We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons • Hacker News Board

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#51

Post by commandlinefan » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

EduardoBautista wrote: post #27

MattGaiser wrote: post #3

> I can't imagine another day of long Zoom meetings. The pandemic really reinforced to me that so many of these are pointless, at least for many participants. I have played games with co-workers, gone to sleep, done freelance work, had lunch (away from my desk), and all manner of other things through pretty much every meeting over 1 hour that I have had this pandemic. Especially the ceremonies like retro (exercise in…

I agree a lot with your comment. No amount of planning or estimates will ever change that a feature will be done when it's done. My previous job had about a 4th of the total work week dedicated to meetings. As someone with ADHD, this was very difficult for me. What made matters worse is that they were sometimes spread out and I could lose an entire day of productivity and I was just unable to work when my meds ran ou…

> a feature will be done when it's done.

PHB: "You're thinking like an engineer, not a manager."

Dilbert: "In that case, we'll fix the bugs before we find them."

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#52

Post by meh99 » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

I get what the author is going for but agile, scrum, process, and such are ephemeral helicoptering.

When the outputs are socially restricted, it’s not as if work from home is enabling free thought and novel productive agency.

IMO it’s merely step 1 to on a long path ending the aristocratic control of productive output. Somehow what we do has no value unless they can own and speculate about its financial value.

I see no merit in emotional grifting by a minority. That’s the binding we need to question. Not the middle manager who is aristocratic in title only.

Privus lex should be universal. Currently it clearly favors those with financial control of the planet.

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#53

Post by librish » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

"I can't let me team work from home, they might not work hard."

"Maybe you should work to improve what you measure and how you encourage feedback. It is normally a good idea to have ways to tell if people are doing a good job for what you are paying them to do."

Measuring this stuff is really, really hard. If you're a manager who's non-technical it's almost impossible.

No-one is saying that you can't slack off while at the office, or that you are guaranteed to slack off if you're working from home, but I think the discussion would be better if some of the more rabid pro-remote people acknowledged that for a lot of people there is a big difference.

In the office: - You're limited in what slacking options are available - You're surrounded by coworkers who at least act as though they mostly work which can be motivating - You know your boss is around and could stop by, so you don't want to do something too outlandish

At home you could go play your xbox for 8 hours while responding to DMs, and then say "investigated the bug, think I made some progress" during stand-up and in many places get away with that for a very, very long time.

I don't think some lighter version of this is that uncommon. Sure, you can take the position that it's managements responsibility to figure this out and fire you but understand that this type of thing is why many companies are against remote, especially with how vehemently most developers reject any form of tracking.

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#54

Post by luckydata » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

lastofthemojito wrote: post #12

I think a lot of the responses to the straw man's questions are reasonable and thoughtful. But I think this sentiment: >I don't want to change the way I work, I just want people to join me in the office. My kids are driving me crazy. Is it weird to say I'm lonely; I miss my office friends. Deserves more respect. There are lot of types of people out there, and it seems like at least some of them are energized by being…

yes, but kids are going back to school. The "i'm lonely" part is an effect of how bad US cities are for social interaction. I guarantee you if you live in a European city you're not starved for social interaction, you can go to your neighborhood watering hole, or square, and meet with your actual friends anytime.

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#55

Post by ecf » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

lastofthemojito wrote: post #12

I think a lot of the responses to the straw man's questions are reasonable and thoughtful. But I think this sentiment: >I don't want to change the way I work, I just want people to join me in the office. My kids are driving me crazy. Is it weird to say I'm lonely; I miss my office friends. Deserves more respect. There are lot of types of people out there, and it seems like at least some of them are energized by being…

On the contrary, I feel it deserves LESS respect. Treating the office as an escape from an undesirable at-home situation and then having the audacity to try to force more people to be in-person is incredibly selfish behavior.

If these people truly need that social interaction, how about putting more effort into community/personal relationships instead of workplace relationships?

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#56

Post by ryandrake » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 5:56 PM UTC

void_mint wrote: post #41

ssully wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also the old adage that showing up is half the battle. Even if the company isn't in the habit of misusing meetings, showing up to meetings is important for establishing relationships with different people and departments. It sucks, but people are still social creatures, and meeting and talking to people face to face can have a strong lasting impression then a well written email.

Yeah, I think the above comment's thinking is pretty unproductive. If you "just" skip all of the meetings you don't personally find value in, you're depriving everyone in those meetings any nuggets of value _you_ could add. You'll be quickly labeled a loner/difficult team member/etc. Nobody wins if you "just" skip all the things you don't want to do. Also it's worth noting that the gripe wasn't about meetings, but ab…

> Yeah, I think the above comment's thinking is pretty unproductive. If you "just" skip all of the meetings you don't personally find value in, you're depriving everyone in those meetings any nuggets of value _you_ could add.

