I Miss Working from the Office • Hacker News Board

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#301

Post by DrBazza » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

metafunctor wrote: post #283

DrBazza wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a well reasoned comment. I'm 'of that age' where I have a large-ish house, and hence a large, well equipped study. I don't much like my work office. It's on the top end of 'good': spacious, well equipped, light, modern, free snacks, etc. But... and it's a big but, it's open plan. And noisy. With people eating at their desks, talking, interrupting you and so on. But I still miss it. The last nine months has tau…

Seems like you don't miss the office, but you miss the social aspect. A good office would allow you to work in peace when you need to. For a programmer, this would be maybe 50-80% of the time. This is where the monitors and keyboards and chairs are. Personal tools and personal space. But, there should be enough opportunity to socialize when you feel like it; ranging from sofas and coffee machines and team lunches to…

> Seems like you don't miss the office, but you miss the social aspect.

Absolutely. Just being able to chat with colleagues when grabbing a coffee exposes so much more of 'what's going on' than you can ever find out looking at git logs, slack channels and wikis.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#302

Post by Tainnor » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 4:00 PM UTC

thendrill wrote: post #94

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.

Engineer here too. Absolutely agreeing with you. The people that want to go back to the office are also the same people that were wasting everyone's time in the office. Middle managers, office365 consultants, project managers etc. Etc. Generally the people that had the bullshit jobs in the office, and had little contributions except the "social contribution". I don't not want to go back to the office mainly because o…

I think it's offensive to call project management a "bullshit job". Maybe you've never had a good PM, but I have, and it's really invaluable. (I've also had bad PMs, but that's no different from bad dev colleagues...)

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#303

Post by ravenstine » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 4:03 PM UTC

I don't plan on ever going back to the office. HOWEVER, it is possible that a company could entice me to come in to the office, and here's how:

- Stop with the ridiculous open office plans

- If you have free snacks or a machine with Monster energy drinks, don't get rid of those things a year after instating them

- Give my team a budget for tools, like if we need Parallels or Sketch, and make that budget transparent

- Compensate me for transportation expenses that I wouldn't incur if I had a remote position

- Don't get weird when I leave the office for a few hours to do whatever I want when there are no meetings or high priority tasks

- Don't force me to change desks every 6 months because you failed the to properly organize the workspace the first time

- Give me actual raises and not the poppycock you call a "merit increase" which only keeps up with inflation

- Make it easy to use meeting space to host tech meetups (it's amazing how many businesses don't see the tremendous value in this)

- Get rid of Agile. It doesn't work. All you need is sprints with planning and retrospective, a ticketing system, and a daily status sync through Slack.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#304

Post by ravenstine » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 4:04 PM UTC

feralimal wrote: post #13

No offices, everyone work at home - everyone so busy... And then you look around, what is all this work achieving? What were we achieving when we worked in the office? Were we doing anything real at all?

Nope.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#305

Post by derwiki » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 4:05 PM UTC

enriquto wrote: post #79

I feel really miserable working from home. Cannot get anything done. 1. Main problem is lack of social interaction. I now realize most of my work projects started in casual coffee conversations with people from other groups. Now there's nothing like that, and planned meetings never work that way. 2. Also, I really miss my commute. I had 15km of bike lanes in the forest every day, that were essential to reset my mind…

Re: commute: would going for a walk or ride before and after work help? I’ve found myself biking far more during the pandemic because I can hop into a Zoom call just minutes after finishing my ride.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#306

Post by pts_ » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 4:05 PM UTC

Your productivity has falling is only your problem.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#307

Post by derwiki » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 4:07 PM UTC

matthewh806 wrote: post #110

ozorOzora wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate to that, I feel like most computer stuff is a hamster wheel for smart peeps.

I've come to the conclusion that maybe us computer people are not truly smart. And we just like the comfort of thinking that we are. Yes, we're good at logical thinking, implementing systems, reasoning about problems etc This just makes us useful in the end or good at a certain way of thinking. "Men of science may be simple tools of others, with no more idea what they are about than a hammer has of a house" I believe…

In the Gervais Principle, developers are all [economic] losers

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#308

Post by ravenstine » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 4:07 PM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #124

joefife wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Before covid my life revolved around a cycling group, hiking groups, two running clubs. Now it's all be taken away.

You can’t go hiking where you live? Hiking is a very low risk activity.

Hiking trails near me are STILL closed due to the virus. For a while it was only open during weekdays and by appointment only. Now they've been flat out closed for a few months. Sure, I could drive half an hour to a completely open trail, but if I'm going to burn that much gas all the time I might as well start working in an office again.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#309

Post by Grimm1 » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 4:08 PM UTC

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…

I'm in a studio apartment with every distraction I could possibly imagine (most of my own design since before this I'd just come here just to rest and recharge) the first few months were rough and overall I really prefer the office. The only thing working from home has done for me in terms of work is give me some more flexibility and prepared me for how to block out the distractions for when I move on to my own thing full time next week but I can count on my hand the number of times I've been in flow since the pandemic and work from home started and that is significantly less frequent then in an environment where work is the primary objective.

It's really very jarring and I've resulted to some newer/crazier things to get it back. For instance I work in VR often now and that blocking out the distractions/tricking my brain in to "being in" a work place is really great. I also have a different seat for when I'm working on the day job versus my startup vs relaxing. Finally I stopped listening to music recently as I've read it actually can hurt focus and that's been working too.

The thing is at least with my current job the office space was really comfortable, I'd move around often between couches and private spaces as needed people wouldn't interrupt too often and I would go out for lunch to give myself a mental break. Still figuring out the mental break part again.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#310

Post by derwiki » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

knuthsat wrote: post #40

I have too much pressure from my significant other. She can't look at me doing nothing (when I'm thinking or having my 15 minute rest between productive hours). Every single time I need to clean something up. I started going to the store and cooking lunch during work hours. Then I also get complaints about not doing the dishes while I'm working. It was nice when the work and home were separated and I just did all my…

I largely echo sibling posts saying you should address this with her, but if available to you I might suggest speaking with a therapist first. Potentially starting a fight with someone you’re locked at home with is risky.