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What if remote work didn’t mean working from home?

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Re: What if remote work didn’t mean working from home?

#201

Post by ecpottinger »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #116

Working remote and not from home: - Do you need to take a call, and don't want to be that person with lots of background noise? Good luck, other than renting out a private office or meeting room. (Seriously, if you're at a busy Starbucks at 9AM during your stand-up call, just type it in the chat...) - Cell signal is finally getting fast and available enough that remote work can be done on top of a mountain, but you d…

Starbucks in a Chapters store is not noisy, plus you get your mags on time.

Unless you are really out in the country, the cell phone work fine. I am going to Starlink because my property is over 100 KM from the nearest city but while searching for the land I was surprised how far cell phone are now covered.

Buy a laptop with a good screen, or learn to rotate it so the sun does not bounce into your eyes. I prefer matte screens for outside.

Offices worked when you used the older methods to run things, most times a little thought will show other methods to run things.

Offices are here because they were useful, and management hates making changes.

Re: What if remote work didn’t mean working from home?

#202

Post by icebergonfire »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #152
shannongreen wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I would hate working with someone like this. You don't have to be super active, socially, but treating the other people (and they _are_ people) on your team as just drones is a) not conducive to good collaboration and b) pretty damn rude.

It doesn’t have to be rude. Seeing it as rude is an imposition on those of us who don’t see it as rude. I’m pretty antisocial, personally, and love it when my workmates get to the point and focus on the actual “drone”-tasks. Why? Because that is why I do software. I don’t do software because I love people. I don’t do software because I love the paycheck. I do software because I love software and every second away fro…

As someone who as been on both ends of that spectrum at different points of my life, I’ll attempt to explain: your core concept is completely legitimate and understood, at least here in HN.

Presenting it as a clear-cut _you are a queue of work and paychecks_ is where it breeds conflict. For the royal you that description is merely a description and expresses no judgement, it is simply the _why_ of your intentional lack of interaction with your coworkers.

To the people on the other side, that description brings back the negative feelings they felt when a coworker that held that same opinion (not you) was unnecesarily rude at work and shielded his failings behind the _I don’t do people_ cover.

I realize that asking you to use the human touch (for lack of a better term) is asking you to have to “work” to cater to the social aspects that you are trying to not get involved with…

So instead I’ll posit that your last paragraph is a perfectly acceptable response to the eternal “want to join and be social” question. It’s innofensive yet firm, and it conveys your position in a concise way that nobody can really pick apart unless they want to make an scene and look bad.

Re: What if remote work didn’t mean working from home?

#203

Post by Aeolun »

conductr wrote: post #36
geoduck14 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the Happy Hours: In 2019, my team would occasionally need to work long hours or would deliver something awesome. I would reward them with HH and dinner/late meal. It gave me a chance to say "thanks" and for us to bond over the challenge we overcame. I can't do that anymore! I've don't virtual HH, but it isn't the same! I would REALLY like a virtual solution to "bond with your team" and "say thanks in a mean…

> It gave me a chance to say "thanks" "Me" is the key word > and for us to bond over the challenge we overcame. That occurred already. It happened through the process of overcoming the challenge. I get the intent, but your people probably just want to rest and get some of their time back. If you must celebrate, do it during hours. I typically did offsite lunch time activities pre-COVID. Now it's more gift driven and…

I don’t know. For me, I’m very much looking forward to having dinner and a party with my co-workers again.

I don’t want that every week, but the once every 3 months’ish that we had going was pretty nice.

Re: What if remote work didn’t mean working from home?

#204

Post by mancerayder »

late2part wrote: post #150
dylan604 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nope. i've never worked for a company that gave away stock. i also never wear the swag t-shirts/hoodies that companies give out to employees (or worse sell). why?

Thank you for answering. I ask because I have this theory that there is a correlation between employees who don't mind working more to make stock to go up if they have stock. It's never a simple analysis. I don't mind working more for a deadline if I recognize a tangible increase in revenue or cost savings, as I benefit from the stock. "Gave away" is an interesting term. In our company, stock is 10-40% of our compens…

It depends on whether you have any meaningful amount of stock - and that meaningfulness varies to some extent by how expensive your city is and what your standards are of course - and whether you're so empowered as to make a meaningful difference in the "stock price."

I'm fairly senior, but since I don't work in sales nor in some strategy aspect of the business, I don't "make the stock go up." I can get more stock as a pat on the head if I'm a good boy, at the end of the year, but generally 95% of the company is waiting for the stock to vest and let the stock go up by itself.

