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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

#381

Post by ordinaryperson »

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #315
ordinaryperson wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not have kids and do not love WFH during lockdown. Simple things that would be a 30-second conversation in the office are now 30-minute Zoom meetings. Slack noise -- already a distractor to begin with -- has gone up 10x. If I have X hours at home or in the office I know exactly what limited amount of time I have to accomplish a task and can more easily allocate chunks of that time to specific needs. In lockdown…

>I have no doubt that some people's personalities prefer this style of interaction I think its more that other workplaces do not have this kind of interaction. I have found that a 30 second conversation might take a 1 minute call now but certainly a 30 minute call sounds absurd. For me time has stayed the same. I start and finish at the same time and I go for lunch for the same time as I did before. I don't have work…

> a 30 second conversation might take a 1 minute call now but certainly a 30 minute call sounds absurd.

It is absurd, but people do it. People are always late to meetings. Then 5 minutes of kibbutzing since many have recommended personal chit chat as a way to connect during lockdown. Then there are people who just want to hear themselves talk. It happens.

In a normal office you could streamline some of these but in lockdown you can't.

It's great that you don't have this experience. Consider yourself lucky. But I was responding to the generalization that people who don't have kids "love" WFH. I do not have kids, do not love WFH, and anecdotally from my professional circle my experience is not that uncommon.

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

#382

Post by aronpye »

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.

If you can, get another job. Don’t work for that kind of company. If you can’t leave or demand better working conditions then you’re virtually a slave.

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

#383

Post by ByteJockey »

Klinky wrote: post #361
ByteJockey wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't it watered down (specifically the public option being removed) to get Lieberman's vote? Why would they try to appease people who weren't going to vote for it?

Why? Naivety. He wanted it to be bipartisan. This is about as in the middle as you can get, and it wasn't good enough. It wasn't just watered down for the blue dogs or Lieberman. The article below goes into more detail. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/08/01/set-health...

I mean, ok. But, if Lieberman (the 60th vote) was willing to vote for something farther left (hypothetically), why not remove that stuff once you realize it won't get republican votes?

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

#384

Post by throwaway894345 »

rebuilder wrote: post #217
throwaway894345 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ta…

It’s not a scheme to make anyone do anything. Notably most Americans take out their own trash and tend their own lawns. It’s more to do with individualism and independence (quite the opposite of a scheme to force people to do manual labor)—the belief that the government has no right to take your money and redistribute it to others. That’s the philosophy, anyway.

In my view this hasn’t held up well in practice and we need to move toward a more socialized society, but we also need to reform our government agencies so they are competent to perform these social services.

Lastly I’ll say that manual labor isn’t stigmatized in the US as it is in the UK and other parts of the commonwealth). People are pretty proud of their humble roots (I’m from a working class family and I would never think to be embarrassed of that in most parts of the US). Further, many skilled labor jobs in the US pay comparably to engineering jobs in the UK. The highest figure I found for average software engineering salary in the UK is 48000 GBP which comes out to $60K, which is the average salary for a plumber (https://www.salary.com/research/salary/benchmark/plumber-sal...) or an electrician (https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/electrician/salar...) in the US. The average salary for a general contractor is $90K (https://www.indeed.com/career/general-contractor/salaries). For an HVAC repair technician, $70K (https://www1.salary.com/HVAC-Salary.html). Arguably these positions won’t have the same quality of health insurance and they’ll be working ~10% more than our UK SWE, but they’re not making bad money by UK standards even after adjusting for healthcare and hours worked, and they’re making great money by UK standards when you factor in cost of living differences.

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

#385

Post by throwaway894345 »

Klinky wrote: post #364
throwaway894345 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know man. I don’t see how we’re going to go anywhere if we’re determined to only see the worst qualities in our opposition. Notably contrary to your point, lots of conservatives are Never Trumpers and are very unhappy about the populist turn things have taken. Anyway, if you’re interested in minimizing racism, “the middle” is where we should be. The poles are obsessed with their racial hierarchies. Moderates…

I have a hard time finding a middle ground that would have it be acceptable for people of color to be considered lesser, but this has been the status quo for decades after the civil rights act. There is no moderate position to take on the matter of racism, no meeting in the middle with those who want to uphold racist institutions or systems. Moderate behavior comes off as weak tea inaction in order to restore an unsa…

