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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

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "chit chat" is a basic part of human interaction. Even for remote companies it still happens.

100%. Not only does strengthening social bonds with your coworkers make work more enjoyable it also makes the work product better. People that have the mentality like they're just a robot cranking out work units do worse work and they make their teammates worse. In many teams a moderately skilled engineer with very high social IQ is worth a lot more than another technically talented engineer with poor social IQ.

Sure if you work in an office culture dominated by politics.

My ability to feign interest in your baby pictures does not in any way indicate my ability to deliver a sprint task.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#472
post #467

For me too many companies use the "family" aspect of things too much. No, we're not a family. My family would let me sleep on their couch if I got fired or lost my home. Does the company plan to let me live in the office if they let me go? Are we still doing Thanksgiving? What about a family tree, whos going to keep that up after I die? But seriously, after seeing some nasty employee outcomes over a few jobs it kind…

"We are a family" is bullshit. You need to be a pretty egregious repeat offender to be ostracized from a real family. A company can fire you on a whim, simply because someone with a business degree sorted a spreadsheet with salaries in descending order, and you were in the top 20. The more correct analogy is a sports team. Everyone works well together to win the medal, but it's much more pragmatic in that sense. Perh…

I like the sports team analogy. The biggest gripe I have with some people is the "you are not my friend and will never be my friend" attitude because they have a strict work/life separation. It would be nice if more people instead thought of work like a sports team where the working together aspect could disappear overnight, but we're still friends.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#473

I think if you work with a brilliant group of coworkers that you love to hangout out with, then you are lucky and I can see how you miss being in the office. But, thats not the case for many of us. The crux of work relationships is that they are not voluntary. You might get lucky and have ones you love, or you might get some that are distracting, or at worse, you dislike. Either way though you are stuck with them. I…

The current psychological consensus is that critical thing (one of three IIRC) to build friendships are repeated regular meetings/gatherings with (group of) people, forced by some external factor (school, gym, military, office, etc).

WFH will strip 'friendship creation factor' from work. Definitely not to zero, but it will in effect reduce fun from work because 'working with friends' will be less often (unless you start work with people you're already friend).

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#474

I think if you work with a brilliant group of coworkers that you love to hangout out with, then you are lucky and I can see how you miss being in the office. But, thats not the case for many of us. The crux of work relationships is that they are not voluntary. You might get lucky and have ones you love, or you might get some that are distracting, or at worse, you dislike. Either way though you are stuck with them. I…

Yeah but you still work at least 8 hours with those people. Every time you need someone to review a pull request, split work or bugs, collaborate, all those minutes you mingled or not matter

Why do those interactions matter? Surely the time you work together matter but why do I need to know where you took your vacation to provide useful code review comments? How is that relevant?

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#475

I think if you work with a brilliant group of coworkers that you love to hangout out with, then you are lucky and I can see how you miss being in the office. But, thats not the case for many of us. The crux of work relationships is that they are not voluntary. You might get lucky and have ones you love, or you might get some that are distracting, or at worse, you dislike. Either way though you are stuck with them. I…

Building real life social clubs is a clear startup opportunity with this trend. Massive growth potential and you can see it coming.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#478

I think if you work with a brilliant group of coworkers that you love to hangout out with, then you are lucky and I can see how you miss being in the office. But, thats not the case for many of us. The crux of work relationships is that they are not voluntary. You might get lucky and have ones you love, or you might get some that are distracting, or at worse, you dislike. Either way though you are stuck with them. I…

We are family, because we spend weekends and Thanksgiving together.

[I think it's from From Better off Ted]

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#479
post #137

I work at a large tech company on a young team (average age is late twenties). In my experience many don't view working from home regularly as a benefit. I understand that must change drastically when you're middle aged, have a family to live around and a spacious house in the suburbs. But most younger people want to live in the middle of the city (i.e. small, often shared apartments but a short commute) and have no…

If I could keep my current compensation and move to the low cost of living area where my family is located, I would reach financial independence 10-15 years ahead of my current trajectory with Bay Area rents/costs. I'll settle for the minor inconveniences of WFH any day in order to get a decade of my life to spend with family or to work on my own projects.

I want to live in a city with an abundance of arts organizations; but it does seem a bit odd to live in a place that has those things, but can't be accessed.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#480

I think if you work with a brilliant group of coworkers that you love to hangout out with, then you are lucky and I can see how you miss being in the office. But, thats not the case for many of us. The crux of work relationships is that they are not voluntary. You might get lucky and have ones you love, or you might get some that are distracting, or at worse, you dislike. Either way though you are stuck with them. I…

According to The Paradox of Choice[1], more freedom doesn't necessarily lead to more happiness. Without choice, people can grow on each other. With friends, we move on if it becomes difficult. With coworkers we have an opportunity for personal growth. In a way, coworkers are more like family than friends. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice

I think this is the reason people's closest friends often come from school. It's so easy in adult life to avoid the difficult work of connecting with people who you don't immediately click with, and it seems like many people take this easy choice once they're out of the mandatory school environment. This is a problem I struggle with even in the office, and I'm beginning to realize how much worse it can be when working remotely.
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