Senior companies at my company think people will work harder if they have stock because they "want to make the stock go up." This is false. Great company, false premise nonetheless.

Re: What if remote work didn’t mean working from home?

#205

Post by Turing_Machine »

geoduck14 wrote: post #12
bluefirebrand wrote: post #2

As long as I still have a quiet, private office and don't spend an hour+ per day in traffic and am not expected to give up evenings for "not mandatory but really you should show up to play politics" office happy hours, I don't care where I work. Currently working from home gives me all of that and I haven't been happier with a job ever.

Regarding the Happy Hours: In 2019, my team would occasionally need to work long hours or would deliver something awesome. I would reward them with HH and dinner/late meal. It gave me a chance to say "thanks" and for us to bond over the challenge we overcame. I can't do that anymore! I've don't virtual HH, but it isn't the same! I would REALLY like a virtual solution to "bond with your team" and "say thanks in a mean…

If you really wanted to give them a treat, you could do the "team bonding" stuff during normal work hours, rather than asking them to give up yet more of their personal time when they've already been overworked.

Maybe something like "We're playing hooky today, folks. We're all going to lunch and...we're not coming back to the office afterward."

Re: What if remote work didn’t mean working from home?

#206

Post by tailspin2019 »

deviation wrote: post #142

Some people fail to recognise the actual problem here. I, among many, live within The deciding factors were - that I didn't have to leave the room for a personal call so that I didn't disturb anyone. - that I didn't need to have six seperate conversations in the morning before being able to sit down and begin my work. - that I didn't need to sacrifice portions of my lunchtime to grab a coffee with others and look lik…

> Do I seem antisocial to you?

No, you seem like a well balanced human being who knows what’s important in life.

Your comment certainly resonated with me.

Re: What if remote work didn’t mean working from home?

#207

Post by aledalgrande »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #116

Working remote and not from home: - Do you need to take a call, and don't want to be that person with lots of background noise? Good luck, other than renting out a private office or meeting room. (Seriously, if you're at a busy Starbucks at 9AM during your stand-up call, just type it in the chat...) - Cell signal is finally getting fast and available enough that remote work can be done on top of a mountain, but you d…

I deployed from a taxi in SF so your mileage might vary ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: What if remote work didn’t mean working from home?

#208

Post by Ar-Curunir »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #18
beforeolives wrote: post #7

Works out best if "near home" = "the actual office of my company".

An underlying issues nobody is talking about is real estate prices need to crash then. The quality of life outside a city is just so unbelievably better that I'm not going back to live in a box for hundreds of dollars a month, on a filthy street with no sense of community.

QoL is much much better in the city IMO. The only downside is rent, and maybe parking. I have access to lively nightlife, food, shops, etc, whereas in suburbs stuff is closed by 8/9PM.

Of course, this varies by stage of life; I don't have kids, so I'd prefer the city to a suburb.

Re: What if remote work didn’t mean working from home?

#209

Post by tailspin2019 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #2

As long as I still have a quiet, private office and don't spend an hour+ per day in traffic and am not expected to give up evenings for "not mandatory but really you should show up to play politics" office happy hours, I don't care where I work. Currently working from home gives me all of that and I haven't been happier with a job ever.

> "not mandatory but really you should show up to play politics"

Yep. Enough of that bullshit already.

> Currently working from home gives me all of that and I haven't been happier with a job ever.

Same here!

Re: What if remote work didn’t mean working from home?

#210

Post by Mehdi2277 »

syshum wrote: post #153
mtalantikite wrote: post #33

I've been working remote for 13 years now and I really wish I had rented an office outside of my house much earlier than I did. At 23 your threshold for pain and discomfort is I think much higher in many ways, but I definitely burnt myself out by having my workspace also be my living space (small apartment in NYC). Once I started sharing a loft space with some friends to co-work out of things got a lot more enjoyable…

Key there is a dedicated space for an office. This may be renting an office space outside your living space, or if you live anywhere that is not a large city chances are you can afford a larger place that would include a dedicated space for an office for much less than renting an office would be. Around here a 1 Bed room apartment + small office rental would be FAR FAR FAR more costly than simply renting a 2 bedroom…

Friends and family are my largest reason for wanting to live in a location. A lot of my friends live in very high cost of living areas. So I will aim to be comfortable living in those same places. It definitely is a lot more expensive than state I grew up in, Oklahoma, but it’s cost I accept.

I still like full remote for flexibility it gives especially with a trip for a couple weeks/months but long term location I’d probably end up in the Bay Area independent of my work just from friends.

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