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I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

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Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#441

Post by loco5niner »

jpollock wrote: post #174

I miss being able to tell if I'm interrupting a coworker's state of flow or not with a quick message. When everyone's in the office, I can _see_ when they get back to their desk and haven't gotten into anything again. I can see that my question isn't going to interrupt them. As it stands, I interrupt everyone and they interrupt me. I haven't been able to get into flow during office hours in 18months. Code review disc…

So in synchronous communication, you have to spend time _watching_ for someone to be available for a question? I much prefer async communication where I can ignore notifications for a bit, and check them when I come up for air. In the open office, I'm _constantly_ interrupted/distracted, so you might as well interrupt me anyway .

If people keep interrupting you, update your notification settings.

Why are you not doing screen-share code reviews? You can easily say "dude, look at this right there, like _seriously_." via screen-share.

> Nothing like a little pair programming to work through a code review. I enjoy pair programming MUCH more when we both have our own computers (with dual monitors, etc). This works GREAT with screensharing

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#442

Post by sam0x17 »

mathverse wrote: post #439
sam0x17 wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At face value: There won't be increased consumption at 7 AM and at 5 PM on a weekday if less people commute. I just don't see it happening. Additionally the tech industry isn't exactly a groundswell of people either -- if all tech workers stop commuting, that isn't going to have enough of an impact to change traffic conditions except literally in silicon valley. There just aren't that many workers in tech. But let's…

>There won't be increased consumption at 7 AM and at 5 PM on a weekday if less people commute. I just don't see it happening. Additionally the tech industry isn't exactly a groundswell of people either -- if all tech workers stop commuting, that isn't going to have enough of an impact to change traffic conditions except literally in silicon valley. There just aren't that many workers in tech. There's a delayed consum…

> I was under the impression that offices generally are environmentally speaking better buildings than your average condos and houses.They have to follow specific sustainability standards.

The house/apartment you live in is still there (because you still live in it) regardless of if you WFH. The difference is if you WFH, it's actually being utilized 100% of the time instead of just at night and on weekends. Conversely, the office literally doesn't need to exist in the first place if everyone does WFH. So we have to compare having your apartment + having an office, to having just your apartment. The office situation is a net negative no matter how environmentally friendly it is unless it is actually carbon neutral or carbon negative. And that's ignoring the commuting aspect. If we were to abandon all offices tomorrow and let nature re-claim them, it would have a massively positive effect carbon footprint wise. And it's not like offices turn off the AC at night.

> Except a lot of people will gain time and money to spend later.And that's usually one of the main arguments in these discussions that people hate to spend time and money to commute.

By this logic, we should keep everyone poor because god forbid they consume something. Consumption isn't negative across the board. And overwhelmingly these days it's digital anyway. If I stay at home and watch Netflix, I have a much smaller carbon footprint than someone who goes and drives somewhere. You can see from the statistics above, the average person drives ~39 miles per day. I'm saying reduce that by 32 on weekdays and you're saying "oh no, what if they replace that with other consumption???". I think it is borderline impossible people would consistently do something _worse_ than their commute (carbon wise) across the board. It's like saying "oh no, if we ban unhealthy deserts in schools people will buy them and eat even more unhealthy deserts outside of school". They won't -- on average kids would be healthier. It's a no brainer.

> I dont think you can make an equation like this.People instead of walking to their favorite restaurant might decide to order more or make longer rides to go to "the better restaurants" instead of just consuming what is within the walking distance from their apartments / office.

There is no reason to suspect this would happen. If you work from 9 AM to 5 PM, and you cut out your commute, you have _more_ time to for example make a home-cooked meal. If anything people will order out less. All the statistics on WFH (and I've done contracting for a meal planning company so I can guarantee this one specifically) support this. People order out less when they work remotely, across the board.

Regarding the "taking longer rides thing" -- people aren't going to do that so much that it becomes as demanding as their commute. Then it would be annoying.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#443

Post by balfirevic »

McWobbleston wrote: post #406
benhurmarcel wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I'm going to live in an ugly industrial zone with no shops or nature around.

And only be able to afford a 700sqft studio if I'm lucky

That's around 65 square meters? Where do they make studios that large?

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#444

Post by dragonsky67 »

MrScruff wrote: post #182
colechristensen wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And that's a perfectly reasonable approach to hiring for a new company. And likely discriminatory. I prefer working from home because I (am caring for an ailing parent|just had a baby|am not neurotypical|have a disability|etc.) WFH is going to start being seen as a "reasonable accommodation" because the last 18 months have proven that lots of jobs can be done just fine without a physical office and denying that to e…

For arranged meetings including the remote workers won't be a problem but there are many 'meetings' that happen in a work context where important information is exchanged that are informal that remote workers will miss out on.

for a small effort. is not difficult to say, "George should be part of this discussion". Ok you may need to all put on headphones or get a room so you can use a speaker phone, but really, not that hard.

