Elon Musk now owns 9.2% of twitter...update.. will soon be the sole owner as Board of Directors accepts his purchase offer

[Stokely]

My company wants people to come to "collaborate" and "bounce ideas off each other." Then they put signs everywhere that say "Shhh... this is a work area."

Ok got me started on my pet subject, won't derail again on it...

I'd say "run away!" Monty Python style, but it's pretty hard to find a company not into this fad/trend. At least yours actually acknowledges it's a distraction... The big reason why this fad is so huge, nothing to do with collaboration--it's cheap. No expensive dividers needed, lots more people in a space.

Our entire row of developers had to wear noise-cancelling headphones to get any work done. Not provided by the company, mind you. That still doesn't help with visual distractions. They can take "open and collaborative" and stick it. WFH is the way if you can find it, or at least it is for me now that my kids are grown. (Kinda sucks when they are little, talk about distractions!)

Here's a crazy thought--when you want to "bounce ideas off each other" provide these new-fangled things called "conference rooms"....it's all a crock. Movies and shows don't help....the private-looking cubicles in the Matrix? Oppressive I guess (looked freaking great to me...) The cool people are always seen in open environments, lots of hustle and bustle, and nowhere do they show the poor administrators, developers and dbas hunched over their screen trying not to fuck up a query that might delete a million rows from the db because they got distracted

 

[Zorba]

Ok got me started on my pet subject, won't derail again on it...

I'd say "run away!" Monty Python style, but it's pretty hard to find a company not into this fad/trend. At least yours actually acknowledges it's a distraction... The big reason why this fad is so huge, nothing to do with collaboration--it's cheap. No expensive dividers needed, lots more people in a space.

Our entire row of developers had to wear noise-cancelling headphones to get any work done. Not provided by the company, mind you. That still doesn't help with visual distractions. They can take "open and collaborative" and stick it. WFH is the way if you can find it, or at least it is for me now that my kids are grown. (Kinda sucks when they are little, talk about distractions!)

Here's a crazy thought--when you want to "bounce ideas off each other" provide these new-fangled things called "conference rooms"....it's all a crock. Movies and shows don't help....the private-looking cubicles in the Matrix? Oppressive I guess (looked freaking great to me...) The cool people are always seen in open environments, lots of hustle and bustle, and nowhere do they show the poor administrators, developers and dbas hunched over their screen trying not to fuck up a query that might delete a million rows from the db because they got distracted

My company was about to go open office but COVID ended that, thank God.

 

[Stokely]

Yeah, the one good thing covid brought to me (so far, we'll see if new vaccines for other diseases might happen from the covid research) is WFH. It became permanent though I'm sure a lot of the top old-school brass hate it. Suck it, Trebek!

 

[thraashman]

My company was about to go open office but COVID ended that, thank God.

I had a job in the late 00's to early 2010's that had an open office type plan. We had our own desks spaced throughout the room, but there were no walls between us. This resulted in us having room wide political arguments almost daily. They eventually installed walls on each desk because we were talking across the room so much.

Where I'm at now we have cubicles, but the walls are only about 4 feet high. There's no collaboration, but literally everybody within 30 feet of me is on calls almost all day. My whole day if I'm in the office is hearing at least 3 different people talking on calls. Yeah, that's a much better work environment than my quiet office in my home where the only thing that bugs me all day is my dog when she wants pets or to go outside.

 

[sdifox]

The accountants love WFH though. Facility costs are waaay down. Even the places that still demand in office work should be able to get a sizable discount due to commercial lease price cratering.

 

[hal2kilo]

I had a job in the late 00's to early 2010's that had an open office type plan. We had our own desks spaced throughout the room, but there were no walls between us. This resulted in us having room wide political arguments almost daily. They eventually installed walls on each desk because we were talking across the room so much.

Where I'm at now we have cubicles, but the walls are only about 4 feet high. There's no collaboration, but literally everybody within 30 feet of me is on calls almost all day. My whole day if I'm in the office is hearing at least 3 different people talking on calls. Yeah, that's a much better work environment than my quiet office in my home where the only thing that bugs me all day is my dog when she wants pets or to go outside.

I used to have this posted on my cube wall when I worked at the home office authoring our new electronic tech manual for the next generation Data Recording System in SGML.

David Letterman’s Top 10 Drawbacks to Working in a Cubicle | Momma Mia, Mea Culpa

 

[thraashman]

The accountants love WFH though. Facility costs are waaay down

Unless, like myself, you work for a bank that has investments in commercial spaces.

