Sounds like literally every office I've been in. Only thing we can do is start prioritising remote only companies to the point of employers seeing that they lose good talent if they don't go remote
I hope work from home continues
281–290 of 610 posts
Re: I hope work from home continues
#282Earlier 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…
The company I work for actually suggested getting rid of our office and going 100% remote for our group. We actually voted on whether to keep leasing it after Covid or not. We voted to keep it as we generally like our office and it's nice to have a place to meet face to face sometimes. Since we voted to keep it corporate has told us we have to come in at least 3 days a week after Covid. So for us it's less an issue o…
Your physical space may be nice, but if not... would they have allocated a budget to pay for dedicated space at a local coworking facility? I totally get wanting face time with people as needed (or wanted), or just needing a change of place from the house. That option may be less expensive than a 'full office', but still give you all what you need - space for shared meetings and work.
Re: I hope work from home continues
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lucky you. I live in a top-floor apartment so don't have the luxury of a garden and I'm isolated by myself as I live alone. It's not the same for everyone.
Luck had nothing to do with the choices I made in my career and life.
Really? It made a lot of difference to mine. If I didn't have a mild skeletal problem I'd probably be in the air force right now, rather than a software engineer.
Re: I hope work from home continues
#284Things I miss: - interacting with my colleagues, going out to lunch - the very high-speed and reliability of being on the network wire - dedicated work-space outside of my home where home-chores don't press on my mind while I'm trying to work - my commute: I cycled into work, and the daily exercise was great - a clearer separation of work and home life Things I don't miss: - interacting with my colleagues, when i don…
Pandemic is the only thing preventing organized lunch with coworkers. Nothing about wfh prevents it - just agree on a place and time. Internet is a problem, but a solvable one - assuming you are in the US, we need competition for ISPs. I had ATT fiber for a while and it was for all practical purposes as good as office (symmetric gigabit). Cycling has been covered :) Separation - door closed to the space I work in wor…
> just agree on a place and time
It would require a commute longer than that of going to the office. An average employee has already organized their life around the necessity of commuting to the office. Office is probably a central location.
Most workers will be found within a circle of the tolerable commute time (isotropy assumption). Let for simplicity assume that all workers live at the same distance R from the office, and are distributed uniformly along that circle. The angular distance between any two employees is distributed uniformly in [0, pi]. Chord length is R 2 sin (theta/2). Integrating, we calculate the average distance between two employees: 4R/pi > R.
Re: I hope work from home continues
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
> - my commute: I cycled into work, and the daily exercise was great This one is not like the others, it's completely up to you to have a bike ride e.g. at lunch time around the block when you WFH.
Oh, you're right. But when you have to cycle to get to work whether you want to or not, its easier to get that exercise in. I'm not a leisure cyclist. I don't dress up in spandex and ride an expensive bike. In fact, I have difficulty containing my derision for leisure cyclists. I know that the equipment they use has utility, but it also signals: I don't have to ride a bike. I have an expensive SUV at home, and I didn…
I created an account solely to reply here.
What? How did you get around to such an explicit and unfounded gate-keeping of cycling? Cycling is only 'good' if it has the purpose of commute? Cycling is only 'good' if you have a cheap bicycle? Sorry to be this direct, but this is utter nonsense!
I do not have an expensive SUV at home, I don't even own a driver's license, and I don't own a super expensive bike either, but I still go out in lycra to use my road bike as a training utility (almost) every day.
Why is it that we as cyclists have to gate-keep each other at every step and corner? Both hating on cyclists in general and and gate-keeping in cycling itself is stupid and should not exist, let's just embrace cycling whether we are on a super expensive road bike or a cheap mountain bike we bought second-hand.
Re: I hope work from home continues
#286ITT: Everybody saying how awful OP's workplace is. But ~10mins of commuting? That's heaven! If I had to commute to a local company it would take me 90mins in a good day, or rent a place for half the salary such local company would be paying me.
I've been working remotely for 14 years now and I'm never coming back. Ever.
Re: I hope work from home continues
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
GP post was referring to retreats for 100% remote workers, which would be work with a f2f element rather than merely socializing during your free time. These could happen during the week or (depending on the retreat) the weekend, with weekends probably being given comp time in lieu. If you think that a modicum of face time throughout the year for a remote team has no value to a group or team, I’ve got news for you. I…
I am 100% remote. Some face to face is desirable, sure. Do it in core work hours, and don't assume I want to work outside those.
I think that was the idea.
Most 100% remote places I know of that do retreats typically have them during the week. A weekend retreat would be reserved for an activity that would only happen on a weekend and has buy-in from the team.
There seems to be a lot of resistance from remote workers about remote worker retreats happening outside of work hours. Is this actually a thing? I have never heard of it other than the weekend caveat (weekend only event with team buy in) that I mentioned above.
Re: I hope work from home continues
#288Something I've noticed without formal study is that people my age (college seniors and recent grads) don't like working from home. I was working at a new internship (8 months, starting January 2020) and the initial working from home was draining, unmotivating, and a bit depressing (that's partially due to being alone during the start of the pandemic). I thought I was in the minority because all of HN and Reddit seeme…
Totally relate to your experiences. I think WFH while living alone is super hard! You have to take a lot of responsibility for your life that you normally don't have to. I.e you won't see anyone in person unless intentionally plan to leave the house. Its surprising how big of an effect in person meetings can have!
Re: I hope work from home continues
#289It seems that he works at a pretty crappy place.
I just hope that the new normal will be less days at the office and that that will make traffic better.
Re: I hope work from home continues
#290What kind of office was this person working in? Having to breathe jet exhaust fumes while suffering through 85 degree indoor temperatures and drinking algae-filled water is nowhere near normal. The company he’s describing is severely broken if everything he’s describing is true. Most of what he describes are not normal office problems. Some of them are even health and safety violations. Working from home will only di…
My office building (the company owns it) is four stories. We have a backup diesel generator that is run every week during business hours for 1 hour. And every week the fumes waft upwards towards the air handlers on the roof. My first week I was shocked by how bad it smelled; kind of like a mown lawn that had rotted. After a few years, I stopped noticing it.