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For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

economist.com

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Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#231

Post by ajuc »

ijidak wrote: post #223
nextlevelwizard wrote: post #133

I can't wait to get back to the office. I don't have dedicated remote work space and that really eats into my productivity. Also being home and having no external pressure to keep working I can already see any breaks people tend to take are way longer than what they would take at the office. (Now someone is going to tell me that this just shows that people need more breaks, but I don't believe that) It also helps wit…

>Food is also big draw. Now I have to worry about what I eat every day and make my food Haha. Not sure which country you're from, but this definitely sounds like a first world problem. Your statement tells me that you could afford to only eat food others prepared for you in the past. (Not sure if that was a free office cafeteria) For many that is expensive and could even be an unhealthy way of life. I've never really…

TBH if you're a programmer in a 3rd world country you probably earn 3-5 times the median wage where you live and you can afford as much services at local prices as programmers in 1st world. Possibly more when it comes to things like food.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#232

Post by goldenkey »

midrus wrote: post #161
ceilingcorner wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just rent an office space or coworking desk. Problem solved.

Nah, better to force everyone to go back to the office so I get free food and I can look busy all day.

I can also play games while on the shitter for free! Once Gaben's steam deck comes out my steaming turd breaks will be even better! And don't get me started on the free 1-ply toilet paper. What a deal!

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#233

Post by unwind »

ridaj wrote: post #114
Cookingboy wrote: post #57

As preferable as WFH is for many and as productive as many people can be while working remote, at the end of the day, you can't change human nature. There is a reason why companies like Google are doubling down in Silicon Valley real estate. They believe that the best, most innovative type of work are the results of organic discussions and unscheduled, unplanned, casual human interactions. So many cool ideas and new…

I think it's too early to tell what's going to happen with silicon valley companies. The chips are still way up in the air. They profess a return to office, and many people can't wait to go back. But there's also a lot of people who don't want to go back, from the coder at the bottom who discovers they can be as productive from home, see their family more, and shave hours of commute every day, to the exec who's been…

That link was not available to my region, so I guesss it's the NZWW nowadays. Gaaah.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#234

Post by dan-robertson »

ridaj wrote: post #136
dan-robertson wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this underestimates the cost of someone leaving. Presumably that person was worth the money and necessary before and will need to be replaced. The replacement will be less valuable (lacking the relevant knowledge) and cost a lot of money to recruit. I think companies often undervalue the cost of annoying employees in random trivial ways, creating the nudge that causes them to shop around for another job.…

Nobody wants attrition, but it does happens. In the long term competition for WFH jobs is basically by timezone rather than by geo area. That means as an employee you're competing against a bigger talent pool, and as the workforce renews itself, we should expect a trend towards equalization of pay across WFH roles in the same timezone.

Pay in low-COL satellite offices of big companies isn’t massively different from pay in Silicon Valley (averages are more different as more senior people will be in the main office) so it isn’t obvious to me that pay far away from the office should be massively lower. One argument for this to be the case is that an employee could reasonably threaten to move to Silicon Valley for higher pay (at another company.)

Obviously there is a larger supply of workers in a time zone than a metro area, but there is a larger demand for them too. And a workers can reasonably threaten to move to the part of the US where they would be paid the most.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#235

Post by mytailorisrich »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #172
midrus wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Food is also big draw. Now I have to worry about what I eat every day and make my food LOL

That does indeed sound like a trivial problem to solve. Pick a local restaurant and treat it as your new cafeteria. Come lunch time, go there. Ideally, your employer would compensate you for the office benefit you're missing (at least when talking about pandemic-induced forced WFH), but WFH is likely already saving you more money, so you can probably afford it anyway.

