Why is remote work seen as a gift?
cdoyle.me
Why is remote work seen as a gift?
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Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#2The cynical answer to that question is ”you don’t need to be in the office to do your work, but your manager does need you in the office to do his work”.
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#3The cynical answer to that question is ”you don’t need to be in the office to do your work, but your manager does need you in the office to do his work”.
Me sitting in the office, because ordered to be there, while all my managers are remote, wondering slightly what is going on..
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#4I've done it for close to a decade.
Just before COVID, I had enough of the isolation, lack of contact with my team and working outside of the rest of the world's flow.
COVID forced another 2 years of it on me.
Now I work in a bar to meet people and do all the human contact things.
I write software 3 days a week, still remote, and enjoy the balance.
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#5This article rests basically everything on one assertion: organisational productivity is equal or better with remote work. It would be prudent to show some evidence of this when making the subsequent points.
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#6It is very interesting to see how strongly the opinions differ on this topic. Both sides have good and understandable arguments. I think that in the future, jobs will also be advertised with the phrase "primarily in the office".
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#7The cynical answer to that question is ”you don’t need to be in the office to do your work, but your manager does need you in the office to do his work”.
Unless you believe managers don’t do useful work, that doesn’t even strike me as a very cynical take.
I disagree with it though, I manage a distributed team and I can do my work fine without the team being in the office.
I think the serendipity arguments for on-site are much stronger than “manager doesn't trust team member to be productive on their own” which the entire world discovered was bullshit during the corona lockdowns.
The serendipity thing is real. We have less of it. We have many other benefits and we think it’s worth it, but to think remote doesn’t have downsides is a bit short sighted IMO.
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#8It's framed as a gift in order to manipulate the negotiating position. The fact is both employer and employee benefit from it, but if the employer can emphasize the benefits to the employee they can extract a bit of value from the relationship.
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#9Because you can be in the environment of your choosing.
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#10The cynical answer to that question is ”you don’t need to be in the office to do your work, but your manager does need you in the office to do his work”.
Unless you believe managers don’t do useful work, that doesn’t even strike me as a very cynical take. I disagree with it though, I manage a distributed team and I can do my work fine without the team being in the office. I think the serendipity arguments for on-site are much stronger than “manager doesn't trust team member to be productive on their own” which the entire world discovered was bullshit during the corona…
Many managers are not very good and mostly believe managing means flogging the herd to work harder; that’s not really possible remotely.