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Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

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Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#581

Post by z9znz »

samuel_backend wrote: post #565
z9znz wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> remarkably condescending I suspect there are two big difference between OP and many of the readers here. At least for sure, Berlin vs most major US cities is night and day different in terms of commute and enjoyment opportunity. Berlin is a fun city full of things to do, places to eat, and clubs. Plus it's all accessible without a car. Meanwhile, in the US, it's usually a very different story. Doing something after…

I agree with your comment 100% but the closing line is ridiculously beside the point. I also really don't get how anyone reads into my post that I want to force everyone to come back to the office all the time. My whole point was that I sometimes feel like I'm the only one missing certain things about working in a co-located manner and, you're absolutely right there, I forgot to factor in some very import background…

The last line of my comment was "OP likely doesn't factor this in and comes to the naive conclusion that it must mean we don't like talking to people".

Your post did say, "others that just abhor having to talk to real-life people". Not me, but others did take that to suggest that many of us were antisocial or incapable of social interaction. I don't take offense because I will easily admit to not being interested in talking to most people. Granted that doesn't mean I don't care about their wellbeing; it just means I don't want to spend my time on conversation which I think offers little to either party for the time and effort.

I didn't comment on whether you want people to come back to the office or not. Some want it desperately, and some (like me) will pass up every job opportunity that has any measurable in-office requirement.

Don't feel alone though -- you are not the only person wanting to come back into the office. About 1/3 of my colleges at my previous gig this year were asking for this. 1/3 of us were thinking, "wtf, hell no, we don't want to come in". And 1/3 were not publicly commenting :). In my experience during the COVID times, it did seem that the people most interested in returning to the office were younger. The older folks were openly joyous of being able to work from home.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#582

Post by thewebcount »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #372
z9znz wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> remarkably condescending I suspect there are two big difference between OP and many of the readers here. At least for sure, Berlin vs most major US cities is night and day different in terms of commute and enjoyment opportunity. Berlin is a fun city full of things to do, places to eat, and clubs. Plus it's all accessible without a car. Meanwhile, in the US, it's usually a very different story. Doing something after…

You may be right, but as a personal anecdote, I totally agree with the sentiment you're responding to. I don't particularly enjoy working from the office and much prefer doing so from home, but I can tolerate it. I like my colleagues and shooting the breeze with them, but they're not my friends. But boy do I absolutely hate my commute, to the point that it shadows whatever positives there are when working from the of…

Exactly! Over the last 2 years, I've rekindled my love of making music. I hadn't written any new music in over 20 years, and in the last 2 years, I've written something like 20 songs, and spent time archiving and restoring some older tapes I have. Stuff that would have been lost without the extra time. I now spend about 45-60 minutes every night just making music. It doesn't bother my spouse because they see me far more often since I'm working from home. Once I have to go back into the office, that's 60 minutes of my day spent commuting, and 8-9 hours not seeing my spouse. I'm not sure I'll have any time for music anymore. And having that outlet is helping to keep me sane.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#583

Post by saghm »

kotlin2 wrote: post #237
bodge5000 wrote: post #118

With all due respect, this is mostly my problem with the "work-from-office" (WFO for ease) crowd. Generally, the stance of the WFH crowd is that each individual should get a choice of what makes that individual happy. Very few, if any, of the WFH crowd want mandatated WFH, it would make no sense. But then the WFO crowd often says no, I don't care what makes you happy, because you being in makes me happy. That doesn't…

WFO isn't necessarily about personal preference. People who want everyone to WFO believe that WFO produces better outcomes for the company. That is different than someone who desires to work from an office or remotely out of personal preference. For instance, I may prefer to WFH because it makes my life more convenient, but I can also accept that WFO produces better outcomes for the company. Personally, I haven't see…

> Personally, I haven't seen many good arguments that WFH produces superior work outcomes. Companies are collaborative human endeavors. Most WFH arguments I hear are related to personal fulfillment: more time with kids, less time commuting, more time for hobbies, etc. Those are all great things, but have little to do with productivity.

> Personally, I haven't seen many good arguments that WFH produces superior work outcomes. Companies are collaborative human endeavors. Most WFH arguments I hear are related to personal fulfillment: more time with kids, less time commuting, more time for hobbies, etc. Those are all great things, but have little to do with productivity.