 

[Zorba]

I had a job in the late 00's to early 2010's that had an open office type plan. We had our own desks spaced throughout the room, but there were no walls between us. This resulted in us having room wide political arguments almost daily. They eventually installed walls on each desk because we were talking across the room so much.

Where I'm at now we have cubicles, but the walls are only about 4 feet high. There's no collaboration, but literally everybody within 30 feet of me is on calls almost all day. My whole day if I'm in the office is hearing at least 3 different people talking on calls. Yeah, that's a much better work environment than my quiet office in my home where the only thing that bugs me all day is my dog when she wants pets or to go outside.

But management can see you at the office and they'd have no way to know what you are doing otherwise.

 

[Stokely]

Yeah, I love that argument. "Managers won't know if you are getting your work done if they can't walk behind you seeing with their own eyes!" I've had some managers that wouldn't know my tools from a screensaver, and furthermore if you don't have some better way to track work getting done than eyeballs, you suck at being a manager....

Management does get off on bringing vendors and other vips through their fiefdoms, so work from home has been a big hit to the ego for them.

 

[IronWing]

When we moved our office a few years back, the systems furniture folks rolled out an open office concept with daisies of small desks surrounding "collaboration space", with daisies separated from each other by a few low dividers. Desks were to be unassigned so folks could move fluidly from project space to project space. One of the older employees, who could get away with it, was the first to speak up, "Let me know when we're moving so I can set my retirement date to the week before." We ended up with a standard cube farm.

Looking back on it, it is kind of funny because the plan that the systems furniture folks proposed is exactly how we arrange field operations, with large open spaces and complete flexibility. Furniture and people get moved around every day to accommodate the immediate need. However, it is very stressful to live in a fish bowl and not sustainable long term. It works because field operations pay so much overtime that people stay happy regardless of stress.

 

[fskimospy]

But management can see you at the office and they'd have no way to know what you are doing otherwise.

I found the only thing that really changed for me with WFH was I could do laundry or run errands during the time I would otherwise have spent fucking off on the Internet in the office pretending to be busy. If anything I probably get more done at home.

The only benefits to the office I see are:
1) sometimes there really is no substitute for an in-person meeting. I find remote meetings have a lot of cross talk and confusion.

2) I think remote work might damage the careers of younger people in that it’s harder to build interpersonal relationships and that’s a good way to get promoted. Then again maybe things will adjust.

 

[Pens1566]

I found the only thing that really changed for me with WFH was I could do laundry or run errands during the time I would otherwise have spent fucking off on the Internet in the office pretending to be busy. If anything I probably get more done at home.

The only benefits to the office I see are:
1) sometimes there really is no substitute for an in-person meeting. I find remote meetings have a lot of cross talk and confusion.

2) I think remote work might damage the careers of younger people in that it’s harder to build interpersonal relationships and that’s a good way to get promoted. Then again maybe things will adjust.

Same experience here. Our overall productivity went up like 20-25%. That might have something to do with people not having commutes of an hour+ one way as well. Lots more time to do "other" stuff like errands/take deliveries/dentist/etc.

Agree on the different results for different age groups. Established professionals are fine because they have a reputation and a network already, so they're not missing out. Younger employees are missing important things like mentoring and picking up experience from senior staff.

I would find it very difficult to go back to a traditional work space. Way too many drawbacks for me.

 

[cytg111]

Listening to a podcast that brought up some of the Epstein stuff, and Musk's belief in seeding the world with rich people's DNA (aka him and other rich dudes impregnating as many women as possible), that is literally what Epstein was working towards (his New Mexico ranch or whatever was literally built to be a fertility/breeding operation and he told a lot of people about how he was planning to use Nobel Laureates as the "studs").



The rockets would be shaped like dick and balls and they'd land in silos painted to look like assholes or vaginas.

That sounds like a banging way to create more psychopaths.
Also, totally on brand for a psychopath to think like that, so the math checks out.

 

[sdifox]

Used to work at a place that insisted on on site work. They also loved offshore cheap labour. So 70 percent of the workforce was in India. So we had to go to the office to hold stand-ups on google meet...

 

[Brovane]

My company wants people to come to "collaborate" and "bounce ideas off each other." Then they put signs everywhere that say "Shhh... this is a work area."

Since about 2017 I have been pretty much WFH full time. I joined a team that was spread across the nation and my leader was on the East Coast. I had a cubicle at a local satellite office in Southern California but fairly early on when I started working for him, I asked him if he cared if I came into the office or did WFH. My new leader told he didn't care where I worked as long as the work got done. So I stopped coming into the office and setup a fairly good home office. All of this was unofficial but in the field offices nobody was checking who came into the office and who didn't so his team just did WFH and we got the job done. Then COVID hit and everything became WFH across the company I work at. Quickly the tools for WFH became better and overall my experience was improved and everyone was WFH even the people at our corporate HQ on the east coast who thought WFH was a bad idea.

