Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#411

Post by timdaub » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 12:59 PM UTC

Funnily enough, I started to notice the sentiment of wanting to go back to the office this month with friends.

When I started working from home a few years pre-covid, I also had the loneley-blues after a year or so. It's wasn't nice and, in fact, lead me to try working from an office again.

And what can I say. While yes, when I moved back in the office I loved socializing more, I soon became miserable again.

See, suddenly I couldn't lie down on my couch anymore for a quick rest. I couldn't "let my self go". Meditate. I had much more fast food and started to feel stressed and sick.

So I went back to home office. And indeed it's true what another commentor said here: WFH during covid is much different from WFH in normal times as me and other WFH friends made it a habbit of working together. You can visit cafe, work from park benches or convert your parent's place into your mega office while they're on vacation.

Ultimately, I ended up renting a room for myself. Now, you say it's an office. I say it's a cosy room that's 10min bike ride away from my home... I wouldn't call it office, but also not home.

PS:

Maybe it's what some people call an Attelier.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#412

Post by dan-robertson » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 12:59 PM UTC

the-smug-one wrote: post #372

pantalaimon wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not attending class doesn't mean you have no human interaction Well currently that's the case either way > there are tons of other options for human interaction like sport clubs. Yea but you won't meet people there who are into the same field of study as you are. At Uni you get to meet people who have chosen the same path as you have, often people very much alike you. You are working together on tasks, explain the…

You can separate the socialising and the educational parts of the university experience. For a large majority of courses I simply did not attend to lectures, it's a lot faster to learn on your own. Yet, I could have gone to the social nights that the CS chapter held every week and mingled if I wanted to. But yes, the lack of separation of studying and private living in a one room apartment sucked during Covid. Of cou…

I think I strongly disagree. For one thing if you view the university as trying to train people towards being researchers (or even employment) then collaboration and socialisation matter a lot. For the actual learning I think socialisation with one’s peers (a prerequisite to having good discussions about the subject with them) is crucial because it is the fastest way to get feedback. It also can provide inspiration for alternative approaches, motivation, or a tip to get unstuck. A book, lecture or grade can’t do any of those things. Office hours or other expert feedback from teachers may help somewhat but it’s different from the kind of camaraderie one will develop with fellow students.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#413

Post by ghaff » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 1:01 PM UTC

nobody9999 wrote: post #267

yourapostasy wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...do more stuff over email, messaging and zoom has been great... WFH forces the kind of auditable accountability upon everyone I've taken for granted as necessary to thrive as a consultant. This popularizes communication modalities into the open long overdue. Use of more granular project tracking has gone up considerably as a coordination point to communicate early and often between teams, purely to reduce meeting…

>I still predict however a lot companies and people going back to offices post-pandemic. The socialization aspect is poorly addressed with virtual happy hours, or other tactics put on by really good leadership. I think a lot of that can be addressed by having in-person social events once it's feasible to do so. I spent many years as a consultant for several different large consulting firms. If we were productive, we…

I suspect that many here, especially on the technical side and especially in smaller companies, see there being this dichotomy between being in an office or being by themselves at home or wherever, with maybe the sometimes happy hour thrown in.

I'm normally almost 100% remote but the past 9 months have still been rather isolating because normally I'm traveling about 1/3 of the time including to industry events and internal meetings where I meet among other teams members and other people from the company. Honestly, I go into our local office these days and I might not run into anyone I know because we've grown a lot and my direct team is very distributed.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#414

Post by oblio » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

graphtrader wrote: post #369

Spooky23 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it is. The high performers work better, but half of the rest workers are doing nothing. I’m aware of people getting canned for stuff like outsourcing themselves, accidentally having sex on an open mic, illegally exporting computers to countries with export controls, etc since COVID. Work at home is great for people with tangible outputs. I don’t want my salesmen fucking around in the office. But many wo…

