[HN Gopher] A recent poll of employees who are working remotely
___________________________________________________________________
A recent poll of employees who are working remotely
Author : Simon_M
Score : 151 points
Date : 2021-01-28 17:36 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (today.yougov.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (today.yougov.com)
| D13Fd wrote:
| From the small business side, office space in a prime location is
| super expensive and it would be nice to cut back on that.
| 01100011 wrote:
| If we take global warming seriously, then all of us who can work
| from home will end up working from home. If we take global
| warming seriously, we will incentivize using less energy, at
| least until we have mostly replaced non-carbon neutral energy. If
| we incentivize using less energy, there will be pressure not to
| commute.
|
| Unless there is an analysis that shows there are energy benefits
| to centralizing your workforce(more efficient coffee machines,
| lighting, HVAC, etc), the pressure will be there to let them stay
| at home.
| pbuzbee wrote:
| Almost a year in, it seems like there isn't a clear consensus in
| whether or not we (as a whole) are more productive when working
| distributed. If there isn't a clear winner, I would hope that
| companies would err on the side of improving employee well-being
| by providing flexibility.
|
| At the individual level, productivity in office VS at home varies
| depending on your personal circumstances, preferences, and role.
| I hope larger companies realize that a one-size-fits-all policy
| isn't the best solution.
|
| Instead, I'd like them to allow individual teams to decide what
| options they want to allow within the team (full-time in office,
| work from home N days/week, full-time remote, etc.) Then the team
| can develop norms and processes for work and communication that
| make sense.
| jonahrd wrote:
| And here is a (poorly written) article saying that "top bankers"
| say WFH is falling apart:
| https://montrealgazette.com/executive/careers/top-bankers-so...
|
| We'll see whose opinions matter more when this is over... workers
| or executives.
| mabbo wrote:
| Simply put, if my employer told me I needed to be in the office
| more than 5 days per month, I would find a new employer.
|
| I'm more productive than ever. I'm happier than ever. I'm eating
| healthier. I sleep better. My marriage is stronger. My finances
| are kicking ass.
|
| I won't give this up.
| xornox wrote:
| I do not need an expensive car anymore when I am working from
| home. That alone is huge benefit.
| IMTDb wrote:
| Too take the exact opposite view :
|
| Simply put, if my employer told me I needed to setup zoom calls
| every time I need to talk to someone more than 5 days per
| month, I would find a new employer. I'm less productive than
| ever. I'm more depressed than ever. I'm eating poorly and
| drinking more. I almost don't sleep anymore. I just want to
| spend few hours by myself instead of being constantly around my
| family members. My finances are unchanged.
|
| I won't give this up. Give me a schedule, a break from home to
| work, let me see and meet people.
| ndiscussion wrote:
| Maybe you should improve your home life... that's really sad,
| man. You deserve better.
|
| If you hate your family so much why don't you move in with
| roommates? I don't talk to my family either.
| kashura wrote:
| How many of the issues above do you control? I could make an
| argument the zoom calls being the only thing.
| dudul wrote:
| What do zoom calls have to do with eating poorly and drinking
| more? What does it have to do with not sleeping?
|
| Go to the office if you want (to be "by yourself"? a bit
| weird but whatever) and let your coworker stay home if they
| prefer that.
|
| Sounds like your problems are caused by something a bit more
| profound than a few zoom calls a day.
| ryandrake wrote:
| It's almost as if different people have very different
| preferences and companies should provide flexibility to work
| in whatever way you prefer and are most productive.
| IMTDb wrote:
| Exactly, until people need to work together. If I like
| talking face to face in an office, and you prefer talking
| via zoom from home: either I have to yield to your
| preference and setup zoom, or you have to yield to mine and
| come to the office.
|
| And that's where company/team policy and culture will rule.
| Some companies will be "remote first" and zoom will win -
| most of the time. Some companies will be "onsite first" and
| office it will be - most of the time. Both policies are
| completely OK when understood and agreed upon by everyone.
| I know that it's important for me, personally, to work in a
| company that will favour the office option. I also know
| that some other people will prefer the zoom option. The key
| part I believe is that company should clearly set and
| communicate their policies and expectations and employees
| should seek to work in companies that have culture matching
| their preferred way of working.
| snarf21 wrote:
| That's cool, it's your preference. A lot of people prefer going
| in, especially if they are single and live alone.
| wjamesg wrote:
| You are quite privileged
| dang wrote:
| Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN,
| and especially not ones that are personally provocative. It
| just makes discussion worse.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| kashura wrote:
| Why? Because an individual has difference circumstances they
| are automatically "privileged"?
| anewaccount2021 wrote:
| Why are you working if not to earn privilege?
| superbcarrot wrote:
| On the opposite side, if there was no covid and my employer
| gave me the option to either WFH or go to the office, I would
| go to the office every single day. Hopefully people will have
| more options in the near future instead of being forced into a
| model they don't like whether it's the office or WFH.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| I left a job in February 2020 because they had instituted a
| policy that no more employees would get remote work...a year
| earlier, they promised me WFH after a year. It was a big
| reason I left. Then, covid hit, and suddenly WFH was and
| still is mandatory.
| dang wrote:
| Url changed from https://simon-moxon.medium.com/employers-will-
| have-no-choice..., which points to this.
| spamizbad wrote:
| I worry that companies are going to pull back from allowing WFH
| once the pandemic is over and dust settles.
|
| It's been tolerated and embraced by organizations because their
| feared dip in productivity never surfaced -- in fact, some
| organizations found themselves _more_ productive. But employees
| are taking less vacation and putting in more hours since their
| social options are greatly restricted due to the pandemic.
|
| So what happens to the perception of productivity in late
| 2021/2022 when people start burning through all that banked
| vacation time and start socializing again instead of putting in
| an extra hour or two in the evening before bed? I could see
| employers panicking.
| throw8932894 wrote:
| My country has new rule about minimal square space per employee.
| Capacity of our office is now reduced to 20%. 80% employees have
| to work from home, they do not fit into our office.
|
| If this rule is permanent, companies may not be able to afford
| office space. WFH may become "new normal" bcos it is only thing
| company can afford.
|
| In old days, flu spread in office like wild fire. Companies
| outsourced negative externalities (sick leave and sick holidays)
| to their employees. Now we have way more transmissible viruses
| and probably new regulations.
| djrogers wrote:
| > Now we have way more transmissible viruses and probably new
| regulations.
|
| That's incorrect _and_ largely irrelevant. We have _one_ virus
| that's more dangerous, but not necessarily more transmissible
| than the flu, measles, or the common cold (and demonstrably
| less transmissible than many viruses).