In 2022 leaders where asked to create team agreements within our teams if we would by hybrid or remote workers. Very quickly our team decided on full time remote work and we all gave up our cubicles in our offices and in Work Day we had our offices set as our home addresses. The company I worked for also started downsizing offices and as leases came up not renewing and setting up hotel cubicles at the offices we kept. All this seemed to be going along fine until early this year out of the blue we got a e-mail that our leadership wanted everybody back into the office two days a week. The reason was given that we better collaborate in the office and it helps build culture. My leader was not happy because his team is spread across the nation. My nearest co-worker is about 800 miles a way. So far he has told us to continue BAU and just WFH. I predict at some point badge swipes are going to be checked and then I will see what happens then. I heard it is kind of a S@@tshow in corporate HQ because we consolidate office towers so the people usually spread across two 15 story office towers are crammed into one because of consolidation because of WFH, which also saves us money. The scheduling software is supposed to allow cubicle reservations but of course nobody wants to come in on Monday or Friday so Tue-Thur it is not good from what I am told. Have looked in our Condeco scheduling software and all the hotel cubicles are book solid as far out as you can. Just grabbing the popcorn and going to see what happens with all of this. Some people who had been told they would be remote employees actually moved to places far away from any of our offices. I never did this, I live about 45 mins away from a office. I feel awful for those people because I am hearing they are being told they have till the end of the year to start coming regularly into the office.

 

[sdifox]

I figure I am at least 30% more productive WFH since I don't have to commute.

At that same place the VP Delivery was bitching to my boss that I was leaving early (I was sitting beside him). So I had to explain to him either I sit there do nothing for a couple of hours then leave, or I leave early and continue working from home once the build is ready.

Then he told me I didn't have to tell him what I was doing since I wasn't his direct report...

 

[Stokely]

Agree with the point above about how WFH might hurt young employees, and also about in-person meetings (especially with a whiteboard). I'm far from new at my job, but if I moved on I wouldn't mind going hybrid just to avoid being an avatar and not a person to everyone...there's people on my team that I've never seen in person as they've started hiring from anywhere in-state (it's a big state).

Back more to Musk/Tesla news, there are stories about rusting Cybertrucks circulating...I honestly hope its true because my wife wants one. GTFO, I told her she'd have to park it down the street, which went over about as well as you might expect

God, I want to like Tesla and I REALLY want to like Space X--having grown up on the Space Coast with a dad who worked on all the firing room equipment--but this uber-douche makes it very difficult.

 

[Brainonska511]

Since about 2017 I have been pretty much WFH full time. I joined a team that was spread across the nation and my leader was on the East Coast. I had a cubicle at a local satellite office in Southern California but fairly early on when I started working for him, I asked him if he cared if I came into the office or did WFH. My new leader told he didn't care where I worked as long as the work got done. So I stopped coming into the office and setup a fairly good home office. All of this was unofficial but in the field offices nobody was checking who came into the office and who didn't so his team just did WFH and we got the job done. Then COVID hit and everything became WFH across the company I work at. Quickly the tools for WFH became better and overall my experience was improved and everyone was WFH even the people at our corporate HQ on the east coast who thought WFH was a bad idea.

In 2022 leaders where asked to create team agreements within our teams if we would by hybrid or remote workers. Very quickly our team decided on full time remote work and we all gave up our cubicles in our offices and in Work Day we had our offices set as our home addresses. The company I worked for also started downsizing offices and as leases came up not renewing and setting up hotel cubicles at the offices we kept. All this seemed to be going along fine until early this year out of the blue we got a e-mail that our leadership wanted everybody back into the office two days a week. The reason was given that we better collaborate in the office and it helps build culture. My leader was not happy because his team is spread across the nation. My nearest co-worker is about 800 miles a way. So far he has told us to continue BAU and just WFH. I predict at some point badge swipes are going to be checked and then I will see what happens then. I heard it is kind of a S@@tshow in corporate HQ because we consolidate office towers so the people usually spread across two 15 story office towers are crammed into one because of consolidation because of WFH, which also saves us money. The scheduling software is supposed to allow cubicle reservations but of course nobody wants to come in on Monday or Friday so Tue-Thur it is not good from what I am told. Have looked in our Condeco scheduling software and all the hotel cubicles are book solid as far out as you can. Just grabbing the popcorn and going to see what happens with all of this. Some people who had been told they would be remote employees actually moved to places far away from any of our offices. I never did this, I live about 45 mins away from a office. I feel awful for those people because I am hearing they are being told they have till the end of the year to start coming regularly into the office.

