I hope work from home continues • Hacker News Board

Re: I hope work from home continues

#521

Post by ashconnor » Tue, Apr 06, 2021, 6:40 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #435

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…

As a WFH advocate, I totally support you having the option to work from the office. A lot of people really like the office and have been having a really bad time this past year and you should totally go back. We just want the choice, too! Almost no WFH advocates are asking to force everyone to WFH. They just want the option to do what works best for themselves. The people pushing to return to the office, however, ten…

"Almost no WFH advocates are asking to force everyone to WFH."

*raises hand* the hybrid model of WFH is likely to revert to everyone back in the office as people realise that those that go into the office have an advantage over remote employees via side of desk conversations, building rapport with management and the general perception that those in the office are "working harder".

Re: I hope work from home continues

#522

Post by jahewson » Tue, Apr 06, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

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…

There’s no shortage of git training available, go send them on a day or two. I guarantee that they’ll be much better teachers than your senior engineers.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#523

Post by Asooka » Tue, Apr 06, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

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…

Regarding communication, I find I actually communicate with people more when remote than not. Walking over to someone's desk is pretty distracting, while firing a quick message and waiting for when they're free has nearly zero cost. Plus with video chat we can share both our screens at the same time so we can see what the other person sees, which is very valuable for diagnosing problems that only happen to one person. I can't videochat at the office because the noise will absolutely disturb my other colleagues, but it's trivial at home. It's almost like having infinite quiet isolated meeting rooms that you don't have to reserve in advance.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#524

Post by cableshaft » Tue, Apr 06, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

fiftyfifty wrote: post #234

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…

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…

My company was so ahead of the curve they decided to get rid of the office a full year and a half before the pandemic started!

Of course that was just to save money, since it was an expensive lease, apparently, but it did have the benefit that I didn't have any worries they'd force me to come back into the office once the pandemic started, or I'd have to go back to pack up my desk like my wife eventually had to when she changed jobs.

Other than a really rocky shift of our in-house data center into one of the main corporate data centers, it hasn't resulted in much difference as far as productivity, in fact we've been getting away with about half the staff maintaining the same systems (probably to our detriment if people end up leaving, we don't have much redundancy anymore).

Just makes me a little hesitant to find a new job because after three years I'm really used to WFH and I'm worried most other companies are itching to get people back into physical offices (like my wife will probably need to by the end of the year at her new job), even though there's not really any more room for me to grow at this organization in the next year or two based on what I've heard lately.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#525

Post by JayMickey » Tue, Apr 06, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #113

ryanmercer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What kind of office was this person working in? An office on the property of an international airport. Our maintenance hanger happens to be behind our parking lot and immediately on the other side of it is an active runway. If you work at an airport, not in the terminals, you get used to smelling aviation fuel/jet exhaust. As far as the indoor temperatures, it's a leased building and the HVAC is just inadequate (my…

> Many on HN are accustomed to nice offices with a bunch of perks or remote work, but for a lot of us we work in conditions like this (or far worse) and it's just life. I don’t know where you live, but I can assure you that what you’re describing is not “just life” in most developed countries. You’re not describing a normal office. Offices like you describe continue to exist because employees put up with it. The tech…

You're assuming he works in tech.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#526

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Apr 06, 2021, 6:48 PM UTC

gffrd wrote: post #490

ryandrake wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m so tired of this “ad hoc water cooler chat” suddenly being elevated as the most important part of office work. It’s never in the past been valued by these execs, and on the contrary sometimes punished (hey, quit socializing and get back to work!). But, now, all of a sudden when these execs are scrambling to find some reason to return to the office, they trot out “serendipitous hallway conversations” as the great…

When you can't point to something quantifiable, I guess you point to something like "water cooler chat!" My feeling is the same: while random interactions are important, they aren't exclusive to an office setting. Weird logic. It's been surprising to me how much ink has been spilled about this, and how few solutions have been offered.

Exactly this. I've had as many "serendipitous hallway conversations" in the last year as I had in the years before - just this time, they happened on IM, on videocalls, and in code review comments.

A small group of co-workers willing to sometimes go off a tangent in a conversation is all it takes. Doesn't have to be face to face, much less in a hallway or in front of a water cooler.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#527

Post by bad_username » Tue, Apr 06, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

shard wrote: post #383

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.

Power naps are glorious. In China taking a nap after lunch, right at your desk, is common and accepted practice.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#528

Post by fetacheese » Tue, Apr 06, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

I would rather work from space. Especially in the case that there are not enough space suits for anyone but myself.

The reason is there is no such thing as developer collaboration anymore there are only microservices, wiki pages, and scrum boards...and JERKS.

If you need or have more than that you are probably working in a waterfall shop with 75 year olds writing cobol.

People are rude, developer conversations are usually pointless and condescending or a fun try at ESL translations.

When you are talking about software with a developer, you are not writing code. Any idiot can run their mouth.

We are the new robots who just happen to eat food. Eventually we will be gone and our shared misery we call a "job" will be relieved from us.

And that will save a good many of us from having to pretend are lives have any meaning whatsoever.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#529

Post by globular-toast » Tue, Apr 06, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

pottertheotter wrote: post #250

globular-toast wrote: post #109

> Do not have to go to work sick, because they act like you murdered 30 children if you call in sick. > Do not have to be exposed to multiple sick coworkers at any given time. This is a really important one and something that occurred to me recently. Now that we've all established that we can, in fact, work from home just fine, we should at the very, very least stop the ridiculous practice of coming into work sick. P…

The thing that baffled me as I read this point is that the choice set when sick is (a) go to work and work, or (b) stay home and work. What we should be discussing is not working at all when you're sick. Rest and get better. I can't be the only one that finds this odd?

If you're too sick to work, then don't work. That should be simple. When you have a bad flu or tonsillitis or something, there is no choice. You are in bed.

This is about those times when you can still work. Most people come into work whenever they can, even if they are carrying an infectious virus. That needs to stop. If you are sick but can still work, you should work from home.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#530

Post by danaris » Tue, Apr 06, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #447

vp8989 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering culture should be disseminated via documents rather than oral lore. If it's disseminated via oral lore it's expensive to change and is often misinterpreted across a large enough org. A silent killer of engineering orgs is bad practices that stick around because that's the way it's always been done. No one knows why because it wasn't written down. The only way to fix that is for someone high enough to prov…

> Engineering culture should be disseminated via documents rather than oral lore. I'm always startled by comments like this because it's so counter to how I understand humanity. We are social mammals . No amount of good grammar and excellent font choice can substitute for sharing the same physical space together, an act that has been core to what it means to be human literally since we first speciated. Yeah, writing…

I participate in multiple online communities where the "culture" has only ever existed through text.

Just because it doesn't involve beer or seeing each other's faces doesn't mean that it's not a real culture.

That's not to say that any particular group's culture will translate seamlessly from in-person to text/video chat, but the idea that having and sharing a culture in a text format is somehow lesser than having one in person doesn't make sense to me.