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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

#91

Post by fraudsyndrome »

mrlala wrote: post #67
coldpie wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, me too. Early 30s and childless. I've never liked working from home, and now I'm forced to do it. It sucks. I like having someone looking over my shoulder (look what I'm spending time on right now!). I like having a bus to catch at 3:00 so my day ends right there. I like having a commute that separates work from home. I like having people to talk to and make jokes with. I like having separate work and home compu…

>Early 30s and childless. I've never liked working from home I'll chime in here.. perhaps you don't like working from because you are childless? In my opinion it's the the opposite of what people are thinking... I think you would find that the people who like working from home are ones with kids (let's say >5 where they can at least take care of themselves long enough without worry of instant death.. infants/toddlers…

Not sure if this counts but I like working from home because I have a dog that I feel guilty leaving for 11 hours out of the day every weekday - especially if it's going to be a particularly rainy or hot day and he has to stay outdoors. He's pretty easy going so I don't have to play with him all the time but just give him company.

Also after getting into full time work I realise I have no time for anything, my schedule after I get home is pretty much cook dinner, dog responsibilities, and 1 hour of spare time before I have to sleep (otherwise I'm yawning throughout the next day). I've just made an extra 3 hours free in my day because I'm not commuting to work.

It definitely takes more discipline to work from home because I get easily distracted. And I think I wouldn't mind it being on an on/off schedule as opposed to 100% WFH. I usually like being alone but I can see it starting to creep up on me. Our team recently did a virtual lunch and it worked better than I expected!

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

#92

Post by watwut »

aivisol wrote: post #34
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…

One thing that stroke me yesterday looking at my 13-year old is that children actually suffer more than adults. While we are allowed to take occasional walk out of our homes ( groceries, etc), they are totally locked up - no friends, no school socializing, everything is virtual only. If this lockdown lasts for any long period of time, it might backfire badly on them.

Whatsapp ... they spend hours there connecting and disconnecting while doing stuff ... we encourage that now.

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

#93

Post by Kaiyou »

dorchadas wrote: post #71
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good point that I think people will slowly figure out. We live in a rural area with essentially no school age kids nearby, so we're very aware that during summer, Christmas break, etc, we have to arrange ways to keep our 10 year-old in contact with kids his age. In summer we usually sign him up for the in-school daycare a couple days a week so he can see his friends and we also arrange to visit other…

Bias warning: I am a public school teacher myself. And this is also exactly what I feel the people who are now pushing for online schooling in general don't get (apart from the fact there's a non-negligible part of the population that doesn't have consistent/good internet access). There's a lot more to school than just going and learning 'stuff that doesn't affect real life', as some seem to believe. It's about socia…

Because maybe in their experience - it definitely was in mine - it didn't happen at all in school. I always disliked school because of the other students that got in the way of my peaceful life. Never had a single friend throughout school and college, either.

Maybe you think social learning just happens by putting kids together, but that's bullshit. People like me who'd needed it the most didn't get any of it during school. There also wasn't much in regards to an education. In hindsight, school was a complete waste of my time, that at times negatively affected me because of bullies nobody did anything about. If only beating was still a thing when I went to school, then the teachers maybe would have beaten the shit out of the bullies, so they'd have to first spend a week in the hospital before getting suspended on top of that. Sorry, thinking of school always makes me angry.

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

#94

Post by Kaiyou »

avip wrote: post #84
taneq wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is not possible to give "actual attention to students over video". There really is no such thing. Remote teaching does not, can not, and should not work for young kids. It's not a university. (source: life)

It will work fine for all the INTPs and similar personality types. The rest is screwed.

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

#95

Post by mirimir »

RangerScience wrote: post #73
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…

I was talking with a friend and former educator last night. She's been thinking about the child care and homeschooling issue a fair amount; how parents can organize their day (such as when to take lunch) to best care for their kids. Then, a lot of performing arts folks I know are trying to find work, and one of the suggestions is remote nanny'ing (aka, entertaining your kids over video), I think there's an opportunit…

As in Stephenson's Diamond Age.

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

#96

Post by gbjw »

m3kw9 wrote: post #88
joegahona wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m surprised Zoom or any video conferencing system haven’t invented an AI algorithm that can only pass through your own voice and nothing else

https://krisp.ai

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

#97

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

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.

How do you work with a single laptop monitor? I find I can't be productive without a couple of large monitors.

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

#98

Post by mirimir »

hef19898 wrote: post #87
taneq wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would assume running a team of 12 people being the first time in there whole careers working from that is planning global production for a multi billion dollar business is a real job. As trying to get a bootstrapped startup of the ground. The first case is my wife, the second one me. We have two kids. For obvious reasons I had my office at home anyway. For two weeks bow it is WFH for both of us. Plus the kids at ho…

Just a couple days ago, I spoke with a patient rep for a medical practice in metro NYC. She was obviously working from home, with a young child yelling, and pressing buttons on the phone. And obviously tense. So I just said that I understood that she was working from home, and that everything was OK. And then everything was OK, and her child quieted down.

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

#99

Post by [deleted] »

Kaiyou wrote: post #94
avip wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not possible to give "actual attention to students over video". There really is no such thing. Remote teaching does not, can not, and should not work for young kids. It's not a university. (source: life)

It will work fine for all the INTPs and similar personality types. The rest is screwed.

[deleted]

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

#100

Post by Kaiyou »

api wrote: post #51
zxcmx wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our ancestors got their children working as soon as they were able. Farm work, piece work, factory work, whatever. Kind of frowned upon now.

It's not possible now. I'd say a good 80% of the work I do requires at least a year of intensive study and/or hands-on learning to even be capable of attempting and another 5-10 years to master. Nowadays someone needs a minimum of four years of college to be able to do anything. You can't start contributing to society until you're 20. Everything easy has been automated or outsourced.

Make it 5 years. If you start having the kid do it at six years old, he can be productive at eleven years old, can't he? Make it a slow kid and he'd still be productive at fourteen years old.

School and college is pretty much just to waste your time. None of the things you learn transfer well into work life.

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