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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?

#771

Post by ivanhoe »

jstx1 wrote: post #764
ivanhoe wrote: post #52

> I used to love going to the office. I hated going to office (and that's why I stopped doing it like 20 years ago). But it's not a case of one of us being right and the other wrong, it's just that some people are more extrovert, and some are more introvert, and we simply don't enjoy the same things. Now, being introvert doesn't mean I hate other people. I actually enjoy in daily interactions with my colleagues, and…

> But it's not a case of one of us being right and the other wrong, it's just that some people are more extrovert, and some are more introvert, and we simply don't enjoy the same things. I don't think the separation is across the intro/extra-version line. I'm an introvert and I strongly prefer the office over remote.

Interesting, can you elaborate on the pros/cons of the office for you?

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

#772

Post by stripline »

bombcar wrote: post #309
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…

There are also different kinds of jobs at different companies. Some jobs are basically "wait around until something explodes, and then all hands on deck" - the IT equivalent of firemen, for example. Those jobs certainly have a fun "club" aspect when hanging around the firehouse waiting for disaster to strike; and that aspect is gone when everyone's working from home doing whatever.

This is an excellent analogy. I've been struggling to understand why I feel like I'm one of the minority that (like OP) isn't really in love with WFH. You just described my motivation in one simple sentence.

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

#773

Post by haho4 »

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…

Open Office, 1 hour commute each way in crappy transportation. No thank you.

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

#774

Post by stripline »

addicted wrote: post #300

My biggest frustration with the WFH discussion has been that the vast majority of people say that the #1 (and sometimes only) reason they prefer WFH is to save time on the commute. But this has not led to any discussions on how we can actually improve the commute, improve housing policy so people can live closer to work, etc. Instead, people have simply decided that theh will WFH instead, an option which isn’t availa…

I actually enjoy my commute. About 30-35 minutes each way. Gives me time to listen to a podcast and mentally separate my work and home lives.

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

#775

Post by stripline »

selimthegrim wrote: post #128
foobarian wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes and access. I believe Dublin is one of the closest EU airports to the eastern seaboard. There is even an Irish airport (not Dublin, Sh... something) with a USA passport check on Irish soil, so once you step on the plane you're officially in the US and once you land it's like taking a Boston-NYC shuttle.

Shannon, in the west.

I listened to an interesting podcast about how the first every Duty Free shop was started in Shannon airport.

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/18/612441091/a-look-at-where-tho...

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

#776

Post by munchausen42 »

blub wrote: post #769
munchausen42 wrote: post #73

If you wonder why an argument might be controversial, it can helpful to imagine how it would sound like in mirror world: Assume for a moment that working remotly and a flexible workday would have been always the default. And now some companies decide: Hey let's contractually enforce a 9 hour continuous workday where all our workers will be locked in a big ugly building that we build just for that purpose (Btw. at lea…

That’s not at all helpful and in fact it’s confusing. Going to a place of work is the status quo with one of the exceptions being bubbles in IT. Some offices are nice, some not. Some are within walking distance, others are not. You are not locked in to your office unless you work in a literal sweatshop. The lunch hour is a legal right in Europe. It’s your task to check that you have a reasonable commute before accept…

>Jesus, I can’t believe how spoiled and entitled so many people are

The entitlement is called workers rights. People fought quite hard to get the ones we have right now. E.g. my grandfather was still working 6 days and 48h a week (same country as OP). Back then people also called the workers "entitled" who dared to ask for more than one free day per week.

As I see it, this movement will only be succesfully completed once people can rent your skills without also owning your body during that time.

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

#777

Post by BaseballPhysics »

samuel_backend wrote: post #759
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, the OP! Great, I can just straight up ask you: given that, would you agree with the statement that preferring a WFH arrangement and being ambitious/"invested"/whatever are largely orthogonal to one another? I ask because, right here, you're tying "[caring] about the fun and meaning [of your work hours]" to working in an office. And I honestly just don't see the connection. Can you say more about that?

No, I absolutely don't and I feel that's the main point where people take offense in what I said. My question goes more in the direction of: For me personally, the communal and social aspect of occasionally sitting in the same room with the team I'm building software with has always given me a lot. And I have experienced recently that loads of people will not even take a 20 minute commute once a week to have some few…

Ah, that's probably pretty simple: Other folks don't see the same value in sitting in the same room with the team. It's really no deeper than that.

Look, I'm a pretty extroverted, social guy, and as a senior manager, the vast majority of the problems I need to solve involve high bandwidth, 1:1 communication because the problems I solve are people problems first and foremost.

So obviously, for me, in my role, face-to-face interactions have a ton of value!

But I absolutely recognize that a lot of other roles are not the same.

When I look back at my days as a developer, I spent a lot of time in the same room with people! And 80% of that time, our headphones were on and we were banging away coding while interacting digitally. Sure, we'd often pop those headphones off to have those high-bandwidth problem solving conversations, but the vast majority of time those conversations were 1:1 discussions, and could have easily been had over virtual meeting tools like Zoom or Teams.

That's the reality for a lot of individual contributors.

Just because you can't wrap your head around that, doesn't mean that experience is invalid.

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

#778

Post by collyw »

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…

I find communication over messenger apps at least as distracting as the office.

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

#779

Post by collyw »

jjav wrote: post #750
hkxer wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noise canceling headphones?

Noise canceling headphones don't do anything against human voices, which is the noise problem in open offices.

Get some of the muffler things for building sites. One of my previous workspaces had a couple of these siting around.

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

#780

Post by rafaelero »

hirvi74 wrote: post #746
rafaelero wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I make it very clear to my coworkers that we can be friendly, but we aren't friends ??????

Tell me about your kids, your weekend, etc. and I will listen. We can grab lunch even. But we aren't hanging out after work, going to bars, coming over to my house, I don't want to go to theirs, etc.

:(
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