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Is going to the office a broken way of working?

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Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#151

Post by dijit »

I’ll echo a bit what others say. I like the office.

A separate space, where I don’t pay for power, where colleagues can drop in on me, where the space is centred on peace and there are subtle conveniences like vending machines.

I like it.

But I’m not willing to commute 30+ minutes each way of my own time for that.

And I’m not willing to sit in one of those battery farm open offices.

Being able to control my own audial/visual environment has done wonderful things to my focus, productivity and mood.

I’m much less bitter as a person now, I know another person who is also perceptibly less bitter.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#152

Post by Gibbon1 »

Ancalagon wrote: post #8

I’m gonna go against the HN grain here and, despite having been fully for remote work for the first year or so of the pandemic, come out and say that life has really gotten a lot more repetitive and frankly disappointing since covid and the death of the office. I kind of miss meeting people in the office. I was in the unfortunate position of having moved to a new city for a new tech job where I knew nobody just seven…

I actually like working in my office. However.

My commute to the office is 10 minutes. We have actual offices with doors. So the whole experience is civilized and low stress.

My theory is what wrong with offices today has everything to do with managers need to exert power and feel in control. And things being run for the convenience of upper managers. They all live close to work, have offices with doors. None of this actually considers the companies bottom line. Seriously you pay an code monkey a shitload of money then have him work under the worst work environment short of running heavy machinery next to them.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#153

Post by alkonaut »

Collaborating with people who are physically in the same space is not broken.

Commuting an hour to do so five days a week is broken. I have been an office worker for 10 years and then fully wfh for nearly another ten. Neither is perfect, but I’d choose 0 days in the office over 5, and I suspect 1-2 days a week or a week per month would be perfect.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#154

Post by innocentoldguy »

Zababa wrote: post #136

Something that's very important when considering "the office": open spaces. For some people, they are terrible. Going to the office in a private office, in a small office with a few people or in an open space with 20+ people are all very different things for very different kind of people. I personally don't like open offices, especially where there are people behind me.

I agree! I cannot function in an open office environment. They are too loud, there are too many disgusting odors (e.g. food, body spray/cologne/perfume, body odor, halitosis, etc.), and there is too much movement going on for me to concentrate on anything. I also hate people looking over my shoulder. I'd be more productive working in front of a strobe light in the center ring of a circus with a clown banging his meaty finger into my chest and demanding I name ten fruits.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#155

Post by KronisLV »

marcusverus wrote: post #84
pmontra wrote: post #7

IMHO no even if I've been working from home since 2006 when I became self employed. What's broken is having to go to the office every single day. In my experience before and after starting to work from home there is an absolute need to work face to face either to create some bonds between the team members or with a customer or in those rare phases when you have to create something and you need to go full speed with b…

Someone is going to pay for that increased efficiency--either your Employer will pay in dollars, or you will pay some opportunity cost. Why should you pay? After all, there are plenty of things that you could do in your spare time that would make you a more efficient employee. But you wouldn't let your employer tell you to work unpaid for an hour each Monday, preparing for the week. Nor would you let them require tha…

> Nor would you let them require that you spend an unpaid hour of your free time reading or doing professional development each week.

Depending on how you look at things, this may or may not be necessary to be done on your own accord in your free time to avoid your skills getting dated and irrelevant.

Essentially, you do have to keep up with at least some of the new developments within the industry to remain employable, especially if you don't have any of the FAANG companies on your resume.

While your employer might not necessarily expect you to do it, you might have to do that in your own interest, without getting paid for it.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#156

Post by stefs »

mmmpop wrote: post #119
IggleSniggle wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes. If not "everyone," certainly lots and lots of folks are just staying home whenever possible. Because we are in the middle of a global pandemic. I think this has much more to do with "we are in a global pandemic" than "you can't meet people doing remote work." Certainly, there were a number of larger groups that I used to hang out with consistently pre-pandemic, but now have totally abandoned. I'm not inter…

[flagged]

vaccinated people may carry the virus, but they're a lot less infectious than un-vaccinated.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#157

Post by ethbr0 »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #126
geofft wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't lodges, churches, and golf clubs kind of the stereotypical examples of race- and class-exclusionary groups? I suppose it's not exactly a strong set of convictions if you're passively going along with broader social pressures to segregate on race and class, but if we're talking about the health of society (which I think we're implicitly doing), I think segregating on worldview is actually a whole lot healthier.

I see your point, but I think it goes the other way. Churches et al are microcosms of a geographic community, resulting in greater localized diversity of thought. And these groups can either lead or hold back a community along the lines of race- and class-exclusion. The church I grew up with was the very first institution in my life that had an openly homosexual person in a position of power (the rector, in charge of…

My childhood Southern Baptist church (irregularly attented, around holidays visiting family) had a female pastor.

Eventually, the Southern Baptist Convention got around to noticing, and told them that wasn't allowed. They could either fire the pastor, or they'd lose SBC funding.

... to which the church replied that they were founded in 1804, liked their pastor just fine, and that the SBC could go have a talk with the devil, and take their money with them.

:) So yes, it depends on the church.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#158

Post by ryanSrich »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #110

Shoutout to everyone who keeps reading about the woes of home office, but has to work in hospitals, factories, warehouses, or drive a truck. I enjoy my home office tremendously, but it's still kinda surreal to me how we can all sit at home with our laptops and that somehow keeps the economy going - as if our jobs hadn't been abstract and hyper-specialized already, now some people don't even leave their bed to work.

And yet, the traffic where I live is beyond anything I’ve ever seen. So clearly we’re in the tiniest minority. Most people still have to drive to work, even during a pandemic.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#159

Post by Aaargh20318 »

Ancalagon wrote: post #8

I’m gonna go against the HN grain here and, despite having been fully for remote work for the first year or so of the pandemic, come out and say that life has really gotten a lot more repetitive and frankly disappointing since covid and the death of the office. I kind of miss meeting people in the office. I was in the unfortunate position of having moved to a new city for a new tech job where I knew nobody just seven…

> life has really gotten a lot more repetitive (…) since covid and the death of the office.

I agree, and it’s awesome.

Re: Is going to the office a broken way of working?

#160

Post by ketzo »

dboreham wrote: post #129
foobiekr wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to the office to work the other day for the first time since February 20th, 2020. It was great. So quiet, open, well lit, great and comfortable desk and chair, .. Obviously, I could improve my home office, but in reality my home office is taking space that I otherwise was using before 2/20 and now there's a whole space in my home that is allocated to being a work station instead of what it was before. A few ot…

I can't think of a single job I've had where the lighting, desk and chair were remotely as good as I have at home.

That’s fair, but I think you have to acknowledge that the total opposite will be true for many, probably most, people.

There’s a reason that “stop working at the kitchen counter” is, like, its own cottage industry of online writing. People mostly have really bad wfh setups, even people in tech.

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