Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society • Hacker News Board

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

#41

Post by harikb » Tue, Mar 24, 2020, 1:47 PM UTC

gdubs wrote: post #31

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…

It’s also been a week . Like you said, this is anything but a controlled experiment. People are trying to push through a lot of psychological stress right now. Families are suddenly responsible for homeschooling — 2 young kids and a toddler in our case. It’s a lot. If people look back at this period and use it to judge the effective remote work is, that would be pretty ridiculous. (Of course, some people who are fund…

About the open-office vs individual- in this particular case though individual offices would have been just as dangerous, since the ventilation system is all connected. although I agree the lower density of workers would have helped.

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

#42

Post by carlio » Tue, Mar 24, 2020, 1:54 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #40

Working from home isn’t about just moving people from an office to home. It’s a culture the e tire company has to adopt for it to be effective. The way people communicate, meet, schedule, etc. You need to prioritize asynchronous communication, you need managers that don’t feel a need to babysit adults, you need to record many things, you need software that makes for seamless collaboration. You need a company policy t…

I'm strongly of the opinion that a company that cannot work remotely is a company that has poor communication and processes. While working in an office does have benefits, the habits that remote work forces you to have by necessity benefit on-premise companies too in my opinion.

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

#43

Post by lnsru » Tue, Mar 24, 2020, 1:56 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #40

Working from home isn’t about just moving people from an office to home. It’s a culture the e tire company has to adopt for it to be effective. The way people communicate, meet, schedule, etc. You need to prioritize asynchronous communication, you need managers that don’t feel a need to babysit adults, you need to record many things, you need software that makes for seamless collaboration. You need a company policy t…

I am not sure if company must give everything to remote workers. Remote worker has immense gain of avoiding wasted commute time. I happily pay by myself for an extra room and equipment just to avoid this wasted time.

I am working for a company where all decisions are made and communicated during lunch break in the canteen or near water cooler. At the moment the managers look pretty clueless, they have no idea how to start written communication.

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

#44

Post by cameronbrown » Tue, Mar 24, 2020, 1:58 PM UTC

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.

If you have Q&A, these meetings can definitely be effective.

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

#45

Post by taneq » Tue, Mar 24, 2020, 2:09 PM UTC

joegahona wrote: post #12

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've been loving the comfort of working from home (childless), but I suspect you're right that it's not going well for most people. Most of my zoom meetings are disrupted by shrieks of needy children and a shocking number of cellphone ringing/notifications.

No sane person actually works from home with their young kids present, at least not in any real job. Until schools have their remote classes sorted out with actual teachers giving actual attention to students over video, nobody's going to be getting any quality work done.

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

#46

Post by ativzzz » Tue, Mar 24, 2020, 2:11 PM UTC

bamboozled wrote: post #37

The minute I can leave my house and do some work in an office or cafe I'm there. WFH everyday is a joke. Disclaimer, I have done a lot of remote work.

It's all opinion based. When I first started WFH a few years ago I would sometimes go to a cafe/coworking space. Now, I never do, I much prefer to stay at home.

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

#47

Post by ABeeSea » Tue, Mar 24, 2020, 2:13 PM UTC

harikb wrote: post #41

gdubs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s also been a week . Like you said, this is anything but a controlled experiment. People are trying to push through a lot of psychological stress right now. Families are suddenly responsible for homeschooling — 2 young kids and a toddler in our case. It’s a lot. If people look back at this period and use it to judge the effective remote work is, that would be pretty ridiculous. (Of course, some people who are fund…

About the open-office vs individual- in this particular case though individual offices would have been just as dangerous, since the ventilation system is all connected. although I agree the lower density of workers would have helped.

Not disagreeing that the office setup wouldn’t make a difference. But there is almost no evidence that the virus can spread through ventilation. It can only be aerosoled in very rare instances (like during intubation) and droplets would fall to the ground before reaching the ventilation systems.

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

#48

Post by dominotw » Tue, Mar 24, 2020, 2:13 PM UTC

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…

childcare workers won't be 'working from home' so not sure how this woould be a problem once the scare is over.

Unfortunately ppl with children are usually against company wide WFH flexible policies. I am guessing is just jealously. I have a coworker right now that asks ppl working from home in the morning meeting " oh so you are working from home today", so annoying.

Ppl with children please don't ruin it for the rest of us. we support you too.

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

#49

Post by yodsanklai » Tue, Mar 24, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

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've been working remotely for a while, but most of my colleagues work in the office by choice. First thing I noticed, our remote meetings are much better now. It works better when everyone is remote.

Another thing that surprised me, many of my colleagues don't have a good working environment from home. They live in small appartements, sometimes with young kids, and mostly don't have an office or even a good laptop.

> Even the remote teams I know are struggling to get work done in the middle of this 24-hour news cycle of virus news and political battles about how to address it.

Agree. It takes self-discipline not to follow this to closely.

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

#50

Post by nemo44x » Tue, Mar 24, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

lnsru wrote: post #43

nemo44x wrote: post #40

Working from home isn’t about just moving people from an office to home. It’s a culture the e tire company has to adopt for it to be effective. The way people communicate, meet, schedule, etc. You need to prioritize asynchronous communication, you need managers that don’t feel a need to babysit adults, you need to record many things, you need software that makes for seamless collaboration. You need a company policy t…

I am not sure if company must give everything to remote workers. Remote worker has immense gain of avoiding wasted commute time. I happily pay by myself for an extra room and equipment just to avoid this wasted time. I am working for a company where all decisions are made and communicated during lunch break in the canteen or near water cooler. At the moment the managers look pretty clueless, they have no idea how to…

You do it because it's worth it. The fully loaded cost of an employee that doesn't need an office space is more than made up for with a $1k or so budget. Getting someone out of a physical office saves the company thousands a year in many places.

Additionally, you want your employees to have a comfortable environment as it makes them more productive. If you're going to make your company a distributed company than you need to take some of the savings from not operating large offices and invest it in the remote experience.