[HN Gopher] Employees are quitting instead of giving up working ...
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Employees are quitting instead of giving up working from home
Author : mancerayder
Score : 873 points
Date : 2021-06-01 12:54 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| [deleted]
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| Depends on what you want, I wanted to go beyond just from home, I
| wanted forever remote with good location flexibility. And after
| the old employer could not or would not accept the location part,
| I simply quit.
|
| I have found a forever remote in a FAANG and it is the best
| decision I have made in a long time.
| greedo wrote:
| I don't see a hybrid model working well at all. The scenarios
| that have been thrown around at my company are like these:
|
| 1. Everyone comes back to the office (extremely unpopular)
|
| 2. Everyone continues to WFH (gives management the hives)
|
| 3. Some teams WFH full-time, while others go BTTO).
|
| 4. A hybrid schedule where you come into the office once a week,
| and WFH the remainder.
|
| I don't see how these can work. BTTO is going to cause huge
| issues, the cat is out of the bag. And if some teams get to WFH,
| but others don't then that will cause turmoil as well.
|
| A hybrid schedule seems to be the worst option actually. Say that
| everyone has to come in on Mondays for team meetings. Then Tue-
| Friday, the office is a ghost town. If you're required to come in
| one day a week (but you can choose), then the odds are the most
| of the office will be empty, and that's a waste of company
| resources in having an office sized for pre-COVID times.
|
| If a hybrid BTTO plan is for F2F with mgmt, then it'll need to be
| mandatory, on the same day. Otherwise my poor manager has to be
| in the office 5 days a week. Eventually, mgmt will just require
| everyone to come BTTO.
|
| Changes like what COVID caused aren't bells you can unring. It's
| like having women work in factories during WW2. Sure when the
| troops return home, things seem to go back to "normal", but
| that's just delaying the change. Remote work is here to stay, and
| the companies that embrace it will have a leg up. All the
| friction that we experienced in the las year will diminish over
| time with faster/better Internet, with workflows and
| communication tools that are better suited to WFH.
| darthrupert wrote:
| There's a trivial fix to all these problems: declare time spent
| commuting as billable work time. I'm amazed how this is not
| reality already, but the pandemic time should have made this
| obvious now.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| Not only commuting time, but time spent on dressing up and so
| on.
| rebelos wrote:
| It's also quite obvious that the net result of this will be
| companies preferring employees who live closer to work and bear
| a higher cost of housing.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Or, perversely, incentivizing long commutes -- incentivizing
| people to sit in traffic, creating more traffic, burning more
| carbon.
| vodkapump wrote:
| I am quite glad I can go to my office to work, having the
| separation is quite nice, I don't want to associate my home with
| work at all.
|
| Though it does probably help that my commute is only 900 metres.
| one2three4 wrote:
| Commute is the most important reason for WFH for me.
| GianFabien wrote:
| Maybe you'd think differently if it was 2 hours commute each
| way in bumper to bumper traffic.
| [deleted]
| carschno wrote:
| When reading on all these work-from-home discussions, it
| seems pretty clear that the commute is the main factor. If I
| had to commute to my office by car or (crowded) public
| transport for an hour or more, I would hate going there. I am
| lucky to have a 25 minutes commute by bicycle, so I don't
| mind that, and prefer the office amenities: a work space
| provided for me, clear separation from working and living
| space etc. Of course, there are other advantages in working
| from home such as more flexibility in terms of working and
| break hours. However, my impression remains that commute
| times and conditions outweigh all other (subjective)
| preferences for most people when arguing for or against
| working from home.
|
| It seems to me that the pandemic and the practice of
| massively working at home has mostly raised this question:
| how had we accepted for such a long time that so many people
| go through a commute nightmare every single day of their work
| life? How can we establish working standards that require
| neither turning homes into offices nor going back to the
| commuting nightmare from "old normal"?
| post_break wrote:
| I work literally 10 minutes from my house. I would rather
| work from home. It's 5 traffic lights to the office. I can
| drive, waste fuel, clothes, time, insurance, tires, etc. Or
| I can work from home and do exactly the same shit I do in a
| box only from the comfort from my own home. And if I need
| to come in I'm 10 minutes away. Yet here I am, back in the
| office, and flex time is going away soon.
| bradlys wrote:
| This is the other differentiator - quality of the office.
| Some people seem to not have an office that is anything
| other than a bunch of desks put near each other.
| asdff wrote:
| Even if you had a nice office, you might get looked at
| funny if you showed up every single day in your pajamas
| or some stained gym shorts (like I do now from home).
| Another big benefit is I can double time stuff. If
| someone is hosting a meeting and I'm merely in attendance
| rather than have to present something myself, I usually
| eat food, do laundry, garden, showering, or workout with
| the zoom meeting open. I'm still listening, I'm just
| actually doing something productive and useful to my life
| instead of sitting silently watching a power point in a
| dark room fighting the urge to fall asleep.
| 1270018080 wrote:
| That also makes me wonder if Europe also has a ton of the
| workforce wanting to stay remote too? They have density and
| public transportation, while most of America is an abject
| disaster in that regard.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| What percentage of commuters have 2 hours bumper to bumper
| each way? That sounds like an outlier to me.
| auspex wrote:
| San Jose to Mountain View commute
| ghaff wrote:
| Probably an outlier but I've had a 90 minute commute
| through some combination of car and transit in the past and
| an hour or so (so 2 hours per day) is very common,
| especially if you're commuting into a city from
| suburbs/exurbs.
| HappySweeney wrote:
| With the price of real estate these days, a two hour
| commute is not out of the ordinary.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| I think it depends on the age range of who you survey. When
| I was younger, a small apartment sufficed and I couldn't
| imagine a long commute. As I had children and started to
| prioritize 1. space (individual rooms for children) and 2.
| good school districts, something had to give -- you either
| pay exorbitant prices in the city for space+private school
| or you go to the suburbs.
| offtop5 wrote:
| I've had to commute an hour 30 before. If you're in an
| expensive city, like LA you're very likely to have this.
|
| It's stressful, expensive and dangerous. I'm really hoping
| work from home becomes a permanent thing.
| fabianhjr wrote:
| If you live in a car-centric city without walkable and
| bikeable streets nor great public transit and force car-
| dependence that is what you get.
|
| There are plenty of non-car-centric expensive cities that
| one can travel across in less than an hour.
| lupire wrote:
| Employers don't put many jobs there. Even in NYC, very
| transit oriented, is do crowded and expensive that
| commutes are long, and often too crowded ("straphanging")
| and with transfers that don't let you get that time back
| for book/podcast.
| asdff wrote:
| People have over an hour commutes riding transit in nyc
| too. You only luck out if you manage to secure a job and
| an apartment along the same transit line, and that's
| rarely easy or cheap. Especially if you suddenly get a
| new job.
| offtop5 wrote:
| Oh I'm in full agreement, this is one of the many reasons
| I left la.
|
| Once I went to car free I got rid of about 25,000 in
| credit card debt in 6 months or so. Much of why so many
| Americans are so desperately poor has to do with car
| ownership. While it's possible to get Uncle Jimmy's Old
| Jeep running, most people just finance something. Once
| you make your car payment your insurance and gas, that's
| easily a third of your income. Compared to a $100 a month
| bus pass
| bart_spoon wrote:
| Not in the US there isn't. And the ones there are are:
|
| 1. Expensive
|
| 2. Not particularly family friendly
|
| So if you are a high earner with roommates or a partner
| and no children, you have options. For the remaining 90%
| of the workforce, it isn't particularly feasible.
| Lucasoato wrote:
| Well, 2 hours bumper to bumper may seem too much but almost
| everyone I know spends at least one hour commuting every
| work day.
|
| (Don't worry, I know that my only experience is not enough
| to make statistics, but check that out with your friends)
| bloqs wrote:
| This is completely common throughout the western world, if
| not the wider world too.
| ginko wrote:
| In the US maybe. Certainly not in Europe.
| [deleted]
| btbuildem wrote:
| I think it's not that uncommon in the US
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| It's pretty uncommon except in some select areas like the
| Bay Area and california cities. I would not do a 2 hour
| one way drive to work and most people I know wouldn't, at
| least not for a long period of time.
| nervousvarun wrote:
| It's very uncommon in the US. It less uncommon in Silicon
| Valley...which is disproportionately represented on HN.
|
| To be fair it's also a problem in some cities outside SV
| though (Austin, Atlanta, Seattle) but the overwhelming
| majority of Americans don't face this issue. Even
| Americans working in tech.
|
| Again, the overwhelming majority of Americans don't face
| this issue to the degree being discussed here (1+ hour
| commutes)
|
| https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive
| /tr...
| prepend wrote:
| In my org of maybe 10-20k, the last time they did a commute
| survey, a few years before covid, the average commute was
| 40 minutes each way. So not 2 hours but 1.3 hours. This was
| the mean, not median so 2 hours of commuting is not a rare
| outlier in my experience.
|
| This article [0] claims the national average is 26 minutes
| total, so I guess my org just has a rough time.
|
| [0] https://bestmattress-brand.org/comatose-commuters/
| [deleted]
| lupire wrote:
| 2 hrs each way is 4 hrs per day.
| prepend wrote:
| Thanks, I misread as total time.
| city41 wrote:
| Commute length is a huge factor. But I also think commute
| type matters. When I lived in Chicago, my commute was a 1
| hour train ride. I rather enjoyed it, I used that time to
| read and play video games.
| lmm wrote:
| I would definitely quit a job that required a 2 hour commute.
| That doesn't mean I want to work from home, it means I want
| to work somewhere a sane distance away.
| auspex wrote:
| In the Bay Area a two hour commute (an hour each way) is
| only a 15 mile distance in morning/afternoon traffic
| bradlys wrote:
| If you're averaging 15mph, you may as well ride a bike
| and just get the exercise in. You'll be very fit and well
| off doing 2 hours of cardio multiple times a week. I knew
| guys at some of my jobs who did these commutes - they
| were ecstatic about it. Favorite part of their day.
| MillenialMan wrote:
| Why drive, at that point? Isn't it easier to use BART + a
| scooter?
| auspex wrote:
| No Bart on the west side of the bay. You can to some
| extent use light rail If you are close enough to a
| station.
| MillenialMan wrote:
| Man, that sucks. I didn't realise Bart was so sparse. Are
| there any plans to expand it, or add something like a
| subway? They must have the tax revenue. It seems absurd
| that they'd drive everyone toward increasing traffic
| given how wealthy the area is.
| drewmate wrote:
| It's worth reading a bit about the history of BART. The
| Bay Area's NIMBY roots run deep. Initial plans would have
| included lines in the peninsula, with eventual
| connections all the way around the bay. Santa Clara
| County never joined, and that started a cascade of other
| counties dropping out which financially crippled the
| project and left only the scaled-back system in place
| today.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Area_Rapid_Transit#Orig
| ins...
| ub99 wrote:
| Even that resulted in an hour each way for me pre-
| pandemic. Then you also need to factor in the exhaustion
| that comes with using Bart, especially in the evening.
| MillenialMan wrote:
| Oh man, is that worse than driving? I'm in London, so I
| don't really know what it's like in SF. What's so
| exhausting about it?
| ub99 wrote:
| I moved from London to Oakland several years ago. In
| London I would take a bus to work and then walk for 5
| minutes to the office. Taking Bart is just not pleasant -
| the cars are packed, so you stand super close to other
| sweaty people for 45 min or so. I guess it's comparable
| to taking Underground during rush hour - same thing.
| ciisforsuckas wrote:
| My 15 mile commute has reached 45 minutes and withing the
| next couple years it will be 60 minutes. American cities
| have given up on public transportaion and infrastructrure
| and are crumbling under the weight of capitalism.
| kory wrote:
| It's capitalism's fault that public transit isn't
| popular? What?
|
| Car companies may have dismantled some streetcar systems
| years ago, yes. However, we continue to build car focused
| communities largely because people want to live in big
| lots in suburbia. Density that can support transit is
| just not popular in the US.
| vodkapump wrote:
| That is why I added the part about having such a short
| commute.
| 015a wrote:
| That's reasonable, but the issue here clearly isn't the
| workplace; its the commute. They're sometimes, maybe even
| usually, intertwined. But we can't make sweeping decisions
| based on a subset of people who both (1) have long commutes,
| which (2) they hate. Tons of people have short commutes, and
| tons of people have long commutes which they actually quite
| enjoy, as it may be the only hour(s) during their workdays
| where they can remain totally disconnected from both work and
| home life.
|
| Years ago, I commuted by walking 10 minutes. I loved that;
| get outside, stretch your legs, put some music on, if I
| forgot something at home it was just a jaunt away. Today, I
| commute about an hour each way by car. I love it too. It
| forces me to wake up early, which is something I enjoy but
| have problems doing naturally, creates a ton of time for
| podcasts, I've got my car right at the office if I need to
| run anywhere during lunch (versus, previously, it being 10-15
| minutes away), and there's a delicious doughnut shop on the
| way in so I can sometimes stop and grab a morning snack for
| the team (or just me).
|
| Maybe two hours each way is too long. But, you're also
| strawmanning. The average commute in the US is 27 minutes [1]
| (in 2019).
|
| [1] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/one-
| way-...
| gwbas1c wrote:
| (hahaha)
|
| Your statement raises an interesting point. The "savings" in
| remote work really aren't there, when you take into account the
| need for people to have dedicated space in their homes.
| ghaff wrote:
| People with houses often have dedicated desk space already.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| That was the case before children. I moved into a 4-bedroom
| house and one of the rooms became my office.
|
| Seven years, one house, and three kids later, we had to
| make sure to plan a dedicated office area when we built our
| current house.
| GianFabien wrote:
| All the more the power to employees who have the fortitude to
| stand up against demeaning, demanding, power hungry bosses. They
| might think hustling is good, but does it actually produce
| anything of value?
|
| Without productive staff, businesses can either change and thrive
| or resist change and become Dinos-R-Us Inc.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| Some people are energized by other people. Some people are
| drained by other people. The workplace shouldn't discriminate
| against either group.
| jlos wrote:
| Commute time is one of the biggest factors on your quality of
| life. Increasing your commute time has been to shown to:
|
| - decrease your number of friends
|
| - increase your likelihood of divorce
|
| - increase your over all mortality
|
| And then with kids the reality is you have this 3-4 hour window
| when you can see them each day. Not to mention the struggles for
| shared and single parenting.
|
| The curtain has been pulled back and it's going to be a lot
| harder to justify the kind of rigidity that existed before the
| pandemic.
| Zelphyr wrote:
| _...there's also the notion that some bosses, particularly those
| of a generation less familiar to remote work, are eager to regain
| tight control of their minions.
|
| "They feel like we're not working if they can't see us," she
| said. "It's a boomer power-play."_
|
| I'm not an "OK Boomer" kinda person but this is spot on. However,
| I would add that it applies to the Boomer generation and older. I
| worked at a company a few years ago that was started by a man who
| was in his late 80's at the time. A good man, I should add, but
| he was all about "butts in seats" (he is also a former Marine).
|
| He didn't understand technology at all and was constantly at
| loggerheads with my boss about where her people were. She never
| could get across to him that just because he didn't see us didn't
| mean we weren't working. We took the department from barely
| breaking even to being the most profitable in the company in nine
| months, so, obviously we were doing _something_ when our butts
| were in different seats.
|
| COVID accelerated remote working but I suspect it won't become
| fully embraced until the Boomer generation of managers and
| company leadership retire.
| CloudyWeather wrote:
| Won't workers prefer a forward-thinking, agile workplace versus
| being stuck in high traffic and/or high cost areas?
| hinkley wrote:
| Effectively we all got a raise by being sent home. I know some
| companies have exploded during the quarantine, but not everyone
| has been so lucky.
|
| For myself it's the last big raise I've gotten in some time, and
| I expect I'm far from the only person for whom that's true. Going
| back to work for these people is going to reduce their effective
| salary back to what it was 15 months ago.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I love the fact that with WFH I can blend work and life together
| very seamlessly.
|
| I can work for several hours then put in laundry. Or take a nap.
| Or collect my parcel. I can sleep until it is work time. I can do
| work at 11PM as that is when there are the fewest distractions.
|
| It's been wonderful.
| mancerayder wrote:
| I like the option. Poor sleep, shitty weather, subway issues, or
| early meetings are all motivations for that day to be a WFH day.
| musicale wrote:
| > They feel like we're not working if they can't see us
|
| Management has been reduced to counting butts in chairs.
| clarge1120 wrote:
| I've been WFH since '07, only occasionally returning to the
| office for short periods of time. There is absolutely no pressure
| on me to return to an office.
|
| I was surprised that the first question was: "Will I have to be
| vaccinated or show proof thereof?"
|
| Why is that? I thought there was very little hesitation. Was it
| the sample the author chose?
| duxup wrote:
| I wonder how much it equates to trust too.
|
| My employer trusts me to work from home, that's good.
|
| If they suddenly announced I had to come in because some
| disconnected management chain doesn't trust me to do the thing,
| or wants to make the policy because some managers can't handle
| it, or other employees can't handle it. That changes the
| relationship entirely, I'm just a widget, I'm way more likely to
| move on.
|
| It also impacts my family and that changes the dynamic as well.
|
| The employer might see it as a rudimentary policy, but to me it
| is a lot more.
| dghughes wrote:
| If you are IT-literate it's OK. People stress if they are not IT-
| literate, a failed router or no Internet is very stressful for
| people who have no clue how it works.
|
| I've never worked from home until recently and now I find it very
| isolating. I feel like a device a tool not a person who has
| coworker friends I only interact via emojis towards usernames.
| There's no flow to the day it's quite compartmentalized.
|
| Sure the commute short which is great but my small home has lost
| a good part of space what was formerly not an office. I like the
| separation of work from home even if it involves a commute. It's
| great sometimes but not all the time.
| swader999 wrote:
| The only thing that would get me back in the office is a 4 day
| work week, full pay. That would be an equivalent trade imo.
| kraig911 wrote:
| I hope things continue to change. Pre pandemic I feel all my
| labor was rewarded on the results and not effort. I felt that for
| myself too. Long commutes and messy house and difficult family
| relationships. I think a lot of people are finally seeing the
| relative effort sometimes far out-weights the results/cost.
| Oras wrote:
| While working from home is fantastic for many, there are some
| real issues coming up due to WFH:
|
| - From my observations, people with commitments (family,
| partners, pets .. etc.) prefer to work from home while single
| people prefer to go to the office. This will create a noticeable
| gap between the two groups.
|
| - While working from home can be productive for med to senior-
| level employees, I suppose it will be a nightmare for juniors and
| interns. They will have no one around to mentor them or at least
| to ask for immediate advice. When working from home (as pointed
| by others), we tend to get into deep focus on avoiding
| distractions from messaging tools.
|
| To clarify, when I start hiring, the work will be fully remote,
| but I just wanted to list observations from different
| perspectives.
| mixxit wrote:
| Odd, the person in our team who has a family is the one that
| wants to go in
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| > From my observations, people with commitments (family,
| partners, pets .. etc.) prefer to work from home while single
| people prefer to go to the office.
|
| I also have seen the opposite.
|
| Some folks with family want to work from office, so that kids
| can play loud without interrupting and when coming home it's
| clearly family time.
|
| And I living alone like the flexibility. Got a new partner? - I
| work from their place. Want to visit some friends/family in a
| different town? I work from there. Want to hang out with some
| friends? I work from their office.
|
| Very individual choices.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Facebook has started approving remote work but only for E5's
| and higher. I think that will limit the usefulness of having
| the more junior folks in the office but I guess it makes sense.
| wdhilliard wrote:
| Single people can have plenty of commitments that don't include
| a spouse or pets. It is much harder to accomplish most tasks as
| an individual vs a team. The case you present seems to be
| closer to those who are codependent vs those who are committed
| intricatedetail wrote:
| This is what I don't get. Why do juniors need someone around to
| mentor them? That's just promotes lazy behaviour. I had
| countless times when junior asked me for help with something
| where all they needed to do was to just type same question to
| Google or search through documentation.
| Oras wrote:
| You just made 3 assumptions:
|
| - Asking for help means laziness. There is a high chance that
| this is the first job for juniors or interns. They need
| someone to tell them how to find the answer. What is obvious
| for you is not for others.
|
| - Everyone is working on something that can be Googled. Which
| is not the case. Even for tech, there will be some specific
| tasks that are related to the project, domain, company that
| can not be Googled.
|
| - Documentation? really? If you're fortunate to work in a
| company that has proper documentation for every single task
| and are always up to date then not many people share this
| experience.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| I'm full remote and mentored a recent CS graduate this last
| month. I put in the effort to send him a slack message at least
| once a day (I didn't say it was a lot of effort). And we do a
| mix of working together on tasks and working separately.
|
| When we do work together we use a new code-with-me feature of
| IntelliJ and I'll lead the development but when I need a
| utility function or something I ask him to write it and he goes
| off and writes it separate from my current coding.
|
| This is a legitimate help, not a burden. He wrote an interface
| to another service for me, and I never had to be distracted by
| it. I had a concern about something but he said he had read the
| documentation and that the way he wrote the code was correct. I
| trusted him, he turned out to be right.
|
| In the editor this is like having 2 or 3 cursors moving around
| in the project editing things independently, Google Docs style.
| I flip tabs to check in on him periodically. If I want to show
| him something I just place my cursor and type, in contrast to
| telling him what to type with words which was never very
| effective in the office. This is a form of pair programming
| that is actually productive and enjoyable, imagine that!
|
| If he were sitting 5 feet from me I would want to collaborate
| the same way. Two screens, keyboards, one codebase, casual
| voice communication. We have all this.
| cpitman wrote:
| I think the second one is a massive issue. In an in-person
| world, mentoring and role-modeling happen all the time. Junior
| employees see what their seniors are doing, _even when the
| seniors do not plan on being seen_.
|
| In the remote work world, junior employees can only see their
| seniors at defined events. Lots of mentoring needs to move to
| explicit mentoring relationships, and people have to move from
| "showing the right behaviors" to "explaining the right
| behaviors". And that assumes the mentee/mentor even know what
| behaviors they need to focus on! In person, you just get to see
| everything.
| ngc248 wrote:
| Mentoring is also possible when doing remote work, Why do you
| need to be in front of the person to do mentoring?
|
| In our company all new joinees (during covid) were paired with
| existing employees and we were able to onnboard and get them
| contributing in a short amount of time. The new joinees
| included both recent graduates and experience people.
| fullshark wrote:
| Broadly speaking I think the future for tech at least will be
| junior people work in person, going to a tech hub and going
| into the office to learn the ropes/best practices. Basically
| offices will become somewhat like graduate schools for these
| employees, and they can bear the brunt of cost of living issues
| in some of the more expensive regions living like grad
| students. Managers will also be in office to facilitate
| coordination.
|
| Once the engineers become senior and start families they will
| go remote.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| 1. Not going to get much advice if the mid and senior-level
| employees have all left.
|
| 2. "They will have no one around to mentor them or at least to
| ask for immediate advice." This is a meme most loudly heard in
| Cathy Merrill's disastrous Op Ed and has no basis in fact. When
| I sat in an office, a junior sat opposite me behind screen.
| When they wanted help, they could stand up and ask for help.
| Now, when they want help, they ping me on slack, and we start a
| screen share / voice / video chat. I have my own computer, I
| can find the necessary information using my setup and my tools,
| and guide them to a solution more quickly.
|
| "Think of the children^H^H^H interns" is propaganda and we
| should push back on that nonsense whenever it is expressed.
| Tycho wrote:
| I wonder if the mood will eventually swing the other way, with
| companies preferring remote working arrangements, and then people
| will recall the quaint oddity of employees _demanding_ the
| change.
|
| Living in a high cost of living city, with a high salary, has its
| advantages - many goods have the same price point nationally,
| holidays cost the same regardless, and any raise or bonus
| calculated as a percentage of your base salary will be more
| generous in absolute terms. The housing market will be brutal but
| if you plan to relocate eventually, you'll be way ahead.
| prepend wrote:
| I think soon companies will begin exploiting teleworkers as
| there's lots of cost savings there. Already most people in my
| org have bought their own monitors, desks, chairs, etc.
|
| Instead of allowing it, companies can start requiring it and
| save quite a bit not just on office space, but supplies,
| equipment, etc.
|
| I'm hoping smart companies get on the ball with equipment
| allowances.
|
| Also, I think it will finally get us to a "green" office place
| as COVID finally stopped the oldsters around me printing copies
| of everything. So the sheet amount of paper saved is quite
| nice.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| > Also, I think it will finally get us to a "green" office
| place as COVID finally stopped the oldsters around me
| printing copies of everything. So the sheet amount of paper
| saved is quite nice.
|
| I kid you not, my company recently had us print something
| out, scan it, and send it in. From home. I had to run out and
| buy ink. I wonder how many of coworkers had to run out to buy
| printers.
| prepend wrote:
| I had a few ask for this. I've been able to "print out,
| sign, scan" by just using a digital signature using Preview
| and then printing as a new PDF. And that worked. I've even
| been asked to help other people with how to print and scan
| from home.
| amadvance wrote:
| There are tools that allow to sign a PDF with the mouse. I
| started using it and HR didn't complained.
| Guillaume86 wrote:
| Yeah I don't have a printer at home, last time I had to do
| something like that, I wrote the required stuff on a paper,
| took a picture with my phone, used PAINT.NET to put it on
| their document at the right place and messed the
| colors/contrast a bit to look scanned.
| lnsru wrote:
| I happily pay for equipment by myself as long as I don't need
| to sit in open space office all day and waste time commuting.
| Bancakes wrote:
| Yes when companies start demanding dedicated home offices with
| corporate memorabilia and multiple cameras.
| walterlb wrote:
| Don't forget to display one or more books written by company
| execs!
| newsclues wrote:
| Will the capitalist who prefer office workers offer higher
| salaries for workers who come into the office instead of working
| from home?
|
| Or will office only businesses fail to compete with work from
| home businesses?
|
| I hope the market decides.
| dangerface wrote:
| Rent is often the second largest cost after salaries for most
| businesses. I think it's more likely that work from home
| businesses will offer more money to offset the cost of working
| from home, also because they have the money to do that.
|
| I think the biggest challenge from in office businesses will be
| brain drain why commute to a shitty office when I can get paid
| more to not do that.
| newsclues wrote:
| I think evaluating this as purely financial decision is an
| error.
|
| The power, control and ability to monitor workers to ensure
| "productivity" is part of the decision making matrix.
| [deleted]
| zerop wrote:
| Another advantage on wfh I see is that there is a less impact
| from the "visuals".. for example what you are wearing, what is
| your body language, how much attention others pay you during a
| meeting and all that nuance that could distract.. now in wfh,
| when you talk to someone over zoom, your whole attention is on
| the voice and contents, so the visual distractions has become
| less... I also see junior engineers who were getting intimidated
| in the meeting are able to verbally contribute more... Though
| both the things I mentioned have their own downsides..
| asdff wrote:
| I think its kinda a disadvantage to lose body language. You
| could have a presentation and have no clue how well anyone
| understood anything, since everyone's camera is off. During a
| normal talk you can see when their eyes glaze over and you lose
| the room.
| dbrueck wrote:
| That's basically what I did 12 years ago: the benefits of working
| from home were too appealing, so I quit my job, started my own
| company, and have worked from home ever since (the only exception
| was a post-acquisition stretch where I had to go in occasionally,
| but after I paid my dues I quit and started another company).
|
| It might not be for everyone, but I absolutely love it. Of all
| the benefits, the biggest is time - it's a precious resource, and
| for me at least, working in an office wastes way too much of it
| (commute, tons of meetings, etc.).
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| The article talks a lot about executives' desire to "maintain
| company culture". Can someone unpack that for me?
|
| I was already fuzzy on the concept of "company culture". But if
| executives are worried about it at the same level as
| "productivity" or "profitability", I'm definitely missing
| something.
| geodel wrote:
| I too am not sure what these buzzword means. To me, however, it
| looks company culture bullshit is controlling my time instead
| of work. So this way they can keep me feeling guilty if I take
| break, go to doctor's appointment, or myriad little bit of
| things when there is no work/meeting pending. If it were just
| about work that'd be done well within reasonable and agreed
| upon timelines.
|
| The hilarious thing about office for me was most meeting
| including daily morning meetings still happen over webex. So
| nothing of that in-place collaboration crap.
|
| We even had those staged bullshit videos with management where
| they tried to show how they were in office during pandemic.
| Basically if they can manage to work from office with their
| executive compensation then anyone with 1/10th or 1/100th of
| salary should be able to do that.
| btbuildem wrote:
| "Company culture" has always been an elusive thing for me. The
| more you try to be specific about it, the more the generalist
| corp-speak terms shimmer, flutter and dissolve into nothing.
| The only places where there was some "culture" (in my
| experience) were some of the tiny startups I worked at. Nobody
| talked it up, it just existed.
|
| So my rule of thumb for that is, if they're talking about
| Corporate Culture, it means there is none.
| dangerface wrote:
| The culture of all companies is a hierarchy of power and
| control. Any time the status quo changes those who gain the
| most from it like JP Morgan will fight against it for no other
| reason than the status quo being good for them.
|
| Company culture is just a way of saying we want to control you
| out of work and we want you to like it.
| throw483829 wrote:
| In MBA speak, company culture is a euphemism for median tenure
| / employee churn rate.
|
| Remote work lowers switching costs for employees, and makes it
| harder to distribute and monitor the consumption of corporate
| "sweeteners".
|
| It tilts favor in the direction of companies that are actually
| fulfilling to work for, and not merely "sticky" (in the high
| fructose corn syrup way). I think executives are right to be
| worried, to the extent they fall in the latter camp.
|
| As to why they're worried about it: if you have high churn, it
| means your training costs and hiring costs are much higher. And
| this directly impacts profitability and productivity, which
| like you say is what they "actually" care about.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Culture is the cumulative result of many small preferences and
| demeanors. It's easier for people to transmit and adopt those
| when they are physically proximate.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Thanks, that definition fits how people seem to use the term.
|
| Still, I'm curious as to why _maintaining current culture_ is
| seen as important. Is there a loss of productivity /
| profitability associated with the non-transmission of
| culture?
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Yes; if the attitudes and habits common in the business are
| effective ones, then losing them may cause some harm. For
| example, a software company might have seen a benefit from
| junior developers watching how senior developers get help
| when they're stuck, and observed a connection between that
| lower defect rate, more highly rated features, etc., and
| they might be noticing their juniors have had more trouble
| raising their hand during COVID. That's just one example of
| how a company might perceive cultural transmission and its
| potential link to success.
| biztos wrote:
| If you think your current culture gives you a productivity
| advantage, and the way you've cultivated that culture is
| very in-person, wouldn't you worry about losing it?
|
| As much as it can be corporate BS, I do think there are
| companies that have a culture that gives them an edge over
| the competition.
|
| I worked at one place where the culture was very much about
| treating everyone as valuable contributors regardless of
| level, and pretty much every Friday you could chat with the
| CEO (and most of the VPs) over beers if you felt like it.
| As a junior it made a huge difference in how much mental
| energy I put into innovating and helping others succeed.
| Just as an example, I could see that kind of thing being
| hard to maintain in a remote context with thousands of
| employees.
| binarytox1n wrote:
| I am a manager and do have a concern for company culture.
| Culture is how the teams work together - socially,
| professionally. It's harder to maintain culture remotely. It
| switches from something that "just happens" with a bit of care
| to something that has to be actively fostered.
|
| It's easy do dehumanize a voice on the phone. Many people don't
| want to even use cameras for video calls. How much empathy do
| you have for a voice on the phone versus a human being you
| interact with in person on a daily basis?
|
| I think the benefits of remote work far outweigh the work that
| needs to be done to maintain culture remotely, but it is a new
| challenge that doesn't have a lot of good understanding around
| how to make it work.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > I am a manager and do have a concern for company culture.
| Culture is how the teams work together - socially,
| professionally. It's harder to maintain culture remotely.
|
| The main aspects of firm culture that make difference in a
| day to day life are minimizing company politics, avoiding
| blame-game, honest interaction and manager's support. In my
| experience, it is the manager who contributes the most
| towards either improving these or screwing them up. None of
| these things require you to be physically present in office.
| Rest of stuff like events, group lunches etc are nice to have
| but not having them won't impact you as much as a political
| and toxic work environment would.
|
| > How much empathy do you have for a voice on the phone
| versus a human being you interact with in person on a daily
| basis?
|
| Since when basic human decency became incumbent upon seeing
| someone in flesh in front of you? Are you saying that people
| can't behave professionally unless they are not physically in
| office? How do fully remote companies work?
|
| > Many people don't want to even use cameras for video calls.
|
| For the same reason people hate meetings - resolutions to
| that are also the same that apply to face-to-face meetings.
|
| > I think the benefits of remote work far outweigh the work
| that needs to be done to maintain culture remotely, but it is
| a new challenge that doesn't have a lot of good understanding
| around how to make it work.
|
| Agreed on that - a good starting point would be not use
| culture as a justification to force people to be in office.
| adwn wrote:
| > _How much empathy do you have for a voice on the phone
| versus a human being you interact with in person on a daily
| basis?_
|
| Judging by the toxic office culture at some traditional (non-
| WFH) companies, lack of empathy has little to do with only
| hearing "a voice on the phone" vs interacting with "in
| person".
| area51org wrote:
| "Company culture" does not arise from physical presence. I've
| been at this for a long time, and have worked for all types
| of companies: mandated office presence, flexible WFH, and
| fully remote. All had company cultures, and the worst were
| the ones that forced people into an office. _Being together
| in an office does not do anything productive._ It does not
| create camaraderie or a culture, and the mythical hallways
| conversations that you hear about do not actually happen.
|
| > it is a new challenge that doesn't have a lot of good
| understanding around how to make it work.
|
| It's been going on for decades now. Time to catch up. Good
| WFH culture is matter of _effective management_. Skills
| required:
|
| - good communication (knowing how to use the tools we have,
| like IM, video, and yes, even email)
|
| - being responsive (this is a habit that must be cultivated
| in many cases)
|
| - focus on _goals_ and _achievements_ instead of distractions
| like seeing someone in a hallway and assuming that if they
| seem to be working, they must be working
| [deleted]
| lupire wrote:
| I don't want to work with sociopaths who can't be kind to a
| voice on the phone.
| unionpivo wrote:
| > I don't want to work with sociopaths who can't be kind to
| a voice on the phone.
|
| Sociopaths are an outliers and rare. But most people
| empathize less with people they have not met in person
| (prof: the internet, even before social media).
|
| Add deadlines and stress to that, and you have otherwise
| normal people behaving worse than they would otherwise.
| Source: me, working with remote teams for past 20 years.
|
| Like the person above said, you (or someone) have to be
| actively on the lookout for such issues, or things can get
| get bad really fast (I am talking days and weeks not
| months).
| binarytox1n wrote:
| Your exaggeration and dismissal is perfect evidence of your
| inability to empathize with the struggles of people you
| haven't met in real life.
| adwn wrote:
| > _Your exaggeration and dismissal is perfect evidence of
| your inability to empathize with the struggles of people
| you haven 't met in real life._
|
| Calm down, you're overreacting. A single sentence is
| hardly "perfect evidence of inability to empathize" with
| others. Talk about "exaggeration"...
|
| I somewhat agree with lupire: If someone only has empathy
| with their coworkers - _who they 're interacting with
| daily_ - if they can physically see them, then that's
| saying something.
| binarytox1n wrote:
| I would think that if anyone is overreacting it's the
| person who thinks people who struggle to identify with
| remote workers are sociopaths. I haven't made any black
| and white statements or used absolute terms such as "no
| empathy". I know people in general struggle with nuance,
| but come on - I'm making it easy here.
| adwn wrote:
| > _I know people in general struggle with nuance, but
| come on - I 'm making it easy here._
|
| Your posts contain one personal attack after the other.
| Really: please take a step back and relax.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Most leaders feel like they have more control when everyone is
| in person.
| itamarst wrote:
| "How can we know people are working if we can't physically see
| they are sitting in their chair".
