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I Miss Working from the Office

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Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#241

Post by ck425 »

Jugurtha wrote: post #65

Yes. 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 had a great social life outside of work but due to covid that's also disappeared.

And even then I still miss specifically office socialising. I like knowing my colleagues and having a feeling of we're in this together. I like the random break chats throughout the day and meeting folk from other teams organically. I hate that the majority of my day now is just sitting at a desk alone talking to no one. It's perfectly valid to want socialisation from work, it's not necessarily caused by a poor social life outside of work.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#242

Post by petra »

Xevi wrote: post #166
diarrhea wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your work just sounds very subpar. Crippling developers with that sort of equipment and environment is a poor move and also an awful trade-off, business-wise.

Yet it feels very common to see employers buy subpar equipment, because they either don't understand how much of a difference it makes, or it "costs too much" to give every developer higher quality tools. I'm also in the camp of preferring to work from home with my triple high-res monitor setup, good chair, height adjustable table, ergonomic keyboard/mouse, and so on. I dread the day I'll have to go back to the offic…

Why is it so hard to explain to employers the value of using 2 displays ?

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#243

Post by sokoloff »

sharken wrote: post #208
bluedino wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because many companies are run with a mix of cost and profit centers. If you run IT as a cost-center and allow bean-counters to “optimize” things, you can easily get outcomes like that.

Making a computer faster for a worker who isn’t on the critical path and who is almost never waiting on their computer doesn’t make sense. Most of accounting falls into one or both of those tests, so they could rightly decide to optimize for cost. They can then wrongly conclude that they’ve already solved that question universally and apply that solution to devs.

Even a lot of IT employees don’t care or don’t know. Some want to just order something that users won’t revolt over and make the deployment and warranty support a first consideration.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#244

Post by ck425 »

Nursie wrote: post #174
donatj wrote: post #133

Earlier 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…

Because you're there to work. Because you'll change employer, maybe frequently, and most of your relationships with colleagues will fall away when you do, where relationships with friends are lifelong. WFH allows me to see more of my partner and my real friends in my local area, removing wasted commuting time into the bargain.

It's not an either or. You can have a great social life outside of work and still want and enjoy great relationships with colleagues. Yeah maybe they don't last once you leave, that doesn't mean they're not valuable!

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#245

Post by o-__-o »

Xevi wrote: post #166
diarrhea wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your work just sounds very subpar. Crippling developers with that sort of equipment and environment is a poor move and also an awful trade-off, business-wise.

Yet it feels very common to see employers buy subpar equipment, because they either don't understand how much of a difference it makes, or it "costs too much" to give every developer higher quality tools. I'm also in the camp of preferring to work from home with my triple high-res monitor setup, good chair, height adjustable table, ergonomic keyboard/mouse, and so on. I dread the day I'll have to go back to the offic…

It does cost too much for everyone. Unless you are a starting startup (Now that you say this, I wonder what the threshold is for size/revenue of a company that does prioritize computing equipment and accessories. Every public company I have worked for have cared about ergonomics. Below $50M in revenue/100 employees I’ve found it difficult to request certain equipment (sit-stand desk for example)

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#246

Post by ck425 »

Jugurtha wrote: post #101
paul_f wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit unfair. Many people socialized with the bowling team, through their church, at school, as part of a volunteer organization, etc, that may have also all shut down because of COVID.

There is no judgement in my comment for it to be fair or unfair. I guess the word you're looking for is "incomplete", in which case, it absolutely is incomplete for brevity. My point was on this particular shortcut in many articles including large publications: A: I work at the office B: I'm not lonely Not A => Not B (I don't work at the office therefore I'm lonely), and then coming up with a solution that it's time…

But you did say that if you're lonely it's because you've not got enough of a social life outside of work. You can have an active social life outside of work and still feel lonely at work due to WFH. That's what you said that was unfair.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#247

Post by kuzimoto »

sharken wrote: post #211
Symbiote wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not take a keyboard and mouse into the office? That issue at least is easy to fix. (I have a couple of colleagues who brought their own keyboards. We'd buy a decent keyboard for anyone who wants one, but they already had them from previous jobs with people who wouldn't do this.)

Indeed, bringing your own keyboard and mouse if necessary should be a nobrainer. Though having the employer pay for those things would be even better, but it’s not always the case.

I've been bringing my own keyboard and mouse for years. My current employer would buy at least an ergonomic keyboard for those that want it, but they aren't going to drop $200 on my mechanical keyboard for everyone, and I think that's pretty fair.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#248

Post by Kye »

tluyben2 wrote: post #145
easton wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People often consider it impolite, regardless of what you’re doing (I had to find more and more ways to work around it with my parents during lockdown because getting pulled out of flow when trying to do schoolwork was aggravating). explaining didn’t seem to help, they didn’t understand why I couldn’t just quickly do X.

> impolite While that is true if it's just some singular instance, when living with people (parents, spouses, kids, roommates) it is better to explain it once or twice and after that, just be impolite. Even for the simple reason that they are actually the impolite ones for not respecting your process.

That's great for people living/working with people who have a healthy respect for boundaries, but not everyone has that luxury. Boundary issues are rampant, especially in families.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#249

Post by ubercow13 »

noirbot wrote: post #229
donatj wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because you're there to work. That’s such a weird accusation. No I’m not. I get paid to work, and I do good work, but I am not there to work . My goal in life is not “to work”. That sounds absolutely miserable.

But it is somewhat true. The point of being in the office is to get work done. You're being paid to do work, and in the past, part of that was a requirement you be in the office some portion of the time. You were in the office _to work_. It's not to say you may not have other things you like about the office, but the reason the company bought an office and requires you to be there is to work. Which leads to the other…

>There's plenty of coworkers I like and some I'm actually friends with, but also plenty of people who try to use the conditions of our mutual employment to fill in for friendships they didn't develop outside of work.

That seems an uncharitable way to put it. People only make friends in general by putting themselves out there and making an effort. Is the difference between those two groups merely that the 'actual friends' are the ones who you ended up liking rather than having to pretend to like?

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#250

Post by slumdev »

neya wrote: post #190

I have a different opinion. I absolutely fucking hate working from the office. Any office. I have worked for companies big and small, so, I sometimes don't get most of the perks the author talks about. I absolutely value my privacy and don't want to feel like a criminal for browsing social media during office hours for brief periods of time while people stare into my screen. I absolutely fucking hate sitting across a…

I agree on all points. On this one...

> Nobody can walk upto me and yell "Hey, got 2 mins?" and expect me to attend to them or take offense if I don't.

Learn to say "No" to this one. You have to do it politely, of course, but it works. Wedge in an apology, an explanation, and a counter-offer. Make the other person feel bad for assuming they were entitled to interrupt you and then steal your time. Something like, "No, sorry, I really don't right now. I am SLAMMED and have to finish XYZ before noon. Could you come back at 1:30?" If they push, just repeat it.

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