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I hope work from home continues

ryanmercer.com

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Re: I hope work from home continues

#221

Post by Pokepokalypse »

mikece wrote: post #6

While the cross-pollination of ideas from different teams and departments is lost, along with interesting and serendipitous discussions, I'm also in the boat of hoping I never have to go back to an office. Not having a commute, being able to spend more time with my kids, not eating less-healthy fast-food rather than home-cooked meals, being able to spend my (lunch) breaks working in my garden... I never want to go ba…

Also: not contributing nearly as much to global warming by running my gas-burning engine while I sit in traffic.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#222

Post by CapitalistCartr »

protonimitate wrote: post #143
blunte wrote: post #64

Wow, the author has a pretty miserable company :(. That said, I share most of the opinions even though I quite like the office environment of my company. I abso-fking-love choosing where I work (and to some degree, when). Being able to take my laptop and go sit under a canopy in my back yard when the weather is nice, seeing my rabbits hopping around the yard, my cats avoiding the aggressive she-rabbit, hearing the bi…

I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. Cost issues aside, I've always maintained that the absolute best experience is a hybrid/flexible schedule and location policy. I'm currently full time remote (I'm on the East Coast working for a West Coast company). My previous company had its main office in my current city, but allowed a super flexible choose-where-you-work…

A few really need it; most don't. Their managers and executives put their own desires ahead of the best interests of the organization, and what they desire is to have their ego stroked.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#223

Post by onion2k »

JackFr wrote: post #193
protonimitate wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. Cost issues aside, I've always maintained that the absolute best experience is a hybrid/flexible schedule and location policy. I'm currently full time remote (I'm on the East Coast working for a West Coast company). My previous company had its main office in my current city, but allowed a super flexible choose-where-you-work…

> I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office Informal communication, informal collaboration, a culture of apprenticeship. To the extent that the organization values these they are all served much better in person than remote. All companies and all people are different. There isn't a one size fits all. But it's not like there are no benefits to in person.

Informal communication, informal collaboration, a culture of apprenticeship. To the extent that the organization values these they are all served much better in person than remote.

This raises two obvious questions;

- Were those things definitely happening in a way that actually benefits the company, or were people simply assuming they're happening?

- Why can't those things continue to happen in an environment where people work remotely?

Without satisfactory answers to those questions it's impossible to assert comms and collaboration are actually reasons to return to the office. For example, my experience of remote working (many years before lockdown, and during lockdown) has taught me that informal comms actually causes more ambiguity and moving to remote often means people are prone to "over communication" where they leave very little out. That has led to pain for some because there's a lot more email and messaging to deal with, but it also means everyone has a greater understanding of the project. Overall I'd argue that the 'formalization' of comms on a project that comes from everyone being remote and asynchronous is more of a benefit than a cost.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#224

Post by spyspy »

yardie wrote: post #68

> ox tail and greens that smell worse than burnt popcorn. Sorry, but ox tails and greens are awesome. And there is a shortage at the moment so I don't eat it as often as I used to. Damn hipsters are even gentrifying Caribbean foods.

Yeah this dude is missing out. I'm married to a Trini woman and her and her family's cooking is like 87% of the reason why.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#225

Post by pizza234 »

HWR_14 wrote: post #140
blunte wrote: post #64

Wow, the author has a pretty miserable company :(. That said, I share most of the opinions even though I quite like the office environment of my company. I abso-fking-love choosing where I work (and to some degree, when). Being able to take my laptop and go sit under a canopy in my back yard when the weather is nice, seeing my rabbits hopping around the yard, my cats avoiding the aggressive she-rabbit, hearing the bi…

I'm thrown by people working on a laptop. Do you have a battery powered second screen? Is there some workflow tips I should adopt to make it work better? I'm quite jealous of people who can work on laptops. I wonder the degree to which people enjoy WFH is the same as the degree to which they enjoy working on a laptop. Even the people I know with a dedicated room for work set up want to go back to the office if they p…

I have a minimalist approach to interfaces, and work on 1080p (both desktop and laptop). I don't have second monitors and I don't intend to add any.

