It seems like the author just really hates working in an office, and interprets office perks as traps to make you spend more time there. I too prefer working from home, but I also see that as a likely anomalous perk and can't be too upset about having to go to work in the morning.
timewizard · 15h ago
> seems like the author just really hates working in an office
I think satisfaction from working in an office is directly related to the pay given to those coming into the office. Her role would not have been a high paying one. I genuinely can't blame her for that; but, it does seem like it also made her bitter towards her co-workers specifically.
> and interprets office perks as traps to make you spend more time there.
Do they have any other actual purpose?
> but I also see that as a likely anomalous perk
It shouldn't be anomalous. The lockdowns incidentally showed that not _every_ single job needs to be held in the office by rote. It also showed that even if you do not all 5 days a week are necessary to get the benefits that come from working in a shared space.
> and can't be too upset about having to go to work in the morning.
If it's genuinely required for the job then sure. If we're doing it just because the manager just wants to do his favorite thing then I think we justifiably can take the position of being upset by this. If it has no impact on the bottom line then why are you hassling me for something you do not actually need?
tibbar · 14h ago
Yeah, the author clearly did not have a good time doing maintenance in one of these buildings, and came to resent her co-workers (and the odds are good that the author was not employed by the same firm as the programmers, increasing the sense of class divide). Interestingly, the author eventually expresses some empathy for the programmers, seeing them as over-worked startup employees, too.
Reading between the lines, I think the narrative here is that all workers are oppressed by The Man and being in an office is part of that. It's a bit of a meme to tell slightly spoiled SF engineers that they're being oppressed, can't they see it? When, realistically, it's a pretty darn good time for a lot of the engineers...
SR2Z · 13h ago
> Do they have any other actual purpose?
Some people believe that offices should be pleasant places to work. It's not a grand conspiracy.
> The lockdowns incidentally showed that not _every_ single job needs to be held in the office by rote.
Sure, but if we're being really honest then we have to accept that junior folks actually DO benefit a lot from having experienced people around and easily accessible. You CAN make up for it by scheduling a lot of 1:1 meetings, but in my experience people just don't do that and instead stay blocked.
Companies need good junior engineers, which means that more senior people also have to be in the office.
> I think satisfaction from working in an office is directly related to the pay given to those coming into the office.
I think that what you're saying here is really "how much you like going into the office depends on how much you like your job." Being paid well is just one of many components of this. Liking your coworkers/manager is probably even more important.
I think that working remote is great, but it takes a very decisive company culture and motivated employees to make it work for the business. Not every company has that and frankly I don't think that every company COULD have that.
timewizard · 12h ago
> Some people believe that offices should be pleasant places to work.
The actual belief is that they are somehow more pleasant than my own home.
> It's not a grand conspiracy.
We have a huge consumer goods economy. This was inevitable.
> which means that more senior people also have to be in the office.
What you actually need is for them to be accessible. Everyone driving to the same hole in the wall is definitely one way to achieve this. Junior and Senior engineers having slightly different schedules and planned availability might be enough.
We should probably just measure this.
> Not every company has that
They wouldn't use this building either. I was artificially constraining my argument to that context.
tpmoney · 7h ago
> The actual belief is that they are somehow more pleasant than my own home.
Is it? Or is the belief something more like “there are real benefits that accrue from putting people that work together into the same physical meatspace location and as a consequence of that we want to have a single location that all people working together will be at, so as long as we’re doing that, we might as well make the location a pleasant place to be”
It’s also probably worth remembering that for some people depending on where they are in their lives or what else is going on, that yes the office might just be a more pleasant place than their actual home. Not every person working in an office lives in a detached home with separate office space and a yard. Sometimes you live in a crappy apartment that’s too small for you and your roommates to all comfortably work from home. Sometimes you live in a fixer-upper that you’re working on, but is currently in a state of disrepair. Sometimes your home life isn’t great for various personal reasons. Sometimes you live alone and hearing other peoples voices is a novelty.
No not every office is a great place to work, and not every person has a better place to work from. I truly do not understand this mindset that views trying to make a place you’re going to spend any amount of your time - whether it’s one day a month or five days a week - into some grand conspiracy to trick you or abuse you. I’m all about flexibility but you’re not going to get anywhere by pretending there’s nothing for about office spaces.
If remote was good enough, we wouldn’t have conventions. We wouldn’t have meet ups. We wouldn’t have conferences. We wouldn’t have user group meets. Even some of the most famously remote forest companies like gitlab have a budget for people to visit their co-workers locations. Meet space matters and has real tangible benefits
anon7000 · 8h ago
Minus an internship, my entire career of 8+ years has been remote, so I’d be fairly upset if I had to change my entire way of life over a job
> Tenants are already lined up. Law firm Goodwin Proctor relocated from Three Embarcadero Center in January to take floors 31 and 32; other new tenants recently signed on for 70,000 square feet in the 38-story building, Lumpkin said. One of the main tenants is Amazon, which occupies nearly 40% of the property and requires most workers to be in the office five days a week.
It seems like the sort of thing the big tech companies often do in their own buildings?
randycupertino · 17h ago
Commercial real estate's newest offering to entire workers back to downtown offices.
> We need you down here,” he said at The Cove’s grand opening last Tuesday, explaining that this $20 million investment was key to bringing workers back to the office and revitalizing the beleaguered downtown area.