|
| Unless you are of the irrational belief that we have somehow
| reached a point in history when serial deadly pandemics are the
| norm instead of the exception, then there's no reason that we
| can't go back to a world where we can work in person again...
|
| Wether we want to or not is the relevant question.
| xornox wrote:
| High enough human population leads to continuous pandemics.
| It is law of nature and can not be changed.
| throw8932894 wrote:
| I think we are way past rationality. I do not see how we can
| go back to normal.
|
| Hygiene rules will change, and companies have to adapt.
| sharkweek wrote:
| My partner works in operations for [fairly large company]. Her
| job is to min/max space use, organize for hiring pushes, keep the
| office space humming, revamp existing space as needed, plan out
| new space... etc. etc. etc. It's an interesting job, she's
| probably the person you're pissed at when your desk gets
| seemingly randomly moved to another floor.
|
| Right before COVID, she was managing a HUGE densification project
| to get more desks in their company's current footprint. That
| obviously got entirely axed March 2020 (over a year of work down
| the drain), and it's been her job the last year to figure out WFH
| and what post-COVID-19 workspace looks like.
|
| The executives are wanting people back in the office. They've
| seen enough they don't like about full WFH that they do want
| people back in the building at some point when it's safe. But
| they also don't want everyone in the building at the same time
| anymore. Basically, they want to operate the building at pre-
| pandemic capacity of 50% or so, rotating who is in and who isn't.
|
| With that comes some unique space challenges, including but not
| limited to how does having a desk work if only 50% of people are
| in the office on a given day. They haven't chosen a final
| solution yet as there are A LOT of moving pieces, but it has been
| interesting to watch.
| twh270 wrote:
| Can you expand on "[The executives have] seen enough they don't
| like about full WFH"? I'm trying to gather enough anecdotal and
| "research-y" data to make decisions around this for myself and
| friends/co-workers.
| sharkweek wrote:
| It'd be hard to do so without getting a little too specific
| but I will add two pieces of context:
|
| 1) The company has a small technical corner, but is mostly a
| non-technical org.
|
| 2) The average age of the company is quite a bit older than
| one more focused on technology might stereotypically be and,
| at the risk of sounding ageist, has proven to be far less
| interested in engaging with modern technologies that would
| make WFH smooth/productive.
| minhaz23 wrote:
| Walmartlabs?
| scarmig wrote:
| Despite all the individual cases of people claiming WFH makes
| them more productive, in the aggregate employees are not. In
| the particular data I've seen, new employees and more junior
| employees suffer significantly, even while more senior
| engineers hold steady or improve, perhaps because their
| responsibilities shift to more easily quantifiable metrics
| than knowledge sharing, mentoring, and onboarding.
| pnutjam wrote:
| Protip, the people doing more work would have been doing
| everyone else's work in the office. They are the ones that
| get stuff done and often get no attention for it, because
| doing everyone else's work is hard to quantify.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| Right, my company plans to let us work from home a maximum of 3
| days a week in the future, but they're cutting our office space
| by at least 30%. So we wouldn't have a designated desk anymore,
| just a bunch of similar desks on a first-come-first-serve basis
| every day.
|
| My main issue with this is that you can't set up your desk how
| you like it anymore. You can't set the desk height, you get a
| chair that's differently broken every day, often a different
| sized screen, you can't ensure to seat nearby the people you
| need to collaborate with, you can't put up some decoration or
| printed cheatsheets...
| walshemj wrote:
| Thankfully the days of ramming people into ever smaller
| footprints seems to be reversing
| andrekandre wrote:
| > Basically, they want to operate the building at pre-pandemic
| capacity of 50% or so, rotating who is in and who isn't.
|
| i dont know if rotation or full wfh forever is a good idea, but
| i must say that pandemic or not, offices (at least the open
| kind) at anything above 50% capacity are horrible places to
| work... the noise, distractions and reduced oxygen levels are
| brain-killing...
| macNchz wrote:
| > With that comes some unique space challenges, including but
| not limited to how does having a desk work if only 50% of
| people are in the office on a given day.
|
| I've heard of companies hot-desking like this so they can have
| fewer desks than total employees, splitting each desk between
| people whose schedules are "out of phase" with each other. It
| sounds basically intolerable.
|
| I'm somewhat less sensitive to many common office complaints
| than a lot of sw engineers I've worked with, but if this were
| something my employer announced I'd be on my way out
| immediately.
| michaelt wrote:
| It'd certainly be alienating not to have a desk if you were
| in the office every day.
|
| But if you're doing two days a week in the office, all your
| meetings will move into those days so they can happen in
| person, so you'll miss having your own desk less.
| alextheparrot wrote:
| This really is the worst of both worlds for the employees.
| Employees are still bound to a physical location, but you also
| have to maintain a home office and heterogenous communications
| stack [0]. Also, coordinating who is in the office when is a
| nightmare and can often lead to oversubscribed days.
|
| The only utility I can see is if you need to run for
| appointments that are easier to do when working from home, but
| this is less about remote work and more about flexible working
| hours.
|
| [0] Having worked in a team with distributed offices, a fairly
| large company like your partner's can definitely solve this.
| pnutjam wrote:
| True, I am not interested in coming in to the office more
| then once a quarter.
| dbcurtis wrote:
| Meh. I started my current job during pandemic. Some weeks I
| am in 100%, others zero. I have a desk in the ghost town, but
| spend a lot of time in the lab for hands-on stuff. I would be
| perfectly happy with a "desk hotelling" situation on a
| permanent basis. The plant is someplace I visit when I need
| to hook up probes.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm not sure it's quite worst of both worlds. One of my
| company's local offices would be a 90ish minute commute.
| That's doable for a day a week but not really sustainable a
| lot more frequently than that. (I used to have another job
| with a similar commute; it was rough on a regular basis even
| if I didn't go in many days.)
|
| You can definitely increase the radius of where you can live
| but you're right that you can't go live in a mountain town.
| slavapestov wrote:
| Living in an outer suburb of the city where your office is
| located is still a lot less compelling than being able to
| live where you want though.
