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

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

#101

Post by throwaway894345 »

grillvogel wrote: post #85
ecf wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

humans collaborating together, in person, to work on a common goal, has been a thing since humans existed. everyone working individually at home by themselves, only interacting with others digitally is pretty far removed from that. i might go so far as to suggest preferring the latter is what is not normal. having distracting kids at home is not an "undesirable home situation", in fact its a great home sitaution, so…

> humans collaborating together, in person, to work on a common goal, has been a thing since humans existed.

It was a very, very rare thing for most people for all of human history until the Industrial Revolution. Yeah, a lot of people helped build StoneHenge and the Pyramids, but most people were just farming (at home) or else hunting/gathering in family units.

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

#102

Post by prpl »

prpl wrote: post #94
mywittyname wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What ever happened to social clubs? I remember my grandpa was a member of the Knights of Columbus and would frequently go there to socialize / network. I feel like these clubs used to be pretty common: Scouts, Rotary Club, Moose/Elk Lodge, KoC, Veterans of Foreign Wars (which no longer requires members to be former military), and local cultural/historical clubs are pretty prevalent. I've been to a lot of these clubs…

They have been in a slow decline, along with unions, middle class, and manufacturing, during the rise of the internet and globalization.

Which is to also say that I think these clubs tended to skew towards a white middle-class without a college education. That is a declining demographic.

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

#103

Post by danaris »

mywittyname wrote: post #71
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…

What ever happened to social clubs? I remember my grandpa was a member of the Knights of Columbus and would frequently go there to socialize / network. I feel like these clubs used to be pretty common: Scouts, Rotary Club, Moose/Elk Lodge, KoC, Veterans of Foreign Wars (which no longer requires members to be former military), and local cultural/historical clubs are pretty prevalent. I've been to a lot of these clubs…

I think a big part of the problem is that most of them have a purpose other than just socializing, that not everyone is necessarily interested in.

At least some of them also have fairly high dues. I remember looking into Rotary in my area about 15 years ago, and just feeling like there was no way I could justify paying however much it was per month, even knowing that a lot of Rotary's purpose is to try to do good works, given what I was making at the time. (I don't remember how much it was, but my impression, at least, was that even if I was interested in actually devoting my time to it, it would still be more expensive than I could comfortably afford on a just-barely-above-national-median salary.)

And there's also a religious aspect: the Knights of Columbus are explicitly Catholic; while it's not officially religious, my experience with Rotary was that it had a very high overlap with churchgoers, and my recollection is that they opened and closed their meetings with a prayer.

And while the VFW may not require members to be former military, it's never going to attract large numbers of people who aren't, just because that's its stated purpose, baked into its very name.

I don't think those kinds of organizations will do as well with the younger generations, today and into the future, given these things. Now, if there were more interest-based clubs/groups around (like community singing groups, tabletop gaming, nature trail groups, etc, just to give a few examples that would interest me), that seems more likely to appeal.

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

#104

Post by lostdog »

fosk wrote: post #99

The two fronts of people shouting "Working at home" vs "I want the office" can be almost always summed up by how long the commute is: * Working at home: commute longer than 30-45 minutes. * Working at office: commute shorter than 30-45 minutes. Like everything in life, people optimize for different things in life. Optimizing for a short commute is a choice that people can make if they want, likewise optimizing for a…

> Optimizing for a short commute is a choice that people can make if they want

It's a choice until your office moves or your job changes (and you had to balance other priorities).

Mostly I agree with you though--if getting to the office is painless, then working from the office is great--except if you need to concentrate on your work. Any task that needs focus will take 2-3x as long to accomplish in an open office.

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

#105

Post by WFHRenaissance »

fosk wrote: post #99

The two fronts of people shouting "Working at home" vs "I want the office" can be almost always summed up by how long the commute is: * Working at home: commute longer than 30-45 minutes. * Working at office: commute shorter than 30-45 minutes. Like everything in life, people optimize for different things in life. Optimizing for a short commute is a choice that people can make if they want, likewise optimizing for a…

I'll be the token "15 minute commuter who doesn't want to go back" person (20 minute walk, 15 minute train). It's not all a function of commute. AMA

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

#106

Post by bmeski »

ryandrake wrote: post #91
NikolaNovak wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ci…

A lot of the calls for returning to office work boil down to people wanting to be in an environment where there's this "hum" of Serious Business™ being done--the "buzz" of people actively present and Doing Interesting Things. It's not the work itself, but excitement at the performance of work going on around them. Lots of work-from-office folks seem to get a charge out of this excitement. Maybe (and I'm half serious)…

20% of the people do all the work. So let us stay home so I don’t have to wear noise cancelling headphones all day. Let the other 80% “perform” their duties.

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

#107

Post by topspin »

Uhhrrr wrote: post #87
topspin wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You quoted part of that without comment on something I think is crucial: "My kids are driving me crazy." I've seen that in practice. Long ago I watched a manager of mine on a lengthy call with his wife discussing the absolute chaos going on at home with the kids, the school, etc. When he hung up he said the most sincere thing I ever heard from him; "Thank God for work." And he had a wife at home to referee it all. If…

My data point is that it sucks, distance learning sucked, and my wife just quit her full time job so we could at least get to your manager's state. None of this bears on whether people should be allowed to work remotely, of course.

So when the parents indulge the escape of "work" because home is a living nightmare what are we left with to raise the kids? Instragram?

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

#108

Post by wccrawford »

system16 wrote: post #10

I have a ridiculous sounding but very important to me reason for my preference to work at home: bowel movements. I worked with a small team in a small office. Everybody is typically at their desk in silence with the occasional manager or sales person on the phone. At predictable intervals throughout the day, someone will get up and be gone extra long. You know, and everybody else knows, they've gone for a number 2. O…

I'm not embarrassed about going to the bathroom, but sometimes I was at work and I was pretty sure I stunk for some reason, and I couldn't do anything about it other than leave for the day. So I just sat there, miserable, wondering if anyone else thought I stunk.

At home, I can actually go change my shirt and/or take a shower and actually be sure I don't stink.

Also, nobody cares if I stink while I'm working from home. I still shower mid-day anyhow when I want to.

Lunch is also a lot easier to deal with. I don't eat out because I have to watch my diet or I'll gain all my weight back that I lost. That's really hard when eating out. It's pretty easy at home.

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

#109

Post by [deleted] »

ecf wrote: post #55
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?

[deleted]

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

#110

Post by TigeriusKirk »

librish wrote: post #53

"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…

If you can't tell the difference between a remote employee who is working hard and a remote employee who is slacking...

...is there really a meaningful difference?

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