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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

#311

Post by DiggyJohnson »

ethbr0 wrote: post #121
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.

I'd spin this around and cast it as a challenge -- regular, forced interactions with coworkers is minimally sufficient and retards some people from pursuing social activities outside the home. There are already a number of options in even the smallest town. I expect that will increase as more people move to WFH and seek social outlets. And at the end of the day "interacting with coworkers in the break room" is a pret…

Eh, I’m kinda implicated here but I see office interactions as some bare minimum of socialization that, yes, can lead to complacency but does not subtract from the ideal of finding meaningful relationship outside of work. If anything, face to face work helps energize me to be social, and not just with my coworkers. More like a daily practice against Cabin Fever. For some reason, for me, Cabin Fever self-perpetuates.

I still prefer WFH, but I go to a coffee shop most days of the week to work on a personal project. After a year+ my relationship with the other regulates and staff is like the best possible relationship you’d expect to have among coworkers - I’ve even grabbed a beer with the manager when then closed early one day - without the stresses of working for a common employer.

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

#312

Post by iso1631 »

markus_zhang wrote: post #226
iso1631 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> two days in office to relax, three days at home to help wifie with kid. This is not working from home, or working anywhere If you think working from home means you have time to "help with the kid", you're wrong.

I don't know what you mean TBH.

If you are working from home, you are working. If you are helping out with the kid, you are not working.

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

#314

Post by marcosdumay »

tharkun__ wrote: post #280
30367286 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But they do it with like minded people This is the main problem I see with your compromise. The self-sorting will create or enforce existing silos. The compromise is not only between you and your employer, but also between you and your coworkers. You might derive no value from face to face interaction, but your coworkers certainly do — and that includes you. I suspect that this self-sorting will result in a very lo…

Definite +1 to my sibling about coming in and keeping the head down. Not sure which kinds of silos you are talking about. If it's silos as in social circles, that exists with 100% in-office as well. You know, the people that always sit together at lunch, always go out together for lunch or coffee, that meet after work at the pub and the people that eat lunch at their desk or off to the side, drink office-coffee only…

Oh, on my experience person to person interaction got much easier more common, because you don't have to get up and go to a different floor, or to the other end of your floor, or to another city.

We have some processes with high interaction on our development, and when people were considering going back to the office (in the end, we didn't) we met and decided how we would do then now. The remote option worked so much better than in person that there wasn't any discussion.

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

#315

Post by eikenberry »

30367286 wrote: post #223
humanwhosits wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hybrid has all the downsides of office work, it's just less hours of it

Alas, this is the nature of compromise. Your downside is your employer’s upside.

It just means "the employer" has to keep the office space for a lot of people who will only use it occasionally and all the costs associated with that. I doubt most employers would consider that an upside.

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

#316

Post by Cd00d »

Leherenn wrote: post #184
beiller wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is office space really that cheap?

That actually sounds like a LOT of space compared to a 2-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn that would cost quite a bit more....

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

#317

Post by zamalek »

stevenhubertron wrote: post #63

I don’t hate working in an office. I hate working in an “open plan” office where someone is always interrupting my work.

If you were to prefer working in an office, you can find a local office space that meets your tastes.

Or if you like open office, you could go that direction too.

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

#318

Post by dimitrios1 »

pessimizer wrote: post #172
dimitrios1 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have all those too. But even when you are fully remote, and have a healthy outside social support system away from work, you cannot ignore the reality that is you spend the majority of your waking hours working alongside these people, often for the same goals and deadlines. It's a basic desire to connect with others we share our time with. Unless you are one of the rare people where you truly are a solo shop (even…

> It's a basic desire to connect with others we share our time with. I think you're creating a universal here where there is none. I have secure boundaries, and I can enjoy a coworker's company and work without having to be friends with them. And there's also an ugly side to this, where people don't want to have coworkers that they wouldn't want to be friends with. That's not some natural urge, that's something that…

Apologies if I wasn't clear, I didn't say or mean be friends with them. But being coworkers with someone is indeed a type of relationship. I wasn't meaning to conflate those two, but acknowledge the commonality between the two.

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

#319

Post by markus_zhang »

iso1631 wrote: post #312
markus_zhang wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you mean TBH.

If you are working from home, you are working. If you are helping out with the kid, you are not working.

I'm working when I'm working. Still don't get where you are going with this.

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

#320

Post by Kye »

closeparen wrote: post #188
onion2k wrote: post #181

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. 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.

Perhaps there's a connection between the loss of community and the rise of long commutes to drab office parks.
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