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd live somewhere different to be honest.
| I'm far enough out of the city that I'm essentially in a
| rural area. I like being close enough to a major city
| that I can go in for theater and things like that in
| normal times (and access to a major airport).
|
| Certainly I could live wherever in the country I wanted
| to--though western US starts to become more difficult
| because of timezone differences to Europe--but no
| interest in moving at this point.
| dang wrote:
| The submitted URL was https://simon-moxon.medium.com/employers-
| will-have-no-choice..., but that is not a very substantive
| article, and there have been countless of these. Also, as
| commenters have pointed out here, it misrepresents the poll it's
| based on.
|
| Normally we'd downweight such a submission as a follow-up [1] on
| an extremely repetitive topic [2], but this thread turned out to
| be quite a bit better and more thoughtful than usual, so I've
| changed the URL instead to an article about the survey.
|
| [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=follow-
| up%20by%3Adang&dateRang...
|
| [2]
| https://hn.algolia.com/?query=curiosity%20repetition%20by:da...
| missedthecue wrote:
| It seems unlikely to me that the disaster that's been schooling-
| from-home has somehow been a stunning success for work-from-home,
| and I think most employers see it.
| switch007 wrote:
| Yup. Publicly employers are stating how important children are
| and that they're fully understanding. No doubt in the board
| room it's a bit more like "stupid children distracting our
| employees. This needs fixing"
| derekperkins wrote:
| Those can both be simultaneously true. Employers can be
| supportive while still trying to regain lost productivity.
| ska wrote:
| In my broader circles, there is a massive divide in this
| between people with school-age children and people without,
| which shouldn't be a surprise I suppose.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| What's optimal for a 9 year old schoolchild isn't necessarily
| optimal for a 30 year old professional.
| missedthecue wrote:
| College from home has been a spectacular failure as well
| sisu_man wrote:
| Work from home has given me opportunities that were previously
| unavailable because companies did not want remote employees (it
| was not in the culture). I can now pick up some part time
| contract work at these places to help save $$.
|
| IMO WFH is a lot easier on smaller teams/org's, where you have
| deep expertise. It is not a pancea, but it certainly is better
| then no WFH.
| groundCode wrote:
| The company still holds the power though. Your current contract
| is unlikely stipulate that you can work full time remote. I
| suspect that until there are enough options in the hiring market
| for employees to "vote with their feet", employers will want to
| return to bums on seats.
| pjettter wrote:
| For some, WFH is more attractive and more productive than for
| others. But why does it have to be an either or? There are
| advantages with sitting next to colleagues. There are advantages
| with being able to skip the commute and being able to concentrate
| at home. Ideally, someone would choose what's most productive,
| which is probably a mix of WFH and working on site.
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| > But why does it have to be an either or?
|
| In mixed onsite / remote teams, the remote employees can be
| seriously disadvantaged regarding access to information,
| participation in decision-making, etc.
|
| Some of the comments above mention this effect, and my own
| personal experience has _very_ painfully confirmed it. It was a
| truly awful experience for me. I suspect it 's what lead to the
| maxim, "If _anyone_ is remote, then _everyone_ must be remote.
| "
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea, I don't think the WFH advocates are proposing "mandatory
| remote work." All we want is the option. It's the WFO folks
| that are saying "we want to WFO and we want to make everyone do
| it too!"
| whiddershins wrote:
| One thing I think isn't being factored in is the interaction
| between remote working and remote school for kids.
|
| Depending on a bunch of factors, remote work could be much more
| pleasant or taxing during school closures than it might be during
| 'normal' times.
|
| I guess a similar point could be made even just about spouses
| both doing remote work at the same time, or even roommates.
| ska wrote:
| I suspect a lot of the "we're all going to be remote from now on"
| sentiment is overblown.
|
| It seems to me more likely that there will be a few more remote
| friendly companies, and a very few more remote-only companies
| after the dust settles, but the real shift will be for most
| "office based" workers will be the expectation of partially
| working from home.
|
| There is a big difference between "never going to an office
| again" and "not going in 5 days a week".
| lostcolony wrote:
| Yeah, that's my hope too. It expands the 'reasonable' region to
| work from by a LOT, and gets the benefit of both worlds.
| Honestly, a lot of companies would benefit if they used it as
| reason to try and ensure that on site days were synced, and any
| meeting of substance was held for those days.
| zelos wrote:
| That's definitely my sense of it. In normal times I worked from
| home one day a week and it was (ever so slightly) frowned on. I
| expect that to shift to most people doing one day a week at
| home and many doing 2-3 days.
| dalbasal wrote:
| I think that "after the dust settles" may not be such a
| specific point.
|
| We sit at our desks and communicate via IM & email anyway. The
| internet has changed reality, and changed a lot of the
| underlying logic for the status quo. Social distancing for a
| whole year is one hell of a catalyst.
|
| Meanwhile, there are real economic factors like large housing
| cost and wage disparities between (often nearby) locations.
| Reasons why remote isn't always good notwithstanding,
| underlying economics exerts has a ratchet like influence.
| ...Not to mention globalisation.
|
| So yes, I agree that the maximalist prediction is overblown.
| That said, I think this is a complex chain-of-events type of
| process that is now going to be moving faster. Companies are
| now more experienced/capable of remote. Employees are more
| capable of it. People have an understanding of it, how to fix
| it, etc.
|
| It's a combination of prevailing wind and gust of wind.
| corobo wrote:
| Oh yeah the real change will be that you now have to work when
| sick instead of taking the day off
|
| Just work from home :D
| tester756 wrote:
| wtf? no, lol.
|
| I don't think anyone sane would even suggest that unless very
| specific stuff
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| Thankfully my job has kept the same sick policy, if you are
| sick, don't work, just rest and get better. Granted we are
| all consultants and contractors, so it also saves them from
| paying for a full day with a likely substantial decrease in
| output.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| I'm curious to see what other changes come about in this new
| sometimes-remote world.
|
| These days, most professional employees get a set amount of
| vacation time, lets say 20 days. In the previous system, if you
| wanted to fly halfway around the world to visit family or what-
| have-you, you might use half of those vacation days in one go.
| Now, if you're only expected to be in the office 1 day per week
| ("Meeting Monday"), you could take that same trip and use just
| 2 days of vacation, assuming you're working, or at least a
| making a passable semblance of working during the rest of that
| trip. Heck, you could take almost half of the Meeting Mondays
| for a year if you work the rest of the time.
|
| In some sense, that's no problem. One of the big points of
| remote work is that it doesn't matter where you are, as long as
| you get your work done. But the reality is, those occasional
| in-person days seem to be very important for really connecting
| with teammates. If Nomad Ned seems to always be missing Meeting
| Monday but I can rely on Local Larry to be there, I may be much
| happier and feel more connected with Larry, even if they both
| take the same number of vacation days per year.
|
| Between geopay, tax rules, wanting employees to be close enough
| to an office for in-person meetings or emergencies, etc, I
| think employers are going to become much more invasive in terms
| of tracking the locations of their employees going forward.
| standardUser wrote:
| I have a group of coworkers who've taken the initiate to slyly
| relocate during the pandemic, in some cases signing leases and
| buying houses. I think their idea is to either stay fully
| remote indefinitely or find a different remote job if the
| company won't abide.
