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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

#921

Post by Niccizero »

the_greyd wrote: post #915
matwood wrote: post #829

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really miss being in the office with my coworkers and friends. Are you young, single, and live in an apartment? I have noticed a divide along those lines with WFH. As an older, married person, living in a house with a yard, I haven't worked in an office for any length of time for last 10 years. None of my close friends are related to work. I like having lunch with my wife and going out back with the dogs when I n…

Speaking as a young, single and lives in an apartment person. As an introvert I've often relied on being present among people to kind of substitute for my social life. With that not being present, it really puts focus on the presence or lack of social network. I'm actually grateful in a way that it has forced me to reach out to people in my network, that I otherwise wouldn't have..

I might be some kind of extreme introvert, because I don't miss people in my office at all. In fact it feels like a relief, for professional reasons I've had to be more outgoing that I'd like to and that feels extremely tiring after a while.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#922

Post by fortylove »

massysett wrote: post #641
dddbbb wrote: 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…

I am middle aged, have a family to be around, and a long commute (60 mins morning, 40 mins evening). I have a spacious house and room for a separate office. Yet even I do not like work from home. I don’t like assigning space in my home for my employer’s use. I don’t like having work in my house. It’s probably actually more bearable due to current circumstance-I watch my daughter in mornings, and my wife is here too.…

Presumably, your employer could provide a stipend to you for WFH space. Perhaps that would cost them less than a seat for you in a building in a city.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#923

Post by flurdy »

wonderwonder wrote: post #854
jjjensen90 wrote: post #781

I always thought I enjoyed remote work as an engineer/architect, I did it for 6 months by my own volition before coming back. I am extremely unhappy. I really miss being in the office with my coworkers and friends. I've struggled deeply with overwhelming sadness at the idea of not going back anytime soon. My work has suffered from a lack of dynamic interactions. I get lots of focus time, just like I did at the office…

I have worked from home for the last couple of years. Prior to the Covid shutdown, I had generally enjoyed it. Once my children's school closed and my wife's work switched to work from home, my productivity has plummeted. I find it impossible to focus as every 10 minutes I have a young child running into my office, or have to listen to them yelling at each other (as all kids do). My wife has had a hard time adjusting…

I work from home and since about February my productivity nose-dived. It suffered before they closed the schools because of worry and constant news checking, etc. Then when the schools closed here in March I have been near useless. I have started to claw back some routines and some short spells of focused work lately but as the main carer for the kids, I have constant homeschooling, cooking, peace-making, MacGuyvering, Wikipediaing, Joe Wicksing to do for them. Closing my home office door last about on average 3 minutes, probably.

The other problem is the confusion of what day it is and that since I got not much work done during the weekdays I also work at the weekend, which before was a complete no-no. Over the long term, this lack of time off for them and me probably is not good.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#924

Post by kgin »

safog wrote: post #822
badpun wrote: post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I can see how FAANGs would be reluctant to adopt remote work. While it can be a fine solution in your run of the mill software team doing boring web or backend work, FAANGs are all about innovation and, often, very technically complex products. The f2f interactions could really foster creativity there (just imagine scientists trying to work out the Manhattan project remotely over Teams...).

I think you're over estimating the complexity of what FAANG engineers work on :) As the saying goes, we spend our lives converting one proto into another.

Seems like it would be more useful for design/ux/product to be in a room. Trying to whiteboard online is painful.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#925

Post by flurdy »

jjjensen90 wrote: post #781

I always thought I enjoyed remote work as an engineer/architect, I did it for 6 months by my own volition before coming back. I am extremely unhappy. I really miss being in the office with my coworkers and friends. I've struggled deeply with overwhelming sadness at the idea of not going back anytime soon. My work has suffered from a lack of dynamic interactions. I get lots of focus time, just like I did at the office…

I love the flexibility of WFH but worry about people's mental health in the long term if too many did it too much for too long. (Once the pandemic is over)

I ranted about this today [1]. For many the separation of home and office is healthy. Different people, different social interactions, etc.

