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

#131

Post by librish » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

TigeriusKirk wrote: post #110

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?

Yes. If you could clone the same person working on the same task it would be trivial for anyone to see which one is working hard and which isn't.

The problem is that you can't do that so now you're left with having to measure their performance in some other way. That is very hard and noisy.

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

#132

Post by NikolaNovak » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

lostcolony wrote: post #120

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…

I agree with you 100%, but want to highlight that this pandemic, and remote work, are entirely different things. How often do we need people in the office? Some places are looking at hybrid schedules, anywhere from 1-4 days each week in the office, and 4-1 days at home. Remote offices are rarely fully remote anyway; there's usually stuff like fly in for a week every quarter, or go to a conference or offsite together.…

I agree; I should've added I've experienced most modes of work over my career - fully office (rare), some ratio of hybrid (most of my career, e.g. one week home one week traveling to client site), and even spells of up to a year doing remote-only work.

As I mentioned in another follow-up, it's those who prefer either full-time-office or full-time-remote, that I am least alike. Clearly, there are people who hate working from home at all, ever; and those who don't want to spend any time in the office, ever.

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

#133

Post by abrawill » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

librish wrote: post #72

luffapi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The position to take that leads not just to a successful wfh environment, but a great work environment in general is to not worry about “slacking off”. People a…

I think that assumes that you have reasonably self-motivating employees and work that is often interesting which definitely isn't always the case. How do you suggest a non-technical manager tells slacking apart from when things just take unexpectedly longer?

A non-technical manager who can somehow do his tech job unburdened by having to understand technology to me sounds just like a non-administrative programmer who can somehow do his tech job unburdened by any administrative tasks such as issue tracking or planning.

How does that even work? How can one be 'non-technical' when they are managing people who produce technical output? Is it not key to managing this situation that one understands what is being done to at least some degree? And if one understands to some degree then one is not 'non-technical' I would say. If understanding is lacking; it can be learned.

It's not like it's magic!

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

#134

Post by drewcoo » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

Grimm1 wrote: post #74

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?

For what it's worth, without the word option being emphasized here, yours is an equally selfish desire because it brings harm to that person or group of people who prefer the office experience. I liked working in an office, sorry you don't.

No. Nothing is keeping you from having a shared workspace. If you can convince your coworkers to share it with you, nothing is stopping that. Social time at your discretion!

This is very different than daily forced containment.

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

#135

Post by danaris » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:58 PM UTC

aisle wrote: post #57

andrewflnr wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 remot…

> There is no way to guarantee all of this stuff for remote workers.

That seems like a non sequitur to me.

Are you expecting the employer to guarantee this stuff? To police an employee's exercising, eating, and meeting people? (Some degree of policing healthiness of workspace seems reasonable, but it can very easily go overboard...)

If resources are made available to help people become more intentional about these things, why would they help people working in an office more than people working from home?

Exercising is much easier if you aren't stuck on a train/in a car on the freeway for an hour every morning and evening.

Eating right is much easier when you have the extra time (and energy) to make a fresh home-cooked meal some or all evenings.

Meeting people is easier when you have the freedom to choose where you live based on where you would prefer, rather than being stuck living within 1-3 hours' drive from a specific office building.

Even having a healthy work area is easier when you have the freedom to design it yourself, rather than having to be in exactly the same cost-efficient cubicle as 999 other employees.

If we can make working from home a norm—for those who want it, for companies for whom it makes sense—a lot of these things can be improved.

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

#136

Post by yebyen » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #108

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 hom…

I actually had my first dream about a colleague at a new job within the past month. They were giving me feedback for my performance review, and it was 100% all about how I frequently stink up the place, how embarrassing! Nearly brought to tears.

Then I remembered, we all work remotely, and got a good laugh out of it, since this can never happen. (Even if I do stink!)

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

#137

Post by WFHRenaissance » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 6:59 PM UTC

wayoutthere wrote: post #36

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…

So I think this expectation that work provide social connection only works for some people. I like the people I work with, but I have no need to spend time with them in person because I have other social outlets . If I have to participate in another social scene because someone I work with is lonely, that’s gas out of my tank to solve their problem. I don’t really have a lot in common with my coworkers except we work…

Agreed. At the risk of being a jerk I really want to tell people: 1. Get a life worth working for. 2. Maybe spend less time working.

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

#138

Post by drewcoo » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

maigret wrote: post #111

MattGaiser wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WFH opinion seems to split between people who see work as where you achieve corporate goals for pay and those who see it as a far more encompassing mixture of human experience.

I disagree fully with that statement. It’s completely oversimplifying the reasons to mostly work from home. One might want to spend more time with their loved ones, save money because of commute, might enjoy knowledge seeking and learning by themselves and love long focused work. You can get the human experience in many different ways. For example why meeting the colleagues at the far away office if most of them leav…

You seem to be agreeing, not disagreeing.

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

#139

Post by librish » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

luffapi wrote: post #92

librish wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone can afford or attract top level developers. Saying Keep motivation high and keep autonomy high and I assure you software will get produced at a high quality. is handwaving some extremely hard problems, especially if you're not working on an exciting problem and can't afford $200K salaries. You didn't really answer the question. Say I'm a non-technical manager and I suspect one of my employees is slacking…

If you can’t afford to pay for good developers, then you shouldn’t expect good software to be written quickly. That’s something only good developers can accomplish. I think what you want is not possible. More process, monitoring… is only going to slow down your development. I also think if a developer manager is going to be non-technical that they should be able to demonstrate extraordinary developer relation skills.…

I think you have a very idealized picture of the software industry. There are absolutely cases where more process helps keep things on track and increase overall productivity.

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

#140

Post by maigret » Mon, Jun 21, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

librish wrote: post #72

luffapi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The position to take that leads not just to a successful wfh environment, but a great work environment in general is to not worry about “slacking off”. People a…

I think that assumes that you have reasonably self-motivating employees and work that is often interesting which definitely isn't always the case. How do you suggest a non-technical manager tells slacking apart from when things just take unexpectedly longer?

There are hard metrics, with time you see who fixes bugs and codes new stuff. For those who do less, you can still measure their engagement - how many questions and ideas they have, how they interact with their mentors, what are they motivated to do next… After some times, a pattern is clearly identifiable. And if someone slacks and still bring results, then what is to worry about? What’s sure if that people output varies, so don’t jump to conclusions too early (which goes back to my statement “after some time”…). Someone might just be tired or overworked. Which goes to the last point - for the people I know, they all seem to work more from home, not less. I think when people go back to the office and the happy hour and the commute, there’s going to be a fun drop in productivity.