> “I want you to feel like you want to be down here every day of the week,” he added. “I can’t wait until people start complaining to me about traffic.”
SamInTheShell · 17h ago
Seems the memo got lost. We don’t like dealing with traffic.
The Cove has been around for a while, or maybe was here a while back. I'm pretty sure I remember a Cove on K St. NW in Washington, DC, probably about the 1800 block.
randycupertino · 10h ago
There's also a The Cove in the Biotech hub in SSF in Oyster Point but it has different branding/logo than this Cove - https://www.covessf.com/toc.cfm
rufus_foreman · 16h ago
It's pretty amazing they were able to develop that at under the cost of a dozen toilets.
I think satisfaction from working in an office is directly related to the pay given to those coming into the office. Her role would not have been a high paying one. I genuinely can't blame her for that; but, it does seem like it also made her bitter towards her co-workers specifically.
> and interprets office perks as traps to make you spend more time there.
Do they have any other actual purpose?
> but I also see that as a likely anomalous perk
It shouldn't be anomalous. The lockdowns incidentally showed that not _every_ single job needs to be held in the office by rote. It also showed that even if you do not all 5 days a week are necessary to get the benefits that come from working in a shared space.
> and can't be too upset about having to go to work in the morning.
If it's genuinely required for the job then sure. If we're doing it just because the manager just wants to do his favorite thing then I think we justifiably can take the position of being upset by this. If it has no impact on the bottom line then why are you hassling me for something you do not actually need?
Reading between the lines, I think the narrative here is that all workers are oppressed by The Man and being in an office is part of that. It's a bit of a meme to tell slightly spoiled SF engineers that they're being oppressed, can't they see it? When, realistically, it's a pretty darn good time for a lot of the engineers...
Some people believe that offices should be pleasant places to work. It's not a grand conspiracy.
> The lockdowns incidentally showed that not _every_ single job needs to be held in the office by rote.
Sure, but if we're being really honest then we have to accept that junior folks actually DO benefit a lot from having experienced people around and easily accessible. You CAN make up for it by scheduling a lot of 1:1 meetings, but in my experience people just don't do that and instead stay blocked.
Companies need good junior engineers, which means that more senior people also have to be in the office.
> I think satisfaction from working in an office is directly related to the pay given to those coming into the office.
I think that what you're saying here is really "how much you like going into the office depends on how much you like your job." Being paid well is just one of many components of this. Liking your coworkers/manager is probably even more important.
I think that working remote is great, but it takes a very decisive company culture and motivated employees to make it work for the business. Not every company has that and frankly I don't think that every company COULD have that.
The actual belief is that they are somehow more pleasant than my own home.
> It's not a grand conspiracy.
We have a huge consumer goods economy. This was inevitable.
> which means that more senior people also have to be in the office.
What you actually need is for them to be accessible. Everyone driving to the same hole in the wall is definitely one way to achieve this. Junior and Senior engineers having slightly different schedules and planned availability might be enough.
We should probably just measure this.
> Not every company has that
They wouldn't use this building either. I was artificially constraining my argument to that context.
Is it? Or is the belief something more like “there are real benefits that accrue from putting people that work together into the same physical meatspace location and as a consequence of that we want to have a single location that all people working together will be at, so as long as we’re doing that, we might as well make the location a pleasant place to be”
It’s also probably worth remembering that for some people depending on where they are in their lives or what else is going on, that yes the office might just be a more pleasant place than their actual home. Not every person working in an office lives in a detached home with separate office space and a yard. Sometimes you live in a crappy apartment that’s too small for you and your roommates to all comfortably work from home. Sometimes you live in a fixer-upper that you’re working on, but is currently in a state of disrepair. Sometimes your home life isn’t great for various personal reasons. Sometimes you live alone and hearing other peoples voices is a novelty.
No not every office is a great place to work, and not every person has a better place to work from. I truly do not understand this mindset that views trying to make a place you’re going to spend any amount of your time - whether it’s one day a month or five days a week - into some grand conspiracy to trick you or abuse you. I’m all about flexibility but you’re not going to get anywhere by pretending there’s nothing for about office spaces.
If remote was good enough, we wouldn’t have conventions. We wouldn’t have meet ups. We wouldn’t have conferences. We wouldn’t have user group meets. Even some of the most famously remote forest companies like gitlab have a budget for people to visit their co-workers locations. Meet space matters and has real tangible benefits
https://sfstandard.com/2025/05/22/san-francisco-office-ameni...
> Tenants are already lined up. Law firm Goodwin Proctor relocated from Three Embarcadero Center in January to take floors 31 and 32; other new tenants recently signed on for 70,000 square feet in the 38-story building, Lumpkin said. One of the main tenants is Amazon, which occupies nearly 40% of the property and requires most workers to be in the office five days a week.
It seems like the sort of thing the big tech companies often do in their own buildings?
> We need you down here,” he said at The Cove’s grand opening last Tuesday, explaining that this $20 million investment was key to bringing workers back to the office and revitalizing the beleaguered downtown area.
> “I want you to feel like you want to be down here every day of the week,” he added. “I can’t wait until people start complaining to me about traffic.”
https://youtu.be/4VrLQXR7mKU?si=NSB7VEIoVyMSphxL