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The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

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Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#371

Post by harlanlewis »

vr46 wrote: post #357
fartcannon wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be nice when the serf mentality of finding meaning in your job is finally gone from the world.

The late Studs Terkel showed us all - 50 years ago - how work was a search for both "daily meaning and daily bread". The speed and efficiency credo of the modern age has restricted independence and creativity almost out of existence for millions - but far from this being a serf mentality - this was foisted upon people by others.

I think you’re referring to his book Working. Tacking on a recommendation for it both for the subject at hand, as well as it just being an engaging look at daily life in the early 70s (which really feels like a different world in so many ways) told through engaging oral history.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#372

Post by greedo »

sneak wrote: post #155
pmlnr wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That is easier face to face Written down communication makes things impossible to wiggle out of later on, meaning the writing needs to happen anyway, why waste time on the face to face?

Most people are slow at typing and don't have great reading comprehension. This means it is less "work" for them to speak and listen than it is to type and read.

And many people lack listening skills and don't retain all the details of a watercolor conversation.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#373

Post by adamsmith143 »

nobleach wrote: post #353
01100011 wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WFH is selecting people who already have a tendency to stay home and not socialize much at work. Doesn't engineering in general select for these personality traits?

This has been my observation over the last 20 years. I truly enjoy socializing and collaborating in person. I usually worked from home once or twice a week before the pandemic. It was a fantastic convenience as I lived an hour from my office. Once the pandemic hit we were fully remote. At first I thought, "see? we're more productive, this is truly better". As time wore on, I can see why a hybrid approach might be a b…

> I've tried to rile my team up to go into the office once in awhile for whiteboarding sessions/collaboration but they're simply not interested.

If your team is shipping and hitting deadlines then they realize that all this extra socialization stuff is useless cruft and rightly are rejecting it.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#374

Post by bradfa »

osigurdson wrote: post #258

I don't think there is anything else more illogical in modern society than waking up in building A, hopping in a car and fighting traffic for an hour to get to building B just to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours (perhaps with a few minimally productive meetings here and there), then commute back to building A 8 hours later. Building B sits empty for 16 hours a day while Building A sits empty for 10 with both be…

I work remotely. I rent an office. It's only about 3.5 miles from my house, so my commute via car or bike is rather short. I don't have a space at my house where I can do my job effectively at home. Renovating my house to make such a space would incur costs which would exceed a few years of rent at the office. So from a risk reduction and net-present-value point of view, renting the office is cost effective.

If I end up renting the office for a decade, then it won't end up cost effective. But I've never stayed at any job for that long before so I assume my job situation will change in a few years.

If my job changes such that I am required to report to a physical office which is not the one I currently rent, I can cancel my lease (with 3 months notice). This provides me with good flexibility and minimizes my risk, my upfront costs, and any need to remodel my home.

Having an office where other people are around also gets me to socialize for a small part of the day.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#375

Post by spaniard89277 »

Aicy wrote: post #141
Mc91 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing for me. I go to another city and pay a visit for a week, but say I need to be available on Teams from 9 to 5 and attend some meetings, and get some work done. Usually it slows me down a little, so I do some extra prep work before the visit and catch up when I return home. It's like a little vacation without taking time off.

What do you do on your city visits? I would like to do that but everything I like to do is only open during the day, and where I live by 5pm when I finish work it's dark and cold

I work until 16 and here in Spain you still have sun and plenty stuff to do. I live in the colder part so I it's pretty confortable.

Un Madrid I guess I'll visit my friend, some museums and stuff and go eat and drink out with people.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#376

Post by scsilver »

buzzdenver wrote: post #323
bearjaws wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was appalled to find our office lease was $20,000 a month. We could hire two FTEs for the price of that office, and we are not even in a premium space. To your point about efficiency: I don't believe our office produces 2 FTE's worth of additional productivity across the whole org. Leadership thinks it does, but assuming we acquire decent talent, that would be a net 10% increase in engineering. I don't believe the…

You're making the assumption that everybody in the office prefers working from home.

Then why can't they share a wework type office nearby their home instead of companies trying to utilize and manage all than space in the center of a city.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#377

Post by mring33621 »

buzzdenver wrote: post #323
bearjaws wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was appalled to find our office lease was $20,000 a month. We could hire two FTEs for the price of that office, and we are not even in a premium space. To your point about efficiency: I don't believe our office produces 2 FTE's worth of additional productivity across the whole org. Leadership thinks it does, but assuming we acquire decent talent, that would be a net 10% increase in engineering. I don't believe the…

You're making the assumption that everybody in the office prefers working from home.

SO people that prefer the office get to ruin it for those that don't?

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#378

Post by jimkleiber »

scsilver wrote: post #376
buzzdenver wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making the assumption that everybody in the office prefers working from home.

Then why can't they share a wework type office nearby their home instead of companies trying to utilize and manage all than space in the center of a city.

A challenge with coworking spaces can be that there's much less corporate privacy. Some companies don't care but others do.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#379

Post by sologoub »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #303
osigurdson wrote: post #258

I don't think there is anything else more illogical in modern society than waking up in building A, hopping in a car and fighting traffic for an hour to get to building B just to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours (perhaps with a few minimally productive meetings here and there), then commute back to building A 8 hours later. Building B sits empty for 16 hours a day while Building A sits empty for 10 with both be…

it's also a cultural thing. US commute is particularly bad, I work from home and been doing it on and off for the past 20 years. My commute has never been longer than 20 minutes total. I now live 5 minutes walk away from my office, I'm not going, but if I had to I would walk there and have a very nice breakfast in some bar on the road there. One thing that's always overlooked is how much WFH is selecting people who a…

> Also WFH tends to discriminate people doing "less important" jobs,

You are mixing pandemic with WFH. When you work, you still need childcare and otherwise be working. Doing chores and house work during breaks is a nice “perk” that saves me time, but it must not come at the expense of the work itself, just like it would not with WFO.

If anything, WFH has been more inclusive as many other comments have said, especially of people that don’t like direct “confrontation” of large meetings and “loudest first” prioritization. Video conf chat has become a valuable and documentable discussion medium that can include comment not urgent enough to interrupt the speaker in the moment, but still useful to the overall context. I hope some of these inclusive benefits are retained with hybrid or whatever approaches are utilized for work in the future.

Another interesting inclusivity question is the location itself. People tend to congregate by common traits, so locating an office in a given neighborhood or city implicitly discriminates those groups who do not have a large presence nearby. Remote definitely allows (but importantly does not guarantee) a much more diverse employee population and greater fairness in access to these jobs. There are of course counter points with availability of working space and internet connection, so this is a very complex issue.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#380

Post by adamsmith143 »

underdeserver wrote: post #259
onion2k wrote: post #75

Employees need to be on site, we’re told, because collaborating with one another has been harder to do when everyone is working from separate locations. I think this is true, but only if the main part of your job is collaborating eg talking to other people to reach a consensus. That is easier face to face. The problem is that only higher up management roles are actually like that. Lower down the tree people are expec…

I strongly disagree. I find that talking to other people is required at every single level. Junior engineers need mentoring, need to talk to other people to understand what's asked of them. Mid-level engineers/ICs need to talk to other people to understand the architecture design, collaborate with other mid-level engineers, and push back or report back issues that arise during the work. Seniors and up need it for des…

>All of this is easier face to face.

Yet somehow the world of open source keeps putting out high quality software with teams distributed across the planet in different time zones with different native tongues.

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