|
| The remote revolution may be overblown in general, but for
| programmers, the appeal is particularly strong. They've seen
| the promised land and it turns out it's in a nice home office
| in Bend OR, not a Bay Area traffic jam.
| psim1 wrote:
| If by "slyly" you mean without notifying their employers,
| this could backfire on them in small and big ways. In a small
| way, it would affect local/state taxes that are withheld. In
| a big way, employers--whether rightly or wrongly--want to
| know where the employee lives in order to set a cost-of-
| living salary. If the employer finds out you're taking a SF
| salary while living in Bend, there are likely to be
| consequences.
| aspaceman wrote:
| I think they mean ask for forgiveness instead of
| permission, as the saying goes.
| jupiter90000 wrote:
| In addition, some states may penalize the employer for not
| paying state payroll taxes including state unemployment
| insurance for the employee. Realistically, this may be
| difficult for a state to determine but if there is a lease
| or mortgage involved it could make it more likely.
|
| In any case, as an employee I may not care that much about
| paying back taxes later or whatever, but I think you're
| right there could be unintended consequences with this.
| kodah wrote:
| There are _some_ people who cannot work from home. These people
| have been especially vocal. Sometimes they include people who
| have kids, other times they include people who get their social
| interaction in at work. I think the office _should_ accommodate
| them as well as remote workers.
|
| The biggest challenge I've faced being on a remote team (read:
| not necessarily WFH) is that people who are at the primary
| physical location are acutely unaware of their remote
| colleagues. On VCS systems they'll shout and have conversations
| with each other, they won't focus conversations in chat or make
| equivalent channels for hallway conversations, and they'll
| assign work to themselves first.
|
| I'd like to have the option for remote work to be available to
| me in the future and if we're going to do that then that means
| people who go into primary locations _must_ learn to play ball
| with everyone.
| kube-system wrote:
| In my experience, there are two ways for a company to be
| successful at having remote employees:
|
| 1. everyone is 100% remote
|
| 2. everyone comes into the office occasionally
|
| Anything else leads to a two-tiered system.
| dalbasal wrote:
| Luckily/unluckily, companies can operate just fine with
| tiered systems. They're often more comfortable with this
| kind of structure.
| taylodl wrote:
| That's the same conclusion my company, a Fortune 500
| utility company in the US, came too. Their solution? 90% of
| the staff is expected to continue working remotely as the
| new normal. Frankly it's working too well. Productivity has
| increased, employees are happy, we've successfully on-
| boarded new hires and we can expand the geographical range
| from which we can hire. Win-win-win. The executives are
| happy, the workers are happy, we're all saving time and
| money - this is good!
| chrisco255 wrote:
| I don't think so. My company was remote-first before the
| pandemic, but we still had about 25% of our staff or so go
| into an office regularly. The key is to have that remote-
| first attitude in spite of there being an office. One of
| the rules we had was "if one person is remote that's
| supposed to be on a meeting, then everyone has to treat
| that as a remote meeting and Zoom in". In other words, no
| one was on unequal footing for important team decisions,
| and if you had 5 people in an office that were supposed to
| have a meeting with 2 other remote peeps, those 5 people
| would jump on their laptops for the meeting, not huddle
| into a conference room. Subtle changes like this make a big
| difference.
| ghaff wrote:
| I work with teams that have rules like that.
|
| The other thing to consider is that many of us routinely
| work with people across much of the world on a day-to-day
| basis. Even if everyone were in office--some are, some
| aren't--almost every meeting I'd be in would have people
| from 2 or 3 different offices. One office I work with a
| lot is in the same time zone. The other is 6 time zones
| away but that still works pretty well because we have
| meetings early in the workday our time, which for them is
| mid-afternoon.
| dstick wrote:
| You mean, you can't have some that are always remote and
| some that are in the office? Like a split?
| mjevans wrote:
| It's very difficult for humans to resist putting the
| burden on someone else. Like that in person meeting that
| results in a conversation where someone else has been
| given additional work, or 'needs' to help show someone
| how to do their job in a spreadsheet... etc.
|
| Remote work forces everyone to contribute to the burden
| of documenting what's happening.
| rockinghigh wrote:
| The main reason people who have kids cannot easily work from
| home is because schools are closed and they have to take care
| of their kids during the day.
| slavapestov wrote:
| Yeah. In a hypothetical situation where schools were closed
| but workplaces were open, parents would not be able to go
| to the office to work either.
| j0ba wrote:
| That's fine. They can just take a salary cut if they need
| their employer to provide them an officespace.
| walshemj wrote:
| So workers have to pay for the costs of the office now -did
| you think that through
| bvirb wrote:
| My (small) company didn't skip a beat moving from entirely in
| office to entirely remote. In retrospect we were already
| having all of our conversations on Slack when we were in the
| office.
|
| The key was we were always listening to music in our
| headphones.
| irrational wrote:
| My company has already said that we will never be a remote
| working company after the pandemic is over (we have all been
| working remote since last March and they are saying that it
| probably wont be until August or September that we move back to
| campus). I think most of that is because the company just
| finished building 2 million square feet of additional office
| space on campus just before the pandemic.
| pjettter wrote:
| But what if their workers are more productive those days when
| they are working remotely? That should pay down on the
| investment sooner! I never understand shortsightedness...
| francisofascii wrote:
| Has anyone brought up the Sunk Cost fallacy yet?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Fallacy_effect
| irrational wrote:
| To whom? The company has many tens of thousands of
| employees. Who knows who is in charge of these kinds of
| decisions.
| geoelectric wrote:
| I think it'll potentially shift radically for _some_
| industries. Tech and other knowledge worker industry adapts
| more easily to this sort of thing than most, and tech in
| particular probably will pivot for a large segment for sake of
| not having to pay rent.
|
| What I expect to really take off, though, is things like
| managed IT you do from home for some manufacturing company
| somewhere--small groups embedded or servicing larger companies
| that can be hired and spun up more cheaply from elsewhere in
| the country.
|
| Basically, everything that people said would happen (but didn't
| work out) with globalization in knowledge worker industry, I
| personally expect to actually happen and work out with
| "domestication" of it to include a large segment of remote
| workers. The business considerations are mostly the same, minus
| the cultural, governmental, and time zone barriers that
| prevented it from working.
| ghaff wrote:
| A lot of outsourcing was basically done with the difficulty
| set on hardest to get at perceived lowest labor costs. So you
| ended up with big time zone differences, cultural and
| language issues, etc.