I don't see any rigorous argument that WFO is more productive in your analysis either though, just that you suspect it's the case. It seems a bit of a stretch to me to assume that WFO is more likely to be productive merely because it's claimed on that side of the debate; if anything, making that claim without hard data makes it more dubious to me compared to the side not making any claims that require data without providing it. We don't even know for sure if either WFO or WFH even is more productive in a significant way, let alone which one it is!

Tangentially, there's also an implicit sentiment here that the needs of the company trump the needs of the employee when they're at odds, and I don't think that's universally the case. The reason minimum wage and workplace safety regulations are a good idea is orthogonal to productivity; they're good ideas because they are important enough for workers that we're willing to deal with the consequences they might have on productivity. Even if I accepted the premise that WFH is a net negative for companies (which I don't accept as a premise, although I don't have my mind 100% made up one way or another), I still think the question of whether it's important enough for workers despite this is unsettled.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#584

Post by odessacubbage »

iamthirsty wrote: post #325
krageon wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WFO is shit and delivers measurably lower work. That is what I have seen. It is not useful to say these things because everyone works in a different environment. You are essentially saying "what you say works best for you doesn't work for me, so it must be what I want because I believe my way is better". It is attitudes like this that make offices the absolute hellscape that they are, with everyone constantly interru…

> WFO is shit and delivers measurably lower work. Where are your measurements? Most of the replies here are level-headed discussions, with statistics or points. This reply is mainly about your disdain for WFO, nothing more.

anecdotally, i am willing to put in far more hours if i don't have to worry about falling asleep on the commute home.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#585

Post by president »

MatthiasPortzel wrote: post #379
UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #221

It sounds like you preferred the social aspect of being in the office. Not everybody does. The movie Office Space really hit on some key points: A mind-numbing commute, that wastes hours of "your time" that you don't get paid for. "Corporate Accounts Payable Nina speaking" Egomaniac of a boss/manager hovering over your shoulder telling you that you are typing wrong, and YOU need to work overtime while he buys a new s…

> If you are pro-social: WFO is better If you are anti-social: WFH is better I understand the characterization, WFO benefits social interaction around work. But I’m not a very social person, and I prefer working in the office. Work serves as a dedicated space where I’m in contact with people with something in common. I get a lot of my social interaction from work. I’m not disagreeing, just adding some nuance. I think…

Some extra nuance is that there exists people who's entire lives revolve around work. These people's whole life schedule revolves around work and their social networks revolve around work people because they have no hobbies or other avenues of socialization. These are the type of people who live solely to climb the corporate ladder and only talk shop and office politics. Despite being quite a social person, I can't stand working with these types of people and would rather be isolated at home than be subjected to these types. At least this has been my experience working in large enterprise corporations in Silicon Valley.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#586

Post by [deleted] »

jedberg wrote: post #490

I think a lot of this boils down to kids vs no kids. I really enjoyed working in the office when I didn't have kids. Hanging out with coworkers after work was pretty normal, and sometimes my wife would come along too. We're still good friends with a lot of my old coworkers. In fact, those are the people we hang out with now. But now that I have kids I'd rather spend time with them or on my hobbies with them or hangin…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#589

Post by iamthirsty »

er4hn wrote: post #381
iamthirsty wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is effectively demanding “all remote” from the in-office crowd and taking away their face to face interaction. How is this at all a good thing? It's basically saying: "I've got a limitation because of my choice of working environment, therefore to make life "fair" — which it isn't at all ironically — I'm going to impose my limitation artificially on the rest of the group." Because I can't play with that toy, n…

To be fair, audio quality and the ability to communicate with remote people goes up much more when everyone dials in. You can still look at each other in the room and whiteboard just fine.

That isn't really the point of OP's comment.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#590

Post by z9znz »

irrational wrote: post #569
z9znz wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> remarkably condescending I suspect there are two big difference between OP and many of the readers here. At least for sure, Berlin vs most major US cities is night and day different in terms of commute and enjoyment opportunity. Berlin is a fun city full of things to do, places to eat, and clubs. Plus it's all accessible without a car. Meanwhile, in the US, it's usually a very different story. Doing something after…

After work I want to go home to spend time with my family. Are these after work experiences things were they are going home and getting their family and then meeting up? Or is this one of those singles be non-singles kind of thing?

In my experience it's either a single thing, or both partners have similar situations and are each doing colleague things frequently.

What absolutely does not work is when one of them is home pregnant and the other one is playing games with his buddies most nights at the gamedev shop they work for :). That is why I left a AAA game company. Had I been single, I would still be there. It was nerd paradise.

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