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The social and economic costs borne by young people without offices

theatlantic.com

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Re: The social and economic costs borne by young people without offices

#101

Post by visarga »

supernova87a wrote: post #5

WFH has a huge difference in result depending on who you are, when you are (in your career), and where you are in a company (of organization). -- For the budding young developer who can't wait to show ideas to teammates and demonstrate being a go-getter by asking random questions and finding unaddressed issues to innovate on, WFH might be terrible. You're going to schedule time to fortuitously run into the senior per…

Another thing that got wiped out is the distinction between companies that have nice offices and those that don't. Some companies invested a lot in the workspace and now they are back on the same line with everyone else.

Re: The social and economic costs borne by young people without offices

#102

Post by cvhashim »

benrbray wrote: post #9

As a recent graduate with an overseas job offer who has been left with no choice but to work remotely until Japan re-opens its borders to foreign workers, this really hits home. My student apartment is not equipped for this lifestyle. I do not have a home office in a sprawling estate in the suburbs on several acres of property where I can enjoy the sounds of nature. I live in a small apartment on a busy street surrou…

Nice what are you doing out there in Japan. I’ve had interest in just packing up my life and moving off to a foreign country but I’m unsure how to find a job abroad (currently in the US). I’ve thought about starting a consulting shop and doing remote gigs.

Re: The social and economic costs borne by young people without offices

#103

Post by visarga »

frompdx wrote: post #2

This article appears in the October 2020 print edition with the headline “A Cubicle Never Looked So Good.” To be honest, I've never really had a cubicle. Usually just a desk in a bullpin type arrangement. No privacy. Distractions galore. The sound of co-workers flushing the toilets in the restrooms nearby. Nothing to reflect fondly upon in my opinion. If I had wanted or needed a new job, completely changing careers w…

>I really don't understand why these keep cropping up.

But you gave the answer yourself - you're different, other people are unlike you:

> Who knows, maybe I was born for remote work.

Me too, but my wife suffers from it, she dreams about the day when we're going to return to the office. I'm just starting to miss the office, it's been easier on me.

Re: The social and economic costs borne by young people without offices

#104

Post by kelnos »

jankotek wrote: post #72
ianhowson wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. - Small children don't really understand "mummy's working, talk to me instead." Interruptions are death to productivity. Children can't interrupt you if you're not present. - Most daycares are closed or at reduced capacity. - Nanny services are harder to find and come with risks. - Time at the office is time resting from the kids, and time at home is resting from the office. If it's all one place, there is no re…

But daycare closed is a different problem. If childcare would be closed, and you still had to commute to office... WFH saved you in this case.

Sure, but childcare being closed and the requirement to work from home are being caused by the same thing this time. Childcare being closed in regular times is a rare occurrence; while it's annoying, people manage to work around it. Yes, that can be stressful, but it's just for one day out of however many. Right now it's every day.

If childcare was running at normal capacity but parents were still working from home, they'd be a lot more productive and less stressed out.

Re: The social and economic costs borne by young people without offices

#105

Post by kelnos »

frompdx wrote: post #52
benrbray wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if there's evidence that the author is not really who they say they are, by all means go ahead and point it out. However, you just seem to be making vague accusations about some grand conspiracy by corporate real estate developers, rather than addressing the article's very legitimate points. As a young person working remotely, everything the author says reflects my own experience. It is very much a fact that re…

Sure, if there's evidence that the author is not really who they say they are, by all means go ahead and point it out. However, you just seem to be making vague accusations about some grand conspiracy by corporate real estate developers, rather than addressing the article's very legitimate points. I think all of your points are completely fair so I don't want you to feel that I am being obtuse or overly pedantic. You…

> Remote work is hurting facebook's advertising revenue because small business are dying off.

Do you actually know the breakdown of Facebook's advertising revenue by company type? I would expect that small business is not their bread and butter, and with the current status of everything in the world, other businesses would pick up the slack. And FB's usage stats are probably through the roof with people unable to socialize in person.

I think it's a bit weird to assume that FB would be attempting to promote "hit pieces" on remote work. In fact, I bet FB itself stands to save a lot of money by closing down or reducing in size many of its offices and transitioning a lot of its employees to permanent or semi-permanent remote work even after the pandemic has passed.

I feel like you've let your imagination get away from you here.

Re: The social and economic costs borne by young people without offices

#106

Post by [deleted] »

supernova87a wrote: post #5

WFH has a huge difference in result depending on who you are, when you are (in your career), and where you are in a company (of organization). -- For the budding young developer who can't wait to show ideas to teammates and demonstrate being a go-getter by asking random questions and finding unaddressed issues to innovate on, WFH might be terrible. You're going to schedule time to fortuitously run into the senior per…

[deleted]

Re: The social and economic costs borne by young people without offices

#107

Post by alexbanks »

RandoHolmes wrote: post #94
alexbanks wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask why you think that young people are inherently less disciplined?

Most children do not take on the responsibility of setting an alarm, getting up in the morning, cooking for themselves, and then walking to the bus stop to take the bus to school (or their own car). Pretty much every adult does this as a matter of course.

Right but we’re not talking about children. We’re talking about recently hired software engineers? And if you’re saying “pretty much every adult”, doesn’t that include those engineers?

Re: The social and economic costs borne by young people without offices

#108

Post by petra »

frankpf wrote: post #98
alexbanks wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask why you think that young people are inherently less disciplined?

I think it's been observed by many psychology studies that conscientiousness (the personality trait that determines self discipline and self control) tends to increase with age. Excerpt from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2562318/ : "Agreeableness demonstrated a fairly linear increase with age whereas the pattern for Conscientiousness was curvilinear: scores increased up to a peak somewhere between the…

Accorindg to your link, mean Conscientiousness raises by only 16% over age, with the standard deviation stays the same.

Doesn't sound that large.

But intuitively, people who have families will work significantly harder than a teenagers. So i think we're measuring something incorrectly here.

Re: The social and economic costs borne by young people without offices

#109

Post by A_D_H_Dev »

frompdx wrote: post #54
necubi wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly you are someone who strongly believes in the superiority of remote work, but is it really that hard to believe that there are people who disagree? I'm a software engineer with no connection to the commercial real-estate industry, and I'm pretty sure I haven't been a "victim of a subtle PR campaign." And yet I find remote work alienating and psychologically difficult, and I'm eager for a return to the office.…

Clearly you are someone who strongly believes in the superiority of remote work For myself. I strongly believe remote work is a net gain for me and others like me. I appreciate that others do not feel the same way, but when the dust settles I stand to lose if I am the odd man out, no? I strongly believe that the sentiment conveyed in this article will be used as ammunition to drag those of us that prefer remote work…

Both sides tend to do that. Hey it's great it's the best thing! Nah man it's terrible and the worst thing.

It's like the same pointless discussion HN about hiring once or twice a month. I see this WFH debate on heavy rotation here also. It's always the same.

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