| geoelectric wrote:
| Yeah, exactly. Back in the 90s-2000s, though, it was easier
| to deal with an office-based outsource hub that had its own
| line manager, etc, mostly because things were so damned
| slow to send back and forth that you wanted to chunk
| project coordination. Those were comparatively rarer in the
| US, since anywhere you could put one together had enough
| tech industry to make the costs there prohibitive.
|
| Nowadays, you could just hire from the flyover states, find
| all the good techies that didn't make the pilgrimage to one
| of the traditional hotspots, and train them on the last
| bits on the job for not very much more money than an
| international team, when all costs are accounted.
|
| It'll be interesting seeing the trajectory of tech salaries
| over the next however long though. That part didn't happen
| either but probably will now.
|
| I can't imagine why someone would pay a Bay Area FAANG
| salary for _any_ job that could be fulfilled at Arkansas
| costs. That makes it a really positive outlook for Arkansas
| techies, maybe a little less so for us in San Jose. I 'm
| sure there are special cases and vanity teams, and culture
| moves slowly sometimes, but if things truly spread across
| so will the comp.
| cosmodisk wrote:
| If the tech salaries would become much lower, a lot of
| people would simply start doing something else, which in
| turn reduce the pool of candidates. I'm not in a very
| intense tech job, however it still requires lots of
| reading, trying to figure out things and some days are
| nerve wrecking and tense,which often results in
| headaches,etc. So why do it for low money if I could go
| and many other jobs that would require additional reading
| once a year and won't have to sift through stack overflow
| comments to be able to do my job..
| ghaff wrote:
| Logically, to the degree that a company really is
| indifferent to where in the US people live, I'd expect a
| new equilibrium to develop that's somewhere between the
| Bay Area and Arkansas. But, as you say, there's a lot of
| inertia and Google isn't likely to one morning announce
| an across-the-board pay cut in the Bay Area so they can
| redistribute it to workers in other locations. But you
| could certainly imagine things like premiums for new
| grads shrinking.
| geoelectric wrote:
| Equilibrium is what I expect. That may have a more sharp
| effect than the math would suggest, though. Bay Area SWE
| salaries inflated via competition in a way I suspect
| completely deflates with area pressure off. The cross-
| effects of a limited pool tend to be multiplicative, not
| additive.
|
| The fact that the people doing the hiring probably enjoy
| those salaries too is maybe the biggest counterargument
| I'd have to my own prediction and the reason I think
| it'll take a bit to change. I'm firmly convinced that's
| one of the phenomena that have kept college degrees
| inflating--cognitive dissonance around admitting you
| shouldn't perpetuate your own experience.
|
| FWIW, I think a lot of techies would probably love to
| have the freedom to live wherever they want and make a
| _decent_ living. The comp gold rush has been fun, but the
| industry will arguably be better when it 's gone. But the
| transition period--especially for those of us already at
| FAANGs or similar--that gets spicy.
|
| Personally I'm hoping it means in a decade or so I can
| pseudo-retire to an easy remote job somewhere cheap
| enough to be happy on what an easy remote job pays. Given
| how hard _actual_ early retirement can be to swing
| nowadays, that 'd be a great holdover strategy to have
| available.
| majormajor wrote:
| > Bay Area SWE salaries inflated via competition in a way
| I suspect completely deflates with area pressure off.
|
| It will be very interesting to see just how big the pool
| of people who can pass the interviews[0] but weren't
| willing to relocate is.
|
| The demographics (and housing prices!) in the tech hubs
| reflect a big influx of highly-paid developers. If only
| 10% of the folks who could pass those interviews and get
| those offers were willing to relocation, that'll cause a
| much larger downward pressure on prices than if, say, 75%
| were, in which case the pool doesn't expand as much.
|
| [0] the usefulness of the algorithm interview can be
| debated, but I don't see remote work putting any pressure
| on this process
| geoelectric wrote:
| If anything, I expect more questionable snake oil
| strategies for hiring and managing remote to come and go.
| The same old problems predicting actual performance will
| persist, and honestly probably not any worse than now,
| but people will try to "solve" them for the new format.
|
| The open office movement should be all anyone needs to
| see to believe that the no-office movement will have
| legs. We perpetuated an employment style for years that
| widely known to be worse for both employees and employers
| on many levels than a traditional layout, and merely
| absorbed that as the cost of doing business.
|
| If it works well it'll hit all the much faster, but in
| tech, anyway, all you need to hear is "less overhead" and
| "cheap office rental" to know it'll become popular no
| matter how well it does or doesn't work. I dunno other
| knowledge worker industries but I can't imagine they're
| much more altruistic.
| anewaccount2021 wrote:
| > The demographics (and housing prices!) in the tech hubs
| reflect a big influx of highly-paid developers
|
| How? For at least the last decade, your typical developer
| in the Bay Area has been a renter...long since priced-out
| of a single-family home. Even FAANG developers are priced
| out of the better suburbs.
| majormajor wrote:
| A lot of Bay Area tech companies have basically been
| constantly hiring for a decade, with a lot of new
| companies constantly being formed as well. Talk to those
| folks who've been hired, and a large portion of them did
| not live in the Bay Area a decade ago.
|
| The rental prices and turnover speed are another
| indicator of this - sure, the ones buying houses are the
| ones who've hit the stock jackpot, but the competition
| for places of any sort is intensified by the importation
| of well-paid talent.
| bluedino wrote:
| >> you could just hire from the flyover states, find all
| the good techies that didn't make the pilgrimage to one
| of the traditional hotspots
|
| How many are there, though, really?
|
| And what happens when you now have to compete with
| _every_other_company_ that also wants to hire them?
|
| They'll make more money, good for them. But the majority
| of companies will just have to settle for hiring C-level
| talent.
| geoelectric wrote:
| Why not hire C level talent from the flyover states?
|
| Speaking specifically of my own lane, tech, I think you
| might underestimate how many people--particularly people
| of color--never make it into the "industry pipeline"
| because of lack of local opportunities. Those of us who
| came into the tech industry from the side in the 90s know
| the school doesn't make much difference at all in most
| jobs, it's just a predictor of whether you've otherwise
| prepared. The initial preparation tends to be self-
| driven, in the best employees, and they exist everywhere.
| The biggest differentiator comes down to whether someone
| gives you a shot, and that's almost entirely about
| contacts and location for name-brand-company SWE
| positions.
|
| However much competition there will be then, there's more
| now with everything chunked up. We're talking about an
| existing situation. Widening the applicant pool to
| cheaper applicants can't do anything but help an
| employer.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| This is an important point, so much of the so-called
| diversity problem with Silicon Valley is driven by the
| enforced colocation of techies into a small geographical
| area in central CA. You also lose out on people that are
| more family oriented and not apt to move far from where
| they grew up. There's plenty of smart and talented people
| that are hard workers who need that kind of proximity to
| their loved ones and they can't just pack up their whole
| extended family and move to SV.