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Company culture - the hierarchical structure, languages,
| values, and histories that allow a company to control and
| organize hundreds or thousands of people. Without culture,
| people will think and act as independent agents or contractors.
| mrbadideas wrote:
| "Company Culture" - We think you will accept less in
| compensation because working here is so pleasant and our open
| office space with snacks and a ping pong table are cool!
| jollybean wrote:
| If you've worked at a few different companies, you'll notice
| how different they are in so many things. Communications,
| privacy, leadership, expectations, formality, processes.
|
| A lot is embedded in that, some execs give it a 'very high'
| importance.
| ciisforsuckas wrote:
| They want to build that familial model where you live and die
| for your teammates and wfh hampers that because you aren't
| forced to trauma bond with a bunch of strangers.
| Facebook/Google learned early on that building campuses that
| look and act like colleges increased worker retention and
| productivity because they built their whole lives around the
| company. Shopping, Doctors, Recreation all happened on campus.
| All your new friends were made on campus after they forced
| relocation.
| lupire wrote:
| That's because commuting to all those errands is a waste of
| time. Remember this was invented before everything gkt Amazon
| Primed and Uberized.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| > That's because commuting to all those errands is a waste
| of time.
|
| Only in the eyes of the employer. People have always taken
| time out of their day for things like buying food, cooking
| for yourself, exercising, etc. Those things aren't burdens
| when your employer isn't demanding complete control over
| your life. And they are only "perks" in a culture where
| they do.
| bradlys wrote:
| Meh - I much prefer having those things done for me or
| made simpler. I've got exceptional work/life balance
| compared to my peers (I rarely work more than 40
| hours/week and usually work 30-35) in SV. But I still
| would like my workplace to make things easier.
|
| I go to the grocery store quite often and find it just a
| huge waste of time. We get things delivered more often
| but I'm not a meal planner type so it doesn't work well.
| Commuting for 10-15 minutes each way to get to nearest
| Whole Foods is a PITA. Having someone plan meals for me
| is a huge timesaver at every step. Same with exercise.
| Great if the equipment is right there, pound some weights
| just before eating lunch or play a game of basketball,
| etc. don't need to manage a membership, coordinate with
| friends over fifty messages, etc.
|
| Totally could do those things outside of work but they
| take more time. Gotta go to the gym from my house or
| work. Gotta go to a specific park and hope there's a
| pickup game that I can jump into. Etc.
| mdorazio wrote:
| PSA: The average commute for Americans is about 27 minutes each
| way [1]. If your commute is 2 hours, you're an outlier.
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/2018/09/20/650061560/stuck-in-traffic-
| yo...
| cableshaft wrote:
| Lots of people both live and work in small towns or cities. As
| someone who lived in a city of about 100k population, my
| commute to anywhere in the city was no more than twenty minutes
| on a bad day, usually fifteen.
|
| Lots of people both live and work from within big cities
| reasonably close to their job. For those people, their commute
| is likely less than 30 minutes.
|
| For people who are outside of big cities and have to commute
| in, or live in one city and commute to another, they will have
| longer than 30 minute commutes, almost certainly. That applies
| to most people who live in the suburbs.
|
| Also note this quote from your article: _" Speeds over the five
| or six years that Uber and others have been in existence have
| dropped from a very slow 6.5 mph to 4.7 mph," Schwartz says
| about New York City._
|
| 4.7 miles per hour. So that suggests that if your home is as
| close as 5 miles away from the city, it could take you an hour
| just to drive into the city during rush hour.
| momirlan wrote:
| Wondering what is the corporate next step. Work from office can
| be enforced in a number of ways : lower pay for WFH comes to
| mind. I'm sure we'll see some devious schemes.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| Actually companies should pay more for use of worker's home as
| office.
| Proven wrote:
| And the employers can't find anyone in Manila or Bangalore to
| fill those positions at 30% of the cost?
|
| I don't think so.
|
| I know Bloomberg and the rest of MMT-crazed intelligentsia would
| be happiest if the US Gov and Fed endlessly poured money into a
| non-functioning economy where everyone "works" from home, but
| somewhere out there some employers still need to get shit done
| and run business.
| elzbardico wrote:
| I think that overtime some middle-ground will be achieved. Maybe
| some people companies won't allow full remote work, but will
| create satellite offices in smaller towns where people would be
| able to walk or even bike to work. (yes, I know, this is true in
| big cities like NYC, but then the cost of living is astounding).
| codezero wrote:
| At my company it feels like it's about 50/50. I expect this to be
| company and individual specific. Half my team will quit if they
| don't get access to in office amenities and socialization.
| wdhilliard wrote:
| Working from home has been nice, but I have enjoyed the freedom
| of flexible working. I am not surprised by the overwhelming
| amount of people who never want to return to the office again. As
| someone who was often in charge of organizing team and social
| events pre-pandemic, I have been aware of the amount of people
| who think of social time as an unwanted obligation vs fun. Still,
| not everything about working from home is better. Here are a few
| thoughts of my own: - My commute is only 15 minutes. Despite
| environmental impact, which I can appreciate, I enjoy my 15 min
| in the car - drinking coffee, thinking about my day. I wouldn't
| call it meditation, but it's close. If your commute is 2 hours a
| day, good riddance. You probably should have been considered a
| remote worker all along. - I truly enjoy interacting with my
| coworkers. I am a single, mid-30s guy who likes to socialize.
| It's a nice break and gives me reason to get up from my desk.
| There are lots of studies on how short breaks impact productivity
| and mental wellness. I was acutely aware of my declining social
| skills as I worked from home. I became easily agitated and curt
| with people. If you consider all forms of casual communication as
| "small talk", consider that you might be more about the effort
| you're willing to put into people vs. how innately boring
| everyone else is. - Scheduling online meetings and Zoom calls IS
| a pain in the ass. Everything revolves around a calendar of 30min
| blocks. 5min convo? 30 minutes. I also can't help but get the
| feeling that many of my coworkers are not actually engaged on
| calls. If you're colleagues are honest, you have most likely
| heard them say at least once "sorry can you repeat that. I was
| distracted". Many issues simply don't get addressed because it's
| not an appropriate text chat, but it doesn't seem big enough to
| put on someones calendar. - I am arguably less productive at the
| office, but my days feel shorter. - I never really wanted my home
| to be a working environment. This is probably my biggest issue
| with working from home. My office is an office. My living room is
| an office. My kitchen table is an office. It feels really nice to
| come home and have it feel like a home. Not to mention the
| privilege of even having space for a real office vs having to
| work from my bedroom like many people do. - There are introverts
| and extroverts, but being anti-social is not a positive thing. If
| you believe in mental health, this is not an argument. There ARE
| plenty of ways to be social online, but many people are bad at
| it. The ability to be a passive aggressive asshole seems to
| increase when you know the only way for someone to talk to you
| about it is over text. - I worry about the impact remote work has
| on employee appreciation/value. Workers seem more like a
| commodity. I think this is easier for someone to understand if
| they have ever worked on a team with distributed contractors.
| This isn't
| jordache wrote:
| Every company should just do hybrid. Setup hoteling space at the
| office, reduce office sq ft. Meet both mindsets in the middle.
|
| Easy peasy. I don't understand why this is not automatic for
| these companies.
| Grimm1 wrote:
| WFH is great for > 30 yo, and those with money/space and worse
| for people just starting out or who live in a studio.
|
| I'm young (26), but successful by financial standards and before
| the pandemic my apartment was just the place I slept so I had a
| studio and I liked it that way.
|
| Working, sleeping, eating and socializing from my 800 sqft studio
| is frankly maddening. I feel like I'm always on call and
| connected where before my apartment was the place I decompressed
| and escaped.
|
| It's lost its sanctity and I want it back.
| JakeTheAndroid wrote:
| I am not sure where you live, but I would expect that WHF
| allows those under 30 a similar financial relief to those
| above. For you to be forced to live in an 800 sqft place
| working in tech, I would assume you live in one of the larger
| metropolitan areas. WFH should allow you to move further away
| and capture more space for your dollar, even if you don't end
| up owning the property like those over 30 might.
|
| At the start of the pandemic I lived in a house full of people
| working at tech startups in Oakland. So I understand having no
| space as I worked/lived from my tiny room. But, I was able to
| leave the bay area, as were my roommates and now we all have
| our own places (some rent some own) because the same rent in
| Oakland was able to afford private spaces in other parts of CA.
|
| So I empathize with your position. I recommend trying to move
| out of the locale that only allows you to afford an 800 sqft
| studio. Even the shittiest tech jobs in the Bay would allow for
| you to have your own 2 bedroom apt in other parts of CA. This
| is how you take advantage of the WFH opportunity as a younger
| person.
| Grimm1 wrote:
| You may have misunderstood me, I could definitely afford a
| bigger space. I didn't/don't want one. I purposely chose my
| 800 sqft studio because I hadn't signed up to be entombed in
| it.
|
| I was never home by choice in the before times and I don't
| want to change that. I want to go back to getting home at
| 10pm sleeping after work, socializing, going to meetups or
| whatever and then leaving at 8:30am the next day. The extra
| space would be wasted in that case. Plus saving 35%+ of my
| paycheck was/is great.
|
| I only spent time in my apartment later at night and
| sometimes on the weekends.
|
| Moving away from the city won't help me there. I imagine it'd
| actually be worse.
| JakeTheAndroid wrote:
| I am confused then. You want to go into an office so that
| you can stay living in a small apartment? The position was
| that the WFH situation helped those that had their own
| space. But you're saying that not having your own space is
| a choice.
|
| It would seem that this issue is more around the pandemic
| itself and less around WFH. Once things open up your home
| would only be a place where you work and sleep, and you'll
| be able to spend most of your time away from your
| apartment. And if you expanded the size of your apartment
| to a 1 bed instead of a studio, you could theoretically
| reduce this issue by having an isolated work space that you
| don't share with your recreational activities.
| Grimm1 wrote:
| I don't want WFH to become permanent for everyone, I want
| it to be a choice. A lot of people around this forum seem
| overly about WFH and it being permanent which often means
| it becomes a thing everyone has to deal with. I'd prefer
| it being a well balanced choice or go back to how it was.
|
| So yes, if things return to how they were before you're
| right my issues will be resolved.
| [deleted]
| mmmmmbop wrote:
| This is off-topic, but to me as a European, it's fascinating to
| read that you consider an 800sqft studio to be somewhat
| limiting. I'm pretty sure most couples in European cities live
| in apartments smaller than that. Back when I was in university,
| I lived in a ~200sqft studio. Granted, I'm really happy that I
| didn't have to lock down or WFH from there.
| 1270018080 wrote:
| 800 is a giant studio. 400-500 is more normal in the US. But
| 200? Whew. Maybe only in NYC.
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| I lived in a 230 ft^2 studio in Michigan with my wife while
| she was in grad school. They exist, even in the middle of
| the country.
| Teknoman117 wrote:
| Apparently it's an unpopular opinion, but I am completely in
| this boat. I suffer from ADHD and my productivity and emotional
| wellbeing cratered when WFH started. I eat worse than I did at
| work, I put on weight, etc.
|
| I lived next to the office before I ended my lease and moved in
| with family so I wouldn't be completely alone, so the office
| was never a hassle. I was a 20 minute walk away and the weather
| is usually nice.
|
| I had a clear delineation between work life and personal life.
| My home was for relaxing and play, the office was for work. It
| helped me keep my priorities in order. Going into the office
| helped me mute out the personal distractions of life - personal
| projects, entertainment, etc.
|
| I have a dramatically different experience at home. I can
| hardly focus because it's next to impossible to fully separate
| myself from my toys, as it were.
|
| It's driven my stress levels through the roof because I know
| I'm less productive. No one has said anything to me about it,
| nor brought up anything, yet my self guilt is consuming me. It
| keeps me up at night and I'm dreading performance reviews...
| Grimm1 wrote:
| > My home was for relaxing and play, the office was for work
|
| Yup I feel this exactly. I had the exact same separation and
| the exact same issue when it stopped existing. I'm still
| struggling with it and we've been living this way for over a
| year now.
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| What are these employers offering as a concession?
|
| I'd do 4 day weeks in the office; I'd definitely do 3 days in the
| office and one at home and I'd take a 10% pay cut to be allowed
| it with basically no difference to my productivity.
|
| If you're offering nothing and simultaneously aren't able to give
| clear reasons why working remotely isn't a valid option I don't
| see what you can expect other than people quitting.
| biztos wrote:
| Why would you take less money for the same work output?
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| It's a hypothetical scenario with two options that
| conceivably could be seen as a fair trade-off by the
| employer.
|
| I'd take less money because I dont really care about how
| productive I am on aggregate, I just care about how much time
| I have where I am completely free to not be productive. I
| think the example I gave is a touch extreme though; 5%
| deduction for alternating 4 day weeks remote and in the
| office.
| nomy99 wrote:
| I'll never work from home. I'll go so far to say that I'd only
| work for companies that require you to come in. My experience WFH
| has been abysmal.
| sizzle wrote:
| Employers need to compensate us for the extra wear and tear on
| our homes, our office furniture/accommodations, and prorated
| utilities consumed on company time. In return, companies can
| afford massive savings from a reduced physical footprint and
| smaller commercial real estate leasing + massive facilities
| upkeep and utilities cost savings.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Here, we've scheduled a high five session with your fellow
| employees, please come in for it.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| I left a job right before the pandemic because the office was
| terrible and they gave all the older employees WFH but then
| stopped giving WFH out right when I was due for it. They told me
| they just couldn't do it anymore, no reason given.
|
| Then, after quitting, covid occurred and they went fully remote.
| elzbardico wrote:
| and please note Quitting != Leaving the work force. The market is
| strong right now for developers. Easy to find another job that
| has a remote option. I bet most of that people that quit, quit
| because they had already secured an offer with remote work
| option.
| woeirua wrote:
| I was a strong proponent of WFH for years. I fought tooth and
| nail for more flexible policies at my previous employers. After
| having done it now for over a year full-time, I'm done. I don't
| want to WFH full-time anymore. Part of it is that I'm at a
| different point in my life: I have kids now so having some
| physical separation between home and work is almost required. the
| other reason is that its so hard to integrate with a company when
| you're fully remote. I've never felt more like a cog in the
| machine than this last year.
|
| Ultimately, some companies will move to completely remote work.
| Most will go back to at least a hybrid in-person model. For the
| latter, I suspect that most WFH employees will eventually go back
| to the office once they realize that they're second class
| employees and that they're effectively frozen out of the
| traditional career progression model by being remote.
| mtberatwork wrote:
| > Ultimately, some companies will move to completely remote
| work. Most will go back to at least a hybrid in-person model.
| For the latter, I suspect that most WFH employees will
| eventually go back to the office once they realize that they're
| second class employees and that they're effectively frozen out
| of the traditional career progression model by being remote.
|
| I disagree. This is a problem if the majority of workers are in
| the office full time and only a small group are remote. If the
| office is entirely WFH _or_ hybrid, then everyone is a remote
| worker. Also, the traditional career model has been changing
| drastically even before the pandemic. These days workers need
| to move horizontally, across companies, to achieve any kind of
| progression in their careers. The vertical move up the
| corporate ladder is becoming a relic. Mind you, I 'm not saying
| that is good or bad, just commenting on the current situation.
| theknocker wrote:
| I prefer an actual office. An open floor plan that's designed so
| my boss can walk behind me twenty times a day is not an actual
| office.
| pawelduda wrote:
| It's a shame global pandemy had to happen for companies to
| realize that employeee don't have to be at a particular place at
| a particular time to do a good job. Never say never, but I never
| want to go back to office job :)
| xwdv wrote:
| Forcing someone to be at an office is like saying "Hey can you
| work an extra two hours everyday for free?" Time spent commuting
| is work. Getting dressed for work is work.
|
| If you want to keep people working in the office you need to pay
| more. At least 2 hours per day more.
| theshadowknows wrote:
| I've been working outside on my deck the past few weeks and it's
| been glorious. It's a little cooler sometimes than I'd like but
| it's not frigid (I live in Connecticut).
| a3n wrote:
| > Some have lamented the perils of remote work, saying it
| diminishes collaboration and company culture.
|
| Collaboration, maybe.
|
| Company culture is not diminished, it's merely changed.
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| I stopped working at the office in 2006. Since 2018 I've been
| working at stakeholder's location, which can be the prospect,
| customer, partner or event.
|
| The key aspect I miss the most from my office days is networking,
| or the capacity to build and maintain a consistent network of
| contacts. Maybe because I'm latin working in Latin America. We
| are high touch by definition. But I really feel that remote work
| damaged my capacity to keep my network of contacts. Now I see
| myself with the mission to find a new job, and I'm not sure my
| current network will be enough help.
| kleinsch wrote:
| When companies start pressuring people to return to the office, I
| wouldn't be surprised if there's a wave of quitting to switch to
| another company that's more remote friendly. That will be limited
| by the actual number of remote jobs, so the early movers will get
| an advantage. I think you'll end up with a decent number of
| people who answer surveys that they'll quit before having to go
| back to the office, but realize there are no comparable remote
| jobs available.
| agotterer wrote:
| Early movers will snatch up the currently open remote
| positions. If remote really becomes the standard then companies
| who want to remain competitive will have no choice but to adapt
| and adjust policies.
| ipsi wrote:
| Interestingly enough, my employer has gone the opposite way -
| they're "shutting down" (that is, chose not to renew the lease
| for) our office in this city, and had all of us sign new WFH
| contracts. Same for the office in another part of Europe.
|
| Some of us were 100% OK with that, and some were really not -
| since the job wasn't expected to be a WFH job, not everyone has
| a good location to work from, or reliable internet, etc., etc -
| those people have been able to work from the office at various
| points over the last year as the pandemic ebbed and flowed. As
| a consequence, my employer has walked the office closure back
| _a little_ - we 're still all full-time remote, but there will
| be a smaller office available for e.g., project kickoffs, or
| people who want to get out of their house for a bit.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| This presupposes that the wave of quitting has no significant
| impact on the employer side. I'd imagine that many companies
| who push office-first too hard will find themselves short
| staffed in a very tight labor market. The likely response of
| many will be to panic and convert to remote-first to avoid
| hemorrhaging workers.
| jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote:
| Right now I'm working in my backyard on a nice day, listening to
| the birds chirp instead of keyboard clacking. One of the MASSIVE
| downsides of working in an office that I rarely hear mentioned is
| that you have to be inside during prime sunlight hours for
| basically all of the summer except weekends and when you're on
| vacation. We're all cooped up in a shed like factory farmed
| animals.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| Well for those of us in dense urban areas, we don't have a
| backyard and you could really go on a walk whenever it damn
| well pleased you anyway
| greedo wrote:
| When I was in the office, the only acceptable reasons to be
| away from your desk were:
|
| 1. Bathroom break. Better not take too many or it'll be
| noticed.
|
| 2. Coffee/smoke break outside. Not much scrutiny of this, but
| I do neither.
|
| 3. Exercise break where people walk around the campus for a
| bit. Not too fun to do in the middle of either a hot or ice-
| cold midwestern day.
|
| Anything else was viewed with a jaundiced eye.
| jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote:
| Yeah that's nowhere near the same as what I'm talking about.
| Idunn0 wrote:
| What is your setup for working outside in the sunshine?
| jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote:
| A laptop on a patio table under a patio umbrella.
| chad_strategic wrote:
| Aside from the debate of WFH / work at the office, culture, water
| cooler etc.
|
| Environmentalist should up in arms about return to the office. 2
| hour commutes are terrible for the environment. 2 hours of an
| idling car not moving at it's true potential. (I understand that
| when the car is idling or stuck in slow traffic it is burning the
| most fossil fuels.) I'm not saying that WFH is going to solve our
| environmental problems, but taking a few cars off the morning
| commute surely can't hurt.
|
| It also takes money away from big oil and our criminal frenemy,
| MBS in.
| throwitaway1235 wrote:
| Are people so hopelessly dense that they don't realize a remote
| economy means lower wages, massive outsourcing and the
| obsolescence of cities?
| Miner49er wrote:
| How does it mean lower wages? Wouldn't it just mean less
| variance in wages?
| ks6g10 wrote:
| Are people so hopelessly dense that they don't realise an
| office economy means lower net wages, massive outsourcing and
| the obsolescence of local communities?
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| > lower wages, massive outsourcing and the obsolescence of
| cities
|
| I don't really know why #3 is said like a bad thing, but I
| wonder about the other two. If this is clearly and advantage
| that is sure to happen, why hasn't it? There's still time zone
| issues and cultural bridges to gap, so I don't know how far one
| can really go before it becomes a lot of effort to be
| productive. And speaking as a Canadian who makes what appears
| to be a university grad-level wage in the states, I wouldn't
| mind it at all if that forced the more local wage to be a
| little higher to compete.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Hmm. I think I'd quit if I was told we were going fully remote.
| It works for some people, not others; personally I can't wait to
| be back in an office.
| tinyhouse wrote:
| For me WFH is not the key but rather having the freedom and
| flexibility. I've been going to the office for the last few
| months, about 2-3 times a week. It's been great. First, I bike or
| walk to the office, so my commute is part of my weekly exercise.
| The office is empty, so I have all the freedom that I want. I can
| come and leave whenever I want. The benefit of the office is
| pretty significant for me - I'm not stuck at home all day, it's
| quiet unlike my home (my wife is WFH and my kids are sometimes
| around) so I can concentrate better, etc. I still like WFH at
| least twice a week, since I like mixing things up and it fits my
| schedule better on days that I have other activities during the
| day or early evening.
|
| Now, obviously my current situation is not going to last. Sooner
| or later others will come back to the office and it's not going
| to be that quiet anymore, my boss might be around, etc. However,
| I actually look forward to that. Going out for lunch with co-
| workers etc. I'm still planning to keep things as they are now.
| Coming and leaving whenever I want, mixing it between WFH and
| from the office. Meetings are going to continue to be fully
| remote anyway, since we have people all over the world. I see the
| office as a place people can come to have a quiet time, enjoy the
| office perks, and socialize. Different than what the office used
| to be pre-covid (at least at some places). Since we have a large
| office with many areas to connect your laptop and work, I'm not
| even planning to sit together with my team.
|
| The one thing I'm not looking forward to is rush hour. I'm really
| enjoying my commute these days, much more than pre-covid. I hope
| that things will never go back to pre-covid levels. (most likely
| given that WFH has become much more common)
| juloo wrote:
| For me, the main benefit is I can choose where I live. There is
| not many developer positions available outside of big cities,
| with WFH I get to choose both where _and_ for which company I
| work. Living in a big city was a bad experience for me, I would
| quit my job immediately if I were asked to give up WFH.
|
| Commute time, expense and risks are other benefits but others are
| talking about it already.
| intricatedetail wrote:
| The moment I get asked to come to office I am going to leave. I
| may agree to occassional meetings no more than twice a month.
| Simulacra wrote:
| To play devil's advocate for a moment, is it possible people are
| becoming spoiled or too coddled by work?
|
| I've always been of the presumption that market forces will align
| workers with jobs, but it's clear in places where there is little
| to no choice (i.e. the small towns Amazon puts their warehouses)
| theory doesn't exactly work out in reality.
|
| That's led me to change my thinking a bit, but I'm having trouble
| getting over the notion that it's a job, and if you want a job,
| you work, if you don't want to work at a particular place, you go
| work somewhere else. I bristle at the notion that employees
| should, could, or can bend a company to their preference.
|
| It just seems we've gone from free lunch and massages to
| employees dictating business decisions. I'm not sure if that
| shift in power is wise.
| jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote:
| They aren't actually dictating anything though. Employers are
| still in charge of their policies. These employees are just
| stating their terms and leaving if their terms aren't met.
| Companies can then choose their response. They can hire other
| workers who are willing to work in an office or they can cave
| to worker demands or some other compromise can be made.
|
| This is free society functioning how it's supposed to: free
| agents negotiating their terms and coming to mutually
| beneficial arrangements.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| I'm dreading my commute to Seattle once offices reopen. Over the
| last year and a half there have been a crazy number of new homes
| and apartments built all along the two-lane highway that
| comprises most of my route.
|
| Everything is workable now because people are still at home but
| as soon as the offices reopen it will be atrocious. This is
| especially true once the weather turns shitty - snow can easily
| make a 1.5 hour commute take 3.5 hours even excluding the new
| homes.
| jes5199 wrote:
| I spent three years working from home in the pre-pandemic era, at
| GitHub - the king of remote culture at the time - and I was
| desperate to have an office again.
|
| I can code fine at home (better, actually, with more privacy to
| focus), but I can't do the meta-stuff nearly as well. It's the
| soft-skills that suffer.
|
| I think my pandemic-era company failed (we got acquired but, it
| was a failing-up situation) because we lost the ability to have
| course-correcting conversations outside of formal meetings. Which
| is to say: we just weren't as smart, as a group. We should have
| done a daring pivot, but there was no way to discuss it
| (zoom+figma "brainstorming" sessions were completely useless)
|
| I think my ideal would be to have somewhere that we met in person
| semi-regularly, maybe optionally, like a study hall environment,
| where we could pair or whiteboard or just chat.
|
| I don't want to go back to being crammed into an open-office with
| too many people, that is just awful for coding. and Slack is like
| being in an open-office 24 hours a day; I hope my next gig
| doesn't use it.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| I heard FB is most likely doing-away with WfH and going back to
| ass-in-seat mentality (AiSM).
| h0nd wrote:
| This was so obvious. But who will pay and feed these former
| employees?
| msarrel wrote:
| Did anyone else notice that they quote hate speech from this
| worker who won't return to the office? I have to wonder why we
| have a quote in there ridiculing someone because of their age.
| Would it have been okay if she had said that this person she
| worked for was stupid because of their race or gender? Why is it
| okay that the person she works for is stupid because of his age?
| motohagiography wrote:
| This idea that voice/video ostensibly reduces empathy may not be
| all bad. It's easier to set personal boundaries when the poorly
| equipped project or engineering manager on the other side of a
| voice or video bridge can't escalate with implied threats or
| histrionics. Cajoling and haranguing people to work for its own
| sake is not management, and the tech sets a boundary on a lot of
| that behavior.
|
| I'd argue the human contact in offices is rarely used to foster
| healthy long term relationships, and the improved mental health
| of remote employees appears to have a productivity benefit. Think
| of the anti-patterns that people use in offices because it works
| for them, and how those anti-patterns don't work anymore and they
| must find better tools.
|
| I can see how it's hard for superfluous managers who must compete
| to extract value from the same set of resources, but for a well
| aligned organization, remote is a potential renaissance.
| rexreed wrote:
| For knowledge workers, Work From Home should be the assumed
| starting point, with offices provided for those who would rather
| not or can't, rather than the reverse.
|
| For service providers and retail folks, obviously this is not as
| much of an option.
| efields wrote:
| Office work never acknowledged how much labor was being done at
| home by unpaid workers -- usually moms.
|
| Now we've had a couple generations of women in the workforce en
| masse, partners who have stepped up household responsibilities,
| longer commutes, and more being asked of all workers.
|
| The only time to get household crap done has been late after
| hours and the weekend, aka "leisure time."
|
| It hasn't been tenable for a while and now the pandemic showed us
| another way. This is an improvement.
|
| Offices mostly facilitate interruption, but also collaboration on
| a good day. So much of that can be done virtually.
|
| Half-day whiteboard sessions are great IRL, no reason why they
| can't be scheduled a day in advance, or later in the day and give
| people time to get to a common area to do so.
|
| The office had its issues and the pandemic is forcing a reckoning
| of them. Great!
