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I hope work from home continues

ryanmercer.com

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Re: I hope work from home continues

#371

Post by fastball »

duckfang wrote: post #202
mrweasel wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I meant the company can’t choose to not care. I can certainly understand it from the employees point of view. But even in the US I would assume that companies aren’t just allowed to break the laws regarding work environment. Isn’t there some control visits, some way of reporting a company?

Unfortunately, the US is extremely caveat emptor in many ways. We have a legal system that greatly benefits rich people (companies are legally people). Unions have the lowest numbers in our history. Laws in different states like "Right to work" and similar kneecap workers rights. And worst is the "gig work" which pays sub-minimum wage of 7.25$/hr or $2.35 for restaurant server work (and the min wage hasnt increased s…

So don't work in these industries if the pay isn't good enough. Employers shouldn't be subjecting their employees to illegal working conditions, but neither does anyone owe anyone else a job.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#372

Post by mech422 »

blunte wrote: post #220
trentnix wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. I doubt it lasts, at least in software. Talented people are going to have lots of remote options making it harder to find good people willing to show up for daily cubicle warfare. I was someone who preferred to be in the office every day prior to the pandemic. But after adjusting, I really, really like working from home. Tru…

No you're certainly not the only one. I've found a good way to filter recruiters is to tell them up front, "I will only do full remote with occasional, non-regular office visits." Once you've tasted freedom...

I've been doing this for 20 years now...

Surprisingly, the recruiters are starting to answer "sure - no problem..." :-)

Re: I hope work from home continues

#373

Post by mech422 »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #219
cm2012 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The companies mandating 100% office time are doing so because their particular executive teams are nuts about it. See Netflix.

Netflix is now hiring full time remote for engineering, reporting to the office post COVID is optional. Source: I’m a full time engineer happily working out of the PHX suburbs. Personally, I have no intention of returning to the Bay Area.

Hey Neighbor! I'm in Mesa :-)

There's dozens of us...dozens :-D

Re: I hope work from home continues

#374

Post by Johnny555 »

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 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 prefer multiple monitors.

I can understand why people who are working from their kitchen table want to go back to the office, but for those that have a dedicated work area, wouldn't they set it up the way they want?

I have a multi-monitor setup at home that's better than what I have at work since I'm not limited to IT approved hardware. Related, I also have a loud clicky keyboard that I can't get away with using at work since everyone in the shared office area can hear it.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#375

Post by npsimons »

ascotan wrote: post #186
jonnycomputer wrote: post #45

Things 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…

For everyone that complains about interacting with colleagues. I feel that this can be addressed by having managers do periodic offsite meet-ups. However there are those people that comes to the office to talk all day, and honestly, for everyone else's productivity, it's better they work from home.

My boss on a project roped me into hobby chat as I was taking a five minute break to stretch my legs. He turned it into 40 (!) minutes of non-work chit chat.

I don't want to be unfriendly, but I'm at work to get shit done because I'm getting paid. If someone wants to talk hobbies, we can do that another time.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#376

Post by switch007 »

Pokepokalypse wrote: post #221
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.

I wonder how 50-500 individually heated/cooled homes from 8-6 compares to the energy required to heat/cool a single office/office block?

Re: I hope work from home continues

#377

Post by lisper »

Back when I was the boss, long before covid was a thing, I let people work from home because I liked working from home. One thing I did that I've not seen many other people do, but which really helped make it work, was to get everyone to formalize their working time by announcing their virtual arrival at and departure from work every day. So the first thing everyone would do everyday is send an email to the team with the subject, "I'm in", with a few very brief sentences saying what they were working on and hoping to accomplish that day. When they were done for the day, they would do the same thing with "I'm out" and again a few brief sentences saying what they had actually done. the guideline was that they should spend no more than five minutes, and probably more like one or two, composing these emails.

This policy had a dramatically positive effect, including on me. The overhead was negligible but it made it harder to slack off because that would be more immediately visible to the entire team. It also made it clear when one could expect timely responses to emails sent out during the day. And just forcing everyone to actually think about and what they were working on and rendering that into words made it obvious when there were organizational problems and tasks were not being distributed effectively.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#378

Post by irrational »

I work on a beautiful campus with amazing work facilities and it is only 2 miles from my house. We have fitness facilities, walking trails, tons of food options, etc. But having to go back and work there instead of working from my house is giving me major anxiety. I do not want to return to the office, at all. It's not my coworkers or boss, they are all fantastic. I just love being able to see my wife and kids more frequently. I love using my own bathroom. I love being able to roll out of bed and start working instead of having to get ready for the day and then riding my bike to and from work. I love working from home, I'm almost in tears thinking about having to go back to campus.

Oh, and also I have 1 gigabit internet service to my house which is much faster than what I had at work ;-)

Re: I hope work from home continues

#379

Post by richardwhiuk »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #187
parzivalm wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this seems to be an issue for new hires that I've seen. But I think the blame for this lies in management and the seniors on the team. If a fresh out of college grad feels hesitant to ping a coworker then that coworker is doing something wrong. I'm seeing a lot of companies and teams seem to shift this blame to the WFH situation, where really it is a failure of the team to not integrate and work well tog…

> the blame for this lies in management and the seniors on the team It absolutely does. Point is a lot of industries never formalized training, instead relying on osmosis across teams. That creates a--hopefully temporary--disadvantage for new hires. Again, in some fields.

Management are fixing it - they are requiring everyone to go back to the office.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#380

Post by ZoomZoomZoom »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #12

What 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…

>Having to breathe jet exhaust fumes

That point was clearly about his home

"Working from home I:

...

• Breathe jet exhaust..."

Kidding aside, there's just not enough jobs in "not broken" offices for all the workers. I haven't seen an office which isn't broken in some way, even though I haven't seen many. And suggestion of looking for another job is just patronizing. If a person could done it easily, he would have done it long ago.

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