What if George had been away getting coffee or at the bathroom when you started the conversation, he would have missed out anyway.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#445

Post by dragonsky67 »

RHSeeger wrote: post #39
hermitdev wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the people preferring to work from home get preference, either? At the end of the day, like it or not, the majority of people working for a company of beyond a small size are going to be in some level of a collaborative environment. Logistically, it's easier to accomplish that in person. No dropped calls or poor connections or VPN drops or whatever. As an engineer, I sympathize with the poster. When I need…

> At the end of the day, like it or not, the majority of people working for a company of beyond a small size are going to be in some level of a collaborative environment. Logistically, it's easier to accomplish that in person. You say this like it's a foregone conclusion, a fact. I disagree with it completely. It's far easier to collaborate remotely. You don't need find a meeting room, you don't need to worry about m…

Our experience following the covid lockdowns and everybody working from home is that even if a majority of us are in the office, we still have meetings over Teams. It allows far better control, easier background chat, sharing ideas that can be raised in the verbal meeting and people to get on with real work if the topic under conversation is not important to them, but keeping them in the loop. Win win.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#446

Post by dragonsky67 »

watwut wrote: post #95
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #4

> If you like/prefer going to the office that is fine. I am not trying to say we should all be remote. Companies should offer FLEXIBILITY to let employees choose where to work from. That doesn’t work. I prefer working in the office, but only if the rest of my team is actually there with me. If some people are remote, then we have to do Zoom meetings, so I may as well be remote too.

I dont mind being in office, but I meetings are much much better online. Especially those long ones. You can stretch legs, exercise a little, eat or whatever.

do the laundry, cook dinner, Get some real work done on the side.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#447

Post by binbag »

jasondclinton wrote: post #144
vinni2 wrote: post #112

One thing I noticed is that while more experienced people are productive working from home, it is devastating for fresh starting employees. Work from home eliminates learning through osmosis. If anyone has a work around this let me know. I am surprised no one else has mentioned it here.

The solution is obvious: structured training and mentoring. When the pandemic hit, I was hiring a team of 5 new engineers. What was I going to do? Throw up my hands? I implemented a weekly technical training program that morphed into the 250 person org official onboarding. Weekly, I literally just get someone on a VC for 30 minutes and record having a conversation about a technical topic at a noobie level. 16 months…

You're missing the point though, which is that people need time with people to learn. Watching videos isn't enough. What happens when they have questions and need to have a conversation?

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#448

Post by dragonsky67 »

McWobbleston wrote: post #403
Treblemaker wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ping "Hey, Bob, can I share my desktop and show you something?" Five minutes later, Bob is fixing his mistake. Or, Bob has notifications turned off, and he lets me know as soon as he's available again. My point is that the tools are there to address this concern. I don't go a day without sharing my desktop or looking at someone else's. And in some ways it's even more efficient and less disruptive than getting up, wal…

I can't describe how distracting it is for me personally to have to overhear every screen share in a physical office, and how great and easy it is to do it remotely and even pull in another couple people if something they're knowledgeable about comes up

I have found that the introduction of using remote tools (Teams etc) regardless of in/out of office location has dramatically improved collaboration.

People seem to be a lot more open to sharing ideas. We tend to chat back and forward all day. If you really need to, kill notifications and mark yourself as busy or focusing and review the chat when you are available.

The only down side I've found is that workgroup chats, being somewhat private, can tend to become a bit of an echo chamber if there is any dispute or controversy in the workplace. Dealing with this tend has required everybody to step back and examine their behaviour. I would assume that if you had a team in a different location you could have a similar problem.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#449

Post by Dylan16807 »

tshaddox wrote: post #437
Dylan16807 wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't have any reason non-work reason to have living space dedicated to a computer desk, and I suspect that's true for most people. How do you typically browse websites at home? Do you play any PC video games? Steam has a ton of users. (And if you use a table, then you could use the same table for working.)

Home computer use is limited to my phone and tablet on the couch or in bed. Haven't had a gaming PC (or any Windows computer) since around 2013. I get enough desktop computing exposure at my day job, thank you very much! It's true that PC gaming is as popular as ever, but I suspect its rise has been at least somewhat countered with a decrease in desktop computing at home as smartphones became ubiquitous.

Unless you're typing all these comments with no keyboard (why??), then I think your work experience, with getting your fill there, isn't the most typical.

And there's been a decrease in desktops, but far more households have a desktop/laptop than a tablet and it's not far behind the rate of having broadband.

Re: I went to the office for the first time. I fucking hated it

#450

Post by tshaddox »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #449
tshaddox wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Home computer use is limited to my phone and tablet on the couch or in bed. Haven't had a gaming PC (or any Windows computer) since around 2013. I get enough desktop computing exposure at my day job, thank you very much! It's true that PC gaming is as popular as ever, but I suspect its rise has been at least somewhat countered with a decrease in desktop computing at home as smartphones became ubiquitous.

Unless you're typing all these comments with no keyboard ( why?? ), then I think your work experience, with getting your fill there, isn't the most typical. And there's been a decrease in desktops, but far more households have a desktop/laptop than a tablet and it's not far behind the rate of having broadband.

We're probably both just swapping anecdotes, but I suspect you might be surprised just how many general computer users overwhelmingly use their smartphones for nearly everything. I remember years ago being confused by the steady and swift increase in smartphone screen size. Why in the world would people want the little communication gadget in their pocket to be larger? The reason, I realized, is that it's not "the communication gadget in their pocket." It's their only computer.
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