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Corporations have missed that we employees are actually
| customers. We trade services in exchange for cash. We can easily
| take our business elsewhere.
|
| It's no surprise that the business leaders focus on "culture".
| "Oh, they have to be here four days per week or we don't have
| culture". Not effectiveness. Not satisfaction. "Culture". And by
| "culture" they mean "kissing ass" and maintaining their lordships
| feudal demesne.
|
| They make noises about "bums in seats" being necessary for
| productivity, yet they either don't have measures in place to
| measure productivity, or conveniently forget them, since the data
| shows that productivity is the same or better when an employee is
| allowed to choose where to work.
|
| Then there was that article about how junior employees wont be
| able to learn from senior employees, which is arse. If anything
| it's easier to work together remotely. Bonus, nobody putting
| their hands on a junior as they lean in "to get a better look at
| your work". But in any case, junior employees aren't going to
| learn from senior employees if the senior employees _arent
| there_.
| CSDude wrote:
| I'm going to start my own startup with a friend. We've been
| planning this for a long while. We will work together in a small
| office, but I'm not sure how We can build a team fully remote,
| with no experience. I'm all for flexibility etc. but when things
| are not in an order, just starting remote feels very heavy and
| risky for me. Any pointers would be appreciated.
| MrPatan wrote:
| I'll let someone else reap the 15% extra productivity or w/e
| office working adds. Knock yourselves out.
|
| For me there's no turning back. The cat is out of the barn and
| the horse out of the bag. That ship has sailed and it hit the
| iceberg. The fat lady sang her swan song.
|
| Sorry, bums-in-seatsers.
| ajuc wrote:
| We build 2 buildings for each person - 1 to live in and other to
| work in. And then we build roads between them and parking spaces
| near them. And then we pay these people to use all that
| infrastructure and waste their precious time doing it, instead of
| just using their computer and internet connection (which they
| already use anyway) for 1 more thing.
|
| It's so inefficient it boggles my mind we're still doing it.
| digbert wrote:
| Personally, I'm the opposite. I have considered quitting as my
| company has been talking about remote work, but none of my team
| seem interested, so I'm sticking around for now. If a few people
| in my team went remote (or mostly remote), I'd probably quit.
| pearjuice wrote:
| Yeah, I'm never going back and if they want me to go back I will
| quit too. This is the new normal and productivity has shown that
| there is zero necessity for people to come to an office. It's all
| perfectly viable to WFH.
|
| - stress free working if I actually want to get stuff done
|
| - no open office or any obnoxious sounds just me in my room and I
| can make whatever sounds I want
|
| - don't have to pretend to work hard, just get stufff done and
| don't be a slacker and I can literally be productive 1/2 days and
| relax/be async 2/3 days because I can focus very well. No
| complaints whatsoever from stakeholders or the business.
|
| - not being hyper alert of how I look or what I wear, just my top
| needs to look presentable when in an meeting with camera on and
| can wear sweatpants and no shoes or whatever is comfortable
| without dress code
|
| - can fix the temperature to the exact degree I want it
|
| - no social interactions whatsoever. no "get togethers", Friday
| drinks with people I don't like, barely any casual conversation
| just straight to the point business and that's it
|
| - no morning talk or "how was your weekend" NPC tier
| conversations for the sake of conversing just a daily stand-up
| (we actually sit) hyper-focused on work and that's it
|
| - eat whenever i want whatever i want no more sandwiches in a box
| or overpriced canteen food, bake french eggs for lunch or make a
| soup. Fitness during a break. Take a walk whilst being in a
| "meeting"
|
| - no commute whatsoever, can practically roll out of bed into my
| chair if i wanted to
|
| - not ONE colleague seen at the coffee machine or when getting
| water no SMALL TALK OR STARING of colleagues begging for me to
| say hi and them to ramble about their kids or whatever
| uninspiring thing they did in the weekend. I have friends and
| colleagues. I don't want to socialize with these colleagues, I
| wouldn't even think about small talking with them in a bar why
| force it in an office?
|
| And best of all no SJW office politics whatsoever. All of that
| seem to have disappeared with WFH. Just get stuff done, get paid
| and that's it. I'm never going back to the or any office.
| yboris wrote:
| I moved from the NYC area (NYC job) to Michigan for cheaper cost
| of living. I told my employer I either continue 100% remotely or
| I will find another job. I am grateful my employer let me stay
| on. I presented it nicely, but it was an ultimatum.
|
| My approach was to express (honestly) that I wanted to stay with
| the company, but the opportunity of living in a state closer to
| my friends and with a calmer pace of life was too much to pass
| up. In my case I bought a house for $150k and will be paying much
| lower property taxes than I did in NJ.
|
| This move and 100% remote has been a major win across all
| dimensions for me.
| swader999 wrote:
| The environmental benefits are massive. For all the press the
| climate gets you'd think we'd hear this angle more. Perhaps even
| incentives for employers.
| podgib wrote:
| This is very place-dependent. In california where everybody is
| driving to work, you're probably right. But in many European
| cities where people would take public transport to work, and
| instead are heating entire homes all day instead of heating one
| office for hundreds of staff, the environmental effect of WFH
| is probably negative.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Ditto this. This summer I'm going to need to run my air
| conditioning basically 24/7.
| supergeek133 wrote:
| I still don't like the polarization of this issue "either
| everyone has to allow full time WFH or I quit!".
|
| I prefer working at the office given the choice, it allows me to
| see some of my co-workers and helps me with balance. I get
| distracted at home. Also things that happen organically at the
| office like lunch together and happy hours are nice to have.
|
| At the same time, I have a VERY short commute compared to most, I
| can imagine I would feel differently if I lived 30 minutes+ away
| from the office.
|
| My company has announced we will do "3 days minimum" in the
| office once things are "normal", this made a lot of people upset
| in our company with good reason. I think we should be more
| flexible, but I still appreciate the option.
| Ocerge wrote:
| I feel like the pandemic has given rise to a winners vs losers
| mentality with respect to WFH. For the longest time, people who
| prefer to work in office were the winners, and now it's the
| people who prefer WFH. In reality everybody is different and
| wants different things out of the work aspect of their life. I
| have been in an awful place mentally due to WFH; I can't stand
| not separating work from life, I'm more social than the average
| dev so I enjoy being around people, I get easily distracted at
| home, etc. I don't know why compromise is not more common in
| online spaces. Reads like 90% of introverts running a victory
| lap.
| supergeek133 wrote:
| Yeah this is what I'm getting at, I've started referring to
| it as "I live at work now".
| paxys wrote:
| How is it polarization? I want to work from home full time, my
| employer stops allowing it, so I find a new job. Especially in
| the software industry where there's an unlimited number of
| remote/wfh jobs there's no point in needlessly compromising for
| your employer's sake.
| supergeek133 wrote:
| I'm not compromising. I literally said I prefer to be in the
| office.
|
| I feel there is a growing wave of "WFH only or bust", which
| just throws away the opinion of people like me.
|
| I've been working from home for 18 months like a lot of
| others, I don't mind it, but given the choice...
| luffapi wrote:
| People are "WFH of bust" for several reasons:
|
| 1. While _some_ employees legitimately like the office, the
| push to return there is coming from executives. The
| motivation is pretty clearly control.
|
| 2. For the first time ever, work style is favoring
| introverts. Their feelings were never taken into
| consideration, yet through the accident of the pandemic,
| intovert friendly work is now the norm.
|
| 3. Cost of living is through the roof near traditional
| office space.
|
| Because the stakes are so high, the change so recent and
| the pushback so authoritarian, people _are_ "fighting" to
| retain WFH. It also feels like a winnable battle for the
| first time ever.
| choeger wrote:
| The only thing that nags me about homeoffice is that I was mostly
| working with people that I met in the office before. I do not
| know yet how interactions will work with people I only know
| remotely (pun intended).
| geofft wrote:
| This seems like the perfect case for differentiation. There's a
| lot of arguing over the merits of working remotely vs. working in
| person as if one is universally better.
|
| Just have some companies work entirely remotely, and some work
| entirely in person, and have employees choose their employer
| based on that just like how they choose their employer based on
| headquarters location etc. now.
| stakkur wrote:
| My last year commuting (2019), I calculated my commute and
| related prep/travel time: 612 hours.
|
| _Six hundred and twelve hours_. Almost a solid month.
|
| So, I worked my way into 100% remote, and I make it clear often
| that it's mandatory for me. There's no going back. If I'm forced
| to, I'll quit.
| ketanmaheshwari wrote:
| Unable to read the article due to paywall but how can employees
| be quitting in such numbers to be noted by Bloomberg? Don't they
| have families to feed, finances to take care of, worries of
| future, worries of career and such? How exactly are so many
| people managing to just quit their jobs?
| cheschire wrote:
| The article mentions somewhere in the middle:
|
| "A May survey of 1,000 U.S. adults showed that 39% would
| consider quitting if their employers weren't flexible about
| remote work."
|
| And towards the end it references a tweet that went semi-viral
| and got a lot of responses.
|
| https://twitter.com/GenieShinobi/status/1389286585347235847
|
| edit: also here's a non-paywall link. https://archive.is/Yc5UW
| yoz-y wrote:
| Indeed, the article contains nothing to support the claim in
| the title.
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| People have savings. It's not worth making your life miserable
| over the safety net of your current job, especially when
| there's so many remote options out there.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| Most people don't: https://www.fool.com/the-
| ascent/research/average-savings-acc...
| wepple wrote:
| It's a weakly supported clickbait article.
|
| A may survey of 1000 people reported that 39% would _consider_
| quitting if their work didn't provide flexibility.
|
| I'm no statistician but the red flags are n=1000 and "would
| consider". This is a hugely hit button issue right now, great
| for clicks.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Right now for software engineers, quitting is not that
| complicated. Easy to find another offer. Heck, recruiters
| can't leave us alone a single day.
| aninteger wrote:
| Clickbait yes, but it's more than that. It's a
| momentum/filler piece. NPR's Marketplace ran a short segment
| on this last week (although I can't find the link), now
| Bloomberg, coming up MSNBC and CNN(?).
| wgerard wrote:
| > red flags are n=1000
|
| It's been awhile since I've taken stats, but people semi-
| frequently overestimate the necessary sample size needed for
| even a 99% confidence level.
|
| Depends on the standard deviation for sure, but some quick
| napkin math suggests that a sample size of ~700 people is
| more than enough to draw inferences about the entire western
| hemisphere at a 99% confidence level.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| For a single question survey, 1,000 is a more than
| sufficiently large survey. Standards are typically for 300+
| _given random sampling_.
|
| Reasons for enlarging samples have less to do with _accuracy_
| than with _resolution_. If you plan on looking at specific
| cross-tabulations or sub-populations, you need a sufficient
| sample size (typically n >30 for large-sample statistics) to
| draw inferences.
|
| Error decreases with the _square root_ of sample size. To
| _halve_ error you must _square_ the sample. A 1,000-element
| sample has half the error of a _31-element_ sample. To halve
| error again would require a _1,000,000 element_ sample.
|
| "Would consider" is a fair catch, though here the question is
| how that compares against previous measures / trend.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| The subtext to the work-from-home trend is commercial real
| estate, both office and retail, which is an _immense_
| investment asset class.
|
| I've seen very little dismissal of the trend that cannot be
| traced to commercial real estate, banking, or investment
| interests. Interestingly enough, all sectors which can
| themselves utilise remote office or work-from-home
| arrangements.
|
| Bloomberg are first and foremost an investment information
| service.
| rcstank wrote:
| No debt but a residence mixed with a 3-6 month emergency fund
| gives a lot of freedom. I know that's not that case for many,
| but the emergency fund is my safety net and if I need, that's
| how I would manage to do it. I'd also try to line up a job
| prior to my departure.
| loonster wrote:
| https://archive.is/Yc5UW
|
| Archiving is a way around many paywalls.
|
| The article itself was short on substance. A bunch of anecdotes
| without any hard numbers of the amount that are quitting.
| Aissen wrote:
| They pass interviews and accept full remote jobs. I've seen it
| happen. Some people moved to smaller cities at the start of the
| pandemic, so they have literally zero incentive to come back;
| they are even taking pay cuts if needed.
| jbb67 wrote:
| I quit my job at least partly because of this. I made sure I
| had a new job lined up first of course...
| pydry wrote:
| Nobody was spending much money last year.
| humanrebar wrote:
| Except for all that housing.
| a4isms wrote:
| Quit != leave the workforce.
|
| Maybe they now have remote work options, or having tasted a
| year without a brutal commute, they take jobs paying less, but
| closer to their homes.
| flippinburgers wrote:
| I deeply dislike going into work.
|
| - You have to look a certain way.
|
| - You have no opportunity to break up your schedule.
|
| - You have to pretend to enjoy being around people.
|
| - You have to commute (much too far).
|
| - You cannot leave before a specified time.
|
| - You cannot arrive after a specified time.
|
| - You cannot open the windows.
|
| - You cannot change the room temperature.
|
| ... etc, etc, etc.
|
| The list goes on forever.
| granshaw wrote:
| I've worked for a few remote places, including one which was
| remote-first before it was cool, and I don't think the schedule
| flexibility part rings true
|
| Everyone was expected to be available 9-5ish for potential
| collaboration/questions purposes, and you had to inform the
| team if you're gonna be afk for anything longer than 30minsish
|
| Some teams even had a norm of leaving a "signing off for the
| day" note and a "getting lunch" note
|
| If there are remote companies out there who truly let you be
| flexible with your schedule, I'd love to know about them
| evocatus wrote:
| You still have to look a certain way - even more so on camera.
|
| Speaking from experience.
| flippinburgers wrote:
| Nobody at my current workplace uses their camera.
| bradlys wrote:
| You're on camera, so you still have to look a certain way.
|
| You only have an opportunity to break up your schedule if your
| employer allows it. WFH doesn't just magically make work
| asynchronous.
|
| Commuting is true but varies a lot on individual. (My commutes
| are trivial and I found them to be too short sometimes!)
|
| You cannot log out before a certain time on WFH.
|
| You cannot log in after a certain time on WFH.
|
| Varies on office. We opened windows where I worked...
|
| We changed the room temp but usually it was comfortable enough
| for all of us. But sure been there.
|
| The list doesn't really go on forever. You're describing
| different types of working cultures, not working at the office
| vs remotely.
|
| Working from home this last year has not changed one bit of the
| work culture we had when we were in office for where I've
| worked. Async and all that shit is not a thing. We've logged
| more hours than ever before and had to be online for an ever
| expanding set of core hours that kept going from 9-5 to 9-6 to
| 9-7 etc etc as the year progressed.
| bumbledraven wrote:
| You often don't have to have your camera on.
| flippinburgers wrote:
| Nobody at my current company turns on their camera.
|
| What kind of company do you work at that you are not able to
| do development on your local machine? Wow.
|
| Too short a commute? What a strange flex.
| bradlys wrote:
| Cool - my company doesn't really care what you wear, tbh.
| Look at us - different experiences.
|
| I never said you couldn't do development on a local
| machine.
|
| A lot of your arguments stem from a different work culture
| and aren't particular to WFH. You want async work? Argue
| for that. WFH _isn 't_ async. You want to wear whatever you
| want? Fine - argue for that. WFH doesn't mean you are never
| seen or heard.
|
| You're arguing for things that aren't part of WFH or remote
| work. They're entirely separate, part of a entire work
| culture, and I've seen both in-office and remote to prove
| such.
| greedo wrote:
| Our company requires you to use a company issued computer
| to access the VPN. I love that. When my day is over, I log
| off, shut the laptop down, and get on with life. If I get a
| message on my phone I jump on (if needed) but otherwise
| work is over.
| recursive wrote:
| Different work places are different. At mine, all of those are
| wrong, except "You cannot change the room temperature".
| Fortunately, it's already good at mine.
|
| Also, I guess technically I have to "look a certain way", like
| have clothes on. But I'm going to look that way anyway.
| fernandotakai wrote:
| >- You cannot leave before a specified time. >- You cannot
| arrive after a specified time.
|
| this is what gets me. i already finished my stuff for the day,
| i want to go home to do something -- nope, can't. you have to
| stay until you clock in 8h.
|
| need to arrive later? sucks to be you, you have to clock 8h no
| matter what, so now you are staying at the office until late
| hours.
|
| WFH means i can just finish work and relax. if anyone needs me,
| they can ping me on slack, send me an email, or even call me.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Employees are quitting because pay & benefits aren't good enough
| to deal with the alternatives otherwise. Maybe you can justify it
| when you're able to save time and money on your commute, day
| care, etc., _and staying as safe from a global pandemic as
| possible_.
|
| I'm not a fan of this framing by Bloomberg. It's not that the
| workers are quitting, it's that _employers are failing to attract
| /retain workers_.
| area51org wrote:
| As someone who's now been in the workforce for decades: presence
| in an office is mostly a waste of time and money. In my
| experience, those who demand "facetime" do so because
|
| - it's part of a political power/control game
|
| - "this is the way we've always done it"
|
| - they buy into the myth that "magic" happens in hallways
| conversations and nowhere else
|
| There are plenty of large companies (and god knows how many
| startups and SMBs) who have recognized what a colossal waste it
| is to maintain permanent offices and mandatory facetime. It's
| time for the rest to stop pretending it's 1980.
| apozem wrote:
| For me, remote work gives personal options. My wife got a job in
| a small Southern college town. It'll be great for her career, but
| there are zero, _zero_ tech jobs there. Remote lets me grow my
| career while she grows hers.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| What I find really disconcerting is that the senior leaders in
| the tech industry have been talking for years about increasing
| gender inclusivity. Yet very few major tech companies seem to be
| wholeheartedly embracing full remote, despite it being by far the
| most effective way to encourage more women to join the industry.
|
| Research shows that women are 50% more likely to prefer full
| remote than men[1]. For better or worse, much more of the burden
| of childcare falls on mothers in our society.[2] Women are also
| much more likely to sacrifice their own careers to relocate for a
| spouse's career.[3] Along similar lines, that tends to mean women
| prefer careers with geographic flexibility.[4]
|
| Tech companies have spent the past decade sprouting platitudes
| about creating a more welcoming workplace for women. Now they
| actually have a real opportunity to make a difference.
| Transitioning to a remote first model would massively improve
| gender inclusivity. Yet, despite widespread employee satisfaction
| with remote, senior management in most places seem to be pushing
| back as hard as possible on outdated (and often sexist) notions
| that "people who hustle show up to the office".
|
| [1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-01/americans..
| . [2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4131769/ [3]htt
| ps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/11/28/why-c... [4]h
| ttps://science.sciencemag.org/content/205/4412/1225.abstrac...
| achow wrote:
| I miss the office for..
|
| - Social chatter.
|
| - Making friends with old employees who I didn't know, and
| connecting with new employees.
|
| - Work Life separation (balance).
|
| - Sense of belonging.. team outing, weekday after hours beer.
|
| - Intra company sports and games, and then teaming up with office
| colleagues to play inter company tournaments.
|
| - (Not me but others) Meeting potential dates
|
| - Office facilities for breakfast, lunch.
| jessedhillon wrote:
| I find myself feeling vaguely offended by this response.
|
| These are needs that all previous generations fulfilled through
| their community, or by meeting strangers. But I have the
| feeling that (some subset of) current generations find that
| proposition unacceptably risky. And I guess the offense comes
| from the idea that we should all be inconvenienced for their
| sake, and also from how the idea "I can only make friends in a
| safe space" is presented here and just expected to be believed.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Why are you appealing to the past when the fully remote but
| post industrial 9-5 day schedules is the new thing? My
| parents and grandparents have either work friends or old
| college friends.
| woofcat wrote:
| I mean we're in the middle of a pandemic right now, but with
| my WFH life currently I leave my house once a week to pick up
| groceries. (Where I pop the trunk and they put them in)
|
| I feel like it's really easy for people to not get out of a
| comfort zone and meet people just /randomly/ on the road or
| at the Grocery store. Especially to the point of being
| friends.
|
| Sadly our community has died, church attendance is massively
| down in most of the world. Which killed that social circle,
| clubs seem to not really exist anymore. Basically we're down
| to meetup.com, work, and bars.
| alexgmcm wrote:
| Meetup.com are clubs though?
|
| It seems at least there you find people with shared
| interests rather than the random sample at work or church.
|
| I met my friends through language classes and meetups as I
| emigrated.
| jayd16 wrote:
| I just miss being able to meet, pair, collaborate and mentor
| lag free with the full presence of in person communication. I
| find zoom really exhausting.
| duckfang wrote:
| - Social chatter.
|
| I associate with my friends and a few groups I frequent. I've
| never felt the compunction to do this at work or with work
| people for the most part. - Making friends
| with old employees who I didn't know, and connecting with new
| employees.
|
| Too true; there is this. I've a small handful of people whom I
| met at work and would call friends. But I usually try to
| maintain work as work - having friends tied up at a workplace
| can make for some really bad times when you leave or something
| happens. I think it's like a work-conditional friend.
| - Work Life separation (balance).
|
| If you can master working on work stuff during the day, once
| you log out of $workchat and vpn, you're off. Set a schedule
| when you do everyday and work on being predictable.
| - Sense of belonging.. team outing, weekday after hours beer.
|
| To me, "hanging out with the team" is definitely work. It has
| to be work-appropriate talk, on and on. That's enforced team-
| building activities. My sense of belonging is the paycheck I
| receive. I will seek elsewhere, not tied down by a job, to get
| a sense of belonging. - Intra company sports
| and games, and then teaming up with office colleagues to play
| inter company tournaments.
|
| Again, for me, this seems to unhealthily attach a jobs' modus
| operandi to your own. In reality, unless you're the owner, you
| are as expendable as any other machine or cog. And I try not to
| intertwine work relationships with friends. Only rarely do
| those actually cross. - (Not me but others)
| Meeting potential dates
|
| Yipes. - Office facilities for breakfast,
| lunch.
|
| My counter is that I have health issues that restrict my diet.
| At home, I can control exactly what I eat. At work, is what is
| provided. Its usually good, but sometimes I don't have
| anything. I would much rather have control of what I eat, by
| being in my kitchen cooking with my own foodstuffs.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > Meeting potential dates
|
| On place I worked with 100-120 people in the office saw 5
| marriages. A big part of that was they employed a lot of single
| 20-somethings, but that's a lot of couples who met at work.
| jerry1979 wrote:
| Have you considered joining the rotary club or similar?
| 35fbe7d3d5b9 wrote:
| I'd agree - there are _real advantages_ in maintaining a
| friends group outside of work: you spend far less time
| griping about your day to day, and the connections you make
| are far more stable.
|
| Get a beer once a month with coworkers, sure, but relying on
| work to be a primary social outlet always seems risky.
| mirker wrote:
| Yep, it's more meaningful for someone to go out of their
| way to meet up with you (when there's only friendship to
| gain). Also prevents mixing personal life with work.
| RSHEPP wrote:
| My first job out of school, moved to a new city. For
| three year my only friends were coworkers. We socialized
| (drank) couple times a week and almost every damn
| conversation was work related, mostly complaining. I left
| that place because I "hated" it so much. I wonder how
| much those conversations contributed to it.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| Sounds like the office has become a substitute for social
| interaction everywhere else in life. That may not be a bad
| thing for you, but it is a negative in the sense that it forces
| everyone to make it a part of their social lives. If you are
| looking for making new friends, a sense of belonging, sports
| and games, drinking buddies, meeting potential dates, and group
| lunches, you can in theory find outlets for all of those things
| outside of work.
|
| But everyone working in an office means that if you aren't
| interested in those things, (you already have friends, a
| family, hobby groups, etc), you are forced to spend time away
| from them to participate in the in-office culture. It seems
| extremely backwards to me.
|
| Its like if people who make church their social group, which is
| very common, required people who aren't interested in church to
| attend to enable their social lives.
|
| I don't know how or why a large number of us have made work a
| substitute for our social lives, but it has been a major
| problem for the rest of us who haven't.
| wdhilliard wrote:
| This feels like a heavy-handed response to me. Socializing in
| the office doesn't need to be a substitute, but can be one
| many missing pieces in a well-rounded social life. Many of
| the ways people found a social life outside of work are
| either still not available or not the same. I used to love
| working from the coffee shop down my block. There were often
| around 50 people working in there at any given time of day,
| but the chairs and tables are still stacked against the wall,
| and people come inside only to get their coffee and go back
| home. Even finding conversation in a crowded bar can seem
| more difficult as people are still keep physical distance
| from people they do not know.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| What about meeting people through volunteering or by even
| joining an open source project?
| atomicity wrote:
| I feel like this mindset is actually responsible for a lot of
| modern-day unhappiness. Why are 1st world countries somehow
| more lonely?
|
| Something I've noticed while talking to my older relatives
| outside of the US is that their social life often are the
| people that they meet in their (first) job in the location
| they ended up staying in. It feels straightforward that the
| people that you spend 8+ hours a day with are going to be the
| people that you feel like you know and can trust.
|
| It seems like some odd modern/corporate idea that work is
| just for work. Imagine if we had the same mindset for school,
| and tried to make things "productive" by eliminating all
| breaks and the assumption that students should get to know
| each other during class/free time.
|
| I think we need to accept the idea that work is really going
| to be much of your social life when you move, work friends
| are not your best buds, and only later on can you have a
| social life that doesn't deeply involve people at work.
| 1_player wrote:
| Look up "third place", it's a really fascinating concept
| which I've been obsessed with for a long time and I really
| want to solve it, at least for me. I feel my long-term
| sanity depends on it.
|
| The gist is people used to have at least three social
| circles they'd hang out daily: family, work, friends
| outside of work. Note that I don't mean "participate in
| activities" with any of them, just be among these people,
| even without any goal.
|
| We've lost the third place. It's only family, work and
| hanging out with friends sometimes, usually to _do_
| something. I've noticed this big disconnect looking at
| older people in Southern Europe which spend their afternoon
| at a bar playing cards, or in the recent ages men hanging
| out in clubs and women in sewing/book/gossip clubs or when
| I visited family in central Africa where it's common to
| just hang out in the porch after dinner and chat with
| passers-by and just be there and _socialise_, without any
| goal in particular. I had the luck of experiencing
| something like that for a few years and it was incredibly
| nourishing and I miss it dearly.
|
| Until we restore this third place, and find a way to make
| it work in the modern world, the loneliness and unhappiness
| epidemic can only grow, is my opinion.
| andrewzah wrote:
| You can do all of those things outside of work. There are
| meetup groups, local sports leagues, etc. There is no reason it
| has to happen at the office.
|
| Also this is just my opinion, but I find it odd when people's
| social groups are... just people from their job. There is so
| much more to life than just people who work in the same company
| or industry as oneself.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| A lot of us don't miss any of that. I can do all that on my own
| time and have been for several years now. I'm not going back in
| until I've exhausted every possibility.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| Just bear in mind when you say "a lot of us", it's a small
| minority of the general workforce. For the majority of the
| workforce, working from home is a.) not even an option, b.)
| torn 50/50, with your sales and client success type folk,
| typically customer facing and person interacting jobs
| overwhelmingly favoring a return to the office, and us
| mangly, dirty coding bots overwhelmingly favoring continuing
| to WFH.
|
| I am squarely in the WFH is great if it's possible camp, but
| perspective is necessary here. Pushing / demanding that the
| entire work arrangement norms for the majority of the
| workforce change for a vocal minority is exactly what gives
| people with cushy desk jobs their (deserved in this case) bad
| names.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| My employer gave everyone the option to continue wfh or
| return (no effect on compensation). Only 20% of the "mangy
| dirty coding bots" opted for wfh.
| EliRivers wrote:
| That is astounding. When asked to decide, my place went
| 100% software engineers committing to WFH, and well over
| two-thirds of every other group as well.
|
| Team admin is tag-teaming a physical presence at the
| office, the big boss likes to come in, there's one person
| in sales who likes to come in, and the guy who assembles
| the hardware has to come in on a number of days. I think
| that's about it.
|
| Almost the entire company chose to go remote, and we're
| never going back. The big boss indicated towards the end
| of last year that we're giving up the lease on one of the
| two office spaces.
|
| At least one person has already moved hundreds of miles
| to Yorkshire where he's simply having a better life.
| That's what it is. It's the opportunity for a better
| life, just waiting to be grasped.
|
| I do have sympathy for people who have discovered that
| their social well-being depended on physical interaction
| with people in the office; I would hazard that the
| solution to that is not to go back to the office. There
| are better ways to get that. There is a better life to be
| had.
| bradlys wrote:
| It could be that you had a really bad office culture that
| no one wanted to go back to. It wouldn't be surprising
| then that everyone was like, "yeah, let's not."
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Wow. You get a lot more out of the office than I do. I hate
| small talk and at work it feels like a distraction. I am
| friendly with coworkers but I'm not actually friends with
| many/any. I have tried to decouple my sense of belonging from
| work as much as possible since that is very unhealthy because
| its not a situation I control (if I get laid off is my
| belonging gone?)
|
| Company sports are great but those can be replaced by sports
| with friends. Dating at work is... Well I'll leave that alone.
| And food I cook is better than any office food I've ever had.
| That being said I havnt worked in a FANG office that has a
| chef.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| I agree with you and that's why I'll join a co-working space
| when I feel I'm missing these things. (I've worked remotely
| before the pandemic) You can get the same thing from a lot of
| co-working spaces.
|
| I still prefer working form home, because I can pack my bag and
| go back home anytime I want.
|
| Soon, I'll likely go back to a co-working space because right
| now, I miss those things as well.
| mdorazio wrote:
| I had the same thought as you re: co-working spaces, but I am
| frequently on audio and video calls throughout the day and
| need an office. Co-working space dedicated offices are
| expensive as hell if your employer isn't paying for them. I
| haven't really seen a reduction in prices due to the
| pandemic, either. Has anyone found a good solution?
| FredPret wrote:
| I mean this in absolutely the nicest possible way. But all of
| the above can be solved by getting a social life outside the
| office
| dagmx wrote:
| It's interesting that you mention work life balance, when the
| majority of your points are really in the "life" section.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| I agree. It only improves work-life balance if you've made
| work and your life one and the same. For the rest of us, the
| "balance" tips heavily towards work and away from life when
| in-office is required.
| skapadia wrote:
| Exactly.
| treespace88 wrote:
| That is totally cool with me. As long as I would be able to be
| fully remote in the same company.
|
| What I need for that is high quality audio and video for
| meetings.
|
| Do you think that is possible?
| nhumrich wrote:
| Can (s)he work in office and get all the perks, while you
| with remotely and receive none of those perks, at the same
| company? Sure. This "hybrid" model has been working for a lot
| of companies, small and large, pre-covid.
| wdb wrote:
| It's hard not to like WFH when you can save thousands of dollars
| per month on food, drinks, and travel.
| jl2718 wrote:
| I used to like the office. It was fun. My friends were there. I
| got help when I needed it. We talked about things informally. My
| desktop PC and Internet was top-notch, and I didn't have a laptop
| or mobile. They had a great gym. I worked at work, and did other
| things at home.
|
| Now I haul my laptop from home to my cubicle to fight over the
| phone booths for endless remote meetings. I don't work with and
| have never spoken to my neighbors. My work goes home with me.
|
| Working from home isn't better, but the office is worse.
| api wrote:
| Amazing news! This has the potential to kill the hideous "you
| have to be in one of five cities to have a career" insanity that
| has been a major factor in decimating the middle class. It's
| created a dichotomy of "no jobs, unaffordable housing, pick one."
| harveynick wrote:
| Good for them, and good for everyone else here who's happy about
| the switch to remote working. That said: I think I'd almost
| rather quit than "work from home" indefinitely.
|
| For me I'm not "working from home", I'm "living at the office". I
| deeply resent that my work has taken over a part of my home. For
| the record: I love my job. I also really miss working from the
| same physical space as my colleagues. Meetings which I used to
| enjoy are now awkward and draining. Lastly: I even miss my
| commute home in the evening (not so much my morning commute, to
| be fair). It used to give my 30 minutes in which to decompress
| and switch my brain out of work mode.
| evocatus wrote:
| Fully agreed. I didn't endure over a decade of an abusive
| household and even a few months of homelessness just so my
| employer could close down its offices and forcibly relocate
| them into my living room.
|
| I was absolutely fucking livid. Can't a man just be left alone
| in his own home any more?
|
| It seems that I am in the minority here.
| greedo wrote:
| At least you had a job that allowed you to WFH. Imagine being
| in the restaurant biz where you were just shut down...
| evocatus wrote:
| Yes, and at least you were not a starving orphan in
| $COUNTRY.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| I hope we can find a solution where people can choose to work
| at an office or from home. I expect that the compromises
| necessary will be difficult. For some, like yourself, meetings
| were a source of pleasure and are now draining. For others,
| meetings were a place for dominating (usually male) colleagues
| to enact competence dramas, often at the expense of more
| competent but quieter ones. I know some people who already head
| to the office, but prefer that the meetings are still virtual.
| For many people getting to the office really is just about
| having a physical space to work outside the home. So there are
| a lot of factors. In the end, the market will decide.
| jurassic wrote:
| Give me a private office with a door that closes and pay me
| enough to live a 5 minute walk from the office without
| compromises to other aspects of my lifestyle, and I might
| consider coming back to the office. Until then, I'll see you on
| Zoom.
|
| Anecdotally, the dichotomy I'm observing at my company is
| young/single/apartment-dweller people want to get back to the
| office because they don't have enough space at home to make it a
| nice experience. Many I know in this category are also eager to
| get back to screwing around at the water cooler. Meanwhile, the
| older, family-oriented people who own or rent a home in the
| suburbs want to WFH forever because that social dynamic isn't
| worth the hassle of the trek in for them.
| frockington1 wrote:
| Unrelated, but why would someone rent a house in the suburbs?
| Renting an apartment as a young person seems logical as you
| save for a down payment. Is it mainly people who can't afford a
| house or is there something else driving it?
| jurassic wrote:
| Rent vs buy is a complicated question, but I'm sure there are
| those who would prefer to keep their money invested rather
| than tie it up in the downpayment on a home. Especially if
| they think they might only be in that location for a few
| years. I'm thinking of military families who move every few
| years, or perhaps someone who is an academic and has to be
| nomadic in following fellowship and professorship
| opportunities.
| wjossey wrote:
| I worked from home prior to the pandemic, then joined a company
| right at the start. I'm a "remote vet" having been doing this for
| five years, so I've been doing my best to help folks adapt
| (because it does take adaptation).
|
| Ironically, today is our first day where the office here in LA is
| generally open, so I'm driving in at some point for the
| celebrations. Because I'm going in, I'm going to miss my son's
| nighttime routine (which I've missed maybe 7 times in his 18
| months).
|
| The life choice of being able to be there for the development of
| my son is one that many fathers here in LA do not get to make.
| The commute alone would be coming 100% out of my time with him.
|
| And, with that, I've gotta jet. Time to go run around and then go
| on our hour walk around the neighborhood. Remote may not be the
| best for everyone, but it's certainly a wonderful addition to my
| life.
