Wow I saw your photos and wondered if you work in the same company as me. My office is nearly identical. Turns out its kinda sad that its the other side of the country, in a completly different industry. I'd rather work from office too though.
I Miss Working from the Office
201–210 of 502 posts
Re: I Miss Working from the Office
#202Yes. Some people on the internet were also advocating for a return to the office because people could not stand the loneliness anymore and need to interact socially. I had to point out that this was symptomatic of a poor social/family life [outside of work]. If someone is lonely working remotely and they miss humans, it is a sign the only humans they interacted with were colleagues. It's also a sign of what the perso…
I don’t follow. Why should where I spend the majority of my waking hours, the majority of my life in practical terms, not also be my primary source of socialization? I genuinely feel the opposite. Relying on your few off hours to satisfy your innate human need for socialization places an unhealthy demand on your off hours, not to mention an unfair demand on your friends and family. I am now forced to spend 8 hours a…
> Humans were never intended
intended... by whom?
> we’re social animals
Yes, and we've been working in our homes (with workshops in them) for the majority of recorded history.
Re: I Miss Working from the Office
#203I think that what isn't discussed enough is the variance in quality of your office environment and of your home office and how that quality affects your preferences about working from home. It sounds quite obvious but in these arguments people often just state what they personally like and leave it at that. Your office can be place where you still have the option to work uninterrupted but also get the benefits of fac…
You can't have uninterrupted but also get the benefits of face-to-face interaction.
Those face to face interactions or the hallway discussions are the thing that prevents the first.
Re: I Miss Working from the Office
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Working in silence Nice if you have a detached house in a quiet neighbourhood. Try an apartment in a busy area, you'll be wearing noise cancelling headphones too!
When this whole COVID home-office thing started my apartment building started construction on building two more floors. It's been miserable 3 months of home office to tell the least
My company had the same next to the head office for over a year. New building going in next door. Jack hammers 24/7/365. Can happen anywhere urban.
Re: I Miss Working from the Office
#205Thing I miss are: * Having someone clean my works space. My house gets dirtier now and I’m forever cleaning it, doing dishes. * The distinction between the beginning and end of my work day. * Having free space in my house. * Off the cuff dinner and drinks with colleagues. * No lag meetings and whiteboard sessions. * Having intervals apart from my family actually felt healthy, although we have adapted to being around…
> No lag meetings and whiteboard sessions. I really miss whiteboard sessions. I've gotten used to zoom meetings, I'm not overloaded with them, and with a proper structured agenda I've found they can be tolerable. But nothing beats scribbling on a whiteboard with colleagues. We've tried Miro and other tools, but nothing quite has the same feel as those scribbled boxes and arrows on a whiteboard.
The whiteboard experience can be replicated with realtime visualization/collaboration tools. Just saying..
Re: I Miss Working from the Office
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems pretty standard to me. Typical open-office setup, with one 24" screen and $5 keyboard and mouse that come with the PC, and a basic 10-years-old office chair. I've seen quite a few mid to large size industrial/engineering companies and it's a standard setup. Actually the ones having a 24" screen are lucky, most people get a 20". That's why people commonly bring their personal headphones, keyboard and mouse. A…
I don't buy it. Even when I was working in countryside Europe a decade ago we had better equipment than that and often double display (17" or 19" at the time). Some of the companies even had personal offices or small offices for 1-3 people. I don't doubt that there are some shitty companies out there that can't get an office chair and a display from this decade, but it's far from the norm.
Maybe things have gotten better but I worked at a couple of large engineering companies in London 5-10 years ago and cramped, shitty, open plan offices with cheap ancient hardware was very much the norm at every place I worked at and visited. Coming from offices in Norway and Sweden I was shocked at how terrible their working conditions where.
Re: I Miss Working from the Office
#207We're finally coming to this stage where WFH doesn't seem fancy anymore. As a person whose worked remotely for a larger part of his life, I'd always missed the water cooler conversations and camaraderie people shared in office.
With the pandemic bringing lockdowns, a lot of my colleagues thought work from home is great as they could stay in pyjamas all day long.
Finally, as we see ourselves away from office in the near future, people are realising WFH isn't as fancy as it seemed. After a while it takes a toll on anyone and feels like living in a cage/prison.
Re: I Miss Working from the Office
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems pretty standard to me. Typical open-office setup, with one 24" screen and $5 keyboard and mouse that come with the PC, and a basic 10-years-old office chair. I've seen quite a few mid to large size industrial/engineering companies and it's a standard setup. Actually the ones having a 24" screen are lucky, most people get a 20". That's why people commonly bring their personal headphones, keyboard and mouse. A…
I’ve brought my own SSD and RAM to jobs that give you a bog-standard issue PC. Shhh.
This is the part that I don’t get, why must it be so hard to get proper tools for the job.
Having a fast NVMe disk, 16/32 GB of ram and a current generation (or previous generation) CPU should be the standard for a developer.
Apart from that there is the crappy office keyboard, mouse and all too small mousepad. Fortunately those things can be replaced without much issue.
Re: I Miss Working from the Office
#209> I miss productivity!
I don't understand the productivity unless you just have bad employees playing games or browsing reddit.
My productivity has never been higher. I get more done and have more free time to work on unplanned projects/spikes exploring new tech or rethinking old problems that could be solved better.
> I miss having my employer pay for electricity and heat and fast symmetric multi-gigabit Internet access instead of shifting those costs to me.
If your employer doesn't pay for these things (I'm assuming no one has gotten elec/heat, but I do get my internet bill paid for) you can deduct these on your taxes as a portion of your home if you have a side business like a saas or app or some consulting and reduce your taxible profits. Take a the wasted commute time and put it towards a LLC for yourself :)
> Hell, I miss BART in all its loud and smelly glory.
Who misses the single most time sink in our lives?? If yuo need "alone time" why not go for a walk, jog, or bike ride? Mental and physical health all in one go vs a sedentary ride to a sedentary job
The rest of the stuff is either personal preference or where you chose to live
Re: I Miss Working from the Office
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t follow. Why should where I spend the majority of my waking hours, the majority of my life in practical terms, not also be my primary source of socialization? I genuinely feel the opposite. Relying on your few off hours to satisfy your innate human need for socialization places an unhealthy demand on your off hours, not to mention an unfair demand on your friends and family. I am now forced to spend 8 hours a…
> Humans were never intended Humans were never "intended" to catch deadly respiratory viruses either, but here we are. For that matter, neither were humans "intended" to work on computers. The situation is what it is and it seems naive to expect no changes to our lifestyle when the external circumstances have changed so drastically.
Yes they were and our bodies developed immune responses over time to combat this.