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Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

nbloom.people.stanford.edu

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Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#401

Post by ameister14 »

nine_k wrote: post #135
mrcartmenez wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weirdly grounding stress and anger

Undergrounding, even. The 25 minutes of commute in NYC subway, even packed (but not London-packed, though) are my 25 minutes of uninterrupted reading, or thinking, or otherwise being alone and on my own, paradoxically. I miss it.

I don't miss shoving myself into a q train to stand there with no excess space for 40 minutes despite the fact that I got through a lot of podcasts that way. Especially in winter, where everyone is wearing jackets, the train gets super hot and you're just sweating next to some guy who won't take his damn backpack off. Oh, train traffic ahead. Great - now my commute's an hour.

I do miss the view in the morning and evening crossing the Manhattan bridge, though. That was nice.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#402

Post by ameister14 »

Paradoxically, I think one of the reasons companies will go back to the office is because a lot of administrative staff has been shown to be completely unnecessary in work from home environments.

There are systems of great social and political power in administrative staffing and they don't want to be cut out, so they'll push to go back to the office. It's happened in a lot of places already.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#403

Post by ghaff »

rorroe53 wrote: post #342
anonytrary wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may be misinterpreting me. I am not advocating for pure in-person, I am only advocating against pure remote. I believe a hybrid approach is best.

I agree, hybrid is definitely the best for most companies. Some in-person collaboration and socializing is always going to beneficial, even if rest of the work is done remotely. Having a long commute isn't that bad either if you only do it once or twice a week, so it gives people much more freedom over where they can live.

Depends what long means. A 2 hour commute each way is still going to be that day you dread even if it's just once a week. What seems a more common scenario in my experience is that people get together for a few days meetings maybe once a month and people who aren't local fly in.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#404

Post by Viliam1234 »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #146
irrational wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. This is the main reason I prefer remote working. I don’t like socializing. I’m there to work, not to chit chat. You’re not my friend, your a fellow worker. 2. Time to get a better manager who trusts you. 3. Commuting is a waste of time. I roll out of bed and immediately start working. The company loses on time I could be working by having me commute. 4. Yeah, I definitely can’t relate to this one.

For something you're going to spend your life doing, it's a horrible prospect to not expect to make friends at work. As a child did you spend 12 years not making friends in school, since school is for learning and not socialization?

> it's a horrible prospect to not expect to make friends at work

But I already do have friends, and I see no reason to replace them with my current coworkers.

For me, a horrible prospect is that a corporation could hold my social network hostage, so that if they fire me, I not only lose my income, but also my support group, on the same day.

(I am not opposed in principle to finding a friend among my colleagues, if we happen to click on the personal level. But I am not going to force it; my standards are quite strict. It happened twice in my life, and we meet regularly despite no longer working together. They have been upgraded from the "colleague" level to the "friend" level.)

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#405

Post by dan-robertson »

ascar wrote: post #330
anonytrary wrote: post #292

This is ironic coming from Stanford, who is currently fucking up every single aspect of their handling of covid, as many Stanford students will attest to. Colleges are basically scammers at this point. The whole benefit of going to college is being able to meet like-minded smart, young people like yourself. Remote college isn't a thing and never will be. College is about people, as much as it is about learning. The u…

I went to a German university and fortunately most universities here still believe that their job is to enable learning and that university is as much about learning to learn and learning to live than it is about the content. In contrast to school this means the motivation has to come from the students and there is no mandatory attendance. I for one was glad that I didn't have to sit in lectures that I can learn in l…

I feel like you’re disagreeing with a pointlessly weak version of the comment you’re replying to.

It seems a bit like you are describing university as something only about learning and ignoring the social aspects of it. I strongly disagree.

Firstly let me say that what you have written implies that university merely puts you through some lectures (and maybe some exams and gives you a bit of paper at the end), and you complain that you could learn things better yourself. It would be cynical to think that university is just a book but worse yet necessary for the credential and I will assume that this is not what you think.

As universities are different, let me say what teaching mine provided to frame what I will write below. We began with everyone taking the same courses and over later years there was more choice. Teaching was done with lectures, occasional small group workshops, homework, and 1-on-2 sessions going over that homework. Attendance to lectures (or other teaching) was not required although it was encouraged and assessment was done in exams which included questions from all courses so one didn’t need to commit to certain courses in particular.