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| I hope this is the start of a nation wide trend towards better
| work life balance. Production output has gone up over the past
| few decades and we're expected to work the same amount of hours.
| I think the future probably looks something like 4 6-hour work
| days each week. Life is way too short and precious to be spending
| so much of it working for somebody else, even if you mostly do
| love your job.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| I'm doubtful the US would be comfy becoming less productive,
| when competition abroad is heating up and challenging the US
| empire. On the contrary, I think Americans will feel challenged
| and a renewed sense of purpose, versus the last 30y of having
| no contender to measure itself with. I'm already seeing a bunch
| of people annectdata-ly getting into covid-inspired ventures,
| and all the "buy made in USA" people being vindicated by
| political pressure to develop advanced manufacturing within the
| US (and aligned countries).
|
| So I think the decrease in daily overhead from the remote-
| revolution will actually serve an increase in productivity, and
| not be budgeted toward work-life balance.
|
| I'm saying this and I've been remote for years, and promoting
| WLB aplenty. But my coldhearted crystal ball hints me that
| larger forces at play will not primarily favor WLB.
| GianFabien wrote:
| Managements will have to learn to embrace results instead of
| mere attendance at their meetings.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| My concern with this is that we'll get result inflation. I'm
| not sure which is better - enforced butt in seat for 40+
| hours or forcing productivity that whole time. Working in
| consulting I know that it's kind of a unspoken truth that
| even though you're billing and "working" on something, you're
| not always 100% working at it.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| My wife works for a company that was fully remote before the
| pandemic, and they certainly were self-aware that being remote
| was a competitive advantage when it came to hiring and
| retaining talent. Unfortunately for them, that competitive
| advantage is now gone, given that they now have to compete with
| companies that are now remote _and_ have deeper pockets.
|
| Our personal theory is that the next equivalent to remote work
| will be the four day work week. We work way too hard as a
| society; the 40hr work week is based off the point of
| diminishing returns for factory workers. There's not a lot of
| reason to believe that continuing this pattern for knowledge
| work is desirable for the company or the employees.
| philmcp wrote:
| Couldn't agree more!
|
| I actually just launched 4dayweek.io - Software jobs with a
| better work / life balance
| hedora wrote:
| I'd greatly prefer 5 day weeks and 52 extra vacation days to a
| 4 day week.
| harryf wrote:
| Will be interesting to see the impact this has on children
| growing up in the next 10-15 years and I'd guess it's largely
| positive. Parents with jobs that required business travel have
| found they can do their job and be present for their children.
| And yes while it's not all positive e.g. domestic abuse stats
| have gone up, I would suspect the overall impact has been
| generally positive for families.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| Maybe it will also change the nature of spousal
| relationships, as well. We can no longer collectively escape
| to work to avoid our problems; we must confront them and
| hopefully grow in the process.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I would hope it's a net positive. My basic theory is that
| abuse stats have gone up because exposure to the parent has
| gone up. I would hope that abusers make up a small percentage
| of parents. If so, I would hope that means exposure to all
| the 'good' parents will yield positive results.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _Production output has gone up over the past few decades and
| we're expected to work the same amount of hours._
|
| and for the same pay!
|
| https://cepr.net/this-is-what-minimum-wage-would-be-if-it-ke...
| [deleted]
| smitty1e wrote:
| > I hope this is the start of a nation wide trend towards
| better work life balance.
|
| Key to this is understanding the difference between capitalism
| and materialism.
|
| The former drives innovation and improvememt.
|
| The latter breeds envy, poorly sorted priorities, and,
| ultimately, misery.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "The latter breeds envy, poorly sorted priorities, and,
| ultimately, misery."
|
| But is not exclusive to materialism. It can be a part of
| capitalism.
|
| I am miserable. I have to work for food, shelter, medical
| care, etc. I do get some othe material items, but usually
| they are very cheap things for hobbies. I just never have
| enough time to do the things I want to do because working for
| my necessities takes up too much of my time.
| smitty1e wrote:
| You can define capitalism that way, but I would not.
| Aunche wrote:
| >Production output has gone up over the past few decades and
| we're expected to work the same amount of hours
|
| My hypothesis is that Americans cashed in on their increased
| productivity by socializing at work or browsing the internet at
| work. In Germany, it's extremely frowned upon to talk about
| non-work stuff at work, so they could cash in on this increased
| productivity by shortening working hours.
| asdff wrote:
| Most people I know work nonstop until the bell, salaried or
| hourly. The chitchat and internet browsing is not sustainable
| at the vast majority of workplaces, you will fall behind and
| there will be questions asked. IT can also pull logs of
| internet browsing and show your boss your reddit history.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _In Germany, it 's extremely frowned upon to talk about non-
| work stuff at work_
|
| I wish my German co-workers felt this way. It would cut hour
| long meetings by half, usually. Not to mention the long list
| of my other non-American colleagues who are quite chatty. In
| my experience, I don't really see how one can generalize this
| behavior by nation...
| an_opabinia wrote:
| > My hypothesis is that Americans cashed in on their
| increased productivity by socializing at work or browsing the
| internet at work.
|
| Many people, yes. But the beneficiaries of an increase of
| minimum and hourly wages, which would affect like 60+ million
| US workers - they show up and they just work all day, they're
| not socializing, they didn't cash in anything.
|
| What you're saying may be factual to some degree, but it
| almost universally talked about in bad faith.
| drewmate wrote:
| The divide between 'hourly' workers (even if paid a salary)
| and white-collar knowledge workers is likely the largest
| obstacle to changing the 40-hour workweek in the US. Many
| jobs, and often the highest-paid, could be nearly as
| productive working 4x6 instead of 5x8. However, there are
| lots of jobs where output really does scale linearly with
| input time. The obvious ones are hourly service workers in
| retail or restaurants, but even some 'high status' jobs
| really require the hours (healthcare, airlines, union
| manufacturing, etc...)
|
| It would really upset societal order if suddenly two once
| comparable jobs suddenly required drastically different
| time commitments. People will find all sorts of reasons to
| fight against a shorter workweek, but I think this is the
| main reason why. We like the stability of believing that
| everyone (or at least working people) are 'equally yoked'
| at least in terms of time commitment.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > However, there are lots of jobs where output really
| does scale linearly with input time. The obvious ones are
| hourly service workers in retail or restaurants, but even
| some 'high status' jobs really require the hours
| (healthcare, airlines, union manufacturing, etc...)
|
| With manufacturing, I disagree due to the impact of
| automation - especially when analyzed over a long time
| frame, productivity has _exploded_ whereas the number of
| employees has shrunk drastically and their inflation-
| adjusted wages barely growing.
|
| In retail, restaurants, even in some parts of healthcare
| (think lab work) the situation is similar. Automation,
| mass manufacturing and containers (the physical things,
| not Docker...) have slashed costs on the input side,
| menial tasks like stacking shelves or cleaning got cost-
| cut (by outsourcing and by exploitation of undocumented
| workers), some places like IKEA and Amazon even eliminate
| the cashiers by having the customer do that themselves.
|
| The owner class has reaped all the productivity gains and
| given back _little_ to the workers who made it possible,
| and now they are asking "why is the American/Western
| market for cars shrinking and the only growth in
| China"... well easy, too many people don't have the cash
| on hand to splurge on a dozens of thousands worth new
| car!
| drewmate wrote:
| This is a great point, and I wish productivity gains in
| all sectors had been more equitably split. In fact, I
| think that automation-based productivity gains could
| extend to the other sectors I mentioned as well (more
| surgeries/hour, etc...)
|
| However, I still think there is a disconnect. Even with
| productivity gains, output still basically scales
| linearly. When your job is producing a specific physical
| artifact consistently, you are always going to make more
| of them, the more time you spend doing it. The same is
| not true for many 'knowledge workers' whose output is not
| measured in 'lines of code' or 'meetings held' but
| looser, larger objectives that are fundamentally more
| limited in how many you actually want. I think you more
| rapidly get diminishing returns for a lot of this type of
| work. Even if a project manager could manage twice as
| many projects in twice as many hours, would that benefit
| the business?
| caddemon wrote:
| This is an interesting point but I do think the causality
| goes both ways. Yeah Americans are probably more inclined to
| want to socialize at work, but American companies also are
| way too obsessed with butts in seats. If you're being forced
| to stick around for 8 hours but you only need 6 hours to do
| your job, of course you are going to fill the time with
| something.
| llampx wrote:
| To me that sounds like wishful thinking. In my experience, even
| talking to friends and coworkers, hours have gone up and the
| expectation is that you are available on IM all the time. Maybe
| not 24/7, but definitely more flexible than the old 9-5
| expectation.
|
| On top of that, sick days are much less frequent now I daresay.
| hinkley wrote:
| I'm pretty sure my coworkers have been using this to
| accomplish the reverse, and I have dabbled.
|
| There are times when your most important work is being
| available. Maybe less than some managers seem to think, but
| it does happen. I can go make myself a complicated snack or
| step outside to do some yard maintenance for half an hour
| here and there and still be back to my desk in 5 minutes if
| someone actually needs me for something. At lunch time you
| can usually stretch that to 15 minutes, which opens up a lot
| of options for errands.
| cwilkes wrote:
| Also could be less frequent as you are exposed to less germs
| from people forced to go into the office when they are
| feeling a little under the weather.
|
| Sort of like how flu cases went down during the pandemic --
| with less interaction from abroad less germs are transmitted.
| [deleted]
| OJFord wrote:
| > On top of that, sick days are much less frequent now I
| daresay.
|
| But to be honest, that's fine/expected? There's a quite large
| range where I might not feel up to the commute/office (or not
| want to cough and sneeze at people - aside, I bet that's
| going to be more stigmatised in the near future) but up to
| doing what I can from the comfort of home where it doesn't
| matter that I'm curled up unshowered or whatever.
|
| I did that a couple of times even when I went in to the
| office five days a week - gives me something to do other than
| lying in bed feeling sorry for myself or doing something and
| feeling guilty that it's not work, and gives my employer a
| bit of output even if it is less than 100% (which isn't the
| alternative, 0 is).
| andrewzah wrote:
| "the expectation is that you are available on IM all the
| time. Maybe not 24/7, but definitely more flexible than the
| old 9-5 expectation"
|
| So talk to them about those expectations. Let them know that
| you won't respond outside of X hours, etc.
| zanderz wrote:
| People have been saying this for more than 100 years - see the
| old popular mechanics articles predicting a 10 hour work week
| due to automation's production gains, quotes from Buckminster
| Fuller, references to Kurt Vonnegut's "Player Piano", etc., but
| instead of coordinating these gains with one another we have
| left them up for grabs for whoever scrambles harder, and the
| baseline creeps upward. Just like the economics analogy where
| some people in a seated audience stand for a better view,
| requiring everyone to stand for more or less the same view as
| before but with more effort, only with some American Horatio
| Alger pull-yourself-up-by your-bootstraps mythology mixed in.
|
| This is not inevitable, it is policy we choose, as opposed to
| some European countries where workweeks have actually shrunk
| and retail hours are much more restricted. We have decided much
| of the gains from automation and better average human health
| and lifespan should go elsewhere.
| 1270018080 wrote:
| Corporations naturally compete in race to the bottom on labor
| rights, because labor rights are in direct conflict with
| productivity. The only way we're getting a 6 hour 4 day
| workweek is through legislation setting that race to the
| bottom at a higher threshold. That's what the minimum wage
| does (and also why it should be raised).
| hrishi wrote:
| I really don't see that happening except in the very upper
| echelons of work.
|
| When there's more competition, the guy willing to work longer
| will always win, especially if the work is such that he can
| work longer without a decrease in quality.
|
| We're automating more things, there's more of us around, and
| we're connecting job markets better every day. There's more
| competition.
| sgift wrote:
| > especially if the work is such that he can work longer
| without a decrease in quality.
|
| So, nowhere in reality.
| apexalpha wrote:
| While I agree with the general sentiment I'd prefer an extra
| full day off in stead of working 4-6 hours a day for 5 days.
| perfunctory wrote:
| I took a (quasi) sabbatical recently. I worked 1.5 days a week
| for one year. I dialed down my expenses so it was enough to pay
| the bills. It gave me the opportunity to work on some hobby
| projects, spend more time with my family and just enjoy life.
| It was fantastic. Now I am planning to repeat this every 5
| years at least. I only wish my overworked friends did the same
| so I could spend more time with them as well.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| How on earth did you sell that to your employer?
| philangist wrote:
| How were you able to set this up? It seems like a rare
| employer that would be open to a role like this.
| perfunctory wrote:
| It was indeed a rather rare situation. I guess I got a bit
| lucky. On the other hand, in the current job market, it
| doesn't seem too extraordinary.
| mac01021 wrote:
| You did this as an employee rather than a freelancer?
| zdbrandon wrote:
| I did almost the exact same thing in the last year. (2 days
| a week)
|
| For me it came from handing in my 2 weeks notice to take
| some time off from a company I worked for for over 5 years
| at the time, and then being offered a schedule of my
| choosing instead. I didn't even know it was an option, else
| I would have just asked instead of quitting.
|
| So if you've been there a while, and can afford it, I'd
| suggest you ask your current employer.
| Sanguinaire wrote:
| I'm fortunate that I worked from home by default anyway, so all
| I've lost over the pandemic is the chance for occasional trips to
| the office for a catch-up with (also generally remote)
| colleagues.
|
| Reading the comments here, I worry how much the WFH newcomers
| will have their goals of continuing dashed by the crab mentality
| of those who want to go back to an office.
| one2three4 wrote:
| OK. I WFH as well. I know all the benefits. And as I'm WFH for
| pandemic only I've been trying to find remote work post-pandemic
| and there I realized some bitter points:
|
| 1. I compete for positions with people all over the world. Who
| can complete with a fraction of the salary I need.
|
| 2. As a remote worker -most often working as a contractor- I'm
| even easier to be replaced in a heartbeat. No severance or
| anything alike.
|
| 3. Did I mention that I compete with all the planet? That makes
| competition for good roles really crazy.
|
| 4. Work blends into life and it is very hard to keep it from.
| This gets worse depending on the company/role but in general
| these things tend to go the employers way not yours.
|
| 5. You need to find new ways to socialize (and the motivation to
| do so is minimal) or you risk mental health issues.
|
| All I'm trying to say is be careful what you wish for because you
| might get it.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| > I compete for positions with people all over the world. Who
| can complete with a fraction of the salary I need.
|
| Perhaps. On one hand, the office was clearly one barrier
| separating onshore and offshore talent. On the other hand,
| there never really was a lot preventing companies from setting
| up offshore offices to attract cheaper talent worldwide. The
| fact that many US jobs remain still quite expensive compared to
| the developing world implies to me that there are still some
| barriers there above and beyond the ability to drive to a
| shared office.
| wdb wrote:
| A lot of the WFH roles I have seen are mostly North America
| only though
| nathias wrote:
| You really aren't, if you are from US most companies that are
| advertising remote positions really want you to be located in
| US, I've been looking for remote work and I don't really
| believe that its possible to get a US job as a foreigner.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| > Work blends into life and it is very hard to keep it from.
| This gets worse depending on the company/role but in general
| these things tend to go the employers way not yours.
|
| Am I one of the few that sees this as an enormous benefit? Work
| becomes a series of tasks I need to achieve throughout the day,
| like all the other tasks like laundry and doctors appointments.
|
| I get to restructure what I need to do in a way that suits me
| best. I can push code at 11PM and go for a nap at 4PM if I
| choose (assuming no meetings).
|
| Then my life isn't segmented into exclusive blocks. It is just
| one seamless integrated life.
| StavrosK wrote:
| This is good if you want work to be a part of your life,
| which almost nobody wants. It's terrible for a good work/life
| balance, pretty soon you're going to be stressed 24/7 because
| you "should be working right now".
| juiyout wrote:
| If you work in a team that requires lots of collaboration,
| you might not get to restructure work.
|
| Can people call you or message you to clarify what you just
| now pushed at 11pm? Do you respond immediately? Let's say you
| do immediately because you restructure your night time as
| your best work time, does that mean you're automatically
| exempt from 8am meetings in a few hours?
|
| Come to think of it. Pushing code at 11pm is not that unusual
| even pre-covid, but the expectation for the associated
| communication might be totally different.
| triceratops wrote:
| > Work becomes a series of tasks I need to achieve throughout
| the day, like all the other tasks like laundry and doctors
| appointments.
|
| I don't know about you but I'm not smart enough to feel that
| my job is as easy as doing laundry or going to the doctor.
| I'd rather finish all my work in one focused block of time
| and not think about it the rest of the day. Due to the
| pandemic destroying most childcare options, this is an
| unattainable dream for many.
| flatline wrote:
| When an emergency comes up, you are right by your desk and
| it's hard to not sit down to address it right away, even if
| it's 11 PM. When you have a deadline it's so easy to log back
| in after dinner and burn your night away working. As the work
| life divide begins to erode, burn out is a real risk. I see
| my computer and if I'm stressed about work I get stressed at
| times I'd have normally left it behind and not thought about
| it. I feel guilty if I'm not working late on something I
| think I'm behind on.
|
| Keep in mind I have kids, a social life, etc. I've built my
| time around work/life balance and keeping the two distinct.
| It's healthy for me in ways that having the two conflated
| never was. May not be an issue for everyone.
| tills13 wrote:
| If I typically work in an office and an emergency comes up
| I have to address it anyways... historically, if you were
| not provided a laptop, this involved driving into the
| office.
|
| If you personally struggle with keeping your work and
| personal life separate that's a personal problem and
| shouldn't be used as a bullet point in your list against
| WFM.
| Clubber wrote:
| >When an emergency comes up, you are right by your desk and
| it's hard to not sit down to address it right away, even if
| it's 11 PM.
|
| That happens when I work at the office. At least at the
| roles I work, I'm expected to be on call all the time to
| support production environments. I'll get a text or
| something and usually have to address it.
| flatline wrote:
| I realized that may have been a poorly made point on my
| part. If you are on call you're on call. But a lot of
| "emergencies" in non-operational contexts can wait till
| the next day in my experience, and often do due to
| societal norms - everyone is home doing other stuff in
| the evening, we'll reconvene first thing in the AM when
| everyone is together and fresh.
| Clubber wrote:
| I can definitely see it when someone works later than
| usual (me) and is in the middle of something and has a
| question for someone who usually works at normal time or
| earlier than everyone else.
|
| When I'm in that situation, I don't expect a response
| immediately. I know I'm a night owl and other people
| aren't. I'm sure other people do. At the same token, when
| I work late and the early people schedule an 8am meeting,
| it's the same.
|
| Having said all that, the only difference for me in this
| scenario is whether or not I commute to the office every
| day. Same, same.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Ideally (and, outside of the US, _by law_ ) the employer
| should set up a rotation schedule for being on-call. 24/7
| on-call is toxic as hell, it only works for young singles
| that don't have any other responsibility than making
| rent.
| sgt wrote:
| Everyone in the team sharing the 24/7 works well for
| small teams. Nothing sucks more than knowing you are on
| call an entire night and having to remember not to do
| anything that may cause you to forget you're on call,
| become unreachabld (leaving your phone on silent or in
| another room for hours etc)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Consider a new, better role if you're not properly
| compensated for both when you're on call and when a
| response is required. Remaining in such a role is a
| choice.
| Clubber wrote:
| I'm well compensated, but it's just the nature of
| development in every place I've worked.
| Sevii wrote:
| 1. I kind of expect a general reduction in the "living in the
| USA' salary premium for a lot of jobs. It sucks for the people
| getting paid less, but hopefully the deflationary effects on
| the economy make up for it a bit.
| drstewart wrote:
| >but hopefully the deflationary effects on the economy make
| up for it a bit.
|
| Have you paid attention to the housing market, car market, or
| really... any market in the last year?
| Avalaxy wrote:
| Might happen for some companies, but the vast majority not. At
| least in Europe I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be replaced by
| someone from India because they don't speak our language, they
| live in vastly different timezones and their culture is
| different which doesn't make for the most efficient
| collaboration.
| valarauko wrote:
| > _their culture is different which doesn 't make for the
| most efficient collaboration._
|
| Could you expand on this?
| racl101 wrote:
| Yeah, I agree.
|
| Aside from the commute itself I don't mind working at the
| office and seeing people.
|
| It ain't good to be holed up like a hermit not socializing.
|
| I'd like a good balance of some office days and WFH days.
| mixologic wrote:
| 3. The number of "good" roles is also dramatically expanded.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| This can't be understated, at least for some of us. I'm in
| the Midwest and in the last 6 months about 20% of my
| company's engineering team has left and taken positions at
| new companies. Virtually none of them had anything bad to say
| about the company, its just that for a developer in the
| Midwest, the number of jobs that have opened up to them that
| were unavailable to them a year ago is unbelievable.
|
| And on the flip side, it hasn't been too rough for my company
| to replace them because there are now a huge number of devs
| in places like the West Coast that wouldn't have been
| interested in working for us prior moving to remote work who
| now are.
|
| I suspect some of this will all calm down a bit as the new
| order of things settles in, but for now, remote work is
| shaking things up in terms of opportunities for workers in a
| big way.
| throwawaygh wrote:
| _> I compete for positions with people all over the world. Who
| can complete with a fraction of the salary I need._
|
| This is what always jumps to the front of my mind when I read
| about WFH on software engineering forums.
|
| I'm lucky -- I have deep technical expertise in a very uncommon
| intersection of economically valuable topics. I never compete
| for positions, because there is way more work than available
| skilled labor. Even still, I'll be back in the office. One day
| the education system will catch up -- or my skill-set will
| become obsolete -- and at that point having a decade-long in-
| person relationship is my only bulwark against ruin.
|
| I can't imagine being a SWE working on a standard tech stack
| without deep personal connections in an application domain and
| thinking of WFH as anything other than an enormous and
| terrifying threat.
| anonu wrote:
| > I have deep technical expertise in a very uncommon
| intersection of economically valuable topics.
|
| Now I'm curious. What is your secret power?
| frockington1 wrote:
| At your place of employment, talk to the business side and
| learn what they are doing and why. Copy/paste front end
| javascript workers are a dime a dozen compared to someone
| with competence and knowledge surrounding the industry.
| Simplest way is to talk to the product side. People like
| talking about themselves, particularly when the other
| person takes an active interest
| castlecrasher2 wrote:
| WFH absolutely screws over younger people joining an
| industry. There's nothing like face-to-face learning, and I
| don't envy anyone who's had to start their career recently.
| throwawaygh wrote:
| I've had excellent experience working virtually with new
| hires, but I've also seen a lot of failures.
|
| Mentoring remotely is definitely a skill that us older
| workers had to be intentional about cultivating in
| ourselves. The moment pandemic started, I bought a top-of-
| the-line iPad for whiteboarding, insisted my new hire
| mentors get the same from the company, and called up a
| couple old professors to get all their tips on remote
| teaching.
|
| Hopefully the next generation will have it easier; their
| mentors experienced remote learning so might be better
| equipped for remote teaching/mentoring.
| chrisjarvis wrote:
| I can confirm that starting in a mega corp during Covid wfh
| was (and continues to be) awful.
| jdgiese wrote:
| I've heard this idea repeated several times from people I
| respect, and thus I take it seriously. That being said,
| I've seen some contrary evidence. At Innolitics, we've
| hired several engineers out of college who've blossomed
| into talented and independent contributors within a couple
| of years. I'm not sure if we're doing something special or
| different that has solved the "junior's need face-to-face
| learning" problem, or if it's not as much of a problem as
| many people think.
| throwawaygh wrote:
| I imagine there's a big diff between smaller orgs that
| hand pick each new hire, vs mega corps that have "cohort"
| models.
| mac01021 wrote:
| What does a cohort model look like? I've never heard of
| such a thing, at least not in software development.
| artichokeheart wrote:
| 1. That is true whether you WFH or not.
|
| 2. As a contractor, yes, As an employee WFH changes nothing
| here, particularly in countries with worker favorable
| employment laws.
|
| 3. See 1.
|
| 4. True, remote workers need to maintain a 9-5ish routine.
| meaning that remote means you can be flexible about which 8
| hours you work, but you should still stick to the 8 hours you
| are paid for
|
| 5. True, but you now have more time to find a social group to
| join, closer to home and more into things your interested in
| outside of work.
| one2three4 wrote:
| About 1: Are you saying that the competition for a role
| offered in Munich is the same as for the same role offered
| remotely within +-5 hours CET or planet wide?
|
| I really don't think so. And I'm afraid that this is a
| classic race to the bottom for the most of us.
| Leherenn wrote:
| 1. and 3. Most countries have significant barriers to
| immigration, and even within a country, many people do not
| want to/cannot move for a job.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| These are my gripes as well. Primarily the socializing one.
| Can't have a legitimate relationship with someone over Skype.
| I'm sorry.
| skapadia wrote:
| +1000. You literally said everything I was thinking.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| 1. and 3. are still somewhat mitigated by time zones, so it
| wouldn't be the entire planet.
| metafunctor wrote:
| It's not like companies can or will actually hire globally.
| There are huge timezone, language, cultural, trust,
| connections, and other barriers.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| Not to mention that the notion that there's a huge global
| pool of talented devs is largely a myth. It's true that labor
| is cheaper in India or Russia, but research confirms that the
| average engineer is far less competent than their American
| counterparts.[1]
|
| Software wages in the US are high, because it's very hard to
| replicate the quality of an American workforce. By and large
| global differences in wages reflect global differences in
| workforce quality. It's not like this is the first time
| companies have realized that global labor is cheaper. They've
| been trying to capitalize on cheap engineers in developing
| countries since the 1980s. It's always the same issue. Lower
| price on paper, but delivery and quality issues that scale
| far beyond the up front cost savings.
|
| [1]https://www.pnas.org/content/116/14/6732
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I disagree, I worked with a lot of terrible American
| software engineers. I would never work with an American
| developers because I'm competing on price with American
| employers. If someone is looking for IT work outside of the
| states, they're most likely not good enough to work for
| better paying companies in the states. Likewise, FAANGs
| routinely hire talent from abroad.
|
| As for everything, there are plenty of exceptions: two of
| the most talented and fastest growing Software Engineers I
| met were Americans - and they didn't have any formal CS
| education.
|
| Over the years I definitely picked my political incorrect
| biased list of countries to avoid for talent sourcing. I
| could spend hours talking about funny stories involving bad
| contractors from India, Hungary, Eastern Europe and Spain
| but it's absolutely pointless.
|
| You'll find terrible engineers everywhere, even in the
| states. USA companies have incredible wealth compared to
| other companies and they can afford to spend ridiculous
| amount to try and weed out the majority of terrible
| engineers.
|
| Having hired contractors who used to work at FAANGs, I can
| tell you I found some pretty terrible hires there as well.
| Almost like memorising algorithms and CS exercises and then
| spending 4 years trying to build a case for your promotion
| isn't going to make you improve as an engineer.
| screye wrote:
| It is not a myth, it is merely overreported.
|
| For every competent Indian that moves to the US for a tech
| job, there are 4 that decide to stay back home for a
| $10-15k-ish job.
|
| India is increasingly training several orders of magnitude
| more engineers than the US. Even if estimates were
| overestimating the number of competent Individuals in India
| by an order of magnitude, the number will still over shadow
| the American workforce.
|
| It has already happened once with China. It would not be
| surprising if it happens with India. Only this time, the
| competing workforce will be fluent in English.
| valarauko wrote:
| > _For every competent Indian that moves to the US for a
| tech job, there are 4 that decide to stay back home for a
| $10-15k-ish job._
|
| Given the vagaries of the US visa regime, plenty of
| talented Indians can't come over even if they wanted to.
| jholman wrote:
| > several orders of magnitude more engineers than the US
|
| Wait, what? Several orders of magnitude, like at least 3
| orders of magnitude? So even though India has 4x the
| population of the United States, it's training at least a
| thousand times as many engineers? That's amazing!
|
| It's also totally not true at all. Spend a few seconds on
| Google.
|
| Note that I don't particularly disagree with the rest of
| your comment.
| rocknor wrote:
| Logical fallacy. The average competence of an engineer in a
| pool does not imply that the number of the talented devs in
| that pool is small. The global pool of talented devs will
| probably be several times the size of the US pool simply
| because of the world population (would be good if someone
| has actual numbers on this though).
| dcolkitt wrote:
| This presupposes that a hiring manager can perfectly
| judge the quality of candidates. There are a ton of great
| engineers in, say Romania. But unless you know how to
| find and discriminate, you will be stuck with the average
| Romanian engineer.
|
| As anyone who's done serious hiring can tell you, judging
| candidates is damn tough. There's only a loose
| correlation between how a candidate looks on paper and
| how he performs. Now imagine translating this process to
| a completely foreign culture halfway across the world. Do
| you know which universities in Romania are good? Do you
| know who the most prestigious employers and positions in
| Romania are? Do you have a network of Romanians to
| recommend new hires?
|
| In fact, even if you try, most likely you'll be stuck
| with _below average_ engineers. Not only will the top
| ones get scooped up by those with better local knowledge,
| but the lack of knowledge goes both ways. Top engineers
| aren 't going to join some fly-by-night employer with no
| local brand, track record in that country, and no career
| track to senior positions.
|
| The only way I've seen a company actually succeed at this
| is by being willing to fully embrace the country. It's
| not just enough to hire off-the-shelf Romanian engineers,
| the company has to actually become "Romanian". Are
| companies willing to hire senior management from Romania?
| Are Romanian employees "first class citizens" with
| equivalent work to their American counterparts? Is the
| company raising money from Romanian VCs? Are they pushing
| Romania as a primary markets for their product? If the
| answer to any of those questions is no, then it's highly
| unlikely that you'll succeed in recruiting, interviewing,
| hiring and retaining top talent in that local market.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| A company outsourced some work to India. They wanted to add
| a few forms to their application for managing roughly the
| tuple (name,surname,medicine taken). A few weeks later, the
| first release came in. It contained everything to manage
| the tuple (name of medicine taken, surname of medicine
| taken). I stopped worrying about India about that time.
|
| Don't get me wrong, there are smart people in India. But if
| you're outsourcing for cheaper labor, you're not getting
| these smart people.
| rocknor wrote:
| This generalization that happens every time "outsourcing"
| and "India" get mentioned in the same thread needs to
| stop. The culprit here is your employer who is probably
| hiring graduates in India at 5-10% of SV salaries, while
| to get competent graduates you need like 20-25%. So you
| can still outsource for cheap labor, but don't make the
| mistake of being too cheap.
| zentiggr wrote:
| Ok, counterpoint again.
|
| The support contract for a huge multinational I was a
| small part of a while back, was bought out by an Indian-
| based company, who wanted the prestige and new line of
| business, but bit off WAY more than they could chew, and
| threw the entire tier 1/2/3 process into near chaos.
|
| Had they looked even a little deeper, they might have
| realized that they had no pratical experience in customer
| facing sw/hw support, and saved everyone two years of
| flailing, panic-driven, blame-everyone-you-can-point-a-
| finger-at, the-technicians-are-wrong-since-our-process-
| says-otherwise-oh-wait-our-process-is-shit-what-now-MORE-
| METRICS unbelieveable bullshit.
|
| All because somebody in high level management managed to
| bend somebodys ear, and the parent company got swindled
| into it.
|
| So glad to be gone.
| rocknor wrote:
| This does not counter what I said in any way.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| My experience is western europe, smaller cities. For 25%
| of SV salaries you get close enough to the local
| salaries. Add a language barrier (we dont speak English),
| a time zone barrier (I like my meetings between 8:00 and
| 17:00 local time), and a cultural barrier, and its simply
| not worth the hassle.
|
| Outsourcing for talent is fine, but there is plenty of
| competition to make India rare, at least around here. So
| when I hear India, it's unfortunately a pretty safe
| assumption that someone went for bottom of the barrel
| cheap.
|
| I'm not saying this is right or fair.
| mrkstu wrote:
| It is still true that the very best of India is suctioned
| into the United States- though there is definitely some
| backflow as they gather enough capital to go back and
| invest in Indian based companies.
|
| The gravity of magnitudes better compensation insures
| that the very best will migrate.
|
| FAANG level engineers are completely insulated from
| overseas competition due to this, but of course the lower
| echelons will have to worry about this if the current
| demand spike falls off.
| alexgmcm wrote:
| But you could hire devs in Western Europe at 50% of SV
| salaries. With UK-based devs there wouldn't even be a
| language barrier.
|
| There is quite a lot of red-tape involved with hiring
| foreign workers though.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| Even between the US and Western Europe, there's a
| significant gap in workforce quality. Researchers have
| found that American companies consistently achieve higher
| levels of IT productivity than their Western European
| counterparts.[1]
|
| [1]https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.102.1.1
| 67
| wiz21c wrote:
| How do you think they achieve that ? We use the same
| tools all over the world, maybe the same processes,
| intelligence is uniformly distributed. Maybe training ?
|
| I've worked with many people from abroad (even some from
| the US) and truth is : there were people better than
| others, there were people who worked more than the
| others. But this is never tied to nationality. It is much
| more tied to : does the guy want to be top notch ? If he
| asks the question then he probably has the ability and
| willing to make the sacrifices.
| [deleted]
| lidi122 wrote:
| Article states, that's because of
|
| "Combining pan-European firm-level IT data with our
| management practices survey, we find that the US IT
| related productivity advantage is primarily due to its
| tougher "people management" practices."
|
| So it's not related to IT engineering skills but rather
| how the company handles those engineers. An US based
| company will handle EU based engineers like their own,
| thus nullifying your argument.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| And this could lead to higher turnover due a
| transatlantic work culture shock.
| Kranar wrote:
| That article talks about multinational companies, not
| individuals. In other words, American companies are more
| productive instead of American software engineers being
| more productive.
|
| That could very well be due to differences in management
| and in fact that seems to be the conclusion drawn by your
| link, which states that productivity among European
| companies increases when those companies are taken over
| by American firms.
|
| Right from the abstract:
|
| >US IT related productivity advantage is primarily due to
| its tougher "people management" practices
| oceanplexian wrote:
| Not saying that there aren't talented developers overseas
| (I have worked with many) but in general, the culture
| isn't at the caliber of what happens in SV/The Bay.
|
| I've interviewed and hired many engineers from the UK and
| the first thing you'll notice are candidates with resumes
| filled with pointless certifications and years of cookie-
| cutter experience at financial institutions working on
| old technology. I could get into the more esoteric
| aspects of what happens in really hyper-growth SV
| startups but it would come as a culture shock to a 9-5'er
| from London. It also involves sacrifices and lifestyle
| changes I think most of those folks would be unwilling to
| make.
| theflyinghorse wrote:
| > But you could hire devs in Western Europe at 50% of SV
| salaries
|
| You could get that in Canada. No language barrier, same
| education, same culture (largely), same exact time zones,
| flying folks in if need be is far simpler.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| That opens up the labor pool (heck, might as well throw
| in all of Latin America and the Caribbean too), but not
| as drastically as the entire world.
| theflyinghorse wrote:
| I would disagree. Canadians share same culture, same
| education, and same language (natively). The same cannot
| be said about Latin America and the Caribbean
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Many of which are completely orthogonal to where the physical
| office is; if a company hadn't completely or heavily
| offshored its workforce for cheaper talent already, it's not
| clear why WFH would be the final straw.
| giantg2 wrote:
| And legal barriers around location for data governance too.
