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Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

businessinsider.com

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Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#141

Post by refurb »

dubcanada wrote: post #82
jlos wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are trade offs with that too. If you use a home office for a write off, you have to pay tax when you sell the home

I assume that's in the US? You don't have to do that in Canada.

It applies to Canada as well. Claim 25% of your home as a business expense means 25% of any capital gains are taxed, unlike your primary residence which isn’t taxed.

“You may have to report a capital gain if you change your principal residence to a rental or business property, or vice versa.”

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individ...

However, it looks like there were some changes that may allow you to avoid it (business use was a small fraction and you didn’t take advantage of tax benefits from business use).

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#142

Post by throwaway987978 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #126
dubcanada wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company did internet reimbursement. But most people don't know that there are massive tax benefits to working from home (at least in Canada) you can write off the percentage of your house you work in of your rent and stuff like that. That alone can equal a $1000 a year or so. But from a company point of view, getting rid of the office is a massive save in money, so I suspect some will increase salaries or offer ot…

> But most people don't know that there are massive tax benefits to working from home (at least in Canada) That's generally not true for workers in the US. If you are self-employed, yes, you can take a home office deduction, but not if you are a W2 employee. The US used to have an "unreimbursed employee expense" itemized deduction, but even then there was a pretty high floor (had to be more than a couple percent of y…

I don't think that's true in Canada either. I think it's only true if you're self-employed.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#143

Post by gedy »

karmasimida wrote: post #133
headmelted wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Remote-only cuts out the in-person experience entirely, which is problematic for building teams and culture" This is stated as fact everywhere but I've not seen supporting evidence anywhere. I spend about as much time in my day speaking to other people as I would have done productively and by choice before. The only difference now is that I'm more able to avoid extraneous meetings and other drags on my time that don…

What evidence do you seek? It is obvious to me that the way you interact with people face-to-face is different from the way you would do with online chat.

That can be a good thing for non-charismatic types. I know that I've hurt my career at times in past due to in-person failures like being visibly angry or raising voice over dumb statements/power-positioning by leader-types. Being remote has helped me throttle those reactions and not be so public about my feelings.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#144

Post by flyingramen »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #104
bob33212 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have done this for years. I have seen that some people don't like it for the following reasons. 1. They prefer a predictable schedule. 2. They don't like being at home ( family or workspace issues) 3. They are good at or enjoy office politics. 4. They are incompetent managers and they don't know how to manage engineers other than looking over shoulders and taking attendence.

> 3. They are good at or enjoy office politics. As a counterpoint, we had a mix of remote department and in-office departments at my last company. Transitioning to fully remote made marked an increase in politics every time. It sounds counterintuitive at first, but fully remote moves even more conversations to side channels. At the office it’s hard to have secret exclusionary meetings without other people noticing ev…

> Online, you can create a private Slack channel or even a separate off-Slack group for the in-crowd where you exclude others, and no one can see it.

Since you say politics reasons wholly because of this reason, it’s not like Slack is not available if you are not fully remote.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#145

Post by leetcrew »

tidepod12 wrote: post #132
leetcrew wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN takes it a bit too far, but there is some wisdom in maintaining a boundary between work and personal stuff. like suppose you are struggling to recover from alcoholism. you might want to confide in your close friends. you might not want to share this with friends from work. you almost certainly should not share this with your boss, even if you consider them a friend. I treat work friends as a sort of "probationary…

>like suppose you are struggling to recover from alcoholism. you might want to confide in your close friends. you might not want to share this with friends from work. you almost certainly should not share this with your boss, even if you consider them a friend. I would absolutely share this with my "work friends" and even my current boss. When one of my previous bosses shared with me that he was having trouble at hom…

I'm not saying you shouldn't share anything with anyone, but there are some things where the upside of sharing isn't worth the potential downside. when dealing with someone who is responsible for evaluating your job performance, it's unwise to volunteer reasons for them to doubt that. it's hard to judge productivity, especially for engineers. if you go through a rough patch but say nothing, people might never notice that you were less productive for a month or two. if you tell your boss you're having an issue with alcohol/drugs, they might perceive a drop in productivity that didn't even exist! unless your issue is so severe that it can't possibly escape notice, and/or you have a good plan to fix it very soon, there's just no reason to share this kind of stuff.