| analog31 wrote:
| Granted, I've never worked outside the Midwest, and what
| I know of tech hiring is mostly from reading HN. My
| impression is that "we only hire A players" is considered
| to be kind of a running joke. Interview processes seem,
| from a safe distance, to be dystopian. In addition, there
| seems to be an article every week on "hiring is broken"
| and an entire ecosystem of startups trying to solve that
| problem.
|
| _Yet somehow firms do OK with the people they manage to
| hire_.
|
| So maybe firms could just be less fearful of hiring,
| attract equal talent, and get on with life.
|
| I doubt that I'd be considered an A player. My employer
| already makes productive use of talent in the Midwest,
| but we are not predominantly a software company.
| nitrogen wrote:
| One of the first ever desktop app stores had its desktop
| app developed entirely by a flyover state team in 2002.
| So the devs exist, if you can find them.
|
| Also, there's plenty of C-level talent in the bay. You
| can pay the same and get B+ or better in an inland state.
| cmxch wrote:
| > Nowadays, you could just hire from the flyover states,
| find all the good techies that didn't make the pilgrimage
| to one of the traditional hotspots, and train them on the
| last bits on the job for not very much more money than an
| international team, when all costs are accounted.
|
| Why just the "good" or "perfect" techies?
|
| They need to be less picky about who they hire. One could
| even go with the less desirable, "diamonds in the rough"
| candidates and still do well. If it worked passably with
| guest workers, it can work with flyover candidates.
|
| As for my personal situation, I'd be happy to have
| options that were more than just government or
| healthcare.
| folkrav wrote:
| Anecdotal: my wife just got confirmation that it's gonna be 1-2
| days/week from the office on her end once things calm down. I'm
| fully remote, with the expectation of a larger in-person team
| sync-up every week or two (that didn't happen yet because of
| COVID). My sister's boyfriend's team are already talking about
| 3/4 days of remote work after COVID.
|
| I do agree that for most companies it probably won't be full
| remote, but if it just resolves in more flexibility, I'm all
| for it.
| formercoder wrote:
| My guess is the following will take place: companies will
| generally be more open to WFH. Those who spend more time in the
| office will develop stronger networks and relationships, will
| be able to advocate for themselves more easily, and thus will
| be more successful. People will snowball back into the office
| as they see this happening. Keep in mind I'm generalizing, I'm
| fully aware that you can create a culture that doesn't
| disadvantage those that are remote, I'm just not convinced that
| broadly will happen.
| ghaff wrote:
| The whole landscape probably shifts a bit. More people fully
| remote. More WFH more days per week than they did before. And
| so forth. But, yes, I don't expect many companies who currently
| have an office(s) to close them down. Maybe reconfigure, shut
| down expansion plans, hotel as needed, etc.
|
| Won't really affect me as I was fully remote before this (in
| spite of being commuting distance from a company office). But I
| definitely know people who have moved out of the area.
| ska wrote:
| I agree the whole landscape shifts, I just think it won't be
| even distributed and most of the change will be relatively
| small, not radical reorganization.
| hwoolery wrote:
| "a few more remote friendly companies". Respectfully disagree -
| the market will make this decision, and now that employees have
| all tasted the benefit, they are going to work for companies
| that give them that freedom. On top of that, most companies
| have seen equal or greater productivity (no commute, fewer sick
| days, etc), and will at least downsize their real estate for
| cost savings. There's little argument to make people come back
| to an office if there is no obvious benefit.
| ska wrote:
| There are some pretty strong assertions in your comment that
| I'm not convinced we actually know the answer too yet. I've
| seen senior people talking about "manageable productivity
| drops" more than "no difference", or "even better" but of
| course sampling bias applies.
|
| But also, there is a potential semantic difficulty. By remote
| friendly I am thinking about "open to hiring a single person
| in a different city/country", not "employees that don't come
| into the office much".
|
| I would draw a distinction between those, and I'm not
| convinced we'll see a huge shift in the former.
| lovegoblin wrote:
| > There is a big difference between "never going to an office
| again" and "not going in 5 days a week".
|
| Yes, but I'd argue there's an _even bigger_ difference between
| "not going in 5 days a week" and "going in 5 days a week."
|
| As soon as you're remote even just part time, that means all
| your internal tooling and everything must be remote-compatible.
| Way more of your communication becomes async-by-default. And if
| some people are 1-2 days wfh, what's to stop some people from
| choosing 100% remote? And if _that 's_ happening, why limit
| your hiring to local?
|
| Even part time remote employees is a culture shift.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I think a lot of company leaders will nod along with the
| picture you paint above, but any company that's 40% or less
| remote will probably recenter on sync-by-default, in-person,
| and where being-at-headquarters matters.
| ska wrote:
| Pandemic has force many/most placed to come up with something
| remote-capable, at least temporarily. It's a big shift, I
| absolutely agree. I think it's mostly all that happens though
| - the "slippery slope to remote" you describe mostly wont
| happen. Of course we are both speculating.
| throwarayes wrote:
| I worry at the long term implications of remote work:
|
| - I hear of Bay Area tech companies throwing stupid high salaries
| at senior devs in smaller local firms -> more consolidation in
| tech
|
| - how non people centric will work become? I feel being 100%
| remote I have even less of a relationship with anyone at home.
| I'm a commodity doing work. Maybe there's more of a temptation to
| get that commodity cheaper elsewhere
| ndiscussion wrote:
| We are all commodities... best to shatter that illusion safely
| before you get hurt.
| Bakary wrote:
| >how non people centric will work become? I feel being 100%
| remote I have even less of a relationship with anyone at home.
| I'm a commodity doing work. Maybe there's more of a temptation
| to get that commodity cheaper elsewhere
|
| Do not think for a second that you are not already disposable
| codegeek wrote:
| It is not cut and dry. I think we need to find the balance
| between "no/hardly work from home" vs "never come in office".
| Employers have to be flexible about letting employees work from
| home whenever needed. When I was an employee, I wanted
| flexibility to sometimes do that when needed. I usually wanted to
| go to office because I like getting out of the house. I get that
| some people love working from home 100% but I am a big proponent
| of finding a balance and not going extreme one way or the other.
| Thaxll wrote:
| Full remote is not the future, I'm sure that most people don't
| want to work remotely full time, it will most likely be
| 2days/week at home type of thing.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > I'm sure that most people don't want to work remotely full
| time
|
| Why are you sure about that? Because that's how you feel?