| tomatocracy wrote:
| There are legal barriers around regulated activities and
| tax problems too, at least in my line of work (particularly
| tax residency of companies/corporate vehicles).
|
| Many of these are temporarily waived by the authorities for
| the duration of the pandemic but that won't last forever.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| Globally may not be a problem but it does make it far easier
| for hiring managers to reach outside their immediate area and
| look nationally. That may not change things much in Europe,
| where distances are short but in the US that's potentially a
| huge hiring pool. Even if you limit yourself to just your
| time zone, how many competent developers reside in EST?
| auiya wrote:
| There's also sometimes quite egregious tax laws in place for
| this very reason. Many companies aren't willing to hire
| overseas as a result.
| fairity wrote:
| The impacts mentioned by OP aren't predicated on companies
| hiring globally. Simply expanding hiring across the US (or
| even just your US timezone) will result in a significant drop
| in salary for your average role.
|
| Employers aren't going to drop salaries in the midst of a
| pandemic, but if remote work persists, salaries will drop
| substantially. It's simple supply and demand, and I'm sure
| there's data out there (for existing remote positions) that
| corroborates this.
| anonu wrote:
| The answer, like most things in life, is in the middle. That's
| why the "hybrid model" has been talked about recently as the
| world opens up.
|
| Reading lots of comments here and it's clear there are two camps.
| Which is great. There will be a big realignment of people
| switching jobs to go remote and moving to cities to get to work
| with a cool in person team.
|
| But there's also the middle of the road hybrid model where you
| can still be remote but there will be offsites every month or
| every quarter.
| greedo wrote:
| That's not really a hybrid from what I've read. A hybrid is
| where you work one or more days in the office every week. Your
| hybrid is much more appealing than the former to me.
| 01100011 wrote:
| If society accepts global warming is happening and climate change
| is a threat, commuting is going to be severely limited in the
| future. If we don't kill the commute, we're going to kill
| suburbs(and we may do that either way).
|
| Once you accept AGW, you have to commit to seriously reducing
| energy expenditures until the planet is 100% renewable and we've
| maxed out our carbon capture mechanisms. Commuting takes energy.
| Even in an urban environment.
|
| Arguments about the positives and negatives of WFH, which have
| been discussed in many popular threads on HN ad nauseum, are
| really secondary. Incentives to reduce energy usage will
| eliminate commutes and reshape society. Covid helped kickstart
| the transformation but it would have happened eventually anyway.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| You might combine the two, with "WFH" in shared workspaces in
| suburban environments, that would seem to be the "all of the
| above" option if it becomes popular and there is sufficient
| shared workspace availability.
| leet_thow wrote:
| Honestly, I wouldn't feel safe taking the BART to SF 5 days a
| week. I'm referring to crime, not the pandemi .
| Jaygles wrote:
| For me, the utility of being at home versus being at the office
| is massive. If I need a 15 minute break, I can start a load of
| laundry, or run the dishwasher, or do some other chore.
|
| I can wake up later since I don't have a commute. I don't lose
| two hours a day due to the commute.
|
| I can wear as comfortable clothing as I desire. I can delay my
| shower until after my daily workout (Which I can do since my
| workout equipment is at home).
|
| I can control my environment so there are as many or as few
| distractions as i like. I can put on videos or audio that might
| not be considered work appropriate. I can use speakers since no
| one is around me to hear the sound.
|
| The number and magnitude of inconveniences we subject ourselves
| to by heading to an office every day has been fully revealed. I
| will do all I can to work from home for the rest of my life.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I'm not gonna lie, it lowers my stress levels by at least half.
| The sheer fact that people can't randomly drop by and I can
| more control the flow of my day by ignoring email and slack
| until reasonable interval checks. People can still get me if
| there's an "emergency" but those are few and far between.
| [deleted]
| lpapez wrote:
| One more:
|
| Depending on company culture, meetings with 10+ people can end
| up with just a few people talking and others not participating
| at all but still being forced to attend. Tolerating such events
| is much easier when you simply turn off your camera and lay on
| the couch, stretch around etc. instead of sitting awkwardly and
| pretending to care.
| bsharitt wrote:
| > I don't lose two hours a day due to the commute.
|
| Realizing I was basically using an entire work day or even a
| little more per week just to commute was what made me put in
| the effort to move to remote work(pre-pandemic by a couple
| years). And once I started, I noticed the little niceties as
| you mentioned and it would take something drastic to get me
| back into an office again.
| lukifer wrote:
| Hear, hear. As someone with dietary restrictions, the ability
| to make lunch at home every day is also huge (to say nothing of
| not being in an office which "helpfully" offers the temptation
| of junk food during moments of stress).
| derwiki wrote:
| I thought I would gain weight from lack of commute exercise,
| but healthier eating has meant a net loss for me.
| m463 wrote:
| I found scrubs (pants) are ultra-comfortable and industrial
| strength functional.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| Flight suits are adult onesies. And resistant to fire and
| McDonald's coffee.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I guess it depends on the type of job, but for me (software
| engineering), WFH works _extremely_ well.
|
| I often - _often_ , not "sometimes"- get more done by 8AM, than
| I used to get done in over half a day (or even the entire day)
| at the office.
|
| WFH won't work for everyone. It takes _real_ self-discipline,
| and not everyone considers home to be a suitable place for
| work.
|
| Even in these cases, I think we'll be seeing alternatives, like
| small "work hubs," ala WeWork, that are close to people's
| homes, and allow them to have a lot more autonomy than the main
| office.
| ehnto wrote:
| I have gained a kind of hyper-focus and desire to do the work
| I had entirely lost thanks to the 9-5 grind, I've been
| working from home since before covid too. 9-5 5 day weeks
| seem almost designed to cause that kind of long-tail
| unproductivity.
| sanitycheck wrote:
| I've worked from home for years, and found the same thing -
| it's made me look like, maybe not a 10X dev but definitely
| 2X.
|
| But now everyone else I deal with is WFH too and... It turns
| out they don't appear to be benefiting in the same way and
| performance has probably dropped on average.
|
| Give it a couple of years and most people will be back in the
| office as before, I expect.
| almost_usual wrote:
| I'm the same I had been WFH in SF for at least two years and
| joined a new employer pre covid that required me to go into
| the office. Once COVID hit my manager was really surprised by
| how much more productive I was. At this point we're on a flex
| schedule going back, will see how that goes.
|
| My hope is two days in the office for meeting days or
| interviews, rest engineering time at home.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> If I need a 15 minute break, I can start a load of laundry,
| or run the dishwasher, or do some other chore.
|
| That is not universal. That is a subset of work-from-home. Many
| people working from home can no more step away for a break than
| they would if at the office. For instance, customer
| support/contact people cannot just step away from the phone.
| Others working at home have employer systems that monitor them
| live. Any unscheduled breaks get noticed and recorded.
|
| Even amongst highly-paid "knowledge workers" there are issues.
| I do occasional home days but am not able to take breaks. At
| any time one of my five bosses might call. We don't have any
| monitoring software but they expect me at my desk ready to
| respond, not walking the dog or doing laundry.
| mrtranscendence wrote:
| Or my talk therapist girlfriend, for whom working from home
| still means having phone or video appointments starting and
| ending every hour. Though at least she can take a short break
| if someone no-shows (most of that time is for doing notes).
|
| I suspect most people working from home have _some_
| opportunity to take breaks here and there, though. I 'm aware
| of certain professions with invasive monitoring (I've seen
| nurses that work for pharmaceutical companies report this),
| but it doesn't seem to be particularly widespread. I'm not
| familiar with anyone in my personal life who have an
| expectation of immediate response to superiors (though on the
| rare case the CEO contacts you, you should make sure to get
| on that pretty quickly ... but that's why I get email on my
| phone/watch).
| lanstin wrote:
| I like to take walks around the blocks during very long
| conference calls. And for that matter I will walk around my
| house and advance the laundry or make a cup of coffee or
| just pace and wave my arms for a shorter and more involving
| call.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> expectation of immediate response to superiors
|
| It depends on whether you are working primarily via
| email/text or live talk/chat/webcam. When my boss calls me
| on the phone during the day he expects me to answer.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Not being able to take even a 15 minute break and having
| to report to five different bosses sounds like an outlier
| occupation in terms of austerity. What if you need to go
| to the bathroom?
| walterlb wrote:
| Five bosses? I'm genuinely curious how this works
| teddyh wrote:
| At least it's fewer than eight.
| sosborn wrote:
| My guess is that it doesn't work as well as four bosses.
| jholman wrote:
| I laughed and upvoted, but you never know. Maybe the
| utility curve turns a corner.
| wdb wrote:
| One of the benefits of working in the office that you can leave
| your work notebook in the locker so you can't use it after
| working times.
| Clubber wrote:
| Just to add to the plusses you already mentioned, the amount of
| CO2 released into the atmosphere just by the practice of
| driving to the office everyday is immense.
| musicale wrote:
| The best thing about the pandemic has been improved air
| quality. Do we really want to go back?
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57149747
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Agreed with the above. I'll also add that for many years my
| wife and I have had the goal of living in Europe (we're
| Americans) but finding suitable work in Europe seemed nearly
| impossible:
|
| * EU work visas seem very hard to get
|
| * EU software jobs seem to pay ~40% less than comparable
| American jobs _before taxes_ (and EU taxes are more
| significant)--this leaves little slack for travel
|
| * My wife's field is communications/marketing and she's pretty
| specialized to English/American-culture and the demand is quite
| a lot lower for her industry than mine
|
| Then there's the hassle of long-term remote: figuring out
| taxes, selling our home, the logistics and costs of moving
| those possessions we're unwilling to sell to Europe, etc.
|
| Work-from-home enables us to work from Europe for a few months
| at a time--we'll have to work odd hours (~2pm-9pm iirc) and
| we'll probably have to pay Europe rent _and_ our American
| mortgage; however, we 'll probably take most of our vacation
| during our abroad months so the odd hours will only apply for a
| few weeks and we can afford the additional housing cost
| (especially if we save for it during the months we're in the
| US). I _think_ the tax situation should be okay since we 'll be
| in the US for the majority of the year, but I need to find out
| for sure.
| triceratops wrote:
| > EU work visas seem very hard to get
|
| Not sure about other countries but it's pretty much automatic
| in Germany for any job over EUR 55k (or something like that).
| Which is nearly all software jobs worth taking.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Really? I've looked at France and UK specifically and the
| requirements on paper seemed really difficult. You
| basically had to have a letter from the company saying that
| they couldn't find a EU citizen who could do the work, and
| even if that's pretty laxly interpreted and IIRC many
| employers weren't even willing to accept candidates outside
| of the EU. Perhaps it's changed or I'm misremembering.
| jamesfmilne wrote:
| Post Brexit the EU thing is no longer applicable, but the
| news recently makes me fear for anyone trying to travel
| here for work or leisure. EU citizens visiting family
| being thrown in jail and deported. We are turning into
| Gilead. I'd wait it out a few years until we've managed
| to get rid of Johnson, Patel, Gove, Raab and all the
| other swivel-eyed loons.
| htrp wrote:
| IANAL but technically you working remote from Europe on a
| tourist visa is a violation of a bunch of immigration laws
| (and probably some tax treaties).
|
| Will your firm catch you? Likely not if you are only working
| abroad for a few weeks, if you're doing it for longer, you'll
| probably get an email asking for clarification on your tax
| status (at best). At worst, they'll pull your VPN logs and
| demand that you get back to the states before you trigger
| some payroll issues.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Thanks for the heads up. I'll have to look into this more
| deeply. I'm curious if anyone knows where the appropriate
| place to ask would be (foreign embassy?). FWIW, I'm not
| planning to hide this from my firm.
| ehnto wrote:
| It does really depend on the country and visa, so certainly
| look into it. It's not a default no-no, and tax treaties
| often exist to make international economic activity easier
| not harder.
|
| My country has a tax-treaty with the country I do most of
| my work for, and so I only pay taxes in one not the other.
| Without such a treaty I'd have to pay taxes in both
| countries and it would make it unviable.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| How would you go about finding out for sure? Do you need
| to visit the foreign embassy? Or is there some kind of
| lawyer you would talk to? If so, which kind?
| ehnto wrote:
| I looked up the relevant tax codes myself and got them
| vetted by my accountant, but I'll admit it was a really
| clear cut situation for me and my government has really
| well written descriptions of the codes online.
| jholman wrote:
| As a non-American working (legally) for a while in
| America (in Silicon Valley), I ran into a situation where
| my visa lapsed and I wasn't sure where I stood legally
| (like I wasn't sure if I was even allowed to be in the
| country any more). I can't remember how I found a lawyer.
| Anyway, I did a 15-minute consult over the phone.
| Actually, he was really casual about payment, at the end
| he said "mail a cheque to my secretary" and hung up,
| haha. Probably was mostly treating the call as a loss
| leader.
|
| Anyway, among other things, he said that doing any work
| inside US borders, if not on a work visa, is
| _technically_ illegal. Like apparently if I 'm on
| vacation in the US, and I pull out my phone to answer a
| few work emails, that's _technically_ a visa violation,
| not that in that case anyone 's gonna mind. IANAL TINLA.
| And of course you're interesting in jurisdictions _other_
| than the US.
|
| So, yeah, I think the way to find out is find a lawyer in
| the jurisdiction you'd be wanting to work from, one who
| advertises themselves as specializing in visa issues.
| himinlomax wrote:
| You're most probably wrong. The limits to working in a
| foreign country usually apply to getting a paycheck from a
| local employer, or performing tasks that are locally
| regulated. Nothing's stopping anyone from writing a book
| anywhere, for instance. You clearly don't need any kind of
| work permit to do that kind of work. But you can't call
| yourself an independent contractor and start fixing houses
| in a remote country while invoicing from abroad. Doing
| software development is much more like the former than the
| latter.
|
| Consider also that foreign employee of foreign firms have
| long traveled for business (well pre-Covid they did) and
| there is typically no work permit required for short/medium
| stays. In most places it just requires a typical tourist
| visa or equivalent when under 3 months.
|
| Maybe this will be much more common and laws would change,
| but it's hard to see why countries would resist such
| residents; they bring their own job, they spend foreign
| money locally and they're no strain on the local social
| welfare system. Economically, they're just as beneficial as
| tourists and not as much of a risk as the average
| immigrant.
| stadium wrote:
| My mental model on commute time is that every 1 hour is a year
| of my life wasted over a 24 year career. More than that if I
| work for more than 24 years.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| I go to a coworking space. Having some semblance of separating
| home from 'work' (even though I do sometimes 'work' from home)
| helps. I did total 'work from home' - working out of a
| converted bedroom - for years, and... it's functional, but the
| process/ritual of leaving and coming back does help me.
|
| I still 'work remote', as a freelancer. I have had engagements
| where I go to a client's offices, sometimes for somewhat
| extended periods of time. I will travel if needed.
|
| But the majority of work I do is still done on terms I have
| some control over, which, ultimately, I think is the key part
| of the whole discussion. Where I work, what equipment, what
| hours, when/where I travel, what I wear, etc - things you were
| mentioning above - having control over those is key, regardless
| of whether you want to work from home or in an office or
| somewhere in between.
| AfterShave wrote:
| I think it's interesting how "the ritual" of going to or
| leaving work. Is such a big part of the discussion around
| working from home.
|
| I felt it myself at first. I had to do something to break up
| the day into work and not work. At first I'd pretty much just
| walk to the bus stop and go home from there. Basically
| pretend I took the bus. After a month or two I think I
| stopped. The walk was the new commute. The ritual part just
| became moving all cables back to my own computer from the
| work laptop dock. A quick minute and it's over. Work has
| ended and all is well.
| ehnto wrote:
| I have a similar thing with my laptop. I have lots of
| variance though, I have co-working space I can go to, and I
| often take my laptop to various places around the city just
| for the wander and to feel connected again. (The pandemic
| hasn't really affected my city in Aus)
|
| The reality is that working from home means I end up
| spending almost all my time at home. Almost all 24 hours of
| it. I think about how quickly life goes by, how much I've
| already spent behind a computer, and realize that's not
| going to work for me long term. I will be very disappointed
| if I look back on my life and saw that it almost entirely
| occurred behind a computer in the one spot.
| abruzzi wrote:
| I need to separate work from home and home from work. My home
| is filled with distractions and the first couple of months of
| the pandemic were horrible becuase I couldn't get anything
| done. I started going back in to work in the summer (2-3
| minute commute depending on the single traffic light along
| the route) and my productivity went back to normal. It was
| actually better than normal because work was mostly empty, so
| I had a big office building designed for 600 workers mostly
| to myself. Now, unfortunately starting today we are all back
| in the office, so I'm having the same transition issues as
| all the WFH people, but because my nice empty office building
| is now filled with people.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| My neighbor commutes to "work" in the morning by taking a 20
| minute bike ride, and commutes "home" by doing the same route
| in reverse.
| ub99 wrote:
| Ha! That's a genius idea! I might start going on
| morning/evening "commute" walks too.
| tinyhouse wrote:
| That's the key for me. I think every remote company should
| pay for co-working space for their employees if they choose
| to. Also, it's important that co-working spaces design it to
| be more like a quiet office with stations with big screens
| etc. Not like the old co-working concept where it's like a
| cafe, cramping multiple people together.
|
| I recall once interviewing at a startup. Their office was in
| a co-working space. When I arrived in the morning I knew
| after 5 minutes that I'm not going to work there. The entire
| team of 4 people, including the CTO who was supposed to be my
| manager, were sitting together in a tiny room with zero
| privacy.
| pnutjam wrote:
| I would never use a co-working space. I want to be home,
| not in some pseudo office.
|
| I also wonder how the end of pandemic norms will effect
| people who claim they want to be in the office. If they can
| get their socialization outside the office, we could see a
| resurgence of neighborhood clubs.
| b3morales wrote:
| Different strokes, but personally, having worked remotely
| for several years, I like having it as an _option_. There
| 's a space not too far from my house with a reasonable
| day-of hot desk rate, with a nice view and the usual
| amenities. I like working from my house, but a different
| scene once or twice a month (that isn't a coffee shop) is
| refreshing for me. It's also good to have the escape if
| something noisy turns up in the neighborhood and I need
| to get away. :)
| ehnto wrote:
| I hope we do see a resurgence in local clubs and venues.
| Modern communities can be so isolating, it's no wonder
| people get most of their socializing done at work.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Our space is pretty small. Main room has seating for..
| perhaps 8, and a separate conference room and a separate
| smaller 'single desk' space. There's usually only 2-3
| people in at any one time - 5 is a big day, and for most
| people, it's a "part time" thing to get them out of the
| house.
|
| It's not 100% the same thing as 100% total privacy, but
| it's generally not very noisy, and there's enough quiet to
| concentrate and focus when needed. There are some larger
| spaces in the area I've been to that are _nice_ looking,
| and conducive to group work /meetings/collaboration, but
| don't work well for "I need solo time to think/work".
| ericmcer wrote:
| You are pitching being able to do laundry, dishes, clean, etc.
| as a perk. I feel like it's a negative as part of my mental
| space is occupied by household chores as well. Blending errands
| and cleaning with meetings and focused work is a pain now. It
| feels like I'm doing an insane multitasking balancing act most
| days.
| ulfw wrote:
| How did you cope before? Who did all this for you before?
| sidlls wrote:
| In the evenings and on weekends.
| azemetre wrote:
| Wouldn't you rather keep evenings/weekends free of chores
| and do some of them during the work week? That's what I
| prefer and do at least.
| ericmcer wrote:
| my mommy
| nickstinemates wrote:
| I read it as pitching flexibility in your schedule as a perk.
| The details are the details (and vary from person to person)
| hrktb wrote:
| This as much as you want to do it though. I share OP's view
| point, but will also let those house keeping tasks rote away
| for a while if I'm not in the mood too.
|
| They'll still need to be done at some point, but now we have
| more choice on when we want to do it, and not just between
| 8PM and 8 AM or only on weekends, as it was the case before.
| wolfretcrap wrote:
| I 3d print and make useful things for my house on CNC mill
| machine I received few months back.
|
| At this point if a company wants me back in office, I'll go and
| work for the one which doesn't really there's no value in being
| packed in a shop with people who don't want to be with you.
|
| It's other thing to orchestrate something by purchasing bit of
| inputs from everyone on team.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I've been working from home for years, and while all the things
| you listed are huge. The number one thing I missed the most in
| the 20 or so times I've been to the office in the last 7 years,
| is having my own bathroom.
|
| That said, I miss going out to lunch, accidentally meeting
| people from other teams, reading on the train, meeting friends
| in the city right after work, and just being around people in
| general.
|
| I wish I could get an in office part time job that paid
| benefits, but I don't think those exist.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Agree with all of this, but it also requires to schedule pretty
| much any interaction. Also all the interactions are going
| through your employers systems, which are all recorded. So any
| gossip or informal catch up, or sharing real "corporate
| incorrect" opinion is out of the door (if you work for any
| large organisation).
|
| It was fine the first 6 months of working from home but I feel
| increasingly professionally isolated, not knowing what is going
| on, even though I spend half of my day talking to people on a
| headset.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _Also all the interactions are going through your employers
| systems, which are all recorded._
|
| I doubt all of our Google Meets are recorded. And even if
| they were, who'd bother listening through all of them for
| wrongthink?
| ctoth wrote:
| Google Meet has a transcription option. I would be
| profoundly surprised if this were not coupled with a
| keyword filter of some sort.
| Hamuko wrote:
| I've seen what the Google Meet transcription does and the
| output is only useful for summoning the Dark One.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Facetime or Hangout with a personal account.
|
| Also, a lot of people at my work are on Discord. I wouldn't
| be surprised if that were the common channel for semi-private
| employee chats.
| gmadsen wrote:
| your company monitors every zoom call?
|
| not sure how "corporate incorrect" you are intending, but I
| feel pretty open to discuss things I'm dissatisfied with with
| my team. I suppose if push came to shove, I would be fine
| with that being public record.
| nkozyra wrote:
| > but it also requires to schedule pretty much any
| interaction.
|
| This is another positive.
|
| > So any gossip or informal catch up, or sharing real
| "corporate incorrect" opinion is out of the door (if you work
| for any large organisation).
|
| I'm not sure what "corporate incorrect" means here, but
| gossip is generally a net negative in the workplace that
| tends to build cliques and factions that often manifest in a
| bigger problem.
|
| Assuredly there are other non-company channels to do those
| things, but the question is ... why?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _gossip is generally a net negative in the workplace that
| tends to build cliques and factions that often manifest in
| a bigger problem_
|
| It isn't useful at lower levels. It's pretty much the
| definition of senior management. I wouldn't have wanted to
| discuss replacing a senior person, whom I found to be
| ineffective, on corporate Zoom, for example. That said,
| temporary hierarchical rigidity and some people explicitly
| opting out of the promotion race isn't a bad thing.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| A problem for _whom_? Unionisation is a net positive for
| everyone not interested in profit; a good union ensures
| good working environments which improve efficiency (amount
| achieved per time spent), and it reduces worker
| exploitation (e.g. fairer compensation for labour).
|
| How do you arrange something like that behind your boss's
| back if you can only communicate with your colleagues via
| corporate-approved communication channels?
| oarsinsync wrote:
| I use my personal communnications devices to communicate
| with colleagues when communicating in a personal context.
|
| I use my work communications devices to communicate with
| colleagues when communicating in a work context.
|
| I suppose some people may have employers that prohibit
| them from having personal communication devices in their
| place of residence, but that's going to be a very
| different high-security type environment anyway.
|
| I don't have a problem with asking a colleague to give me
| their personal cell number on a work communications
| channel. I don't think I'd want to work in a place where
| doing so was prohibited.
| gbear605 wrote:
| Technically planning unionizing inside of the workspace
| has always been legally dangerous - the correct way to do
| it is to meet outside of work, at say a cookout or over
| drinks. Those methods can work too, although being remote
| can make them impossible. Unfortunately a fully remote
| company is much more union-proof, and that's a very sad
| tradeoff.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| It's not legally dangerous. Legally, you have the right
| to discuss unionization with your co-workers and your
| employer is legally forbidden from preventing it or
| retaliating.
|
| It's dangerous for practical purposes, because that law
| is not well enforced.
| golergka wrote:
| Unionization is not net positive for everyone. Why are
| you looking at "good union" examples instead of much more
| realistic "bad" ones?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Because I'm not an American business owner, nor cheering
| for one.
| golergka wrote:
| Why does it cause you to pick the evidence that confirms
| what you already believe in? Do you think that being
| blind to reality is good for your "team"?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I'm not being blind to reality. The only unions I have
| ever interacted with have been good ones. I've only ever
| heard about bad unions on Hacker News; even police unions
| are good at being unions (though when you're unionising
| against _the people_ , that's an inversion of the power
| dynamics a union is meant to promote, so I still don't
| like police unions).
|
| Believing second-hand rumours on the internet would be
| less intellectually honest than believing my anecdotal
| evidence.
| jholman wrote:
| > The only unions I have ever interacted with have been
| good ones.
|
| Wild.
|
| As a non-American non-employer, my current job is
| unionized, and I believe that union to be a _major_
| factor in the rampant dysfunction, though probably not
| the driving factor.
|
| I think that every time I've had a friend or family
| member working in a union environment that wasn't more-
| or-less minimum wage (e.g. unionized Starbucks workers
| are a counter-example to the pattern I'm describing)
| they've had similar observations.
|
| I'm still very hesitant to attack unions in general,
| because as a student of history it's pretty clear that
| the situation we have now is better than the situation
| without unions. So I'd rather live in a unionized society
| than a non-unionized society, but I'd rather work for a
| non-unionized employer than a unionized employer.
| golergka wrote:
| > The only unions I have ever interacted with have been
| good ones.
|
| Well, that's what I would expect to see in US too, but
| it's a survivorship bias at work. Obviously, in country
| which is (quite commendably, in my opinion) anti-union,
| only capable unions would be able to survive.
|
| > that's an inversion of the power dynamics a union is
| meant to promote
|
| Power dynamics that you are talking about are pieces of
| fiction, which oversimplify reality in order to boost one
| or another political viewpoint. It's a very popular piece
| of fiction, too: paint one side as "the ordinary people",
| the underdog, morally superior, and thus taken advantage
| of. And the other side is, obviously, the devil.
|
| Anyone sees these stories quite for what they are when
| it's the story from the other side of political spectrum.
| For example, if anyone would come here to HN and tell the
| story of immigrants taking "our jobs", it would be dead
| in 5 minutes, and all the logical inconsistencies and
| fallacies in it would be split open. And, just to be
| clear about my personal political opinions -- this
| takedown would be completely correct.
|
| But it works for both sides. "The people" are often not
| much of an underdog, as are "the workers". I know quite a
| lot of real businesses, even in IT, where "the man", the
| business owner, takes home less money than he pays his
| senior engineers. The situation with police unions just
| highlights this disparity between the story in a way that
| you can't just sweep under the rug -- but it's always
| there, even if less apparent.
| triceratops wrote:
| > even police unions are good at being unions
|
| Right?! They suck for everyone else, but as far as
| looking out for their members' interests, they're pretty
| much the gold standard.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > How do you arrange something like that behind your
| boss's back if you can only communicate with your
| colleagues via corporate-approved communication channels?
|
| I'm a _Betriebsrat_ , a Germany-specific "workers
| council", member at my employer. By law, the company is
| mandated to provide us with the resources we need (e.g.
| access to company wide email distribution lists, a
| private MS Teams channel, private folders on the file
| servers, a locked office for personal meetings of the
| council and with staff members) and is prohibited from
| interfering with all our duties. Any form of censorship
| or surveillance would be a big no-no which could even
| land our execs behind bars.
| htrp wrote:
| workers councils are a great thing.... too bad they're
| only in Europe
| moate wrote:
| I know plenty of people, myself included, who consider most
| of what you described as a blessing.
|
| Not having to have "how are the kids?" conversations and
| instead being able to play a video game or watch a TV show
| during some down time is worth every bit of company gossip
| I'm missing.
| system16 wrote:
| > but it also requires to schedule pretty much any
| interaction.
|
| That's a small price I'm willing to pay.
|
| > So any gossip or informal catch up, or sharing real
| "corporate incorrect" opinion is out of the door (if you work
| for any large organisation).
|
| Just speaking personally, any company I've worked at where
| gossip/whispering/staff looking over their shoulders and feel
| the need complain/etc. were important factors was not an
| environment I wanted to be a part of anyway.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| > I don't lose two hours a day due to the commute.
|
| One of my bitches about Silicon Valley is top managers of tech
| companies locate their companies a short drive away from their
| homes and estates in Palo Alto, Los Altos, Woodside and force
| the schmucks that work for them into long commutes.
| snarf21 wrote:
| I'm glad this works for you & others and that you are happy.
| However, every time WFH comes up here, people present their
| preferences as universally better or best. I hate WFH but that
| is my preference. I really wish these discussions were more
| about how happy people are that they now have a choice instead
| of things being so authoritative.
|
| For clarity, I enjoy having a hard separation between home and
| work. If I'm at home, I'm more likely to be distracted with
| chores instead of working. I leave my laptop at work so I don't
| need to work off hours unless there is an emergency. I enjoy my
| 30 minute commute. I listen to podcasts or design board games.
| I understand I could do those at home, but I'm more likely to
| just watch a show or something instead of dedicating time to
| just listening to a podcast. I enjoy being around friends that
| I've worked with off and on for over 20 years. We go to lunch
| together and talk about life. Sometimes we play board games at
| lunch. I enjoy collaborating over a white board trying to solve
| a problem. It is _sooo_ much easier to do that in person. I
| personally feel more part of a team in person than I do if we
| just communicate via Slack. But these are just the things that
| work for me. I don 't expect anyone else to feel the way I do
| but there are lots of others out there like me too. I'm glad
| more companies have options for those with a preference.
| enjo wrote:
| This is a really good point.
|
| To add to it, WFH has one clear massive weakness: the lack of
| face to face interaction leads to quite a bit of atrophy when
| it comes to team cohesion. I've been managing WFH teams for
| the better part of a decade and I've yet to find a
| satisfactory solution other than getting people together
| every couple of months to work on hard problems together and
| build some trust.
|
| I'm really bullish on the hybrid model right now. I think
| having an office designed more like a co-working space that
| can serve as a central meeting place for teams is what the
| future of software development looks like. No expectation
| that everyone is in the office every day, but rather
| reimagine the office more as a place where people come
| together when they really need (or want) too.
|
| We're experimenting with that now in my organization and the
| results so far are pretty good. Some people come in every
| day. Some people come in every now and then. Others come in
| when their teams needs them. We're continuing to use all of
| the best practices for remote work and I think people are
| finding a really good balance right now.
| thethought wrote:
| >>> atrophy
|
| Have you consider team atrophy as a pre-existing/chronic
| condition which maynot have cure?
| greggman3 wrote:
| I don't understand how the "work from the office one day a
| week" thing would work. If you mandate it's the same day
| for everyone then the office is empty 80% of the time.
| That's a huge waste of money. If you don't mandate everyone
| come in on the same day then all the benefits of being face
| to face disappear because the person you need/want to be
| face to face with chose a different day.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| As far as I know, no one is mandating that every comes in
| the same day. So you can reduce the office space by some
| percentage, assuming people come in on different days and
| not all at once.
|
| If you have 10 teams of 5 people each in an office, in a
| 3/2 hybrid setting you can expect you'll have 30 people
| in the office. You can pad that to go to 40 people in the
| office on any given day -- this gives you a 20% reduction
| in required office space.
| FooHentai wrote:
| It is for sure a challenge, especially where people work
| across multiple teams and each team has a different
| 'standard' office day. That unfortunate individual is now
| compelled to come into the office multiple days.
|
| And folks that work across teams like that are often
| gluing the organisation together in subtle but vital
| ways, so anything dis-incentivising it is a dark pattern.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| The way my team (informally, management isn't in it) was to
| create a Discord with several rooms. If a couple of you are
| working together, you can jump to a different room and
| screen-share. If you want a chat, move to a busy room. If
| you want to do some head-down work, mute and deafen. It's
| been really valuable, especially for someone like me who
| joined during lockdown.
| b3morales wrote:
| Well said. Indeed, the whole "battle" over WFH should be
| about giving people the ability to choose what works best for
| them, not forcing either option. And that may even change for
| a particular person from year to year or job to job.
| ghaff wrote:
| I agree. But the "battle" is at least partly around:
|
| - People who are technically allowed to WFH but who are
| concerned that co-workers/managers will pressure them to
| come in anyway and
|
| - People who want to come back into an office most days but
| don't want to come into a ghost town with most meetings
| over video anyway.
| coliveira wrote:
| > People who want to come back into an office most days
| but don't want to come into a ghost town with most
| meetings over video anyway.
|
| I think this battle is lost. Even if people go back to
| offices, a lot of meetings will happen over video anyway.
| This has been the norm in some large companies already.
| lanstin wrote:
| It's been considered best practice (at least according to
| the people I follow on twitter) that if 1 person is
| dialed in, the whole meeting is dialed in. The 5 people
| at a table and some other people on Webex or whatever
| just doesn't work.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, I work with teams that have that as a rule. Pretty
| clearly it's a best practice in most contexts. (There are
| some exceptions like a scheduled on-site that someone
| can't travel to but for most things.) My guess is that a
| lot of people have noticed that video calls have been
| working better during the pandemic because of this.
| standardUser wrote:
| If most people had an enjoyable 30 minute commute like you
| do, there would be a lot more people who agree with you. It's
| not that working in person doesn't have tons of meaningful
| benefits (to most people), it's that 10 hours of miserable
| commuting every week is such a soul-sucking curse that a lot
| of people would trade almost anything to get rid of it.