The holding company that owned my last employer started to put the screws on people. In April last year, it was "if you live within 90 minutes", you needed to be in 2-3 days a week (pick a day). Then in September, they were changing it to encourage collaboration, lol. Because they're were too many people, some agencies (basically we all did the same thing, just firewalled groups for business purposes) had one set of assigned in office days, and other agencies had a different set.

I thought it was total BS because my team was all over the country, I'd been remote from another city for 2 years prior to COVID, and we were all doing fine. Hell, our clients were also all over the world. Totally pointless. RTO didn't hit me in any meaningful way, but I saw the signs and other turmoil that was coming (layoffs), so I found another job through a former coworker who reached out, and that gave me a big raise and a way out of the fun that followed.

 

[Stokely]

It's not pointless. The points are just illogical to someone who isn't a curly-haired exec.

I'm not an exec but as a data/reporting analyst I've had the happy fortune to work on more than a couple executive reporting projects at a couple different companies. Execs basically don't live like the little people. They tend to be arrogant beyond belief, and the things that are important to them do NOT include "things that would make the workers more satisfied." I'm fully convinced that the best attribute you can have when it comes to moving up corporate ladders is to be a sociopathic asshole, so that comment about big execs spreading their seed like they are the best of humanity gets a hard "no" from me.

 

[manly]

Tesla asks shareholders to bend over and skip the lube.

Tesla asks shareholders to reinstate Musk's $56 billion pay package, approve move to Texas

Tesla (TSLA) filed its proxy statement ahead of the EV maker's June 13 shareholder meeting with two big requests: that shareholders vote to move Tesla’s state of incorporation to Texas and that they ratify CEO Elon Musk’s 2018 pay package that a Delaware judge rescinded earlier this year.

finance.yahoo.com

Wedbush analyst thinks these measures will pass, but he was also a big TSLA bull until the Q1 belly flop. Investors will love the official results next week.

 

[balloonshark]

So much for free speech on X; Musk confirms new users must soon pay to post

Musk has not yet clarified when X's "small fee" might be required for new users, only confirming in a later post that any new users who avoid paying the fee will be able to post after three months. Ars created new accounts on the web and in the app, and neither signup required any fees yet.

So much for free speech on X; Musk confirms new users must soon pay to post

The fee, likely $1, is aimed at stopping “relentless” bots, Musk said.

arstechnica.com

I guess they still have a bot problem lol. They also have another issue but charging their users ain't going to fix the "genius" in charge.

 

[IronWing]

I expect the fee will be waived for favored bots.

 

[hal2kilo]

I found the only thing that really changed for me with WFH was I could do laundry or run errands during the time I would otherwise have spent fucking off on the Internet in the office pretending to be busy. If anything I probably get more done at home.

The only benefits to the office I see are:
1) sometimes there really is no substitute for an in-person meeting. I find remote meetings have a lot of cross talk and confusion.

2) I think remote work might damage the careers of younger people in that it’s harder to build interpersonal relationships and that’s a good way to get promoted. Then again maybe things will adjust.

My experience working in the field is that, having to do a stent at your home office only helps you in the long run. Phone calls now have faces attached both ways. They get to know you personally. My increases were steady after that, and I returned to the field as the Senior Site Rep until I retired.

 

[cytg111]

I found the only thing that really changed for me with WFH was I could do laundry or run errands during the time I would otherwise have spent fucking off on the Internet in the office pretending to be busy. If anything I probably get more done at home.

The only benefits to the office I see are:
1) sometimes there really is no substitute for an in-person meeting. I find remote meetings have a lot of cross talk and confusion.

2) I think remote work might damage the careers of younger people in that it’s harder to build interpersonal relationships and that’s a good way to get promoted. Then again maybe things will adjust.

Yea, spitballing troubleshooting a problem just works better in person… I’ve also had the thought on the youngsters building a rep… It must be different…

 

[fskimospy]

My experience working in the field is that, having to do a stent at your home office only helps you in the long run. Phone calls now have faces attached both ways. They get to know you personally. My increases were steady after that, and I returned to the field as the Senior Site Rep until I retired.

I can only speak to my experience but I owe a lot of my career advancement to interpersonal relationships.

Whatever your job is there’s probably a dozen (or a thousand) people who could do it as well or better than you. Knowing the hiring manager gives them more certainty though, and that’s very valuable because getting someone who is 90% of the best is probably fine but getting someone terrible is a big problem.