I was specifically talking about the meetings OP was talking about: The ones that have no value-add and where you have no nuggets to add. You can sleep through them, or otherwise tune out and do other work in the background. Why are people even going to these? If there's really absolutely nothing you can gain or others can gain from you, just don't go. I didn't think this was a controversial view, but the votes say otherwise.

EDIT: Also, who is actually being fired for not being attendee #47 at a meeting that they are not contributing to? If you actually saw this happen, let us know the company to warn us all not to accept offers there, because that seems extraordinarily petty.

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#57

Post by aisle » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

andrewflnr wrote: post #25

donretag wrote: post #15

"You can choose your friends independently of your work" I have met the majority of my friends at work. Once you pass your 20s, your exposure to strangers diminishes greatly. And many of us do not have kids.

I think this is something that society can adjust to and be better off for it. People would have to be more intentional about meeting new people (seeking out meetups or whatever), but the results are likely to be better.

And intentional about exercising (as opposed to walking to BART or even directly to work for 20 mins), and intentional about eating right (instead of hopping over to Mixt Greens for a complex and healthy salad). And intentional about their work area actually being healthy (adequate sun exposure, free of radon in the case of a basement office). On and on and on.

There is no way to guarantee all of this stuff for remote workers. The US was already becoming too isolated. I just don't understand all the optimism about people just figuring this stuff out, or even companies being able to help from a distance, at all. We're in for a ton of downstream problems.

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#58

Post by NikolaNovak » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

lastofthemojito wrote: post #12

I think a lot of the responses to the straw man's questions are reasonable and thoughtful. But I think this sentiment: >I don't want to change the way I work, I just want people to join me in the office. My kids are driving me crazy. Is it weird to say I'm lonely; I miss my office friends. Deserves more respect. There are lot of types of people out there, and it seems like at least some of them are energized by being…

I mean, I'm a strong introvert (defined here as somebody who likes people but is drained by socialization). Any given day I'd prefer working at home than from office; will prefer lunch at computer than cafeteria; dinner with friends or "me time" over team-building exercise; being at home with family than in office with co-workers. I'm friendly with my co-workers but we're not out-of-office friends -- I have my own circle of friends and family and interests.

But working from home, only home, for 16 months now? At macro level, it drained me of motivation after a few months - and it took a lot of self-examination to realize I'm no longer at my peak and why, because the change was slow and subtle. I lose this internal intuitive feeling of what we're doing and more importantly, why it matters. Everything is just words on the screen; success or failure, it's just an email or slack. There's no energy and pride to soak in when we wrap up a project. And most of all, I recognize I'm highly motivated by successful peers I respect; and I just don't get to experience that the same way. I see the good results/work of my peers, but I don't get to "see them be successful / good at their job", which is subtly but critically different thing, more of a continuous and passive experience - what you call "being surrounded by smart people doing interesting work" really rings true.

So while any given morning I'd rather stay at home, I recognize that in long term, I'm suffering from only staying home.

I cannot IMAGINE what an extrovert is feeling these days :-/.

(Oh and yes, I love them to death but there IS such a thing as "too much contiguous time spent with my kids", for me at least it turns out... but office is not necessarily the solution for that:)

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#59

Post by void_mint » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

darioush wrote: post #42

_6pvr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why are you joining the meeting to begin with? At companies that misuse meetings, most meetings are not optional to attend. Of course you could say "Well just don't go", but some people don't like getting fired over things like this. > Just decline like a grown-up and get some actual work done What a condescending way to communicate.

Delivering completed work seems a clear form of communication to me. It has the added benefit of being hard to argue with.

Sure, but (as I posted in another comment), if you're delivering completed work at the price of others delivering completed work because they needed information from you, and the culturally-defined place for that information to have been exchanged was all the meetings you're skipping, that's still probably a huge net negative.

Re: We Can't Let People Work from Home, for Stupid Reasons

#60

Post by MattGaiser » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

milkytron wrote: post #34

MattGaiser wrote: post #3

> I can't imagine another day of long Zoom meetings. The pandemic really reinforced to me that so many of these are pointless, at least for many participants. I have played games with co-workers, gone to sleep, done freelance work, had lunch (away from my desk), and all manner of other things through pretty much every meeting over 1 hour that I have had this pandemic. Especially the ceremonies like retro (exercise in…

> Especially the ceremonies like retro (exercise in taking notes and throwing them away) Retro is one of those meetings that I have found very useful, at multiple companies. When done right, everyone should be involved, and useful action items will be taken away to make work easier in the future. I've seen retros done terribly wrong, where nothing is accomplished or taken away. Those seem like a waste, but I think wh…

Retro can be useful if there are small problems to fix. I find that it misses the big ones because nobody wants to fight entrenched ways of doing things. It also does not help if there is no real follow through, which is my biggest gripe about it.

It really gets tedious hearing the same problem every two weeks with action planned and nothing happening.