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Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

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Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#211

Post by edw519 »

jkaptur wrote: post #173

Ask HN: do you make any distinction between "working from home" and "working from home during a pandemic"? I see a lot of people arguing that WFH is the new normal, citing long reopening timelines, their own preferences, increased productivity, Twitter's policy change, etc. But just a few years ago, IBM and Yahoo radically curtailed their WFH policies, and they made (what seemed to me to be) pretty credible arguments…

pretty credible arguments that the policies were being abused

Either you're getting your work done or you're not.

Any other way of measuring abuse is management malpractice.

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#212

Post by treespace89 »

jkaptur wrote: post #173

Ask HN: do you make any distinction between "working from home" and "working from home during a pandemic"? I see a lot of people arguing that WFH is the new normal, citing long reopening timelines, their own preferences, increased productivity, Twitter's policy change, etc. But just a few years ago, IBM and Yahoo radically curtailed their WFH policies, and they made (what seemed to me to be) pretty credible arguments…

I feel the change that has happened is that managers _had to_ figure out managing remote workers.

Before when remote work was not 'working' you could fall back to in person. That is not currently an option. So management has been forced to figure it out.

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#213

Post by chrisco255 »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #198
Loughla wrote: post #5

Meanwhile, my employer has said zero remote work once the state transitions into the next phase. They want to be "fair" to everyone, including those who have positions that cannot be performed remotely. So, you have a co-morbidity? Nope. You have no childcare suddenly? Nope. It's startling how stuck in the 1980's some people are. Just absolutely astonishing.

It's amazing how so many people/entities want to pretend that somehow the pandemic is less dangerous now than it was in March when we started all of the isolating/WFH. When in fact we have a lot more cases now, high levels of new cases and more than half the states have R0 > 1.0. https://rt.live/

Yes, but if you actually look at the death count, it has dropped in the past month and a half, despite re-openings: https://ga-covid19.ondemand.sas.com/ Georgia being one of the earliest states to re-open, continue to see their deaths plummet even as their case count increases. What's the reason for this? I don't know. Better testing, maybe. Maybe a less deadly version of the virus is propagating now. Not sure.

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#214

Post by klenwell »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #198
Loughla wrote: post #5

Meanwhile, my employer has said zero remote work once the state transitions into the next phase. They want to be "fair" to everyone, including those who have positions that cannot be performed remotely. So, you have a co-morbidity? Nope. You have no childcare suddenly? Nope. It's startling how stuck in the 1980's some people are. Just absolutely astonishing.

It's amazing how so many people/entities want to pretend that somehow the pandemic is less dangerous now than it was in March when we started all of the isolating/WFH. When in fact we have a lot more cases now, high levels of new cases and more than half the states have R0 > 1.0. https://rt.live/

This is the part that gets me, too. Here's a summary I put together of where the US stands on the latest "reopen" benchmarks:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQSSp19amBFU...

It varies region to region. I'm in Orange County, CA. (You may remember us from such recent news events as...)

This was Huntington Beach weekend before last (probably much the same this weekend, too):

https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusOC/comments/h9max3/ny_ti...

This was a photo posted to Reddit this past weekend:

https://www.reddit.com/r/orangecounty/comments/hczes1/pirozz...

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#215

Post by markkanof »

claudeganon wrote: post #87
moksly wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems insane. I work in digitalisation in Denmark, as a developer, so I can do everything from home. We’re running at 50% as our country is slowly coming back from a lockdown, but those 50% go to the people who actually need to be at the office, so I’m in no way a priority. I wonder what management will do with the COVID data though. Our productivity is through the roof, but they’ve just spent several hundred mill…

My partner’s company just had their most profitable quarter in company history, when everyone but some bare bones staff was working at home, and they’re still debating whether or not to bring everyone back into the office. At a certain point you have to recognize that it’s not about being safe or rational. It’s about bosses making sure they can hold power over employees.

What does your partner's company do? Is working from home directly and immediately attributable to the profits last quarter?

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#216

Post by spiznnx »

edw519 wrote: post #206
Loughla wrote: post #5

Meanwhile, my employer has said zero remote work once the state transitions into the next phase. They want to be "fair" to everyone, including those who have positions that cannot be performed remotely. So, you have a co-morbidity? Nope. You have no childcare suddenly? Nope. It's startling how stuck in the 1980's some people are. Just absolutely astonishing.

