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

431–440 of 490 posts

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#431

Post by ck425 »

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…

Anecdotal but this is exactly what has happened to me. I live alone and have been WFH since March. It's gotten harder and harder and since September I've had outright moderate depression. It's directly linked to WFH and living alone.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#432

Post by varispeed »

haswell wrote: post #257
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"…

Thank you for highlighting this. As others have said, I could not agree more. As a Product Manager, working remotely 100% of the time is absolute hell. And I say this as someone who was already working from home ~70% of the time before (and I was mostly ok with that). I also wanted to pick on a few of the categories you mentioned: > "only incompetent managers need to see you in person" Some of the best work I've done…

> Some of the best work I've done is when I'm able to go brainstorm in a room with my leadership.

That suggests you and your team have communication issues and meeting in person is just a plaster over it. Why exactly do you need to see other team members in person?

> I have to feel bad for people who have never experienced true friendship at work

Why do you think getting friendly with people at work is appropriate? Mixing work and personal life will introduce unconscious bias and you will give different treatment to people who didn't invite you to their weeding. This is bad for business.

It seems like you just feel lonely and you use workplace to find friends. Can you see how wrong that sounds?

Did you think about finding a hobby, getting good at something other than work and meet people that way? (there is plenty of meetups for people sharing the same interests)

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#433

Post by ck425 »

esrauch wrote: post #151
tipsysquid wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No single person can set the amount of risks he wants to take, it has to be decided globally. This is preposterous. Each individual must evaluate their own risk tolerance. If you're waiting on the world to decide something for you, you're playing life as a waiting game. Please don't shame people for having a different risk tolerance than you.

I don't know about this argument in general: it seems about the same as saying we shouldn't criticize people for drinking and driving because they should decide their own risk tolerance. Sure they're deciding the risk to themselves, but they don't necessarily get to unilaterally decide their tolerance to risking others without criticism.

That's a solid metaphor but it ignores that there's a considerable downside to self isolating. No one has major mental health issues because they can't drink drive. If someone proved medically that they had to drink drive or feel suicidal I'd have a hell of a lot more sympathy for them risking it.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#434

Post by varispeed »

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.

Why do you work until midnight and blame WFH for that?

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#435

Post by ck425 »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #330
Solvitieg wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. In Canada, those who are overleveraged with massive mortgages far away form the office, are rewarded with mortgage deferrals and low interest rates. Those who save money, rent, and made sacrifices to live close to work, are the ones to are losing.

The real issue is that one made a bet on a future that didnt come true. The opposite could easily have happened too. Oil prices could have hit $1k a barrel and people in the suburbs would be crying about the $500 fill up.

Except fuel prices going up was within the reasonable range of potential futures. Everyone suddenly forced to work from home wasn't.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#436

Post by ptx »

esperent wrote: post #392
low_common wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Not OP but I've been doing it in SEA for about 5 years now. Usually I stay in one place place for 6 months or so then take 6 weeks off to travel until I find a new beach to work from while sipping coconuts, but I'm feeling more like being settled now and I've been in Vietnam for the past year (bonus: no covid here). There are large communities of like minded people out here doing this, lots of couples in their late t…

What about health care?

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#437

Post by ck425 »

michaelt wrote: post #12
FlyingSnake wrote: post #3

Companies who go permanent WFH must be saving a fortune on leasing space costs. If these savings don’t make it to the employees who’re using their private space for office work for free, then it’s really bad.

As far as I'm concerned, saving an hour of commute each day more than covers the costs of a desk and using a bit more electricity :)

Great for you. But not everyone has the same circumstances. I was a short walk from my office, a beautiful route I run everyday anyway. But I live in an old flat that expensive to heat. Wfh saves me nothing at all and is going to be extortionate over Christmas (additional ~5-10% of my income in bills).

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#438

Post by ck425 »

hourislate wrote: post #282

These companies think they're some kind of trend setters or they're embracing some kind of new way to work, Nokia was doing this back in the early 2000's in the Americas. No one had a desk unless you needed one. Otherwise you came in sat down where ever you liked, plugged in and went to work. You decided your hours, you decided when you came in or worked from home. They also subsidized your home Internet connection b…

I really hope hot desking doesn't become a thing. I love having my own desk that's setup as I like it.

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#439

Post by person_of_color »

throwaway98az8 wrote: post #179

Context: I was in the interview pipeline before/when this announced, so I've gotten some additional clarification on the logistics. I think this is strictly worse than providing employees with the option of where to work (office/remote/some WFH). Something missing in this announcement is that you still need to live in one of the main cities with offices (SF, Seattle, Austin, Dublin) in order to receive full pay. Movi…

Did you take the offer?

Re: Dropbox Converts to Permanent WFH

#440

Post by ck425 »

tinyhouse wrote: post #134

I would love to see a chart showing number of applications they receive before this announcement and after. I'm guessing they gonna be swamped with resumes today. It was clear that it's going to be a domino effect. Each time another tech company moves to permanent WFH it puts more pressure on other companies to do the same. They wouldn't be able to compete for talent otherwise. FANNG can still compete without moving…

I think the effect will reverse after a while. Sure a lot of folk want remote jobs but there'll also be plenty of folk at Dropbox and following companies who want an office and will start looking elsewhere following covid.
Post reply on HN