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

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

#471

Post by isoos »

> Now, I am fully aware that there's a low of people for whom the horror of commute doesn't make up for the gains of socializing and others that just abhor having to talk to real-life people. Then there are people who work mainly to get paid and do not care to invest themselves beyond what is necessary.

There are people who hate commute, and at the same time do care, and "invest themselves beyond what it necessary". It just happens that they don't want to invest themselves in their commute.

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

#472

Post by fny »

Longlius wrote: post #167
fny wrote: post #7

First, they'll send your work home, then, they'll send your work abroad. People are too drunk on work from home having experienced it for the first time. I have done it for years. It has its pros and cons. I agree a huge reckoning is coming for white collar work writ large. (1) It can be more easily outsourced. (2) It's easier to fire someone you don't see every working day.

Spare me the concern trolling. If your job can be outsourced, it will be outsourced. People were happily working in offices in the 90s and it didn't do much to keep their jobs from being outsourced. I don't see any correlation between WFH and outsourcing.

There are institutions which never in a million years dreamt of work from home being viable. You're right, software has dealt with this for years... But what about other industries historically averse to work from home like finance and healthcare?

Also English speaking abroad has far improved since the 90s.

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

#473

Post by tmpz22 »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #180
bodge5000 wrote: post #118

With all due respect, this is mostly my problem with the "work-from-office" (WFO for ease) crowd. Generally, the stance of the WFH crowd is that each individual should get a choice of what makes that individual happy. Very few, if any, of the WFH crowd want mandatated WFH, it would make no sense. But then the WFO crowd often says no, I don't care what makes you happy, because you being in makes me happy. That doesn't…

I'd also add that comments like this: > Now, I am fully aware that there's a low of people for whom the horror of commute doesn't make up for the gains of socializing and others that just abhor having to talk to real-life people. Then there are people who work mainly to get paid and do not care to invest themselves beyond what is necessary. Are remarkably condescending. Folks opting for a better work-life balance, wh…

Further we're seeing the lowest rate ever of unemployment among the disabled [1] (42.5M Americans). I guess OP views them as

> people for whom the horror of commute doesn't make up for the gains of socializing and others that just abhor having to talk to real-life people. Then there are people who work mainly to get paid and do not care to invest themselves beyond what is necessary.

[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-03/disabled-...

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

#474

Post by flippinburgers »

dont__panic wrote: post #340

Most of my distaste for WFO comes from two places: - the USA's failure to provide even a single city that's pleasant to live in and travel around without a car - tech company insistence on open office layouts that are not conducive to deep work The first one sounds like a commute problem... but it manifests in more ways than you think. When you have to travel around in a car, everything is expensive. Parking is a pai…

Pleasant includes mostly crime free in my opinion, which makes it very hard for the US to attain. Probably ever.

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

#475

Post by colinmhayes »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #447
colinmhayes wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

That's fair, and maybe my company just sucks at WFH, but it's not getting any better, so I think we need to go back to in person.

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

#476

Post by jeffjobs4000 »

There's a certain % of people who prefer WFH, a % who prefer WFO, and a % who want hybrid. The same person could change preferences over time as well.

People will sort themselves into the teams who share their preference over the next 5 years.

Just like how not everyone wants to work 100 hour weeks at an investment bank, but a certain group of people want to take that deal. You self select for it.

I think this debate gaining the fervor of a religious war stems from people not wanting to have to leave their current job to obtain their WFH / WFO preference? The re-shuffling will take a few years, but if you prefer something different than the pre-COVID status quo then you should be happy the shuffling is happening.

Thinking about it more, the WFO crowd grouping themselves only with people who actually want to be there is probably better for them too. The great re-shuffling benefits all! Don't go all Spanish Inquisition on those who don't share your work arrangement preference.

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

#477

Post by fundad »

commandlinefan wrote: post #129
benjaminwootton wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem for us office advocates is that you travel into an empty office and sit on Zoom calls anyway. Of course we shouldn't drag you into the office just to appease us, but the experience of working together is effectively not available right now.

> an empty office and sit on Zoom calls anyway For at least 15 years leading up to covid I worked in satellite branches of large corporations and had to spend the day on zoom calls with coworkers in remote offices anyway.

But that’s for you, people attached to 2019 didn’t have that office experience. People who like the status quo grow to believe they deserve to get what they want. Then when workers win some flexibility or supply chains kink up… it’s unheard of.

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

#478

Post by Wowfunhappy »

Raidion wrote: post #412
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! The team has to be aligned, because if a critical mass of people are working remotely, the office ceases to offer any advantage. It's okay to prefer working from home—but you should find a team that also prefers working from home, so people who prefer the office have that option too.

Alternately find a company that supports a mix of in person and remote work and provides the tools to do "in person" things like white-boarding and the culture to provide "coffee chats" and other camaraderie building events. I think that a lot of people who dislike WFH are missing the sense of community more than are actually missing talking with someone face to face with a cup of coffee in their hand. Not always the…

> Alternately find a company that supports a mix of in person and remote work and provides the tools to do "in person" things like white-boarding.

I just don't really think that works. Maybe I've simply used the wrong tools, but I'm skeptical.

Some day I imagine we'll all have perfect VR headsets (or brain implants) and location and distance will be an illusion. But we're not there yet.

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

#479

Post by abeppu »

sodapopcan wrote: post #432
abeppu wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven't seen many good arguments that WFH produces superior work outcomes. Why should you want _arguments_ about a question for which there has been actual research? "Superior work outcomes" is a fuzzy thing to measure, but when units of work are clearly countable and it's agreed what constitutes "done", there are multiple studies that have found that WFH employees were more productive (i.e. did more in the same…

Yep. I also wanted to respond to this. My team had actual data that showed our productivity increased when we went fully remote. We also cut a full hour out of our work day (went from 8 to 7 hours per day). Also: > WFO produces better outcomes for the company. What's backing that up?

I am curious how you measured your productivity. I do think that a weakness in the published data is that methodologically it's tough to measure productivity if work isn't done in clear, countable units, so only some kinds of work gets studied. And clearly teams struggle with picking the right metrics for themselves, carving tasks into the right sizes, etc.

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

#480

Post by [deleted] »

ianbutler wrote: post #317
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

So without hopefully coming off too flippant, noise canceling headphones can solve all of that, they did for me in an open office space at least.

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