also, I would say work is quite a bit different than a gym. it's a lot easier to find a new gym than a new job, and it's much less disruptive to your life if you have to do so.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#146

Post by packetlost »

bob33212 wrote: post #88
dhouston wrote: post #33

To be clear (if you only read the headline :)), not entirely remote. Solo work at home, collaborative work in "studios", basically reimagining the offices into collaborative/convening spaces that you go into from ~once/week to once a quarter depending on team/role. Remote-only cuts out the in-person experience entirely, which is problematic for building teams and culture; and ad hoc "WFH whenever you feel like it" ge…

I have done this for years. I have seen that some people don't like it for the following reasons. 1. They prefer a predictable schedule. 2. They don't like being at home ( family or workspace issues) 3. They are good at or enjoy office politics. 4. They are incompetent managers and they don't know how to manage engineers other than looking over shoulders and taking attendence.

5. don't like the barrier to communication, isolation, and distraction that WFH brings.

It's not for everyone, don't act like WFH is some sort of amazing thing that only people in bad situations or who are incompetent dislike.

1. is straight up incorrect anyway, my schedule has gotten more consistent since working from home. It's entirely based on your own ability to start and stop your workday.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#147

Post by dimator »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #121

I guess it's not surprising but I am super disappointed by some of the comments here that show a total lack of empathy for people who aren't like you. I mean, you love working from home? Congrats, more power to you. But the number of comments stating that "only people who are good at office politics like going to the office", "only incompetent managers need to see you in person", "your co-workers aren't your friends"…

I think no one is thinking past "but I'm more productive!", that's including employers and employees.

Productivity is not the be-all end-all of a career! Human interaction (of any kind) is important, "wasting" time going to lunch with colleagues is important, serendipitous encounters at the coffee machine are important.

I know for certain if my employer decides to go permanent remote, I'll be looking for another employer. This is not the way I want to live and work.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#148

Post by ulisesrmzroche »

leetcrew wrote: post #111
tidepod12 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>co-workers aren't friends, bosses aren't friends, clients aren't friends, work relationships aren't friends. It really saddens me whenever I see this (apparently common) sentiment on HN. Through every job I've had, I've met some of my very best life-long friends. My wedding party is over half people that I met at work. A couple of my former bosses are people I see every couple of months (pre-covid) and are invited t…

HN takes it a bit too far, but there is some wisdom in maintaining a boundary between work and personal stuff. like suppose you are struggling to recover from alcoholism. you might want to confide in your close friends. you might not want to share this with friends from work. you almost certainly should not share this with your boss, even if you consider them a friend. I treat work friends as a sort of "probationary…

I think it's like anywhere else, with some people you're just going to click and be friends, whether you met at work or at a house party

Some people will dislike you; most people will be neutral. But it's all wetware and basically instant

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#149

Post by tinyhouse »

christiansakai wrote: post #32

Curious, what makes this move (and all the rest of the WFH companies) permanent? Won't in the future when things go back to normal the cities will pressure the companies to have their employees go back into offices to make the economy moving? You know, coffee shops, restaurants, etc need to survive.

People will still go to coffee shops and restaurants. It's just that the location of those places will move from office hubs to residential neighborhoods. That's a good thing.

I'm sure co-working spaces will still have high demand so many office spaces would turn into that.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#150

Post by [deleted] »

thrownaway954 wrote: post #48
puranjay wrote: post #31

As someone who has worked from home for a decade, I predict a mental health apocalypse in the near future. Working from home permanently requires support infrastructure not everyone has access to. It also requires a different approach to work altogether which, again, not everyone is capable of adopting. If you have family, work from home is great. But if you're single, staying cooped up alone at home can be a disaste…

not trying to sound like a dick... everyone has to get out of the house and making actual friends in life. co-workers aren't friends, bosses aren't friends, clients aren't friends, work relationships aren't friends. we all need human interaction... join a club, a gym, yoga, bike club, whatever, just interact with people that doesn't involve talking about work. and sitting home and playing video games while good, isn'…

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