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I hope work from home continues

ryanmercer.com

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Re: I hope work from home continues

#381

Post by rytis »

blunte wrote: post #170
folkrav wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And for the social aspect, weekend or week-long dev retreats are ideal. As much as I appreciate (most of) my coworkers, on nights and weekends I want to close my computer and spend quality time with my family, not see and talk to the same people I am already forced to talk to 35-40h a week. They might be ideal to you, but you're assuming quite a lot about everyone's situations if you think they work for everyone.

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…

what's the upper age limit to join this hypothetical company? /s

Re: I hope work from home continues

#382

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

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…

Big companies lack the freedom because they have to answer to institutional + activist investors, and institutional + activist investors want to see a sweat shop. They get nervous if they think people are having a chilled time at home.

This is a caste culture issue. It's orthogonal to productivity and real returns.

If you set up your chilled culture, you'd better stay bootstrapped. If you take VC money, most are going to push for a less liberal line.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#383

Post by shard »

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…

The absolute best thing about WFH: naps whenever I need it. No more slogging through the post-lunch mid-afternoon slump. I take a 15 minute nap and am good to go for the rest of the afternoon. Also, early meetings at 6~7AM scheduled to work with European coworkers can be followed by a short nap afterwards as well. This has done wonders for my energy throughout the day.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#384

Post by ldbooth »

The reality is the WFH scenario is subjective. Depends on your seniority, industry, role, and other factors. For kids coming out of college, how do they get mentorship? You're lying to yourself if you think apprenticeship means zoom calls and retreats. The model doesn't work for most companies, but it sure feels good to get that first shot of WFH freedom. After 5 years working from home, this last year put the exclamation point on me getting back into an office working shoulder to shoulder with a like minded community of people. I need people more than WFH comfort, after a while, WFH is a predictable numbing experience. While the efficiencies are there, and there are many valid points, WFH has severe limitations to professional growth.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#385

Post by nso95 »

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…

Sounds like when I was doing contract work for the air force

Re: I hope work from home continues

#386

Post by izacus »

dblooman wrote: post #102

I wonder how much of the split is going to be down to parents vs singles. As a single person, I have seen more pushing from managers with kids to go remote, singles or DINKs who live in small apartments in cities are more open to a flexible life style. 3-2 weeks, 60%-40% weeks, whatever people end up calling them seem to be quite a good compromise, but i can see many working 5 days in the office. There are still a lo…

The thing is, 3/2 hybrid is the worst type of compromise - it still forces you to live close enough to the office to commute and it forces the company to maintain offices as well. It doesn't really provide the major benefit of WFH or from having people there.

(Having said that, being able to skip days and stay at home when you feel like it should be the default.)

Re: I hope work from home continues

#387

Post by selimthegrim »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #232
enriquec wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the US, employers pay unemployment insurance premiums to the state. The state then pays unemployment benefits to qualifying individuals. Individuals who resign (quit) or are terminated for cause are not eligible for unemployment benefits. For example, an employer can slowly ratchet up requirements at work to the point where they can document an employee is not performing, terminate them, and the employee is not el…

They are still active until early September

Re: I hope work from home continues

#388

Post by CoastalCoder »

noisy_boy wrote: post #363
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…

Having worked on multiple monitors for so long, I would find just having a tiny laptop screen too restrictive. Being able to glance at multiple windows to collate information without having to Alt+Tab is priceless. I bought a 43" (4K 3840 x 2160) and put an older (rotated) 24" right next to it - the setup works perfectly contrary to my initial worry of the main display proving to be too big. Advantage of the 43" disp…

Sorry for the tangent, but I'm considering replacing my current home-office monitor.

Mind sharing which 43" monitor you have, and any other thoughts on its suitability for coding?

Re: I hope work from home continues

#389

Post by ewmiller »

Johnny555 wrote: post #292
BurningFrog wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty easy to get two full time programming jobs and do both remotely. Being in the office at least ensures you're not in another office.

Being in the office at least ensures you're not in another office. How? If I'm willing to work another job while I'm at my first job, no one would know if the code I'm working on my screen belongs to job #1 or job #2. The employer could use screen monitoring, but then they could do that while I'm at home and see that either I'm working on a second project, or that my computer is idle for long periods of time when I'm…

Companies often make employees sign agreements stating they won't do work for a second company while on the first company's property or while using the first company's equipment. So if you were going into the office and using one company's computer for two jobs, something like that would probably apply.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#390

Post by superfrank »

falcolas wrote: post #328
kibleopard wrote: post #293

A pattern I notice (not necessarily directly related to this article) is that the people who loudly exclaim “I don’t want to go back to the office ever again!” are usually older folks who: > have a house > have a family As a 20-something who lives alone in an apartment, I don’t get the luxury of having a nice backyard to go work in (like someone mentioned doing in another comment thread here). I don’t get the luxury…

> WFH disproportionately is worse for early in career people Based off working with a bunch of younger co-workers (the average age of my co-workers is in the early/mid 20's) I'd say it's worse for people whose primary source of social interaction is work. They didn't have social contacts they could lean on outside of work. Without the office, they were alone. Those with spouses, or friends outside of the office, all…

Just to offer a counter example, I'm in my mid 30s and engaged. I'm an introvert, but my fiancee is an extrovert, so I have a big social circle and even during the pandemic, I've had more social commitments than I can handle.

Our office opened last week and I've been back in every day (and am sitting here now).

For me, going back into the office has nothing to do with my social life. Even prior to the pandemic, for the last 4 years, I've had the option to WFH as much as I wanted and I was still in office 3-4 days a week. I feel less productive at home and I miss having the division between work and home. My commute is my wind down time that allows me to turn my brain off work mode at the end of the day.

I think after COVID is gone, the name of the game will be flexibility. Treat people like adults and, as long as they're getting their work done and not negatively affecting the team, we should let them work where and when they want.

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