| _zamorano_ wrote:
| I agree. In my case, living in a medium size city of Spain,
| I get a 30 minute commute from to the office, driving on a
| very good condition highway, on low-medium density traffic.
|
| For me, a relaxing listening audiobooks while safely
| driving is like a warm-up for my workday. An activity I
| wouldn't have time otherwise.
|
| And the same, in my way back home.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| >>I enjoy my 30 minute commute. I listen to podcasts or
| design board games. I understand I could do those at home,
| but I'm more likely to just watch a show or something instead
| of dedicating time to just listening to a podcast.
|
| You don't have to do them at home. Take a 20-30 minute walk
| before work and it'll be the same thing, plus you'll also get
| some exercise!
| rwmj wrote:
| As someone who has been working from home for 20 years, I've
| come to realise you need to be set up for it. I've gone from
| working in a spare bedroom to building a garden office, so
| there really is a hard separation between home and work.
| sgt wrote:
| I have worked in IT for two decades and usually I spend some
| time working on something in the evenings as well. If you
| make a clear separation, it's hard to spend time on expanding
| your knowledge, whether the goal is to use it for the next
| day at work or for own personal programming / tech projects.
|
| WFH lets me mix those two a lot more and become more
| efficient. There's less interruptions since I am not going to
| the office, and also I have supreme "quiet time" after work,
| usually between 9pm and midnight.
| teekert wrote:
| All of this +:
|
| I can just start calling people, no need to find a room with my
| laptop where I only have the screen of that laptop, just to not
| disturb the others in the open office.
|
| I have breakfast with the kids, am home for package/groceries
| deliveries.
|
| I have much better relations with colleagues in other countries
| because cam on is the default and we are not with a group of
| locals and 2 people on cam. It's a big equalizer.
|
| I like it like this and would be annoyed as well if this was
| taken from me.
| pentae wrote:
| Not only that but when you combine it with having the freedom
| to relocate to a low cost of living destination suit your
| optimal lifestyle the benefits stack up even more.
|
| For example living 15 minutes to world class hiking trails or
| surf spots. Not having to take a flight or drive for hours each
| way to go do those things on weekends you can now do them every
| day before or after work. Getting to live in a large house out
| in nature, far away from the city crowds.
|
| It's a game changer
| mlrtime wrote:
| Many fully remote companies are giving reduction of pay from
| HCOL cities... this still may work out but not always a
| straight comparison.
| earnesti wrote:
| The biggest perk for me is the ability to hit that bong in a
| middle of work day, while watching weird ass japanese hentai
| with my surround sound home cinema.
| Avalaxy wrote:
| > The biggest perk for me is the ability to hit that bong in
| a middle of work day
|
| I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic, but how could you
| possibly be productive after that?
| cercatrova wrote:
| It really depends on the type, certain strains can make one
| more productive potentially. At least that's what I've
| heard from others.
| meowkit wrote:
| Going along with the other reply to this comment, there are
| a select few individuals who can handle low/medium doses of
| sativa strains and be shockingly productive.
|
| I use it for focusing on purely creative works, but I
| definitely can't use it in a professional setting.
| golergka wrote:
| Depending on your company culture, you could do that in the
| office as well. In some companies I worked at, weed brakes
| were an everyday occurrence for engineering, but gamedev in
| general and Tel Aviv in particular are a bit different from
| the usual white-collar office culture.
| 1_player wrote:
| Though I'm sure the hentai lunch breaks aren't on the list
| of perks at even the most relaxed of FAANGs. No idea
| though, I'm pretty far removed from that world.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| A one hour commute is a very long commute.
|
| Not an _uncommonly_ long commute, perhaps, but only because--
| particularly in the US--we've made some really unfortunate
| choices with regard to city planning. It shouldn't be this way.
| ghaff wrote:
| Pretty much anyplace where someone commutes into a city from
| comfortably outside the city is going to have a substantial
| commute. I'm actually very convenient to a decent commuter
| rail system to a city with a good mass transit system. And it
| would take me around 90 minutes door to door to commute in.
| It would be shorter if I lived closer in but it would be hard
| to be much under an hour.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| I was curious about this so had to check.
|
| I live in a fairly large city with decent transit options
| (for the US), and (notably) a high-speed commuter rail
| system going into the city. I'm considering moving out of
| the city in a year or so, and if I do I want to be
| convenient to a station on that rail system.
|
| Using a friend's address in the suburbs as a proxy (who
| lives near where I might be moving), Google Maps puts the
| travel time from there to my office at 32 minutes via
| commuter rail. That's with an 8 minute walk and 11 minute
| walk on either side, but if you assume a bike ride rather
| than a walk I'd imagine you can cut each of those down by
| at least half. The rail line has headways of a little under
| 15 minutes at rush hour, so that could possibly extend the
| trip a little bit if your timing's not perfect, but still
| well under an hour.
|
| Of course if you need multiple transfers to get to your
| destination (and your local transit system doesn't have
| very short headways) that will increase your travel time
| substantially. The commuter line I'm thinking of takes you
| right into the heart of the city where many jobs are though
| (including my own) so that's not always a concern.
| ghaff wrote:
| That's probably an unusually good commuter rail system.
| I'm about a 10 minute drive from a less frequent commuter
| rail, so figure 15 minutes out the door until the
| scheduled train comes. There don't seem to be any express
| trains running right now so it's over an hour into the
| city and that's assuming I don't need to catch a subway
| on the other end--which I would have to do to go to my
| company's city office. So, for me, at least 90 minutes--
| and that's for someone fairly far out (it would also take
| me a good 60 minutes to go in by car with nominal traffic
| but more like 90 anywhere near rush hour even leaving
| early) but convenient to a rail line.
|
| I actually did this for a time, fortunately not every day
| but frequently enough. Wouldn't really have been
| sustainable long term.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| The inherent problem here is that you work in the city, but
| don't live in the city. I think that with better housing
| policies (namely, better density), this would be far less
| common.
| ghaff wrote:
| That presupposes one wants to live in "better density." A
| lot of people who work in cities have no desire to live
| there. (Or they have a partner who works in the suburbs,
| want the better suburban school options, etc.)
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| IMO, that also falls under "city planning". Why do the
| suburbs have better schools? Maybe if we had better
| public parks, people wouldn't feel the need to have
| individual private backyards? Etcetera.
|
| Now, sure, if your partner works XX miles in the opposite
| direction from you, and/or you have some other unique
| community attachment, and you can't change jobs, you're
| always going to have a long commute, and that's a life
| choice you're going to have to make. But there's no
| reason that should be the norm.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| It's not like the only two options are cities and
| sprawling car-dependent suburbs. (Well okay, in the _US_
| those are mostly the only two options.) That suburb I
| mentioned in a sibling comment thread with the 30-minute
| rail commute is a town of about 13,000, houses there
| generally have backyards (though not huge front yards),
| there are plenty of quiet side streets, it 's still
| walkable, etc. It's an "in between" kind of density. The
| problem is we've mostly legislated these places out of
| existence; you can't build places like this anymore in
| almost all of the US. I just happen to be in an area that
| was built up before modern zoning codes prevented it.
|
| This video is a good overview:
| https://youtu.be/MWsGBRdK2N0
|
| Of course, if you _want_ to live super far away from the
| city and drive in, that 's fine, I just wish that wasn't
| basically the only option besides living right in the
| city. Places like this still exist, and I think there's a
| lot of demand for them, but because they're not expanding
| (again, legislated away) the cost of living there will
| just keep going up because supply will never increase.
| jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote:
| I would love for more of the housing you are talking
| about to exist, but one has to deal with reality as it
| currently exists even while working to change it.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Yes, that's true. But you do also need to work to change
| it, or it won't change.
|
| Unfortunately that probably means that if you have a city
| job, for now you'll be stuck with either long commutes,
| living right in the city, or expensive housing in the
| remaining walkable suburbs.
|
| Or you can move somewhere that has already figured this
| out. :) But I understand that's out of reach for many
| people; it's out of reach for me.
| [deleted]
| jandrese wrote:
| It's the kind of commute where you have said you don't want
| to be a renter for your entire life nor devote your entire
| paycheck to the mortgage.
|
| That said, I actually like my commute that is 30 minutes of
| bike followed by 30 minutes on the train. I get exercise in
| the morning and evening and make steady progress on my
| backlog of books.
|
| I would hate it if I was driving. That's just wasted time.
| dekhn wrote:
| Yep. I just changed jobs to have a shorter commute to support
| my wife and children better, and also expect to only be in the
| office ~3 days a week.
|
| Working from home has been an absolute boon to me. I've done
| partial WFH for my entire career and it feels totally natural
| to me. I do miss being in the office, maybe once a week or so.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| The biggest one in this is the 10 hours per week of commute,
| which if anything actually is a lower estimate of the "all in"
| time commuting takes.
|
| In a normal job that's 25% of your time that's flatly
| uncompensated, who would opt for that.
| hervature wrote:
| Another equivalent view point is that your commute was being
| compensated and that now employers will begin to pay less as
| the supply of people who are willing to work remote increase.
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| I can microwave fish and have no shade thrown at me
| subpixel wrote:
| I recently committed to a 40m commute for the next three years
| to take my young child to our chosen school. I rented a desk
| near the school b/c of course 40m is too far for multiple
| round-trips each day.
|
| I used to commute an hour pre-pandemic so I thought, how bad
| can it be?
|
| Let me tell you - after a year of working at home, any commute
| feels like a giant waste of time and energy, which of course it
| is. I cherish the time with by child, but being strapped into a
| car seat in the back of the car is hardly quality time.
| shkkmo wrote:
| My first response is: Your poor kid has to be strapped into a
| car seat for an hour and a half every day? That sounds
| aweful.
| plank_time wrote:
| You sound like you need to learn more empathy and how to be
| less judgmental.
| [deleted]
| subpixel wrote:
| We live in a paradise that is closer to a puffin colony
| than the nearest streetlight, so we accept the rough edges.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I've been doing WFH for 5 years and feel like the rest of the
| world just caught on. In addition to what you mention:
|
| - Control of food. No more bagels or carb dumping ground. No
| more limited food options. My own kitchen.
|
| - Control of equipment. Need a 4k monitor? Need a trackball? No
| approvals needed.
|
| - Control of ergonomics. Get exactly the chair you need. Get an
| electric height adjustable desk without going through
| facilities.
|
| - Control temperature. Never be too hot or cold.
|
| - So many great options for breaks. Walk down the street.
| Meditate in the garden. Play Beatsaber. Take a nap, naps are
| magic.
|
| - Control your lighting. Good color temperature and comfortable
| brightness make the space more relaxing and can aid sleep and
| wakefulness.
|
| - The ultimate corner office. Privacy and separate space that
| you can personalize to your heart's content.
|
| - Location flexibility. Work from a beach rental. Do a city-
| stay near a WeWork. Find a mountain cabin with high speed
| internet. Move to a new state without having to change jobs.
|
| - Finances. Live in a low tax state. Have an older car. Spend
| less on clothes, lunches, parking, gas, tolls. Live in cheaper
| square footage without worrying about what it does to your
| commute.
|
| - Stress. More emotional speration between you and your work.
| Relationships are through Zoom and require less emotional
| investment. Work forms less a part of your identity and
| changing it involves fewer changes to your daily routine.
|
| - Caffeine. With more tools to manage your wakefulness, less
| need to lean on the crutch of caffeine. For me, less caffeine
| means less alcohol as well.
|
| Other people are free to have their opinions that they don't
| like WFH or can't wait to get back into the office. For me, I
| really struggle to understand how you cannot love it. With
| total control of my environment, I can easily correct for minor
| downsides such as needing to maintain work-life balance and
| good social connections. After years of optimization, I have a
| better quality of life than our CEO. I'd be insane to give it
| up.
| jes5199 wrote:
| I actually went through really severe caffeine withdrawal
| last year, it turns out that the always-ready coffeepot at
| our coworking space was keeping me way, way more caffeinated
| that I could reasonably do at home
|
| I also spent the year stressed out by the endless stream of
| Slack messages, eating poorly, forgetting to take breaks, and
| slumped on a couch rather that bothering to use my nice
| ergonomic chair, so, YMMV
| nonameiguess wrote:
| The other thing I don't see mentioned enough is the impact on
| disabled people. Thanks to spine issues, I can't comfortably
| drive. That has limited me to either working where a train
| line goes or at the same place with my wife where I can
| carpool with her as a passenger. WFH is one of the most
| freeing things that has ever happened to me. It not only
| frees me to work anywhere, but it also means I don't need to
| take as frequent breaks. I used to have to work at places
| that could accommodate my need to lay down to decompress
| several times a day, and that meant I couldn't do any actual
| work during that time. At home, I can much more easily keep
| working from bed when sitting or standing gets too painful.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| Not just disability -- basically everyone in every
| marginalized group is doing better working from home. My
| queer friends are thriving in this environment. You don't
| have to code switch online to the same degree you do in
| real life, and it gave people time to consider the
| cognitive and emotional toll that code switching takes.
|
| Like, I'm trans and have kept it hidden most of my career.
| It's always been hard on me, because I have to carefully
| curate my image because if I don't I opened myself to
| discrimination if people could tell.
|
| I started a new job during the pandemic and went full-on
| "fuck it" mode and I couldn't be happier. Joined the LGBT
| ERG and helped organize some of the younger trans people at
| my company into pushing for expanded healthcare benefits (I
| don't need them personally, but they will). I don't think I
| would have found the energy to do any of this if I was also
| worried about how I was being perceived by others -- all
| that energy would have gone into creating an illusion
| that's acceptable to the people who do my reviews and sign
| my paychecks.
| anonu wrote:
| What is code switching? I know what it means in the
| context of being bilingual. But I don't think I
| understand what you're saying here...
| jreese wrote:
| I can't speak for the GP commenter, but from my own
| experience being non-binary, I have to expend cognitive
| energy every morning thinking about what I'll be doing
| that day (what meetings, any errands, etc), before
| deciding what clothes I can wear. If I'm staying home all
| day, with no meetings, or only meeting with trusted
| colleagues, I will dress differently than a day where I
| need to go to a store, or if I need to meet with
| coworkers I've never met before.
|
| For trans people, just existing without conflict or
| judgement from others is a constant struggle between
| society's normative expectations and the desire to
| express who you really are.
| handrous wrote:
| It's also applied to switching dialect, word choice, and
| even accent. Lots of people in the US who grow up with
| any kind of regional or ethnic accent or English-variant
| end up being capable of code-switching to Standard
| American English, especially if they move around much
| and/or attend school somewhere outside the area where
| their dialect is normal, though even regional schools
| will provide some social pressure to avoid non-standard
| accents or dialects that are common in their areas. AAVE
| (African-American Vernacular English) is a commonly-cited
| variant from which one may wish (or feel strong pressure)
| to code-switch to SAE, but similar (if less race-fraught,
| so perhaps not directly comparable) pressure exists for
| people with strong Bostonian or Appalachian or rural-
| midwestern accents, or most anything other than SAE.
|
| The positive reason for this, is that it allows
| potentially extreme variants and dialects to co-exist
| while letting everyone still communicate clearly with
| others (by code-switching to whatever's considered
| standard). The down-side is that it often exists
| alongside negative stereotypes about those who can't, or
| choose not to, code-switch to SAE (but, of course,
| refusing to becomes its own counter-signal for very high
| status--Fussell, for instance, observes that adhering to
| SAE is a middle-class and up tendency, but _not_ among
| "old money" or his "top-out-of-sight" rich, since they
| don't need, at any point in their life, to give a damn
| whether some employer or other gate-keeper judges them
| worthy or intelligent or whatever).
| [deleted]
| bdcravens wrote:
| I have cystic fibrosis. It's fairly mild, but I do have to
| do daily breathing treatments, and it's so nice to be able
| to take care of those needs while working. To say nothing
| of when I'm ill but can still be fairly productive around
| rest. I've even gotten work done from the hospital during
| an admission.
| ilaksh wrote:
| I've been doing WFH for the better part of ten years. So beat
| you. Lol.
|
| But it is kind of vindicating seeing people everywhere start
| to have the same philosophy. It makes me hopeful that other
| good things may catch on in the future eventually.
|
| The next stage is possibly moving somewhere with a lower cost
| of living. Been spending most time in Mexico for almost three
| years.
| enobrev wrote:
| I've been WFH for 20 years (by the end of this year).
|
| I've considered moving for a lower cost of living or living
| the "nomad" life, but I honestly prefer big crazy cities
| with tons of people and endless possibilities every day.
|
| And so I've lived in big cities the whole time and have
| loved every minute of it. I pay more, and I charge more,
| and generally try to make sure my clients aren't local so
| they don't suddenly get the crazy idea that I should pop
| into the office. But, even when they are local, I keep
| office visits to a minimum (once per month or less).
|
| It's been pretty great to see so many start to see the
| delights of working from home. It get that it's not for
| everyone. I'm positive it's for a lot of us.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I don't optimize for cost, I optimize for quality of
| life. I'm a semi-nomad and try to be in places that offer
| family, friends, walkability, and nature.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| So your buying a "4k Monitor" and office equipment for your
| employer - how generous.
|
| Or are you renting them access to your equipment :-)
| stormking wrote:
| I save 160 Euros per month by not commuting. I invested 3
| months of these savings in a height-adjustable desk and a
| 4K monitor. The 90 minutes time each day I keep for myself.
| I wouldn't call that a bad deal.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| Your literally saying that giving your employer money is
| a good idea.
|
| I "invested" my commute savings savings in a Tudor GMT
| watch my ISA and some bullion
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| some people are pragmatic. others think pragmatists are
| suckers.
|
| who's happier?
| dougmwne wrote:
| It is my equipment. I am not buying it for them, I am
| buying it for me. My health, my back health, my eye health,
| my wrist health, and my comfort are 100% worth the
| investment. I don't expect any company to take care of my
| health for me. I take care of it myself. Are you renting
| your company access to your car when you drive in? If so, I
| guarantee you spend more than I do.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| Sorry Doug how did you get so brain washed its the
| employers responsibility to provide this, you know they
| should be inspecting your home for H&S
|
| And when I worked in high end rnd if we brought kit on
| behalf of a client to use on their projects we charged
| them AND A 25% MANAGMENT FEE.
|
| The company is not your friend as people often say on
| here but buying equipment for them is OK FFS
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| Which also comes with all the hubbub which was already
| mentioned before. Freedom of choice comes with the burden
| of payment.
|
| Here's an idea: instead of expecting the employer to
| provide more than a basic level of ergonomics and
| potentially having to go through all the bureaucratic and
| mental hoops, both on receiving and on returning, we
| just.. pay the employees more money so they can decide
| for themselves.
|
| Why you're putting this in the frame of "employer is not
| your friend" is beyond me, no one was framing it that way
| to begin with. If anything, it is _because_ we can 't
| expect employers to deliver beyond a basic level and
| introducing all these rules to make it harder, that it
| makes more sense to bite the bullet up front and be in
| control.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I get the idea you are in the UK and I think that
| accounts for a significant difference. In the US,
| employers have very little legal or ethical obligation to
| their employees. Decades of pro-business lobbying have
| basically solidified our status as an exploitable
| resource that companies can use up and dispose of "at
| will". An employee lives and dies by their share of
| political capital. I could use my political capital to
| try to get home office equipment, but the $500 I might
| have been able to expense is really not worth it in
| comparison to other perks I might be able to "purchase"
| with my political capital instead. These asks need to be
| carefully considered. A team mate asked for an ergonomic
| chair and was denied. I have asked for far more valuable
| things and been allowed.
| weasel_words wrote:
| In addition to all you said, you mentioned your car...do
| they also pay you for your commute time? Of course not.
|
| Say you have a 1hr each way...2 hours/day, 5 days/week,
| 48 weeks/year, $100/hr: $100 * 2 * 5 * 48 = $48,000. WFH
| literally just saved you $48k of billable time.
|
| Buying a 4k monitor (that you can also use for non-work
| activities) on your own dime is probably reasonable.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| There are specific carve outs in employment law and car
| insurance for commutes. Try using your personal vehicle
| for work with out additional have an accident and your
| insurer will wash their hands of you.
| bradlys wrote:
| Most people can do this in their office. Unless you're
| hotswapping (uncommon in my experience) then you can just
| bring whatever equipment you want in. We had plenty of
| people do that at all the jobs I've worked at.
| spear wrote:
| I brought in my own mechanical keyboard to the office. It
| has clicky keys so it's not quiet. I haven't gotten any
| complaints yet, but that could change depending on who my
| next cubicle neighbor might be.
| mulmen wrote:
| This is the social equivalent of the opt-out dark
| pattern. A lack of complaints should never be interpreted
| as approval. Generally people try to be agreeable and
| avoid conflict. You clearly know that people do not like
| your keyboard but you are putting the burden on them to
| ask you to stop. You have made a decision that
| internalizes the benefits but externalizes the costs.
| spear wrote:
| I did ask my co-workers. No one complained.
|
| You are otherwise reinforcing the point that you can't
| just bring whatever equipment you want to the office, as
| the parent poster claimed.
| mulmen wrote:
| Asking them is still putting the burden on them to be
| disagreeable.
|
| I am reinforcing no such point. I bring my own keyboard
| but it isn't noisy. I also bring my own mouse.
| spear wrote:
| I didn't say my keyboard was noisy. For someone who gives
| advice on being agreeable, you sure make a lot of
| malicious assumptions.
| [deleted]
| unsui wrote:
| I don't think this is accurate.
|
| Some professionals, notably those whose work culture
| encourages self-determination, can be allowed to bring in
| their own hardware or request custom hardware. These are
| usually the outliers, rather than the norm (and in fact,
| this is often advertised as a "perk" of being employed at
| that particular place).
|
| The vast majority of corporate environments are rather
| locked down and standardized, understandably, with one-
| size-fits-all or a set menu of tech provisions, depending
| on role (e.g., designers often get larger screens than
| accountants).
|
| Even as a developer, I had to fight for larger screens
| for my team, as IT saw no inherent need for larger
| screens beyond what they initially provisioned.
|
| Contrast that with my WFH setup, with my 3-monitor setup
| on a 7-foot standing desk...
| bradlys wrote:
| Okay? But I've never been in an office or seen one where
| they banned bringing in your own equipment. Even in
| places that had the set menu for different roles. If you
| had some stuff you wanted to bring in, go for it.
| LevGoldstein wrote:
| I've worked in several in larger/Fortune 500 companies,
| including one where the desk setups were handled by a
| labor union, any changes required multiple approvals, and
| DIYing anything (using personal equipment or even
| adjusting the existing desk position or height) was a
| rules violation and prohibited. You wouldn't be able to
| get past security with personal equipment larger than
| what could fit in your pocket, and carrying so much as a
| monitor or laptop that didn't have a company barcode on
| it already would get you stopped.
|
| So yeah, these sorts of workplaces exist and thousands of
| people have to contend with their on-site limitations.
| Miner49er wrote:
| Even if allowed, if you want similar equipment at home
| and in the office you'd have to buy two of it all, or
| tear it down and take it home with you every night. If
| you just work from home you don't have that problem.
| bradlys wrote:
| Alternative - you just work at the office... then this
| isn't an issue either. See how that works? ;)
| ArchOversight wrote:
| Some places don't allow you to bring in your own
| equipment, and there is an approved list of equipment
| that you can buy from.
|
| So unless the item is listed on that list, you are SOL.
| bradlys wrote:
| I've never run into this personally. And I've worked in
| some old ass enterprise type companies. Maybe for high
| security clearance places this is an issue or
| something...
|
| I wouldn't focus on niche places that do this though as
| an arguing point. It may as well be, "but some chipotle's
| don't offer guacamole. So, ya know, can't rely on it."
| Might be true but sounds rare.
| ArchOversight wrote:
| I've worked at old-school telcos and startups alike.
|
| It was acceptable to bring your own keyboard and mouse to
| two out of the five companies, other than that, no other
| hardware was allowed to be brought in. So you are stuck
| with the monitors provided, with the rest of the hardware
| that was provided, and while you could bring in limited
| ergonomic stuff, you were also limited to whatever office
| furniture was available.
| NateEag wrote:
| I worked for a US health insurance company for a while,
| and they were almost this strict.
|
| People got away with breaking some of the rules, but it
| was definitely a risk - it was theoretically grounds for
| dismissal to bring in your own hardware, IIRC, let alone
| to run unapproved software.
|
| The concern in that case was a PHI (personal health
| information) breach, which could bring the wrath of the
| US judicial system down on the company.
|
| So, not top-secret or anything like that, but still very
| conservative and with decent reasons to be so.
| bradlys wrote:
| Huh - I worked in health with HIPPA data issues as well -
| never had this hardware specific issue. But, we were a
| group of software engineers who weren't idiots - so... we
| understood that bringing our own monitor or
| keyboard/mouse wasn't likely to do anything and not a
| real risk.
| kat wrote:
| I liked how to worded "emotional separation" The reduction in
| my stress has been amazing, especially considering we've been
| in the middle of covid. My moods are way better regulated
| now. I'm no longer trying to ignore my angry office mate
| who's muttering under his breath. I didn't realize how much
| upset people influence my own mood. I thought I was good at
| ignoring angry people, but the action of ignoring took up a
| lot more energy than I previously thought. My biggest worry
| about back-to-office is how I'm going to managed my increased
| stress levels.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I am the same way. I am very sensitive to the emotional
| states of the people around me. I think most people are. A
| stressful office environment was a pressure cooker where we
| stewed all day in each other's stress hormones. My stress
| was off the charts.
| blablabla123 wrote:
| Same, the whole elbow office politics is definitely much
| smoother. I had a few situations where a work colleague
| would try to convince me in joining his angry crusade when
| we had a call. But from home it's much easier to distance
| from that or just escape the call. No more people coming
| unannounced to me asking me for unreasonable work tasks. I
| will very likely switch if office presence becomes
| mandatory again.
| criddell wrote:
| I loved working from home because it allowed me more time
| with my dog. His need to be taken outside occasionally was a
| perfect reminder for me to take a break. Plus, the light
| snoring coming from under my desk was super comforting.
|
| While I was more productive at home, I think that came at a
| cost to others that I work with. Every interruption that I
| avoided while WFH is a slowdown for somebody I work with.
|
| I'm back in the office again but I'm hoping that I can one
| day arrange to work from home most days and only occasionally
| come into the office.
| ravenstine wrote:
| - Exercise!
|
| In my home office, I've got pushup stands, a pull-up bar,
| suspension straps, an ab roller, yoga mat, resistance bands,
| and some dumbells that I use in those moments while something
| is compiling. No back pain for years and I'm in great shape.
|
| If I did this in an office, I'd get endless remarks and
| cocked eyes, eventually being told by a superior that my
| "coworkers find that a little weird". (i.e. stop doing that)
| Guest42 wrote:
| Same here, when the gyms closed I immediately bought the
| equipment I use and it made for a much better work
| experience and home experience as there is the extra time
| from not going to the office or the gym. It's also more
| peaceful to exercise in quiet rather than get blasted by
| loud ads all the time.
| weasel_words wrote:
| I do this too! It's especially great when I'm starting to
| doze but don't want a full nap...I can hop up and do a set
| of _whatever_. After that, I 'm good to go!
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| This is a cultural thing that varies a bit. It wouldn't be
| unusual to spot workout equipment at or around an
| engineer's desk in sports and fitness tech.
| cfontes wrote:
| I've worked from home for 3 years, than office for 2 and now
| back to home because of COVID and I moved to another
| continent.
|
| I have some points on the not good column
|
| - If you have kids, it is hard to focus sometimes, specially
| small ones.
|
| - Sometimes your SO forgets you are not "Home" and this also
| can be bad, as it can create stress between you 2.
|
| - I miss software design sessions with my team, we would go
| thru issues 2x faster being together.
|
| - Onboarding new team members is a lot harder and they feel
| less part of the "team"
|
| Last one is building culture remotely is a skill a handful of
| people have, until now at least. So this also becomes a
| mess...
|
| For me the perfect balance is to be at the office once a
| week.
| amelius wrote:
| > If you have kids, it is hard to focus sometimes,
| specially small ones.
|
| This is what can happen when you WFH with small children:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh4f9AYRCZY
| mcbuilder wrote:
| This is true, the thing is kids grow up and then that
| stage is gone. With my oldest and second I missed so
| much, not something I would want to repeat again with my
| current 18 month old. Kids settle down as they get older,
| and I'd much rather have a quick play distraction than
| the annoying conversations that you get sucked into
| around the water cooler. And I'd also rather get locked
| into WFH roles now and put up with the young kid noises
| now with the long-term payoff of less distractions. How
| many of us are newscasters anyway? I've given up even
| instructing my wife to take the kids out unless it's a
| really important presentation, because so many of my co-
| workers are in the same boat.
| genghisjahn wrote:
| Every freaking day.
| Unbeliever69 wrote:
| Great commentary. Regarding 'I miss software design
| sessions with my team, we would go thru issues 2x faster
| being together.' My team struggled with this at first,
| mainly because we had a massive markerboarding wall in the
| office. We tried setting up whiteboards in our home offices
| and doing some whiteboard sharing. There was just something
| about marker on markerboard paint we missed. Then we found
| Miro which allowed us to virtually markerboard remotely and
| asynchronously with ease. It doesn't hurt that our video
| conferencing app Whereby has Miro share feature so we do it
| directly within Whereby and not have to context-switch so
| much.
| saurik wrote:
| As a kid who grew up with a father who worked from home, I
| will say I loved it, though. I knew I shouldn't bother him
| much while he's working... but I could if I really needed
| to, and he was around if something important happened. His
| flexible working conditions also meant he could be a part
| of everything and take you places and then you'd want to do
| something he'd find boring and he'd just say "I'll sit on
| this bench, come get me when you're done" and he'd put in a
| half hour of work in the middle of nowhere as _he could_
| (his job also was for a company half a world away, and so
| he didn 't really need to be in contact with them
| constantly--pre-Internet--or work very specific hours). So
| like... it might be a bit harder on you--particularly when
| the kid is young enough to not understand "work"--but I
| feel incredibly lucky that my father did that (and like, he
| actually was gone three months of the year to work for that
| company "in the office"... but I still feel like I got much
| more of a father than anyone else I knew).
| cfontes wrote:
| Yes, familywise it's great, I just came back from a 1h
| lunch break on the beach digging sand castles for a good
| 30 minutes of it with them all, something impossible with
| any other setup.
| greggman3 wrote:
| Not impossible at all. I know two companies near the
| beach where people surf during lunch.
| saurik wrote:
| With their kids?
| cfontes wrote:
| Shit are you the "saurik"? Oh man, thanks for all the
| work you put into Cydia and all that. Seriously you are
| awesome.
|
| This is why HN is special!
| greggman3 wrote:
| Yes, their kids and spouse come to that beach
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Sorry, I'm too young, I have a feeling this question will
| seem very dumb to older folks--what work can you do
| remotely without the internet?
|
| I guess a lot of stuff happened over the phone? If you
| write a document, how do you send it to others? Did he
| use a fax machine, maybe?
| DubiousPusher wrote:
| Any intellectual work that typically traded on paper.
|
| -Design jobs like architecture and drafting
|
| -Small device repairs (where the device is high value and
| can be mailed)
|
| -Creative labor like copy writing, editing, etc
|
| Also, where I grew up in rural Montana, a lot of jobs
| that are considered to require an office but which can be
| done over the phone were worked remotely up until
| recently. Sales in many industries was done over the
| phone with people stationed throughout the Western U.S.
| states, each managing about a 100,000-300,000 sq mi area.
| saurik wrote:
| The answer to your direct question is, in fact, "fax".
| The digital fax machines that started to come out were
| able to send documents without much loss and then print
| multiple copies of them (rather than essentially
| attaching a modem directly to a glorified receipt printer
| like earlier ones had).
|
| He had a Palm Pilot he would scribble on a lot to work
| out of the house when those became a thing, and he had
| one of the first actually-portable laptop computers. We
| (he involved me in a lot of his process of learning tech)
| tested out early tablet computing devices (running
| Windows 3.0 "for Handwriting" ;P).
| lliamander wrote:
| > For me the perfect balance is to be at the office once a
| week.
|
| Out of necessity I've been WFH for the past 2 years. While
| overall I have enjoyed working from home, the issues you
| describe are real. Once it is no longer necessary for me to
| be WFH full time, I think one day a week in the office
| would be ideal.
| ljm wrote:
| I'd go further and say, make both optional. Come to the
| office space when you need it, stay at home when you
| don't. Once a week? Twice a week? Every day? Once a month
| or never? Doesn't matter.
|
| Maybe some things would need to change in terms of what
| office space is leased, and the capacity, in order to
| manage the cost.
| lliamander wrote:
| I think there's value in consistency in terms of setting
| expectations (both for my family and for my colleagues)
| the the flexibility to determine what that consistency
| looks like is key.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Alternatively, what about work from "home" where you work
| at a nearby cafe or co-working space or even the library
| or a university?
| greggman3 wrote:
| My company would very much not want others to see my
| unannounced work.
| lbhdc wrote:
| You need to get one of those screen protectors that
| prevents people from seeing your screen form different
| angles, and make sure you get that corner seat.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Yeah, companies with strict security measures dutifully
| provide them for free.
| selykg wrote:
| > Sometimes your SO forgets you are not "Home" and this
| also can be bad, as it can create stress between you 2.
|
| Simple solution, put a sign on the door that indicates you
| are working and only to interrupt if it's important. You
| can still set boundaries here without it being an issue. Be
| creative, talk it out with your SO.
|
| This can help when kids get old enough to understand as
| well, but admittedly won't work with small children.
|
| > miss software design sessions with my team, we would go
| thru issues 2x faster being together.
|
| I think this is something that can be solved with software
| but it'll take some time to develop workflows that work for
| everyone. Talk to your team to try to find ways you can
| optimize.
|
| > - Onboarding new team members is a lot harder and they
| feel less part of the "team"
|
| This comes down to the culture, which is your last part.
|
| You can help new members feel included in simple ways. Or
| simply include them in decisions and discussions is
| helpful. Really it's the same as when you're working in the
| same location. You just have to be proactive about
| including someone that you're not seeing. This is more on
| you and less on the new person.
| antman wrote:
| > Simple solution, put a sign on the door
|
| Who said anything about a door? We dont have two spare
| rooms really.
| irrational wrote:
| Yeah, I've been working out of the living room all
| pandemic.
|
| We are actually moving soon primarily so that I can have
| an office.
| djrogers wrote:
| That's another thing that a permanent WFH mindset can
| solve - move. I've been WFH for ~20 years, and can't
| imagine giving up the freedom I have in selecting a home.
|
| I still live in the Bay Area, but it's a 45min (no
| traffic) to ~1:45hr (typical) commute to the South Bay.
| It'd be hard to do this every day, but I don't have to.
|
| As a result, I get to live on huge chunk of land, with an
| office to call my own, for the same $$ I'd spend on a
| 4br/3ba 'normal' house in San Jose.
| sidlls wrote:
| I don't know that someone who can afford a multimillion
| dollar home is working the same kind of job that 99% of
| the rest of the world works.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| +1
|
| I suspect anyone that _enjoys_ living in a high cost of
| living city (SF, NYC, etc) and isn't obscenely wealthy is
| working from their living or bedroom. If you're not
| living alone, WFH becomes a lot harder.
|
| I would prefer to live in SF and go to the office
| (because my house/apt is too small) than live elsewhere
| but be able to afford a house with a dedicated room for
| an office.
| asadlionpk wrote:
| How about a middleground solution: Live close to SF (say
| San Mateo, ~30 mins to SF)? That way you can get
| dedicated room for office and be in proximity to the
| city.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Isn't that worst of both worlds?
|
| Still EXPENSIVE as hell, and no big open spaces to
| yourself, but also still not a quick stroll to all the
| world-class amenities of SF.
|
| Maybe it varies for other people, but when i think of
| "live in to enjoy the city" i think 2 blocks from enough
| food to never cook again, new bars every friday, a quick
| transit ride to almost any activity i could want - and no
| car ownership needed. Its a lifestyle of living out of
| the city as a communal space, not a destination to visit
| on weekends.
| irrational wrote:
| > Onboarding new team members is a lot harder and they feel
| less part of the "team"
|
| On the other hand, we onboarded someone who lives in
| Vermont (the rest of the team is in the same town on the
| west coast) and since we are all working remotely, other
| than changing his working hours to align with our own, you
| can't tell the difference between him and us.
| ilaksh wrote:
| Those are all good points. Which is why I think we need to
| distinguish between different actual situations when we
| talk about this stuff.
|
| The fact that you are not going to the office is too broad
| of a category. I mean just look at the name, work from
| home, and it is misleading right there.
|
| You may need to look into a co-working space or other
| option to get out of the house with so many distractions.
|
| It's also going to be totally different for people who have
| no kids or who are employing nannies or day care to occupy
| the children.
|
| The software design sessions thing, I absolutely do not buy
| the idea that this cannot be done remotely. Use a Zoom
| meeting, one of the many collaborative whiteboarding
| sites/programs and get people Wacom tablets if desired. But
| just a chat room, phone call, Discord voice channel, etc.
| should actually be adequate most of the time.
|
| For onboarding and culture, just because people are not
| coming into the office does not mean that it has to turn
| into a free for all. You can still have rules about being
| around at a certain time or using certain software or video
| calls or whatever you feel you need to keep people
| integrated or whatever. The only thing that needs to be
| different is the literal physical presence of the person.
| Virtual presence can still be facilitated and required if
| you feel it is necessary.
| myohmy wrote:
| I've onboarded a few people over the pandemic and that's
| really the only downside. I can't really gauge their mood
| while pair coding over zoom. So its harder to pick up on
| where they are struggling to keep up.
|
| All that has meant is that ramp up time is a little slower.
| And I can come into the office for 2 weeks for the two
| times a year we onboard people. Hell, if we did an office
| rental then neither of us would have to commute into town.
| It may be shocking to hear, but new people typically live
| in the outskirts where housing is cheap. Right next to
| where I live...