| djrogers wrote:
| While I love wfh and have done it for the past 20 years, there
| are some jobs and some times when face to face in an office is
| far more effective.
|
| I'd love it if my office went to a 1-2 days/week on-site
| schedule, where face to face time is predictable and regular, and
| we can all be productive and relatively zoom free the other 3-4
| days.
|
| A hybrid approach, if managed right, would be ideal.
| mkl95 wrote:
| 6 months ago, I was the first fully remote hire at the startup I
| work for. Now about 80% of my coworkers are working from home
| indefinitely. It truly feels like entering a new era.
| whateveracct wrote:
| a big thing with remote work is the worker can largely elect to
| do it.
|
| i just don't consider roles that aren't remote, even if they
| are in my metropolitan area.
|
| i'm not gonna waste 8 hours a day in an office, away from
| things and people who actually matter.
| ange1a wrote:
| just wait until corporations realize that if your job can be done
| from kansas city... it can also be done from manila... and a
| whole new class of gigs just vanish.
| bzbarsky wrote:
| There are a lot of assumptions going into that implication. My
| experience with working remotely, on globally distributed
| teams, for about 20 years now is:
|
| * Synchronous high-bandwidth communication (read: meeting,
| ideally with a shared whiteboard) is pretty handy sometimes.
|
| * Timezones really do matter. If you want a sync meeting that
| includes people in Europe, the US, and APAC, someone will have
| a bad time. If you want quick turnaround on code reviews,
| having 8-12 hour time zone differences is a significant
| barrier. Even a "4-hour" difference for meeting time purposes
| can be a huge problem in this sense: it's 9pm on Thursday where
| you are (US West coast), but your coworkers' weekend has
| started (in New Zealand), so any code reviews you ask for on
| Friday morning you won't see until you get back to work on
| Monday. And any code reviews they ask for on their Monday
| morning won't happen until you get back to work on their
| Tuesday.
|
| * Language matters. Even if everyone involved speaks English to
| some extent, it's a _lot_ easier to follow some accents than
| others, especially on an imperfect (read: teleconference) audio
| feed. Which accents depends on which people.
|
| * Shared context matters, just in terms of understanding
| requirements. This can be developed, but it takes time. People
| from more similar backgrounds often require less time to get to
| mutual understanding around this sort of thing. This needs to
| be weighed against blinkered thinking and lack of diversity in
| perspectives, of course.
|
| I love working remotely, and am used to the scheduling issues
| around this sort of thing, but there are a _lot_ of issues that
| come with hiring someone halfway across the globe that you
| don't get with hiring someone also working remotely but in the
| same city or at least speaking more or less your accent of your
| language and within an hour or two timezone distance. The fact
| that the latter works for a particular position does not imply
| the former will.
| Bakary wrote:
| Most of these hurdles seem really unimportant compared to the
| salary savings
| wtetzner wrote:
| I think companies also need to deal with the tax implications
| of someone working in another country. Not sure what impact
| that would have.
| kube-system wrote:
| They realized that 25 years ago. Then, 10 years ago they
| realized that time zones and soft skills are also a thing.
| lucasmullens wrote:
| This article misinterpreted the survey. 91% of people don't want
| to work from home, 91% want it as an option, and that's only
| people who are currently working from home who used to not.
|
| 57% seems more accurate: "But once the crisis is over, most (57%)
| of those who were working before the outbreak and who intend to
| stay part of the workforce say they want to be able to continue
| working from home."
|
| Actual survey results:
| https://yougov.co.uk/topics/economy/articles-reports/2020/09...
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've changed the URL above from https://simon-
| moxon.medium.com/employers-will-have-no-choice... to a (more
| recent) article about the YouGov poll.
| duxup wrote:
| I agree. I feel like there's a VERY important needle to thread
| here about what people mean by saying they "want to work from
| home".
|
| And that sentiment might also change post-COVID.
|
| I also wonder what this means for people who aren't in the best
| situation to work remotely.
| anewaccount2021 wrote:
| > what people mean by saying they "want to work from home".
|
| Its not complicated, "I", "want", "to", "work", "from",
| "home".
| dang wrote:
| " _Don 't be snarky._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| duxup wrote:
| The parent to my comment indicated what the nuances are.
| jrockway wrote:
| To me the concern here is that if a company offers working
| remotely as an option, remote workers will always be second-
| class citizens. (The bad habit of Slack DMs instead of
| conversations in a public channel is already pretty
| entrenched.) People that work in the office will have casual
| conversations that exclude people working remotely, and the
| remote workers will always be a little behind. I think for that
| reason that all or nothing is the most fair. (I wonder if
| giving people a coworking space for free is the answer to
| people that need to get away from home, which is a completely
| reasonable concern.)
| vp8989 wrote:
| I think all or nothing is not realistic for most companies
| unless the CEOs are very progressive and just deeply believe
| in it.
|
| A decent workaround is to have entirely remote teams and
| entirely in-office teams. That way people can be on teams
| where they feel like being remote is not a detriment to their
| careers (because ALL discussion takes place online) and
| people who prefer working in-person don't have to force
| everything onto Slack just to have the remote people feel
| included.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| At my company we've always had teams that appeared "all
| remote". They just were teams not stationed in the HQ and
| they were clearly less important (or that was the vibe) and
| they were usually in a low COL country instead.
|
| The mix definitely will make a cohort of "second class
| citizens"
| pnutjam wrote:
| On the flip side. I find that when people don't see me,
| they treat me better. I sound white and have a white
| name, but I'm brown and this seems to cause issues.
| vp8989 wrote:
| Ye I totally get what you mean and I have observed this a
| lot too.
|
| I think for some people though, this might be an
| acceptable trade off (even temporarily) where they favor
| being able to WFH and not need to be tethered to train
| lines / highways for commuting over being "close to the
| action".
|
| If companies offered this trade off across the board it
| would be a good way to retain employees over the long
| term as your life situation changes (kids etc ...) you
| can kind still find a place at the same company that can
| accomodate the lifestyle you desire at that point in
| time.
| slavapestov wrote:
| > I think for that reason that all or nothing is the most
| fair.
|
| It seems like the fairest is to offer both and let the
| employees decide if the tradeoffs are worth it, then?
| carlisle_ wrote:
| >People that work in the office will have casual
| conversations that exclude them, and they'll always be a
| little behind.
|
| My experience is that this behavior doesn't get translated to
| remote-only workplaces. Casual in-person conversation doesn't
| shift to chat platforms, it just happens less frequently.
