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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

#131

Post by chewz »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #130
chewz wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> -- For the working parent whose productivity has been slashed by 50% and stress has gone up by 50% due to parenting obligations, WFH might be terrible. Why have kids if spending time with them is such a burden?

Because kids are a long-term investments in happiness. Also, they're not that big of a burden when you have access to institutions such as grandparents , babysitters, daycare, kindergarten and schools. All of which got shut down due to pandemic.

This of course I understand. My comment was just a remark that there must be something wrong with our culture if spending time with ones own children is so unbearable for so many people without delegating most of the duties to others.

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

#132

Post by TeMPOraL »

andybak wrote: post #63
konjin wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They should just pay you instead of paying the insane office rent. Or pay the shareholders instead. Or the CEO. Or ... you are a cost center for your company. Why would they pay you more than the minimum anyone than they would for any other cost center? That said you should negotiate for an extra room as a part of doing business. >I was raised on IM. I'm fine communicating like this. If I need to talk I can always c…

> Why would they pay you more than the minimum anyone than they would for any other cost center? Maybe because you're a resource and not a cost center? It's not always the case - some job roles are fungible - but I don't think that's the case with a typical HN denizen. Let me put it another way. Why is paying the CEO more a better use of money to paying an employee more? Doesn't that build in a lot of assumptions abo…

> Maybe because you're a resource and not a cost center?

You are providing a resource by consuming money.

Imagine a company as if you were playing a CEO in a "software company tycoon" game. Are developers something you like to have, vs. need to have? Would you allocate them more money than strictly necessary to keep the output at desired level?

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

#133

Post by cableshaft »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #60

WFH has some obvious trade-offs. But I'm not particularly sympathetic to all of them when office work has been the only choice for almost everyone. Some of the downsides of WFH that the article points out, like how our office coworkers incidentally become our social life (and now we don't have them), are also symptoms of larger issues that I don't think work should be tasked to solve. The social isolation of the yout…

Yeah, I had been working from home the past two years before the pandemic, and I was sticking with this job longer than I wanted to because it was near impossible to find a new remote job.

The only reason my job became remote work in the first place is because the parent corporation was trying to cut costs everywhere and reducing its real estate footprint and closed our office.

Most of the offices they closed they just laid everyone off, but we had enough business that didn't transfer well to other departments that they let us keep working remotely.

I was willing to go in to work a couple of days a week when I was looking for a new job, but I was not eager to do it every day again. Between the commute and the hassle and cost of having to take our dogs to and from doggy daycare everyday it didn't seem worth it, especially when I knew I could do my job from home just fine.

I'm glad the pandemic normalized WFH a bit more and I don't want to see everything revert back to 'you gotta physically be in work, each and every day' once we're past it. It's fine if being in an office is an option again, sure, but I don't want it to be the only option.

Also, I feel like I have to speak up about my preferences on HN whenever this comes up because it seems like the majority of people are pushing for everything to go back to in-person, and I don't want people to assume everyone thinks that way.

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

#134

Post by cableshaft »

analog31 wrote: post #83
hevelvarik wrote: post #27

I love everything about WFH save for that I get far less exercise not making my daily MTA

I've biked to work every day for more than a decade. When I started WFH, I read a comment online about doing a "fake commute." So, I put myself on a schedule for I go for a long brisk walk every morning before my regular work day.

This is a good way to think about it. I should start doing this. I keep meaning to go on morning walks and making excuses on how I can't do it today, but maybe if I think of it as a commute, it'll work.

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

#135

Post by cableshaft »

pritovido wrote: post #32

As a long term worker from home I feel a sense of victimhood that floods all the article. I understand that most people are working for a company so others tell her what to do after school when they also train you what to do and you are micromanaged all the time. The article portrays that you need your boss to create your social circle for you. People do not see that as the enormous opportunity that it is. For exampl…

People who think their social interactions have suffered since WFH during the pandemic, it's not because of WFH, it's because of the pandemic.

Once we are past the pandemic you can still work from home and 1) schedule periodic lunches or in-person meetings with coworkers that live in the area, and 2) go out and make friends with other people outside of work, possibly people you would get along with better and want to spend more time with anyway

I know you can, because I was already working from home for two years before the pandemic, and that's what I did. You can't do those two things right now, but that's a pandemic-specific thing, not an inherent fault of WFH.

