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Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society

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Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society

#21

Post by buboard »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

Outside of young, childless tech workers, this sudden remote work experiment is not going well for most people I know. This isn’t the controlled trial of remote work that these think pieces suggest. Instead, everyone is forcefully stuck at home without time to prepare. Parents are juggling childcare with getting work done, while fighting an uphill battle against IT systems that weren’t prepared for everyone going WFH…

You re forgetting that people need time to adapt. Imagine if we did the opposite switch, we went from all being farmers to working in an office downtown overnight. It happened, but over many many decades. Of course it's not going to work for everyone, but many many people will adapt

Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society

#22

Post by api »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

Outside of young, childless tech workers, this sudden remote work experiment is not going well for most people I know. This isn’t the controlled trial of remote work that these think pieces suggest. Instead, everyone is forcefully stuck at home without time to prepare. Parents are juggling childcare with getting work done, while fighting an uphill battle against IT systems that weren’t prepared for everyone going WFH…

I realized after I had kids that a huge amount of "new urbanist" thought is driven by the young and childless and does not incorporate the needs of people with children or of children themselves.

This falls under the same category. Without child care or some place for the children to go, it's absolutely impossible to work from home. If only one parent works it can be done, but if both parents have to telework it's a no-go.

Non-parents don't get it. It's impossible to get anything done with kids around. The only way I can imagine it to be possible is if you were to abuse and traumatize your kids so they'd leave you alone because they're afraid of you. Maybe that's what some of our ancestors did.

Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society

#23

Post by zxcmx »

api wrote: post #22
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

Outside of young, childless tech workers, this sudden remote work experiment is not going well for most people I know. This isn’t the controlled trial of remote work that these think pieces suggest. Instead, everyone is forcefully stuck at home without time to prepare. Parents are juggling childcare with getting work done, while fighting an uphill battle against IT systems that weren’t prepared for everyone going WFH…

I realized after I had kids that a huge amount of "new urbanist" thought is driven by the young and childless and does not incorporate the needs of people with children or of children themselves. This falls under the same category. Without child care or some place for the children to go, it's absolutely impossible to work from home. If only one parent works it can be done, but if both parents have to telework it's a…

Our ancestors got their children working as soon as they were able. Farm work, piece work, factory work, whatever.

Kind of frowned upon now.

Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society

#24

Post by mc32 »

suls wrote: post #20
mc32 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously regardless of all the above, there will be permanent changes because of this, even if it wasn’t all voluntary and we can return to normal. I think we can be certain some things will change with respect to how people work as well as other behavior. For example, do we need all those extraneous stimuluses. Surely some people will overdo it in both directions. It all remains to be seen.

The changes during extraordinary times aren’t always permanent. Apparently female workforce participation during WWII was a record high but not in the decades that followed.

I wouldn’t discount that so quickly. While we didn’t see the impact immediately I do think it opened the door years later as the economy adjusted.

Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society

#25

Post by jrumbut »

formercoder wrote: post #15
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

Outside of young, childless tech workers, this sudden remote work experiment is not going well for most people I know. This isn’t the controlled trial of remote work that these think pieces suggest. Instead, everyone is forcefully stuck at home without time to prepare. Parents are juggling childcare with getting work done, while fighting an uphill battle against IT systems that weren’t prepared for everyone going WFH…

I agree. If anything business travel and in office time will increase - we’re gonna realize how great it is to be in the same room.

Yeah, I'm two weeks into this and badly miss my office.

Edit: no children either, just easier to work with people in the same building sometimes.

Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society

#26

Post by ovulator »

vsareto wrote: post #19
heavenlyblue wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk - the company I work for was totally prepared for this and the IT systems are absolutely OK. Exceptions: weekly full-house meeting of 400 employees isn’t supported by hangouts so you can only participate in read-only mode The only issue I personally have is my WFH broadband is horrible. Basically what you’re saying is that “the company I work for does a horrible job of having it’s systems available for remote wor…

>Exceptions: weekly full-house meeting of 400 employees isn’t supported by hangouts so you can only participate in read-only mode Those have almost always been 'meetings that should have been an email' in my experience. I think some leaders are just used to having an audience to be effective.