I think you’re mistaken. The moderate position minimizes for racism; moderate doesn’t mean “status quo” or “50% racism” or whatever you seem to think it means. Like everyone, moderates don’t know how to fix the cycles of poverty and violence in inner city communities that lead to disparate outcomes, but that doesn’t mean they are unwilling (note that there is broad support across the spectrum for police reform). And progressives haven’t articulated any policies apart from “abolish the police” (which is flatly rejected by 70% of black Americans)—otherwise they just kind of shout about “dismantling whiteness/white supremacy/systemic racism/systems of oppression/capitalism” but they can’t seem to define any of those terms concretely or coherently much less articulate policies. So it’s not like progressives are actually going to do anything about racism that moderates wouldn’t; the difference in my mind is that in their effort to eliminate racism they would succeed only in creating a hyper-racial society that doesn’t value free speech, due process, equality, or other human rights (not to mention widespread economic damage from “dismantling capitalism”).

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

#386

Post by Loughla »

WalterBright wrote: post #376
delusional wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the execs of the bank I work at made a public statement that they actually saw the productive output of the IT organization shoot up during the WFH weeks here in Denmark. But of course middle management didn't agree so now we are back in the office.

> the productive output of the IT organization shoot up during the WFH weeks Should be careful about projecting that to the long term. During WW2, to increase production, the workweek was increased to 50 hours. Production went up substantially. But after 2 or 3 months, productivity dropped back below the 40 hour week. With subsequent experimentation, they found they could get sustained production increases by alterna…

The issue is, all of your 4 points can be overcome with just one intervention - communication.

WFH relies on communication, in multiple modes, more times a day than working in an office. Failure to do that will lead to issues.

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

#387

Post by UncleOxidant »

atoav wrote: post #378
treis wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a result, it will appear from this graph that deaths are always declining whether they are or not Most deaths are reported relatively quickly. If there were, as an example, a 2x increase in deaths it would show on the graph within a few days. It would show as something like a 1.8x increase before trickling up to the full 2x over the following weeks.

Yeah, but the problem is the combination of these points: * A certain percentage of infections lead to death * Death usually only occurs one or two weeks in * Pandemics follow a logistic curve in their spread (and this curve has an exponential part) * Most infectious transmissions happen before one gets symptoms (otherwise staying at home once you cough would solve everything) This is why a sudden rise in deaths woul…

And probably more like 2 to 3 weeks ago.

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

#388

Post by Klinky »

ByteJockey wrote: post #383
Klinky wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Naivety. He wanted it to be bipartisan. This is about as in the middle as you can get, and it wasn't good enough. It wasn't just watered down for the blue dogs or Lieberman. The article below goes into more detail. https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/08/01/set-health...

I mean, ok. But, if Lieberman (the 60th vote) was willing to vote for something farther left (hypothetically), why not remove that stuff once you realize it won't get republican votes?

I'll agree that Lieberman played a large role in the death of the public option. That said it was eleventh hour and further changes to the bill would require more time to rectify, and Republicans were still involved down to the wire, even if they didn't vote for it.

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

#389

Post by Klinky »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #385
Klinky wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time finding a middle ground that would have it be acceptable for people of color to be considered lesser, but this has been the status quo for decades after the civil rights act. There is no moderate position to take on the matter of racism, no meeting in the middle with those who want to uphold racist institutions or systems. Moderate behavior comes off as weak tea inaction in order to restore an unsa…

I think you’re mistaken. The moderate position minimizes for racism; moderate doesn’t mean “status quo” or “50% racism” or whatever you seem to think it means. Like everyone, moderates don’t know how to fix the cycles of poverty and violence in inner city communities that lead to disparate outcomes, but that doesn’t mean they are unwilling (note that there is broad support across the spectrum for police reform). And…

Police are being charged with murder for things that would likely have been covered up and swept under the rug previously. Confederate monuments and those paying tribute to slavery and/or colonialism have been torn down from public display. Racist mascots are being retired. Conversations around hostile work environments and pay gap for POC are happening and being aired in the open. Why hasn't moderate action been effective enough to even get that done? It seems a few weeks of unrest has done more than decades of tepidness.

Treat people as equals doesn't exactly need a list of demands, but the discrimination has become so ingrained that some need it spelled out for them.

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

#390

Post by ta17711771 »

rubidium wrote: post #333
op00to wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were in an enclosed area. Your risk of contracting Covid is astronomically higher indoors at a place where you remain for more than a few minutes.

Where you remain for 15 minutes or more with 20 or more people.

Where you remain long enough for one person who is carrying to breathe enough viral load into your airspace.
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