Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#441

Post by sodapopcan » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:53 PM UTC

kotlin2 wrote: post #287

toomuchtodo wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so what numbers would you believe? Collectively, there are hundreds of billions of dollars in market cap and value generated by remote first tech or very remote friendly companies of various sizes. The argument can't be made these orgs would be more productive if everyone was dragged into the office on feels alone. https://builtin.com/remote-work/best-places-remote-work

I would believe any numbers that were objectively presented with sound methodology. Using a single call center study as evidence that worker productivity increases just doesn't make sense. Most work isn't anything like working in a call center. Here is another misleading claim from that link: > Working Remotely Can Increase Productivity up to 77% But they then clarify that "77% of those who work remotely at least a f…

I said this in a sibling comment, but according to our Jira metrics, my old team's productivity increased after both going fully remote and working one less hour each day. We didn't write anything about it, just giving you one personal anecdote where actual metrics were involved.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#442

Post by ghaff » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:54 PM UTC

distances wrote: post #347

bearmode wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked out that for me, even accounting for energy bills and such, working from home full time would be equivalent to a 15% pay rise. And on top of that, I'd have 2 hours of extra free time every day. I can't understand the kind of person who wouldn't want that.

Is that just from commuting? For me the cost is 50-100€ per month depending on the cost of the public transport ticket, and that I can deduct from taxes anyway. Plus a couple of extra lunches I would buy with WFO. So basically negligible.

I assume that's just a bus/subway pass? At least where I live, parking at the train station, a monthly train pass, plus a monthly transit pass would be something like $500 or $600 dollars. To say nothing of taking almost 90 minutes door to door.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#443

Post by rafaelero » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:54 PM UTC

I feel exactly the same. The work I do seem to matter less to me when my whole interaction of my team is online.I used to extract so much personal satisfaction from work and now it's just a little bit. I am locked in this situation, though, because there is no way I am finding in Brazil a WFO job that pays as good as a remote job from a US company.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#444

Post by vel0city » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:54 PM UTC

kjkjadksj wrote: post #402

vel0city wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now throw in minimum 0.5h + 0.5h commute Minimum half hour commute? Definitely not a minimum. I've had a by bicycle , 5 minutes by car, and my kid's daycare is on the way. Minimum commute is more like 5 minutes. Sure, maybe average commute is a good bit higher, but then say average not minimum.

Thats lucky for you but you must be aware of how uncharacteristic that is. When you get a new job that commute disappears unless the new job is close to the old job or you up and move.

It might be a bit uncharacteristic, but it still doesn't change the fact saying commutes have to be a minimum of 30 minutes isn't true. Its not entirely out of the ordinary to have a Many people have commutes much less than 30 minutes. Maybe 30 minutes is an average, I'd probably agree average commutes are close to 45 minutes, but that's an average not a minimum. Those words have two very different meanings.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#445

Post by triknomeister » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:54 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #259

kotlin2 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WFO isn't necessarily about personal preference. People who want everyone to WFO believe that WFO produces better outcomes for the company. That is different than someone who desires to work from an office or remotely out of personal preference. For instance, I may prefer to WFH because it makes my life more convenient, but I can also accept that WFO produces better outcomes for the company. Personally, I haven't see…

> The closest work-related argument I've heard is that some people work better when they're free of distractions at the office. That takes us back to companies being collaborative human endeavors. One may feel they work better in isolation, but part of ones job is to interact with others, even if that's not fun. Have you worked in an open office or cubical farm? My hearing the sales guys isn't 'collaboration', it's d…

In my company, we have observed that work from home has increased productivity in short term. But true collaborations have actually decreased. Often, in office, you would have coffee breaks/lunch with people from different departments, or talk with someone from other departments for may be 5 minutes. And we have noticed that these kind of low-cost interactions are greatly decreased during Work From Home as much because of discoverability as anything else. The effect this has on the company as a whole is that, we get less cross-pollination of ideas between different departments and therefore reduced potential for future growth.

Having said that, if you are in an environment where interactions not related to your personal responsibility is mostly negative interaction, then it is understandable that work from home is better. So, in short, I would like to say that, if a company has a healthy interaction between different departments, then work from office is better for the company without much loss of time to the employees. However, in other cases, employees might prefer work from home.