Yeah, that's not a meeting, that's a sermon.

Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society

#27

Post by MivLives »

RHSeeger wrote: post #10
checker659 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think this experiment is going to backfire. People are going to hate WFH/Remote work coming out of this it seems.

If it results in 1. Workers (that previously hadn't been remote) realizing that it has good parts and bad parts, that paying an extra 10%+ in rent/mortgage in order to get a proper home office can be the cost of working from home (and then the costs of utilities for a now non-empty home). That doesn't mean it's bad, just that it has pluses and minuses. 2. Companies realizing that people working from home _does_ have…

Your first point is the part I'd like most to change with this.

I live in an apartment with three other people. It's fine when we're all coming in and out and spend all day at work.

But now that 3/4 of us are at home, and confined to our rooms it's getting annoying. There's no good public space, and none of us share any interests.

I live and work in a single room, and I wish so much I could move to somewhere with more space. If I were full time work from home there's no reason I'd need to live with other people. The only reason my rent is so high is because I live near a city which I have to do to work. I suspect this is true for other people as well, and if we saw a greater amount of full time remote people would spread out a little.

Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society

#28

Post by roel_v »

api wrote: post #22
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

Outside of young, childless tech workers, this sudden remote work experiment is not going well for most people I know. This isn’t the controlled trial of remote work that these think pieces suggest. Instead, everyone is forcefully stuck at home without time to prepare. Parents are juggling childcare with getting work done, while fighting an uphill battle against IT systems that weren’t prepared for everyone going WFH…

I realized after I had kids that a huge amount of "new urbanist" thought is driven by the young and childless and does not incorporate the needs of people with children or of children themselves. This falls under the same category. Without child care or some place for the children to go, it's absolutely impossible to work from home. If only one parent works it can be done, but if both parents have to telework it's a…

I have a home office (proper office with separate meeting room etc, a whole floor of our house) and I still get a babysitter on days school is out and I can't not work that day. It's just not the same when you have to always reserve some brain cycles for thinking about what's going on in the rest of the house.

A few years ago (children must have been 5ish and 7ish?) my sitter cancelled last minute. So instead, I told my kids 'if you can play all morning, without fighting and screaming so loud that I can hear you, and not interrupting me, I'll pay you what I normally would have paid the baby sitter'. It was the first time they could make their own money, and it worked perfectly. I tried again a few days later and it failed and haven't had to try since. Maybe an idea for all those that now work from home the first time?

Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society

#29

Post by mjevans »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

Outside of young, childless tech workers, this sudden remote work experiment is not going well for most people I know. This isn’t the controlled trial of remote work that these think pieces suggest. Instead, everyone is forcefully stuck at home without time to prepare. Parents are juggling childcare with getting work done, while fighting an uphill battle against IT systems that weren’t prepared for everyone going WFH…

Work / Family + Life is out of balance; I really hope that's what we, collectively, learn.

The lack of time for child care is the problem. I've observed a sibling that does have children being severely taxed daily (in occasional video calls across the country).

It isn't the working from home aspect that's broken, it's how little time "a normal job" affords parents, or even those of us who've yet to find a life partner.

Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society

#30

Post by davzie »

mrfusion wrote: post #2

The HN who’s hiring post yesterday convinced me absolutely no one new is going to consider work from home when this is over. These are the companies on the forefront of technology and zero opinions have changed.

What upset me about that post is how either those employers did not state temporary remote work was part of the deal or they are hunkering down on having people in the office still. Right now that is a very irresponsible thing to do and for an industry who likes to talk about how they are changing the world for the best, they sure dont seem to be putting any effort into actually doing that at a time when we need it most.
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