I don't doubt that adding screen estate has value, but in the minimalistic spirit, anything added also subtracts something :) And in the same spirit, anything subtracted adds something else - in my case, the ability to work more efficiently.

Try to work on a single screen for a relatively long time (say, a few months). Over the time, you'll develop (because you're forced to) more efficient habits.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#227

Post by duckfang »

enriquec wrote: post #204
duckfang wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can’t choose to not care. It's all a matter of priorities. If caring means you lose your job, yeah, you're not gonna care. And losing your job in the USA means: hunger, homelessness, no internet, less chance of being hired with unemployment record, assumption that you did something terrible, low/no medical, etc. For many, especially those whom can't save a nest egg of appreciable value (6 months out of work kin…

Total, complete nonsense and lies. We have unemployment here - paid by the employer - and its substantial. I know several people who are even able to increase their savings while unemployed.

Yes you are correct that unemployment insurance is taken out of a check, and paid in part by the company.

HOWEVER in many states, and the further republican/red it is, the more onerous it is to be granted it. It'd be a whole different story if it were really employment insurance". Much of the time, it's "unemployment insurance after 6-12 weeks if the systems to register you actually work, and you arent excluded for inane reasons, and you aren't later excluded for $reasons". And hope you can survive on what you have currently in the bank for the SLOW state procedures to give you a ruling.

Turns out, the state doesn't want to pay out just as much as insurance companies don't want to pay out.

And to counter your narrative, I've seen the state point at unemployed people the local state park as a temp job. When they took it (else they lost benefits), the temp job ended and were excluded from filing for unemployment since they knowingly took a temp job.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-states-unemployment-insu...

Re: I hope work from home continues

#228

Post by MattGaiser »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #51

Covid WFH is a real issue for our new developers. Especially the ones who are fresh out of college. They're missing out on so much institutional knowledge transfer. Especially the kind of monkey-see-monkey-do experience you need to build confidence using tools such as git. They're also hesitant to ping coworkers and ask for screen sharing time because they can't sense if the more senior developers are working on some…

> They're also hesitant to ping coworkers and ask for screen sharing time because they can't sense if the more senior developers are working on something.

My team's solution is for one developer to just ping another when needed and if they don't reply for a while, they are busy. Don't be afraid to ask, but don't take a lack of a quick reply personally.

With Slack, whether they are currently working on something is not important. If they are busy, the message can just sit there until they have time.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#229

Post by gorkemyurt »

blunte wrote: post #181
HWR_14 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thrown by people working on a laptop. Do you have a battery powered second screen? Is there some workflow tips I should adopt to make it work better? I'm quite jealous of people who can work on laptops. I wonder the degree to which people enjoy WFH is the same as the degree to which they enjoy working on a laptop. Even the people I know with a dedicated room for work set up want to go back to the office if they p…

I much prefer a 4k monitor as my primary, and my laptop below it (open, as a small second screen). Going outside, working just off the laptop, is a definite shift. It usually means less coding, but sometimes it pushes me to be productive in areas I normally neglect (documenting, planning, organizing). To do real development, I am very dependent upon a big monitor. If I travel, I take one or rent one. Honestly though,…

How do you carry your monitor? this has been a problem for me during covid. also there is the work chair problem..

Re: I hope work from home continues

#230

Post by blunte »

riscy wrote: post #210
blunte wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my remote experience, I definitely don't talk to my colleagues that much. But when you're trying to build a small company, one approach is to make it feel like a family. And families always have people we like and people we like not so much. But there's something special about one unit working toward a single goal. My design is for a startup with young people. This would not work nearly as well for older people an…

Ah yes, the founder’s dream: gaining familial power over young people’s entire lives to further your start-up, before they realize they should develop a life of their own outside of work to avoid complete burnout.

Hey, they can spend 1-2 years with me, learn to be a good developer, and then happily go do whatever they want. I'm not binding them to be with me and my company forever.

This is not the US startup scene. There are decent alternatives which don't use people up. No VCs, so no short term fixations beyond having enough runway to last 6 months.

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