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Why do so many people want us back in the office?

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Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#181

Post by ghaff »

randycupertino wrote: post #160
rwmj wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked at home for 20 years, more or less, and I have a separate space (garden office), $300 conference camera and mic, huge screen, and the best internet connection possible. When this is your life you arrange things differently, and I've no doubt that others who make the change to working from home will make similar adjustments over time.

> $300 conference camera and mic, huge screen Can you recommend your camera, mic and screen setup? And what brand/model they are? TY!

Not the parent, but I use a Logitech 920s webcam. I could use one of my high-end cameras--I even have an older model Fujifilm I don't use any longer--with an HDMI to USB converter but I decided it wasn't worth the trouble and it's harder to make work in physical space anyway.

I use a Blue Snowball mic but any decent USB mic will work. I have a dedicated office and I haven't found using a headset makes it better though YMMV. I'd just as soon not wear a headset unless necessary.

Computer is just a 27" iMac with a 2nd monitor. (Though I actually usually work with video on my main screen and do any work with shared docs etc. on a MacBook.)

Also have an Elgato keylight to get the lighting a bit more even.

ADDED: Probably at least as important is that you're not backlit by a window and you have the camera at maybe a bit above eye level. I've also done a bit of "set decorating" of my background.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#183

Post by WWLink »

nonbirithm wrote: post #125
ckdarby wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you discuss why you want to go back to the office?

Not the OP. In my case: - I get far too distracted by my apartment. The things I hung up on my wall to give myself a sense of personality are the things that I will be distracted by if I have my work laptop open. - I want a clear separation between being at work and being at home. Otherwise I will make excuses that because I happen to be at home I can do X or Y without consequence. At home I have my personal computer…

Half of your problem sounds like infrastructure issues and possibly not having a good workspace setup. I am super lucky and have fiber internet at home and we have an awesome VPN at work, so I can get <10ms ping to almost everything lol. I keep my work computer plugged into a desktop setup (mouse/keyboard/monitors) so I don't have to deal with that.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#184

Post by tayo42 »

pwinnski wrote: post #114

From one perspective, it's frustrating to see employers happily taking advantage of employees' real estate and internet connections for free, but since I have the spare room already, and I'm not commuting, I'll take it.

What would be nice is either a stipend to account for a bigger place with a spare room and connections, or to work out of a shared work space things. Like give me an extra couple hundred a year to get a place with an extra bedroom

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#185

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

roenxi wrote: post #50

There is a certain mindset - turns up all the time in economic discussions too - where if a change is made and doesn't lead to a metric-observable consequence in 6 months then that is the end of the discussion. Working from home is crippling for forming new social connections. Promotions are done based, primarily, on social connections. Hiring too. There is very strong pressure for ambitious people who know how the w…

As someone who is ambitious, I hope the lockdown continues. Fewer pieces on the board makes everything easier.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#186

Post by Nasrudith »

weeksie wrote: post #28

The long term shakeout of this will be that everybody realizes that yes, we need offices. They are spaces literally built for working. The required footprint will be smaller, people won't need to be in the office for absolutely everything, the demand for square footage of commercial real estate will decrease a bit—good news for cities who don't build b/c they can convert excess commercial inventory to residential. Bu…

Needing offices doesn't mean needing them centralized neccessarily. It depends on domain as usual for how close it actually has to be. A doctor's office? Yeah. But if you have accounting siloed off anyway why not just go full remote? They aren't needed there.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#187

Post by sunshinekitty »

aspaceman wrote: post #173
maneesh wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> if your job can be done from home, it can be done from anywhere in the world > I will call anyone's bluff who says this. Do it. Good luck. If you haven't successfully done this already, there is a reason and you know it. Welp, I'm the CEO of a smart wearable device company ( https://pavlok.com ). We were based in Boston because everyone told me, and I believed you HAD to be in one place to build a startup, and DEF…

I can’t even with this comment. Not everyone has the resources to make a working place anywhere viable. You seem to have the resources to make a hotel in Budapest or whatever work. Talking so causally about international travel already puts you beyond most Americans’ income. So yeah it is very, very easy for folks with a job like yours, and with the resources you’re afforded, to work anywhere. The issue isn’t proximi…

It seems to be implied with the closing of their Boston office that the whole staff is remote, not just this person.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#189

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

x87678r wrote: post #124

My commute is 20 minutes on an uncrowded ferry, and my home office is a tiny desk in my daughter's bedroom while she works on the other side on school stuff. My colleague has a massive house with a pool tennis court and so much space he has literally 3 never-used bedrooms. His wife looks after kids who are at school most of the day again. His commute is 2 hours each way. People are talking home vs office people are c…

Commute time is a big thing here.

People who have a 2 hour (one way) commute from hell from their massive house are super happy about this situation (shocking, I know).

People who live in a small studio apartment 10 minutes from the office see it differently.

What I expect this to result in is employers increasingly forcing people to WFH (either outright, or by making the offices horribly unattractive through hot-desking, increased density, etc.), pushing the cost of an office onto employees.

Even if a company "generously" gives you a $1000 allowance, that barely covers what high quality office furniture would cost, and in exchange, you pay a lot of tiny things that don't seem to be worth mentioning individually but add up to a massive cost when you take them all together over years:

- the real estate

- HVAC

- utilities (increased water usage, electricity for the office equipment & HVAC)

- maintenance for all of that (money and time)

- cleaning (if your employer asked you to come in unpaid after hours to vacuum the office and scrub the office toilets, everyone would consider them crazy, and yet this is effectively what will happen with WFH)

Not to speak of all the amenities and perks employers often provide, like cafeterias (often subsidized or even free). And not only will you end up paying the businesses' business expenses, you'll often do so (at least in part) with your post-tax money, i.e. depending on your tax rate, each dollar spent may be equivalent to e.g. $1.6 in lost income.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#190

Post by pm90 »

jefflombardjr wrote: post #61
arcticbull wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I miss the ad-hoc conversations with coworkers that lead to cool product innovation. I also miss being able to mentor junior engineers in person, and receiving in-person mentorship from my seniors. I personally believe that we're all running on the trajectory and direction we scoped before the shut-down, and as we move into H1 planning next year, things are going to get much slower and more complicated.

But do you really need that from a company? I get that from coworking spaces. And if anything I'd argue it's more innovative. Instead of a bunch of programmers spouting group think, I get to interact with writers, artists, indie game devs, etc. Way more innovative than any programmer group I've been in.

Well these folks will probably not have much context on what you are doing though. Offices are nice because people working in them have some shared reality, vision and goals. I know that the service or tool I build or use is built or used by another team for a specific purpose. A lot of the innovations I’ve seen happening are because humans with this shared reality try to solve one others problems, or at least talk about it. Many times, others will also actually help out if someone is stuck on something.

We need something to simulate this kind of shared reality somehow. Video conferences don’t do that. I’m sure there will be some innovation that might, I’m betting on cheap, high quality AR headsets. Right now it feels like in 2007... internet on cellphones was a thing but an iPhone with touchscreens had to be invented for something revolutionary to happen...

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