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Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

economist.com

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Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#391

Post by arp242 »

llampx wrote: post #334
arp242 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh? It's how these people interact with each other. Your line of thinking seems to be something like this: 1. *Something straightforward* 2. *Straightforward reply* 3. "Zomg! Hypocrite!"

I use straightforwardness as a proxy for rudeness, which is what it usually is in these cases. Its like the famous "brusque New Yorker" style or "Berliner schnauze". If you talk to them the same way they talk to you they get pissed because this brusqueness is not how they talk to an equal, but rather an outsider.

What do you mean specifically? Do you have any examples?

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#392

Post by wpietri »

irrational wrote: post #284
icelancer wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that's fine - you like that. Do you have empathy towards 90% of the remainder of a company who doesn't like that?

Do you mean 90% of developers? Because 100% of the developers I work with agree with me.

Again, it depends on the company. For in-house software, which is quite a lot of the software out there, the people I need to show it to are not developers, but users. Given that I specified users, it seems pretty obvious we're talking about the whole company.

You clearly want other people to show empathy and try to honor the way you like to work. So I'll repeat icelander's question: Do you have empathy towards 90% of the remainder of a company who doesn't like that?

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#393

Post by ootsootsoots »

sbarre wrote: post #363
evenhovercraft wrote: post #349

Very grateful that my employer has committed to remaining flexible with remote work. Full time in the office, hybrid, or full time remote. It’s up to the individual. Full time remote has done wonders for my health - instead of a 2 hour commute I get to exercise. Instead of coming home stressed, annoyed, and sitting in front of the TV, I go outside for a solid hour+ after I close my laptop. I travel more liberally now…

> Full time in the office, hybrid, or full time remote. It’s up to the individual. I feel like this is the key thing. Instead of mandating blanket policies (whatever they are) that might not make sense for every team, trust your employees to self-organize in the way that makes the most sense for them and the way they work. I'm in the same boat, and like you, doubt I will want to work any other way again.

We say employees when we mean people, who have a history of self organizing around human need

It’s mesmerizing to me how so many think office life is a necessity for data entry work

Nevermind open source developers building the software world we rely on via email for decades.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#394

Post by repiret »

lend000 wrote: post #169

Not mentioned enough on this topic: not all engineers are software engineers and not all software engineers never need to touch hardware. If you plan to work on/with web frameworks, advertisements, data science, or pure CS topics for your whole career, then there's probably no excuse to force you to come into the office 5 days a week. But good luck doing that as a software engineer at a company like SpaceX, Tesla, In…

I e done firmware development from home for over a decade. I need help once and a while from someone in the lab to push buttons or make connections or do reworks or whatever. But I have no trouble getting most of my work done from anywhere I have a half decent internet connection. The oscilloscope runs Windows and I can VNC to it. The (very old) logic analyzer runs HP-UX and connects to an X server to present its UI. We have network controlled relays and power supplies. We can get a lot done without physically being there.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#395

Post by KyleJune »

zz865 wrote: post #359
pharmakom wrote: post #248

I think remote first is more efficient for companies because they have a wider pool of candidates to select from. I think the productivity bump during covid WFH was actually due to there being little else to do and people had not established proper work boundaries. I still think individuals are, for the most part, more productive in the office. However, smart companies will recognise that top talent will refuse to co…

> I think remote first is more efficient for companies because they have a wider pool of candidates to select from. Its efficient for high paying companies in high COL areas. It is going to suck if you're trying to get a developer in a small town and never had to pay much before.

If another company can produce more value from the employees labor and the employee brings more money into their local community, isn't that better for both the employee and the small town? It's better than the employee having to leave the small town to get the higher salary. The only one that loses is the capital owner that could previously make more money off of the employees that would stay despite there being better opportunities elsewhere.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#396

Post by spaceywilly »

nirui wrote: post #210

> ... There is a more intriguing possibility, however. Work that is largely done remotely may be more efficient compared with an office-first model. I don't think in-person real-time communication is always effective. No, I personally think it's one of the least method of communication that can happen in an office environment when the topic gets slightly complex (that is, if the topic is complex enough for you to wri…

I think the best way is a combination of both. Async written message first to establish context, followed by in person communication—if necessary—to clear up any confusion.

For example, our team used to have a 15 minute standup meeting every day, where we would go around and give our status updates. Many people complained that most of the time, the information being shared wasn’t relevant to them. We replaced it with a daily Slack thread where people could share their updates. Then, in the 15-minute meeting people could ask any questions they had or bring up anything they wanted to discuss more. This resulted in the daily standup meetings becoming a much more effective use of everyone’s time.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#397

Post by spaceywilly »

dorkwood wrote: post #304
nirui wrote: post #210

> ... There is a more intriguing possibility, however. Work that is largely done remotely may be more efficient compared with an office-first model. I don't think in-person real-time communication is always effective. No, I personally think it's one of the least method of communication that can happen in an office environment when the topic gets slightly complex (that is, if the topic is complex enough for you to wri…

The downside of this approach is that most people will not read what you wrote. Especially if it's more than, say, three sentences.

I’d much rather skip reading a useless Slack message than be stuck in another useless meeting

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#398

Post by unobatbayar »

names_are_hard wrote: post #249
zeroday28 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't recommend doing this nor saying I do this, but just FYI; The entire article loads way before the paywall. This means two things: 1) If you disable JavaScript, the paywall goes away. 2) If you can quickly ctrl + a, ctrl + c the entire article you can read it on your IDE. We need to tell economist.com developers to patch this.

Give the devs some credit - maybe they know about this and are not closing the loophole because they want it to stay open? The majority of readers won't take advantage of it and those who will likely wouldn't have paid anyway.

Gave them a call today. Who knew they had toll free international call lines. Quite impressive.

https://myaccount.economist.com/s/contact-us

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#399

Post by _jesseb »

extr wrote: post #17

I always see a lot of hemming and hawing in these threads but it's impossible to underscore just what a HUGE boon remote work is for people who don't want to or can't live in Tier 1 cities like SF or NYC. My career has taken on an entirely new trajectory. Prior to the pandemic I worked at two different companies over 6 years. Since the start of the pandemic I've changed jobs 3 times and my TC has almost tripled. Ther…

Yep, my TC is 3x what it was 2 years ago and my career feels like it's on a new trajectory as well because I now have access to a much larger, much better pool of companies to work for.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#400

Post by dukeyukey »

ootsootsoots wrote: post #393
sbarre wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Full time in the office, hybrid, or full time remote. It’s up to the individual. I feel like this is the key thing. Instead of mandating blanket policies (whatever they are) that might not make sense for every team, trust your employees to self-organize in the way that makes the most sense for them and the way they work. I'm in the same boat, and like you, doubt I will want to work any other way again.

We say employees when we mean people, who have a history of self organizing around human need It’s mesmerizing to me how so many think office life is a necessity for data entry work Nevermind open source developers building the software world we rely on via email for decades.

> It’s mesmerizing to me how so many think office life is a necessity for data entry work

I think it's more about how cities and communities are set up with commuting in mind.

Like, I live about an hour away from my best mate, which in London may as well be Mars. Bur our offices are literally 5 mins walk from each other, so messaging 'pint?' is SO much easier when in-office.

This is just an anecdote, and things have gotten better as the city has adjusted (gotten more involved in my local community for example) but I can 100% see why people are reluctant to change.

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