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37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

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Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#181

Post by onion2k »

weatherlite wrote: post #170
Adraghast wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I assume that some people are just very lonely and need face to face Anecdata from Hacker News suggests this is true. A lot of lonely young men here freely admit their coworkers are the only people they regularly interact with in-person, and remote work takes that away from them.

We are social creatures, there is something quite unnatural only interacting with your wife/kid or worse - with no one else at all, for weeks and months. If not the office, workers are better off using some social working space, but unfortunately WFH is so tempting and easy most will resort to that. Psychologically it's not ideal. Yes the office can be a pain, commute and what not, but loneliness could be worse.

We are social creatures, there is something quite unnatural only interacting with your wife/kid or worse - with no one else at all, for weeks and months.

Offices are significantly less 'natural' than spending time with a small group of people. If you go back a thousand years or so many people lived their entire life within a mile or two of where they were born - they grew up, worked, got married, lived and died in a single village. In lots of more isolated cases people would have only met a couple of hundred people in their entire lifetime.

It's definitely unusual to lead such a limited life today, but psychologically it's not that bad. People survived pretty well, and they continue to now.

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#182

Post by thfuran »

spaniard89277 wrote: post #124
mwattsun wrote: post #67

5 of us wrote Microsoft Works for the Macintosh while working at home from 1984 to 1992. Without the internet, we got together as needed to merge code, usually once a month, but sometimes once a week. We talked on the phone. We went to Microsoft once in awhile. It was ideal and worked very well. Maybe it was just our personalities that made it work, but I am astonished that any programmer would rather go into the off…

I won't accept any non-remote job where I need long commutes and I have to sit my ass there for the whole week. Just yesterday we had a summer day, so just after lunch I went to a remote beach, used my phone as AP and worked for about 5 hours until nightfall. No interruptions, no annoying noises, not battling with AC. I mean, having tasted this, Im pretty sure what would I do if my company asks me to go back to offic…

You have lunch a few hours before dawn?

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#183

Post by cwmoreiras »

lukas099 wrote: post #127
cwmoreiras wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I like my commute. If my commute changed I would feel differently. Regardless, I feel employees should get paid for their commutes. 2. I don't have an office in my house. Even if I had the space I don't think I would want to use it for work. However, since coronavirus happened I have had way more space in my office than I did before, and I refuse to be sandwiched between two other engineers in an open office floor…

> I feel employees should get paid for their commutes. This would lead to more pollution, sprawl, and deaths by automobile as people would be incentivized to live further from work.

People are already incentivized to live far from their jobs because of HCOL near their workplaces. Also, it would be nice if people's choices were as binary as this line of thinking seems to suggest. It seems to me that many people would rather have a shorter commute either way.

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#184

Post by Leherenn »

beiller wrote: post #102
crent wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah exactly. If they signed a multi-year lease, they are still on the hook for the same amount of money but the space won't be used. It might feel bad but it was already budgeted for.

They are paying for space (sometimes beyond 100,000 per month) that the competition is not paying. Office space is the highest expense.

That sounds weird to me. Our current office can sit 5, with conference room, kitchen, ... It costs about 20% of an engineer's salary. And we're in one of the most expensive place in the world for rent.

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#185

Post by RandallBrown »

Bluecobra wrote: post #90
mwattsun wrote: post #67

5 of us wrote Microsoft Works for the Macintosh while working at home from 1984 to 1992. Without the internet, we got together as needed to merge code, usually once a month, but sometimes once a week. We talked on the phone. We went to Microsoft once in awhile. It was ideal and worked very well. Maybe it was just our personalities that made it work, but I am astonished that any programmer would rather go into the off…

Didn't Microsoft give everyone their own dedicated office in those days? I thought I read/heard somewhere that is what spawned development of Outlook/Exchange. I agree about the distractions, it's extremely bad with the open office model and hard to get anything done for me. I would much prefer cubicles or dedicated offices.

I had my own office at Microsoft as late as 2013.

It was by far the least favorite work environment I've ever had. It was lonely and unproductive for me, with a 15 minute - 2 hour commute depending on traffic. I came home from work angry every day. I have no idea how I lasted almost two years in that environment.

I really enjoy open offices. My next job was all pair programming all the time. No assigned desks. You just showed up and sat down with a different person every day. For me that's the most productive way to get work done.

For the last 3 years I've been working from home and don't see myself going back to an office ever again. I enjoy my time at home too much.

Everyone is different and not every company has to work the same way.

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#186

Post by closeparen »

Adraghast wrote: post #100
mwattsun wrote: post #67

5 of us wrote Microsoft Works for the Macintosh while working at home from 1984 to 1992. Without the internet, we got together as needed to merge code, usually once a month, but sometimes once a week. We talked on the phone. We went to Microsoft once in awhile. It was ideal and worked very well. Maybe it was just our personalities that made it work, but I am astonished that any programmer would rather go into the off…

> I assume that some people are just very lonely and need face to face Anecdata from Hacker News suggests this is true. A lot of lonely young men here freely admit their coworkers are the only people they regularly interact with in-person, and remote work takes that away from them.

I meet people outside of work “regularly” - more weekends than not - but a coffee or a hike or a live performance here and there is very different from casually sharing a building on a random Tuesday.

The comparison isn’t a social life, it’s a family or roommates.

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#187

Post by cwmoreiras »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #156
cwmoreiras wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I like my commute. If my commute changed I would feel differently. Regardless, I feel employees should get paid for their commutes. 2. I don't have an office in my house. Even if I had the space I don't think I would want to use it for work. However, since coronavirus happened I have had way more space in my office than I did before, and I refuse to be sandwiched between two other engineers in an open office floor…

> Regardless, I feel employees should get paid for their commutes. Why? How would it even be practical? What if there is congestion? What if someone moved after starting a job, or their commute time changes drastically? Does the employer pay for tolls?

That sounds like a problem for the company to figure out, not the commuter.

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#188

Post by closeparen »

onion2k wrote: post #181
weatherlite wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are social creatures, there is something quite unnatural only interacting with your wife/kid or worse - with no one else at all, for weeks and months. If not the office, workers are better off using some social working space, but unfortunately WFH is so tempting and easy most will resort to that. Psychologically it's not ideal. Yes the office can be a pain, commute and what not, but loneliness could be worse.

We are social creatures, there is something quite unnatural only interacting with your wife/kid or worse - with no one else at all, for weeks and months. Offices are significantly less 'natural' than spending time with a small group of people. If you go back a thousand years or so many people lived their entire life within a mile or two of where they were born - they grew up, worked, got married, lived and died in a…

There was much more of a community life outside the home, with your fellow villagers.

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#190

Post by kreeben »

lbriner wrote: post #72
kreeben wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not?

We are going to have a massive problem with taking on juniors, particularly younger people. Without many people visiting the office, there is a lack of banter, encouragement, confidence building. Imagine you were 16 and your introduction to the world of work was sitting in your own bedroom! Honestly, I don't know how we deal with it unless we create a schedule where there has to be certain people in the office on cer…

"What about the juniors" is not a super convincing argument to me since I've been on-boarding them throughout the pandemic but also prior to that, quite successfully, through the use of basic video linking and sharing of screens. Out team is scattered around the world and that has always been the case. What are some other examples of when WFH doesn't work?
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