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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?

#571

Post by tortoise_face »

listenallyall wrote: post #429
criddell wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> improve housing policy so people can live closer to work Or, improve labor policy so work becomes a much smaller part of most people's lives.

Come on... people work far less than they ever did before, that should be pretty obvious if you just think about it. Further, tons of "work" is done with zero physical strain, lots of those "work" hours are the in-between stuff -- travel, meetings, calls, lunches -- meaning that actual hours laboring are even less. https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours

If my time isn't free to use as I will it's work. I don't care if it involves zero physical strain or if I'm on a call or in a meeting. Being in a meeting is obviously work.

Your company is trying to get you to work as many hours as possible for as little money as possible, as a working person you should strive for the opposite. As a worker you are selling your labor (of which you possess a limited amount) and any rational actor in a capitalist society should attempt to maximize the gains on what they have to sell by charging the buyer as much as they can for as little as they can. I don't expect a large corporation to strive for less profit because they're "already making more than they did before".

To be clear I don't _like_ this state of affairs but so long as these are the rules ignoring them only deprives yourself and helps your company.

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

#572

Post by samuel_backend »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #245
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…

I don't think it's fair to chastise the author about this. His entire question was basically, "Am I looking at this situation differently than most people?". We couldn't really answer his question without knowing his true feelings.

Thanks! And for what it's worth, I don't feel chastised that much. From personal experience of talking to a lot of friends about this, I knew where this was headed :D

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

#573

Post by spelunker »

abeppu wrote: post #145

Before the pandemic and surge of remote work, a lot of us complained not just about going to the office, but that the office itself was pretty crappy. The open plan creates an environment of high distraction, low privacy, and physical discomfort. Whether or not people wanted to listen to music or anything for hours at a time, they were pushed to do it just to drown out a constant background noise of words that are hi…

Our team has decided to go in one day a week, and one day a week I am reminded why open work environments are awful. Mostly-remote work actually made it worse because there are multiple people near me who are now in wall-to-wall virtual meetings all day and just take them at their desk!

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

#574

Post by dec0dedab0de »

I've been working from home for over 8 years now, and I agree with you. I really miss in person social interaction, and I even miss the 3-6 times a year I used to go into the office before covid. I also shudder at the idea of having a commute again, and having to share a bathroom every day. I really miss the options for lunch in the city, but I don't want to give up the ability to take a nap in my own bed instead of eating. I think we will see companies outsource to other countries, have moderate success, then over-do it. Which will have them bring most of it back in house. I also think we're going to see many people really feel the loneliness of working from home at around 3-4 years of doing it. At least that is when it first started to bother me.

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

#575

Post by orangecat »

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…

Have you worked in an open office or cubical farm?

This is a key point. I know I'm less productive working from home than I was in person, but my office was sane. I can easily believe that WFH is as or more productive than open plan abominations.

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

#576

Post by odessacubbage »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #557
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…

> 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…

>I think chasing productivity has led to an extraordinarily toxic work culture.

i will say that crunch from home is a lot easier to optimize and ultimately sustain than crunch-in-office.

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

#577

Post by hhmc »

yupper32 wrote: post #570
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…

> prefer to socialize in other settings Can someone shed some light on this? I'm in the office for at least 40 hours a week. Then each day I get home, cook dinner, clean, bathe, workout sometimes. I don't even have kids or a long commute. If I'm not socializing at work, when am I doing it? Two days a week? That is bleeeeaak .

40hours a week is 8 hours a day. Let's say you sleep 8 hours. Let's also be conservative and say you have a 1 hour commute each way.

That's still 6 hours left. It's pretty easy to find some socialization time in there unless you're taking 4 hour long showers.

This isn't just theoretical, _clearly_ many people socialize in the evenings.

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

#578

Post by x0x0 »

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…

Some people really view their coworkers as an opportunity for forced socialization / to make up for their lack of social life.

True story: a new employee moved to sf. In my office, we had a standing weekly drinks night at the local. Everyone was invited (NB: and not required to drink in any way.) I mentioned it to this person. He/she doesn't drink. Cool, do yourself.

And then, dude wanted us to switch to boba. Nope, ain't happening. And actually had a tantrum w/ managers involved over us not wanting to cater to his hangups about alcohol.

I even mentioned it on here and had HN commenters pissy that I -- a grown ass adult -- didn't feel responsible for rearranging my limited outside-of-work social time to suit someone else just because he happened to work with me.

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

#579

Post by jakevoytko »

_blz2 wrote: post #554
Zezima wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As always, NYC is one of the safer US cities in the nation across basically any metric you can find, and sometimes one of the safest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

We leave our trash in the streets, and I'm an asshole. So I can concede those points! But most city dwellers in the US live somewhere less safe than NYC.

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

#580

Post by samuel_backend »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #545
tsimionescu wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phrase makes it clear that these are different people than the ones who can't stand the commute etc. And yes, there are people who work only to get paid and do not care to invest themselves beyond what is necessary. What exactly is wrong with that, or why do you think the OP implies there is something wrong with that?

> And yes, there are people who work only to get paid and do not care to invest themselves beyond what is necessary. And what does that have to do with preferring to work from home? It's almost comical the implication that those same people, pre-COVID, weren't going to the office and phoning it in. IMO the two topics--being... I dunno... not ambitious, and working from home--are entirely orthogonal concepts. And the…

I work a 4 day work week and am complaining about this BECAUSE I care about the fun and meaning these 32 hours / week have, not because I want to work more or define myself through work achievements.

And again, I wouldn't want to force anyone to come to the office. I am merely asking for other people's opinions.

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