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Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

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Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#121

Post by louhike »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #95
robbyking wrote: post #18

I work for a pretty well-known tech company, and my hypothesis is that we'll switch to a mostly at-home work week, where most people WFH 3 or 4 days a week with one day of the week being designated as a "meeting day" where everyone is in the office. I don't think this will happen because of people are worried about virus transmission, but instead because most people like working from home and we've proven we can be j…

I am having a very hard time staying motivated in the current context. Kids at home yelling at each other, other coworkers distracted, work tasks badly defined without the ability to verbally hash things out, emotional / mental health stress due to the current scenario. I don't feel like the current scenario is indicative of a well structured WFH setup, even though we've been doing it for 2 months now. In short I hop…

Yes, it is not representative at all. It's a stressful period, kids are always at home as schools are closed, the lockdown requires more organisation than usual in everyday life and there are less options to relieve stress.

We still manage to work with the same productivity in my company but we already had some experience with WFH.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#122

Post by dfxm12 »

caseyw wrote: post #26

I’ve worked from home for a number of years. It’s all about having a normal schedule. My family knows when I’m in the office, I am at work. There isn’t anyone popping over my shoulder, and general interruptions are almost nil in my case. I think a lot of people are going to be super surprised what a quiet room and your playlist of choice can do to increase productivity. Just my 2 cents.

Yeah, I think many people don't realize that working from home during a pandemic is not a normal work from home experience. Normally, that someone popping over your shoulder would be at work, school, day care or otherwise outside playing during most of the working day. A lot of people working from home today are responsible for a lot more than their work, which is distracting in and of itself.

Outside of all that, it comes down to self-discipline.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#123

Post by jariel »

jeffbee wrote: post #39
dumbfoundded wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collaboration tools are already pretty solid. What else do you really need other than a remote desktop + video conferencing? I think the biggest use case will be helping recreate the virtual water cooler.

Why do I need either of those things? If I'm going to work from home permanently then whatever computers I need can come with me. Face-to-face meetings are a justification for middle management to exist; remote work due to pandemic is going to lay bare the stupidity of managers and their ranks will be greatly reduced. I predict that the written word is going to make a big comeback.

"Face-to-face meetings are a justification for middle management to exist; "

Communicating is 1/2 of business; it's really odd that so many people have difficulty with this.

I think because as Engineers, we measure value in 'code' then we tend to diminish all the other aspects of the business or process.

Meetings can obviously be a waste but they are also critically important.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#124

Post by exolymph »

rb808 wrote: post #119

Any reason why they would continue to hire American Developers? Our shops in Moscow and Bangalore probably have better developers than our US office at <10% of the salary.

> Our shops in Moscow and Bangalore probably have better developers than our US office at Easy answer: No they don't. Foreigners do not funge for Americans for myriad reasons (cultural). Offshoring won't replace USA teams just like it hasn't for the past several decades.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#127

Post by ravenstine »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #55
Ididntdothis wrote: post #9

It would be good if more tech companies embraced this. I bet if they need tools for themselves we’ll see a lot of progress in remote collaboration tools. To make this work I wonder how executives will adapt. In my company the higher you go up the chain, the more they want face to face communication. I guess most top executives are people persons so not seeing things like body language or using body language takes awa…

Maybe, but it would also be good if more (tech) companies offered a decent working environment. That's coming from personal experience btw, where most jobs / assignments I've had, it was usually open plan, flexible seat arrangements. I have a new job now where I have a fixed desk with a set of drawers. It's a breath of fresh air and honestly it sounds so stupid and trivial. But employers don't have their employees' b…

I'm an ardent supporter of remote work, and I wouldn't go back to non-remote work without a hefty pay raise, but I think I probably would have considered office jobs during my last search if the offices I'd worked in previously had actually been pleasant.

Open office plans, low cubicle walls, cubicle sharing, frequent noise and disrespect of focus, flimsy banged up office chairs and equipment, no budget for standing desks, the lack of real employee lounges and couches to both work and chill out at, strict clocking in and out, and insufficient meeting space are chasing away good employees, especially now that we're all forced to work remotely. More people won't be willing to go back if they can help it.

Notice I mentioned nothing about free snacks, foosball tables, beer on tap, etc. I'd trade all of that for some semblance of serenity in the office.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#128

Post by sneak »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #9

It would be good if more tech companies embraced this. I bet if they need tools for themselves we’ll see a lot of progress in remote collaboration tools. To make this work I wonder how executives will adapt. In my company the higher you go up the chain, the more they want face to face communication. I guess most top executives are people persons so not seeing things like body language or using body language takes awa…

I've always wondered if that was a side effect of them being slow/bad at typing. Higher ups usually don't end up having to type a lot themselves, and many are bad at it.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#129

Post by redisman »

fermienrico wrote: post #85

Then why pay $200k for a software engineer in the valley when the same talent can live outside of the bay area and can do with 1/3rd of the salary? The question I have is what portion of the $200k salary is 1) due to the raw talent of the individual 2) because they live in the bay area.

Isn't this a win-win-win though? Salaries become more normalized across the country so people can work from where they choose, SF rents will go down as techies start streaming out of the Bay Area, hiring pools for companies become inclusive of people who don't want to move to the Bay Area (or the other 2-3 tech cities). The rest of the country also certainly doesn't pay 1/3rd of your salary.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#130

Post by LanceJones »

2bitencryption wrote: post #114

It's odd how HN does not reflect the reality I see. I'm at a big (Google/Microsoft/Amazon) workplace and WFH has always been a last-resort thing. I can't even imagine my team moving toward this. Every day I do too many things in the office that are face-to-face. Drop by the architect to get an opinion about XYZ, drop by a PM to ask about their functional spec, drop by a coworker to ask about some comments they left o…

I wonder how those other folks feel about their own productivity with teammates always "dropping by". :-)
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