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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

#961

Post by flippinburgers »

isatty wrote: post #952
kelnos wrote: post #951

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As counterpoint, I love working from home. Pre-COVID I'd usually work from home 4-5 days a week. My focus at home is always way better than in the office (though a noisy open-plan office and a culture of interruptions is a factor as well). One nice benefit around focus is that when I'm having trouble focusing at home, I don't feel as guilty (or try to cover it with make-work) as I do when I'm at the office in the sam…

There are only 5 days a week anyway - so you used to be a remote worker pre covid. This is not a counter point.

The original discussion is about whether or not remote work is enjoyable. I too find it enjoyable and have done it, generally, for about 4-5 days a week for years now.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#962

Post by [deleted] »

SystemOut wrote: post #926
mundo wrote: post #909

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#963

Post by [deleted] »

zumachase wrote: post #931
mundo wrote: post #909

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One of the reasons we built Squawk, a push-to-talk group chat platform, was for this very reason. Many of our team have young kids at home, and current chat tools require too much work to ensure you're muted and not spamming your background noise all over the place. Might be worth a click - https://www.squawk.to

[deleted]

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#964

Post by arsenico »

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…

This is really interesting, and rings a lot of bells for myself as well. Are you in the US?

I think it is time for a lot of people for a relocation to somewhere with better-larger living arrangements, and better access to childcare (private or public).

And it also should give rise to gig economy around private tutors/babysitters/nannys - which is very useful, and actually could be fun for a lot of people.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#965

Post by itsspring »

harpratap wrote: post #832
I_AM_A_SMURF wrote: post #777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been fully remote for about 2 years. My personal experience is that collaboration is way easier when being remote. When I need to talk to a team i just drop a line in their slack room and I usually get an answer within minutes. So much easier than walking down the hallway and hoping that someone is in the team office area (not to mention no social awkwardness involved). Also when most people are remote in your…

What do you do about folks who's first language isn't English? Face to face communication is somewhat doable because body language helps to convey the real message but communicating over text is a completely different ball game. So much nuance gets lost

It works better in my opinion. My ESL friends can re-read the words and use a dictionary. They don’t miss things if the conversation is too fast. And you can still video/audio chat if you want. It is the best of both worlds

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#966

Post by partyboat1586 »

obvthrowaway2 wrote: post #950
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 don't mean anything against you personally but I am strongly disapprove of people who socialize excessively at work. It is distracting, annoying, and worst of all passive-aggressive because you can't stop someone from socializing with you without making yourself seem unchill, throwing your career in the trash. You also can't take a break from socialization or else you make yourself a target. In sum, the social aspe…

I work at an agency where this is understood. It's headphones on all day. Socialising happens at lunch and if you don't want to join in you can have your lunch early or late. Socialising also happens after work and you can go home if you don't want to join in.

Part of the reason this happens is because every task is estimated and timed. Over time the estimates have become fairly accurate so you can't get away with dossing the whole day.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#967

Post by kuu »

ci5er wrote: post #935
kuu wrote: post #807

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not just working from home, we're working from home while there is a pandemic

I keep reading your comment because it seems intense and sincere, and ... I don't know what you mean. What's the difference? I mean, like being under rubble in Battery Park after 9-11, waiting 3 days for the people to dig you out as your batteries die is stressful, but that's not really the same as hiding from a virus that won't kill you, is it? EDIT: Re-reading my comment, that 2nd paragraph sounds snarky. It wasn't…

The difference, at least for me, it's that I'm more worried for several other things than work and I cannot be as productive as I was before.

Also some people have kids at home because schools are closed; my SO for instance is also at home, while usually she's not, and the apartment is not bigger now that we're two; sometimes I need to go to the grocery at specific time because otherwise is crowded...

And even worse, as other comment mentioned, some people would have sick family and / or friends.

There are many things that make this situation different than a "regular day working from home".

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#968

Post by andybak »

kelnos wrote: post #951
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…

As counterpoint, I love working from home. Pre-COVID I'd usually work from home 4-5 days a week. My focus at home is always way better than in the office (though a noisy open-plan office and a culture of interruptions is a factor as well). One nice benefit around focus is that when I'm having trouble focusing at home, I don't feel as guilty (or try to cover it with make-work) as I do when I'm at the office in the sam…

I'd like to say that I'm enjoying it too. If my coworking space was open I'd feel compelling to go because otherwise I'd miss out on interesting conversations and connections.

But with FOMA out of the way - I'm happy as larry staying in and having those same conversations selectively and remotely.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#969

Post by cameronbrown »

devnullbyte wrote: post #824
cameronbrown wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I enjoy this argument. Why is getting distracted by a friendly face so bad?

Nothing wrong with a friendly face, its more that it can throw you out of your flow, especially when trying to debug some code. This describes it best: https://heeris.id.au/trinkets/ProgrammerInterrupted.png This for me is why WFH suits me so well. In my morning I get around 4 hours of pure uninterrupted coding (as long as I stay off here or reddit).

Nice comic! I think I face this trouble less because I document everything extensively. It costs a bit of time, but every bug I investigate will have notes on my notepad/a google doc to go along with.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#970

Post by winter_blue »

acituan wrote: post #891
bun_at_work wrote: post #843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious - you seem to be saying that FAANG companies can't find enough employees, but your support for the point is that Google hired a significant amount of H1B workers. However, I've read/seen that many H1B workers work for significantly less, and under more pressure, because they are trying to become citizens in the US. Is it possible that the reason for FAANG companies hiring so many H1B workers isn't due to…

My main point was, a globally distributed labor pool is already accessible to FAANG and is being utilized despite higher transition costs both for the employer and the employee. The H1B hires for FAANG is the global top talent for which companies compete for, hence an upward pressure for compensation, not downward. In fact you can check the H1B salary information yourself from the website I linked, to see that salari…

It is actually very difficult to get an initial H-1B worker, since the worker has to get selected in a lottery, and the company has to wait 7 months.[1] The odds of getting picked in the H1B lottery is around 32% as of 2020. The 7-month wait time itself massively disincentivizes employers from hiring non-US workers. The end result is that most of H1B sponsorships go to people already in the US on a student visa who are working for the company using a status called "F-1 OPT". It's quite difficult to get hired from abroad. Many larger companies still do it, and are willing to wait 7 months, but the wait 7-month time and uncertain nature of the lottery are significant factors that discourage companies from hiring non-US workers.

For out-of-US hires, Facebook will actually get you a Canadian work visa, and have you work in Canada for the 7 month wait, and potentially for year if you don't get picked in the lottery. The strategy for multiple large firms is to bring non-US workers to Canada first, and then try to move them over to the US, since US immigration law is extraordinarily restrictive compared to most countries.

[1] The company applies for the worker in March of the year, and if the individual is picked in the lottery, they get to start working for them in October.

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