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > - Control of equipment. Need a 4k monitor? Need a
| trackball? No approvals needed.
|
| No approvals, but you have to pay for it.
|
| Prior to COVID, I used vacation time every summer to work at
| an academic summer camp for three weeks. Most of the other
| staff members--largely college students--had to go through
| this dumb supply request system whenever they wanted
| materials for an activity. I just ordered whatever I wanted
| off Amazon, which was expensive, but I figured I was
| technically on a sort of weird vacation, so screw it.
|
| My point being, you can make this trade-off in many
| workplaces. Working from home just normalizes it--and
| sometimes removes the choice.
| leetrout wrote:
| I've had places not allow personal equipment to be brought
| in so it wouldn't be their fault if it was stolen.
|
| They would buy ergonomic things that could be justified
| though.
|
| I don't miss that.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Many workplaces are giving out home office stipends.
| dougmwne wrote:
| In open office or hot desking environments, you really
| might not have the choice. My last office from 2015 on
| Market Street was all hot desk. You could not have any
| personal items left on the desk at the end of the day. The
| only way to get a standing desk was to get a doctor's
| recommendation and have an ergonomic consultant approve it.
| You could use whatever peripherals you could fit in a
| backpack.
|
| I now have an electric standing desk with memory settings,
| a cushioned standing mat, a great office chair that fits my
| back perfectly, a kneeling chair, a yoga ball, a stool,
| plants, original artwork, fidget toys, cozy lamps,
| excercise equipment, ergonomic keyboard and mouse, a large
| external display, the best video conferencing headset I
| could find, laptop and monitor height adjustable stands and
| probably a few other things as well. I changed jobs
| recently and didn't have to do anything but swap out the
| laptop.
| dougmwne wrote:
| Thanks, moved to reply.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Fyi, the reply button will appear if you click "X minutes
| ago" above a comment. It will also appear normally if you
| wait a few minutes.
|
| There's no depth limit, it's just a subtle cue to
| consider slowing down, to help prevent flame wars.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| > the best video conferencing headset I could find
|
| If you could share your findings this would be greatly
| appreciated. (Is it wired or wireless?)
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I'm not OP and it's not a headset, but I have to say--
| nothing beats the Blue Yeti for microphone audio quality,
| and there's a headphone jack on the bottom you can just
| use with any pair of headphones.
|
| It's a bit of an investment, and very slightly cumbersome
| at times versus a wireless headset, but I think it's
| worthwhile in order to sound good.
|
| (Well, okay, a truly professional microphones would
| presumably make you sound even better, but you're very
| much past the point of diminishing returns.)
| dougmwne wrote:
| How does the yeti perform on echo cancelation and
| background noise isolation? In my experience, the Evolve
| 40 is good enough that I can turn off Zoom's software
| filters and get a further quality boost.
| justincormack wrote:
| That is basically because it is near you and far from
| anything else. So it doesn't have to do anything to not
| pick up background noise. You can do that with any mic,
| headsets just have a bit of an advantage in having a
| fixed placement right near you however you move. I have a
| mic on a boom over the monitor so it ends up close to me
| and I wear headphones so that has much the same effect.
| But its all about placement.
| [deleted]
| ncphil wrote:
| Sidetone. The essential hardware feature that Blue Yeti
| and few others get right. I've had one on my wish list
| for a while.
|
| On the main topic, as a boomer who suffered through
| office work for decades (the dictation system in my first
| job was a DictaBelt, and electronic forms were what the
| secretaries stored on their IBM Selectrics), going 100%
| remote 12 years ago was the greatest productivity boost
| I've experienced since my first work PC (which I built
| from parts sourced at Jameco Electronics... in 1988).
|
| There is _no_ way I'll ever return to an office, with all
| the distractions (we used to call them "drive-bys") and
| already mentioned ergonomic barriers. My manager is a
| genx who is fully behind remote work, but there are lots
| of late boomer and genx execs who are really
| uncomfortable with it for a load if reasons -- including
| that it denies them opportunities to intimidate through
| physical presence (never a problem I experienced
| personally, mostly because those same sorts of managers
| tend to be intimidated by age, experience and
| credentials).
|
| I find it ironic that so many execs who now lament the
| loss of "collaboration" weren't voicing those concerns a
| couple of decades ago during the massive push to
| outsource and offshore. I know from personal experience
| that collaborating remotely is not only possible, but
| often superior to in-office -- as I think dozens of my
| colleagues across a couple of oceans who I worked some
| pretty difficult technical issues with would attest.
| dougmwne wrote:
| Jabra Evolve 40. I chose wired so I didn't have to deal
| with Bluetooth audio issues. I wanted something with a
| professional appearance and strong mic and headphone
| performance for voice frequencies, plus a mute button.
| Very happy with it.
| jholman wrote:
| That sits on top of the ear, crushing the ear cartilage
| against the skull, right? How can anyone choose that
| style of headphone?
| FooHentai wrote:
| They don't put much pressure on the head, certainly not
| enough to describe it as crushing anything. A
| characteristic of this type of headset is light weight,
| so the clamp pressure does not need to be strong to keep
| them in place.
|
| As a result they're significantly smaller than over-ear
| cans, and able to be stuffed in a laptop bag easily.
|
| The style can become fatiguing with extended wear, that
| is probably their biggest flaw along with limitations on
| how much sound isolation they can achieve.
| enlightens wrote:
| I'll heartily agree with this recommendation, though I
| have the Jabra Evolve 75. As best as I can tell it's
| exactly the same as the 40 with the addition of
| Bluetooth. I happened to pick it up in February of 2020
| and it's been fantastic for my hours of daily calls.
| minipci1321 wrote:
| > After years of optimization, I have a better quality of
| life than our CEO. I'd be insane to give it up.
|
| Maybe you did run in to it but haven't mentioned, or maybe 5
| years is not enough to see it -- have you noticed that a big
| part of the "remote culture" that few know how to build, is
| proper recognition of remote workers in the mixed- or
| dominantly-office- teams?
|
| Those CEOs are perfectly aware that your life quality is
| higher than theirs on a much lower income, they know full
| well you are not going away anytime soon...
| dougmwne wrote:
| Heavy are the hands that wear the golden handcuffs.
| paulcole wrote:
| > Move to a new state without having to change jobs.
|
| I see this point but it's often not a guarantee, particularly
| if you work at a small company. In the US if your employer is
| in State A and you want to move to State B, then your
| employer must become registered as a business in that state
| and abide by that state's labor laws. Many small businesses
| aren't capable of (or interested in) maintaining compliance
| with every state's laws.
|
| I believe this will change in the future, but right now I
| wouldn't bet on it.
| raducu wrote:
| I love WFH because I don't have to put up with politics crap.
|
| Also I realized how conscientious I am compared to other
| people and the message trail means I have peace of mind about
| stuff that's not my fault.
|
| And I love that some people are forced to hold in their
| verbal diarrhea and have to think before writing messages.
| vanviegen wrote:
| Yes, working from home can be very comfortable if you invest
| in comfort.
|
| But for me, comfort isn't everything. I'd rather be a bit
| less comfortable if it means being able to feel part of
| something nice. I really like being among people,
| experiencing things together. For me, that feeling easily
| outweighs comfort.
|
| Then again, my work is a 10m walk from my house, and I have
| quite a bit of influence on how our work environment is
| shaped - so that may be easy for me to say.
| Florin_Andrei wrote:
| > _I really like being among people_
|
| That's what the local pub is for.
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| ah, yes. the smart healthy option.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| I was a long-time skeptic of remote work, but after this last
| year I am convinced it can work well - and perhaps not just
| work well but work better than traditional office work. Our
| experience has been that people are just as productive in a
| 'visible sense' as when they were forced to commute and come
| into the office. But I also get the sense that people are
| happier, because they are able to skip frustrations (commute),
| retain their family life in a better way (seeing kids more),
| and free up mental bandwidth (by taking care of little
| chores/errands at will). They are able to create the work
| environment they want, eat more healthily, and do things like
| go for a walk and recharge. For creative work, I think there
| will be significant long-term benefits to having a work force
| that isn't just productive, but also happy, healthy, and
| fulfilled. Companies that are trying desperately to hold onto
| the old working model with stopgaps like "hybrid work" are
| simply dating themselves and will lose their best talent.
| apexalpha wrote:
| Agreed! I had an hour-long one way commute too and it's been
| great. My work day went from 11 hours to 9 at most. I have more
| time to cook, I can get up later of earlier, I can do laundry,
| dishwasher etc...
|
| My company wants to go 2 days home and 3 days office. I've said
| I'd do it the other way around.
|
| I do miss my colleagues as well, but two days a week should be
| enough to garner most weekly advantages of being in the same
| place.
|
| And it's not just convenience, either. 2 days in office would
| open up immense possibilities for me regarding housing, I can
| live in a cheaper home outside the big city and still commute
| less than 10 hours a week.
| davidgerard wrote:
| Before the pandemic I did a _lot_ of WFH, looking after my
| chronically ill partner. I basically got my face-to-face load
| out the way on a Monday, which was Meeting Day.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > My company wants to go 2 days home and 3 days office. I've
| said I'd do it the other way around.
|
| That's exactly the same as me. Company is talking about
| everyone coming back in for 3/2 starting in mid-September. My
| response is I'll see you for 2/3. I have a 20 minute commute
| which isn't too onerous, and I like having _some_ in-office
| time as I find it valuable.
|
| What will really be the test for me is how I feel after a
| month or two of the kids being back in school. Right now
| being home is still fairly social for me. Previous times I've
| tried to work remotely it was the loneliness of having only
| myself in the house for days on end that killed it for me.
|
| I'm also a bit of a realist, though. Being remote (or at
| least 'more remote' than the rest of the team) is a serious
| career limit, so if everyone else starts spending most of
| their time in the office, I will probably follow along.
| mcot2 wrote:
| I suspect the partial in-office/wfh arrangement will be
| fairly rare. Office space is costly to use only 2 days a
| week. Companies can do hoteling but it breaks down when you
| have very technical employees who like very particular desk
| setups (multiple monitors, chair positions, special
| keyboards/mice). The more common arrangement will probably be
| mostly WFH but meet up occsionally in some per-hour rented
| office for collaboration. Sucks for WeWork to have blown
| itself up before this :).
| mcguire wrote:
| Or if everyone's two days is Tuesday and Wednesday. :-)
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Just spread it around so all five days get coverage.
| Izkata wrote:
| > Office space is costly to use only 2 days a week.
|
| So downsize. We were doing partial WFH before the pandemic
| because our office had more people than seats (open office
| seating); everyone picked different days they preferred for
| home and office, and the office ended up mostly full most
| days.
| slumdev wrote:
| > My company wants to go 2 days home and 3 days office. I've
| said I'd do it the other way around.
|
| Mine is pushing some similar nonsense. I don't think anyone
| thought about it too hard:
|
| 1. I still have to live within a reasonable driving distance
| of the main office.
|
| 2. I still have to maintain a home office, sacrificing
| valuable square footage without being reimbursed for its use.
|
| 3. I still have to furnish this home office, without being
| reimbursed for anything except computer accessories.
| apexalpha wrote:
| 1. Why? I can live 2 hours from my office and still have a
| total weekly commute that is less than my pre-pandemic
| commute. If I can somehow fix an overnight in the city it's
| even less.
|
| 2. This is true, although you get 'reimbursed' for that by
| not commuting. And since you don't commute you can live
| somewhere cheaper, or get a bigger house for the same
| price.
|
| 3. My company paid for all that, so no issue here.
| slumdev wrote:
| Two hours from your office? Is this hyperbole?
|
| If you live two hours from your office and go in for
| three days per week, that's 2h per leg * 2 legs per day *
| 3 days per week = 12 hours per week on the road.
|
| You were spending more than 12 hours per week in traffic?
|
| The average commute in the United States is a little less
| than 30 minutes [1]. That's 5 hours per week for someone
| who works five days per week.
|
| 1. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-
| releases/2021/one-way-...
| apexalpha wrote:
| I used to commute 1 hour one way pre Covid, so 10 hours
| per week. If I go into the office for only 2 days a week
| I could live twice as far from my workplace and still
| only commute 8 hours a week. I was meaning to say that
| even with 2 days in-Office per week it opens up
| possibilities regarding housing.
|
| I was spending 1,5 hours per day in a train, and walking
| to the station for 10 minutes or so, yes.
| llampx wrote:
| There are only so many hours in a day. Are you willing to
| wake up at 5AM to get to the office and be home at 8PM
| for 2 days a week?
| ryandrake wrote:
| At least for Bay Area companies, the "hybrid" 2/3 or 3/2 or
| whatever schemes are insufficient. They partially alleviate
| the long commute problem, but they do not solve the high
| cost of living problem. WFH has been nice in that it lets
| me skip my 4+ hour commute every day, but what would be
| even better is 0/5, allowing me to completely move out of
| the Bay Area and still keep my job (at lower comp, fine).
| bradlys wrote:
| I presume you're in eng because we're on HN but are you
| not? If you're in the Bay Area, you should be able to
| afford an okay home here (assuming you stop playing the
| startup game and join a public tech company). Being only
| able to afford Tracy or something sounds like very low
| pay...
| mrtranscendence wrote:
| My company is going to a 2 days at work and 3 days home
| setup. But they won't pay for _anything_ except the
| computer -- if I want a monitor or a docking station I 'm
| on the hook for that, they won't provide it. I recently
| shelled out for a $500 chair, and I know two colleagues who
| paid $2-300 for docking stations (I think I'd be happy with
| a cheaper one, personally).
|
| I think they'll pay for a monitor if you're full-time WFH
| but that requires special permission.
| ub99 wrote:
| Also, depending on the type of commute, I need to factor in
| the exhaustion that comes with using public transportation
| like Bart. So for me it was an hour each way plus a
| substantial time to decompress from standing in a packed
| sweaty train. In the evening it usually meant that I was just
| too tired to do anything else after work.
| mahastore wrote:
| It is time humanity takes lesson from all that happened in the
| last two years and aim to build a more sustainable environment.
| Not just for us but for our future generations.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I think it would be good to sum all the commute free week
|
| - time saved
|
| - gas saved
|
| - car wear saved ..
| me_me_me wrote:
| Its hard to come up with arguments for working from office when
| you can save 2 hours of commute. Time alone is huge.
|
| With that standard 8h work 8h personal time 8h sleep. Commute
| eats up 1/4 of your personal time.
| martin_a wrote:
| > Time alone is huge.
|
| Don't forget that could also be more time with your loved
| ones, like your partner, your children or even your pets.
|
| That's a big deal for lots of people and very understandable.
|
| edit: It's also more time for _everything else_.
|
| Personally, I really enjoy cooking lunch and sitting on my
| balcony for half an hour, something I can't do when working
| from the office.
| pickle-wizard wrote:
| The location flexibility is big too. I live in Austin, and
| my parents live in Kansas. I drove up to Kansas this past
| Saturday and will work from up here and drive back next
| Saturday.
|
| I've worked from home for a few years now, and before that
| I would have to take vacation time to go visit them.
| RSHEPP wrote:
| For real. My wife picked up travel nursing and it's been
| a huge life improvement. Just check the taxes in the
| states you are working in. I have 25 work days in
| Illinois without income taxes, but all states are
| different.
| enjo wrote:
| This is gonna be the real challenge for the WFH movement.
| NYC is trying to get income taxes out of me because I
| worked for a NYC based company in 2020... even tho I
| never stepped foot in their state.
| ghaff wrote:
| There have been some efforts to rationalize this at the
| federal level but AFAIK they haven't gone anywhere. And
| some states seem to basically have zero thresholds for
| this and enforcement for business travel seems to be
| ratcheting up. Some people are probably going to find
| that they need to file more state tax returns.
| spearo77 wrote:
| I parsed that quote differently.. the way I think they
| meant the phrase is- The factor of time itself is huge (no
| matter how you end up using it)
| maccard wrote:
| > With that standard 8h work 8h personal time 8h sleep.
| Commute eats up 1/4 of your personal time.
|
| For people who chose to not prioritise living remotely near
| their workplace.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| Often it isn't much of a choice at all. American cities are
| such that living near a workplace simply isn't feasible for
| many. It is common to be financially intractable, and
| American cities are actively hostile to families/children.
| So the people who get to "choose" to prioritize living near
| their workplace is generally restricted to relatively high-
| income earners who are single with roommates or perhaps are
| dual-income with no children.
|
| That's a relatively small slice of workers.
| Deinos wrote:
| Agreed, and the resources that a commute consumes (time, wear
| and tear on a vehicle, fuel, mental reserves either sitting
| in traffic or dealing with other people on public
| transportation, etc) are not considered in compensation...
|
| Your most valuable resource, time, which can be neither
| replenished nor its true quantity known, is being wasted for
| very little gain.
| apocalyptic0n3 wrote:
| Personally, I'm looking forward to going back to the office.
| I am an extremely introverted person and during the pandemic,
| I've gone upwards of 5 months without saying another word to
| a person face-to-face. I personally prefer that and don't
| feel lonely or anything; I just don't need social interaction
| in my day-to-day life. But I know that in the long term, it's
| going to have negative consequences for me in terms of
| networking and just friendships in general. These are basic
| things that you need that I am completely incapable of
| achieving without it being forced upon me in an office
| environment.
|
| Yes, I hate driving. But I'll move closer to the office
| (which we're relocating to a much further location currently)
| and I'll get it to <20 minutes each way, which is acceptable.
|
| Just because you can't find arguments for it in your life
| doesn't mean others can't. I need that environment and if my
| job went remote-only, I'd quit without any hesitation just as
| employees are quitting after being asked to return to the
| office. We shouldn't go from one extreme (everyone has to be
| in an office) to the other (there is no office at all).
|
| We need to accept hybrid solutions where an office exists and
| maybe you're expected to be there once every week or two or
| something. We need to accept that some people work better
| remote and others work better in an office. We're trying to
| build the most efficient working environment for the team in
| general, not just one or two people one way or the other.
| devonbleak wrote:
| If everybody's only there once every week or two you're
| looking at something like 10-20% attendance on any given
| day. Some teams or individuals might coordinate being on-
| site the same day but so far our experience is that you
| basically sit in the office talking to the same people as
| always on Zoom all day.
|
| Unless you're in an industry that requires actual physical
| presence I don't think you're going to see the same office
| experience any more. Companies aren't going to keep an
| office big enough for 100% attendance when there's only a
| need for a smallish fraction of that.
|
| I'd start looking for other ways to scratch that
| socialization itch.
| matwood wrote:
| > I'd start looking for other ways to scratch that
| socialization itch.
|
| Also, having a social aspect outside of work makes job
| changes way less scary and stressful.
| ghaff wrote:
| I suspect that will be pretty common even if there's more
| people than that. Which means that people who want to get
| back to the office of the before times (as opposed to
| just some office outside of the house) aren't going to
| like the ghost town very much.
| [deleted]
| antonzabirko wrote:
| What sort of work do you do? Why don't they have any online
| meetings?
| apocalyptic0n3 wrote:
| I'm a software engineer like 90% of HN. I have plenty of
| online meetings (I'm actually on a team call right now
| listening to someone discuss a solution to a problem). It
| doesn't fill the needs, though. Without the in-person and
| more frequent interaction, I can feel my social skills
| slipping even further. And I rarely interact with non-
| developers and non-managers now. It's not ideal for me.
| It 100% does not work and I need to go back to an office.
| I fear if I don't, my already-limited social abilities
| will zero out and I'll have to rebuild them. I now know I
| can go months without speaking to anyone and be okay with
| it; that itself is a problem in my mind that I need to
| address and an office environment fulfills those needs.
| antonzabirko wrote:
| Hmm makes sense. I used to be the same way in my college
| days.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| As a compromise it'd be nice once things are opened up
| for companies without fixed offices to subsidize passes
| into coworking spaces, so people can work in public areas
| more quiet and professional than cafes around others, but
| not necessarily the actual office.
| mancerayder wrote:
| I'm not an extrovert but like the office because I live in
| a one bedroom apartment and I don't like working from my
| living room, and at the end of the day, being in my living
| room.
|
| I do like the social interaction and joking, or venting,
| with co-workers, even as an introvert.
|
| The best approach is a hybrid model.
| j4yav wrote:
| I don't think we need to do anything of the sort. Companies
| will sort themselves into all remote/all office/hybrid
| before "lets make everyone moderately miserable equally"
| becomes the mandated approach for everyone.
| capableweb wrote:
| Obviously, people are different. Some people prefer to work
| from an office (like me) just because you get to spend time
| with people (I live alone). Me and my teammates also become
| more efficient when we work together in the same physical
| space than remotely (we've tried bunch of things like
| perpetual video calls, among other things). We all live in
| the same city, the longest commute in our team is ~30
| minutes, but we all feel like it's worth it to go to the same
| physical space and work together instead.
|
| Unless you live outside big cities, I'm not sure if 2 hours
| of commute is that common (at least with my South West
| European perspective, maybe is different in the
| US/elsewhere?).
| hourislate wrote:
| This seems to be the general consensus for folks like
| yourself where work is the primary focus in their lives.
| It's understandable, people are lonely and work is the only
| social interaction for many. If I didn't have a family and
| lived alone, I would definitely want to return the office.
| I'm curious if you're the minority or majority? Most people
| I talk to never want to return to the office. My company
| (major corp) basically had a revolt during a company wide
| all hands meeting. It was so bad that they basically said
| people will be only required to come in 1 day a week and
| they can pick the day.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Do you have data to back your conclusion up?
|
| I am a father of four (though they're here less now that
| they're leaving the nest), happily married, active in a
| committed church community and love outdoor things like
| water skiing, flying planes, snow skiing, biking, etc. I
| build things like legos, stand up paddle boards, Ford
| ranger engines, and the 1000 ft addition we added to our
| home. I enjoy my work--sometimes I love it even, and
| other days I'm ready to rage quit, because I'm one of
| those difficult to manage dramatic people--it is hardly
| my whole life though.
|
| I have spent nearly 10 years (2 different gigs) of my 30
| working years working from a home office. In both
| instances, it was awesome at first, and then I came to
| hate it. I totally concur with the GP. I'm just not as
| productive at home. I know that most of us in all 3 teams
| where we've done some remote work are generally more
| productive when gathered. No amount of technology
| solutions has improved that.
|
| My suspicion is that there are other factors at play
| here. In my case, I've worked in companies where the
| software development components of the company are
| relatively small (anywhere from 2 up to at most 18
| people). My commutes have all been (relatively) short (15
| minutes or less). I've always had flexible schedule
| available to me--come go when you need, get the work
| done. And at times, I do actually choose to sequester
| myself at home to write a mountain of code that just
| needs a mountain of direct writing.
|
| I'm curious if perhaps it's not so much work at home, as
| it is some degree of autonomy that needs to be given to
| people to manage their own work load. That kind of
| autonomy tends to go down as company size goes up. If
| corporate overhead burns up a lot of ones time, then it
| may indeed be that people feel they are getting more
| creative work down at home.
|
| What I'd like to see is more flexibility, less middle
| management (because I think this is the real source of
| most of these issues) and more of the "teach the
| employees correct principles and allow them to govern
| themselves" gestalt.
| lanstin wrote:
| If I could go back to a campus where I had an office and
| we sat around watching the coordinated people do bean bag
| tricks and talking about whether we needed a formal state
| machine for something or just a few flags and also did
| you see the cool library X did for something, sure, I'd
| go there. But to go to a crowded place where people take
| stand up meetings seriously and there's so much noise and
| I'm cold all day and the coffee sucks, eh, not so
| compelling. I went into the office park with offices even
| when my creeping environmentalism had be taking 90
| minutes of subways and a bus (tho not 5 days a week). My
| take is always if you have a lot of work to, it's better
| to do it from home. If you need more work, go into the
| office and find it.
| hourislate wrote:
| >My suspicion is that there are other factors at play
| here.
|
| Do you have data to back up your suspicion?
| burnished wrote:
| weak
| capableweb wrote:
| > This seems to be the general consensus for folks like
| yourself where work is the primary focus in their lives.
|
| Big incorrect assumption here, my primary focus is not my
| work but my hobbies, family and friends. I don't like
| working in the office mainly because it's social but
| because we all are more productive. I like to be
| efficient at my job, even though I don't think it's my
| primary focus in life.
| belval wrote:
| > Some people prefer to work from an office (like me)
| just because you get to spend time with people (I live
| alone).
|
| You can't just write something like that and then accuse
| someone of a "big incorrect assumption". Work is work, I
| work to do my job, if you want to go to the office to be
| with people because otherwise you live alone that's okay,
| but you can't just turn around an say "I have plenty of
| friends, it's about being more productive".
| barbazoo wrote:
| I've found that too, I'm more efficient working in an
| office, but you know what, I don't care as much anymore.
| Being at home, in my community, with my family more often
| and for longer time throughout the day, taking breaks to
| do whatever around the house of go for a walk. That's
| what matters now. If I'm less productive, I think that's
| fine because my overall happiness increases. Companies
| should just factor that in from now on and many do.
| hourislate wrote:
| So you're choosing work productivity/efficiency over
| hobbies, family and friends and feel work isn't the
| primary focus in your life?
