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I hope work from home continues

ryanmercer.com

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Re: I hope work from home continues

#561

Post by jonnycomputer »

zebnyc wrote: post #492
jonnycomputer wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 am having a hard time following what you are trying to communicate. Apparently some one performing an activity cause it is leisure / you come from a poor neighborhood / they can afford nice(r) things, invites your derision. Did I understand you correctly? I am not sure how those factors are related but apparently they are to you. Must be hard to find someone / something which escapes your contempt.

I expected defensiveness when I said what I did. Its also what I got. After all, no one likes to hear that the groups they belong to are the object of ridicule, contempt or derision, or that some one might think that their hobby is a problem; it might come as a short of shock that other people might think that way about them. Get over it.

It is not simply a matter of some people getting to do what they enjoy. It is the system of symbols tied to a specific activity. Everyone likes to ride bikes, poor, middle class, and rich. How do the middle class and rich make sure that no-one mistakes them for the kind of person who cannot afford a car? By the price of the bike, and all the specialized equipment they use along with it. Of course that equipment has practical utility--no one says that it doesn't--but that equipment is playing another, probably more important role as a signal of status (if you don't believe me, go biking with your cyclist buddies wearing jeans and riding $400 bike.)

So why is it a problem? Because it creates an environment that is not positive, possibly even dangerous, for other cyclists who cannot afford to, or are not willing to, participate in that cycling economy. It isn't really that complicated. Let me put it another way. Who do the police stop when riding through the neighborhood. The cyclist on his or her expensive bike, wearing their expensive equipment, that practically scream: I'm participating in a lifestyle activity? Or the cyclist on a cheap bike, wearing jeans and a t-shirt? Maybe with the wrong skin color. The answer quite obviously is the second.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#562

Post by jonnycomputer »

Johnny555 wrote: post #444
jonnycomputer wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've taken up jogging. Their are some trails nearby, and a highschool running track.

I used to run quite a bit but my knees can't take it anymore, biking (so far) is fine. Based on family history, there's probably knee surgery in my future, but for now I'm fine with biking.

I also have knee problems. Hope all the best for you.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#563

Post by npsimons »

twobitshifter wrote: post #455
mumblemumble wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a hard time wrapping my head around why companies are mandating 100% return to office. Hot take: There's a whole way of communicating and handling team organization that grew up around 20th century business management culture, and it just doesn't work well with remote teams. Methods that do work well with remote teams, though, don't work well with traditional deeply hierarchical management structures. At bes…

My company promotes themselves as a “flat connected organization” yet our CEO has adamantly stated that work from home will not be possible as long as he is CEO. This is despite the company doing better than ever. He leans on a belief that some ephemeral energy and cultural value is being sapped away from working remotely and that we are “running on fumes” through COVID. I don’t believe any of it, and the company has…

> This is a better angle, but it’s also not something that happens for everyone, everyday, or can be used to justify 5 days in the office.

It's not, really.

To think of it another way: what would happen if your mentors left for better jobs, got hit by a bus or even just retired? People need to be documenting things so that knowledge isn't lost and can be passed on to many more people. If it's really that valuable, just think of how much more of an impact it will have when it doesn't have to be passed on one-to-one.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#564

Post by npsimons »

ryandrake wrote: post #475
twobitshifter wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company promotes themselves as a “flat connected organization” yet our CEO has adamantly stated that work from home will not be possible as long as he is CEO. This is despite the company doing better than ever. He leans on a belief that some ephemeral energy and cultural value is being sapped away from working remotely and that we are “running on fumes” through COVID. I don’t believe any of it, and the company has…

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…

This. You know what happened the first week I was back at the office? Non-work chit chat taking up hours of time.

If it's really valuable information, write it down so even more people can be exposed to it! It's like that saying about meetings: "this could have been an email."

Re: I hope work from home continues

#565

Post by npsimons »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #531
raducu wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not (mainly) about introverts vs extroverts, it's about high status vs low status. I guess not having your ass kissed daily must feel like "running on fumes".

The upper management folks also have big, comfy, quiet offices with floor-to-ceiling windows, and an assistant right outside the door to bark orders to. The people working in cubicle-hell or open-office purgatory generally aren't the ones clamoring to get back inside the building. If offices were redesigned to give more rooms with doors to the people who want them so they can do some quiet focused work, even if it's…

> an assistant right outside the door to bark orders to.

And that same assistant will screen time with the boss, something us plebs don't get.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#566

Post by npsimons »

vp8989 wrote: post #420
munificent wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 worry a lot about how this cuts the bottom rungs off the ladder for junior developers. Senior developers can be very productive without frequent access to in-person help, and are valuable enough that they can get work-from-home if they want. But junior developers have more fr…

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.

A million times this! If there's anything that WFH has done, it's exposed the big gaping hole known as "institutional knowledge."

> Increased difficulty for juniors to ramp up when you are remote is a symptom of a culture with lots of overly complicated processes that are not well documented.

Or no process at all. Even on small teams, even on projects I start from scratch by myself, I GD document things. It's not that hard once you start practicing and make it a habit.

I swear, if a programmer had zero comments in their code and said "just come by the water cooler if you have any questions", they'd be fired within a week, yet we put up with this ephemeral bullshit for other things.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#567

Post by npsimons »

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…

> We are social mammals.

We are sentient beings that have had writing for thousands of years. Perhaps we should start acting like it.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#568

Post by npsimons »

vp8989 wrote: post #481
munificent wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

"sounds to me like raising a baby using a six-axis robotic arm" No it's like raising a baby using advice you read from books that are peer reviewed and revised over time vs. just listening to what your parents say.

Yeah, GP has apparently never heard of Dr. Spock's books.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#569

Post by npsimons »

danaris wrote: post #530
munificent wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 o…

I grew up on BBSes, USENET, email, LKML FFS! I really don't get people who make provably false claims that online culture doesn't work.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#570

Post by npsimons »

dunefox wrote: post #432
necrotic_comp wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as people don't like it, our current culture of having a video conference open all day with everyone in (breaking out into smaller calls when necessary) brings down the level of "hey, can I ask you a question?" bc we can see if someone is at their desk. I think this is something that would work for more junior people as well, and I'd be happy to break out / share a screen as needed.

> having a video conference open all day with everyone in This sounds absolutely horrible .

> This sounds absolutely horrible.

And now you know how it feels to work in an open floor plan or cubicle where someone can come along and break your flow causing you to have to waste over 20 minutes getting back into it.

The key with the all day video conference is you can mute it and set your status as away when you need to do deep work. Can't do that in an office environment.

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