizBazz• 5 years ago

This is not just a "remote work" thing. It's simply how people are today -- even in person. It's a cold, transactional world.

imbnwa• 5 years ago

How about corporations stopped investing in career development failing young employees?

Apocryphon4• 5 years ago

Contrary to the comments here, the article has some solid suggestions and isn’t an attack on remote work:

We asked early career workers what resources they wished they could have had during those early pandemic months, and the responses were full of helpful ideas for any company. Most important, they wanted a clearly delineated mentor who — crucially — was not also their supervisor or in charge of evaluating their performance. One person suggested a dual mentor program that paired new employees with a co-worker in a similar position in the company who could offer advice on more quotidian concerns, as well as a more senior employee who could provide longer-term career advice.

And

People wanted opportunities to sit in on calls with senior members of different teams — the equivalent of silently sitting in on an in-person meeting — if only to get a better sense of what others’ jobs entailed. They wanted access to email templates for specific kinds of intra-office and out-of-office outreach. They wanted to know what time was normal to reply to emails. In short, they wanted to be told what they were supposed to be doing at work and how to do it successfully. Even those who admitted that such guidance could quickly become stifling agreed that it was better than flailing around with vague expectations and zero guidance.

908B64B197• 5 years ago

That's the real definition of inclusivity.

pg_1234• 5 years ago

The problem is, are the companies willing to pay senior rates (or better) for the time spent mentoring. Because right now the seniors are sitting pretty with an impaired next generation driving up their market value. If they fix the problem, they sabotage their generation to the benefit of the employers and the next generation ... they should be getting paid top dollar for doing that.

It's basically the prisoner's dilemma applied to an entire job market, someone is going to sell out so it may as well be you, but don't sell cheap.

Wiseacre2• 5 years ago

A better title: the cut throat lifestyle of needing to plan our (social) lives around work is failing mostly everyone.

penjelly4• 5 years ago

on the job learning and mentorship havent stopped. Some people work very hard to ensure team culture improves during times like these. If mentorship isnt happening, discuss with your team lead or manager and push for more.

I agree that some types of employees have started neglecting duties because "wfh i do what i want" but the rest of us are working/helping others just as much as before, if not more.

Remote Work Is Failing Young Employees

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