While self study was important I think the two key things provided by the university were the small group teachings which gave expert feedback, and discussion with one’s peers which provided non-expert feedback, good sources of inspiration and ideas for things to try, and discussions to build a better understanding. I think this aspect would be hardest to replicate remotely.

The other social aspect was also important: unlike school, you’re no longer surrounded by people who don’t really want to be there and it is an environment where people are particularly similar without all having the same goal. If you go to a sports club, social interactions will be mostly dominated by the interest in the sport. I don’t think it’s a good substitute for socialising with students of other subjects at university.

The least important social aspect was going to lectures although I think it provides a more informal setting than a book to see how the sausage is made (or rather to watch it being made on the blackboard in front of you.)

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#406

Post by [deleted] »

ascar wrote: post #330
anonytrary wrote: post #292

This is ironic coming from Stanford, who is currently fucking up every single aspect of their handling of covid, as many Stanford students will attest to. Colleges are basically scammers at this point. The whole benefit of going to college is being able to meet like-minded smart, young people like yourself. Remote college isn't a thing and never will be. College is about people, as much as it is about learning. The u…

I went to a German university and fortunately most universities here still believe that their job is to enable learning and that university is as much about learning to learn and learning to live than it is about the content. In contrast to school this means the motivation has to come from the students and there is no mandatory attendance. I for one was glad that I didn't have to sit in lectures that I can learn in l…

[deleted]

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#407

Post by ghaff »

ekianjo wrote: post #357
anonytrary wrote: post #292

This is ironic coming from Stanford, who is currently fucking up every single aspect of their handling of covid, as many Stanford students will attest to. Colleges are basically scammers at this point. The whole benefit of going to college is being able to meet like-minded smart, young people like yourself. Remote college isn't a thing and never will be. College is about people, as much as it is about learning. The u…

> Humans need interaction in person, and they do their best work when they are working with people who they see on a weekly basis, especially young 20-somethings. I dont if you have ever been in uni but in my time it was all about putting 200 students in huge amphitheaters with one lecturer not caring at all about their audience. It has to be the worst way to learn anything.

For me at least, university, at the end of the day, had very little to do with going to lectures.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#408

Post by Viliam1234 »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #174
ashtonkem wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average Millenial worker will job hop every 1-3 years. While it’s good to be friendly with your colleagues, you also shouldn’t build friend networks that get broken and reformed with such regularity.

This makes no sense. Just because you switch jobs doesn't mean you can never talk to people at your old job never again.

Meeting your former colleagues is like the high-school reunion that happens once per decade. It is too rare, and it is obvious that most of the things that connected you in the past are not there anymore.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#409

Post by thewarrior »

anonytrary wrote: post #292

This is ironic coming from Stanford, who is currently fucking up every single aspect of their handling of covid, as many Stanford students will attest to. Colleges are basically scammers at this point. The whole benefit of going to college is being able to meet like-minded smart, young people like yourself. Remote college isn't a thing and never will be. College is about people, as much as it is about learning. The u…

I think the headline on this link is misleading. It only says that people will now work from home 25 % of the time instead of 5 %. A pretty uncontroversial view imo. It’s not talking about full remote.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#410

Post by oblio »

jasonkester wrote: post #373
anonytrary wrote: post #292

This is ironic coming from Stanford, who is currently fucking up every single aspect of their handling of covid, as many Stanford students will attest to. Colleges are basically scammers at this point. The whole benefit of going to college is being able to meet like-minded smart, young people like yourself. Remote college isn't a thing and never will be. College is about people, as much as it is about learning. The u…

I don't know, man. Young You sounds like a very different person to Young Me. If my first employer had told young 20-something Me "I'm afraid we're not going to let you come in and sit in this felt cube every day after all. Instead we're going to ask that you fly to Thailand and work from a laptop on the beach from here on out.", I would not have reacted by explaining how work is a social thing that needs to happen i…

Most people are social. The vast majority of partners come from school or work.

Work is not just work, it's probably also 15-20% of one's life, or more (8+ hours each day for 40+ years).

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