They want to be "fair" to everyone Where I work, discussing salaries is strictly forbidden and grounds for dismissal. I demanded an increase and was told, "No. It wouldn't be fair to the others." I asked, "How would they know?" (weWantToBeFair) = enterprise(iWontCumInYourMouth)

>discussing salaries is strictly forbidden and grounds for dismissal.

FYI, a strict ban on discussing salaries is illegal in the United States and in many parts of the world.

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#217

Post by rebuilder »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #72
nicoburns wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately it's not a realistic option for most people. If we're talking about "shoulds", then we should have a welfare state that covers these scenarios rather than putting the burden on individuals, many of whom will not have the means to implement it even if they wanted to.

I'm inclined to agree, but I do wonder how we avoid people just adjusting their risk threshold to account for the welfare state. I know it seems to work in other places, but I'm not convinced that what works in Scandinavia (or wherever) will work in the US. It seems like the US has a lot of other problems that it needs to sort out in order to be in the same ballpark as these model countries with respect to successful…

As I see it, the welfare state model has the benefit of moving towards maximizing the potential of each individual. If you have free education and a strong safety net, you can take a lot of risks in terms of career choice without even realizing it, and never be worse off for it.

The 'individual responsibility' model of states like the USA seems to be more based on blunt acceptance of the idea that someone needs to take out the trash and tend the lawns, and that gets too expensive if people have a choice in whether or not they want to do manual labour.

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#218

Post by xxpor »

edw519 wrote: post #206
Loughla wrote: post #5

Meanwhile, my employer has said zero remote work once the state transitions into the next phase. They want to be "fair" to everyone, including those who have positions that cannot be performed remotely. So, you have a co-morbidity? Nope. You have no childcare suddenly? Nope. It's startling how stuck in the 1980's some people are. Just absolutely astonishing.

They want to be "fair" to everyone Where I work, discussing salaries is strictly forbidden and grounds for dismissal. I demanded an increase and was told, "No. It wouldn't be fair to the others." I asked, "How would they know?" (weWantToBeFair) = enterprise(iWontCumInYourMouth)

That's an illegal policy (if you're in the US), FYI.

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#219

Post by klenwell »

chrisco255 wrote: post #213
UncleOxidant wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how so many people/entities want to pretend that somehow the pandemic is less dangerous now than it was in March when we started all of the isolating/WFH. When in fact we have a lot more cases now, high levels of new cases and more than half the states have R0 > 1.0. https://rt.live/

Yes, but if you actually look at the death count, it has dropped in the past month and a half, despite re-openings: https://ga-covid19.ondemand.sas.com/ Georgia being one of the earliest states to re-open, continue to see their deaths plummet even as their case count increases. What's the reason for this? I don't know. Better testing, maybe. Maybe a less deadly version of the virus is propagating now. Not sure.

I would posit a couple reasons:

1. Death is a lagging indicator. Based on new cases here, I'd predict an upswing shortly:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQSSp19amBFU...

2. Some reports indicate younger people are starting to get it more frequently. Data and common sense suggests they will have a higher survival rate. But this does not mean they will not suffer serious ongoing health and economic consequences as result. They also risk infecting others close to them.

Re: Most employees of NYT won’t be required back in physical offices until 2021

#220

Post by devalgo »

klenwell wrote: post #214
UncleOxidant wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how so many people/entities want to pretend that somehow the pandemic is less dangerous now than it was in March when we started all of the isolating/WFH. When in fact we have a lot more cases now, high levels of new cases and more than half the states have R0 > 1.0. https://rt.live/

This is the part that gets me, too. Here's a summary I put together of where the US stands on the latest "reopen" benchmarks: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQSSp19amBFU... It varies region to region. I'm in Orange County, CA. (You may remember us from such recent news events as...) This was Huntington Beach weekend before last (probably much the same this weekend, too): https://www.reddit.com/r/Coro…

It's definitely concerning how people are acting but that being said I think the initial research is showing that outdoor spread during the day is very unlikely. UV light seems to be devastating to Covid and Vitamin D seems to be protective. So a crowded beach is probably not all that bad. Packed bars and restaurants? That's a near worst case scenario
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