This of course can change from employee to employee. Some employees might prefer work from office because they have positive interactions with rest of office colleagues and other will prefer work from home.

*EDIT*: I should have led with this. In my office, we have 2 people per office room. So, we have enough privacy if needed.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#446

Post by allenrb » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:55 PM UTC

I'm with you, Sam. I loved going to my office, loved my commute (by bicycle or by train and walking), loved separating home from work life. And now I recognize that is probably gone forever.

My guess is that we are giving up more than we realize by losing the actual human interaction. Same way that being glued to our phones keeps us from interacting with people. Not sure how this ends, but guessing "not well".

I'm 50 years old and my career is very much winding down. And I'm extra-glad about that given what tech work has become.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#447

Post by kjkjadksj » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

colinmhayes wrote: post #390

AlwaysRock wrote: post #339

> I used to love going to the office. Discussing our team's latest Python problems over a coffee. Looking over at their screen and then asking them why they look like they want to beat someone over the head with their keyboard repeatedly. Guessing people's emotions in a heated Retro from their body language. Grabbing dinner with a few colleagues after a long workshop meeting in the evening and then realizing that, as…

I don't want to be friends with my coworkers, but I do want to have a relationship with them. WFH has meant that we're basically all just doing our thing, occasionally talking on slack/jira but mostly just blissfully unaware of the interesting challenges others are facing, especially on other teams. Imo collaboration is much more difficult with people you have no relationship with, and video calls absolutely do not w…

Then thats on you. Our team collaborates with three time zones. There was never full work from the office. Yet we still collaborate fine and share these things when we meet over zoom. Maybe your group should have a regular meeting where if people want to sign up and share what they’ve been working on they may do so. We were doing that even when our side of the group was in person because thats about the only way to get the full scope of someones work: a 45 min end to end presentation where you can ask questions, not chitchat in the hallway.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#448

Post by jlund-molfese » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

Increasing I think there’s a fundamental divide between people who like working from an office and those who prefer remote work.

Instead of anyone trying to meet in the middle, it seems more optimal for companies (or teams/departments) to say, hey, this job position is going to be permanently remote/hybrid/in-person. Remote employees can work from the office if they want, but it won’t be expected. Similarly totally in-person people can work from home occasionally, with exceptions.

There just doesn’t seem to be any point in arguing that people who don’t like remote work should, or vice versa. A lot of these conversations turn into holy wars where people say there’s something inherently wrong with a preference one way or the other, and I don’t see why.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#449

Post by z9znz » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #398

z9znz wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> remarkably condescending I suspect there are two big difference between OP and many of the readers here. At least for sure, Berlin vs most major US cities is night and day different in terms of commute and enjoyment opportunity. Berlin is a fun city full of things to do, places to eat, and clubs. Plus it's all accessible without a car. Meanwhile, in the US, it's usually a very different story. Doing something after…

It really depends where you live both in Europe and the US. Many people in Europe have long commutes (and even public transportation can be time-consuming). At least some number of people in the US whose companies have city offices choose to live in the city and walk/cycle/take public transit but many do not. If I were to commute to our city office it's something like 3 hours round trip daily. Even being able to go 9…

> especially given they probably live in a relatively small apartment.

Yeah, I can very much sympathize with people... some of my ex-colleagues in fact... who lived in small apartments (and even shared apartments with others) during the COVID forced work from home times. Oh and people with kids, especially small ones...

A lot of people in nice cities intentionally choose cheaper apartments at the expense of space because they expect they won't be home all the time. Suddenly being trapped in your small space could be like a prison sentence.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#450

Post by rkangel » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

I think what we're discovering is that there is a fundamental difference between some people. One set of terminology might be 'introverts vs extroverts'.

We are operating in a legacy mode of operation where those people were mixed up because it didn't matter - there was only one way of working so the fact that it was worse to some people than others was irrelevant.

I think the 'mixed' mode we're in now is probably a transition phase. Companies will move towards being more one or the other and employees will gravitate to companies whose ethos matches their own.