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I hope work from home continues

ryanmercer.com

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Re: I hope work from home continues

#581

Post by nobody865215698 »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #574
nobody865215698 wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, people dress in spandex to ride because that's what they've found works best for them, and not because they want to make you feel insecure about your your bike or your clothing or that you should get off the road? What you're saying is analogous to saying that because there are people who can't afford nice clothes you should dress as cheaply as possible, otherwise someone might…

I did say that the lycra has practical utility. I cannot speak for you, but there are consequences to making cycling a specialized activity that is only respectably done for leisure and with the proper equipment and clothing. There is a symbol economy here that I feel you are just not willing to contemplate.

>I did say that the lycra has practical utility.

>There is a symbol economy here that I feel you are just not willing to contemplate.

Okay, so let's see. I go out for a ride in shorts and I get a saddle sore. I look online and see that wearing cycling shorts prevents chafing, so I buy a pair and I don't get sores anymore. Exactly what am I signalling? That I have enough money to buy cycling shorts? I'm not really signalling that, it's just that I have no way to wear the shorts without making it plainly obvious that I'm wearing them.

But fine, I don't want to "signal" that, so what are my options? I have to stop going on long rides that would give me sores because someone might feel bad that they can't afford my cycling shorts? Should I also get the cheapest possible bike I can find? Should I just walk everywhere barefoot in whatever rags I can find in a dumpster?

Seriously asking, what do you want? It seems you're not asking for a world without poverty, but rather a world where everyone lives like they're poor, even if they don't have to. Hopefully I completely misunderstood what you meant.

>making cycling a specialized activity that is only respectably done for leisure and with the proper equipment and clothing

"Respectably". Look, man, honestly: people do not give a toss about your bike or what you wear. When I'm out in traffic I have enough on my mind trying not to get killed to look if there's anyone plodding along on an old beater bike in shorts and a t-shirt to make fun of. Just do your thing and let other people do their thing. You're like those guys who get insecure at the gym because they see the buff guys bench press 70 kg instead of focusing on their own routine.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#582

Post by noisy_boy »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #388
noisy_boy wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm using the Dell Ultrasharp Monitor U4320Q. There is no other way to put it - when I first bought it, I had doubts about my decision because this thing is _big_. You'll need to move your eye (and/or your neck) a bit more for the content on the edges which you almost never have to do for something like, say, 24" monitor.

However, few months down the line, this is the best decision I made for coding. The real estate makes a real difference. The quality of the panel is great and you soon get used to "bigness" and the ability to have so many split windows makes a huge difference in productivity. It'll probably really shine with a tiling WM/virtual workspaces (I use a non-tiling single workspace setup so that's just speculation though).

You still have to move few inches away if you are playing content full screen (my desk is wide but not very deep). I play Youtube videos expanded but not full screen and that is already big enough for me. For movies in full screen, I push my chair a bit away from the desk and put my legs on a small stool and then the experience is great.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#583

Post by decafninja »

ryandrake wrote: post #448
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…

Nobody wants to force you to work from home. I think if you work better from the office you should work from the office, and if I work better from home I should work from home. The execs advocating for work from office aren’t proposing this though: they are instead insisting everyone work from the office, regardless of preference. That’s what chafes people.

There are two facets to this.

First, productivity concerns are (mostly) an excuse. The real important thing that is desired is to be able to exert managerial control over employees. This is more easily done when you have employees in the office under watchful eyes.

Second, in an ideal world the people that like the office will commute to the office, and the people that like WFH will WFH.

The prefer-WFH people don't lose out either way from such a setup. However the prefer-office people still lose out, if, for example, the majority of a team chooses prefer WFH. What happens to all the social and organizational benefits of working in the office if you're in a team of 10 and only 3 people choose to come to the office? Or worse - if you're the only one? So it becomes an all or nothing scenario.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#584

Post by Sebb767 »

bagacrap wrote: post #319
Camas wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easier to exercise when there's a purpose to it.

Like your health and longevity?

An immediately visible purpose. Saving for your retirement is important, as well, but spending money on food (which you need) is still more fun.

Also, cycling on your commute forces you to do so. For your health, cycling a tour "tomorrow" is just as fine. But it does not serve well as a motivator. Cycling to work, on the other hand, forces you to do that now.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#585

Post by Hypergraphe »

bagacrap wrote: post #553
antiterra wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think we have this proof? At best, we have evidence it works ‘well enough.’ There are still people who hate online meetings, who have a negative physical reaction to it and are unable to engage. The people playing online video games during the day I run into who have to go afk for a few moments to ‘get a work call’ are likely to have reduced productivity. (Probably double for kids who are doing online school.…

It ought to be noticeable in terms of output if individuals play video games instead of working. If it's not, maybe they just manage their time differently than you expect, but still effectively.

If it is not noticeable, then it probably means that their work is some kind of bullshit, so why would they waste their time doing nothing instead of gaming ? I mean when your job is fullfulling you don't need to do something else during your work hours.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#586

Post by irrational »

JackFr wrote: post #576
irrational wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Informal communication, informal collaboration This has been happening with greater regularity when we have been working from home. All the time we will have informal communication on slack or jump on an informal unscheduled zoom call to mob on an issue. I worked on campus for 18 years prior to starting to work from home last March. I cannot remember a single time informal communication or informal collaboration ha…

No one has ever overheard someone else’s Zoom conversation. Now that does happen in open slack channels but it seems to me far less frequently.

I don’t think informal means overhearing. I think it means unscheduled.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#588

Post by ryanmercer »

npsimons wrote: post #375
ascotan wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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've had this happen in the past with managers doing reviews. While in these cases I've usually enjoyed the conversation and been at least as guilty as them as derailing the focus, it's still time where I could be doing work instead of discussing common interests/experiences with them. It's not like we're ever going to hang out outside of work so us discussing local shows we both were at two decades ago, or our morel hunting success this year, or what variety of potatoes we're planting, is just taking us both away from work (sure, sometime that is needed just to get in a different headspace, but the shareholders probably don't care about that).

Re: I hope work from home continues

#589

Post by ryanmercer »

irrational wrote: post #378

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 f…

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

Same. I am fortunate t have gigabit in a very rural town as we are 2 blocks from US40 which apparently has some serious fiber runnning along side it, it's MUCH faster than the internet at work which is wonderful for work-related searches as we often have to research what something is throughout the day to figure out what it is and when you have a hundred something people crammed onto some crappy connection a simple Google query can sometimes take several seconds just to load when people are using their work computer for trying to stream something (a big no-no) bogging down the speeds for everyone.

Re: I hope work from home continues

#590

Post by KptMarchewa »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #541
edoceo wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manager as facilitator works awesome. Manager as controller sucks. One path gives the team power, the other gives the boss power.

Managing a highly self-motivated team of engineers is different than managing a team of undermotivated slackers. For the former, a great manager will regularly ask, "What can I do to help you do your job well?" This person fights the political battles that need to be fought, takes bullets for the team, gets the team the resources they need, removes roadblocks, recruits, etc. The team already wants to work hard, wants…

>you really want to foster a kind of contagious, optimistic busy-bee state

Is that really how american workplaces look? Sounds incredibly dystopian.

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