And for many, an office is where they make new friends, meet their partner etc.

[1] https://twitter.com/flurdy/status/1260602214038593536

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#926

Post by SystemOut »

mundo wrote: post #909
wonderwonder wrote: post #854

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worked from home for the last couple of years. Prior to the Covid shutdown, I had generally enjoyed it. Once my children's school closed and my wife's work switched to work from home, my productivity has plummeted. I find it impossible to focus as every 10 minutes I have a young child running into my office, or have to listen to them yelling at each other (as all kids do). My wife has had a hard time adjusting…

My company (large-ish un-sexy software company you've never heard of) gave the software managers clear direction on this: "It's not realistic for people with school-aged children to be fully productive right now. Do not demand they take PTO or ask them to work at night. If they can only work five hours a day, that's what they can do." I suspect it's unusual that my boss actually said that out loud, but I hope everyon…

We might work at the same company!

I lead one of our teams and that's pretty much the explicit directions my VP gave us. Actually, the entire leadership team gave those directions. It's made me glad I switched jobs 18 months ago.

Somehow I'm the only one on our team with kids but some of my team has had a difficult time managing the change from an emotional standpoint and I just treat it the same way. I don't expect them to somehow magically "power through it". They're normally very productive and I know this will pass.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#928

Post by mattmillr »

austincheney wrote: post #850
matwood wrote: post #829

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really miss being in the office with my coworkers and friends. Are you young, single, and live in an apartment? I have noticed a divide along those lines with WFH. As an older, married person, living in a house with a yard, I haven't worked in an office for any length of time for last 10 years. None of my close friends are related to work. I like having lunch with my wife and going out back with the dogs when I n…

Age of children is also factor. I suspect people enjoy the escape an office provides when they have toddlers. I really enjoy having lunch with my teenage kids everyday thanks to Covid. Working from home has been a blessing.

My kids are 1 and 3, going to work at the office was definitely the easier part of my day before WFH started! I consider it a good week now if I'm mostly attentive in all the meetings I have and get a modicum of actual work done.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#929

Post by senderista »

wonderwonder wrote: post #854
jjjensen90 wrote: post #781

I always thought I enjoyed remote work as an engineer/architect, I did it for 6 months by my own volition before coming back. I am extremely unhappy. I really miss being in the office with my coworkers and friends. I've struggled deeply with overwhelming sadness at the idea of not going back anytime soon. My work has suffered from a lack of dynamic interactions. I get lots of focus time, just like I did at the office…

I have worked from home for the last couple of years. Prior to the Covid shutdown, I had generally enjoyed it. Once my children's school closed and my wife's work switched to work from home, my productivity has plummeted. I find it impossible to focus as every 10 minutes I have a young child running into my office, or have to listen to them yelling at each other (as all kids do). My wife has had a hard time adjusting…

You simply can't WFH with young children at home and no full-time caretaker. My wife and I tried alternating 6-hour shifts of work and childcare, 6 days/week, and finally gave up and hired a nanny.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#930

Post by senderista »

johnward wrote: post #852
jjjensen90 wrote: post #781

I always thought I enjoyed remote work as an engineer/architect, I did it for 6 months by my own volition before coming back. I am extremely unhappy. I really miss being in the office with my coworkers and friends. I've struggled deeply with overwhelming sadness at the idea of not going back anytime soon. My work has suffered from a lack of dynamic interactions. I get lots of focus time, just like I did at the office…

I'm the opposite. I think it's just a personality trait. I'm more introverted and socially anxious so I feel much more comfortable at home by myself. I've been remote for 8 years now and I hope I never have to go back to an office.

I'm an extreme introvert and I've found WFH to be very challenging. Part of the problem is that the engineering team at my startup is still figuring out what to build and design sessions over Zoom feel incredibly frustrating and unproductive compared to a shared office with a whiteboard.
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