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

#136

Post by slykar »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #132
andybak wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would they pay you more than the minimum anyone than they would for any other cost center? Maybe because you're a resource and not a cost center? It's not always the case - some job roles are fungible - but I don't think that's the case with a typical HN denizen. Let me put it another way. Why is paying the CEO more a better use of money to paying an employee more? Doesn't that build in a lot of assumptions abo…

> Maybe because you're a resource and not a cost center? You are providing a resource by consuming money. Imagine a company as if you were playing a CEO in a "software company tycoon" game. Are developers something you like to have, vs. need to have? Would you allocate them more money than strictly necessary to keep the output at desired level?

So make it necessary by refusing to work without being paid for utilizing your space and equipment. It's a thing of culture. You are paid based on supply and demand mostly. Devs should be on the front of this movement. Anyone who is able to generate any kind of financial pillow.

If you are a pizza boy where I live you get paid extra if you use your own car. It's not a law. It's expected. That's the work culture. No one will drive for you otherwise.

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

#137

Post by slykar »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #122
slykar wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the small company CEO who relies on force of personality and everyone in the same room urgently working to get something done, WFH might be terrible. Working remotely for a small company with a few people from around the world and it's going fine. We are in contact when we have to be. I can cut distractions when I need to. No open space office bulshit. I was raised on IM. I'm fine communicating like this. If I…

> I was raised on IM. I'm fine communicating like this. If I need to talk I can always call someone. It is not about you being comfortable with IM, it is about doing an A/B comparison of the 2 options. You don't know what you don't know, if you don't compare with being in the office then "being fine" does not mean "it's better", it can be worse and you don't know it. I am working from home a lot for ~ 12 years, I sti…

> I talk to people all day long, the kind of discussions you don't plan and send invites with an agenda upfront

For what reason? You say it's a total waste of time productivity wise. Imagine having this all the time, because it's how it looks like in an open space office.

This might be the reason why we are expected to work 8h/day. We simply waste most of our work time. It would be much better to be paid 2x more per hour and only really work 4 hours a day.

Also, working remotely does not mean my meetings have invitations or an agenda. You can call someone anytime. We have webcams on all day. I only have a calendar event if it is a planned meeting, like an interview with a new candidate, daily stand up, brainstorming session.

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

#138

Post by TeMPOraL »

chewz wrote: post #131
TeMPOraL wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because kids are a long-term investments in happiness. Also, they're not that big of a burden when you have access to institutions such as grandparents , babysitters, daycare, kindergarten and schools. All of which got shut down due to pandemic.

This of course I understand. My comment was just a remark that there must be something wrong with our culture if spending time with ones own children is so unbearable for so many people without delegating most of the duties to others.

It's been like this since the dawn of history. Parents depended on others for child rearing. It's been said that minimum viable reproductive unit of humans is a village. Parents aren't really supposed to be spending all that time with their children, 24/7, alone, with no support group. It's doable, but not pleasant. It never was.

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

#139

Post by codygman »

ericmcer wrote: post #38
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…

I try to fight my primal instincts of jealousy, etc. but it really feels like a lot of the 'butts in chairs' type people like human resources, various managers, etc. have slowly cut back to basically responding to emails/messages and maybe working a few hours a week. If that is your definition of WFH being great than it is definitely going great for them. As a dev it has kinda shredded my desire to do large scale unp…

> As a dev it has kinda shredded my desire to do large scale unpredictable projects

I understand the anxiety that drives this and have found the best approach to be bringing that up to my manager, verifying those types of contributions are still welcome, why you think they are important for the business, and your desire to make sure your keeping up with "core functions".

I assume those "boilerplate type" tasks communicate their business value outwardly much better and are known quantities, but do little for your development.

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

#140

Post by andybak »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #132
andybak wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would they pay you more than the minimum anyone than they would for any other cost center? Maybe because you're a resource and not a cost center? It's not always the case - some job roles are fungible - but I don't think that's the case with a typical HN denizen. Let me put it another way. Why is paying the CEO more a better use of money to paying an employee more? Doesn't that build in a lot of assumptions abo…

> Maybe because you're a resource and not a cost center? You are providing a resource by consuming money. Imagine a company as if you were playing a CEO in a "software company tycoon" game. Are developers something you like to have, vs. need to have? Would you allocate them more money than strictly necessary to keep the output at desired level?

I'm not saying that you're not a cost. That your are one is obvious. I'm saying that you're not a cost that can be reduced without any negative second order effects.
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