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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?

#331

Post by AndrewUnmuted »

VLM wrote: post #325
ethbr0 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wire it into a light switch. If the switch gets flipped... shame. "I don't know what to do. I guess if you wanted to send an electrician out to install a new circuit with its own meter, things might be more reliable."

> send an electrician I think OP needed an electrician onsite anyway, as $200/month would be somewhat over 2500 watts continuous 24x7 which would require in the US at minimum two dedicated 15 amp circuits. That's a serious enough amount of heat to require the attentions of a HVAC guy also. I ran some small clusters at home for learning purposes and maybe $400 per year was pretty minimal compared to the cost of tuitio…

I was beginning to suspect this, as well. But I of course was nowhere near prepared to handle this responsibility on my own. I live in a 2BR 4th-floor walk-up apartment in Brooklyn, NY, constructed 1913.

The rack consisted of a dual-processor Xeon 1U with a Tesla GPU, two 4U hard drive racks, and a UPS unit.

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

#332

Post by ck425 »

Nursie wrote: post #319
ck425 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's far from the case for everybody. Extra heating is looking like it'll cost me another £80-100 over winter whereas I have no commuting costs atm.

That's barely the cost of a couple of cups of take-out coffee a week for the cold months, which I'd be far more likely to buy when at work.

Speak for yourself, I have good coffee at the office. Hell I spend way more on coffee now just to go sit somewhere that's not my main room.

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

#333

Post by VectorLock »

ghaff wrote: post #310
VectorLock wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think both big house 2 hours away and small studio 10 minutes away would both be happy about WFH. This means small studio 10 minutes away can move out of his small studio that he lives in only because its 10 minutes away. EDIT: Not to say that studio 10 minutes from work might enjoy other aspects of his living situation but if his main constraint of "must be 10 minutes from work" is lifted, that gives him much more…

The implicit assumption is that small studio 10 minutes away wants to work in a city center and therefore "making" them move to bigger digs somewhere further out is a downgrade. Which may or may not be true.

In any case having WFH gives them the option, as I said they could have lots of OTHER reasons they want to live there, but removing that constraint provides an additional degree of freedom.

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

#334

Post by ck425 »

briandear wrote: post #322
ck425 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again this heavily depends on your situation. I live a 20 min walk from my office. I have £0 commuting costs. On the other hand I live in an old city with little new built housing. My flat is over 100 years old with massive ceilings, electric heating and no way to way to improve the insulation. Heating it just in the evenings for 5 hours costs about £50 a month, heating it while I work will likely cost £70-100 extra…

It’s not a zero cost: it’s 40 minutes of time.

I run there, which is time I still spend at home. And I enjoy the walk home as I live in a beautiful city. I normally go walking throughout the day for longer than that anyway.

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

#335

Post by jen729w »

danans wrote: post #236
SergeAx wrote: post #221

1. WFH is not for everyone. There are people with kids and no dedicated workplace at home. There are people with low motivation and self-control, and office routine just helps them to keep up. 2. You can't mix WFH with work in office. It's either one or the other. If you have a single employee working remotely - you should transform all the processes to WFH-style. 3. WFH shifts most of the burden onto management. Man…

> 2. You can't mix WFH with work in office. It's either one or the other. If you have a single employee working remotely - you should transform all the processes to WFH-style. You don't provide the line of thinking behind this statement. Why do you think this is the case? Also, even taking your statement at face value, you can still have a setup where there are fewer days in the office and more days working from home…

This is what I came here to say. As usual, arguments (just in the general) are polarised: it’s either in the office 40 hours a week or work from a beach in Thailand and nothing in between.

How about the sensible reality where we have an office, that we can get to, but we aren’t expected to turn up there every day just because? Where I work from home a few days a week to get that tricky stuff done – heaps harder in a distracting office – but then I go in a few days to connect with colleagues, catch up on the conversations, overhear things across the partition?

This saves my sanity, money, and time, and saves my employer ~50% of their office space. Win-win, surely?

