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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?

#551

Post by ivalm »

unethical_ban wrote: post #487
bodge5000 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Work is a third of our life, and it seems reasonable that many people would want social interaction during that time Yeh thats reasonable enough. I do miss the social aspects of working in an office, I just don't miss the logistics of it like the commute, or the cost, the social pressures or the lack of freedom. As you say work is a third of our life, it seems reasonable that people wouldn't want it to be any more…

What I mean by "WFH is not an individual choice" is that in the post-COVID jargon, WFH is a company policy. And when people advocate for WFH in this environment, they are implicitly advocating for no one to be in the office - because me being alone in an office park because everyone else is at home does nothing for my ability to collaborate or have a positive work experience. As someone else stated, I think the end r…

The issue is the moral weight of action vs inaction. WFO advocate for action from people who don’t want to do this. WFH do not advocate for an action. WFO do suffer from inaction of WFH, but in almost every moral system suffering caused by inaction is preferable to suffering caused by forcing someone to act.

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

#552

Post by scns »

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.

I can take closed cans only for a short period of time.

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

#553

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

lijogdfljk wrote: post #452
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think that productivity declined in 2020, but based upon those charts it only did a little bit in Q1 and then bounced back hard in Q2 and Q3. I think people overcompensated, but the fact that it has stayed high for the rest of the lockdown tells me that it's not in fact the productivity killer that it's claimed to be.

It's funny, for me my biggest thing is that in WFO if i was overwhelmed on a problem or off feeling (tired/sick/etc) i would often just try and get through the day, horribly unproductive. At home i can usually address the issue more quickly (quick nap, a walk, an extended break, etc - often fully detatching from work) and end up back to actually working far more quickly. For me these blockers would often just stall t…

> People learn how to appear to work, while not working.

This right here - when I didn't want to work I still didn't work, but I hid it in ways that ended up meaning it too me longer to get to a place I COULD be productive. I couldn't just disappear and recharge for a half hour.

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

#554

Post by _blz2 »

Zezima wrote: post #457
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…

You've described Brooklyn and NYC at large... if you're anti-car then consider the city. Boston is a good second choice. I've lived in both. NYC comes with the normal downsides of the biggest city in the US: expenses, limited space, crowding, and noise. But this is true of all large cities in the world: Paris, London, Tokyo, etc. But it comes with the immense upsides of a functioning metropolitan transit system, whic…

Except in NYC/Brooklyn, the crime rate and filth are both high. Not to mention the rude behavior that takes over anyone who spent more than a year there. Something like Tokyo, Singapore in terms of lawfulness and politeness is whats desperately needed in the US. Any city in the US is far from that.

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

#555

Post by rglullis »

z9znz wrote: post #298
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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…

Speaking as someone living in Berlin:

> Berlin is a fun city full of things to do, places to eat, and clubs.

And I already have my friends outside of work to go do these things, or to go to the bar, or check out the restaurant.

> we don't like talking to people.

No, more likely it's just that I don´t want to hang out with you.

Let me explain. Berlin might be a place of diversity, but it's not really heterogeneous. The majority of people that came here for "the tech scene" are hardly interested in integrating. It's been almost 10 years since I moved here and I'm yet to find a company where there is a strong push to get people to speak German or even be involved in any aspect of the local culture.

Everyone will work together and will have no problem sharing the environment when needed, but very few people will actually feel like they want to hang out with their co-workers if they have other people in their circle. What happens at the end of the day is that most people just end up getting close to those who have some degree of affinity. British people will hang out with most British people. The same for Southern Europeans, Eastern Europeans, etc...

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

#556

Post by mikhael28 »

'Why don't all the poor people have more money? I have plenty of money, I just don't understand why there are so many poor people.'

I love going to my office, but frankly most people's jobs suck and their office environment sucks. Or, to put it another way, has no inherent advantage from a pure productivity perspective than a well-stocked home office assuming you are doing office work.

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

#557

Post by BaseballPhysics »

kotlin2 wrote: post #237
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…

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…

> WFO isn't necessarily about personal preference. People who want everyone to WFO believe that WFO produces better outcomes for the company.

...

> Personally, I haven't seen many good arguments that WFH produces superior work outcomes.

And personally I haven't seen many good arguments that WFO produces superior work outcomes, and yet you seem to state it as fact.

I suspect WFH and WFO produce roughly equivalent work outcomes. That said, I hope we can both agree we're both to some extent guessing based on our own personal experiences (in my case I'm a VP at a dev shop and we've done more in the past year than we've done in the last five after landing a major deal; productivity is clearly not a problem for us).

But offering WFH as part of a flexible work policy:

1. Enables access to a larger labour market, meaning more high-quality candidates,

2. Creates a fairer labour market by removing barriers to entry (e.g. childcare),

3. Provides an additional benefit that helps attract and retain top talent, and

4. Ultimately improves the lives of individual workers since it provides more options to achieve work/life balance.

Honestly, in the end, I personally don't care if WFH actually maximizes "productivity" because I think chasing productivity has led to an extraordinarily toxic work culture.

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

#558

Post by orangecat »

boredtofears wrote: post #365
AlwaysRock wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. So much this. I'm friendly with folks at work. I'm not friends with people at work. Maybe some people truly are but I suspect most people who think their coworkers are friends are pretending like that friendship wont go away rapidly when one of them no longer works for the company. So much of OPs post is trying to get from coworkers what many get from friends.

Some of the best friends and mentors I've made in life have been through my career. I still talk to friends from jobs that I left over a decade ago. That's bizarre to me to have an explicit attitude of not befriending colleagues. It's never been something I've specifically sought out, it's always organically come to be -- but it's not something I would actively work against. I don't understand the benefit to that min…

Yeah I don't get it at all. It seems like some people are operating with an axiom that work is fundamentally and unavoidably awful, and therefore you should avoid doing anything that might seem to make it more pleasant, because then you might trick yourself into spending more time than you otherwise would, which by assumption is a mistake.

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

#560

Post by samuel_backend »

khyryk wrote: post #527
samuel_backend wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely, and I absolutely love what I am doing. It's only that I really miss the whole communal and social aspect around it and feel few other people do.

Honestly, your work seems like it's a huge part of your life, and it's not anywhere near that for the vast majority of other devs, working remotely or not. People generally spend their "absolute love" points on their kids, spouses, pets, friends, etc. and leave work to be a transaction involving time and money. And why shouldn't they? If someone absolutely loves Wells Fargo, GE, Microsoft, Amazon, or whatever, that c…

Nah, you're wrong there. I actually only work 4 days / week for most of the year. It's not that I am requiring my working time to fill my life with meaning, it's more that I feel the almost third of my life I spent working has significantly lost in fun and meaning for me personally. The whole point of the post was to see how others felt about it and get some insights into different (and similar) perspectives.
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