It takes 10-15min to prepare your own lunch at home... There's no need to blow tons on money on eating out or ordering all the time.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#236

Post by stackbutterflow »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #176
nextlevelwizard wrote: post #133

I can't wait to get back to the office. I don't have dedicated remote work space and that really eats into my productivity. Also being home and having no external pressure to keep working I can already see any breaks people tend to take are way longer than what they would take at the office. (Now someone is going to tell me that this just shows that people need more breaks, but I don't believe that) It also helps wit…

Your reasons are mostly individual and to some extent based on a lifestyle that you got used to because working remote wasn't an option. I often hear "i don't have a workspace/desk at my home" as a pro-commute argument. But the reason you don't have that desk is because when you moved into your flat, you didn't think of this. But if more and more employers allow to work remotely, people will make different choices on…

Exactly. Our societies/cities were built for in-office workers. The fact that despite that there are many people who still prefer remote work shows how much potential there is for a remote lifestyle.

Every house has a bathroom. Now imagine we lived in a world were the norm was to shower at the office. Then suddenly a bunch of people starts to question whether we really should shower at the office or if we could do it at home. There would be tons of people saying 'But I don't have a bathroom, I have to shower in the sink, that's stupid and impractical!'. Well, that's exactly the situation we're in right now. Most people don't have a spare room for working at home in good condition, because buildings and cities weren't built to accommodate WFH.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#237

Post by Cookingboy »

axiolite wrote: post #146
Cookingboy wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's nothing magical about in-person communication. Other the fact that the brains of our entire specie has evolved for millions of years for this exact type of communication, there isn't anything magical, I guess... The information bandwidth of in-person communication is absolutely unparalleled, even if technology can now match in latency . Good luck replicating body language, eye contacts, subtle facial cues et…

> evolved for millions of years for this exact type of communication A great many people identify themselves as introverts or antisocial, and would feel much better being excluded from all these neuron triggers. > The information bandwidth of in-person communication is absolutely unparalleled Yes, but that bandwidth is not all used productively but wasted on irrelevant bits which do not matter and likely distract fro…

>Such things are usually unnecessary to the task at hand, and often detrimental

Have you considered the mere possibility that many people's work have different types of tasks than yours?

It's so hard not to make stereotypical jokes about engineers when reading comments like this XD

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#238

Post by legerdemain »

mojuba wrote: post #180
woodpanel wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless "Hygiene"-Restrictions force you to spend all on "un-local" orgs: - Clicking on an ad likely sends ad-spending to Google/Amazon/FB/Twitter - Using the web will increase cloud-costs, money goes to AWS - buying stuff online likely hapens on Amazon, maybe ebay, maybe etsy - buying stuff online likely makes your local merchants pay transaction fees to Amazon, PayPal, Visa or Mastercard In that case "Local economy"…

There's local groceries though, also local services that can't be remote or online. Groceries alone is a big part of my budget after rent. Clothes & stuff I have managed to bring to the minimum: one or two online purchases per month at most (some months even zero)

My local grocer is a Safeway (a nationwide American store chain). For most of the year, fruits and vegetables are imported from other states or countries, like cherries from South America and lettuce from California. And I doubt my Cheerios and Nutella are cooked locally. Pretty much the only local impact of grocery shopping is all the low-paying jobs they create, like shelf stockers and Instacart people.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#239

Post by fnomnom »

dagw wrote: post #152
ceilingcorner wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just rent an office space or coworking desk. Problem solved.

Using a significant chunk of my own salary each month to pay for something I used to get for free (and that my employer should provide) hardly seems like the ideal solution.

let your company pay for it. they dont need the big office space. thats how we do it.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#240

Post by devoutsalsa »

ijidak wrote: post #223
nextlevelwizard wrote: post #133

I can't wait to get back to the office. I don't have dedicated remote work space and that really eats into my productivity. Also being home and having no external pressure to keep working I can already see any breaks people tend to take are way longer than what they would take at the office. (Now someone is going to tell me that this just shows that people need more breaks, but I don't believe that) It also helps wit…

>Food is also big draw. Now I have to worry about what I eat every day and make my food Haha. Not sure which country you're from, but this definitely sounds like a first world problem. Your statement tells me that you could afford to only eat food others prepared for you in the past. (Not sure if that was a free office cafeteria) For many that is expensive and could even be an unhealthy way of life. I've never really…

When I was up to my eyeballs in debt, I'd eat at the office because it was a way to save money. I consumed a lot of cereal, milk, bananas, snacky things, etc. Often for dinner I'd simply eat 200g of little cheeses.
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