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I Miss Working from the Office

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Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#271

Post by tristor »

diarrhea wrote: post #154
dandellion wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very good point, I'm really enjoying working from home and I attributed it mostly to not having to do the one hour commute each way, but there's so many more things that add up: - At home I have the most comfortable chair I could find on the market that fits me perfectly. At work there are very basic adjustable chairs and they use some slippery fabric. - At home I have an ergonomic mechanical keyboard vs. a…

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.

Agreed that good equipment is a worthwhile investment, but unfortunately most companies don't see it that way. I'm now in management and get issued a standard option 13" Macbook Pro or Dell XPS13 as my system at both my current and prior company, both of which I'm permanently remote. That honestly does the trick because other than how shitty Electron is for memory consumption, I don't do the things as a manager that require extra equipment and I'm at home anyway so have my entire array of personal equipment as well. Prior to that, I was an engineer, and it was a struggle to get a proper setup.

One company, several employers back, I brought my own equipment in and nobody said anything. I had my own desktop PC, monitors, mouse, keyboard, and chair in the office and other than the unplugged PC asset tag assigned to me sitting in the corner, I returned everything else to the supply closet. I eventually (after 3 years of using my own) was forced to use company issued equipment. Here was the contrast, the box I brought in to use was a quad-core proc with hyperthreading and had 32GB of RAM, and four SSDs in RAID10 w/ a decentish GPU driving 4 24" 1920x1200 IPS displays. The box I was assigned (3 years later) was a dual-core proc w/ HT, 8GB of RAM, and a 500GB 5200rpm HDD, with onboard video that only supported two displays. The two displays provided were 19" TN panels.

I invest in quality equipment at home, but many, if not most, employers do not. They may think they do, but they don't. It's 2020, I consider 64GB of RAM in a engineer's system a good target, 32GB a minimum. Most developer systems I see are lucky to have 16GB of RAM these days (often the maximum offered in laptops issued). Meanwhile, at home I have a max spec desktop PC less than 3 years old, multiple 4K displays, Herman Miller chair, an electric drive sit/stand desk, split ergonomic mechanical keyboard, an ergonomic mouse, a mini-split AC/heater in a separate room in a house with a door I can close, and in my closet a small rack of servers I can use w/ distcc to accelerate builds.

The great irony is that box I used at the office many years ago (8 or 9 years old), is still superior to what's issued as normal engineer equipment at most companies in the US, and I've since moved on to better systems at home, again. The poster you're replying to is largely correct. I love working from home partly because of no commute, but also because I can equip myself to my standards, which are much higher than the standards of a corporate IT department with accounting looking over their shoulder.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#272

Post by Tomis02 »

yakattak wrote: post #262

I think the comments in this thread are testament enough to how divided this is. What I've found interesting is that there seem to be three sides to this, one with an overwhelming majority and two that are too extreme to really be appealing to everyone. On one end you have the, I want to be back in an office full time and I don't care about working from home. On the other end you have, working from home is the future…

> Where, at least from what I've seen data wise, the majority is something flexible. Where WFH is an option, or something you can do when you feel like it.

Funny, the way I see it the majority is indeed flexible. Where office work is an option, or something you can do when you feel like it.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#273

Post by gamesbrainiac »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #155

I think an important thing to keep in mind is that the past 8 months aren't really a good indicator of what working remotely is really like. I've worked remotely for the past 4 years, and this year has easily been the most difficult and most unlike typical remote work: - Normally, I'd try to mix up my day and get some socialization in by going to a co-working space 1-2 times a week. - I had a lot of freedom to catch…

This is a truly understated point. My usual routine would be to go to the office once a month, and every now and then just talk to people, meet up with colleagues on the weekend etc.

This is really different from the regular WFH that I am used to.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#274

Post by kuzimoto »

donatj wrote: post #133
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 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…

Seems a little dangerous to completely rely on work for socialization. In my opinion most work relationship are pretty shallow and not meaningful long-term. When you leave a company, your entire social circle is going to be up-ended.

> 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 think because the primary goal is to work. Socialization is a plus, but it will never be your main focus, as mentioned above you will not build meaningful relationships (I mean, not entire impossible, just not as likely).

> 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 don't think it's an unfair demand to want to spend time with friends and family (that is the point of them). Anyone that is thinking that is probably not someone you want to be spending time with...

> Humans were never intended to spend so much time alone, we’re social animals.

I think this is what wife/kids are for. I can't speak for others, but it works for me! 99.9% of my time out of work is with them, and have never felt lonely. Not everyone is in that position I suppose, but then friends would have to fill that gap.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#275

Post by ghaff »

rbg246 wrote: post #56
deadlyst0rm wrote: post #5

Most people when they say they miss the office they mean missing dragging everyone with them to the office. You were in the office weren't you? Stay there then and have all the space you want :D I for one will never go back to the office.

I do agree with your sentiment I think unfortunately the people who want to work from the office require everyone else to be there too - to make it the office. I don't begrudge their attitude but hopefully there is just a split in companies between remote companies and on prem companies.

Yes. I strongly suspect that most people who want to go "back to the office" are not really saying that they just want their office workstation back so they don't need to work in their bedroom or kitchen table (though some are). Rather, they want to be back with their colleagues and if their colleagues mostly aren't there, they're not really going to be satisfied.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#276

Post by yakattak »

Tomis02 wrote: post #272
yakattak wrote: post #262

I think the comments in this thread are testament enough to how divided this is. What I've found interesting is that there seem to be three sides to this, one with an overwhelming majority and two that are too extreme to really be appealing to everyone. On one end you have the, I want to be back in an office full time and I don't care about working from home. On the other end you have, working from home is the future…

> Where, at least from what I've seen data wise, the majority is something flexible. Where WFH is an option, or something you can do when you feel like it. Funny, the way I see it the majority is indeed flexible. Where office work is an option, or something you can do when you feel like it.

I think that's a fair interpretation as well.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#277

Post by pedrocr »

st1x7 wrote: post #48

I 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…

Those dimensions are also far from fixed. We've optimised our lives with these tradeoffs in mind. If the office we work at is very good maybe we've selected a smaller appartment in a trendier area with more things to do at night. If there's now nothing to do at night because of lockdowns and the same appartment makes for a poor office during the day, misery ensues.

As companies make remote work a bigger possibility we'll optimize differently and a lot of people will be better off after adjusting. This situation has also disproportionately benefited those that already leaned towards that way and left the others hanging. But that's a shorter term issue.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#279

Post by commonturtle »

There are parts I miss about the office and parts I don't.

Do miss: Face-to-face meetings, bumping into people you know from other teams randomly, dropping by someone's desk to ask a question.

Don't miss: High density open office environment (honestly don't mind open office that much as long as density is reasonable), commute (40 mins each way), free food / snacks (easier to eat healthy at home).

After weighing up the pros and cons though, I think I would probably choose to go back to the office after the pandemic is over, although I might optimize for a job where I get my own office or a low density open office.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#280

Post by [deleted] »

sokoloff wrote: post #243
sharken wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 optim…

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