40
ars1
2y

Business guy: hmmm, what do you think about getting the programmers to come to the office more often?
Me: uhhhh explain?
BG: feels like when working from home they might only give it their 90%, but in the office they'd do 100%.
Me: let's not talk about how you reached that conclusion for now. If you force them to come more often they will quit.
BG: what about the new people we want to hire?
Me: most jobs have full remote available, why would anyone pick us?
BG: hmmm. Btw next week we'll talk with some stakeholders about trying to get some outsource help. You know, for repetitive stuff that doesn't require in-house engineers.
Me: like what?
BG: you know, repetitive stuff

This is suffering. Is my only choice to tell the guy that he has no clue what he is talking about, should STFU, and let the technically capable people to handle themselves? As in, we already do but for some reason he still thinks he knows better than the people doing the god damn job? But if I do so, the salinity in his blood will bring other problems upon us.

Comments
  • 3
    Listen to themselves but not to others :/
  • 6
    :D

    1. make their own FTEs, who are dedicated to what they do and the company, quit by forbidding remote work from home

    2. hire 3rd party company whose employees have no interest in excelling at what they do to work remotely from their 3rd-party offices

    :smart_thinking_meme.png:
  • 9
    "BG: feels like when working from home they might only give it their 90%, but in the office they'd do 100%."

    yeah "feels like" is the keyword.

    I actually give it my 60% when working from home and maybe 40% from office, because people keep bothering me and suddenly there's a coffee break every 30 minutes or lunch n stuff...

    The amount of distractions in an office environment is ludicrous, especially if you have an open office, which we do
  • 3
    Business guys: uh, we feel it's more difficult to manage remote teams than onsite ones.

    Also business guys: hey engineering, we expect you to manage the offshore outsourcing team.

    How come that engineering is supposed to have better managing skills than, you know, managers?
  • 1
    Maybe business guy just went to clown school and majored in clown management. He was hired to lighten your mood, but you don't seem to get his humor.
  • 1
    Some people are not cut for full remote.

    Maybe I'm biased by my own experience (I went full remote way before covid hit).

    While I agree refusing full remote outright is a deal killer (competitors will offer it), I'd have people go to the office minimum once every two months.

    Still, OP's manager sounds like the typical superfluous middle manager threatened because remoteness shows they provide no value.

    Still. Full remote jobs require workers with a sufficient amount of autonomy and resolutiveness that you can't find in everyone (especially in juniors).
  • 1
    @CoreFusionX the weird part is that he's good at his own stuff, but for some reason feels uneasy when it comes to dev. Because he doesn't understand it, it's hard to figure out if anyone is "working properly". So I guess it's a fail on my end to reassure him or kindly tell him to suck it up if he doesn't want to make all devs leave.
  • 1
    @Hazarth same here. as we got back from 2 years of covid home office, the occassional office visit became more of a social event of chatting and catching up on others life over lunch and coffee breaks
  • 0
    @ars1 A manager should be able to define targets and timelines, that's a big part of his job, and then checking whether the goals are being met is easy.
  • 0
    @Hazarth
    I can't imagine getting anything done in an open office. It takes 15 minutes to regain your train of thought after being interrupted. Team programming makes sense. Two people one office no phones or other interruptions.
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