I would think the fact high performers work better remote though is what will be a competitive advantage for a 100% remote company at some point in the future. I am way more productive remote and it isn't even close. While I do like the social aspect of the office, it is such overkill. To me post-COVID, the whole country is open for business. I want to join a company that values high productive remote workers and see…

The reality is that for most companies the average performers do most of the work. Even in brilliant environments most of the work is drudge work.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#415

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 1:02 PM UTC

bjornsing wrote: post #394

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…

> This whole thing makes no sense. I this is highly subjective and depends on how social you are, how much of an outlier you are in cognitive ability or interest and on what kind of social environments you have physical access to. If you are “middle of the pack” in all these aspects then sure, remote first doesn’t make sense. On the other take me as an example: I enjoy working with other people face to face, but I’m…

[deleted]

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#416

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 1:04 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #300

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…

> You might attract older folks, but you know you want young talent. A lot of the things you say make sense, but this sounds ridiculous to me. Why would you only want young talent? How about older talent? Skill isn’t age specific.

[deleted]

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#417

Post by ghaff » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #367

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've been almost permanently WFH since April, with a few weeks back in the office during summer when the incidence rate was lower, then back to WFH when the second wave hit. I enjoy not having to commute, but I absolutely miss the banter across the desks and lunch conversations. I would absolutely like to keep 2-3 weekly WFH days in the future, which would also give me more flexibility in where I choose to live, I re…

2-3 days commuting per week, you still probably don't want a 2 hr. each way commute. Even 1 day per week that ends up being a day you sort of dread.

That said a 1.5 to 2 hour commute once a week is doable but that still only gets you to a closer to nature location. It doesn't really give you the option to live in a different cheaper city if that's what you want--which is what many people (not myself) are looking for rather than a rural house.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#418

Post by ahartmetz » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 1:10 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #403

rorroe53 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If the meetings are scheduled appropriately, you can commute in and out outside rush hours, which should make it less dreadful. Especially if you are not required to be present for 8 hours on meeting day(s).

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#419

Post by dustinmoris » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 1:10 PM UTC

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 think that remote is here to stay.

I think it is in some shape or form and it will only increase, because it's a more sustainable way of life to not have to travel every day. Remote work means less strain on cities, less traffic on roads, less inflated housing prices in metropolitan areas and so on.

> but it cannot be replaced by remote

In many areas in can be replaced and therefore it will.

> Humans just aren't robots and they need community

Before open plan office jobs in skyscrapers became fashionable people had for thousands of years their community at home, their street or village. You don't have to be a suit wearing slave to make some friends.

> To me, online college is a complete joke and is not what students after high school need

Agreed. Remote studying is literally just reading a book on your own. Every successful self taught person has gone through that, but because they are intelligent they didn't have to take a student loan for it. They only paid a few quid to Amazon to buy a bunch of books.

University is massively overrated anyways. It's not needed for the vast majority of bullshit jobs nowadays. It just serves as a mean of class segregation to identify rich people from poor when giving them a job.

> 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.

You can do this anywhere. I have worked remotely for a while now and I visit a lot of co-working spaces which are closer located to where I live. I don't have to slave myself through the rush hour commute into a densely overpopulated crammed city centre to please a master. I can get to a nice co-working space close to home at a leisurely pace without stress and still meet people, have interesting chats over lunch and make friends, be productive and get motivated in an environment. But I choose when to go there based on my personal needs. Some days I want to WFH because I need more headspace, or because I'm tired from a long day before and needed that extra half an hour sleep, or because I want to sort out an errand during the day without having to stress myself. Remote is the future for all jobs which can.

Re: Why Working from Home Will Stick [pdf]

#420

Post by amelius » Sun, Jan 24, 2021, 1:13 PM UTC

konjin wrote: post #377

jasonkester wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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 in person. I'd kill for a felt cube.

You can create the illusion of a cubicle through VR goggles. Just download the cubicle app.