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I Miss Working from the Office

roguelazer.com

341–350 of 502 posts

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#341
I used to like working from home. I had a better computer and plenty of different places I could work in my house.

But now I have kids at home all day and working from home is hell.

It’s all about context.

And you are correct: A lot of people don’t have good setups to work from home. And then on the other end, some offices are amazing and some are terrible. People who want people to come into an office should really try to make a better experience. Forcing people to come into a crappy office is insane.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#342
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Incidentally I've worked in London for the past few years, in a bank. Every desk in the building is equipped with aeron chair and multiple monitors. Yes every single one in the whole skyscraper (10 000 employees). That includes multiple floors full of developers. On our floor the entire department had quadruple monitors (24" IPS Dell UltraSharp monitors if you're interested). Allegedly we're privileged because the no…

Worked in London and your experience doesn’t reflect mine.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#343
post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of the issue, atleast within companies, it does need to be either or. An empty office often isn't any better than WFH for many folk. So if in your company you're in the minority then you might need to get a new job. There's also the effect of the industry. While flexible working is great (I could already role out of bed and decide to WFH whenever before covid) there's a chance companies might cut back on…

Ya, I used to hate working form home and HATED when my co-workers would (fortunately that wasn't very often). However, I'm LOVING it now that everyone is working from home. I find it crazy awkward when just one or two people are on a screen. It's hard to describe why but I know it's a common feeling. I've even heard of mixed office/remote teams will do all meeting over video chat, even the ones in the office, as it p…

Yes, at least one of the teams I worked with--where admittedly most people were remote--had a pre-COVID policy whereby if anyone was calling in remote, everyone had to use their own screen. No calling in from a conference room.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#344

I don't miss the office at all, and I never want to go back. If management asks us to go back full-time, I will start looking for another job. I'm happier and more productive than ever. I never want to go back to rotting in a cube farm pretending that 1-2 productive hours a day is enough. 1. Cubes, cube pods, and "open offices" are inhumane. 2. I don't have to wear headphones to "hear myself think" anymore. 3. Meetin…

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Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#345

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.

Yes, that's what I try to do. Unfortunately in France we are limited to a disc of 1km radius around our homes, which is a purely urban area in my case.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#346
I was having the exact same thoughts this week. Now that the vaccines are almost here, and there seems to be an end in sight to this pandemic, I feel like my mind started get antsy for life to go back to normal.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#347
post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very much agree. If you like working in the office, then work in the office, and if you prefer working at home, then work at home. We need to be inclusive of people, and let them work the way _they_ best feel productive. It is unfortunate that people think that it has to be either one or the other.

I think part of the issue, atleast within companies, it does need to be either or. An empty office often isn't any better than WFH for many folk. So if in your company you're in the minority then you might need to get a new job. There's also the effect of the industry. While flexible working is great (I could already role out of bed and decide to WFH whenever before covid) there's a chance companies might cut back on…

>there's a chance companies might cut back on offices or force bullshit like hot desking.

That seems inevitable at any company where a lot of people aren't using their space most of the time. A company isn't going to indefinitely maintain dedicated space at 25% utilization. Not to say they can't maintain some dedicated space for people who do want to come in 80% of the time. But I expect post-COVID, many offices will look very different although I don't expect many companies to go fully remote.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#348

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…

It’s the exact opposite for me. At work, we had 3 monitors, standing desks, great chairs, a gym, free breakfast and lunch, full private bathrooms with showers and towels and toiletries, amazing views, etc. Now I compete for space with some children, a spouse who also works from home, and I work on a 14 inch laptop screen from a couch. It’s a downgrade and I would work from the office if it were practical. We can go i…

From my experience, w/r/t meetings, I've worked from home going on 6 years now. A few years back we were acquired by a large company that had several divisions that worked entirely in office. When everyone started working from home, those divisions would initiate meetings significantly more often. I'm not sure if it's like a subconscious desire for more human interaction for those people that would usually get a bunch throughout the day, or a need to micromanage from some people, or just them thinking that they needed extra communication to make up for the remote working, but it was significantly jarring on our team for the first few months until everyone else sort of found their groove.

That's counter to our team, where we basically have the "policy" of less disruptions is better. Any discussion item is pushed into an e-mail or chat unless absolutely necessary. If there are items that are deemed to need a voice meeting that are remotely similar then we'll move them up or push them back to combine them to reduce the need to be on a call. 99% of our communication is done via e-mail or a group chat room, and the expectation is that an e-mail can go without a response for 24 hours, and a chat room message can go without a response for at least 1 hour. Anything urgent goes through a direct message, and the expectation is that you check the receivers status to make sure they're aren't in a "do-not-disturb" status before hand. Only time that is ignored is if something mission critical is occurring, like a systems outage. When you can limit 99% of your distractions to something you can check real quick once every hour or so, your productivity goes way up.

I can also say from experience that having your own space, and good equipment, is severely overlooked by people. I used to work entirely in my office, but we rescued a Belgian Malinois a few months before the lockdowns started so I had been working from a chair in my living room since the office is where our cats hang out for most of the day, and I wanted to give them time to adjust to the puppy as well. Even outside of the new puppy distraction, it's really easy to just sink into your "comfort" area and get distracted or stop working. Once she was housebroken, I started working out of our dining room instead so I could keep an eye on her but still not invade the office until she was better trained, and I noticed a significant productivity boost. GCP Grey has a great video on this ("Lockdown Productivity: Spaceship You"), and the idea is that even though the dining room isn't a dedicated office, it's still a place that you don't subconsciously associate with relaxing, so you still treat it like an office.

I don't have kids or a work from home spouse, so I don't have any advice there.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#349
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…

You’re absolutely right, and the interesting thing is going to be how many people recognize their own personal preferences past their current circumstances, and make changes to optimize that.

In my case, I had a small apartment within walking distance of $WORK. The office at $WORK was ... ok. Not as bland as the finance office I used to work at in Chicago, but a bit cramped and poorly provisioned on things like coffee. On the immediate benefits front, working from the office would be an obvious choice for me, even if it’s not the best office I’ve ever worked from. But we decided that we loved WFH so much that we left the city and bought a good sized house in a less populated area. We each now have our own office that we can customize to our hearts desire. Oh, and our COL dropped, a lot.

The other bit that you didn’t mention, and that is intimately connect to my story is the factor of cities. As of last year (who knows how this will change) most software jobs were in large cities. If you happen to enjoy living in cities, this is really good news for you, but for everyone else this creates a tough series of trade offs between preferred living arrangements and career needs. In retrospect it’s fairly clear that we lived in Cities purely for the career advancement reasons; we didn’t enjoy the noise nor did we take advantage of the culture opportunities (food, drink, etc.) that cities offered. All we got in exchange was higher wages, smaller and more expensive housing, and longer commutes to the activities we preferred to do. This new arrangement suits us much better in retrospect, even if we didn’t come to that conclusion in say 2019.

Re: I Miss Working from the Office

#350
post #199
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

> My goal in life is not “to work”.

I'm not sure how to respond to this.

Of course it's not, and neither mine. My goal in life is also not "to be in an office" either. But when I am in one, I'm there for work. The office is a workspace, that's literally the point of it...

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