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Ideally it should be a choice.
| nineplay wrote:
| > Me and my teammates also become more efficient when we
| work together in the same physical space
|
| I've found it the complete opposite in software. Zoom
| screen sharing is so much easier than peering over
| someone's shoulder at their dark-mode IDE. Copy-and-pasting
| a command in the chat window - what an improvement! How
| many times have I said this to someone?
|
| > "s c p space s v 0 1 colon forward-slash t m p"
|
| Ug.
|
| Design meetings are so much easier when I can see the UI on
| my screen, instead of halfway across the conference room.
|
| We also do a lot of work with a team at another location
| and again - when we are all on zoom together now we can all
| see each other, we can all interreact when each other. It
| used to be 6 of us on one conference room and six of them
| in another conference room trying to talk to each other
| over a tinny speaker.
|
| I hope I never have to go through any of that ever again.
| jagger27 wrote:
| All of those things are also possible in person. Of
| course I just send an instant message to my coworker
| across the hall. And I don't clutter Slack when I want to
| make lunch plans.
| nineplay wrote:
| I don't know what "all those things are possible" means
| aside from "all those things are possible as long as we
| zoom together while in the office". You can screen-share
| in the office - as long as you are both on zoom ( or
| equivalent ) at which point why is it better to be at the
| office?
|
| It would be harder in the office - too many people
| talking over each other in separate meetings. I can't
| imagine. So we all end up fighting for few conference
| rooms, or we squeeze once again into each others
| cubicles, losing the advantage of multiple screens and
| trying not to talk to loud and disturbing everyone around
| us.
|
| I've spend decades developing in offices with other
| engineers, collaboration is always difficult when what
| you are collaborating on is always tiny text on a small
| screen. Zoom is better.
| jagger27 wrote:
| The places I've worked had lots of elegant and obvious
| solutions to shoulder surfing. Mirroring to a big TV was
| something we did all the time.
|
| I find Zoom in particular to be a crude place to get this
| type of work done. Why do I have to send a huge video
| stream that roasts my laptop just to share a few
| kilobytes of text? I can't scroll around or select text
| to point something out.
|
| If the streamer's text is too small, I'm shit out of luck
| there too.
|
| Visual Studio Code has great collaborative coding tools
| that I have found work really well in a local network
| setting sitting near coworkers. Zoom is a total cudgel in
| comparison for this task.
| r00fus wrote:
| I don't know if it's just our org, but we do local +
| slack + conference sharing (ie, you have multiple ways of
| viewing the content). This, like for every meeting.
| nineplay wrote:
| How do you manage when different people in the same area
| are in different meetings? That's where I see the
| problems occur - there'd be 4 people in my immediate
| vicinity having 4 completely separate conversations. That
| would never work.
| r00fus wrote:
| That seems like a different problem - I'd assume you have
| a meeting room for each conversation. In your case we'd
| have headsets at desks - we do that too. The previous
| question was how meetings are handled (in a conf room).
| Regardless, chat+conf for everything even if it's in-
| person in the same room (audio off if local).
| sepin4 wrote:
| It is surprising how antisocial is the new generation.
| The dynamic between colleagues is something that comes
| naturally when the team has great cohesion. Half the time
| I didn't have to finish the sentence of what you describe
| and they are on it. I can't remember how many great ideas
| have come up during the "hey let's get a cup of coffee"
| break. Now we look less like humans and more like
| avatars.
| WWLink wrote:
| It is surprising how social is the old generation. So
| many face to face interactions could have been taken care
| of by a 1 line email.
|
| Like, a couple weeks ago I had to waste half my day to go
| into the office and sit in a 3 hour meeting. I got some
| useful information out of that, but there was SO. MUCH.
| OVERHEAD. I could've watched the webex from home and
| saved so much time because the relevant parts were 2 10
| minute sections spaced out by like 2 hours.
|
| Plus I hate sitting close to people who had onions for
| lunch. And alcohol. And it's always that dude you've
| gotta pair program with that smells like a gorilla and
| has bad breath. xD
| starfallg wrote:
| Well for a one hour commute, you lose 2 hours of your day.
| That's massive and equals around 1/8 to 1/9 of your time
| awake depending on your sleeping habits.
| sepin4 wrote:
| I used to read books during commute. No time was wasted.
| In fact, now I seem to have a lot less time for reading,
| because there is always something more pressing at home.
| rmah wrote:
| It's only 1/8th of your awake time if you don't count
| weekends.
|
| If you count weekends, you have 5 * 8 + 2 * 16 = 72 hours
| of "free time". so 5 hrs commute / 32 hrs = 6.94% or
| 1/14.4 of your time awake.
| capableweb wrote:
| I guess the same can be said about doing laundry, sitting
| and watching the machine while it does its job would lose
| you an hour or two. Luckily both of these activities can
| be done while doing other things like reading/listening
| to audio books or catching up on other things.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Most people's commutes are spent sitting in a car.
|
| Even listening to an audiobook or podcast is such a
| passive thing it's hard to call it "doing" something.
| starfallg wrote:
| Yes, you can make the most of your commute by listening
| to audiobooks, etc. But that's so limited in utility
| compared to having 2 hours of extra free time at home
| where you can do so much more. It's almost an apples to
| orange comparison.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| The same thing can't be said about doing laundry. If they
| are doing the laundry at home like they said, you are
| sitting and watching the machine, you are starting it and
| letting it do its thing.
|
| And besides that, laundry is going to have to be done
| regardless, so its not like they would be saving time by
| commuting to work instead. The laundry will still be
| waiting when they get home.
| capableweb wrote:
| > If they are doing the laundry at home like they said,
| you are sitting and watching the machine, you are
| starting it and letting it do its thing
|
| You can do the same way with commuting, enter the
| bus/subway/train and then do other thing while there, you
| don't have to wait until you arrive to start doing other
| things.
|
| > And besides that, laundry is going to have to be done
| regardless, so its not like they would be saving time by
| commuting to work instead. The laundry will still be
| waiting when they get home.
|
| You could have someone else do the laundry for you.
|
| Maybe it was a bad example. I wanted to compare
| activities that we usually do where you can perform
| multiple things at the same time. Commuting is generally
| a passive activity while we wait to arrive to our
| destination, just like laundry is a passive activity
| until the machine is done.
| adregan wrote:
| > You can do the same way with commuting, enter the
| bus/subway/train and then do other thing while there, you
| don't have to wait until you arrive to start doing other
| things.
|
| In my pre-covid life, I often couldn't even hold a book
| on the subway as it was too crowded for that. There were
| times (near daily) I couldn't even reach into my pocket
| to take my phone out to put on a podcast due to the crush
| of people (and oh my god the stress when your headphone's
| cord would get hooked on an exiting passenger).
|
| My commute, while long enough to do something useful, was
| never useful. Crowded platforms, crowded trains, and
| transfers down long crowded corridors made it impossible
| to do anything else. And I'll be damned if I'm going to
| do more work on the way to and from work!
| barbazoo wrote:
| > You can do the same way with commuting, enter the
| bus/subway/train and then do other thing while there, you
| don't have to wait until you arrive to start doing other
| things.
|
| This works but only in very specific types of commutes. I
| used to take the train which took 30 minutes each way and
| I always got a seat, perfect for reading, maybe even
| light work. Now after almost 2 decades I know that that's
| the exception and almost always my commute was pretty
| much wasted (I don't consider listening to music or
| podcasts productive, it's nice but not productive).
| bdefore wrote:
| 8 hours of sleep plus 8 hours of work leaves 8 voluntary
| hours. You could make a case then that 2 hours of commute
| is giving up on a fourth of your weekday free time.
| Factor in the prep for commute or time needed afterwards
| to decompress and perhaps a third is more accurate.
| slumdev wrote:
| > Me and my teammates also become more efficient when we
| work together in the same physical space than remotely
| (we've tried bunch of things like perpetual video calls,
| among other things)
|
| What do you do?
|
| Constant talk and interruption are not conducive to the
| work of a software engineer.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Constant talk and interruption are not conducive to the
| work of a software engineer.
|
| During the times you are coding, yes. But a software
| engineer is more than a coder, so there are times when
| collaboration is very useful.
| slumdev wrote:
| There are times when collaboration is useful.
|
| But nothing distinguishes a junior and a senior more than
| the ability to work independently.
| majewsky wrote:
| If anything, I'm collaborating more as a senior than I
| did as a junior. Junior dev work often means getting a
| work assignment and working on that by yourself. Senior
| dev work often means getting together with different
| stakeholders to work on a design.
|
| (Although obviously those statements aren't absolutes,
| hence the use of the word "often".)
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| And as a senior your quite often working with several
| external teams and having some meetings FTF produces a
| massive productivity boost
|
| We are talking Months and Months" by stopping other teams
| going of at a tangent or flat out just not doing what
| they are told.
| grillvogel wrote:
| at my company the seniors are mainly responsible for
| driving projects/design and leading teams of juniors who
| do the implementation. working independently is not
| really an option
| slumdev wrote:
| This is a very old model, and it's as dumb today as it
| was in the 1990s.
|
| The seniors used to be called "architects," and the
| "driving projects/design" used to be called RUP.
| grillvogel wrote:
| architect is a higher level, they tell us why our designs
| are bad
| slumdev wrote:
| LOL. I feel for you. It's the same way in a lot of
| places.
|
| Your seniors should definitely be thought leaders, but
| when they get "too senior" or "too important" to write
| code, the company is done innovating. That's a major
| organizational smell.
| grillvogel wrote:
| why is that? isnt the main innovation done in design?
| anyone can code something up that has been designed for
| them already
| slumdev wrote:
| If your design is so detailed that any code monkey can
| implement it without screwing it up, then you've probably
| spent more time writing design documents than you would
| have spent just building it.
|
| And if your code isn't expressive enough that the design
| can be extracted without major effort, then the two will
| inevitably diverge at some point. Many bugs will appear.
| devilduck wrote:
| I have been doing my job for over 15 years and I still
| require input from my colleagues. Does that make me a
| junior? Of course it doesn't. Stop doing this
| immediately.
| recursive wrote:
| If you're really working totally independently, then
| you're running a 1-person company. As soon as you get two
| "seniors" on the same project, if they're working
| independently, then you're just going to two different,
| unrelated outputs, by your definition.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Isn't this why microservices are a thing? :).
|
| More seriously though, it's part of skilled project
| management to organize work in such a way that seniors
| don't need to constantly collaborate to stay in sync.
| lanstin wrote:
| It's skilled software architecture. Some layerings of the
| problem into decomposable pieces allow for less
| communications and some layerings of the problem require
| more communication. The emergent but desirable property
| of more parallelizable is dependent on details that are
| small and subtle. Project management cannot possible
| guarantee this. The outcome of the architecture, how much
| do people need to communicate, is an input to the project
| management.
| slumdev wrote:
| What one programmer can do in one month, two programmers
| can do in two months.
| sepin4 wrote:
| We are not microservices. People in a team have a lot in
| common, they do systematically the same type of work
| albeit in a different context and they can be a lot more
| useful to each other when they communicate seamlessly
| instead of at scheduled time slots.
| sidlls wrote:
| Your "skilled project management" is my "unnecessarily
| complex process." There's a reason collaboration of this
| sort is used in real engineering disciplines: it's
| because it's more efficient than having some middleman
| (and/or process) mediating all the communication.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I didn't mean middleman/process mediating communication.
| By "skilled project management", I meant structuring
| tasks and setting priorities in such a way as to
| _minimize_ the required amount of communication -
| particularly, _synchronous communication_ between the
| workers. An hour (on average) or two per day replying to
| messages and doing code review, an occasional meeting
| every other week - sure. But if your senior devs are
| spending most of their time each day in meetings, then
| either you 're running a bootcamp, or something is very
| wrong.
| acituan wrote:
| > Some people prefer to work from an office (like me) just
| because you get to spend time with people (I live alone).
|
| I live alone too and I hate for me when people at the
| office became an erzats social circle. It is not. It is not
| a social circle but a workgroup you have little control
| over; you might end up with _really_ difficult people,
| great teammates you love might leave, project might get
| cancelled and that group might get disbanded altogether.
|
| Even if you had the best workgroup, most of the time those
| people will not be in your life for long or deep. They
| won't help you move, drive you to and from an outpatient
| procedure, won't play with your kids or even be by your
| deathbed. And you do need people who would do those things
| in your life. For this reason, I liked the social lack WFH
| created because it was closer to the state of reality, and
| forced me to invest in my real, non-workplace
| relationships.
|
| To be clear, I am not saying you can't make lifelong
| friends _in_ a workplace, I am saying you shouldn 't
| satisfice your social needs _with_ a workplace. Just like
| hunger is a signal to point you towards nutrition,
| loneliness is a signal to point you towards nourishing
| allies. And workplaces are not places to procure that.
| Grimm1 wrote:
| I only have superficial social needs for the most part,
| anything more is somewhat exhausting, I think the work
| place interactions fit that quite well.
|
| Any deep social needs are satisfied by my long time close
| friends who I see every few months or my partner if I'm
| dating.
|
| I don't think you can make that call what someone should
| and shouldn't do to satisfy their social needs because
| everyone has very widely ranging needs in the first
| place.
|
| I feel perfectly topped off just by being in the room at
| a coffee shop with people for a few hours for instance.
| acituan wrote:
| > I don't think you can make that call what someone
| should and shouldn't do to satisfy their social needs
| because everyone has very widely ranging needs in the
| first place.
|
| That is why I said _satisfice_.
|
| Good on you that you know _exactly_ what you need. I
| thought I did too, and it took a burnout and extended
| time off work to realize how I was mostly deceiving
| myself. Most people are not that transparent to
| themselves, that is why they have to be careful with the
| stimuli that seem to fulfill a need in the short term but
| create serious deficiencies in the long run.
|
| A bag of potato chips will curb your hunger but you'd be
| severely malnourished if it was the only thing you ate
| for a year. Cocaine, amphetamines even caffeine will give
| you an elevated sense of agency but you'll quickly spiral
| down to addiction with little corresponding real-world,
| long-term gains. A workplace, a coffee shop or even
| binging netflix alone might create a sense of a peopled
| life, but none will be real allies that can have your
| back in a time of need.
| Frost1x wrote:
| >Me and my teammates also become more efficient when we
| work together in the same physical space than remotely
| (we've tried bunch of things like perpetual video calls,
| among other things).
|
| I tend to agree with this, and I've worked remote (hybrid)
| for over 12 years now. For me, a hybrid is the best. Most
| tasks and problems can be solved well asynchronously and
| for those, give me a WFH option. It's great for all the
| reasons this thread creator mentioned and time cannot be
| understated. The commute alone typically requires a vehicle
| and the much of maintenence time I spend in my free time
| comes from wear and tear of commute driving as do expenses
| to expedite repairs for necessity of a car for work. This
| stuff all adds up.
|
| Once every now and then, in person meetings and problem
| solving synchronously is good where virtual just fails.
| Usually this involved external clients and so forth or some
| physical, hardware related aspect of work. Software alone I
| can typically do fully remote as it's assumed everyone is
| competent and can easily share needed information and
| visuals with one another.
|
| >Unless you live outside big cities, I'm not sure if 2
| hours of commute is that common (at least with my South
| West European perspective, maybe is different in the
| US/elsewhere?).
|
| I lived in rural US and my experience is that commutes tend
| to be _longer_ , both in distance and time, in rural areas.
| While traffic related commute times tend to melt away, with
| less density, people tend to drive further for better
| employment opportunities. Sometimes this involves living
| near but not in a large metro area and driving hours daily
| to pull in high income with low COL at the sacrifice of
| great commute times. I know a surgeon in Texas who commutes
| around 4-6 hours each trip (nearly doubles his income),
| someone near NY/NJ who commutes 6 hours daily to drive in,
| and people in small areas that would drive 2-hours to a
| nearby plant that pays more. One of my peers used to work 3
| positions and one required driving an hour each way to. One
| of my older directors actually lived 2 hours away and
| purchased a condo near his job where he worked and stayed
| throughout the week then returned home on weekends. I
| presume his wife who didn't work would sometimes stay at
| his condo but never felt comfortable breaching that
| discussion.
|
| For them, the time they lose can't be spent working
| elsewhere and average out to the same higher rates and
| they're willing to sacrifice that time to pull more in and
| provide for their families. This is ultimately because good
| paying opportunities are often few and far between in low
| COL areas and highly competitive as well. For me, living in
| a metro area makes more sense these days. You pay more for
| property but recover that in terms of commute time and TC.
| You also have more security depending on the area by there
| being more opportunities to transfer to should you
| want/need, without changing commute times too drastically.
| If you live in a rural area and the diamond in the rough
| position you found disappears, you have to consider
| significant lifestyle changes for you and your family or
| even consider uprooting and moving. There are trade-offs
| either way you go.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> Some people prefer to work from an office (like me) just
| because you get to spend time with people (I live alone)._
|
| And/or (like me) you like work being somewhere different to
| home, and don't have room for a dedicated home office. In
| fact even if I have the room I'd prefer for work to not be
| in the house. Being able to work from home is useful to me
| on occasion, for both work and personal reasons, but I did
| not like it nor feel myself to be productive when I was
| there all the time. If I had no choice but to work remotely
| I'd probably rent an office space and have to factor that
| into my costs and benefits analysis of the job.
|
| Then again I currently work a 15 minute slow-ish walk from
| home (or less than a 10 minute run back) if I take the most
| direct route, and can get home to entertain the cat at
| lunch many days, so the commute isn't a significant factor
| like it will be for many.
| GuardianCaveman wrote:
| I live in a big city not the suburbs. No traffic it's
| twenty minutes to the office but during 7-1030 am and 2-7
| pm it's 45 minutes to an hour and 5. I listen to a lot of
| podcasts and happen to be learning Italian as well.
| Podcasts are not popular at all in Italy and I can only
| assume it's becUse of what you describe with the lack of
| commute. I'm glad to be fully remote now.
| Swizec wrote:
| I live in a big city and while I don't have a car, I've
| stopped using Uber/Lyft during rush hour because walking
| or bicycling is faster. Boosted Boards (et al) offer
| similar gains.
|
| Your top speed is less and your average speed is more.
| Cars never seem to get past 15mph in that kind of
| traffic.
|
| Motorcycles are nice too. Good top speed, lane filtering
| to avoid traffic, plus real brakes, rear-view mirrors
| etc. Feels a lot safer than my electric skateboard used
| to.
| bart_spoon wrote:
| I used to listen to a bunch of podcasts on my commute to
| and from work, and thought I was a big podcast person. As
| soon as we went to remote work, I stopped listening
| because I realized that I only "like" podcasts when there
| is literally nothing else to do while sitting in my car.
| I would listen to at least 1 podcast episode a day pre-
| pandemic to not having listened to a full podcast episode
| once in the last year.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Now I'm wondering how many people who do podcasts for a
| living have seen their numbers drop due to the lack of
| commuters over the past year.
| frumper wrote:
| I used to listen to a mix of audiobooks and podcasts on
| my drive to work, but not 1 podcast since last spring. I
| still have listened to a few audiobooks though.
| htrp wrote:
| Was the last year difficult for you because of lockdowns
| forcing remote work?
| a3n wrote:
| Subjectively, commutes are bad in the US and getting worse,
| because housing is getting more expensive relative to
| wages. On top of that, we live in a car culture, and it's
| much easier to build more freeways and housing developments
| than figure out how people can sustainably work and live in
| employment centers.
|
| The pandemic has done some of that figuring out for us.
| splithalf wrote:
| That little kid that was shot due to road rage recently.
| That's how bad commutes are. People who insist we go back
| to the office have blood on their hands.
| IMTDb wrote:
| That wife that was shot due to domestic violence
| recently. That's how bad working from home is. People who
| insist we stay home have blood on their hands.
|
| Yep, that sounds as ridiculous as your statement.
| sanitycheck wrote:
| I don't disagree about commuting being bad, but I think
| you're missing a more direct way to reduce shootings.
| alexgmcm wrote:
| Housing is a huge issue in Europe as well, yeah we have
| shorter commutes, but that comes at the cost of higher
| population densities which often means living in
| high/medium-rise flats.
|
| These flats would be considered tiny by American
| standards and you have a lot less privacy/independence
| from your neighbours.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| The commute isn't always dead time though. For me, the 3hr
| round trip was spent playing computer games on my Nintendo
| Switch, or reading a book, or just letting my mind wander
| while listening to music. All of these are activities I don't
| get time to do at home because of the thousand other
| commitments I have at home.
|
| You'd think working from home would give people more free
| time, but that's not always the case, for example if you have
| small children. Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with
| my family, but the commute was the only "me time" I had in a
| given day and I miss that dearly.
| zentiggr wrote:
| The pre-WFH work 10-15 minutes away from home routine had,
| for me, the same hidden benefit.
|
| Now that I've been 100% WFH for 14 months, I've realized
| how easy it is to just get caught up even deeper in the
| assumption that "you're home, can you do _?" and wind up
| devoting more and more time to the house and projects and
| the pets and realize that the last time I was in a space by
| myself, at least briefly not 'monitoring' or 'on deck', was
| how many days/weeks ago?
|
| That time where I'm not on call every second to potentially
| deal with a pet or household or any other 'now' thing, is
| way more precious than I realized. I've survived with very
| little of it this past year.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| But this sounds like a personal boundaries matter that's
| helped by having a work commute, but not dependent upon
| it. Perhaps the commute could be replaced with a
| dedicated time for oneself for a walk, fitness,
| meditation, etc. That time shouldn't be (indirectly)
| provided by one's employer.
| Freestyler_3 wrote:
| small ridiculous example: Boss my marriage is failing,
| can you give me more overtime so my wife will love me
| more.
| konschubert wrote:
| If you consider all the other chores you have to do in a day,
| saving 2 hours of commute will probably double your free
| time.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| It saves me even more time than that because of tasks like
| laundry that are mostly hands off and waiting become easy
| to intersperse with my work. I can also throw one of my
| pre-prepped meals into the Instant Pot at 11am and have it
| ready when I start lunch at noon. Those who work at a desk
| all day should get up to move around at least once an hour
| anyway. These small tasks the start hands-off processes are
| a good way of making that happen.
| EarthIsHome wrote:
| A 2-hour round trip commute is insane.
|
| Let's look at a 1-hour round trip commute assuming 240
| working days per year. This means 240 hours gone in a year to
| your commute. That's 10 full whole days. A 2-hour round trip
| commute means 20 full whole days... almost a whole month
| gone. 3-hour round trip commute = 30 full days.. and so on.
| ghaff wrote:
| For pretty much anyone going into a city or commuting in
| heavy stop-and-go highway traffic, an hour each way is
| extremely common.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I wouldn't like a 1-hour commute either... but it's not
| time 'lost' - you can use that time to read, work on your
| hobbies, listen to music, have a drink or supper, or just
| sleep if you want. Doesn't have to be wasted if you don't
| want to.
| mancerayder wrote:
| You ever try standing on a NYC subway, surrounded by
| strangers, at least a few of which are playing video
| games or listening to music videos / TV out loud on their
| phones, having to move every 6 minutes as the doors open
| and close, and having to keep tabs on who's around you
| since there are sometimes shady and angry individuals --
| for a 45 minute stretch mornings and night? I have, and I
| can assure you, it's no way to start your day - or end
| it. Reading is extremely difficult with a bag on one arm
| and a phone or kindle on the other, if you need to hold
| onto a pole to not fall over.
| zentiggr wrote:
| I commuted 45 minutes each way to a prior job for a
| couple of years. Yes, I ate my breakfast in the car on
| the way there.
|
| No, I didn't sleep, read, or do anything distracting on
| my drive because when you're in deer country, dawn and
| dusk are times to be vigilant and ready to brake or
| swerve if horribly necessary.
|
| Still had $4100 of damage one January.
|
| Commutes can be anywhere from 0 - ? percent
| multitaskable.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I guess most people commuting as long as an hour or more
| are doing it on a train where you can do all these
| things.
| zepto wrote:
| You conjure up the idea of a Victorian train carriage
| with plenty of space and waiters to serve you dinner etc.
|
| Most people are experiencing a noisy packed out train car
| lit by bright fluorescence lamps, full of tired,
| irritated people, where they could easily be standing for
| half the trip.
|
| Not exactly the ideal environment to dine or work on your
| hobbies...
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I think it's very common (I'm in Europe/UK). Things add up
| extremely quickly to reach ~1h door-to-door between home
| and office.
|
| Saving that time does make a huge difference, indeed.
|
| It's exactly my case, actually. My commute was just under
| an hour each way, walk and train, so I have been saving a
| lot of time and money since WFH. I go for a walk at
| lunchtime, though, in order to do some exercise but it's
| much nicer than walking on busy roads to train stations.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| It's not insane. It's what people do to feed their families
| and keep their kids in the same school. It would be better
| not to, but it is far from insane.
| deathanatos wrote:
| Do you pay the quite significant rent increase to reduce
| the commute, or do you pocket that money & try to deal with
| the lost time as best as possible?
|
| At some point, I'm going to want to buy a house (so money
| now can be saved), the total cost of which is >$1M in not
| just the Bay Area (which I've now left, for these very
| reasons); even where I am now, housing remains that pricy
| ... unless you give up having a sub 2h commute.
|
| > _A 2-hour round trip commute is insane._
|
| My employer doesn't believe that. If they did, they would
| pay me sufficiently that I wouldn't need to choose. The Bay
| Area doesn't believe that: if they did, they'd address the
| housing crisis.
| nly wrote:
| Equivalent housing on overground commuter lines to London
| in the UK, compared that of inside London, is basically
| <rail fare> per month cheaper to mortgage.
|
| For many people it comes down to whether they can afford
| to deposit or get the income multiple loan to buy in the
| city, not monthly expense.
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| The difference being that the UK's rail infrastructure
| (especially around London) is orders (plural) of
| magnitude better than that in the Bay Area.
|
| I lived and worked in London (South Kensington/Pimlico at
| college, Streatham, Walthamstow, Acton Town, Notting Hill
| - all over, really) for about 16 years. I've been in the
| Bay Area for ~17 years. There really isn't any
| comparison. Londoners have it made, even if it doesn't
| feel it when the train is packed/a few mins
| late/cancelled.
|
| I see the light-rail here going by on occasion. It's
| empty. BART is inadequate (there are 270 stations on the
| tube, there are 50 on BART covering a larger area), and
| it runs with a 10-20 minute cadence, not the 2-5 minute
| cadence of the tube. As far as real trains go, Caltrain
| is pretty good if you're on the track (really, the train
| itself is nicer than most in the UK) but it's coverage is
| very limited.
|
| Just like the NHS, you don't know what you have until
| it's gone.
| greedo wrote:
| My dad told me something I thought was a good guiding
| principle; you can always make more money, but you can't
| get back wasted time.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _My employer doesn 't believe that. If they did, they
| would pay me sufficiently that I wouldn't need to choose.
| The Bay Area doesn't believe that: if they did, they'd
| address the housing crisis._
|
| There has to be a name for the logical fallacy of
| treating the market as some kind of oracle, as if it was
| a global optimizer, instead of a greedy optimizer that
| will happily ignore the costs it can externalize.
|
| "The Bay Area" doesn't "believe" the housing crisis needs
| to be addressed because for most interested actors, it's
| in their personal interest to further the crisis. You
| paid a lot for your house, and you want it to appreciate
| in value. You paid a lot for your house, _because_ others
| who bought before you wanted theirs to appreciate in
| value. Someone else will pay a lot for their house,
| because you want yours to appreciate in value.
| egypturnash wrote:
| I propose "First Church Of The Invisible Hand".
| dougmwne wrote:
| That's a good one. I propose "Efficient Market Fallacy".
| The Efficient Market is such a tempting idea with simple
| explanations for complex human behavior. The reality can
| be very broken, very inefficient, wasting many human
| lifetimes and with tons of horrific externalities in
| situations that basically amount to a kind of organized
| crime.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| And if more housing was built it would be snapped up by
| speculators - is a bit like building better roads =to
| reduce congestion.
| sidlls wrote:
| Potential solutions to that: prohibit ownership of
| residential property (whether small scale, like single
| family up to 4-unit properties, or large scale, e.g.
| apartment complexes) except as a primary residence by
| foreign individuals or businesses that have foreign
| individuals as their true beneficial owners, and have
| additional taxes on properties that are not owner-
| occupied a substantial fraction of the year (say, 9
| months).
| sumtechguy wrote:
| It is called regulatory capture.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| If you live in big city in a country not totally ravaged
| by car culture, you can also subtract car price.
| jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote:
| And it's often not just more expensive living near a big
| city, it's also a different lifestyle. The type of
| housing near in to the city where I work is different
| than the housing further away. For example you may have
| to live in a smaller apartment/condo in a more urban
| neighborhood vs. living in a SFH in a more green
| neighborhood. Some people like the former, others like
| the latter.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| While this "enumerate all the costs and benefits"
| calculus is really appealing, the "how much is the land
| (de)appreciating?" factor dominates everything. This is
| why most people can buy homes without much serious
| thought and still come out very happy and ahead, because
| the land appreciation (or depreciation) sort of bakes in
| all your complex considerations for you.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I know people who had 4-5 hour RT commutes in the Bay.
| (Tracy <-> SF) It's ludicrous, but I suppose it's a bit of
| a boiled frog scenario. People just got used to having to
| commute from further and further away as housing has gotten
| less affordable.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I'm in Livermore, so not as far out as Tracy, but
| depending on traffic, the one-way commute can be 1 hour
| 45 minutes (best case) up to 4 hours (worst-case Friday
| 4:00PM before a holiday weekend). Usual case is a little
| over 2 hours each way. The real soul killer is the
| unpredictability of it all. Every morning there's at
| least one jackass on each interstate highway leg that
| manages to crash their car into something, slowing
| everything down in a random, unpredictable way.
| tjr225 wrote:
| I had a similar commute from Olympia to Seattle for about
| 6 months. Absolutely soul crushing. The amount of people
| on their phones is mind boggling.
|
| My solution was to figure out how to afford to live in
| the city. I am privileged in that sense, however.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| If you're not having to drive then commutes can be easily
| optimised. You can read a book, chat to your commuter
| buddies on the train/boat/coach (in some instances over a
| beer so it's little different than being down the pub).
| I've even used my commuter time to catch up of pending
| PRs on open source projects I maintain.
|
| This obviously depends on your city / county / state
| having good public transport infrastructure but if the
| option is there and its practical then I'd take the train
| over driving to work any day of the week.
| rcpt wrote:
| Door-to-desk plus desk-to-door was 3 hours for me. Even
| with the google bus that was pretty rough.
| ghaff wrote:
| I had one of those--typically by train--for about 18
| months though I didn't go in every day. I had to get up
| by about 6am to drive to the train station and it was
| just a big chunk of the day. I don't think I'd have found
| it sustainable over the long-term.
| watwut wrote:
| But it makes equal chores split with partner regarding
| kids literally impossible. Practically, you barely ever
| see them and your dad role amounts to being wallet.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| So many of the arguments made by pro-office people seem
| to boil down to "If you have a family or other non-work
| responsibilities, screw you"
| lanstin wrote:
| Fortunately, they aren't the boss of me, and also
| fortunately, the job market means my skills gives me
| enough power to push back against this idea all on my
| own, with no support from a union or strong laws or
| anything. A family isn't just a responsibility, it's a
| delight, a fulfilling life, human connection, everything
| you need wrapped up into a big ball of inconvenience and
| imperfection.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| Most people I know who have families and live in suburbs
| have longer commutes (Toronto or Montreal). 3 hours is the
| norm.
| pc86 wrote:
| "3 hours is the norm" is objectively false. The average
| commute is under an hour:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/07/nine-
| days...
|
| And in case you think Canada is wildly different than the
| US, not only is it not, but it's actually even better:
| https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-
| quotidien/190225/dq190...
| gbear605 wrote:
| "3 hours is the norm" can both be true for people in a
| certain area while false for the country as a whole.
| pc86 wrote:
| https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-
| quotidien/171129/t002c...
|
| "3 hours is the norm" is just not true for any area of
| the US or Canada.
| pc86 wrote:
| It's just someone prioritizing things differently. I would
| never commute more than 20-30 minutes (one way) pre-COVID.
| I will only work remotely from now on, _maybe_ a scheduled
| day in the office every week for a killer opportunity with
| a resume-changing company.
|
| But if you live in a HCOL area, and you want a yard, you're
| pretty much locked in to hour+ one-way commutes.
| mcguire wrote:
| Back between 1990 and 2005, I lived in Austin before
| moving to north Alabama. My commute when I was working on
| Redstone Arsenal was exactly an hour each way. I didn't
| really mind for several reasons.
|
| One of which was that my 6 mile commute in Austin took
| between 45 minutes to an hour.
| biztos wrote:
| I had a 2h round trip daily commute from downtown Sunnyvale
| (about 10 minutes walk to Caltrain) to downtown SF (2nd and
| Folsom). It was pretty normal.
|
| Basically an hour each way, of which 20m fast walking, if
| you timed it right. Hit a slow train, try for the 10 bus
| and miss, get rained on, train late, miss the train, train
| runs over someone -- sometimes it took longer.
|
| I moved up to the city and had about 40 minutes each way by
| bus, and if you haven't tried it let me tell you: an hour
| on Caltrain is much nicer, not to mention safer, than half
| an hour on a MUNI bus.
|
| On Caltrain I could at least read the news, on the bus it
| was pretty much watch your back.
|
| I haven't commuted at all in the last 12 years but I accept
| that if I ever work onsite in the USA again I probably will
| need to, and the trick is to try and find a form of commute
| that isn't a complete waste of time.
| poopypoopington wrote:
| When my commute was biking 30 minutes from the inner
| sunset to SoMa a few years ago I found that I really
| enjoyed that. Honestly a 30 minute bike ride is my ideal
| commute I think.
| nly wrote:
| I consider my commute time part of work and deduct it from my
| contracted hours (8 to 6).
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| That doesn't fly with most employers I've worked for.
| Zelphyr wrote:
| When interviewing with a company who demands commuting say,
| "I value my time as I'm sure you do. I will commute if
| required but I charge a premium for my commuting time. My
| rate is $x/hr and since I will be commuting 2 hours a day, 5
| days a week, an estimated 48 weeks (accounting for holidays,
| vacation, sick, etc...) a year then I request you increase my
| salary by $x * 2 * 5 * 48."
|
| I say that partially in jest because, of course, no employer
| is going to increase your salary by $48K simply because you
| value your commuting time at $100/hr (a reasonable rate if
| you're in tech). Still, I think it's a useful way to gain a
| perspective on just how valuable one's time really is to
| them.
| j4yav wrote:
| I have proposed doing it during work hours and got a
| positive response.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| Why not in the UK jobs in London factor in the extra
| required for commute and housing costs.
|
| I reckoned that it would be PS10k post tax just for the
| additional cost of commute (65 miles)
| ojbyrne wrote:
| It does depend on the type of commute. If you walk or ride a
| bicycle to work that is at least somewhat personal time, and
| I personally enjoy the structure. If you use a train or bus
| or something similar and don't have too much rigmarole around
| transferring etc, that also can be personal or work time or a
| combination. The only real lost time is driving, and even
| then some people enjoy podcasts etc.
| agonmon wrote:
| In the Bay Area the train and bus system is a crammed,
| stressful experience where you have to worry about being
| robbed, harassed, or being annoyed by loud music, homeless
| _smells_, or inebriated people trying to smoke in a packed
| car. Regarding cars: don't forget the increase of risk of
| accident and death from driving, as well as the constant
| stress of avoiding collisions; I can barely retain podcasts
| while driving.
| agumonkey wrote:
| covid gave us a lot of data, and things are not as obvious as
| imagined, many people said they just couldn't operate at
| home, but it seems the majority was utterly happy
| twobitshifter wrote:
| The pandemic has flipped things on their head. Before it was
| "how can I know that you'd be productive outside of the
| office?" and now it's "how is the office is any way necessary
| or an improvement on working from home?"
|
| Businesses have to justify offices and cubicles to their
| workers but from all of the arguments I've read, they're coming
| up short.
| flexie wrote:
| This, and
|
| - Walk kids to school in the mornings, pick them up in
| afternoons
|
| - Buy groceries when it suits you in the middle of the day.
|
| - Do sports in the middle of the day
|
| - Start slow cooking during the day
|
| - Avoid being called into pointless meetings (no-one can see
| that you are actually not in another meeting or phone call)
|
| - Take breaks with your wife
| golergka wrote:
| Laundry? I regularly take a 20-minute bath in the middle of my
| workday. With salt, bubbles, scent candles and a book.
|
| Why would I ever go back to the office?
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| No bath bombs?
|
| How do Zoom calls work? Do you just throw on an Afghan monk-
| style or use a Snap filter?
| golergka wrote:
| I haven't had a single zoom call in my current company
| since the interview. Audio calls are extremely rare, one in
| 4 months on average.
|
| I've never been so psychologically stable and productive in
| my entire working life.
| latenightcoding wrote:
| There are certain jobs that are very easy to outsource yet
| companies pay a premium to hire locals. I feel quitting instead
| of going back to the office will backfire for many. I'm not
| necessarily talking about tech jobs, which led the way in WFH
| positions even before the pandemic.
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