Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 490 posts

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#381

Post by gomox »

Def_Os wrote: post #190
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 recently pinged 2 co-workers for Friday afternoon remote "water cooler calls". I could send the relief when they had some informal time to vent and freely chat. I can recommend it wholeheartedly.

Our company uses a Slack bot thing called "donut" that schedules these random meetups for you.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#382

Post by low_common »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #292
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 agree that the comments you've cited are a bit ridiculous. But it's also important to acknowledge that pre-Covid, only a tiny fraction of jobs were remote at all. People who preferred remote work had very little choice in the matter. Our society assumes that commuting to work and sitting in a cubicle (or worse) is fitting for 99% of the work force. So what I mainly see here aren't the comments you cite, but a "ugh…

I've day-dreamed about doing this exact same thing. Moving down to Costa Rica, drinking out of a coconut and working on the beach indefinitely. How do you like it? How long have you been doing it?

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#383

Post by vmlinuz »

I started a 6 month contract at A Large Enterprise about 7 weeks ago and it's been intensely wierd. My team is split over two sites (same timezone, different countries) and every single member of the team - including someone who started after me at the other site - is working at home. Except me.

I have not met any of my team face-to-face, but they have also not embraced what I would consider modern temote-working tools. We don't have Slack (see above, 'Large Enterprise') but we do have Teams - except nobody uses it. We have a team email alias - except nobody responds to it. The only communication appears to be Skype for Business (i.e. Lync) calls - notwithstanding that some cow-orkers are in noisy environments, one regularly has unreliable enough Internet that he can't connect, and one has mic problems which means we hear about half of what she says. It also took a week and a half after I started for me to get my corporate approval to use Skype for anything but text, which meant we had to abandon my arranged first-week 'meet the team' session because I couldn't hear or speak.

I'm working in (approximately) devops, and things are, let's say, not well automated here, so they're justifiably terrified that if one or two people get infected, and others get quarantined, it could have a significant material effect on the company - so not only are people working from home, they are banned from entering the office. Except me, for some reason I haven't managed to ascertain...

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#384

Post by nullvoxpopuli »

randomsearch wrote: post #184
d3ntb3ev1l wrote: post #50

Trello has been remote first from start and doing just fine.

Trello’s UX is awful. I wonder if there’s a correlation between remote and poor UX? I can think of other examples of famous remote companies with bad UX.

There is no correlation

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#385

Post by irjustin »

derefr wrote: post #109
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…

> 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. I’m forgetting their name for them, but IBM has been doing this for decades now. They buy up office space in every major city, and then, rather than permanently stationing any teams there, essentially make all such spaces into private-acces…

This is how large consulting firms work since the teams are so fluid.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#386

Post by hn-throw-22 »

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 part of the issue is that the work from office advocates are more concerned about their needs and pushing their needs onto others who may have a different preference.

I hope in the future companies will allow people to work the way they prefer, whether that's in office, remote or something in between.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#387

Post by hn-throw-22 »

dimator wrote: post #147
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 empl…

Inversely, if my employer will not allow me to be remote, I will look for another job.

I think people need to realize that human interaction exists beyond the office.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#388

Post by [deleted] »

haswell wrote: post #341
e40 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't you brainstorm in a virtual room? I've been part of that many times over the years, and it works, too. The only thing I miss is taking walks with coworkers. That is where the real value was for me. Something about walking and talking that is so beneficial.

I'm talking about conversations that might take all day, or days. Breaking down enormous problems. Deep collaborative work. Can you do this in a virtual room? Yes. Will you achieve the same outcome? Early results (in my case) seem to indicate the answer is "no". I want the ability to pace around the room at times. Look my collaborators in the eye. Pick up on non-verbal cues that are often impossible to see remotely.…

[deleted]

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#389

Post by hn-throw-22 »

jarjoura wrote: post #160
dimator wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 empl…

The first 2 months of lockdown, I was crazy productive, working till midnight every night. Then little by little I'm slowly finding it harder and harder to concentrate. My productivity has fallen enough that my manager has called it out. So, at this point the commute and my eating habits have been the only thing that has significantly improved from this WFH lifestyle.

You need to find things you enjoy outside of work and follow a normal schedule.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#390

Post by netheril96 »

I skimmed across the comments and was surprised that no one talked about housing prices. A house is THE biggest expenditure for most tech people, because the tech jobs are concentrated in a few places with high housing prices.

Notwithstanding all the downsides of WFH, I will happily permanently WFH since I can move to cheaper place and enjoy a large house to myself, even if I need to accept a lower wage (but not so low that the cheaper house price is no longer worth the move). As for all the socialization, I'd rather find it outside work.

As for the mental health some people talk about, being able to afford a large house will do tremendously better for my mental health than being able to interact with people face with face, especially when those people are only bonded to me by money.

Post reply on HN