|
| People being remote that miss out on office chit-chat aren't
| actually missing out on something if their coworkers can help
| it. I think these interactions are incredibly important for
| people who value them, and fear of "leaving out" remote
| workers isn't a very good reason to prevent them.
|
| The most effective workplaces I've been at that have had
| successful remote workers are the teams that try to
| consistently involve those people. It's not a set of rules or
| trainings that makes people do this, it's a mix of cultural
| values and individual conscientiousness.
| macksd wrote:
| I'm not sure I'd want all-or-nothing to be the norm. I was a
| full-time remote worker before the pandemic, but I think one
| of the reasons it worked so well for me is because I had been
| able to build up a lot of the working relationships I have
| now in person. I made the decision to go remote because it
| was just going to work better for me, and I was fully aware
| that I would have to work at not being forgotten by the
| people in the office. There are ways to deal with it: you
| need to overcommunicate, make conscious efforts to get in on
| "office gossip" (the non-toxic kind), etc. An occcasional
| office visit or retreat makes a big difference.
|
| Some of the people I've enjoyed working with the most have
| really struggled with the 100% remote dynamic during the
| pandemic. They have different personalities which have made
| it hard for them to be stuck at home, but those personalities
| make them great team members too. I'm not sure I'd want to
| just never work with people like that again.
| bendauphinee wrote:
| > is because I had been able to build up a lot of the
| working relationships I have now in person
|
| I've been remote only for a decade, and built those same
| relationships while doing so.
| macksd wrote:
| Yeah it's definitely doable. I suppose in addition to the
| relationships, I especially appreciate having been in the
| office because it was very early in my career. There's a
| lot of stuff I know now that I didn't know then about how
| typical software companies work (where my previous jobs
| had been very different). I suspect I would've had a much
| harder time picking up a lot of unspoken understanding if
| I had been remote right off the bat. Meeting random
| people (big fan of Donut in Slack now) and being in
| hallway conversations was a really big deal for me, even
| though I don't much care for that when I have a choice.
| ghaff wrote:
| I've been fully remote for a few years and more remote
| than not for quite a bit longer. But it's difficult for
| me to imagine having done this as a fresh grad. Very
| different time and communication channels to be sure, but
| still.
| antonzabirko wrote:
| Weird sentiment in this thread. Regardless of the survey i have
| only seen positive reactions to working remote, and hope remote
| is here to stay.
| deeeeplearning wrote:
| No amount of "camaraderie" or "social interaction" is worth the
| soul killing experience of commuting to and from work >200
| times a year.
| ht_th wrote:
| I miss my 20 minute bike ride between work and home. That
| bike-ride truly separated work-life from home-life. It
| cleared my head, and I got some exercise in. I really miss
| that.
|
| And no, just going cycling or walking for an hour or so
| during the day isn't the same. I don't know why.
| dublinben wrote:
| If more people had a 20 minute bike commute, we'd all be
| much better off. Unfortunately, far more people are facing
| the prospect of returning to 60+ minute driving commutes,
| which are hell.
| sisu_man wrote:
| I think WFH is challenging for some people as its harder to
| maintain that social connection to your org. You have to work a
| bit harder, have already built the relationships, or simply be
| secure knowing that you can deliver value to the org and even
| if people do not see you on a consistent basis that you are
| valued by the team/org. Embrace the change though I think, its
| certainly worth the tradeoffs in my mind, no commute is pure
| glory.
| antonzabirko wrote:
| I agree with most of that. At the end of the day i do quality
| work in silence, and not in the open office. Losing the
| commute is a nice side effect though.
| technofiend wrote:
| My employees love the camaraderie and face-to-face adhoc
| conversations that come from everyone being on the same floor.
| However _no one_ likes the new workstation layout our company
| employs; people are on top of each with other minimal
| partitioning for those that face each other, and no
| partitioning at all side to side. It 's noisy and hard to
| concentrate and the fact you have a locker and may keep nothing
| personal on your desk sends a certain message. A message that
| is amplified by the fact people at a certain org level get
| offices with a door.
|
| We're working out how to mix up WFH with WFW to try and get the
| benefits of both.
| chihuahua wrote:
| Those terrible workstation layouts (or the equivalent at my
| company) are the reason why I find it much easier to talk to
| people on my team when I'm working from home. I can start a
| teams call with anyone and have a 1-on-1 conversation with no
| distractions. When we were still going to the office, it was
| difficult to have a 1-on-1 conversation because you would
| have all the noise of people around you talking loudly, plus
| my own conversation is distracting those other people who are
| sitting 3 feet away but are not part of the conversation. So
| we'd have to go to a meeting room nearby, but then you don't
| have your computer screen available, so you can't talk about
| the code you're working on. The whole concept of trying to
| collaborate in the office was ludicrous. Adding insult to
| injury, the company calls these cramped office spaces
| "collaborative".
| anewaccount2021 wrote:
| Online discussions quickly fall into the Obligatory Contrarian
| trap when there's little else to latch on to.
|
| So in every one of these threads, HN is all of a sudden
| nostalgic for two hours a day commuting, shelling out-of-pocket
| for parking, eating junk food for lunch every day...
|
| Offices cost money. This is why WFH isn't going away. Even
| people who are required to go into the office periodically
| might find themselves sharing temp space with others who use
| the same (reduced) space on alternating days.
|
| As you can tell from this comment, I love WFH and will never go
| back....and it doesn't look like I'll have to. While the poor
| office dwellers are sitting in their cars, I'm enjoying a nice
| morning run.
| [deleted]
| wackk wrote:
| Personally, I hate being fully remote and will probably not
| stay at a job that is permanently full remote. I live alone in
| a fairly small apartment, and only have space to work at the
| same desk that I use for recreation. I find myself unfocused
| more easily, which leads to being less productive, which leads
| to working more, which leads to being less productive, etc. I
| have started going into the office alone just to get some
| separation.
|
| For context, I'm also much more extroverted than the average
| developer - I suspect that also has something to do with my
| absolute dislike of full remote working.
| epr wrote:
| I really appreciate the big "Reject All" button for cookies
| consent as opposed to all the irritating dark patterns most
| websites seem to use where if you don't want to "Accept All",
| you're forced to drill down into submenus to disable every type
| of cookie individually. Thanks for not being subhuman garbage.
| ibobev wrote:
| Permanently working from home for some people like me is a direct
| way to depression. For someone who lives alone going to the
| office is essential to have social interactions without which the
| mental health can be severely damaged. I'm terrified by the
| possibility of working from home becoming a norm for the tech
| companies. It can be also a serious problem for novice developers
| who are greatly dependent on working closely with their seniors
| for their professional development and also for more experienced
| ones who are at a new job and need help to step in.
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