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People love working remotely

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Re: People love working remotely

#41

Post by jcims »

coolvision wrote: post #29
g051051 wrote: post #16

I was full-time WFH for 6 wonderful years. I was happy, my productivity was off the charts, I was saving tons of money because I didn't have to spend it on my car and clothes, I had extra time that I wasn't wasting on my commute, etc. Then, we had a big shake-up. A bunch of senior people left, and new "leadership" came in to "transform" our workplace. All WFH was cancelled in our division (in spite of still being off…

>white noise over the speakers I'm fine with open spaces, but this would be the final straw for me

Especially when they turn it on and off randomly. So weird...

Re: People love working remotely

#42

Post by cs02rm0 »

coolvision wrote: post #29
g051051 wrote: post #16

I was full-time WFH for 6 wonderful years. I was happy, my productivity was off the charts, I was saving tons of money because I didn't have to spend it on my car and clothes, I had extra time that I wasn't wasting on my commute, etc. Then, we had a big shake-up. A bunch of senior people left, and new "leadership" came in to "transform" our workplace. All WFH was cancelled in our division (in spite of still being off…

>white noise over the speakers I'm fine with open spaces, but this would be the final straw for me

Yeah, that sounds like actual torture.

Re: People love working remotely

#43

Post by spurdoman77 »

codingdave wrote: post #36
g051051 wrote: post #16

I was full-time WFH for 6 wonderful years. I was happy, my productivity was off the charts, I was saving tons of money because I didn't have to spend it on my car and clothes, I had extra time that I wasn't wasting on my commute, etc. Then, we had a big shake-up. A bunch of senior people left, and new "leadership" came in to "transform" our workplace. All WFH was cancelled in our division (in spite of still being off…

> a 15 minute fact-to-face is better... Good thing we have better tools for videoconferencing than ever. I can have a 15 minute face-to-face with anyone in my company, no matter where in the world they are.

Videoconferencing is OK, but it is still common to have issues with it. Bad image quality, setup by lowest common denominator etc. Often you use that 15 minutes just by trying to make it work properly.

Re: People love working remotely

#44

Post by chewbacha »

ken wrote: post #19

Elephant in the room: how many of these people would prefer it to having a private office ? Strangely, this article/survey/infographic never mentions that option. I'd prefer remote work, too, over sitting in an open floorplan office, but I'd much prefer an actual office to either one. The easy "why" is: despite all the drawbacks, a lot of us will do pretty much anything to get out of an open floorplan.

Many would for sure like a private office!

But, there are big advantages of remote work over private offices:

1. Lower cost to the company. Private offices are expensive to build and maintain.

2. Less commute time to the employee. Private offices still require commuting which impacts the environment and the employees personal time.

3. Job flexibility. Home workers have (or will have) more options for employment.

4. No relocation expenses. Relocating an employee costs a few thousand dollars, hiring them and letting them stay put is cheaper.

5. Maintain ties to community.

6. Distribute income geographically. Offices concentrate incomes into a small geographic area. The effect is compounded by global companies as the worlds revenue streams feed into a single area. Think about how inflation and costs are out of hand in Silicon Valley.

Re: People love working remotely

#45

Post by g051051 »

codingdave wrote: post #36
g051051 wrote: post #16

I was full-time WFH for 6 wonderful years. I was happy, my productivity was off the charts, I was saving tons of money because I didn't have to spend it on my car and clothes, I had extra time that I wasn't wasting on my commute, etc. Then, we had a big shake-up. A bunch of senior people left, and new "leadership" came in to "transform" our workplace. All WFH was cancelled in our division (in spite of still being off…

> a 15 minute fact-to-face is better... Good thing we have better tools for videoconferencing than ever. I can have a 15 minute face-to-face with anyone in my company, no matter where in the world they are.

They cite this particular bit of idiocy from the Agile Manifesto:

> The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

They fail to realize that when it was written in 2001, communication technologies were far inferior to what we have now. So that face to face should be updated to something like "immediate" or "real time".

Re: People love working remotely

#46

Post by g051051 »

spurdoman77 wrote: post #43
codingdave wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a 15 minute fact-to-face is better... Good thing we have better tools for videoconferencing than ever. I can have a 15 minute face-to-face with anyone in my company, no matter where in the world they are.

Videoconferencing is OK, but it is still common to have issues with it. Bad image quality, setup by lowest common denominator etc. Often you use that 15 minutes just by trying to make it work properly.

At least in our company, it works pretty much flawlessly. We rarely have technical issues, and if we do it's a wider outage from our conferencing provider.

Re: People love working remotely

#47

Post by protonimitate »

I like flexibility.

I don't want to be forced into a open floor plan office. But I also don't want to be full time remote, or forced into a singular private office.

I want to be able to go into an office when I feel like. Work out of a small office/conference room when it gets noisy. Sit in the open when it makes sense. Work from home when I need to be heads down.

I wish management would stop looking for the "productivity magic bullet" and just start offering options based on their employees. There is no one-size fits all solution here.

Re: People love working remotely

#48

Post by g051051 »

mpweiher wrote: post #27
g051051 wrote: post #16

I was full-time WFH for 6 wonderful years. I was happy, my productivity was off the charts, I was saving tons of money because I didn't have to spend it on my car and clothes, I had extra time that I wasn't wasting on my commute, etc. Then, we had a big shake-up. A bunch of senior people left, and new "leadership" came in to "transform" our workplace. All WFH was cancelled in our division (in spite of still being off…

> We're also "Agile" now, so we spend a ton of time in useless meetings. One of the crazier things that has happened. When the XP folk said "we do a standup", the idea was that meetings are useless and awful, you shouldn't have them, but if you're going to have them, then let's "encourage" brevity by having everyone stand. Add a few decades of agile certified consultants, sc(r)umification and now "agile" means "lots…

We recently spent weeks doing a backlog grooming meeting every day to get work lined up, only to have our priorities completely changed and all of the work discarded.

Re: People love working remotely

#49

Post by spurdoman77 »

throwaway242221 wrote: post #30

I "love" it in the sense that I can get paid while watching Netflix, playing games and do whatever I want. I instantly start slacking off and all my working hours become a game to make it look like I'm working when I'm not. This doesn't happen when I'm in a office where I'm "forced" to work. Yeah, you can slack off at the office as well but why? I obviously can't do any meaningful leisure activities there. And yes, i…

Once a remote worker frauded a company I was working for a large amount of money. I dont think it was a coincidence that it was a remote worker - I believe it is much easier mentally to behave unethically if you dont see the people f2f you are hurting with your actions.

Re: People love working remotely

#50

Post by g051051 »

cs02rm0 wrote: post #39
g051051 wrote: post #16

I was full-time WFH for 6 wonderful years. I was happy, my productivity was off the charts, I was saving tons of money because I didn't have to spend it on my car and clothes, I had extra time that I wasn't wasting on my commute, etc. Then, we had a big shake-up. A bunch of senior people left, and new "leadership" came in to "transform" our workplace. All WFH was cancelled in our division (in spite of still being off…

We're also "Agile" now, so we spend a ton of time in useless meetings. Might be lost in translation - but agile shouldn't require a ton of meeting time and should work fine remotely. And hey, one of the principles is that you give teams the environment they need to get the job done, not the environment management thinks they deserve. Unless you mean "Agile" as, say, UK government terms it, also known as waterfall. In…

I mean "Agile" as in, whatever stupid thing our current "leadership" wants it to be. regardless of what "agile" should stand for, it was immediately corrupted at our workplace to be "business as usual with a new name".
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