(Not that I disagree with the sentiment that all processes should be made WFH-friendly. I think that’s very sensible. But it doesn’t mean that I necessarily must WFH the whole time.)

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

#336

Post by michaelt »

Nursie wrote: post #319
ck425 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's far from the case for everybody. Extra heating is looking like it'll cost me another £80-100 over winter whereas I have no commuting costs atm.

That's barely the cost of a couple of cups of take-out coffee a week for the cold months, which I'd be far more likely to buy when at work.

£100 is trivial if you're getting paid £100,000

If you're making £12,000 a year though? That £100 might be your entire budget for Christmas presents.

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

#337

Post by VLM »

I wonder how many people used to work with the people they sat next to?

That was a rare experience for me back in the old W-2 office days.

My boss was in another state, another timezone, another shift, sometimes another country. Ditto coworkers, internal and external customers.

I had a few office jobs supporting field circus techs where by definition we never worked physically together and they had no idea if they called me at work or home.

There are a lot of 3 to 5 person companies out there where people labor away shoulder to shoulder for hours; but not that many.

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

#338

Post by torben-friis »

dathinab wrote: post #303
ghaff wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, there are only 2 costs that matter. On the one side you have the commute--both in time and money. On the other side is whether the place you'd be living in otherwise is suitable for long-term WFH or if you have to spend more money for another bedroom or whatever. So, if you already have a dedicated office in an exurban house (as I do), not commuting--which I rarely did anyway--is a cost savings. As someone wh…

There is also a social and mental cost. For example for some one where anxiety acts in a way which hinders him to proper handle thinks like making food or cleaning having a clean office with a Mensa giving out reasonable good food for a reasonable price is a massive difference. It can make the difference between overcoming it and complexity succumbing to it to a degree where you at some point end up homeless on the s…

I don't like the idea that telecommuting benefits only the ones who can afford it.

Living hours from your workplace because you can't afford to be closer is not privileged. Wanting to cook at home because it's cheaper than restaurants it's not privileged. Wanting to Save the costs of gas or public transportation isn't either.

There are good arguments for and against but it's kinda bad to assume.

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

#339

Post by Mountain_Skies »

Retric wrote: post #259
ghaff wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, there are only 2 costs that matter. On the one side you have the commute--both in time and money. On the other side is whether the place you'd be living in otherwise is suitable for long-term WFH or if you have to spend more money for another bedroom or whatever. So, if you already have a dedicated office in an exurban house (as I do), not commuting--which I rarely did anyway--is a cost savings. As someone wh…

Those minor costs can still add up. Depending on your setup and location you could easily be spending 30+c/h on electricity when working from home. Extra cooling, lighting, possibly multiple PC’s etc. At ~2,000 hours a year you’re talking an extra ~600$/per year after tax. On the other hand it’s also much cheaper to cook at home. PS: My preference is to live close enough to walk to the office, but that doesn’t really…

I've been working for home for about four years now. One of the biggest unexpected benefits has been the ability to do asynchronous household tasks. Placing a load of clothes in the washing machine takes very little time, same goes for putting them in the dryer. The time for those machines to do their work is time I'm working for my employer. When I would go into an office, those tasks would consume a large part of evenings or a day on the weekend. Same goes for cooking if you make things that are mostly hands off. Half an hour before lunch I can throw previously prepped ingredients into the Instant Pot and air fryer which will make lunch ready right as I start my lunch hour. Of course sometimes I'm in a meeting and can't even get to the kitchen to start those tasks but being flexible is part of the deal. On those days, I eat lunch half an hour later, which still isn't much trouble.

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

#340

Post by stjohnswarts »

dkdk8283 wrote: post #256
m0zg wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could do what we did in some distributed teams at Google: just have a permanent "call" going with everyone normally muted. When someone would like to receive attention, they unmute and speak. It's not as good as walking up to someone's desk, but it's not as bad as having to schedule a call in advance.

This sounds miserable. What did you do for periods of deep work?

So being focused on a task is now called deep work? I will never be able to keep up with all the terminology.
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